Regardant les nuages

Faced with Injustice

2009-05-06T20:33:00.002-06:00

While intellectuals bicker about the problem of evil, real people live out their lives daily plagued with poverty, malnutrition, exploitation, ... the list goes on. Sure, there's an intellectual game to be made of squaring the concept of an omnibenevolent God with the real state affairs on earth, but in the end, it's a mind game, an intellectual exercise. But injustice, that's real. Good people have crappy lives, and crappy people have great lives. Life is unfair. Karma does not pan out. The good, the innocent, the faithful suffer. What, as Christians, do we make of this? Job 21 and Job 24 have been on my mind these days. Essentially, Job is pissed, and rightly so. From his perspective, life sucks, and life seems to suck the most for good people. What, then, is the point in being righteous? In obeying God?

Job laments:
"Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days? Men move boundary stones; they pasture flocks they have stolen. They drive away the orphan's donkey and take the widow's ox in pledge. They thrust the needy from the path and force all the poor of the land into hiding. Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children. They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked. Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked; they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold. They are drenched by mountain rains and hug the rocks for lack of shelter. The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt. Lacking clothes, they go about naked; they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry. They crush olives among the terraces; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst. The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing." Job 24:1-12

This is a tough passage. This is the sort of passage that knocks me down, reminding me that my life is blessed in ways I don't think I'll ever fully appreciate. This is not the sort of passage that gets cross-stitched and hung on the wall, or sung with enthusiasm on a Sunday morning. This is the sort of passage we pass over, not understanding, not wanting to meditate on. But we should stop. We should pay attention. Job is being honest. Job is angry. Job recognizes that not only to some people get the shaft, but they work really hard, live righteous lives, and still God turns his face away from them. It's one thing to study justice, to study how the world should be. It's another thing to take an honest look at how the world really is.

For me, God embodies ultimate justice. Yet. Yet where is that justice here? If God were truly just, if He truly loved his children, if He really heard their petitions, the world would look much different. Wouldn't it? Like Job, we can look at the injustice that reigns on earth and we can be angry. We can be angry at God. When we're not angry, we're often defeated. We give up. What's the point in trying when I know I can't make a difference and I know that other people just don't care? Therein lies the danger.

What is God's response to Job? Who are you compared to me? I am God. Remember that. Who are you and who am I?

That's not the sort of response Job was looking for. He wanted God to fix things. He wanted God to bring justice. He wanted God to admit that things weren't right. But instead God gave him some major perspective. When I look at injustice, do I ever think to myself, God is God? He is the great I am, the Alpha, the Omega, the Almighty, the Majestic. Not hardly. But, maybe I should.

May my response be: "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." Job 42

This, of course, is not an acceptable answer to the world. But, it never is. Sometimes the right response is: yeah, life here is messed up. But hey, God is God. That's all I need to know. I'll obey Him. I will pursue justice. I will be aligned with the Victor.

More on this soon.

No regrets

2009-04-10T01:03:00.004-06:00

[So to preface this post, I'll start with an apology. It's been awhile. What follows is something I jotted down today. I thought sharing them is better than nothing. So here you have it. It's not in my usual style. Just some unfinished thoughts.]

The other night I was asked a simple question, one that received an equally simple answer. One of my fellow students asked: if you were to come across irrefutable evidence that God does not exist, would you have any regrets about your life? No. The answer is simple, though explaining why is anything but. No, I would not regret believing, nor would I regret those aspects of my life which are directly attributable to this belief. Sure, I regret other things, but much of what I regret (and would regret) are the times where I have fallen short of what my belief requires. Of course, I might regret having held a false belief, but honestly, I am fairly certain that even that would not phase me much.

Why wouldn't I regret believing? Answering this question gets at the heart of what draws me to God. And though on some level it makes perfect sense to me, I'm not sure I can fully explain it. God changes people. God changes me. I am not me when I am in line with God. I am God's; I am God's beloved daughter. As such, I am loved. I matter. At the same time, I am nothing. I am worse than nothing. I am a nuisance. I am a leech, an ingrate. But I am loved. Being loved when you are nothing, when you are dwarfed by the majesty of the Almighty, being loved like that is life changing. And what's more, you matter to me now. You matter because you matter to God, because I must matter less to myself, because God teaches me how to love, how to be who I was made to be. If God was a delusion, then God was the delusion I needed to put my life into perspective. To relate better to you. And though I fail, daily, I am picked up. If it be not God who stands me up, at least I am standing. If I didn't believe God was picking me up again, I might not stand at all.

I have been abstract. Abstraction makes no sense, you say. So what do I mean? When you think of God you think of rules, of confinement, of obligation. When I think of God, I think of freedom. The cost of following God is real. But the reality is that the reward is greater. Even if heaven is a mere myth, the sort of freedom that comes with living a life a faith is great. It's not about rules, about going to Church or listening to the right music, or voting for the right politician, or passing out the most tracts. It's about grace. It's about being accepted for who you are. It's about bringing out your potential. It's about being a steward of your life, not a negligent owner. When I wake up, I am joyful. I have peace. I walk outside and my shoulders are not weighed down. I am not tethered to a job or a bad relationship or a mask. None of the stresses of the world matter to me, nor should they. If God isn't real, the stresses of the world should still be nothing. And that's just what they are. I need God. And even if I'm wrong, that need would not change. I am a mess. God puts me back together.

An opiate. That's what some people call it. I call it hope. grace. love. hallelujah.

Dating, dressing up, and the Church meat market

2009-01-07T23:09:00.006-06:00

This post begins with a true story. I was sitting at Church last Sunday, alone, and a little dolled up in response to the What Not to Wear marathon my mom and I indulged in over winter break. I was pumped to spend some time with God, get my focus back, all that jazz. To make a long story short, a man thought it would be a good idea to pass me a note in the middle of the sermon asking me out on a date. I was caught off guard, and more than a little annoyed, but I did consider (for a moment) saying yes. He was awkward and not all that bright (from what I could gather of our pre-service chit chat), but I've been told by more than a few friends and family that I have to work on being more approachable and less judgmental, about dating that is. And then I remembered, the man passed me a note in the middle of the sermon. Even minus the creepy vibe and lame comments before church began, passing a note in the middle of my time with God earns you a big no. A quick question after the service might have earned a must-be-open-minded yes. When picking up a girl at church it's important to remember that she might be there for God and might find such a note more than a little inappropriate, and certainly not the mark of the sort of man she'd actually like to date...

The real question was, do I say no (and interrupt everyone else's focus), do I condone the note passing with one of my own, or do I shift in my seat awkwardly until the the service comes to a close? Pen please! To my dismay, he didn't have one. Wait, how did he write the note to begin with? Was this planned? Was he a church crasher? Well I found a pen and wrote back, sorry, I'm dating someone already (lies, during church, oh my). He managed to persevere, however, and wrote back a few minutes later (holding it up for all around me to see): do you have any sisters? Seriously?? Any guilt I had vanished then and there. Ridiculous. After my second no it wasn't much longer before he just got up and walked out with the sermon still in full gear. And I'm left wondering, what just happened? Am I at a bar? Or back in 5th grade? I'm bewildered.

I tell that story to make a few points. The first is this: it's not at all flattering, to me at least, to be asked out based purely on physical appearance. That's not my strong suit, to be sure, and it hasn't been a big problem. But even so, I've had my fair share of awkward moments like this. It's enough to start singing Knock Em Out. And it makes me doubt the advice of Stacey and Clinton. Come to think of it, it's awfully unfair that the pressure seems to always be on women to dress nicely and look our best. And I'll be honest, as awkward and unattractive as the culprit was last Sunday, if he had been someone who had gotten to know me, or if we were already somewhat friends, it would have been worth a shot. After all, at least then I would have known that he was interested for the right sort of reason. I'm not saying nothing can ever come out of a random number exchange, I'm just saying that it can be a real turn off. Though I suppose that if this had happened at a bar I would have been less weirded out, and I probably wouldn't have thought much of it at all. Anyway, there's no way this would happen to a man, certainly not at church. So my main complaint is that women, despite our mighty feminist gains, are still subject to creepy approaches, to being objectified, even in church. That annoys the crap out of me. Not new, I realize, but still. Ugh.

Now, I think my "even in church" clause is misleading. This brings me to my next complaint: the church is a meat market, especially youth and young adult groups. There is serious pressure in Christian circles to pair off and marry. What better place to shop for a mate than church? I was briefly involved in a Christian organization during college, and many of my cohort there are now either engaged or married. Some, I'd say they did the right thing. Others, well... I worry. The joke is that if you're dating, and if it's senior year, then the gal better get a ring sometime between Christmas and Valentine's Day, or the relationship has been a waste of precious time. The pressure to marry early is insane, and it makes it hard to be a genuine participant in a young adult gathering. If I go, will anyone really believe that I'm there just to make friends and have fellowship? Will the guys be measuring me up for my wife potential? Hint: my potential is low. That is, I have low "good Christian wife" potential, where my independence, sarcasm, and career ambitions (okay, this is a stretch, but I love my job/school, and won't easily give it up) are seen as threatening. Do I mind? Kind of. I mean, I mind in that the standards by which I'm measured (or that it feels like I'm measured) are outdated and not in line with what I really believe God has in store for many women. But I don't mind in the sense that I don't regret not having a ring on my finger from any of those guys, because any guy threatened by my independence is not the guy for me. But yeah, in the Church frustrations mount as the pressure rises and the standards just don't fit.

So what's a girl to do? Well, for starters I've made my feelings known to friends, family, and fellow church goers (well, at my old church). I think it's important that the new generation of Christian women rise up and speak up against traditional gender roles, and against the supposition that they must be in want of a husband and 2.5 children before the age of 30 (or at all). Believe it or not, there is a large number of deeply religious young women that are embracing the change I think we need. Sure, older generations frown and fuss, but we can be the start. Yes, yes the church is historically/currently patriarchal, and some say that's enough reason to ditch the religion all together. But I think it's better that women work within the church for change, if they still believe, because they need to be the ones to make the church a better place for their sisters, daughters and friends. It is possible to be true to your faith and maintain your equal worth in God's eyes and in the world. I think Jesus would be all for it. Remember Mary and Martha? Mary chose what was better by stopping the "woman's work" to spend time with the son of God. At church, women should feel like they are equals, like they aren't be objectified or being measured up. It only takes a few.

Doubt

2009-01-01T22:05:00.006-06:00

I've recently seen the new movie Doubt at the theater, and it raised some interesting issues that I've already been thinking about. If you haven't yet seen the movie, my thoughts here might well spoil it, though the movie is less about plot (which is as much as given away by the trailer) as it is about the way in which the plot unfolds. I'm no movie buff on any account, but I thought Streep and Hoffman were brilliant. But what interests me is not the acting so much as the story itself, and the ensuing web of religion, authority, and a battle between doubt and certainty.

The storyline is straightforward. Streep, who plays a nun that is the principal of a Catholic school, suspects the priest (Hoffman) of abusing one of the students. One of his sermons puts her on guard, and various events raise her level of suspicion. What's brilliant about the story is not the sad tale of abuse (or suspected abuse), but rather Streep's reaction to it. She is a woman in a male dominated world (both within and outside of the Church). She has a fixed role in the Church hierarchy, and allusions are made to the incompetency of those above her. Streep's frustration at her position, and at her (seeming) powerlessness comes through strongly. How must it feel to be the protector of a group of children, to suspect they are in harm's way, and to have little means of recourse? Add to her frustration her faith. Within the Church, her role as a woman is limited. It's bad enough to be limited by societal norms, but it's even worse to worry that God has forbade you to act. Streep's character hints several times that the in the pursuit of wrong doing one takes a step away from God. And as the tension between Streep and Hoffman mounts, Streep sides with that pursuit over God saying: "I will step outside the church if that's what needs to be done, till the door should shut behind me! I will do what needs to be done, though I'm damned to Hell!"

The tension here is between her faith in a perceived religious role or duty and the (almost intuitionist) sense of what must be done, of what's right. For Streep, she would follow that moral sentiment even at the cost of her salvation. What's most striking here is that the problem is which side to choose and not why there are two sides at all. What is the role of a religion that comes apart from moral convictions? The agony that Streep portrays is her struggle over this, over what side she will choose, and at what cost. Of course, a larger question hovers in the background: oughtn't the two sides coincide? If they don't, shouldn't that suggest that we've gotten one or the other wrong? It's this question that has been on my mind a great deal, but as usual, only as a question with little progress towards an answer.

My favorite part of the movie, apart from Streep's seething confrontation with Hoffman towards the end, is the very last dialogue between Streep and a younger nun. Throughout the film the question of the priest's guilt was left open, and though it felt natural to side with Streep's character, there was no real resolution of the matter. What was most moving was that throughout the film Streep's character is unwavering in her certainty (or alleged certainty) of the priest's guilt. She seems to believe it as strongly as she believes in God Himself. Yet at the very end, after everyone else has in vain struggled with their own doubts, Streep cries out: "I have doubts. I have such doubts." If I cried in movies, I would have cried then. What does she doubt? My first thought was the most obvious, she doubts whether she did the right thing, for a number reasons. The priest might have been innocent. Or does she doubt whether more good came in the end. As a result of her actions, the priest was transferred (which I've been told, was the routine solution in such cases, a thought that makes me shiver) to a more prestigious post at a larger parish. Now not only is he climbing the latter, but he has no one watching over his shoulder, no one protecting the children as she did.

Her heartfelt confession to Sister James seemed to almost signal something greater, something more troubling. She doubts the Church, her role in it, its teachings. With the marginalization of women and the ignorant eye turned towards men's misdeeds, how could she revere it? Or does she doubt her faith, God, his existence or his goodness, or maybe his justice? In the pursuit of wrong doing, one takes a step away from God, she said. Isn't there truth in that? Either because that pursuit feels like you've stopped trusting God's provision, his goodness or his protection. You've taken matters into your own hands because no one else will, not even God. More troubling, you've come closer to evil, to sin. It's hard to commune with God when you are thrust into the middle of another's fallenness. She doubts. She, the unwavering, steady, bulwark of her school, of her parish. Even she doubts.

I should add here, since I neglected to mention it above, that the whole matter is further complicated by the tension between Streep and Hoffman's characters over political change within the church. The boy in question was the first African-American student, which marked the beginning of a crusade for change by the priest. He was charismatic and modern, and his friendship with the boy seemed to be goodwilled. He wanted the school to be more inviting, the Church looser. But Streep's world was black and white, and the grey middle ground he proposed both frightened her and aroused her suspcion. She may have struggled with her inferior role, but in the end, was it her rigidity and not the guilt of the priest that threatened to tear their world apart? All of it, great stuff.

Tyndale, a faith hero

2008-12-22T13:23:00.003-06:00

I was pointed to this great article by HB over at CT. Here's a nice excerpt:

His ruling passion was a simple one: he wanted to render the defining texts of his age and culture—the Old and New Testaments—in an accurate English translation which even “the boy that driveth the plough” could grasp. And the fact that he eventually fulfilled this aim, and paid for it with his life, should be acknowledged more frequently by anybody who cares about freedom of expression.

Go check it out.

Called to do the irrational

2008-11-21T00:54:00.003-06:00

Lately I've been thinking about the story of Abraham and Isaac. For those who are unfamiliar, or need a refresher, here's the story in the first part of Genesis 22 (emphasis mine):

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."
Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"
"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
"The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.
When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
"Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

The reason I bring this story up is because I want to highlight an important contrast, one I've been struggling with. Faith and reason do not seem to belong together. In fact, I don't think they can speak to each other at all. You can't honestly ground religious faith in rationality (including philosophical theology), nor can rationality exclude it. Something is amiss about comparing them. A blind person would not call a song yellow, nor would a deaf person say a painting is out of tune. The inapplicability of the one to the other does not mean that either is deficient in any meaningful sense. We don't say sight is deficient for not being able to hear a melody. Rather, we don't think hearing applies at all to our sense of sight. I think something like this may be going on with faith and reason, though saying this does give me pause.

Kill Isaac. Sacrifice him. This is what God commanded Abraham to do. Under no circumstance, short of some absurd utilitarian justification, could this ever be the morally right thing to do. God commanded Abraham to sin, but sinning is disobeying God. Nothing about that makes sense. No rationalization makes it okay for Abraham to kill Isaac, nor does it seem right for God to ask him to. Yet, strangely, I still believe that Abraham did as he should, even if what he should have done was not right. This is where I'm struggling. If God says φ, you φ. If φ is morally wrong, what does that make God? I realize that theologians have been thinking about this story for centuries, and yes, I plan on revisiting my favorite Christian existentialist soon, but I do think there's something to be said about puzzling this out on a personal level.

Part of my struggle has to do with, in general, squaring up my faith with stuff I encounter in philosophy. Philosophers worship reason, in a way. I hesitate. Reason is fantastic, but it can't be enough. You can't be complete if that is all you have. We've been talking about reasons for action in class quite a bit, and it worried me that people may not have a reason (independent of themselves) to do the morally right thing. What is that about? But on the other hand, something is missing from morality if it really boils down to what is rational for a person to do. And then there's this other dimension where both reason and morality are subordinate to faith, something totally unjustifiable yet simultaneously authoritative. You believe in what you do not see, and you act accordingly. What can that mean? Reason can't speak to this, for or against. It's a whole new dimension.

I like being reminded of Abraham and Isaac whenever I start rationalizing God. God says do this because ... x, y and z. God would only have commanded this for x reason, etc. Something is wrong about that. If God is anything like who we think he is, then he's way above whatever we could possibly comprehend. He says φ, I φ. There's something liberating about that, but scary at the same time. There's a deep level of trust there. That's what Abraham had, trust. Abraham didn't ask God how his sacrificing Isaac would bring the greatest aggregate utility to society, nor could Abraham will that every father sacrifice his son. Abraham trusted, and then what happened? God provided. There is something really cool about that, something I can't understand.

God didn't make Abraham kill Isaac. But God sacrficed his son. For us, for a bunch of selfish slackers. That is irrational. That is grace. Grace surpasses the right. Grace surpasses reason.

(excuse the ramblings today. mulling this all over is difficult. since it had been so long, I figured I'd take a few minutes to type out the thoughts, just so I don't completely fall out of habit --and this forces me to think more about it. some political philosophy soon!)

New layout

2008-11-15T00:57:00.002-06:00

So I may be toying with the layout/colors for the next few days. If white on black is hard to read, let me know, and I'll make it easier. I just wanted to somehow incorporate this picture I have (now in the title) of some mountains in the alps that were covered by clouds. It seemed fitting.

Obama on Religion and Politics

2008-11-11T19:06:00.008-06:00

Watch this video of a speech given by the new President Elect:

The speech is from 2006, transcript here, actually, you really should just read it all. Whoever edited the video took out a lot of good stuff (perhaps because the video on youtube is titled: Obama versus religion). But even edited it'd be hard to come to that conclusion. Here is a good part not in the video:

In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that. None of us need to do that.

But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal...

...[Conservatives] need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

The part in the video about translating religious values into something universally acceptable makes me think someone has been reading Rawls (or, I suppose, almost any modern political philosopher). Do I think doing this compromises religious belief? Not at all. In fact, I'm glad of it. I've written about the role of religion in political life before, esp for Christians. This isn't new, though sometimes I struggle with just how much my personal convictions should influence how I participate in our political system (the short story: I care when there is negative interference with non-consenting others, where others can be human or, more broadly, animals and the environment). In essence, I think we are called to stand apart from society, not take it over. We are to be lights, not tyrants. We are to love, not discriminate or spread hatred. Etc.

As an aside, this is the 4th time in the course of 2 days that I've come across the Abraham and Isaac story. Once was after class with a fellow student. And then the chapters I happened to get to in my nightly read through the Bible were about it, and the devotion for the day in My Upmost. I feel like maybe I should be thinking more about it, what do you think? I'll probably try and revisit Kierkegaard's discussion about it too.

So, really soon I will have a post up about Abraham, God, and the irrationality of theism (and for the less religiously inclined, morality). I will try and magically tie it in with a paper I'm working on about Williams' Internal and External Reasons (and a response by Scanlon). I have high hopes.

In the meantime, you should read this if you haven't already. It's a letter from Jim Wallis contra Dobsons' idiodic scare letter (about what America would turn into if Obama got elected). Obama is left of the right, so he's no danger. What I'd really like to see is real wealth spreader in office (wink wink).

Sorry for the absence.

2008-09-28T10:27:00.002-06:00

Hi again. It's been awhile since I've done any substantial posting. My apologies. I've just started grad school, and it's been hectic. But I do have some ideas floating around that may or may not turn into posts soon. I've been thinking about things like the difference between moral obligation and moral permissibility, acting from moral duty, and the difficulty of talking morality with a non-philosopher. So many thoughts, so little time.

Why I'll miss Wisconsin

2008-08-26T21:21:00.005-06:00

Check this out:

It's the sign from my friend's church in Wausau. Oh how I'll miss this state. For the not-so-sporty readers, famed QB for the Packers, Brett Favre, recently came out of retirement to play for the Jets. So in case you were worried, no, God will not leave you for the Jets. But Favre will.... trader.

Beware of the pickle jar effect...

2008-08-18T11:44:00.005-06:00

I'm totally baffled by a recent episode of Oprah that I was watching the other day. I'm still not sure why I was watching it, but when you watch too much tv (like I do) you're bound to catch an episode or two of Oprah. It just happens. Well this is what I learned from her guest Patti Novak, the dating expert:

Allison's take-charge attitude is what Patti calls the pickle jar effect. "We are so successful today, women. We're fabulous. We work hard. We make good money. We parent. Sometimes what happens when we spend a lot of time alone, we forget to let them open the damn pickle jar," Patti says.

"The one thing I don't think is ever going to change on this planet is men still need to feel like men," she says. "So let them open it."

So how does a woman ask a man to do something without compromising herself? Patti says that if he's not in the room, go ahead and open your own pickle jar. But if he's standing there, Patti says it's just as easy to ask him to open it. "And know that you are the smarter, clever one for doing it," she says. "It's about attitude."

You can follow up on that episode here. I'm unsure what to think about advice like this. Is it giving up feminist ideals to submit to (and reinforce, perpetuate) patriarchal social norms? Does it sacrifice the integrity of women? Or, as Patti implies, is this merely a way for women to assert their superiority by use of some subtle manipulation? I'm not sure which is worse. Is it worse for me to "pretend to be incapable" of doing something that I know very well I can do on my own in order to let a man feel like a man, or is it worse to "pretend to be incapable" while feeling smug about my own cleverness? One step, two steps, a giant leap back? No?

This seems too much like those times when girls pretend to be dumber than a boy in school (mustn't damage the ego), or when a woman at work (or in politics) feels like she has tone down her "masculine" attributes (ambition, aggression) that are otherwise rewarded in her male coworkers just because those very same coworkers are threatened by her lack of femininity. It's sad enough to see this happen in the classroom and in the work place... but is it something we should then condone in the context of a relationship? If you can't be yourself with the person you're most intimately connected to... well that bodes ill for women everywhere. Oprah, so many people watch your show, so why are you sending out a message like this?

Don't get me wrong, I caught the part that acknowledged a woman's ability to open the pickle jar herself (metaphorically). That's important. I'm just disturbed by the message that says I must change who I am and hide what I can do if I want to be successful in the dating world. Any type of man that needs to be manipulated and hidden from, well he's not the type of man I'd want to date (or would want my sisters to date, or my friends to date, etc). Maybe it's time for men to redefine what makes them a real man, and not just what society tells them a man ought to be.

This is an unusual post, I'm aware. Feminism isn't typically a topic on my radar often (perhaps because I've been fortunate enough to have good acquaintances/friends/coworkers/teachers etc that don't treat me like an inferior). But when I see the most powerful woman in the world send out a message that I ought to compromise myself for the sake of a man, well I just can't be silent. So there you have it.

Is Batman a consequentialist?

2008-08-07T19:10:00.003-06:00

“People are dying. What would you have me do?” Bruce Wayne (Batman) asks his butler. Alfred responds, “Endure. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice that no one else will face—the right choice. Gotham needs you.”

The Dark Knight, what a movie. I'll admit, I went to Batman on opening night at midnight (not my idea, actually, but I'm glad I went). I only vaguely remembered the Batman movies of old, though I was always a fan. The new Batman movie, as you may have heard, is pretty intense (and dark) in comparison to the previous films. What I didn't expect, and this is always a delight, was that this particular summer blockbuster actually had some intellectual food for thought, philosophical issues at that. I was overjoyed. In fact, the movie happens to coincide quite well with a collection of essays that I'm currently making my way through (slowly, but surely, as always). The essays all focus on consequentialism, and for this post, I'll pay close attention to an essay by Bernard Williams called, “Consequentialism and Integrity.” I want to discuss two moral dilemmas in the film, though I'll try and keep the spoilers to a minimum. Take this as a warning, though, so if you don't want to know what happens, I'd stop here.

The first moral dilemma is somewhat comparable to Williams' Indian example, so I'll outline both. In Williams' article, there is a man named Jim who faces a tough choice. He stumbled onto a scene where a government official, Pedro, is about to make an example out of a group of Indians (all names/groups, kept the same as the original story). Pedro has decided that he will kill all of the Indians that are tied up, but he has offered Jim (an outsider) a special privilege. If Jim kills one Indian, then the rest will be spared. If he refuses, then Pedro will kill all of the Indians himself. What should Jim do? What is Jim required to do? What is he allowed to do? The consequentialist will answer this question by comparing the possible end outcomes that Jim could produce. If Jim kills one Indian, then the rest are spared. If he doesn't, then they all die. The latter outcome is clearly worse than the former, on purely consequentialist terms (or more specifically, utilitarian terms-- and yes, I'm skipping the complicated bit about determining which states of affairs are better or worse than others). If picking between preferable end outcomes is our only moral guide, then it seems that Jim has no choice but shoot one Indian. How can that be? Can you be obligated to take a life (or perform any act that is usually considered to be morally wrong)? It seems like there's something wrong with making that option an obligation (though it does seem okay that that option would be morally permissible for Jim). With that scenario in mind, let's take a look at the boat dilemma from the Dark Knight.

There are two ferries floating in Gotham's harbor, and the Joker has rigged both with an explosive device that he can activate. One boat is carrying the who's who of Gotham's elite citizens. The other is full of prisoners. Each boat has detonator that will blow up the other boat, and the Joker gives the passengers a choice: either blow up the other boat before midnight, or he will blow up both boats. What should they do? They can't contact the other boat, and they can't diffuse the explosives. What would a consequentialist moral theory tell us? Well, as a passenger I'd have to take a good look at what I had the power to do or to let happen (negative responsibility is a huge factor in consequentialist theories – you are just as responsible for what you allow or don't stop as for what you actually do, which means you have to factor in the actions of other agents in your deliberation). There are three options: 1) everyone dies, 2) the elites of Gotham die, or 3) Gotham's most wanted die. As a passenger on either boat, what is your moral obligation (or, what are you morally allowed to do?)? You don't know what the other boat will choose, and you have a clock to beat, so time is also a factor. It's possible that both boats could blow each other up at the same time, but unlikely (unless both do it fairly quickly after the Joker's announcement). From a consequentialist standpoint, you have a few considerations: the total number of deaths, and the types of people being saved (if, of course, that can be weighted). Does one boat have a duty to blow up the other, or is it at least allowed to? I have a feeling that the consequentialist would choose to blow up the prisoners (because the city needs officials/leaders to run it), though at a minimum a consequentialist would want to minimize the total number of deaths. So however you slice it, someone has to step up and detonate the explosives for the other boat.

What is the problem with that? Well, should anyone ever be morally obligated to kill others (even if it would save more lives)? What about, as Williams argues, the integrity of the person put in this situation (Jim and the passengers)? The consequentialist view is more worried about minimizing damages than dealing with the internal moral struggle of the agent. There is, after all, a difference between what we actually do and what we allow other people to do. Here's what I mean: both scenarios depend pretty heavily upon a bit of knowledge held by the agent that is more than a little uncertain. Will Pedro really kill the other Indians? Will the Joker really blow up both boats? This type of knowledge, key to consequentialist deliberations involving negative responsibility, is highly dubious. How certain can I be, really, that the other agent will act as they say they will act. Sure, in thought experiments we can stipulate certainty, but in real life (and real life does happen to be our actual moral battleground) how sure can we be? If you've seen the movie you know what I'm hinting at: the Joker never blew up the boats. Some high minded passengers prevented their fellow passengers from hitting the button, and the Joker never got the chance to do it himself. That uncertainty makes my inaction quite a different matter from another agent's possible action. [This also reminds me of the Prisoner's dilemma, given the lack of knowledge on all sides, though it's not quite the same.]

Which leads me to an important question: am I really responsible for Pedro or the Joker's morally wrong acts? What responsibility do we have beyond our own actions? Are we responsible for allowing bad things to happen (if it was in our power to prevent them)? I do see what would motivate us to give some moral weight to what we allow to happen. The kid who silently watches the awkward kid being bullied at school is no hero, and he is not morally praiseworthy for his silence... However, he is not to blame, morally, in the same way that the actual bully is. If I sit by and let the Joker blow up both boats, then I haven't myself blown them up (even if their doom was in someway causally effected by my inaction). Perhaps I should act, but must I? The bully example is less clear because standing up to the bully (which may itself incur risks to the agent) does not require me to do something morally suspect (unless we say that the only way to silence the bully is to punch him/her in the face). Killing some people to save others does. There is something that makes one uneasy about following the consequentialist's prescription on this one. Perhaps it would be okay, maybe even good, if I could ignore my moral squeamishness for the sake of the greater good –but I don't think I am obligated to. Perhaps there is a something more valuable than the end state of affairs that isn't captured by your typical consequentialist or utilitarian solution (though sophisticated versions of these theories do try and take the following into account). As a moral agent I have a moral character, and I build and change that character by my moral decisions. It is a violation of my moral integrity to obligate me to do something that (though it maximizes the good) is itself a morally abhorrent act. Even sophisticated consequentialist arguments can't capture this, as Williams argues, because in the end my squeamishness (or my protectiveness over my integrity) is irrational –because it doesn't contribute to the only morally valuable consideration: the end outcome. Maybe our integrity is valuable enough, that it's morally okay (or maybe sometimes morally praiseworthy) to not make a choice that violates my moral character (and by character I mean the principles upon which my normal moral decisions rest). Asking me to toss them aside for the sake of the bottom line might just be too much (again, not that it wouldn't be allowed, but whether I should be obligated to). Or perhaps I'm just too preoccupied by moral agency and purity, maybe I need to get over it (I'm sure if I were one of the Indians I'd want me to). But then again, why should someone else be made the means to another person's survival (cue the now cliché example of slicing up random people for organ donations, etc).

And this leads me to the other dilemma. In this case, Batman understood a thing or two about both the consequentialist solution and moral integrity. In the quote above Batman was unnerved that the Joker was killing people systematically unless Batman turned himself in. Batman's choice was more complex. His inaction led to other people's deaths, but it also allowed him to remain a fighting force against the Joker and his ilk. In the end, Batman knew what needed to happen, and sometimes that meant performing the unsettling act. He knew that it must get done, but he also knew that the regular citizens of Gotham were not the right ones to do it. They needed to preserve their moral integrity (well, some of them). Is he doing the right thing, being the vigilante? Is it better for some “guardian angel” to do the consequentialist-determined “right act” without requiring that of the masses? I'm unsure.

I had more thoughts about the movie and worries about consequentialism, but I'll end my thoughts here. It's all much less developed than I'd like, but there's never enough time to complete my thoughts. Oh well.

For those who saw the movie, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts...

First Blog Meme

2008-07-30T15:09:00.003-06:00

So I've seen these meme things float around, but never have I posted one (or been tagged, I guess you'd say, thanks Harry). Unlike Harry over at CT, I do have quite a few guilty pleasure songs. The problem is picking just 5, and not embarrassing myself too much...

So I guess here are my 5 most recent ones:

1. See you again, Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana)
2. Cold as Christmas, Elton John
3. Camisa Negra, Juanes
4. Le plus beau du quartier, Carla Bruni (yes, France's first lady)
5. Last name, Carrie Underwood

Beat that randomness. I think this is where I tag 3 people, but Harry is the only blogger I know, so.... if you want to be tagged leave a comment! (I'm a failure at blogging, I tell you)

Part Two: History vs Philosophy

2008-07-29T15:28:00.002-06:00

Here continues my debate with a history graduate student about the merits/disadvantages of using history and philosophy for studying justice. Please read part one (if you haven't already), before reading this section. My apologies, I didn't split the two parts very well, so this post is rather long (though hopefully you'll find it interesting). Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

HISTORY STUDENT: Ah, dear. No, I am neither a consequentialist nor a utilitarian. What I am saying, however, is that (a) within any moral system, an examination of consequences of behavior is necessary in order to flesh out the details of a just society, and (b) human thought is itself inherently historical.

As for (a): Only rarely can I identify a behavior or system as a clear-cut violation of a moral law. In the case of slavery, for example, the Bible allows it, and so does Aristotle, and so have most societies, even philosophically inclined ones. There are abstract arguments to be made against slavery, but these are relatively new and (especially from an old-fashioned biblical perspective, which doesn't put much stock in self-ownership) far from conclusive. So I mostly condemn slavery not because it inherently violates an unchanging moral law, but because it has been shown to make many clearer violations more likely. I look at the history of how different slaveowners have treated their slaves. That record suggests that slavery typically -- though not always -- involves various moral crimes such as murder, torture, and rape. However it is that I have reached the conclusion that these are indeed moral crimes -- there are many different ways I could have -- their relationship with the social practice of slavery is revealed to me through historical thinking.

Or to take another example, the example of torture: Even if everybody in America today accepted that torture is wrong, we would still be left arguing about whether "waterboarding" specifically is torture. It is very difficult, apparently, to convince some Americans that having water poured on their face is terribly painful. There's nothing in the words themselves to indicate that it would be: "simulated drowning," "a wet cloth placed over the face with water poured over it," or (as Dick Cheney put it) "a dunk in the water" -- it sounds sort of soothing. What might help out in the debate is testimony. And no, not everybody would agree even then. But at least we could start to make sense of our fine words about not-torturing people.

As for (b): Everything I do or think has a context. There is a reason -- aside from mere biology -- that our thought typically becomes more sophisticated as we get older. We have more information, more experience, more understanding of real-world cause and effect, more awareness of different kinds of pain and joy. We have a better sense of who we are and how we respond in different situations. And we have a better idea of what other people are like. This is just history writ small.

So when I was 12, for example, I probably had the vocabulary and the raw processing power of a lot of people older than I, but I lacked other qualities necessary to sound judgment, qualities that I could only get through greater experience. I would jump to conclusions about life based on what I had read in books -- conclusions that made perfect sense logically -- or based on how I would behave, not recognizing that other people behave differently. That is how, for example, I came to be a libertarian for several years. On paper, libertarianism often looks great; it prescribes a very pure, purposeful, tidy sort of government that strictly follows its own founding law. It also claims to maximize general prosperity, minimize arbitrary transfers of wealth, and maximize personal freedom. I could easily have become a communist or a theocrat the same way, had I read different books. All three of these systems put great stock in purity of principle, in logical application of moral law to every aspect of life. All three, in other words, are based on fanatical consistency with moral principles that I pretty much agree with. And in practice, all three systems are likely to have terrible consequences -- "terrible" according to the same moral system that would lead me to embrace them. I base my analysis of that likelihood on history.

You seem to think that humans vary a great deal in their underlying conceptions of justice. I do not think so, on the whole. The communist is not always so very different from the libertarian; both are likely to share a great deal of moral intuition and usually a great deal of acknowledged moral law. Their morality may be terribly sloppy, but it is rarely diametrically opposed except artificially, that is, as a result of being too attached to their respective dogmatisms. Committed Christians from similar churches can be libertarians, communists, or theocrats without too much trouble. Or to take what might be a more persuasive example: I could favor the invasion of Iraq or I could oppose the invasion of Iraq, for exactly the same primary moral reason (wanting to minimize the violent deaths of innocents). This fact astonished my conservative friends in college; in almost every respect imaginable, I agreed with them, yet I was fiercely opposed to their politics in the end because of what I knew about Iraq's past and the history of similar experiments. If anything, my pro-war friends were the ones most concerned about following through on moral principle. They mounted impassioned pleas for liberty and humanity, while I argued that justice is not always attainable, and that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Both of us agreed on what the perfect and the good were ... and although the conservatives refused to believe it, we were pretty much on the same page as most of the liberals and the French as well.

ME: Okay, let me be clear about something: I do think history is important. I agree with you that there is an underlying commonality in our moral intuitions (in basic form), and I believe this because I don't think that each person can make her own morality. I believe morality is an independent thing from human agents, something above us. Your examples illustrate what I mean. When you talk about history/slavery/communism/whatever --you are making value judgments. Sure, you try and make them based on life experience and common sense, and that's fine, but it is still a judgment about value, and that (in essence) is the role of the moral philosopher. So we think morality is too complex/difficult to fully understand based on our intuitions --well that seems to be what you're saying anyways. Only we don't look just to events, but rather look at those events and then beyond them. Sure, you judge slavery because of the murder, rape, or whatever else that tends to accompany it. Well, on what grounds is murder/rape wrong (you do admit that these are moral crimes, but why?? what makes them morally wrong)? That's a moral judgment, not a historical one (though that doesn't mean history has nothing to say about it). You could answer: societies that are rampant in this don't last long, well that's a utilitarian (or efficiency) concern --belying that you value the durability of a society over other considerations. You could answer: it violates respect for other moral agents...well that is a claim that needn't be tied to history (I could claim that we ought to respect aliens from Mars if they have the sort of moral capacities that we do –even if that's only a hypothetical event with no history at all). In the end you have to make judgment calls, and in the end those calls can be messy and complicated, though based on some underlying agreement about principles. Philosophers look to society, past and present, and work through the tangled web of morality --hoping to guide future action. Sure, some things seem evident, but isn't it cool to study why certain evident moral precepts are valued the way that they are? And it's important to remember that some things that were "evident" and "agreed upon" by past societies are now looked at as wrong. We can't rely solely on consensus or what seems to be obviously true.

If a principle cannot be put into place (at this time) without morally bad consequences, that is not always a reflection of the principle itself --but rather our method of applying it. Communism's principles weren't the problem, it was the method used to "implement" them. Equality isn't bad just because some political party got it wrong. Equality can be good regardless (I use that as a blanket term for other justice values, though I don't think it's the most important). So I agree that people differ in their plans of implementation (though they also disagree on the priority of principles, and even on the principles of justice themselves). But that doesn't mean they didn't at some point make a decision about which principles to adopt (whether this decision was made consciously or not).

A woman at a talk I recently attended said, "A moral claim must be wrong if it comes from a morally suspect source." But if Hitler says murder is bad, does that make murder good? No. If communists failed to put their principles into practice, does that mean the principles are themselves wrong? No. They just didn't have the right way to go about it OR there are other, more important, principles. Yes context is important, and it can help enlighten us to moral truths, but it's not the authority on morality. Ultimately, you have to make a value judgment that goes beyond context, and that is moral philosophy, whether you like it or not.

You seem to think I that I want to ignore history, but I don't. It is important. But it's not what solves moral dilemmas, because in the end you appeal to something beyond the immediate circumstance (or even collective history) to some greater principle(s). Whether you notice that you're doing it, or whether you care that a whole field of people spend lifetimes working on these problems, is beside the point. Yes, history helps us get a grasp on the bad consequences of certain institutions or practices. But no, history doesn't tell us why those consequences are bad to begin with. There is always something more to it.

This is where you come back in with: well if it can't be implemented, why bother? Because no matter what you can't escape the type of philosophy I do. You do it yourself, you just underestimate what it is you're doing.

HISTORY STUDENT: For my part, I think you underestimate the importance of historical context (broadly defined) in the conclusions that philosophers reach and their methods of getting there. The thinker is not prior to historical inquiry; being a thinker is historical inquiry. To ask what rape is, is to ask what form it has taken in the past or else how it relates to other past things. To define lying is to describe what lying has or has not been. Even Kant, as far as I can tell, in trying to identify his universals, could not escape the locatedness of immoral actions; he simply tried to locate them everywhere. Intuition itself is largely a product of experience, immediate or vicarious, from which we subconsciously draw inferences. Jesus and his chroniclers induced us to love our neighbors by telling us stories -- and living out a story for us. And even an authoritative moral text has to be interpreted in light of past interpretations and past known uses of the terms in the text.

Now, I am of course saying that history and philosophy are inseparable -- indeed, that history and everything cognitive are inseparable. So perhaps we're not that far apart. But I do not accept the idea that philosophy or any other method of discovering a moral principle is in any way prior to history.

Yes, it is quite true that many people have, in the past, excused (e.g.) rape. I suspect that this favors my way of looking at things more than yours. For it suggests that nobody has ever actually transcended her historical context when reasoning about these things. Generally speaking, the people who first turn against a particular moral evil aren't the people who have attained some sort of intellectual detachment. Instead, they are people who have noticed historical evidence that others have not -- or more likely, who have lived through things that others have not, perhaps by living among the homeless, tending the wounds of war victims, or listening to a former slave. It is probably through hearing the testimony of rape victims, not through abstracted speculation, that we came to condemn rape. And it is through publishing victims' stories that we are likely to persuade others. History makes it possible for those who have not experienced various evils to imagine them clearly.

As a discipline, in other words, history can help us get a little closer to context-transcendence by showing us how things could be different from the way they are for us -- which is essential to minimizing the danger of subjectivity. Without extensive historical knowledge, we tend to assume that everybody is like us; we, or our local sources of information, become the universal standard. This severely limits the value of any rational inquiry. With historical knowledge, however, we can tune our moral intuition to the experiences as well as the common moral sense of others.

ME: I think I see where our paths cross. You want me to recognize, more so, the importance of history as something prior to our transcendent philosophizing. I agree. I just want to make sure you realize that after you study the context, you do make judgments that (in essence) transcend that very context you're studying. So I agree with you that I can't think abstractly until I can understand my reality, even my history. To understand what rape is, I have to understand it's history, other people's stories, etc. This touches on philosophy of language, where the meaning of words (or utterances) is not divorced from circumstance, but rather springs up from our real experiences. That's okay by me. Where I differ is not in our need to understand what things are (or how things were), but in how we understand the way things ought to be. Moral philosophers like to invoke the constraint of "ought implies can." If I ought to do something, then I better be capable of doing it. I think history can play an important role in answering what we 'can' do. We can't begin to understand what we ought to do until we understand what we're doing now, what we have done, what we are capable of doing. But then there is another step, a step that goes beyond historical context. That is the ought. Among the various options for what we 'can' do --and other humanities disciplines are better at getting to these-- we need a mechanism for choosing which ones are better, which ones we ought to do. How do we understand what better is? We need some sort of standard for what is best, or some way to compare the options available to us, even if what is 'best' is not in our grasp.

How do we begin? Well you're right in that we begin after already operating within a historical context/understanding/familiarity or whatever. But then we try and rise above with what's called the reflective equilibrium. The reflective equilibrium takes our context, our intuitions, our history and tries to make a coherent principle that adequately captures our values, and is compatible with our other beliefs (about morality, about reality, etc). The reason I'm okay with relying on intuition about moral judgments (and many philosophers aren't okay with this), is that I believe we were specifically equipped to tap into moral knowledge. I attribute this to the divine, others attribute it to our capability to reason (the same capability that lets us discover mathematical and logical truths, truths I think are akin to moral truths ---though again, not all philosophers would agree). So objective? Yes, because I believe moral principles like "respect fellow moral agents" is as evident as 2+2=4. I think we can all see that when we boil it down. And I think that a moral principle is true regardless of time/location. In a similar way (though probably not entirely the same), the mathematical fact that 2+2 will equal 4 is true here and in China and in back in the year 1500 and even in the year 3500. Yes, we use context to understand those truths (like counting m&ms to figure out the solution, but if you used apples, you'd reach the same answer!). Once we're there, the principles can apply to a multitude of contexts. In the case of the moral truth, it's application can and will vary in appearance dramatically --and it's application will be aided tremendously by understanding historical contexts and such. Take “respect fellow moral agents” as an example. Respect in a Western society will vary quite a bit from respect in an Eastern society (though in some ways it won't or shouldn't), and that's okay. The application can fit the specific context while the principle itself remains unchanged.

Make sense? I don't really think we ever disagreed. I think we both just want our disciplines (or my future one at least) to have their proper due. I wanted you to recognize where you transcended history, and you want me to recognize where I use it. Understood.

Part One: History vs Philosophy

2008-07-21T14:54:00.004-06:00

The following is a rather interesting discussion I had with a history graduate student. After discussing a recent approach in political philosophy, our conversation turned to the merits (or faults) of our respective disciplines when it comes to studying justice. Below is the first part of our discussion, and soon I'll post the later portion. We disagreed, mainly about the use of ideal theory, but I think down the line we both gained a (better) appreciation for the other's discipline. Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

HISTORY STUDENT: If you'll forgive me, I'm not convinced that it is valid to talk about "political" philosophy unless there is some kind of practical policy application. It would be sort of like arguing about automobile philosophy in the absence of a practical application to cars. It might well be useful for something, but it wouldn't be automotive, and I could hardly blame a mechanic for completely ignoring my insights.

ME: I see the role of the political philosopher as figuring out what is valuable in terms of justice. Before you can make policies, you have to know what is worth pursuing. It sounds easier than it is. Philosophers look for what is valuable, and an ambitious philosopher will even try to determine some sort of ranking for what is valuable (with arguments that would/could appeal to any rational being, etc). More often than not, they don't get that far. And that's okay. Why? Because it's better to figure out what is valuable, if anything is, than not. Philosophers can argue about values, and prioritize them, and even try to get the proportions of importance correct without knowing exactly how things should be actualized in the real world. However, as you can imagine, this is a daunting task, and it takes a complex strategy to even attempt such a feat. Philosophers try to decide *what is good, or what helps people flourish (flourishing is haphazardly used a lot, and I don't like that, but does have some sort of basic meaning that everyone can grasp)? They construct arguments. Your question is an important question, one that philosophers talk about alongside these issues -- though rarely with complete answers.

So think of it this way. Maybe I don't know how to get Florida. Maybe I have no clue. Maybe I'm pretty sure I should head West. If someone can at least tell me to start going South, than I'm in a much better position than I was before. I'd be even better if they knew what states I should pass through, or even better what roads. You seem to think policy makers already know what justice is and what's valuable, but that's just not the case. I'm not sure I could tell you. But that doesn't mean I don't think there is an answer to be found out.

"Political" in political philosophy is a misnomer (if it weren't, I wouldn't like it). It's about explaining/understanding justice, not politics, not even the government. So really it's just a branch of ethics that focuses on justice over other values. And within ethics it's hard to make trade-offs (political philosophy is the most practical, I think; metaphysics might be the least).

After all, what do historians contribute to politics?

HISTORY STUDENT: Historians, my friend, would say that these questions are impossible to answer apart from history. For there is no such thing as justice outside of an historical context, if only because there is no so thing as personality outside of an historical context. "I" do not have any identity unless I have a past. Is a person a murderer, a lover, an artist, a boon companion, a befriender of small animals, a needer of hugs and fuzzy slippers? The only way to know -- even if I am that person -- is to preserve some memory of that person's past. And is a person's behavior just or unjust? The only way to know (whether or not we take a technically "consequentialist" view of morality) is to maintain a record of that behavior's consequences.

Example: Could we reasonably have a discussion about the morality of slavery in the absence of historical evidence about slavery's effects on real people? We could try, I suppose, but it would be highly unwise. People can justify (or condemn) anything as long as they can defer examination of that bottom line. In/justice isn't something that happens to propositions or ideals; it is something that is lived out by people.

For exactly the same reason, I am highly suspicious of anyone's attempt to discuss justice without discussing the means by which it is to be secured. In a perfect world, so to speak, everybody would have a pony. But I am going to benefit far more from the work of somebody who does not recognize the central importance of ponies yet makes ponies possible, than from the work of somebody who understands that ponies are essential yet fails to provide me with any means of getting one. The one makes justice possible (albeit not inevitable); the other merely talks about justice while the real world waits desperately for its ponies.

Sure, it is possible to do both -- to talk about ponies and deliver them, too. But the two things cannot be assumed to go together or even to be compatible with one another. If I miscalculate in the course of a practical campaign to deliver justice (as, say, Mao or Robespierre or G.W. Bush did), I may very well make the world worse than if I had left people alone to pursue justice in their own slapdash ways.

ME: All well and good, but I don't think you quite get it yet. What you're saying already depends upon a specific concept of justice. You're talking about consequentialism, at a minimum, but you have no way to decide which consequences are good and which are bad (though it sounds like you might go with utility --and you should be strongly suspect of utilitarianism). Sure, you have inclinations, but you haven't given me reason to believe that the effects of slavery, for example, are wrong in any sense of the word. You could argue that it's inefficient perhaps, but you haven't given a concept of morality with which to condemn it (or even to way to judge the effects). To measure something you need a ruler. To judge something you need to understand the standard that it's being judged against. Before you can compare the heights of two people, you have to have a concept of tall, and what it means to be taller. The standard can't merely be left to whim or intuition (though our intuitions can help us understand it), or even to what has historically been considered morally right. So you do your work with preconceived notions of morality, some of which may be right (after all, I do believe our intuitions are able to tap into an actual moral truths -- but not everyone believes this). You just aren't giving a concrete way to make those judgments.

How did you even figure out that it would be better for everyone to have ponies? You didn't. You guessed. You have to support it with an argument that is at the same time divorced from specific circumstances, and still responsive to facts about human nature and society (so no, we don't turn a blind eye to historians, sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, etc).

Don't get me wrong, I prefer a theory of justice that's not too pie in the sky, but at the same time if it's too dependent on current circumstance then it won't fully appreciate what could and more importantly, what should be. Philosophers give us the goals, the direction, what's valuable to pursue, and other social scientists/historians/whoever else can tell us what's feasible and how to reach those goals.

Even though other political leaders have pursued injustice, or justice in a misguided way (if you can even call it that), does not mean justice isn't a worthy goal to pursued by a collective force (over our individual slapdash ways).

So you say justice or injustice relates to people, and I agree, only I see them as moral agents operating against an actual moral standard (which is not a person on some views, but I believe the actual standard to be God, so perhaps I believe the standard is also an agent, I'm unsure) -- a standard that has principles independent of historical context (though not independent of the nature of the agents themselves). Human abilities to act morally remain unchanged ( at least since we acquired a conscious moral thought that conflicted with survival and instinctual response, if you like). We can do good or bad. Be selfish or altruistic. Pursue the excellent or pursue nothing at all. Yes, the outcomes have been different over time, and in some ways the same, but studying the outcome isn't enough, not without a standard to go by.

I'm giving you a hard time now because I think so many other humanities folks underestimate the importance of knowing where to go, actually knowing what is just. Guessing, pure intuition, personal taste, that's not enough. It's important because, as you say, if it's not justice we pursue than there are bad consequences, it's just you have to make sure you know how to tell what is bad and what is good. Sure, philosophers would do well to then determine which of our values (deemed as such) are feasible and which must wait for another time. That's fine. But our job is not defunct even if other people don't take a critical look at their own (sometimes unnoticed) moral judgments. Perhaps this calls for some teamwork across disciplines?

Continue to part two.

Wordle

2008-07-08T17:58:00.005-06:00

So I was bored today and instead of finishing up one of my many drafted posts, I decided to put RLN into Wordle. This is what I got (from the posts on the first page). Interesting. I recommend clicking on the image because it's easier to read.

Quick thoughts on epistemology

2008-06-22T10:25:00.003-06:00

Okay, so in my efforts to prepare for graduate school, I've started to look (and will continue to look) at some problems in epistemology --a field I know next to nothing about. The last time I studied epistemology (for the layman: the study of how/when we know things) was about 4 years ago in Professor Stampe's Philosophy 101 class. It's been awhile, but believe it or not, I really enjoyed what we briefly discussed (likewise when we looked at phil mind, metaphysics, and free will). A good starting point is this famous excerpt from Edmund Gettier entitled, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge." The short answer from Gettier is: no. The question is: why?

So there's the common conception (I suppose that's what you'd call it) that a person knows something IFF (if and only if) she both believes it to be true, it actually is true, and she was justified in holding her belief (iow, she had satisfactory reasons, adequate evidence, etc-- as vague as all that is). So Gettier lays it out like this:

S knows that P

IFF

P is true,
S believes that P, and
S is justified in believing that P.

Gettier gives a couple counterexamples that show an inference Q, drawn from P, that is both true, justified in the mind of S, but not true for the same reason that S believes it to be true. In other words, Gettier's talking about coincidence. Instead of using the same examples in the excerpt, I'll give the one that Professor Stampe used in class (an example that may or may not be from some other philosopher, I have no idea). And I've changed the names, because I don't recall the ones used in class.

Mindy lives in Milwaukee, and in Milwaukee there is a big clock (the Allen Bradley clock for those who care). The Allen Bradley clock has, in the past, always kept the right time, without fail. On Monday, Mindy looks at the clock and the clock reads 12 noon, so infers from that that the actual time is 12 noon. She has good reason to hold that belief (the clock keeps impeccable time). Now let's say that the time actually is 12 o'clock, so Mindy's belief is true. Let's also say that the clock is broken, and the arms of the clock were at 12 o'clock when it stopped ticking last. Mindy does not know that the clock is broken, it is merely a coincidence. Mindy fits all of the conditions above for knowledge of a proposition, however, her belief that it is noon is not what we'd think of as proper knowledge. Her belief is true, but not for the same reasons that she believes it to be true.

The problem with the aforementioned knowledge conditions is that they are not sufficent for knowledge (even if they may in themselves be necessary). The problem is the condtions don't take into account the possibility that you can be justified in believing something that's false. That could lead you to a belief that is in fact true, but what you then believe is in no way knowledge. So the above conditions are not sufficient to define when we know something; there has to be another condition. (Here's where a broader knowledge base in epistemology would be helpful, for I'm sure others have already exhausted this topic, but for my own edification I'll do some pondering)

So suppose you add some condition to the effect of: S is justified in her justification of P. Well that looks like it (as a premise) will have the same failings of the premise it's trying to rescue. What if the further justification is wrong, etc? I'm tempted to throw in the towel and say, "Well S must also know that S knows P!" Hmm. Same problem, only removed a bit further. How do you know that you know P? You'd have to know that you knew that you knew P, or something. Craziness.

My stronger temptation is to say, screw it, no one knows anything! We have a bunch of beliefs, some of which are true, and some that aren't, and we just don't know which one's we know, because we can't know a dang thing. That's a sort of defeatist, and it doesn't capture our intuition that we have some beliefs that are either more likely to be true than others, or that we have better reason to believe than others. Or do we? I'm skeptical that we can know when we know things, even if somehow we can know things. Perhaps that's because those conditions above require that P be true, but S really only believes that P is true. The evaluation of said piece of knowledge (or justified belief, or whatever) is sort done by some God-like omniscient evaluator, or not done at all. No one can evaluate the knowledge conditions, least of all S. Only some removed and all-knowing being could know whether S's justification is even justified, removed to infinity, or whatever. I must do some perusing of other epistemology works, because I know (ha!) other people, smarter people, have hashed through this before.

Last thought: what does this mean for my belief that God exists? That's a belief that plays a central function in how I order my life, so I'd like to know how I can know it to be true (if I even can). But this time, my case looks even more dim than the one above. It probably goes something like this (assuming God does exist):

L thinks she knows that G exists because:
1) G is true.
2) L believes that G is true.
3) L is inclined to believe that G is true.*
4) L has some other reasons to believe that G is true.
5) L's reasons are internally/subjectively adequate justification, but probably not externally/objectively/actually adequate justification.

I'm willing to conclude that even if God really does exist, and even though I believe that he does, my believe probably won't qualify as actual knowledge of God's existence. Does that mean I have to be agnostic, resigned to admitting that I can't, we can't, know whether God exists? Perhaps. But there's something not really captured by agnosticism, and that's my belief that G really is true (however lacking in justification, and whatever other premise is required for knowledge --if we can have knowledge at all). I'm willing to admit that I don't know, even if it turns out that I am right. I'm willing to concede that I what I hold is not knowledge, just belief. I'm okay with that.

But is the whole knowledge or belief distinction is more than a squabble over terminology? If what I hold is knowledge (or could be), well that will certainly play a role in how this belief shapes my life. But can it shape my life in the same way if I admit that it is merely a belief, a belief that even if true could never really be knowledge? On that account, I'm unsure. My intuition is that the nature of religious belief and how it plays out in our daily lives is such that it is meant to be belief and not knowledge, for that is the entire point of faith. But more on this later, maybe.

*I do think that I am inclined to believe in God, because I have (at times) tried to distance myself from that belief for a period of time to better evaluate his possible non-existence. It doesn't work. No amount of skeptical philosophy has swayed my heart, though it has (and will continue) to give my mind pause. It's a phenomenon I've ventured to explain before, though it's not entirely clear, even to me. Rationally speaking, I think I'm probably nuts. But somewhere in there I just can't not believe. So I admit that what I hold isn't knowledge, because I can't prove it to myself adequately from an objective/rational perspective. But I also don't think that gives me reason to abandon my belief (though I'm sure many people would say I ought to), because I'm not a worshiper of reason. I think reason, logic, etc, are awesome. They really are great. But they are not all that there is. The heart has it's place too, and sometimes it's foolish and wrong. But other times the heart can access things that reason could never reach. Call me crazy.

Sorry for the silence...

2008-06-17T07:49:00.003-06:00

So I realize it's been awhile since I've posted, and I'm afraid it will be a little while more until I post again. A series of trips, etc, has kept me busy, but eventually I'll get back to it. I'm thinking about writing a few thoughts on Rousseau, since I've recently had the good fortune of chatting with a Rousseau anorak (new word, couldn't help it) about the Social Contract --a book I should have read long ago. Other than that I'm up for ideas, so if you have topics you'd like me to think/write about, let me know. (This goes out to the lurkers who come to read but never say hi...input is always welcome!)

Cleanliness is not akin to Godliness: why evangelicals ought to muddy up the waters

2008-05-14T19:35:00.003-06:00

I spent too long trying to think of a clever title. Success? I doubt it. But, regardless of my failure on that account, I hope to succeed on another account, on dispelling an annoying (yet common) conception of Christianity. Yet again I've run across a ridiculous rant against progressive Christians, and this time I took it to heart. As you may remember, this whole Evangelical Manifesto is causing quite the stir. So even though I already gave my thoughts on the manifesto in an earlier post, I thought I'd take the time to respond to an interesting response I found on townhall dot com. Now I've never been to that site, nor have I ever heard of Dr. Crouse, but google has a way of introducing you to strange new worlds. Dr. Crouse wrote a post called "Muddying the Evangelical Waters," a passionate response to the manifest, and I found it both both extremely disheartening and utterly ridiculous. I'm sorry, but it really was just silly. Here's a summary of what she had to say: the manifesto is secretly trying to turn Christians into liberals, and that's bad because liberals are going straight to hell. Okay, that's quite uncharitable, but that's what the article screamed out at me from my computer screen. Actually, what she did say was based on some truth (more at the end); however, the whole post was overstated and narrow-sighted. Here's what I found, line by line: (mainly sarcastic here, and remember this is all in response to the manifesto)

1. ...the closed group of people working on the content apparently excludes traditional conservative and pro-family evangelical voices.

Okay, so I don't recognize enough of the names to know which of the charter signatories is an actual conservative, but I will bet my life that they are all pro-family. And I am certain that some are conservative, if not at least moderate. The great part here is the reference to pro-family as though it is mutually exclusive with leftist policies. Wait... don't some lefties want to promote family policies like better leave for parents (including fathers!), better daycare options, etc?? I know that I, at least, am very very pro-family. I think families rock, and I think the government should help families out more (though I admit, I'm not sure how). I also, admittedly, lean to the left these days (though not always, depends on the wind), and I haven't come across a liberal who was anti-family (but I'm sure they're there, just not that I've encountered). Of course if your definition of family means one wife, one husband, and 2.5 biologically related offspring, where traditional gender roles are upheld...well perhaps I'm not pro-family after all. I'm pro whatever family you've got where you receive love and support. Not everyone has the luxury of a Beaver-style nuclear setup.

2. “Progressives” criticize traditional evangelicals because they are overwhelmingly Republican, without acknowledging that the Republican platform, which has been consistently pro-life, is congruent with the moral values of evangelicals whereas the Democratic platform is not.

Whoa there... The Democratic platform is not congruent with moral values? Says who? Oh that's right, I've forgotten, the only moral issues are abortion and gay marriage. The environment, poverty, war, access to healthcare... none of that has any moral dimension. We have no duty to protect our planet (command from God in the garden of Eden...), protect our neighbors (call to love them?), or live in peace (other cheek?). How silly of me.

3. “Progressives” criticize traditional evangelicals because they focus on individual sins and the two major moral issues of abortion and homosexual marriage, instead of focusing on what they call “structural sins” like poverty, war, oppression and destruction of the environment. Typically, when “progressives” talk about “broadening the evangelical agenda,” they mean making their so-called “structural sins” the priority instead of emphasizing the “personal sins” that concern traditional evangelicals.

Now this is a distinction that I find quite interesting. It's one I've discussed numerous times with friends. The question is how to deal with sins on a personal level, committed by a person in such a way that may only affect that person (and perhaps other consenting persons), versus sins that affect non-consenting persons and/or evils that arise from the structure of society. This is an important distinction, as Dr. Crouse notes, only I prioritize it a bit differently. We can expect fellow believers to live lives accountable to the commands in the Bible, but not non-believers. Example, Christians are called to moderation when it comes to substances like alcohol. Abuse is a sin (get drunk on the Spirit not on wine!). Can we expect non-believers to drink in moderation because the Bible says so? No. Now if they are drinking and driving and putting other people in harms way, then we have a case for complaint, but it's not exclusively a Biblical complaint. This logic can take you down several paths, one path will sort of leave you between party lines. Example, if you take a fetus to be a person (or a being worthy of protection from interference/harm), then you have cause for complaint --at least a starting point, because there is a non-consenting third party involved. In the case of gay marriage, however, you don't have any harmed third party (except the bogus claim that it degenerates the family as a structure or something). In the one case, the sin interferes with an innocent party, or at least could be claimed as such. In the latter, the sin affects none but the person choosing that lifestyle. As Christians, we are called to hold fellow Christians to the commands of God in Scripture. Heck, even Jesus said it would be a waste of time to try and convince a non-believer to live by Scripture (pearls and pigs). So why make Scripture a part of national law?? Unless a third party is harmed, God will deal with personal sinners, not us. Remember the tax collectors and prostitutes (committing personal sins)? Jesus ate dinner with them. The pharisees wanted to stone them. Christians today fall into which camp?

4. The “progressives” package their thinking in traditional Biblical rhetoric fusing traditional values with populist ideals and themes of the liberal left (like a Marxist-flavored version of social justice and racial reconciliation) and latching onto trendy secular causes like climate change, poverty, globalism, immigration and political correctness.

Now this one is fun. I didn't realize that climate change, racial reconciliation, etc were merely secular causes. Apparently the earth is not worth the effort for Christians, nor are immigrants. We take care of our neighbors, but only if they have a valid social security number, and if they're white.

5. Further, a significant number of evangelicals (according to George Barna’s polling) live no differently than their so-called “progressive” counterparts. These lukewarm believers (who critics say are less concerned about their salvation than their status and more concerned about money than morals) are easy prey for feel-good faith that puts few limitations on the believer — making no demands and establishing no boundaries. They are theological sponges — absorbing anything that “sounds” traditional and/or religious.

Pulling out the big guns now. Apparently, if you are a progressive, then you MUST be a wishy-washy Christian. I'm glad she let me know, because I was beginning to worry that I actually believed in something, like God or a personal savior. Glad to know I was mistaken, as it couldn't possibly fit with my heretical social agenda. Also note, apparently it is only liberals who are concerned more about money than morals. I suppose that's fair, after all, I've never met an affluent conservative Christian who has gripped about high taxes and undeserving welfare leeches. Never. Damn liberals.

6. As Christ warned the Disciples, standing for truth is not the route to public acclaim. The term “evangelical” means a Biblical worldview and this dictates a philosophical/theological perspective on the timeless moral issues of Scripture. Those positions ought to be clear and unequivocal, rather than muddied by sophisticated rhetoric and clever obfuscation. The subtle danger is, as the old axiom states: “Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.”

I completely agree. However, it's better to be unsure yet continually thinking about what you stand for than to blindly stand for the WRONG thing. Be careful. Very careful. We will be held accountable for what we stand for, and stand we must, but woe unto those who stand for the wrong thing.

Okay, I'm done. Really, I do realize that there are tons of wishy washy Christian liberals out there. But what Dr. Crouse doesn't seem to acknowledge is that there is a multitude of conservative Christians out there who are theologically unsound (at best) and often morally questionable. The liberal platform has many virtues, and they are not inherently secular. The conservative platform has some virtues too, but it has it's vices. Branding a whole movement of Christians as theologically unsound and immoral is not only wrong and unjust, it's just silly. I sympathize with liberal causes. I sympathize with conservative causes. I have friends in both camps, and I see virtues in both. I also have friends with whom I disagree, but that's okay. If they disagree with me, that doesn't automatically mean they are theologically unsound or worse. Maybe sometimes they are, maybe sometimes I am, but you can not assume to categorize an entire movement (esp without a critical look at your own side). Sometimes things aren't neat and clean cut. I'm sorry Dr. Crouse, but cleanliness is overrated. Sometimes you just have to get a little muddy. (yes, cheese-tastic end here, don't judge)

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of the Democrats. I may lean to the left, but I lean way past them when I do. This is not an endorsement for that party, nor necessarily an anti-endorsement of the GOP. Just thought I'd make that clear. Also, I encourage you to read the comments on Dr. Crouse's post. They are priceless. I'm pretty sure some of the people leaving comments would stone me if they had the chance.

A Manifesto? Really?

2008-05-11T17:55:00.006-06:00

So I'm sort of in shock over this whole Evangelical Manifesto that's made its way onto the scene recently (some of the charter authors are pretty well known, and one is my old pastor -Stuart Briscoe from Elmbrook Church, one of the coolest pastors on the planet). It is, undoubtedly, evangelical, but not everyone is sure its really much of a manifesto (a postive response here). I'm in shock that these leaders have assembled themselves to write such a thing, to try and define a wildly diverse group of people, to try and give them common definition and common aim. It is a hefty task, and in some respects I think the manifesto fails to do what the authors intended (namely, the whole bit about who we are as evangelicals is not to my liking). But in other ways, I think it does what it should, and I'm going to talk about where I think the manifesto gets it right. To be truthful, I got bored with the actual manifesto, and I think the summary is better anyways, so I'm really going to be talking about the points brought up towards the middle/end of the shorter version. (I'm allowed to do this because I think readers are more likely to fully read the summary--6 pages instead of 20-- than the whole manifesto, esp given the intro of the manifesto)

One of the bigger parts in the actual manifesto (and the beginning of the summary) is the section about the evangelical "identity." I've already delineated my views on what it means for me to be an evangelical, and while I think the manifesto does a decent job (though not a great job), it's really not the part I want to focus on here. I do agree that it's important for evangelicals to be better understood; no one likes to be misperceived, after all. But that's not really where the manifesto packs its punch, nor really where it needs to be fighting. Yes, it's awesome that you want to the world to understand us better, but so what? The world will never fully understand us, and why do we have to painstakingly defend our identity? We don't. Rather, we need to do a better job of integrating our identity into our public lives, and that brings us to the part I liked.

From the summary:

First, we repudiate two equal and opposite errors into which many Christians have fallen. One error is to privatize faith, applying it to the personal and spiritual realm only. Such dualism falsely divorces the spiritual from the secular and causes faith to lose its integrity. The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, Christians become the “useful idiots” for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology. Christian beliefs become the weapons of political factions. Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, economic system, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, or nationality. The politicization of faith is never a sign of strength but of weakness. (emphasis mine)

So the authors recognize two equally dangerous poles on the spectrum of faith in the public square. There are the personal believers, who keep faith at home and in their own hearts, never to be brought out into the open. This is just silly. If you really believe in an Almighty God and the grace of His Son then you can't genuinely compartmentalize your life. You can try, and some do, but they aren't being honest with themselves. You just can't be honest in that belief and then disown that belief when it's convenient. Sure, it would be easier for me to believe at home and check that belief at, oh I don't know, let's say the classroom door. It's certainly easier to be a philosopher these days if you don't own up to any sort of supernatural faith. But it's not honest, not if I really believe. I can't believe at home and not at school. That doesn't mean I proselytize at school, but it does mean I don't try and hide it. This goes for all public realms. If you ask me, I will be honest with you. When my faith points me to a certain decision, I will be true to that and will be open about it. If it comes up in discussion, or you seem interested in hearing more, I will tell you. I can't be a Christian on Sunday and not on Tuesday. I just can't. It doesn't make sense.

And then there's the other danger: the political Jesus freak. Being a Jesus freak is awesome. I wish I was more of one. But being a Jesus freak in order to support some other political party, ideology, etc is not cool. I think I've said something about this in earlier posts, and so did CS Lewis. You can't use God as a means. He is too freaking amazing to be the means to some other end. God is the end, the ultimate end. Peddling God for votes, or to engineer patriots, or to achieve some other ideological end is just wrong. Doing so belies a serious crisis of priorities. Even if you're not a ring leader, you too are culpable if let yourself be duped by one of these leaders. A politician waiving the banner of God might as well be waiving a huge red flag. Be careful, for there false prophets and swindlers running a muck with masks of holiness on their faces.

And my favorite bit:

...we repudiate the partisans of a sacred public square, those who would continue to give one religion a preferred place in public life. In a diverse society, it will always be unjust and unworkable to privilege one religion. We are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths. We are firmly opposed to theocracy. And we have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose beliefs and behavior on anyone. We believe in persuasion. On the other side, we repudiate the partisans of a naked public square, those who would make all religious expression inviolably private and keep the public square inviolably secular. This position is even less just and workable because it excludes the overwhelming majority of citizens, who are still profoundly
religious. Nothing is more illiberal than to invite people into the public square but insist that they be stripped of the faith that makes them who they are. (emphasis mine)

So again, two dichotomies: the sacred and the naked public square. This balancing act called for in the public life may be what led to charges from some that the manifesto is "insistently moderate." But you know what I say to that, three cheers for moderation!!! I see moderation as a virtue, and I also see that the Christian community, particularly the evangelical community, lacks said virtue. Sure, maybe this is nothing new to the secular readers, or non-evangelical readers of the manifesto (though I don't believe non-believers and non-evangelical Christians have got a firm grasp on this virtue either, and they really ought to heed the lesson too), but for most evangelicals this is a new call to action. It is telling other evangelicals that Christianity cannot be the ruling religion in America, or anywhere, because a country shouldn't impose religion on its people. This does not often come out of the mouths of evangelicals, so in that sense, it is as revolutionary as it is common sensical and obvious. At least, that's how I see it.

And then there's that other extreme, an extreme the evangelicals are certainly not guilty of. The second warning is for all those secularists (including religious secularists), who are trying to completely rid the public square of any trace of religion. This manifesto speaks to you as well. Stop it. You're not doing any good. Public life must leave room for people to express their identities, what makes them who they are. For many people, there will be a religious component to their identity, and making them take that off or deny it robs them of their voice. Everyone in a liberal democracy has the opportunity to express her voice, to persuade others to her cause, to be persuaded by others, to let her convictions influence her decisions. You can't ask a religious person to truly do this without any reference to who she is, to what she believes. There is a place for discussing religious values in the public square.

The manifesto summary calls for a civil public square, one that incorporates religion without letting it dominate: "We are committed to a civil public square – a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well. Every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others. " That sounds about right to me.

As I've discussed before, I think that religious values are important in public life, and I also believe that you can hold onto those values while still finding common ground for agreement with non-believers. It's a balance. It takes moderation. It requires compromise. This sounds simple, and it doesn't sound like a new idea. But in practice, it is new. Put into practice, it would be like a revolution, a good revolution. All the nay-sayers of the manifesto can complain about the defensive tone, the lack of relevance. But in the end, they're wrong if they think it's unimportant. Anything that calls upon religious and non-religious people alike to both embrace their beliefs and work through their differences together without forcing them to hid their convictions but also without unduly imposing thier beliefs on each other, well anything like that should be read by everyone. The way things are done now sucks. The way many religious leaders want(ed) them to be done is wrong. The way many secular leaders want(ed) them to be done is wrong. So calling on people to find the right balance, well I'd say that's a pretty good start.

One of the other charges against the manifesto is that it doesn't say how we can achieve the balance I spoke of above. Well, I think a good first step is talking about this balance, and having everyone agree that a balance ought to be our aim. Reaching agreement on this matter would be a monumental step. So I don't think the manifesto is as deficient in this respect as it has been charged with. What to do next, well I'm still thinking about that, and so are many other people much smarter than myself. I'll keep you posted. (This is where you should point me to good articles/books about this topic if you have any...thanks!)

Teaching Philosophy in Schools

2008-05-07T10:00:00.002-06:00

Harry has a nice post up at CT about teaching Controversial Issues to high schoolers, with a link to his paper about it. I encourage you to read both. The idea is that philosophy is important, because it equips us with certain skills that we need to navigate our moral life (among other skills like reason/logic, critical thinking, etc). An ethics course can equip students to analyze arguments and make their own, all in the attempt to discern some ethical truths. Now Harry rightly points out that this sort of course does not work until you first strike down the pop philosophy concept of moral relativism (which is more prevalent in mainstream thinking than you'd suppose). After all, if there is no moral fact of the matter, however hard it might be to know, then there really is no use discussing these things, because you can't reach a truth that doesn't exist. Assuming you get everyone on board with that, there's a lot that you can do with philosophy, even with younger children. So before I say anything else, I want to be clear that I am definitely on board with more philosophy in schools. My concern, however, is how this can be done well. If it can't be done well, than I think perhaps it shouldn't be done at all.

Take the Controversial Moral Issues class as an example. This sort of class is different than your typical high school class. It does not involve memorizing and repeating facts, and starkly opposing answers can (if argued well) all be given a good grade. The focus is less on the answer, though the moral answer is important, but more on the process of arriving at that answer. Now, teaching a class that focuses on method and not a set of answers is tricky, because as the teacher you have to be comfortable with the method yourself. The method is often called the reflective equilibrium, which is a fancy way of saying that you think of some assumptions we can agree upon and then you reason out to a conclusion. You can argue with each over the truth of the assumptions or the validity of the logic. This is not an easy task, esp not to teach. The Socratic method is also fun, but not easy. How can you make the students arrive at the answers themselves by only asking questions? You don't want to lecture at them, but you want them to learn something. It's a tough balance, and I'm afraid that balance may not be teachable.

Here's a real life example. This past year I taught English in a French high school. In one of my classes, I taught a CMI-like course. I knew the material, the articles, the arguments, etc. I was very comfortable with what I was teaching, having studied it quite a bit as an undergraduate (something not most teachers have done). When I started teaching that class, I was floored by how poorly it often went. Why? I knew the material, wasn't that enough? Not hardly. I had to figure out, somehow, how to teach my students how to think. It seemed impossible. How do you change how they think??? How do you teach them to be critical and logical? I'm not sure I know. I had some classes that went well, while others bombed. I'm not sure I know why in either case. One thing that did work sometimes (though this may have been cheating) was being horribly uncharitable to an author's argument. Flaws in philosophical work are often subtle, and most high schoolers (and college students) will have a really hard time catching them. So to help my students out, I rewrote the arguments and exaggerated the "holes" (as I called them). I made the faults look as obvious as possible, but even then, my students had a hard time finding them (I admit, part of this was the language barrier). Eventually, some of my students learned how to spot the holes. Most of my students did not, but some of those at least started to understand the holes after I pointed them out. One thing I never accomplished, arguably the most important thing, was to get them to argue something for themselves. To be original and creative. Maybe it was my own fault, or the language thing, or just that the students weren't ready to do that yet. I'm not sure. But I do know this much: that class was not easy to teach.

So why do I worry about how well a teacher can teach the class? I worry for the sake of the student, because a poorly taught ethics class is worse than no ethics class at all. Worst case scenario: a teacher teaches dogmatically (either because she wants to promote her own views or, more likely, because she is under pressure from the school and parents to teach a certain view) and the students come out with a certain set of "answers" fed to them in class. Perhaps they were even taught the best arguments for those answers, but even so, they did not learn how to think about those answers critically. In fact, a student coming out of a class like that is more likely to be confidant that those answers are right, than a student who (never having had a class in ethics) is still unsure what she thinks about it all. I'd rather a student be unsure but not brainwashed than the opposite. A commenter at CT replied to my concern with a good point. The response was that sometimes our concern for "impartiality" puts up too many unnecessary roadblocks. Yes, I agree that teachers could never be completely impartial, and that's okay, but that doesn't mean some teachers (perhaps due to school pressure or liability) won't be unacceptably partial. Even without outside pressure, it's very hard not to let your own views creep in and color the discussion (it certainly was for me --in fact, to offset this, I tried to fight for the opposite side more, or make sure I was fighting for the side that was the least popular in class).

Teachers will always have biases in their classes, but some classes should be taught anyways. I think that a college level CMI course, even if biased, is better than none. However, I think a biased CMI course in a high school is worse than none at all. Part of this is a distrust that a high school student could recognize bias and file it away as such. When I was in high school, I was much more trusting of the authority of my teachers than I was at university. Part of that was due to the fact that I had many more professors at university that had contradictory views (making it clear that neither side was decided upon). But a bigger reason, I suspect, was that I was more mature as a student in university than I was in high school. In high school I was too inexperienced to mistrust the views of my teachers, and I was much too easily swayed. Now I'm not saying this is true of all high schoolers, certainly not. And maybe if it is true that would in fact be another reason to have CMI course, so that students could be taught to be more critical. There's also the concern that not everyone, in fact most students, won't go to college (or if they do they may not take a basic ethics course). The CMI's of today are important enough that everyone ought to be thinking about them, so maybe high school is the best place to start that process. And I want schools to have well run CMI classes. That, to me, would be amazing. But I just don't know. If the course is poorly done, that may cause more harm than good, and that wouldn't be a worthwhile trade-off.

So I'll follow the comments over at CT, and maybe if I see some good suggestions for how to train teachers to do this (and give them the academic leg room they need to do so), then I'll be less worried about it. Or maybe the jobless philosophy phds should step up and help out. Who knows...

Faith, Politics and Philosophy...broadly speaking

2008-04-19T09:31:00.004-06:00

I've recently been brought into on ongoing discussion about faith, politics and philosophy (courtesy of Russell at IMR). Essentially, the question is: what role should religious belief have in a democratic and pluralistic society? While I think the more general question of religious belief is important, for now I will focus on the more specific question about the role of Christianity in a pluralistic society. I'm narrowing my focus for a few reasons, mainly for lack of space to elaborate further, but more importantly, my knowledge of Christianity far out strips my knowledge of other religions. So I'll stick with what I know, so to speak. For background reading of what's been discussed already, check out this review by Damon Linker about Charles Marsh's Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity, which is then discussed by Russell over at IMR. I encourage you to read both Damon and Russell's thoughts, because I don't have the space to adequately discuss them, and will be (for all intensive purposes) diving straight into my own thoughts on the matter.

There are two problems we can look at, and I'm unsure which is better to start with. There is, as Marsh and Damon argue, the problem of modern American evangelicals' involvement in politics, an involvement that could be accused of betraying the very faith they are fighting to protect. This is a big issue, one that deserves serious thought and discussion, but for the moment I will put it aside. That our current system is rife with trouble doesn't surprise me. That a future system could be better --well that's what I'm concerned with. More importantly, I want to know how our system should operate. In an ideal system, we would know how to balance the demands of a liberal and pluralistic society with our individual faith (or lack there of). Again, I will stick with Christianity, in part because I'm unsure if all other faiths could strike the appropriate balance. To me, the question is a very important one because I am deeply concerned with the structure and affects of our society on individuals, but I am even more concerned with serving the God in whom I believe. I'd like to work for both, but if push comes to shove, I know which of the two I would give up, and it isn't God (my priority is, as Marsh argues, as it should be for a religious believer). This priority surfaced earlier in my post about patriotism and Christianity, where I argued that a genuine believer will serve God first, country somewhere further down the list (I would hope not second, but I'll settle for not first). This doesn't mean I don't care about my fellow citizens; on the contrary, I care about them a great deal as fellow children of God, and I want us all to live together in harmony. But my care for them comes after my love of God, so my role in our political system is looking fuzzy. It seems that I have a compelling reason to find a balance between the demands of my society and the demands of my faith, lest I feel forced to abandon one for the other.

My intuitions tell me that a balance is possible, or better still, that is required by the faith that I profess. I will even entertain the idea that part of the reason why I retain my faith is because it doesn't force impossible tradeoffs, at least not when it counts. So in one respect, I am able to balance my faith with the demands of my society, but in another, my faith is affirmed because it (can) positively contribute to securing justice in our society. One reason why I will focus on Christianity is because I believe that the core principles of the Christian faith promote justice and harmony; they not contradict them. If they did contradict them, I'm unsure if my faith would survive. To put it inadequately, my very conception of God is intertwined with the belief that He is loving and just, and so He would (I can presume) want me to promote love and justice in society. But that's sort of off topic, and I'm unsure quite how to explain what I mean, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Let's start by examining the typical liberal tradition, easy to see if you look at Rawls (and other contractualists), where we must find universally acceptable justifications for policies and other measures that coerce or otherwise affect our fellow citizens. "Because God said so" is not, on a Rawlsian account, a good enough justification. It's not good enough precisely because it can't justify your position to your atheist neighbor. So if God said so, that's great, but it's like having inadmissible evidence in a trial. It can't be used, even if it's the key to proving a defendant's guilt or innocence. I think this analogy isn't a bad way to look at it. If, for example, you are right that God did in fact say so, that would settle whether or not such a policy or law should be put into effect. In other words, it would answer the more objective question of whether said policy is right, good, or overall the best option. However, it won't convince the jury, and for better or worse, the jury gets to decide (and yes, the jury may be wrong, but in the end it's the verdict that matters). In our society, your fellow citizens must be convinced, regardless of the objective answer to the question, just as in a trial the actual guilt or innocence of a defendant must be proved in such a way that it will convince reasonable people. That's the system, and I think that system has the right idea. The justification must convince other reasonable people because we believe that reason can lead to truth (or if you want, Truth), and because we are more fallible working alone than together. It is true that we are often wrong when working collectively, but hey, the more minds you have reasoning it out, the better chance you have to get it right. So, we want numbers, and we want numbers because we work on the assumption that reason does in fact lead to truth, or at least to better decisions, and two minds are better than one, etc etc. The assumption that reason leads to truth is not self-evident, though it may be common sense. I, for one, believe that our cognitive faculties have some worth, and they have the ability to reach answers. I also believe that they tend to reach right answers, if used properly and in concert with others. I could be wrong, and if I am, then everything I say here is pretty useless. But I'm not an epistemologist or philosopher of the mind, so I will take my common sense and role with it.

So the assumption is that we make people use universal justification because we believe that everyone has, or most everyone has, the capacity to reason out the solution, and consensus is our best way to figure out which solution is the best one. So for that reason we make this pretty hefty demand for justification on a group of people who have, no doubt, a very diverse spectrum of foundational beliefs. Problematic? Perhaps, but not crippling so. This view does favor "conceptions of the good" that support reason and common sense epistemology. But is that a bad thing? I don't think so, because I think the alternatives are worse. The alternative is that we just can't know, not by reason, and if we can't use reason then there's no way to reliably compare other possible justifications (ranging from God told me so to I just knew it when I saw a ladybug on my windshield). Reason has to matter. If it's worthless, then we might as well live in chaos. Even if reason is worthless, it's better to pretend it's not, so we'll go from there. Reason counts, and it counts for a lot. That will be my starting point.

I will pause here to answer a question that you may be wondering at this point. How, as a deeply religious person, could I elevate reason above God (this quick answer is: I'm not). Wouldn't I vote for the "because God said so" over "because I have rational justification"? You'd think so, wouldn't you? But I don't, and the reason I don't is the same reason why I'm restricting my focus to Christianity. In my Christian conception of God, He created us with the internal capacity to know and discover truths, truths about Himself, about moral laws, and about the reality in which we live. I believe that He equipped us with reason to use it, and I believe that He equipped everyone, regardless of what you end up believing in life. That is an important part of this discussion, and it's one that may be true in other religions. In the case that another religion casts doubt on that assumption, that religion may not be able to strike the same balance that I believe Christianity can (and this goes for secular positions in philosophy that cast doubt on morality as a whole, or on our rational capacities, though I won't venture to discuss this further at the moment). So, a central part of the balancing act is this fundamental agreement between Christians and other rationalists that people can, in fact, reach the truth (or at least part of it) through reason and experience. We believe this because we believe God equipped us this way, but how we got this way is not the important part for the moment, it's that we are this way. That being said, you can refer to some of my prior posts on religion and political issues to get a sense for what I mean here. I'm not shy about using secular justifications because I believe that God commands what He does for a reason and I believe that He makes those commands accessible internally to everyone. My scriptural justification for this is somewhere in those older posts, and I think another day I will revisit that more thoroughly.

So this is where I stand so far: we should appeal to universal reason because reason works, and using reason is not contradictory to my particular faith. I can't vouch for other faiths, but the Christian God (and more broadly, the Judeo-Christian God) is probably happy to see us use the gift He gave us, so let's do so. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't take "because God said so" seriously in my own life. I think often that when "God says so" (in the case that I truly believe God did say so) it is much more reliable than reason, because God is in the know (so to speak). But that's like equating what God believes or says with the objective innocence or guilt of the defendant, of course it's more reliable than what the jury decides. However, for practical purposes, it's what the jury decides that matters in our terrestrial society. So, even if God did say so, we have to use other alternatives to convince the jury. Does that make my faith worthless? Far from it. My faith, I'd like to think, gives me a sneak peak into the truth. If my faith is right, then it's sort of like being the best friend of the defendant, and the defendant confessed to me that she really did do it. I know the truth, and I have a reliable source for it. But, that doesn't mean other people will believe me, so I have to work with whatever else I have. Luckily, my inside knowledge can give me direction as I seek other evidence (even if it can't stand alone), and that's the beauty of faith.

My faith helps guide my reason, but my reason could (in theory) get to part of the truth without it. Happily, my faith (if I'm right, at least) can get me there quicker, and show me what to look for and what direction to reason in. That's where faith affects our politics. God is just, and God created us to be equal in worth. So, I want to find a way to make sure my society treats all of its citizens like they are equally worthy even if I can't use the justification that everyone is equal "in God's eyes." I still know what to shoot for, and I can still appeal to everyone else's moral compass because I believe that God gave us all the ability to discern moral truths, at least partially. Do you see where I'm going with this? Our faith guides our reason. It's like having a road map. Let's say I have a map that shows that I-94 will get me from Madison to Milwaukee. I trust the map, but my neighbor doesn't. We can both agree, however, that Milwaukee is at least east of Madison, so we have that in common, and even if we end up taking a longer route there --we essentially agree on the goal. I have to prove to my neighbor that the information on my map is reliable, but I can't just rely on the map to do that. That doesn't mean I discount what the map says, not at all (it was my map that clued me in that Milwaukee was at least east of Madison). I just can't give the map to someone else and expect them to trust it in the same way I do. And here's the great part, if the map is right, then it will get me to where I want to go. I will be able to confirm it's reliability through experience or some other way. In the same way, the God I believe in should give us fundamental moral commands that are confirmable through other means, if He did indeed equip us to figure them out independently. "Thou shall not kill" should make sense even in a secular context if killing really is wrong, and if God really did equip us in the way I believe He did (and in a way that would make sense for Him to do).... (I admit, this is surface level, but I'm trying to cover more ground than I can really do thoroughly, so my apologies)

Now, here is where the conflicting foundations problem becomes an issue. Let's say that we do reach some tentative agreement, you for secular reasons and me for religious ones. Even if we came to the same conclusion, are we really in agreement? Or more specifically, is our surface agreement sufficient for political purposes? I'm unsure what to do about surface agreements that stem from starchily opposing foundations, because part of me wants the jury to (roughly speaking) come to the same verdict for similar reasons. My question is, should that matter? Take this extreme example. Let's say that I think the state should outlaw murder because I believe that we ought to respect the life of another person in the same way that we would want them to respect our own lives (or something to that extent). Now let's say Amy believes murder should be illegal because peanut butter tastes really good with jelly on bread. We have the same surface agreement, that killing should be illegal, but our foundations are wildly opposing. Can we, in good faith, agree to outlaw murder? Is our agreement really an agreement? Maybe on the surface it is, but deep down, I think that Amy's reasons are ridiculous and I do not agree with her. In fact, even if we both vote the same way, I will (in the public square) try to convince Amy that her foundations are wrong and she should find a more plausible one.

How is this important? Well there are many issues on which Christians and, oh I don't know, let's say "secular progressives" coincide. Both can reasonably, but on different foundations, support the promotion of equality and social justice, etc etc. If their reasons for that support are too different, are they really in agreement? Have they convinced each other (in the way Rawls intended) of the justifications for such a stance? I'm unsure. But part of me thinks this matters more than utility concerns would suggest. My hesitant solution, from a Christian perspective, is to appeal to (at a minimum) some moral standard that we all at least have cognitive access to. Perhaps the nature of said standard, questions of its source, or how we came to recognize it, can all be tabled for the sake political agreement. Perhaps there's some point at which we can agree, even when our deeper foundations part ways, but where those deep foundations are not essential to the common base we have found. The true deeper foundation is perhaps intrinsically important, but is it necessary for political agreement? I think perhaps there is some middle level, where we agree on substantial moral claims, but where we disagree on their source and/or nature, yet where said level is deep enough to ground our agreement. If you agree any higher up, on more superficial level, then you must still agree at some deeper level, though not necessarily at the most basic level. And no, I can't elaborate, because this is uncharted territory for me and I have no idea how to better explain my intuitions on this one.

I say this because I think, as far as I am a moral realist, that there many other moral realists who would agree with me a great deal of things and at a deep level. Yet I think we would often disagree on the most basic level. Perhaps it's important that I think their beliefs about the most basic level are at least plausible (unlike Amy's), but maybe a working democratic society doesn't need me to actually agree with them at the most basic level. What would constitute as reasonable to a theist? Or vise versa, what would be a reasonable theistic foundation to an atheist? I'm think right now of the book I'm reading by Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods. I'm also thinking of a conversation I had with a very well know philosopher in ethics while I was visiting grad schools. She admired Adams' work, but not as a theist. She saw common ground there, principles and ideas that could explain morality in a such a way that belief in God fit rather well, but it wasn't necessary. Maybe work in ethics should be more like that. We could look for that point where our moral principles can be both reasonably grounded in a theistic or atheist outlook. I do lean towards the side that thinks, ultimately, God is necessary in this equation, but I don't think that rules some deeper level agreement about moral principles. And it's that deeper, yet not foundational, agreement that I'm looking for to strike the right balance.

So what am I committed to? I'm committed to the belief that there's nothing contradictory with the Christian belief system and also believing that (at least partial) moral answers can be arrived at from a secular perspective. That gives Christians a strong motivation to go beyond "because the Bible says so" when jumping into public discourse. I don't, however, think that our faith should be abandoned completely, because I think it can prove to be a trustworthy guide, giving us hints for where to look and what to worry about. A Christian would be guided by her faith, but would bring more than her faith to the table when participating in our political system. She looks for more because she believes that we are all equipped to do the right thing, and she believes that God commands what He does for a good reason. So she looks for those reasons, and she uses them to justify her position to her fellow citizens. Faith is everything in the personal, but not everything in the political. That may not jive well with all faiths, and that may be a problem for those believers. It not jiving well seems to me to be a strike against that faith. Either way, I don't think this is a problem for the Christian. But I do think it gives the Christian a good reason to reconsider what she thinks the state should impose on others.

I think I'm now rambling, so I'll stop here, even though there's much more to be said. Even after writing all this I'm unsure if I even agree with myself, but hey, these things are a part of a process. More thoughts later, hopefully.

Stuff Christians Like...

2008-04-14T10:19:00.003-06:00

So there's been some internet buzz around the new blog: Stuff White People Like. I've read a few posts, and yes, a few have hit close to home. Though, I'd like to think I'm not really a yuppy. But then I found this blog: Stuff Christians Like. Now they got me. If you have grown up in the Church, then you will probably find that blog pretty funny. It's okay to laugh, I promise, God won't smite you.

Some of my favorite posts are about...

Off brand cookies at Sunday school
Dating God
Pretending that secular songs are about God (I almost made a CD of these types of songs once...)
Hands raised in worship, and often, closing your eyes
Trying to stealthily find out if another church goer drinks beer (or at all)
One of my all time favorite church topics: abstinence
Saying I'll pray for you and then never doing it (guilty as charged)
Calling non-believers "seekers"...and no, not like in Harry Potter
Using the G-card (I didn't think other people actually used that phrase too, how 'bout that)
Wishing you had a more exciting testimony
Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, etc)
I'll pray about it = No
Community of communities (Blackhawk's mission statement is: building a community to reach a community)
Using the Bible to prove a point to somebody who doesn't believe in the Bible

And that's just to name a few. Too funny. The sad thing is, it's funny in a convicting kind of way... yikes. I should clarify, this is really "stuff white protestant Christians like"...but even if you're not one of those, you can take this opportunity to get a sneak peak into our alternate universe.

(it may be awhile before I get another serious post up...)

Brief Hiatus

2008-04-01T04:38:00.002-06:00

I leave soon to go back to the States for about a week or so. I'm excited as you can imagine, but when I get back I have some decisions to make, and am letting you know now that I will be neglecting RLN for awhile. I have been immersing myself in philosophy articles/books and I hope to have some time to write up some of my thoughts on the more interesting ones when I get back. So mid-late April I should get back to posting. Just thought I'd let you know.

About RLN

2008-04-01T03:55:00.003-06:00

This is late in coming, but I thought perhaps it was time re-post some information about this blog, and why I write what I do here. For those of you who are new, welcome, I'm glad you found your way to RLN. My name is Lindsey, and I'm a (soon-to-be) graduate student in philosophy, who also happens to be a Christ follower. While I don't think this blog is very philosophically rigorous, I do think it's a good place for me to test the waters with my thoughts and ideas, and share those ideas with friends and family. I started RLN mainly to prove to myself that a person could be both a religious believer and also a serious thinker, but I think my stage of needing to prove that to myself is waning. Now I write what I think, be it about religion or philosophy or any of the subsets therein, and I do it for anyone out there who's thinking about the same questions I am. It's okay to believe in God and still ask tough questions, and it's okay not to find the answer. It's also okay to study philosophy and not agree with the standard naturalistic/empiricist line. I'm a firm believer in both the spiritual and the rational, which makes me a rarity of sorts, but being different hasn't bothered me before. And whatever side you happen to be on, or if like me you pursue both, then I'm glad you're here and I hope you enjoy what you read.

That being said, I think it's probably a good idea to end with two more thoughts. First, do not expect posts to be consistent. I'm young and doing a great deal of thinking, and inevitably I will change my mind (a lot). So don't be surprised if something in an earlier post contradicts something in a more recent post, and don't be surprised if I then revert back to my previous stance. It happens, but that's the price of publishing your thoughts. I think my thoughts on these questions are less important than the questions themselves. I say that because I don't expect to solve much here, or offer up many solutions, but rather my goal is to show people that not only is it okay to be asking these questions, but it's also quite important to be doing so (for what that's worth). Secondly, If you ever want to know more about something that I've written, would like to know more specifically what I believe and why, or if you have a post/website/book you think I should check out, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email (regardantlesnuages at gmail dot com).

Oh and for those who are wondering, regardant les nuages is a french phrase that means: gazing at the clouds.

Gender, Race and Politics

2008-03-30T05:01:00.004-06:00

My theme of the week in my classes was gender, race and politics. My French students have been less than interested in my other topics, so I chose what I thought would be a highly charged issue. I gave them all an article about Geraldine's infamous quote about Obama, and I hoped that would spark some discussion about not only the American presidential election, but also the role of race and gender in politics. I'd like to say it went well, but I'm afraid I had no such luck. How could they not care? (cue: pulling out hair) So I continued the discussion the next week, hoping that perhaps the lack of participation was due more to language issues (I did the topic with my older, but lower, class) than utter apathy. That helped, sort of, but even with my discussion guide I was having a hard time eliciting their opinions. So I asked them: do you care at all? Their response? Well, I've never thought about it before. Ding ding ding, problem found. The problem in my class was, essentially, the problem that perpetuates our lack of diversity in politics. The public, in general, isn't actively thinking about the lack of women and minorities in politics as a problem that needs to be fixed. It is, but your everyday Jill and Joe haven't worried about it much (and in my class, 99% of my students are white), or given it much thought at all. (this is less true in the USA at the moment, but that is mainly because of Hillary and Obama's dual, without which the issue would be more or less off the table).

I struggled with this issue at the beginning of the primary season. I was uneasy with candidates being elected because of their race or gender. That just seemed wrong to me, in the way that it would be wrong to elect someone because he was a white male (not that it doesn't happen on some level, but I don't think it should). I was of the mind that the whole point of being able to have a woman or black person as president was that as a person they are just as competent as a white man, and should be judged solely on their respective qualifications. I think, however, that my mindset was more naive than I'd like to admit. Younger generations want to ignore race/gender, pretend like they don't factor into the equation. However, that's a state of mind that won't help bridge the gap. Ignoring race and gender, instead of actively trying to equalize their position in society, and actively combating existing discrimination, will only perpetuate the status quo. And I'm beginning to think that perhaps there is something to be said about voting for someone (when other things are equal, of course) because of his or her race or gender (please don't flip out here). It's not that the individual is necessarily more qualified in the usual sense because of her difference (though later on I will argue for a new type of qualification), but rather her presence as a part of an underrepresented group helps bring a balance to the system as a whole. So where two candidates are equal in the important respects, and where one candidate has the added experience of growing up in the face of existing discrimination and socially constructed road blocks, that candidate's life experience adds an extra qualification to her candidacy. She is in a position to better know what her peers go through on a daily basis, and will be more conscious of that when making policies. If no one in the legislative/executive/judiciary branches has had those unique experiences that one only has in virtue of being a minority or a woman, then minorities and women will not have adequate advocates within our government. For our government to legitimately wield it's coercive power, it better represent, as best possible, the full body of its constituents.

Thinking about diversity not as an intrinsic value but as being valuable in an instrumental way, is not a new idea. I read some article (excuse my poor memory) about this in regards to higher education. The idea was to shift the focus of diversity as something that is important in itself (though I think that sometimes it is, and certainly, sometimes it isn't-- ie, I don't want serial killers adequately represented in higher education, even if right now they are in a minority, or at least I hope they are!). By focusing on what diversity can achieve, you have a better case for its promotion. The idea was something like this: someone in a minority or who is underrepresented in higher education has (and this includes socio-economic diversity), in general, a completely different set of life experiences that contribute, in an important way, to his or her overall point of view. It is valuable in higher education to have a variety of view points, because that will promote the most learning, and increasing learning is one of the fundamental jobs of HE. So there's the connection between having different life experiences and how that contributes to the person that you become and what you can contribute to others. I would add that those experiences can greatly affect the types of decisions you will make in the future (as we all make decisions that are often based on what we have encountered in the past). I would go on to add that the political decisions of elected officials are also affected in a non-trivial way by their past experiences, so it would be valuable to have a variety of experiences represented among the body of officials who make and enforce laws. So if two candadates are equally qualified, and if one has the added bonus of having a different point of view from the exisiting body of politicians, than that extra qualification should be factored in when we vote.

So this is where I'm going with this. Part of the problem is that there is a lack of effort to promote the aforementioned diversity of perspectives. My students had never really thought about it, and those that had told me (quite pessimistically) that they didn't think change (for France at least) was possible, at least not yet. So I asked them to think of a solution. What would change the state of things? Blank stares. No one knew, because no one had ever thought about it (surprisingly, not even the women). I explained to them, with conviction, that by beginning to think about the problem, you are taking the first step in fighting it. Nothing will change if you don't see it as a problem, or don't ever think about the problem as something that can and should be fixed. So awareness is the first step. The second step? I'm less sure, but hey, that first step is going to take us awhile. So, there you have it.

Some thoughts on justice, political action and individual choice

2008-03-16T06:41:00.004-06:00

I've just finished reading G.A. Cohen's If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're so Rich? The book is quite interesting, and it covered much more than I can possibly discuss here. So I'm going to limit myself to the topics that tie into what I've been mulling over recently, namely, government coercion and individual justice. Cohen did bring up some interesting thoughts on what the nature of God would be like and why he might have created us, along with some discussions on religious belief in general (specifically the effect of growing up in a certain denomination), but that's for you to read about if you want. I apologize in advance for the ridiculously long post, but I hope you can bear with me as I work through my thoughts on this... so here it goes.

Cohen distinguishes between three different strategies for justice, namely the Marx, Rawls and Christian strategies. Under the Marx conception, justice in the form of equality is an inevitability that will be born out of history (so to speak). Cohen spends a good deal of time challenging the Marx thesis, and he shows (quite convincingly) that equality will not come about on its own. Several lectures within the book were dedicated to showing why this is the case, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave it at this: equality is not inevitable, so the Marx strategy is not going to be sufficient for achieving real justice.

The second conception that Cohen evaluates is the typical liberal view (circa Rawls) that justice can be achieved through political means. Justice isn't (in the case of Rawls) straight forward equality, but we'll leave the difference principle out of it for now. For Rawls, and many liberals, justice can be achieved by constitution-making, or changing the structure of our society and government so that these institutions are just. ( Note: the use of liberal in this sense is the political philosophy use of “liberal” and not the pop culture designation for Democrats and others on the left of the political spectrum. Of course that's tricky in and of itself, but the best definition I found of the Rawls sort of political liberalism is that it's aim is to “ provide a political framework that is neutral between such controversial comprehensive doctrines” (SEP). I wish I had a better grasp of that particular concept, but for now I'll move on.)

The problem that Cohen found in the Rawls' conception is that there is a possibility that you might have a “just government” without necessarily having much in the way of a “just society.” The laws and regulations that govern the 'basic structure' of society can be just without having just-minded citizens within that society. The reason for this divide is that under the Rawls' construction, the people must only agree to (and understand) the principles of justice as they apply to the framework of their society. Rawls' conception is ill equipped to deal with the individual choices of people within those societies and within those structures. I agree with Cohen that this poses a serious problem for his theory of justice. If, for example, you have a “just” structure, but within that structure the choices of individuals counteract (or fly in the face of) the governing principles, then justice has not been fully achieved. It is inadequate to say that a government must achieve the end of promoting the welfare of the least advantaged if the members of that society continually choose to promote their own welfare in ways that disadvantage the worst off. As Cohen (rightly) points out, “the justice of a society is not exclusively a function of its legislative structure, of its legally imperative rules, but is also a function of the choices people make within those rules.”

Cohen give a pretty good critique of Rawls' exclusive focus on the basic structure (whatever that really is), and how that is an inadequately narrow focus for the principles of justice. He goes to on examine how many professed egalitarians suffer from this Rawlsean attitude. By suffer I mean, they live out their lives in the way that Rawls laid out his theory. They are more focused on fighting for the legislative and political achievement of justice, that they neglect to make personal choices that reflect their belief in equality. If, for example, your average political philosophy professor is a proponent of egalitarian ideals, and if he also keeps enough of his (modest) income to allow him to live relatively well-off, then he is not himself promoting justice through personal choice. A truly committed egalitarian would give away as much of her resources as possible in order to ameliorate the plight of those less fortunate than herself. She would live as spartanly as possible in order that her earnings could work towards righting injustice. While I'm sure there's a few egalitarians like that indeed do give away a considerable portion of their income, there is a sizable portion that don't. In fact, as Cohen points out, there is a good number of fairly rich egalitarians out there fighting for social change yet living the good life. Of course this skirts the practical issue of trying to live justly within an unjust environment (and having to include a certain level of risk into your calculations), but for the most part, egalitarians could do more than they currently do (on the personal level).

Cohen asks how this could be. How can so many people believe in equality yet continue to profit from inequality in real life? Cohen goes through a series of excuses (none of which really amount to a decent justification) that the egalitarians could offer, but for now I want to focus on the attitude itself and how that attitude plays out in my own life. The attitude is this: I can't right injustice alone, so I will focus my attention on making sure the government rights injustice (even if that means coerced redistribution). I may not consciously think this way, but unfortunately I behave like I really think this way. It's an attitude that is both pessimistic on the personal level for society, yet also rather pessimistic about my own ability to help voluntarily. I focus on making sure the government forces me to help (and also forces everyone else to help), instead of just getting out there and doing what I can on my own. To be fair, part of the problem is collective action. I'm well aware that by wielding what small power I have in our (supposedly) democratic government I can do more overall good than simply operating on my own. A just society is not the work of any one person. But, it's not the work of institutions either. I must do what I can through my everyday personal decisions, and also through my political decisions. The two must go hand in hand. My behavior shouldn't show contradictory beliefs. Too often the liberal focus is on what the government can do, and not what each individual must do in her own life. Cohen recognizes this problem, and it's one I'm finally starting to see myself.

This brings us to the Christian conception of justice. Under the Christian conception (at least, based on Christian theology and not necessarily how Christians practice today), the fight for justice is really a fight of individuals. Justice will only be achieved if there is a “revolution of the soul” or some sort of individual moral battle. Cohen says, “Jesus would have spurned the liberal idea that the state can take care of justice for us, provided only that we obey the rules it lays down, and regardless of what we choose to do within those rules. And I believe that Jesus would have been right to spurn that idea.” The Christian conception doesn't rely on the government to fight injustice because each person is individually responsible to fight this battle. This is why you don't see as many socially conscious Christians fighting for the welfare state. They are fighting instead within their churches and within their own communities to fix the injustice in their own backyard. They don't fight for the government to feed the poor and shelter the homeless, because they see it as their personal responsibility to do this as a body of believers. There is (or at least, should be) an ethos of justice in the Christian church, and the ethos doesn't want to bother with the government (when it comes to the fight for social justice). Now this isn't true of all Christians (certainly there are Christians who also fight for government-driven justice, and there are also Christians who aren't very socially conscious at all –unfortunately). Part of this, I think, is a mistrust of the government. Why should the government take my money when I know better how to put that money to good use in my community? That is, I think, a valid point. There is an element of mismanagement (at least in the US) within the government (and lack of efficiency), that keeps many well-meaning people at bay (our lack of real control of the government doesn't help much either). I know this because in the church community that I grew up in, the attitude was something like this: it is not the job of the government to take care of the people, it is the job of the church because that is how we are called to share the love of God with our neighbors. This is why many Christians I know don't fight in the political arena; instead they fight in their own backyards.

So if we disregard Marx, then we have these two competing attitudes. One says that we should fight for a just government, and the other says we must fight to make more just-minded people. I think it's too easy to rely on the government to solve our society's problems, so in that respect I think that the Rawls route is a cop-out. It's too easy to support Rawls' route while at the same time living unjustly in your own life. However, I think there's some something missing in the Christian conception. While I whole-heartedly agree that there must be in change in society's character (which must be achieved through individual attitude transformation), I also think that it's wrong to ignore the power we (should) have over the government. If you really want to right injustice, you must both live a just life and use what power you have to ensure justice on a larger scale. For those in democracies, that means wielding your political influence to make sure our coercive government is not unjust. If everyone lived a life a personal justice, then the coercive power of the government would not be needed. However that's unlikely, so we must be prepared to fight at both the individual level and at the collective level to achieve social change. I am still uneasy about government coercion on a whole, because I think that, at least in the US, we don't have much in the way of real control over our government. But let's say we did, then we would morally obligated to use said power to achieve a more just society. Both battles must be fought, because I don't think that either can achieve its desired end alone. A just government is nothing without just citizens, and just citizens can't achieve real justice within an unjust government.

I wrote all of this mainly to sort through my own competing convictions. I have both the desire to see a revolution in our government and also a revolution in the ethos of our society. I want both, and I do a poor job in both battles. A few weeks ago I talked about the Christian stance on wealth, and I stand by my admission that I have yet to conqueror the selfish materialist in myself. At the same time, I don't even know where to begin on the political front (being unimpressed by both the Democrats and the Republicans). It's rather frustrating to read a book like Cohen's, to be caught up in his message, and to then realize that I'm a big part of the problem. I'm convicted in both senses, doing hardly anything to help realize justice on either front. But the first step is awareness, and the second is action. I'm not quite sure what my role is yet, but I'm working on it. So I want you to know that I don't write about all of this in vain, but rather to motivate myself to get out there and be a part of the solution, both as a social activist and (more importantly) as a Christ-follower.

Why I (Even Now) Am Not a Democrat

2008-03-13T13:07:00.002-06:00

The following is a guest post by my friend Mr. R.

Many thanks to Lindsey for inviting me to write this. Please bear in mind that my opinions are not necessarily hers. That is an important caveat, for I am writing bluntly and personally -- and I am writing for my own benefit as much as anybody else's.

To start with, I resent the current Republican Party. I suspect its leadership of corruption and incipient authoritarianism. I suspect its functionaries of Machiavellianism. I suspect its supporters of reactionism. I suspect its ideologues of betraying their own best principles. I suspect its Christian supporters of suppressing the better angels of their nature. (However, I do not mean to discount the integrity and good intentions of most members of the party. I see the overwhelming majority as misguided, not malicious. They include the people I love most in the world.)

It took me some time to reach this position. Once, I was a fervent supporter of the GOP. I campaigned for Republican candidates and volunteered with the local chapter of the party. That was only natural, for I belonged to a conservative evangelical family. But I made conservatism more or less my own. I often disagreed with the consensus on particular issues. And then, in the months before the Iraq War, I concluded -- independently of anyone else I knew -- that invading Iraq would be a terrible mistake. It would be a mistake from the standpoint of counterterrorism, from the standpoint of just war theory, and from the standpoint of conservative positions regarding limited government and national sovereignty. So I opposed the war, albeit reluctantly.

By the middle of 2003, it was clear that opposition to the Iraq War would not be tolerated within the GOP. The more the situation in Iraq deteriorated, the shriller and more vituperative the Right became. True, I was able to convince more and more conservative friends to join me in opposition to Bush policy. But more and more, and to my consternation, that entailed our distancing ourselves from the entire conservative movement. This, in turn, caused most of us to reevaluate our positions on other issues as well. Not necessarily because we were now more reasonable, as much as I would like to imagine so, but certainly because we found liberal thinking in general easier to understand and sympathize with than we had before.

So I now disagree with the Republican Party on many issues other than Iraq and national security. I stopped thinking of myself as a Republican years ago. But I still cannot support the Democratic Party.

In part, I refuse to consider myself a Democrat because I never lost my healthy skepticism of that party's smugness, corruption, tendency to centralize power, and tendency to threaten many of the same civil liberties that the Republicans threaten. But I could get over that sort of thing. Cynicism might keep me from investing heavily in party politics, but it would not keep me from voting for particular Democratic candidates.

No, the main problem is abortion.

I do not have the slightest desire to see the government control women's bodies, prevent contraception, stifle sexuality, or do whatever else pro-choicers think pro-lifers are up to. (Some pro-lifers probably do have that sort of agenda. I do not. Yay for condoms and yay for the Pill, as far as I'm concerned. They help prevent abortions.) And certainly, I want exceptions in the law to protect the life of the mother. But here's the problem as I see it.

If the fetus is a human individual at any stage of development, then at that stage of development, it/he/she should be protected by law. Not because of religion. Not because of sexual morality. Not because of patriarchy. Simply because of human rights. If nothing else, governments exist to protect the lives of innocent people living under their control. And the right not to be killed overrides all competing rights.

Granted, I am not convinced that the fetus counts as a human individual at all stages of development. Not believing in an incorporeal soul, I mostly look to brain function for evidence of humanness. I'm not sure when humanness emerges in the fetus. But I have never been able to escape the impression that past a certain point, the fetus in the womb is indistinguishable from the prematurely born infant outside of it. The fact that killing one is an acceptable choice, while killing the other is infanticide, seems odd. I find it hard to accept that the fetus suddenly becomes a living human by taking his or her first breath. In fact, that wouldn't even be my second choice for a threshold of aliveness or humanness.

If I ever change my mind about the humanity of the fetus, then I will have changed my mind about legal abolition in that instant. But so far, that has not happened.

So how am I supposed to reconcile myself to a candidate who wants to keep the killing legal? Especially when I'm choosing a president, who may determine (via the Supreme Court) whether the states are allowed even to regulate abortion at any stage? It would be -- and I don't believe the analogy is forced -- like voting for a candidate who wanted to keep slavery legal. There were great arguments in favor of legal slavery, too. Like the arguments I hear most often in favor of legal abortion, they skirted the question of the rights of the victim. And it's awfully hard to find a remotely pro-life Democrat to vote for.

I could keep qualifying my position all day, of course. I recognize that banning any kind of abortion would cause hardship to countless women. I realize that abortions would keep occurring thanks to courageous doctors and nurses, both at home and abroad, as well as to home remedies, back-alley butchers, and, in all likelihood, exasperated police officials and nullifying juries. And I recognize that a truly effective solution to the problem of abortion will require both a cultural change and a social safety net, not just a legal change. But all of that would be analogous to the situation in the South after slavery was technically outlawed. It does not change the government's obligation to try to protect the lives of the innocent.

My life would be more pleasant if I could get over my abortion hangup. It would make politics look a lot less tragic and a lot more fun, of course. It would allow me to support Amnesty International again, which I would love to do. It would also help me fit in a bit more in my present social circumstances. These days, the peer pressure -- which is very strong right now -- is almost all coming from the Democratic side of the aisle. But I cannot, in good conscience, vote for any consistently pro-choice candidate to fill an office to which that view matters.

Radical Teaching makes the news!

2008-03-11T12:18:00.003-06:00

My mom and Denise have made the news for the revolution they've been leading in their 8th grade classrooms (using Choice Theory). Holler back. Check out the article here.

From the article: "North Shore is like many middle schools in its search for new ways to motivate students to learn, Principal Dale Fisher said. Choice theory attempts to transfer that motivation from external forces, such as badgering or cajoling by teachers, to internal ones by teaching students why they should push themselves in school."

If you're wondering what her classroom looks like, check out her teaching blog here.

Prosperity Gospel

2008-03-06T09:40:00.002-06:00

Via TC, here is a video from John Piper. I don't know much about Piper or his ministry, so I have no basis on which to evaluate his theology (sauf what I can learn at wikipedia), but his video is interesting --to say the least. It's obviously made to stir up emotions, using the video medium to its fullest (less substance, more outrage)... but he does have a point. And it's one that I explored awhile back. Is it okay for Christians to be wealthy? Or more importantly, is the point of Christianity to acquire blessings (money, health, and prosperity). I'll agree with Piper that this should never be the point of following Christ. God is not a vending machine, and the "Prosperity Gospel" is going too far (cf, the craziness going down in Nigerian churches). But I still think there's something to be said about being entrusted as a steward of blessings. Anyway, watch the video. And, if you are out there (whoever may be reading, one never knows), I would love to know your thoughts (be you a fellow Christian or otherwise). Here it is:

I think it's worth it to read this from CT. It's about the rise of the Prosperity Gospel in Nigeria. It's almost frightening, like the PG is the "Christian" version of that stupid book The Secret (I meant to post my thoughts on that before, but it annoys me too much...maybe later).

The line I found the most intriguing: "[The PG] is elevating gifts above the Giver."

What do you think?

Religion and Respect

2008-02-24T16:19:00.015-06:00

I've just read this article by Simon Blackburn, about respect and religion. Blackburn address the question: “Why should I respect belief systems that I do not share?” He concludes that, in fact, he does not have to respect belief systems that he disagrees with. Not too long ago, I think I would have agreed with Blackburn on this. Now, though, I think I was, and he is, wrong about this. This is a question that I grappled with earlier this year (in the context of religion in schools). I wondered whether it was even possible to respect other people's beliefs. My initial response was no, I can't really respect other beliefs (if they are too far from my own), and this was mainly due to the fact that I wouldn't be able to fully understand a belief system that was too foreign to me. I thought respect , in the important sense (beyond toleration), required a level of understanding that could only be reached by actually agreeing with that person. Blackburn's article has changed my mind, surprisingly enough.

Blackburn recognizes a spectrum of respect that can range from mere toleration (live and let live), to admiration or esteem, to reverence. Basic respect, or toleration, is easy enough. But can you really respect someone's belief system in a thicker sense if you don't yourself agree with that belief system? Blackburn says no, because he can't bring himself to respect (in a deeper sense, though not the deepest sense) a person who holds a false belief. Blackburn says,

“We can respect, in the minimal sense of tolerating, those who hold false beliefs. We can pass by on the other side. We need not be concerned to change them, and in a liberal society we do not seek to suppress them or silence them. But once we are convinced that a belief is false, or even just that it is irrational, we cannot respect in any thicker sense those who hold it—not on account of their holding it. We may respect them for all sorts of other qualities, but not that one. We would prefer them to change their minds.” (emphasis mine)

I want to draw your attention to the text in bold. This is where I take issue with Blackburn's stance. Blackburn cannot respect a person who holds a false belief, because he operates under the assumption that if someone believes something different than he does, then she must be wrong. Blackburn targets this criticism mainly towards religious people, because he, obviously, is an atheist. He believes that his atheism is correct, and he has every right to believe that. However, he misses the point of respect here. Respect does not equal “agreeing with” someone. Of course your atheism leads you to believe that my belief in God is false, but it does not follow that my belief actually is false. And this is the crucial part. It is because of our fallibility that we should respect opposing beliefs held by others. Blackburn could be right, God might not exist. But he could be wrong. He believes he's right, and I believe he's wrong. It is a belief, and none of us is infallible. Because we cannot know, we have a compelling reason to give some credence to other belief systems. This is where respect comes in. Part of respecting someone with opposing beliefs is recognizing that you might be wrong and she may very well be right. It's about having some humility in the way you treat another person, because you can't assume that you are infallible. That's not to say that you don't strongly believe that you are right, it just means you accept the humbling fact that you can't really be sure.

Personally, I respect a person (and the part of that person) who I think legitimately came to believe what she did, or is being sincere and honest about what she believes and for what reasons she believes. That sort of belief I can respect, regardless of whether or not I agree with it. It's the type of respect I have for my atheist and agnostic friends. I don't agree with them, but I don't have to. I recognize that they have some good reasons to believe what they do (even if those reasons doesn't sway my own beliefs). That's the type of respect that is important to have. It's about appreciating how a person came to have her set of beliefs, and how she lives out those beliefs. Is she being honest with herself? Is she living out her beliefs with integrity? That is what counts.

Granted this leaves open the possibility that I won't respect the belief systems of some people. Whether I agree with their beliefs or not, if I don't think they hold those beliefs for legitimate reasons or with intellectual honesty, then I can't (and shouldn't have to) respect them. It's also why I have a hard time respecting some militant atheists and extreme Christian fundamentalists. There's a lack of humility in the way some of them hold their beliefs that makes me uneasy, regardless of whether I agree with said beliefs. This lack of humility will undoubtedly affect their willingness to engage in reasonable and open discussions with persons holding opposing beliefs, a willingness that is at the foundation of the sort of respect I'm getting at here.

So I guess what this amounts to is that I used to think I couldn't fully respect (in the esteem sense) someone I disagreed with. I now think that I can, and for many people, I think I should.

update: This post is really just a rough outline of my intuitions, so I encourage you to check out Harry's post here for more thoughts on this topic.

and yet another update: In light of comments appearing at CT, I thought I'd add some more thoughts (that also appear in the comment thread, but I'll put here anyways).

John M writes at comment #13 that you can't truly respect a person and allow them to continue to hold what you think are false beliefs. I think he has a point, but only to a certain degree. I think you have a good reason to engage with the person about her beliefs, show her where you think she is false, discuss where she thinks you are false, and overall try to learn something from each other. I don't think you have to be on a mission to make them change their beliefs. Admittedly, I, and many Christians, do try to persuade others to believe in God (because we believe that we hold a true belief, laugh all you want). In the same way, Harry also engages with Christians (or at least me) about my beliefs, making it clear why he doesn’t believe and that he's genuinely interested in why I do. He’s not bothered if I don’t change my mind (in the end), but he does engage my beliefs nevertheless. So in that sense, reasonably discussing our different opinions is our way of both understanding and respecting each others beliefs, and I suppose in our way we are each trying to show each other why we believe the other holds a false belief. But that doesn’t amount to an outright campaign to change each other’s minds.

I don’t think that you can both respect someone’s belief and ignore it (or merely tolerate it). Real respect, in my opinion, requires you to treat that belief as one that is worthy of both consideration and critique. If you didn’t respect it, you wouldn’t bother to critique it. Whether you care if the person actually changes her mind is not the same as treating her belief as something that is worthy to be evaluated (for both its merits and shortcomings).

Brian W writes at comment #15 that I'm misreading Blackburn's stance. He doesn't think Blackburn is being too harsh in affirming the falsehood of religious beliefs. He says this, I think (though I'm not quite sure), because that assertion isn't necessarily an admission of infallibility. I suppose that's true. I often claim X, when I'm not completely certain of X. But if I only claim X when I am completely certain about X, then I doubt I'll ever be able to claim much at all. Point taken (I think?). But I do think there's more of a disagreement there than my uncharitable reading of Blackburn's position.

Blackburn's article came off to me (and I think, to Harry, though he can comment on that himself), as though he was not only claiming his inability to respect religious beliefs, but also that he was basing that lack of respect on the falsehood of those beliefs. He just said they were false, plain and simple. There was no "I believe (strongly) that such beliefs are false." This attitude was pervasive throughout the article, and it was easily recognizable in the sense that I’ve come across it all too often (not least among Christians, and yes, even at Crooked Timber --think the comment section). It’s the idea that I can’t respect you because you just are wrong, when in reality you don’t respect them because you think they are wrong. You may, as Harry said, be “very-close-to-certain” that you are right, but that’s quite different from being completely certain. Perhaps this has no effect on how we should evaluate each other’s beliefs per se, but having this sort of humility does enable the process of respect formation. Because I am aware that I could be wrong, I find it easier to engage with and appreciate your (opposing) beliefs. I think that a lack of this sort of humility is a block to respecting others. That doesn’t mean you and I can’t draw conclusions, even fairly close to certain conclusions (as we all do), but it does mean we have to at least approach opposing view points with a different sort of attitude. Maybe you don’t think that’s important, but I think it is precisely because I see humility as a key to respect. If I was completely convinced in my own infallibility, then I would not bother to even consider opposing beliefs, because it would be a non-question. And perhaps Blackburn doesn’t have this attitude, but after reading the article, he could’ve fooled me.

Further down someone remarked that I give atheists automatic respect, and that clearly misses the mark. I will respect your atheism when you show me why you hold it and how you live by it. Many (militant) atheists forfeit their respect because they can’t be bothered to do just that (and the same goes for the more militant brands of fundamentalism). Respect is not the default. It is earned. I'm still not clear on how, though I think Harry did a fine job of outlining what might be going on there.

Someone else asked why we should bother with respect at all. Well, we do live in a pluralistic society. If you and I want to coexist, we have to figure out just how that’s going to work. We may, upon thoughtful collaboration, discover some surprising similarities and agree on some policies, etc. But this stage is hard to reach without the type of respect I’m getting at. Also, fwiw, the type of respect that Harry and I have for each other’s beliefs has, surprisingly, helped me navigate my own beliefs. Because I respect what (and how) he believes what he does, and because he respectfully engages my beliefs (not without pointing me to where he thinks I’ve got it wrong, mind you), I have a better sense of what I believe and why. My beliefs have a more solid foundation than before because his respect led me to further examine and reexamine what I believed. This could have resulted in me giving up my beliefs, and for those who care, it did result in my giving up my strange sort of political conservatism to embrace a more socialist-oriented outlook.

However, in the case of God our discussions have served to strengthen my beliefs. I'm certain this was not Harry's purpose, at least I don't think, and perhaps you’d see that as a disadvantage to respect. Of course the outcome would be different for each person depending on just why they believe what they do and whether those reasons hold up to further scrutiny. Again, my respect for Harry (and for his disbelief) has made me more responsible with my own beliefs, and that, I think, is an advantage of this type of respect.

Sneaky Christians or Reasonable Pluralists?

2008-02-20T10:09:00.005-06:00

So here's an interesting post over at TC. For the most part the post is about the ID movement (and how ID is just a backdoor way of teaching creationism). The broader question, and the more interesting question, is how this sort of technique is employed in other debates by Christians. Here's a bit from the post:

Go to many Christian websites or books about abortion and you’ll find a lot of arguments about why abortion is a dangerous procedure, can cause health complications in women, can lead to emotional problems for women, etc. These arguments are legitimate, but the real reason that Christians are worked up is not that they’re concerned about the health risks of abortion—it’s that they believe abortion is morally wrong and against God’s will. They just don’t dare phrase it like that.... I see something similar in the way a lot of Christians talk about premarital sex. They’re against it, and have a load of good reasons why: it’s unsafe, it can result in disease, it can produce children you’re not ready for, it can be emotionally damaging—all good reasons, but lurking behind them is the real reason: God.

So my question is: are these tactics employed because Christians are too cowardly to be honest about their real reason (God) OR are these tactics used because a pluralistic society necessitates them? I don't doubt that often times we, as Christians, talk about the "other" reasons not to do things like have pre-marital sex instead of just outright saying "because God says not to" because we are afraid to be honest. But, cowardliness aside, I still don't think it's a bad thing to do. Actually, I think it's what Christians should be doing when we discuss our moral principles in the public arena.

Why should Christians leave God out of the discussion? Well for one, our moral foundation makes sense (and has authority) only to us. We are supposed to hold fellow believers accountable to living up to the belief system that we hold, but we can't expect a non-believer to also comply with our beliefs. That's not to say that God won't hold them to his own standards, it's just to say that we have no right to ourselves. But, and here's the great part, God tends to give us his commands for a good reason. Like the whole no-pre-martial-sex thing, well there are some damn good reasons to follow that command (emotional, health, avoid pregnancy, etc). So yes, maybe as a Christian you won't have sex before marriage because God said not too, but if you still believe its important for others to do likewise, then you can explain how, even without God in the equation, it's still better not to mess around before you're ready. That's not to say this is true of all of God's commands, but for the most part you can pretty easily see why God would want us to stay away from certain activities. If you can see why God would want you to avoid certain activites, then you can explain that to a non-believer and they may even come to agree with you.

Why do I think being able to explain why is so important? Well for starters, we cannot and should not enforce our beliefs on other people (in so far as they are not harming anyone other than themselves). God allows us to choose if we want to follow him, and we have to let each other choose if we want to follow him. You can't force God onto somebody, and you can't force his commands on them either. Jesus didn't overthrow the Roman government. He did what he was supposed to do and he let society at large decide for itself. Why? Because you can't legislate love for God. It can't be done. The Puritans tried it, the medieval Church tried it, and it just doesn't work. People will always have to make that choice for themselves.

And then there's this whole reasonable pluralism thing. In a democratic society, you can expect to have a fair amount of disagreement, esp about what the foundation of a good life really is. The disagreement is pretty much unavoidable. So to make such a society function, it's members literally have to agree to disagree about certain things. But they don't have to stop there. They can disagree about moral foundations, but still agree about overall principles, or better yet, policies, that are derived from those foundations. They may not be able to agree on these, but they must try if they are going to coexist in the same society. The must let each other choose for themselves and then they must figure out how to get along after those choices are made. The best way to reach agreement, therefore, is by figuring out what you do agree on and building from there. So maybe you don't believe in God, fine, but do you believe in (insert alternative reason)? There is enough consensus on overarching moral standards (killing is usually bad, life is worth keeping and living to its fullest, children need to be taken care of, etc) that regardless of the base that they come from, you can agree on something. If Christians want to participate in this discussion, I hate to say it, but using "the Bible says so" will not get you very far. But it's not the end of the world! God knows if/why you are living the way you do, and He sees your effort to contribute to society. So simmer down and concentrate on how you can serve people instead of picking fights with them....

Don't hate the saints...

2008-02-19T11:27:00.004-06:00

I've just read this paper on Moral Saints by Professor Wolf at UNC- Chapel Hill. It's not exactly recent, but still pretty good, and here's my attempt at dissecting it. First off there's the thesis that moral sainthood is not the ideal you would think it is. A moral saint, she claims, is a person who forgoes their own interests (or whose happiness depends upon) serving the interests of others. The moral saint will always choose to serve others over herself, whether she does so happily (the Loving Saint) or out of duty (the Rational Saint). Naturally, such a person is likely to be lacking in certain nonmoral virtues, such as well-roundedness and pursuit of fulfilling personal potential in various ways (music, relationships, athletics, etc). According to Wolf, the moral saint lacks such nonmoral virtues because the pursuit of said virtues is likely to conflict with the interests of others. Without such extra-qualities, the picture of the moral saint begins to look less rosy. Nevermind the objection that we would most likely find such a saint to be vexing or obnoxious (in the best way of course), for the saint's own sake it would be preferable for her to serve herself every now and then.

(As an aside, about the brief objection above: Of course, this objection is more likely fueled by some sort of envy rather than substance. It's likely that you wouldn't get on well with someone who has achieved "moral sainthood" because of your own inability to be as saintly as the person in question (and that, of course, cannot hold much philosophical weight as far as objections go). I find swimmers like Ian Thorpe rather annoying, but my envy at his natural athletic ability doesn't diminish the awesomeness of his accomplishments, nor should it make my goal of becoming as fast as him (I wish) any less worthy of a goal.)

Now at first this article struck me as a bit off, precisely because I have always assumed that moral sainthood is an admirable goal (though I highly doubt our ability to achieve it). The article claims (quite convincingly) that it's not that great a goal after all, but I shan't give up that easily. So let's start by taking a closer look at Wolf's picture of moral sainthood.

According to Wolf, a moral saint is, essentially, any "person whose every action is as morally good as possible... a person who is as morally worthy as can be." Okay, that's a good start. But what qualifies as being "as morally good as possible"? That will obviously depend quite heavily on the moral theory to which one subscribes. A utilitarian, for example, will always pursue the maximum net happiness, whereas the Kantian will always act on moral principles that should be universal. There are two ways in which this picture of sainthood, under either ethical theory, begins to look grim.

The lesser problem is the commitment to determining what is, in fact, the moral thing to do. Moral decisions are not always easy (esp if you are trying to make the best moral decision, not just a good enough one). Wolf calls this the problem of having "one thought too many." In other words, the person would end up spending an excessive amount of time trying to decide what to do, and that time could be better spent do something else. I can see how in the actual world this objection has quite a bit of sway, but I don't think it holds so well in the ideal world (and I'm allowed to bring this up because of the next objection). I say this because you could argue that a real moral saint wouldn't have to try so hard (that it would just come naturally), in which case it needn't be an obsession or waste of time, but rather the natural behavior of the saint. But, matters, the next objection is the important one.

So the real problem is that the moral saint must be lacking in many good nonmoral virtues if she is truly be as morally good as possible (even if this is in the ideal world and she does it all by second nature). Why? Well for starters, if she is more concerned about others than herself, then developing her own person is not likely to be one of her goals, at least in so far as developing her own skills and desires takes time or resources that could be going to someone else. Wolf acknowledges that perhaps self-development could be seen as a way to better help others (becoming a surgeon or something, probably not a philosopher though...), but that doesn't solve the problem that the moral saint is limited from pursuing the type of self-enrichment activities that we consider good for their own sake. If being a moral saint means that you can't pursue things that we consider good, then perhaps the goal of being perfectly morally isn't such a great goal after all. Wolf has a point. There is a tension between perfectly serving others and living a well-rounded life. So what's a saint to do?

Well I think there a two possible ways out of this jam. Both will require an altered perspective of what constitutes moral behavior and what scope morality really does have over the saint's life. The first solution is to ask why the saint must consider her own life after or below the lives of others. I'm fairly certain that most moral theories would at least put the life of the agent on par or equal with the lives of others, certainly not beneath. That being said, you could argue that the saint not only has a responsibility to help promote the wellbeing of others, but also her own wellbeing. In fact, you could go so far as to say that each person has a duty first to develop or work towards her own wellbeing, if only because that is the most efficient way of starting the whole "well-being protection" process, because each agent can do the most to help herself, and since she ought to use her power to help people, and her own self is included in people, and she's in such a great position to help herself, then she needn't deny herself her own attention (at least not to a reasonable degree). You could even say she is morally obligated to at least do what she can for herself, because if no one did, then everyone would be the worse off and no one would be helped at all. So if there's some moral obligation to help yourself, then within limits, this would be part of the morally best course of action and wouldn't diminish but rather would increase the moral worthiness of the saint. So this route says that the saint should at least give herself as much attention as she gives to others, which may open the door for her to pursue nonmoral virtues.

Another route (along the same lines) would be to outright claim that we have a specific duty to make the most of our own lives (again, within reason and with limits --and no, I won't outline any here, sorry, but I will acknowledge that this needs clarification). You could draw a bit on the thought process in the previous paragraph and appeal to our unique position to help and develop our own selves. This unique position demands action, because no one else can do for us what we can do for ourselves. No one else can live your life, and it's up to you to make your life worth living. You have a responsibility to do so. Is it a moral responsibility? Morality is a code of conduct, right? And part of conduct is how your take care of and develop yourself. Now I'm not advocating selfishness or every man for himself, but I am making a claim that perhaps we have moral duties to ourselves before we have moral duties to others, namely because we can do more for ourselves than others can do for us. Stupid example: I have to feed myself everyday. If I decide not to bother, then I can't really be upset that I'm starving. Other people could feed me, and that'd be great, but it's sort of wrong to make them feed me if I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself. Now if I wasn't able to feed myself (for whatever reason, maybe physical or financial or something), then okay, I may rely on help from others. Do you see what I mean? The moral saint need not completely neglect her own life in order to serve the interests of others because her life is just as important as theirs and there are things she can do for herself that others can't, so she has a duty to pay special attention to her own life.

Now that's fairly obvious on the "how we actually live" scene, but it's not that obvious we think of the perfectly moral person. Sometimes our idea of the moral saint is someone who devalues her own life to the point of ridiculousness. But she needn't do that, because it wouldn't be very morally praiseworthy to value a life less than others, even if that life is her own. Now this is a far cry from an argument that the moral saint can pursue Russian literature or her passion for the oboe, but it's a start. There's something to the idea that we ought to live a life as full as we can. Why? Maybe because life is a "gift" (for the less spiritually inclined, you can say that you only have this one chance and you're lucky you have it so try to make the best of it). If being well-rounded is valuable, and if morality is essentially a code of conduct that would be put forth by rational persons (SEP), and if rational persons pursue what is valuable, then why not? I see no reason why the saint shouldn't be able to pursue what Wolf labeled "nonmoral" virtues. I actually think she may have a moral duty to do so. So I guess what I'm saying is that wasting your life is, essentially, immoral.

Now I can't help myself, so here's what I see to be the Christian perspective on the moral sainthood quandary. I think that God gave us this life as a gift, and He wants us to use it and reach the potential that He created in each of us. You know the parable of the talents? The master entrusted each servant with some money, and he praised the servants that took what he gave them and made the most of it. He praised the good stewards of his blessings. If you squander your talent or natural gifts, then you're not living up to the potential God created in you, and that's not exactly a moral victory. Of course the greatest thing you can do is to fulfill your potential in such a way that you give back to others in the process. We should use our potential to serve God, and in that sense you have a win-win. You can have both a rich life full of all the blessings God has given you and still turn those blessing back to those around you in service. Moral saints need not be boring and dull with empty lives. Far from it. But of course, it all turns on what you take to be morally required. I just think our moral responsibility is not to everyone other than ourselves, but rather we are responsible first to God and He wants us to live up to what He has planned for us, and then we turn that over in service to others.

So I guess that was all to say that I think moral sainthood is a worthy goal, however hard it is to achieve. The end. :)

Bible thumping Ephod worshipers

2008-02-14T02:58:00.004-06:00

Update: I've been getting a lot of traffic from google for people looking up what an ephod is. If that's you, this post won't be very helpful (though perhaps somewhat). This post doesn't have a historical description or explanation; it's more like a critique on how we misuse the Bible (in the way that the Isrealites misused the ephod). Hope that helps.

Via TC, I came across this powerful article by Darin Hufford over at Ooze. Essentially, the article is about how we have exchanged God for the Bible, and we glorify the Bible in such a way that God is almost out of the picture completely. Darin is a Biblical scholar who can't seem to understand why the modern church (and modern Christians) have fetishized the Bible. He uses this example from the OT:

At the end of Gideon's "deliverance career" the Israelites wanted to make him their king. Gideon refused, and said that instead of becoming their king he would like them to each bring him a gold ear ring from the plunder. Everyone brought a portion of gold and Gideon melted it down and made a "golden Ephod". The Ephod was the vest that the priests put on when they entered the Holy of Holies. In the pocket of the Ephod were the lots, which were used when they "caste lots" in order to determine God's will in a certain situation. When the priest entered the temple wearing the golden Ephod, he could actually hear the voice of God audibly. You might remember one time when King David told the priests to "bring him the golden Ephod". David put it on and went into the temple to ask God whether or not he should attack the Amalakites. David heard the audible voice of God tell him to attack.

The story of Gideon goes on to say that after the golden Ephod was made, "all of Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping the Ephod". Think of that for a moment. They actually worshiped the way in which to determine God's will over worshiping God Himself. The story later goes on to say that it became a snare to Gideon and his family.

So what does this have to do with the Bible? One of the things we are taught about the Bible is that it is the way in which to determine the will of God. I believe that just as the Israelites prostituted themselves after the golden Ephod, modern day Christians do the exact same with the Bible. We have prostituted ourselves after the Bible and there is no doubt in my mind that it has become a thorn and a snare to almost every Christian in America. In fact I think many Christians have actually traded God for the Bible. Many others have even come to the point where they think God IS the Bible! I truly believe that the Bible has become the "golden Ephod" of our time. (emphasis mine)

I think he has a point here. There is a difference between using the Bible as tool or a guide versus making it an object of worship. He goes on to say that our attitude towards the Bible is not only unbiblical (if you'll excuse the irony) but is a horrible snare to having a genuine relationship with God. He says, "Most of the things we are taught about the Bible are found nowhere in the Bible; they come from a religious spirit that seeks to whittle people down to a spiritual nub in an effort to gain control over their minds. Without a doubt, this wonderful book has been used to cuff the spirits of millions of sincere hearted people who honestly want to connect with God's Heart."

Now before I continue let me add that both the author and I are on the same page about the importance of the Bible. While it's important to remember (and act) like the Bible is a tool from God, not god itself, it's also important to delve into all that the Bible has to offer about God's interaction with people over time. It's there for a reason: to help us understand more about God and our purpose and grow as believers. But it is not the end all be all of one's spiritual life. Reading the Bible everyday does not replace genuine communion with God. The Bible is NOT God. Consequently, we do not have to be so jumpy to defend the Bible. If the Bible is God, and if the Bible has errors or inconsistencies, then yeah, there's a problem. But the Bible is not, nor will it ever be, God. The Bible is supposed to be a helpful guide, a reference book, but not the obstacle that keeps people from growing in their faith. This point in the article is rather poignant:

I understand that most of us have never stopped to think about these things, but if you step back and take an honest look at the landscape of our religion, I think you'll be surprised at how right I am. The American Christian system has wholeheartedly exchanged God for the Bible! This is precisely why so many sincere hearted people go into a full fledged panic attack the moment anyone suggests that there might be errors or discrepancies in the Bible. Most Christians will outright tell you that to even entertain such a thought is blasphemy. Because we have made the "God exchange" we have to insist that the Bible now takes on the attributes of God Himself. This is why it is imperative that everyone believe the Bible is infallible. It is equally grieving to my heart when I hear people say things like, "If there is even one thing wrong in the Bible, our entire faith is worthless". Their entire existence as a Christian stands on the belief that there are no errors in Scripture. If they were to be shown a true discrepancy in Scripture that could not be explained away, it would literally cause their entire religion to come caving in on them. I've heard people openly admit, "If you can't believe it all, you can't believe any of it". Their entire faith stands on Scripture instead of Christ. Make no mistake about it, there has been an exchange of monumental proportions! (emphasis mine)

It's sad really. I'll be the first to admit that the Bible has done a tremendous amount of good in my life, but I will also admit that I often make this switch for God and Bible. It's just so much easier to have something concrete, something I can actually see and touch and read. It's my Ephod. What was a tool for helping discern God's will becomes God to me. Let me flip to this chapter and see if I can't answer my own question. No luck? God, why didn't you put that in there? Or, even better, I (knowing enough of the Bible) flip to the section that I know in advance will confirm my own desire. If you go back to my recent post on wealth, you'll see that on both sides of the wealth argument there is scripture. Because you see, the Bible is not God, it is from Him (I really believe), but it is not Him. But if you think it is Him, then you can go to whatever verse fits your desires and hold it up as a banner testifying to God's approval of your choice. Not so my friends. You know who else used to do this? The Pharisees:

We are no different in this generation from the Pharisees in Jesus' day. They had a very similar view of their Old Testament scriptures. Jesus confronted them and said, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." (John 5:39-40). The Pharisees were making the same trade that millions of Christians have made today. Another point about this passage is that Jesus clearly makes a distinction between "studying the Scriptures" and "coming to Him".

So I guess the point of this post is a warning. The Bible is not a replacement for God in the same way that just going to church on Sundays does not replace an actual relationship with Him. The Bible and fellowship together are great things, but they are not the thing. Remember that. And next time you get all riled up about thumping that Bible over somebody's head, remember that God never intended the Bible to become a beating stick. It is for edification, but NOT division, driving seekers away, or cherry-picking verses. Remember that.

Okay I was going to end there, but I've just read through some of the comments over at TC and I can't help but add some more thoughts. Some of the commentators are worried that the attitude promoted in Darin's article will lead people to disregard the Bible entirely. Now, obviously, Darin will be the first to admit (and he does early in his article) that he truly believes the Bible is God-inspired and God-given for us to use and learn from. That much we all agree on. The question isn't whether or not the Bible has truths for our lives, it's what status or value we give the Bible itself. We call the Bible the "Word of God" but the Bible doesn't call itself the "Word of God" because it wasn't even complied until much later. The Bible calls Jesus, not the Scriptures, the Word of God. We are the ones calling the Bible by Jesus' name, but it does not call itself that. We DO know, however, that even Jesus used and believed in the Scripture (after all, the Scripture is what he came to fulfill), but remember, the devil too cited scripture while trying to ensnare Jesus. The Bible can be used for good (as Jesus did in the desert) or for bad. God can not be used for good or bad, he just is good. So obviously they are not interchangeable. That means we must use the Bible with caution, remembering that inevitably we come to it with our own baggage and narrow interpretations. It is a good thing. But again, it is not the thing. We all know how to get what we want out of the Bible, but we mustn't do that and we must use it with care and humility. It is not a beating stick. It is not God. Yes, Jesus used scripture, and yes it is really important. But, that's all the more reason to come at it with care and to use it for constructive purposes. After all, this is what it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

God-breathed, not God. Equipping us for good work. So let's do some.

Changing the Game

2008-02-07T03:05:00.000-06:00

I've recently stumbled upon a new blog, Gender, Race and Philosophy, and in particular this post about Obama's political vision. Personally, I've never been interested in politics, but that's mostly because I don't think the game is played well. Politics, in the US, is usually some sort of media-hyped hardball. Without fail, in every election one of the candidates initiates the game of hardball, and the others follow suit for fear of letting the other candidate get ahead. The game escalates, and madness ensues. It's not the meaningful politics that we should be participating in, but rather another version of bad reality tv (which I watch a lot of, so I should know). The post reminded me of a paper I wrote last year in reaction to a chapter in Galston's The Practice of Liberal Pluralism. So here are some of my further thoughts on the matter, in conjecture with GRP's wonderful insight on this year's campaign.

I hate to sum up Galston unfairly in a paragraph or two, but this is a blog, so I haven't much choice. I'll preface this by saying that this is how Galston's argument seemed to me, so if it's not as charitable as you'd like, well I'm sorry. This is primarily about Galston's chapter on political toughness. Essentially, he recognizes that there are certain valuable goals of the government, and the leaders that are able to achieve such goals need possess a certain toughness (roughly construed), firstly to gain a position of power and secondly to put those goals to work while in power. Toughness is the balance between squeamishness and callousness, wishfulness and cynicism, and innocence and calculating. The right balance of on these three spectrums will achieve some toughness equilibrum whereby the politician can "contemplate the performance of intrinsically distasteful and objectionable acts, but only at the right time and in the right manner.” Fair enough. Certainly life is full of trade-offs, and you don't have to be Machiavelli to occasionally sacrifice a principle or two for the sake of more important principles or demands. However, Galston applies this toughness to the race for power in a way that, to me, defeats the whole purpose of a deliberative government.

He assumes that democratic politicians have a responsibility to act on the behalf of others in the pursuit of ends “that others have a good reason to expect him to pursue." These ends are likely to include the minimization of summum malum, the underlying purpose of the political system as a whole. To be a politician, you must take this responsibility seriously and act accordingly, even if that includes employing disagreeable means. In addition, your tactics must be shaped according to how the world actually is, not just how you think the world should be. Adjusting to the world as it is, according to Galston, includes considering the decisions of your opponents. Accordingly, if your adversary initiates a game of “hardball” (the use of disagreeable, but not utterly reprehensible, tactics to achieve an end), then you are obligated to play hardball as well. You must use similar distasteful tactics because they are the only effective means to win and hold power in our society as it is. However, playing hardball in the political arena condones the existence of the game in the first place. By playing the game, the leader essentially accepts the rules by which the game is played. Also, if politicians make use of underhanded tactics routine, then the public becomes desensitized to these tactics. They begin to see such means as acceptable and normal, which in turn makes it harder for a politician to opt out of the game. The game has become a routine and anticipated feature of the political system. Moreover, continual use of such tactics usually leads to the escalation of the distasteful tactics employed. As the game progresses, the only effective strategy is an increased use of disagreeable means. The truly balanced political leader should find it difficult to use such means, and it should be noted that this difficulty increases as the need to use such tactics increases. Eventually, the game will change from hardball to “dirtyball,” where the means are not only disagreeable but also unacceptable. In such a case, the leader’s moral balance is lost. This, to me, is unacceptable.

American politics is a prime example of this cycle. The public no longer sees the initial purpose of the government, because they've been bombarded by this game that the politicians play, a game that has nothing to do with what's really at stake. When the game becomes bigger than the needs of society (with the "good of society" as a banner for the game itself), then it's time to change the game. That's where this post on Obama comes in. Essentially, Hillary sees the tactics of the right and she reacts. By reacting, she perpetuates the game as it is currently played. Her mentality is that to win you must get in that arena with your opponents (the attack dogs), which means she must become one herself. Obama's vision (I won't comment on his implemenation of said vision) is to abstain from the game. He wants a new game with new rules, where genuine debate and deliberation are the keys to a successful government (and campaign, for that matter).

GRP says:

"Why should progressives take Obama's metapolitics seriously? Two reasons. One is that it is an attempt to transform the political culture. That is, to break with the Clintonian style of responding reactively to the attack dog mode of Republican politics that aggressively sides with allies against enemies. The reactive Clintonian style simply reproduces this mode. The short hand for Obama's critique of this mode: "they are willing to say anything to win." The key idea, however, is that poltical culture should be geared less to the ally/enemy distinction and more to the idea that, the diversity of the polity notwithstanding, ordinary, democratically energized Americans can mobilize/debate their way towards common understandings of the common good." (emphasis mine)

And that's just it. I think toughness, as promoted by Galston, is Clinton's strategy. But all of this toughness is blinding everyone to the real reason for the game in the first place, and I hope our political culture can actually transform into something worthwhile. I'm not sure if Obama can do it, but at least he's trying (or says he is).

I leave you with this last bit from GRP:

"A successful transformation of the political culture along these lines (which Obama compares to Reagan's transformation of American political culture--an analogy that Hillary has gone out of her way deliberately to misrepresent) may be needed for the establishment of an enduring progressive coalition (in Obama's words--democrats, independents, and some Republicans) that, rather than constantly react to and compromise with post-Reagan Republican ideas (an important part of Bill Clinton's legacy, as is evident, e.g., in the compromise over welfare reform), articulates in new terms (talk of common sense and of a common good) a new progressive agenda. The insistence, in short, that overcoming a reactive political style is the indispensable first step moving towards the articulation of a nonreactive, progressive political agenda." (emphasis mine)

So there you have it. Maybe if the game gets a makeover then I won't loathe it so much. Maybe.

More on Wealth

2008-01-18T00:16:00.000-06:00

After writing up the post on wealth a few days ago, I've come across a few more discussions here and here. The first one is an article via Boundless (a focus on the family website, who'd have thought, right?), and the other is a response on Think Christian. It's good to see this issue being talked about, as it's usually the rather big elephant in the church. Not many pastors want to wake up their congregations to the simple truth that they are privileged and not doing enough to help those who aren't. And truth be told, I need to hear this message as many times as it can be told. So there you have it.

Philosophy in schools

2008-01-14T04:36:00.000-06:00

I stumbled upon this short article today from Thoughts, Arguments and Rants . It's about the rise in popularity of philosophy in Scottish schools. That brought me joy. But it also reminded me of how that's far from probable in the US. I would love for elementary-high school age kids to learn philosophy (and so, I'm sure, would some of them), but there are so many obstacles to that ever happening (not least of which is the lack of teachers comfortable with or qualified to teach it). The only high school philosophy class I've ever heard of in the US has been at a private religious high school. But, you never know....

(If my year in a French high school has taught me anything, it has taught me that I couldn't spend the rest of my life teaching high schoolers... so alas, I could not switch career paths and try to become a high school philosophy teacher...)

Some notes on wealth, comparisons, and grace

2008-01-13T05:56:00.000-06:00

Let me start by saying that you should go listen to this message from Pastor Chris (it's the Jan 6th one). That's the basis for this post, and you'd be better off listening to his message than reading the rest of this. But should you decide to read on anyway, let me begin by saying something along the lines of what Pastor Chris said. You have every right to be suspicious of me, an affluent American with a college education and an internet connection, being in any position to speak about poverty and need. I openly admit that I have been blessed beyond belief, and I know that it's a very cushy armchair that I'm speaking from. But, suspicions aside, the issue itself is still worth writing about. So although I'm not a reliable source, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm one of the stingiest people I know, I think the message is important enough for me to write about it anyway (and I think by doing so I can at least start to get better myself).

So here's the problem: we are wealthy. More specifically, you are wealthy. Yes, you. If you have the time and ability to read this blog, you are wealthy. And what's more, throughout the world there are a great deal of people who are not. By great deal, I mean a shocking majority. In Chris's message he said that (and I forget his source) if the current ratios were reduced to only 100 people, then only one of them would have a college education. Now I'm not assuming that you do have a college education. I only remember that specific statistic because I didn't quite believe it. Chris described this scenario where you imagined turning the typical American family into one living in a shantytown (of sorts). The imagined family had only $5 to it's name. He then proceeded to describe the typical churchgoer who, upon hearing the wealth/poverty sermon, leaves Church rather offended and somewhat angry. This churchgoer thinks to herself, "Sure, there are a lot of wealthy people (even at our Church), but I am not one of them. They are wealthy; I'm barely getting by." She then gets into her car and drives to Starbucks where she buys over $5 worth of coffee and pastries. She has just spent more money at Starbucks then the imagined family has to it's name. She is wealthy. We are wealthy. You are wealthy.

Now this situation is not uncommon (the angry churchgoer). I often feel (during these sorts of sermons) that the message doesn't apply to me, a poor college student. When I'm out of school and have a job and some money, sure, then I'll be generous. As for now, it's all I can do to get by. That's the thought, and it's totally wrong. There's a phenomenon at work here that's based off of comparisons. I compare myself to the people around me, and I determine from that comparison what my situation is. However, my comparison is limited in scope, and therefore is doomed to be horribly miscalculated. I went through high school thinking to myself (rather smugly), "Well our family isn't as rich as everyone else here (I'm from a very affluent suburb), and I'm glad we're not. Across the street they have 4 story houses with elevators (I'm not lying), and we live in a modest ranch house. People at school get cars when they turn 16, I got a job and paid for mine....etc." I thought that because I wasn't as rich as my schoolmates that I must have a better attitude about life, money, and working. Well, perhaps I was less spoiled then they were, BUT I was grossly underestimating my own wealth and situation. Notice the thought about the car, and look at how it didn't occur to me that having a car at all is a huge sign of wealth (let alone having one as a teenager). It didn't occur to me that although I bought it myself, I had the good fortune to be in a family that didn't need my wages (it's a sign of wealth that I got to spend my wages on myself). That in itself is huge. I was going to school at all, as a female no less. So why didn't I (and why don't I) see that?

Well I think it goes back to this comparison thing. No one wants to be at the bottom, even if the bottom is really a rather nice place to be (ie my situation in our suburb). I've had the same feeling in other contexts. Take my swim practices as an example. If I swim one of the best practices of my life (timewise), but am the slowest person in my lane, then I am prone to leave practice thinking that I sucked. But, if I swim rather slowly, but am the leader of the pack, then I come home feeling rather proud of myself. I have a hard time gaging my objective performance, but it's always easy to see how I size up to my fellow swimmers. You can't help but feel crummy when you come in last, even if you're coming in last amongst a group of the fastest swimmers on the team. Or maybe it's just me. I don't know. The point is that our comparisons in our little micro-universes really mess up our ability to gage our actual situation in the world and in life. And it's important to be aware of your actual position if you're going to figure out what duties your position entails. If you are wealthy, you have a duty to assist the poor. At least, I believe God says that you do (and some would say that without God you still have a duty to). If you are convinced that you are poor, then you won't recognize your duty. But whether or not you recognize it, it's still there. So the point of this first bit is that you are wealthy. Now about that duty...(and back to Chris' message)

There are two camps in the Christian realm when it comes to wealth (and of course, many who fall between the two). In one camp you have the ascetics who say that wealth is evil. If you are a Christian, you should not have any wealth, but rather you should give it all away. If asked whether Jesus would have owned a Hummer, they would say, "Absolutely not." In the other camp we have the hedonists who say that wealth is a sign of God's favor. If you don't have wealth, then God must not be pleased with you. They say that God wants us to have a good time, to enjoy what this world has to offer (eat drink and be merry!). If you asked them whether Jesus would have owned a Hummer, they would say, "Yes! He would have had 2 or 3!" Now both of these camps can pull out many Bible verses that support their position, so how can you tell who's right? Well, one thing that they both have in common is that they both focus on wealth itself. To one group wealth is an inherently bad thing. Whereas the other group thinks that wealth is inherently good. Either way, they are both focusing on the object (not the person).

I'm inclined to think that wealth is neither inherently good nor bad. I think that it is something that has the potential to lead to both good and bad things. Chris put it this way: God's approval (or disapproval) of wealth is essentially located in the heart of the holder. There are two equations:

Wealth + GRACE = Generosity
Wealth + SELFISHNESS = Greed

God delights in our generosity, but he is deeply angered by our greed. Both circumstances involve wealth, but the two outcomes are very different. It's about where your heart is. If you begin to believe that the blessings in your life are yours, or that you brought them about by your own power, then you're in trouble. What we have we get from God. What we accomplish we do by his grace. So we should in turn live our lives with grace, remembering that what we have is not our own. If you begin to believe in any way that you deserve what you have, well then you've just crossed a dangerous line. The sermon talked about a passage from Deuteronomy 8 where God promises to bless the Israelites who've been wandering in the desert for a long time, but He also warns them to remember who has blessed them. Wealth is not good, but it's not bad either. What we do with it, and how we work with what we have, is the important part. We need to ask ourselves, "Am I full of grace? Am I being generous?"

So I guess all of this was just my roundabout way of saying that we should be mindful of our blessings, and that we should handle our blessings with grace. We have an obligation to recognize what we've been given, and we have a further obligation to be graceful stewards of those gifts. Regardless of whether the Joneses have a better car than you do, you are blessed. Now what will you do with those blessings? There was a great example of a man (a prosperous radiologist) who's goal was to end his life with nothing. No moths and rust and thieves and such for him. Is that our goal too? That goal has never even occurred to me, and I'm ashamed to admit that my first reaction was that he was being rather irresponsible. So you can imagine how far I still have to go...

(an endnote: I'm sorry for sounding so preachy, but sometimes things must be said. I'm preaching mostly to me, because I'm the worst offender. But, if this resonates with you as well, well then that's probably for the best)

Free Education: nerd alert

2007-12-18T10:17:00.001-06:00

Okay so my joy at discovering this makes me the biggest nerd ever. Now I may be behind the times, and everyone may already know about this, but this is new for me. Apparently, you can audit classes online. No fees, no registration. Just pick a class and watch the streaming video. Wow. The link above is for some of Yale's classes, but I guess if you search the web you can find others (from Notre Dame, Berkley, and others). I got excited because there's a philosophy class I'm going to watch after break. Who knows what else is out there. Get excited. Free education for nerds everywhere. The idea behind it all is to give folks who love to learn, regardless of their qualifications or financial situation, the chance to do what they love. Now you can't get a degree from watching these classes (which does nothing for the positional goods problem with higher education), but you can indulge in some shameless self-edification. So now I can add some educational viewing to my trashy online tv (the OC, the Hills, Laguna Beach, Grey's...I have no shame).

Misusing History in the Classroom

2007-12-12T04:03:00.000-06:00

Today's post, as you can guess, is about how history is misused to promote other people's agendas. I used to think, quite naively, that history was about facts. History class, I thought, was about memorizing those facts and then proving on my test that I had memorized them. Wrong, oh so wrong. History is closer to literature than science. It has to be written. It has to be passed on from the perspective of someone else. History isn't pure and indisputable. It's living and active, and controversial. Who knew? You know what else I didn't know? I didn't know that the history I learned in the States was, for the most part, pretty cushy and pro-American. I didn't learn about the uncomfortable periods. Sure we talked about slavery, but it was the south, and not us, and you know, we can focus on the fun stories instead like the few slaves who escaped. Civil rights was much the same. Let's glorify the heroes and sweep the jerks (um, the majority, of us) under the rug. I feel sadly misinformed, to be honest. Recently, I've been doing some thinking about how schools use history to shape students (mainly thanks to Harry's chapter about it). Are schools justified in promoting patriotism, for example, by glorifying past patriots? Of course no one's claiming to do a whole 1984 history change-up, but still, it's meddling by omission. Who you put in the curriculum will vastly change the overall attitude of the student towards the society being studied. Not that I think it should be a completely depressing and somber lineup, but it shouldn't be so gosh darn warm and fuzzy. It's all a bit disturbing, to be honest. I won't go into arguments and details (go read Harry's chapter if you want), but you can see where the problem is.

Okay so I told you that to tell you this. In France, Sarco's doing some history meddling of his own, and it's rather upsetting. I had heard rumors just after his election that he wanted to use history classes "to produce better citizens," but I dismissed it then because I didn't think that was possible. Oh I was wrong; it is possible. And this is how he's started doing it: Guy Moquet. Ever heard that name before this year? I didn't think so. Neither has the typical French student (well, at least not this generation, he was famous for awhile but I think newer generations hadn't heard of him). Anyway, from this year onward they will celebrate the life (and death) of this teenage every October 22. So who was Guy? Well, to be honest, he was pretty cool. He was a teenager that refused to side up with the Nazis, joined the Resistance, and was eventually executed for it. He was only 17 years old when he decided to pay the ultimate price for his convictions, his own life. So what do I have against Guy? Nothing. He's a cool kid, and sure, his story bears repeating in the classroom. The problem is this: Sarco has purposefully given Guy his own day (where his letter will be read and the French Resistance will be discussed) that all schools have to honor because he, admittedly, wants students to emulate Guy's model of good citizenship and patriotism! Yes my friends, Sacro admits to using history to shape impressionable minds into being more patriotic. (Interesting, Guy's communist ties are downplayed.)

Now I can see why Guy's example would be a good example of political dissidence, which can be a very good thing. He was someone who stood up for what he believed in, and kids should know that. But, the problem comes in the glorification of this one story. Sure Guy was cool, and sure you talk about the importance of the Resistance, but what about everyone else? In the newsletter our high school gets there was a huge story about Guy, and then another page with a timeline of important dates for the Resistance. It talked about the Reich, the Jews, and the good French folks... but it left out an important element. There was one sentance about the Vichy government. One. And it pretty much said that it was Petain's fault, and it said that his government (notice, not the French government) collaborated with the Germans. What about everyone else? Yes, a heroic few stood up for humanity, but they are hardly representative of everyone. French students need to learn about Guy, and then also learn about the hundreds of other French men and women who looked the other way. Why should they, because that's what many of us are doing today! You have to learn about history's uglier stories if you really want to produce good citizens. If you lull students into a false sense of righteousness, then they won't be equipped to stand up for justice. Sure we can talk about the heroes, but let's not forget that the villains were one of us too. They weren't demons in disguise, they were regular people like you and me. We are all capable of doing what they've done. We can't turn a blind eye to history's stains, or we'll continue to make the same mistakes.

Okay, I'm climbing down from my soapbox now. Sorry for that. I just don't think it's right, what we do with history. Not only is it bad to purposefully manipulate students, but I don't even think it works the way you want it to. Ignorance doesn't fight for justice, it just keeps things from changing. Though, that may be just what the government wants... Who knows.

Evolution can't bridge the moral gap

2007-12-02T11:09:00.000-06:00

(UPDATE: I've added an important thought that I forgot to put in before. Look for it below)

I've recently read a rather good paper by John Hare about the failings of evolution to explain morality. His paper pretty much aligned with my prior intuitions, but he obviously explained what the problem was much better than I had every been able to. The main problem is this: there is a moral gap between what we ought to do and what we can do. If ought implies can, as many people believe, then we are only obligated (morally speaking) to do what we can in fact do. So if ought implies can, then what we ought to do will, seemingly, be considerably constrained by what we have the capacity to do. Herein lies the problem. If we can't live up to morality (as is evidenced by, well, everyone everywhere), then how can we be morally responsible for our failure? You can only be responsible for what you have the power or capacity to accomplish, and it seems that our moral capacity falls rather short of our moral obligations. The question is: can evolutionary theory provide any help in bridging this gap? Hare thinks no, and I agree. Here's why...

So we'll start by fleshing out Hare's moral schema. He traces the origins of his view way back to some medieval folks, but we'll skip the history lesson. The important part is that we have two different affections, or inclinations. The one affection is called the "affection for advantage" where advantage can be defined, roughly, as self-interest. This affection is pretty obvious to everyone. We are often motivated by our own desires, and many of our actions are results of this motivation. The second affection is the "affection for justice" where justice is, for the most part, the recognition that other moral beings carry as much weight as the self, so the self cannot be promoted above those other beings. Self-sacrifice, altruism, and all that jazz fall into this category. Now, Hare doesn't say that first affection is inherently bad. It can be a good thing. What Hare does say is that the affection for advantage must come second to the affection for justice. In other words, the first affection isn't bad so long as it is subordinated to the other affection. Now that that's clear, an obvious problem arises. The ranking of affections ought to be one way, but humans, by and large, come with the ranking reversed. Not only is the ranking reversed, but it's super hard to switch around. In fact, it's impossible for us to live with the proper ranking.

And that's the problem. If we can't live with the proper rankings, at least we haven't proven thus far in the course of history that we can, then it's hard to say we ought to. Remember, we only ought to do what we can do, and if we can't switch the rankings then we can't very well be obligated to do so. This is the performance gap. We can't do it, but our sense of morality says that we ought to. Yikes. What now? Well, Hare would say that the theist approach (in his case, the more specific Christian approach) offers a bridge. Yes it's true that we can't switch our rankings alone, but we still ought to because it is possible for us to do if we get help from God. Ought is still in, because we can if we get some support from the Big Guy. Well, that makes sense. We clearly can't live up to moral obligations on our own, but we still ought to, so maybe there is a way that we can and that way is by getting help from God. God is the bridge between our actual performance and how we ought to perform.

So what's the problem then? Well not everyone buys into the God bit, so there is still that nasty problem of can't. Can't takes away our ought, and we want to keep the ought (well, some of us do). We want to be able to say that mass killing is wrong and that slavery is bad. We want to because we have this deep sense of ought, and no matter where the ought came from we want it to mean something. But can it mean something if it's a product of natural selection?? This is where Hare recognizes 3 strategies that are often used to bridge the gap sans God:
1. Lower the moral standard
2. Exaggerate our capacity to meet the standard
3. Find a substitute for God's help (a new bridge)

The first solution is the one Hare treats at length in his paper. It's the one I think most people are tempted to buy into. If you never fail morally, then you've met the standard, and that standard is perfection. Perfection, you might then say, is too high a standard. Let's lower it to be "good enough," or something like that. (This wasn't talked about by Hare, and I'll get back to his critique momentarily) My problem with that is: what is good enough? Perfection is an easy line to draw. Good enough is messy. Where does it go, and can it even be one line? Is there a range, and can only one moral failure knock you out of that range? This suffers from the "no sharp distinction" problem (hair on head, pile of sand, say what you will). There is no way to judge where that lowered standard should be drawn. So then maybe you'd clarify it and say, well you are only responsible to be as good as you can possibly be. That too poses some problems. What if Hitler was a good as he could possibly be (taking into consideration environmental factors, genetics, etc)? Does he then have no moral blame for his actions?? I doubt it. The truth is, lowering the standard is really just making things even harder, and no bridge is being built. Instead we're just saying that we're content to sit on the moral failure cliff.

(UPDATE: I forgot to mention that perhaps the standard could be considered not as an all things considered measure but in a case-by-case basis. If we can do the right thing in each particular instance --which is evidenced by the fact that we sometimes do-- then the can survives and the ought does too. It's not until you look at morality as an all-choices-taken-together standard that it looks so bleak. Or maybe it still looks bleak case-by-case. I suppose you could also say that while it's highly improbable that we will be morally perfect, it is possible. If in every situation we could do the right thing, then in every situation we ought to. All because it's highly unlikely that we will always do the right thing, and all because no one else ever has in the past, well that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible. You could offer Jesus as an example if you were so inclined. It's possible. In that case, we still ought to even though there's not a very good probability that we will live up to the ought. But still, this grim probability verges on the border of can't so I'm not sure. In this case we are responsible, bridge or no, for getting to the other side. It's sort of a depressing set-up, but you could roll with it if you really want to keep ought without the help of God.)

Hare sees the lower standard as a rejection of the affection for justice. Evolutionary psychologists try to pin morality on a naturally selected trait that will increase the survival of our species. That being said, morality must then be based on self interest, or affection for advantage. Affection for justice essentially disappears. In this way the standard is lowered so far that morality really just means our affection for advantage. That's it. And that's pretty depressing. Hare clarifies it with this example: "To see the effect of Arnhart’s view [a guy who proposes this sort of compromise], consider the case of slavery. Arnhart is not entitled to condemn it morally, since it results from the satisfaction of natural desires for dominance, and he thinks the satisfaction of natural desires is good. The most he is entitled to say is that slavery is tragic, since it results from the conflict of natural desires between the masters and the slaves." To me, and to Hare, this is unacceptable. Slavery is not just tragic, it is morally reprehensible. If you can't condemn slavery, or similar evils, then why speak of morality at all??

It's clear that evolution, in this case, is not building a bridge. It's merely deciding that getting across the gap is either not something worth pursuing, or it's nonsensical because there is no other side to get to. Now Hare mentions a point here that I think is not made enough, and it's that evolution need not be a complete explanation of all that there is. Why should evolution think that it must explain morality? If it can't, that doesn't mean that it's a failure as a theory; it just means that there are limits to what it can speak to. Evolution can't explain mathematics (certainly Pythagoreans theorem was not invented by man to ensure our survival --recognized by us maybe-- but we don't invent mathematical truths). Evolution needs to stop trying to over-explain things. Hare says: "[The] view [held by some guy called Alexander] is that humans invented mathematics, and therefore mathematics has to be understood fundamentally in terms of genetic self-promotion, just like religion or any other feature of life. But then this claim is no longer a part of the theory of evolution, but it is a metaphysical view added onto it: that every domain above the physical and the chemical which human life encounters is to be explained ultimately by natural selection at the genetic level. It is important to see that this metaphysical view cannot itself be justified biologically; it is, I believe, an article of faith for Alexander, though it is not recognized as such."

And there's the key: evolution can only be a complete world explanatory theory if taken on faith by it's proponents to be all that there is. That doesn't mean evolution can't explain some things; it just means that when you try to say evolution can explain all things you are taking a metaphysical leap of faith that you can't back up with your theory. So there's something to think about.

Another concern is the publicity standard. If people lose the willingness to conform to some standard after discovering the true foundation of that standard (or lack thereof), then that standard has a pretty big strike against it. Example, if I am nice to my sister because my mom says that Santa will give me coal otherwise, and if I then find out that Santa isn't real, then I loose a big motivation to be nice to my sister. In fact, I probably won't be very nice if that was the only reason I bothered to be nice in the first place. If you take away the foundations of morality, then people won't be bothered to follow it. And why should they? If morality is really only a manifestation of self-interest, then why bother? Why not just promote the self at all costs if that's where morality stems from anyway? That's a problem.

So evolution is looking grim as far as finding a bridge for the moral gap goes. It just can't, on it's own, get us from one side to the other without making things more complicated. At best you can just decide not to worry about, and at worst you can abandon objective morality all together (which is getting more popular to do). There was way more in the paper, and you should read it, but I'm out of space/time for now. More later if I have the chance.

More Golden Compass Stuff

2007-12-01T07:26:00.000-06:00

I've recently come across this interview here with Philip Pullman. It was a very interesting read, and I recommend that you check it out. The most interesting Pullman quotes:

On being ingrained with the culture of the Church of England:
"My answer to that would be that I was brought up in the Church of England, and whereas I'm an atheist, I'm certainly a Church of England atheist, and for the matter of that a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist. The Church of England is so deeply embedded in my personality and my way of thinking that to remove it would take a surgical operation so radical that I would probably not survive it....My own background, as I've said many times, is Christian to the core. Christianity has made me what I am, for better or worse. I just don't believe in God."

Then he was asked a question about his books carrying Godly messages, though obviously sophisticated, despite his own atheism:
"That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? But I think this question touches something that I answered in my previous email, namely the tendency among Christians (and no doubt other religions too) to think that anything they like in the work of an avowed atheist or agnostic is a sign that really the said a. or a. is deluding himself, and that he's really Christian, only he doesn't know it. But I resist that interpretation, as you'd expect me to. I'm not deluded: Christians are. There is no God."

In the interview he makes it clear that he gets very upset with Christians monopolizing virtues. If I say that love and self-sacrifice are Christian virtues, then I'm not wrong in the sense that my religion is wrong, but wrong in the sense that my religion cannot monopolize those virtues. I can see what sort of attitude he's talking about, and it's one that's rife in the Church. The attitude is that only believers can do or know good, and non-believers can't. Well that's obviously wrong. Non-believers can cherish the same virtues as we do, and many of them can live by them better than we do. It's not a question of monopoly. Good is universal for the doing, and evil is the same.

Christians need to be careful not to say (or think) that only Christians can have access to these virtues. On the contrary, the existence of these virtues on a universal level testifies to the whole point of Christianity, or the Gospel. The fact that everyone does think love and self-sacrifice are good things, and that selfishness/etc are bad things (and the fact that we often have more of the latter than the former) gives us a good reason to think that the Christian world view isn't all that crazy. No, Christians don't have a monopoly on virtue. But, if the Gospel is right, then the fact that so many stories and authors point to these virtues should be a good sign that there is universal truth in the message of Christ. If you don't believe the Christ bit, that's your own deal. But Christians have good reason to see Christian virtues in non-Christian works. If they didn't, then they'd have a reason to be suspect of what they believe. If, for example, Christ said it was virtuous to be lazy and disobedient, well we'd have to wonder. Not many people of any cultural variety would call that virtuous. Not that all morality of all religions and cultures is equal, which it's not, and not to say that the message of Christ wasn't radical in ways, but rather he spoke to a deeper story and struggle that every human faces. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's okay for Christians to point to the work of non-believers and see a greater message embedded in them. It's because the struggle is universal that you will inevitably find evidence of that struggle everywhere. But no, don't think that only Christians know about or can be live by these virtues. The difference is that Christians (should) realize that they fall short, that everyone does. That's the point.

Now for those books, you can check out my thoughts on them here. If you're a Christian, go read them. The story is great (though the end is wanting), and you won't go to hell for it. In fact, you may just learn something. The opposite of faith is fear (I shamelessly steal from Pastor Chris), and being afraid of a story won't get you anywhere. You need to be able to evaluate everything for what it is, for it's good points and bad. Pullman has some good lessons, and he has some I don't care for. The important part is being able to test for yourself what's worth taking from the books, and what's not. But don't let his atheism put you off. Rather, see this as an opportunity to learn from a different perspective.

French Political Culture and Strikes

2007-11-24T06:44:00.000-06:00

Let me begin this post with a disclosure: I know very little about politics, domestic or otherwise. Consequently, I know even less about French politics. I've tried to educate myself, but much of the process and games played just boggle my mind (and I have a suspicion that I'm not the only one this is true of). So any and all opinions expressed here are solely based on my intuitive response to the recent events going down in France. I have no substantial foundation to base them on, I have no great understanding of their system, but I DO have the perspective of an outsider looking in. And this is what I see.

As some of you may (or may not) have heard, France is in the midst of a political showdown. The easiest way to describe it is France is fighting change, and France is winning. Some may say it's France v. Sarckozy, but really it's more than that. France has been fighting this battle for a long time, and it's a battle that is totally bizarre from the American perspective. This is what usually happens: some politician proposes some change (for whatever reason), that change may be an all things considered (atc) good thing or not (it doesn't really matter), that change will inevitably affect someone somewhere negatively, those people will go on strike, and the proposed change will be taken back. In the end, nothing changes. No progress is made, for better or worse. The culprit: la greve (the strike). Now don't get me wrong, strikes can be a very effective means for social change, but they can just as easily be obstacles to change. There is a difference between striking occasionally for things that really matter for a large group of people and striking because you happen to get the short stick this time. In the US, I think that there are probably too many groups of people who really do need to stand up for themselves (perhaps by striking, perhaps not) who don't, but in France I think the opposite problem is true. I think too many people who shouldn't strike, who shouldn't complain, do.

Some people think that the French shouldn't strike so much because it decreases their efficacy. If everyone strikes all the time, then no one will listen anymore. Strikes will become so routine that they loose their impact. And that probably is right, for some strikes, but it's not why the French strike-culture itself is bad. That's one downside, sure, but there's more to it than that. The problem is that the French have gotten so accustomed to going on strike in order to protect their interests, that they've lost perspective on collective interests. By collective, I don't mean collective groups of teachers, students, or transport works. They have plenty of that. This is by no means a collective action problem. No, the problem is that each worker is only worried about her own interests (or the interests of her profession as a whole). She doesn't worry about the interests of the nation as a whole (or more accurately, the interest of a wider group of individuals within the nation). I limit this to nation because I don't think they go on strike for foreign policy, so we'll keep this a domestic discussion (though I by no means think that they should only be concerned about the interests of their co-nationals).

Why do I say this? Well think of it this way: in any non-ideal situation (so like, pretty much any imaginable earthly arrangement short of some sort of heaven) the advancement of justice will require tradeoffs. To achieve the most justice society, there has to be some give and take. Some things are important enough that they will trump other things, even if those other things are also worth promotion. So you see, no matter what, the only way to secure the most just society will require sacrifices. Justice in our non-ideal situation can not be a totally win-win-win (cue Micheal Scott) situation. If trade-offs or sacrifices are needed for some greater amount of good, then someone somewhere will be unhappy for some indefinite period of time. The only way to enact whatever policy that is ATC the best bet for the most justice or flourishing (yes, I think that's a legitimate goal for governments to promote, won't defend it here or probably ever, sorry) is for the person who has to temporarily (or maybe permanently) give up some good/right/privilege to be willing to compromise. Yes my friends, compromise. Compromise does not mean you gun for the best deal for your own interests, it means you recognize that everyone has equally important interests and sometimes you have to give things up to make life the best it can be for the most amount of people. And no, I am not a utilitarian, but there are obvious undertones of that view here.

Now I'm not saying that folks currently on strike in France don't have legitimate interests to protect. I'm just saying that in general the power of the strike is used inappropriately. It's better for the parties involved, when they can, to sit down and discuss the problem with more than their own interests in mind. Yes I realize you won't end your strike until your pension is however much money at whatever age, BUT, maybe your pension isn't as important as the downfall of France's entire economy? Yes I'm being dramatic, but I worry for these folks. Every change is met with opposition. Some changes should be met with opposition, but some should not. Some changes are needed, desperately. Example, France's economy really is facing a crisis. Sure it seems to be doing well now, but in our global economy it is not fluid enough to compete. France just isn't able to change at the pace needed to stay in the game, and that's just the economy. Who even knows what will happen in the other sectors (education itself is looking rather grim, of that I can attest). Talk first, strike later, but only IF it's actually critical.

So why are there so many strikes? I have no idea. I can guess that it's strongly linked with France's overall conservatism (small c) regarding anything. They protect their language like a mother bear, so you can imagine how protective they are of keeping things the same, regardless of whether the current situation is worth keeping. Now this may make it seem like all French folks are strike-aholics, but that's not true. In fact, my most illuminating information has come from several French friends or teachers who are very frustrated with the strike-culture. Don't get me wrong, I've met my fair share of strike-lovers, but I've met more people than expected that are getting quite fed up. There are people here who want change, who think things aren't as good as they could be. I'm just not sure if things will ever get better here, not if attitudes don't change first.

This post was obviously inspired by the recent transportation strike (national rail and Paris metro). Now although the strike was a particular pain to me personally, that's not why I feel frustrated with the strikes. I made it to Paris and back this week despite the strikes. I'm not just bitter about the inconvenience they caused me (though it was annoying). To be fair, I've had several strikes that have worked in my favor. When I studied abroad my university went on strike for 3 months (pretty much because the govn't wanted to let companies fire workers who had been there for under 2 years if those workers weren't any good-- it's very hard to fire anyone and so companies just don't hire-- it's messed up), and I didn't have to go to school. Just yesterday MY students went on strike. That's right, my little lyceens have barricaded our school and decided that they just won't learn until Sarco takes back the partial privatization of universities plan. They could keep striking for another 2 weeks, and I won't have to work at all. So common sense would make you think I'd be in favor of the strikes. But in all seriousness I'd gladly return to work if it meant this country would free itself up for progress. So, there you have it.

Democracy for Sinners

2007-11-03T08:10:00.000-06:00

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; man’s capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary” (emphasis mine). Reinhold Niebuhr makes this powerful observation as early as the forward to his book, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. Essentially, Neibuhr is a realist regarding human nature, and his views are largely influenced by his Christian beliefs. Niebuhr argues that political idealists, despite their good intentions, always fail in the execution of their ideals because they don’t fully understand the intricacies of human nature. The book doesn’t say much in the way of Neibuhr’s own principles of justice (with one notable exception that I mention later), but instead he focuses on how you move from ideals to reality. He does make it clear that democracy is probably the best bet, but the problem lies in democracy’s traditional justifications. These justifications, according to Neibuhr, not only fail in their justification but also hinder democracy’s ultimate success. Of course this book happened to fit perfectly with the last philosophy class I took, which studied ideal and non-ideal philosophy. And even better, Niebuhr borrows heavily from the Christian world view, to which I am also a believer, so as you may imagine I enjoyed the book immensely. (Let me note before I go on that apparently Niebuhr was a pretty important theologian and philosopher in the previous decade, and this is the first I’ve ever heard of him. My education, both philosophically and theologically, has failed me.)

So let’s start by setting up the scene as proposed by Niebuhr. On the one hand you have the CLs (children of light), who are all those who “believe that self-interest should be brought under the discipline of a higher law.” That includes pretty much all political idealists (the forerunners of democracy, Marxists, and whoever else). Let me point out that the higher law need not be God’s, and in the case of many of the political idealists described by Niebuhr it isn’t. The only common denominator is that they believe there is something bigger than the self out there, and that something is important enough to trump individual interests every now and again. For all intensive purposes, you can call this a sort of objective moral standard, which includes a standard of justice. Now on the other hand you have the CDs (the children of darkness). These are the pessimists, or moral cynics, who “know no law beyond their will and interest.” I would go so far as to include the relativists in this category. So the CDs don’t buy into the whole objective moral standard. Maybe they believe there is no such thing as morality, or maybe they believe morality is really just the pursuit of selfish ends. The point is these folks don’t think there is a greater ‘justice’ to attain, just a will to either suppress or pursue.

Needless to say, the different views of morality will have a profound impact on each group’s political theories. For the CLs, they rightly strive to subordinate society to the claims of justice. For the CDs, they either don’t want to subordinate self-interest, or think that the only workable society will have to completely subordinate people’s selfishness (think Hobbes). The CLs get it wrong because they underestimate people’s capacity to screw things up and be selfish and unjust. The CDs get it wrong because they either pursue self interest shamelessly, or they don’t remember that the leaders of more authoritarian regimes (intended to suppress this sort of pursuit) also have selfish pursuits. Of the two groups, the CDs have the best understanding of the inner crookedness of human nature. Call it sin, call it selfishness, call it whatever you want. Humans have complicated motivations, and it’s rarely ever black and white. The CLs presume that people are basically good and will, for the most part, care enough about justice to make society work. For the CLs that promote democracy, they justify their ideals on the basis that most people will pursue justice within a democracy, and that’s why the government should be controlled by the people. Neibuhr disagrees. Instead, he thinks the justification for democracy is that the government is always going to be made of people, people who are selfish, and so that government should be held accountable to everyone. Democracy is the best way to go because it leaves (in theory) no person unchecked. Authoritarian regimes have no such check. So for Neibuhr, we don’t vote because deep down we’ll all vote for justice; rather we vote because deep down even the leaders of our government will be selfish and ought to be held accountable for their actions.

Neibuhr sees the human struggle as this: we want to flourish but deep down we have these fighting convictions that are hard to reconcile. We have a need to flourish (or as he says, reach our full potential), which is essentially a pursuit for the self. But, we can only reach our full potential in community with others by contributing to other people’s flourishing. So although we have this selfish pursuit of flourishing, its fulfillment depends upon non-selfish means. That’s one part, and he calls it the will-to-live-truly. The other part is called our will-to-power. We have a will to power that is rooted in our recognition of our own insignificance. In the scheme of things, each person is nothing. To compensate for this insignificance, we try to make ourselves as significant as we can, which is translated into a desire for power. The power can be inner power, or power over others (sounds a bit like choice theory). So anyway, the point is that we have two battling desires, and they can (and do) make it both possible for us to do really good things or really bad things. I’d say most people would agree with this. People have the capacity (and desire) to be good, but we have an equal capacity (and sometimes desire) to be bad. It’s Milton’s “able to stand but free to fall” dilemma. Unfortunately, it’s the capacity to fall that most CLs don’t take into consideration. That’s where Neibuhr’s realism comes in. The CLs should borrow from the wisdom of the CDs, who understand the capacity for man to be evil. BUT, he warns, they should “be careful not to borrow too much.”

The lesson: we need to self-critical all the time, and we need institutions that allow us to put this criticism into practice. Democracy is one such institution. But it’s not as simple as that. We can’t, Neibuhr warns, just set up a rigid system and leave it at that or problems will ensue. Neibuhr’s main focus is how to go from the principles of justice (to which he doesn’t propose his own, as I mentioned earlier) to their implementation. This is a big step, from ideal theory to non-ideal situations. How can it be done? What process do you follow? What’s the formula for turning principles of justice into policy? Niebuhr say’s there aren’t any! But, there are important constraints to think about if you’re dealing with a human nature as Neibuhr describes it.

Okay, so let’s say you set up a society with working laws, that are really only relative to the society itself at a certain time period, and you make those relative laws subject to criticism as time, technology, culture, etc changes. Surely that’s enough? Or, should we be able to also criticize the principles of justice themselves? Surely that’s going too far, to allow the principles of justice to be subject to popular mood and selfish interest? Right? Wrong. To the idea that the principles of justice are subject to change, I was initially taken aback. For if even the highest principles are relative, then what is the higher standard supposed to be?? Well, Niebuhr says that even our principles must be subject to criticisms because the beings that discovered them are themselves fallen creatures tempted by selfishness and whatnot. So really, it’s not that justice changes, it’s that our conception of justice must be flexible because it’s always, at some level, tainted by our own capacity for error and sin. Okay, I guess I agree with that. The standard is immutable, but our conception of that standard must be flexible, because our reason is not pure. This differs decidedly from the liberal idolization of human reason. Neibuhr claims that because “reason is something more than a weapon of self-interest it can be an instrument of justice; but since reason is never dissociated from the vitalities of life, individual and collective, it cannot be a pure instrument of justice.”

He goes on to add that as you go from ideal to the real world, each step closer becomes more and more relative because it is linked closer with a specific time in history. The principles are the least flexible, but they still are flexible to some extent. As you go down the latter, the laws and policies must be more and more flexible, because they are too dependent upon currant circumstances.

Neibuhr follows this thesis with an interesting discussion of religious humility, which is the greatest contribution of religion to society. It’s not common even among religious folks, but some religious folks do have it and the best thing for the rest of society is to emulate it. Deep humility comes from an encounter with something so much greater than yourself that, while you have important beliefs in that being and the society you live in, you can’t help but be acutely aware of your own fallibility in the face of this being. In other words, no matter how strongly you hold your beliefs, if you have religious humility, then you are very aware of just how wrong you can be because you realize your own powerlessness and ignorance. That, Neibuhr claims, is very rare, but it is the best sort of toleration for a pluralistic society. What’s more common is religious indifference, which doesn’t come from one ounce of humility, and is the worse for it. Democracy desperately needs this sort of humility for it to work properly. If everyone was aware of how wrong they could be and probably are then we’d all get along much better. Neibuhr worries that “blind ideological devotion” (of either the secular or religious variety) is the greatest threat to democracy, and to justice as a whole. I totally agree, but I don’t anticipate any great humbling of our prideful race any time soon. It’s too bad. (His thoughts on humility are way more extensive and interesting than I’m letting on here, but I just don’t have space to elaborate).

Before you think Neibuhr is himself a pessimist, let me mention this. Neibuhr is very aware that our capacity to fall is equally matched by our capacity to overcome our fallenness. We possess the power to go either way, often we do a bit of both. So the flexibility of the government is not only there to check our fallen moments, but it is also flexible to allow for our moments of redemption. He's not a pessimist, but he's not an optimist. He's a realist. We can go either way. We ought to go one way, and sometimes we should, and our society should be set up in a way to allow for that to the greatest possible extent. But we shouldn't be foolish and forget that we can just as easily mess it all up.

The one principle of justice that he does propose is our global responsibility. His book was written at the culmination of the second world war, and he was very aware of the looming global crisis at hand. Our community, he argues, is not limited to our nation. But, it’s easier said than done, and he also realizes the very real issues involved in a global community. I just thought it was nice that he didn’t limit his discussion to the nation. Justice is worldwide, and there’s no reason for us to be just within our own nation and unjust elsewhere.

He also said something about libertarians that I found quite interesting. He pretty much puts them into the CD category of pessimism about the human race, but they suffer from the opposite problem of Hobbes and the other authoritarians. Where Hobbes didn’t see that the rulers of his government were just as prone to selfishness as the people they rule over, the libertarians overestimate the guiding hand of the market. The hand, Neibuhr argues, is just not strong enough. And if you limit government because you don’t trust the people running it, then you should be even more worried about the people running the market (business leaders) because they can’t be checked. At least the government, however imperfect, can be held accountable, but those in charge of the market can run amuck without reprimand, and that is much more dangerous for justice than a corrupt government. Let me add that I thought libertarians were essentially too optimistic about our ability to run ourselves. I just figured they thought we were better people outside of the government than within. But I see Neibuhr’s point.

Now, what I would really love to know is what Neibuhr thought (or would think) about Rawls’ principles. They are, for the most part, harnessing self-interest, but Rawls doesn’t give much guidance for their implementation. I wonder. And I wonder what Rawls thought about Neibuhr, if he thought about his ideas at all. (I’m sure there’s a book or paper out there about this already)

So the moral of the story: we suck. We need to be checked and rechecked all the time. The good news? God doesn’t suck and He offered to take away our suckiness while at the same time being happy that we tried to not be sucky. Neibuhr puts it more elegantly:

“The task of achieving a [just world community] must be interpreted from the standpoint of a faith which understands the fragmentation and broken character of all historical achievements and yet has confidence in their meaning because it knows their completion to be in the hands of a Divine Power, whose resources are greater than those of men, and whose suffering love can overcome the corruptions of man’s achievements, without negating the significance of our striving.”

Well said.

Is God a feminist?

2007-11-01T05:14:00.000-06:00

I'm new to the Hugo Schwyzer blog, and recently came across this post (amongst a series of feminist posts) that I enjoyed. Hugo is taken to task by Anti-Feminists who attack not only his ideology, but also his self described "passionately feminist marriage." The post caught my attention for two reasons. First, I used to be afraid of feminists (seriously) but now realize that I am one. Second, it speaks to my recent appreciation of combating social norms concerning the family sphere.

As both a woman and a Christian, I'm acutely aware of the tension between old culture roles (as are typically 'Biblically' supported) and the rise of women's equality. I used to be afraid of feminists, actually, because I thought it was really just a group of militant women trying to reverse the roles instead of equalize them (oh the ridiculous prejudices of youth). That was until a teacher told me that feminism really just means you think women should have equal status in the world (in the same way that egalitarians think about different races, cultures, classes, etc should). Ohhh... I guess am I a feminist. I've since discovered that the great part about feminism is its insistence that the world treat women as God does, as an equally loved child of His. I find myself going back to this verse a lot, but it's a great one:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galations 3:28

Feminism doesn't mean that a women can't be a stay at home mom. Rather, it gives women freedom to choose that role instead of being forced into it. They also have the freedom to choose a different role that they're better suited for. I use 'choose' loosely, however, because I think God gives us gifts independent of our desires, and with that a responsibility to make use of them for His glory. The same goes for men, many of whom are terrifically suited to play a larger role in the raising of their children. I hate to use a political philosophy buzz-word, but the best way for many people to 'flourish' is to give them the access to roles that society may not be accustomed to seeing them in. I think many more fathers would flourish from being stay at home dads then currently do, and there are probably many women who would not flourish as much as their husbands would from that role. And obviously, vise versa.

God didn't make us all elbows, if you'll remember (and I am in no way comparing typically female roles to elbows), but rather gifted us all with different talents and desires to make the body more complete:

"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." (1 Corinthians 12:14-26)

Those verses are typically used in the context of church-roles (spiritual gifts), but I think it applies to all of the roles and gifts that God has given us. Typical gender roles are essentially saying that half of the body is ears and half is eyes. Well that makes for a pretty silly looking (and rather inefficient) body. God has made us wonderfully diverse in our gifts and callings, so let's not limit His options by saying God can't gift women outside the home or He can't gift men inside the home. Now this in no way means that a feminist husband is a push-over. Rather he is more acutely aware of the fact that old gender norms try to limit God's creativity and blessings. By saying that women are made for the home, you are essentially telling God that you know better than He does what all women are suited to do.

As usual, though, this message is easier proclaimed than heard amongst religious believers. I've never understood why. If you truly feel God's presence in your life, then you are necessarily humbled before His awesome glory. Anyone who has been humbled by God in their life should find it hard to suppose that they have all the answers. Feminists aren't saying that they know better than God; they're just trying to open up the possibility that God may have more in plan for women than the world has traditionally offered them.

I won't say anything about how this plays out in marriage, partly because Hugo already has a good description of how it works in his but mainly because I'm not married and won't go so far as to presume that I have anything enlightening to add to a discussion about a situation I've never been in. But go read the post, and the ones before/after it. It's an interesting discussion.

Hiatus

2007-10-06T14:20:00.000-06:00

This is just to say that I won't have a post for another few weeks or so. I've relocated to France, to teach, and I haven't had too much time yet. I promise a good one soon about the crazy French.

A bientot.

Children and Philosophy part 2

2007-09-24T09:19:00.000-06:00

At the end of my last post on children and philosophy, I mentioned a project that I've started with a bunch of GT 8th graders. The project is this: they can read whatever they want, and then they have to blog about it. It's simple enough, really. I've compiled a booklist of reads that are on the HS or college level that they may or may not find interesting. Pretty much, I've thought of books that I think I might have been able to enjoy when I was in the 8th grade (that is, before they were ruined by literature classes). The books are actually a little on the risque side, but what great literature isn't? And besides, they'll encounter it eventually, so why not pique their interest early?

I told the kids this: "You should pick any book you want, even if it's not on the list. Try to make it a hard book, you know, so you'll be challenged and stuff. Make sure your parents say it's okay for you to read the book. If you start a book and it sucks, then stop reading it." At this point, they were floored. They were never given the choice to stop reading a book they weren't enjoying. Several of their faces showed mistrust. Was I for real? I continued, "Then I want you to think about what the author is trying to say about life, or society, or morality. You know, the philosophical questions." Now they were confused. "What exactly is philosophy," they asked. Ha! Heck if I know. I only studied it for 3 years, but I can't for the life of me explain it to 8th graders. I explained their mission like this, "You guys are sick of doing plot diagrams, finding the climax, and making character sketches, right?" Total agreement. "Well, I don't want you to write about any of that. I want you to look for the deeper issues, and all of these books talk about them in some way or another. Your job is to figure out what questions the books bring up, and how are they answered. You can agree or disagree with the author. Or maybe the author doesn't even answer the question, but you may think you can. It's up to you. I want you to go beyond the plot when you read. Find what you are interested in. Then, write about it. If you are only interested in one page, write about it. This is not a book report; this is a blog where you can take your interests and develop them. The blog is very informal. Write about whatever you want, but try to be meaningful. I don't want you to tell me what happens. I've read these books; I already know. And frankly, I don't care. I want to know what these books make you think about."

Now I had their attention. They looked excited. For once they could get credit for doing what they do anyways, read books for fun. I also stressed that they should be reading each other's posts and leaving critical/helpful comments on them. I was overjoyed to see them that excited. Several of the students went out that very night to get a copy of Heart of Darkness from the public library. They were ready to get started.

The cons: blogs are on the Internet, and older people are afraid of the Internet. My fun project was not met well by some teachers, and probably won't be by some parents. A blog, heaven forbid. Is that like myspace? Yeah, wonderful. No a blog is not like myspace. Yes, the students can write whatever they want. But, the students are well aware that their teachers, parents and principal plan on reading their blogs/comments regularly. They have been instructed to post at their own risk. Their blog may be on the Internet, but that also means that their parents (for the first time) will really be able to see what their kids can do. I think it's great, and thankfully so do some of the teachers and the principal (and now I think, the superintendent!). We have had one student's parents opt out, which is fine. That student will be writing within the school's network, so it won't be online. The point of having the blogs be independent and online was for them to be able to keep it if they want when they leave the 8th grade. I wanted them to develop a skill that doesn't stop when the grades come in. They may not keep them, but they can, and some might. Sure, a crazy person could find their blog and leave a strange comment. But they have been removed from the listings, and honestly, unless someone goes to the 2 millionth page on a google search, their blogs won't be found. But because the blogs are open, we can show their project to other schools/students/teachers/etc. So we'll see how it all pans out.

Now back to the philosophy bit. These students are not formally exposed to philosophy at their school, and they won't be at their high school. Some may never really come across it at all, depending on what they study in college. But, that doesn't mean they can learn how to exercise some critical thought on their own. Because their blogs are independent, they won't have any formal instruction on how to argue, analyze, etc. But they will start looking for these questions on their own. And they will at least start to think about their own answers. This project is about getting them to start thinking critically on their own. It's not the perfect way to do it, but it's not a bad option. The other teachers and I will be reading their posts and writing comments to challenge them to think harder. The dialogue will begin. It may be the best we can do, and I think it's worth a shot.

Human Rights Blog...

2007-09-22T08:37:00.000-06:00

My good friend's sister is meandering her way around Africa, documenting human rights violations and publishing articles while she's at it. She's a terrific writer with some interesting stories to tell. Go check it out here. (warning, it's under construction so most of the links don't work yet...)

Children and Philosophy

2007-09-16T07:45:00.000-06:00

In the public school system where I grew up, philosophy was never an option. Physics, yes. Calculus, yes. History, of course. But philosophy, never. To many of you, this is no surprise. Philosophy hasn't been considered a core subject for some time (and by sometime, I mean at least as far back as I can remember, which isn't far...), and the future isn't looking good for resurrecting it. Of course you can sometimes find a philosophy class (or something like it) in some private schools, but especially in a religious private school, it's not likely to be taught as openly as it ought to be. It hasn't always been this way though. Philosophy used to be the subject, and all other subjects were really only subdivisions of it. So where did it go? Why aren't we teaching it anymore?

I think it would be a mistake to think that philosophy, or at least a course in philosophy, is about learning something. Learning philosophy is more like learning some way. Yes, you can teach a history of philosophy course and teach about all the different philosophers and all of their theories. However, a real philosophy class focuses on the method of obtaining knowledge. Whether you're studying what exists, what we ought to do, or how we can know anything, you have to learn a method for reaching those answers. I think philosophy hasn't been taught precisely because it's not a matter of simply presenting information and having students commit it to memory. If it was, then it would be easy enough to include. It isn't easy to teach a method for thinking, for critical thinking. In fact, I standby the rather heretical claim that I never really learned how to think critically before college. I probably did it on my own sometimes, or by accident, but I was never formerly taught that I ought to be doing it or how to go about doing it properly. At this point, you may be wondering, if the difficulty is that it's a method, then why do we teach math? Math, at it's best, is the method for rationally reaching a numerical sum for whatever problem we are facing. When you teach math, you teach a method for reaching a solution that is more than just the memorization of formulas and conversion factors. So why can we teach math and not philosophy?

That's a good question, and the only answer I can propose is that perhaps it's because no one ever fought over the square root of 25. And people certainly don't disagree over the sum of real numbers, or the multiplication of fractions. Math is numbers, and numbers are neutral. You can replace the numbers with letters, and even those letters are neutral. But moral realism, dualism v physicalism, does God exist, etc, are not neutral issues. Philosophy tries to get at basic truths about our world, and these truths are philosophical precisely because they can't be verified empirically. You can't argue about a math solution done correctly, but you can argue about a conclusion reached in philosophy even if the argument was valid. If we only taught a philosophy logic class, that wouldn't be very controversial. But I think children ought to learn much more than mere logic.

I think the biggest obstacle to introducing philosophy into primary/secondary education would be the lack of qualified teachers. Some universities make select students take some sort of philosophy course, but not everyone has to. And even if future teachers did take an introductory course in philosophy, that doesn't mean they would be well-equipped to teach it to impressionable students. If you're going to teach philosophy, you have to do it right. It's hard enough at the university level to teach a philo course without it being clearly biased by the ideology of the professor. If done improperly, students walk away with the ideas of their teacher, not the ideas that they examined on their own. It's difficult to teach because a philosophy teacher can't just lecture, he or she must facilitate open and critical discussion. The teacher must teach students how to think about ideas, but then give them the space to explore the issues on their own and as a class.

I think that the best way to introduce this sort of thing into schools would be to slowly spark an interest for philosophy in the students. You don't have to teach a full blown philosophy class to start raising philosophical questions and to think critically about them. Students should be critical of what they learn in school, whether it be in literature, history or science. We emphasise excellence on standardized tests or AP tests, and we forget that teaching to tests limits students' scope for independent thought. There's no time to criticize when you must learn said amount of information for such and such test to earn said amount of money for the school or said credit for college. Not that these tests are completely bad, but they have become the ends instead of a way of gaging whether the means are leading to knowledge.

Subjects that are already being taught are a good place to start. History and literature, for example, provide wonderful starting blocks for these sorts of discussions. When you learn about the civil war you can ask the students why slavery is wrong. Most just take it for granted that slavery is bad, just like their southern predecessors probably took for granted that slavery was okay. It's bad to blindly accept a moral truth regardless of whether you're right about it. So students should be actively discussing why slavery is wrong, and why we believe all people have equal moral standing. We didn't always think that (still today not everyone thinks this), and they can begin to learn how to understand the moral foundation their lives which may not always jive with that of modern society.

In the same way, literature classes are wonderful starting points for philosophical discussions. From Where the wild things are to The Giver to 1984, books perform the necessary probing to get students thinking. Unfortunately, too many lit classes focus on plot diagrams, character sketches, and other useless time wasters that are designed to analyse books to death. I had many a book ruined by literature classes where we spent more time on conventions, like: what is the climax? the anticlimax?, than on the actual questions of the book. For example, in a course we would have spent more time talking about what happened in The Giver then we would have on what the book had to say about society, diversity and the value of a human life. Even in the classes where we did find those questions, we never attempted to answer them. Even if we figured out what the author had to say about those questions, we weren't really given the opportunity to discuss whether we agreed or disagreed. We didn't even get that far until high school, and before HS we would never have looked past the actual plot of the book. Though, as you can probably guess, I strongly believe we should have.

I think that if I was forced to learn the origins of western society, and the shape of electron clouds, and the inner workings of a cow's eye, then I should have at least learned how to think for myself. Part of being a responsible citizen, or for being a responsible person is to be able to think independently and to think critically about our world. So why aren't we equipping students to do this?

I'm not the only who thinks this, and in one house at one school the change has begun. One of of the teachers at the school I've been helping at teaches literature to 8th graders. She happens to agree with me that the way books are currently taught isn't working. Kids aren't learning to love books, and they certainly aren't thinking deeply about them. So this teacher has let me try something new with the GT kids. The GT kids were singled out because they are the least challenged by the current system, but the method we're experimenting with is not only for gifted kids. I think all kids should be allowed to do what the GT kids will have the chance to do in this class. I'll leave it at that for now, and I promise to explain more soon!

Advertising to children

2007-09-09T11:39:00.000-06:00

Today I went to the grocery store, and I saw the most appalling site. I was walking down the pasta aisle and I heard a little voice start yelling, "Scooby! Scooby momma!! Scoooooby!" I turned to see what all the fuss was about. A little girl, no older than 4 or 5, had a box of Scooby Doo macaroni and cheese in each hand. She was holding not one, but two boxes of the cartoon endorsed all-American meal. She threw the boxes into the cart against the pleadings of her mom. The mom, apparently, wasn't enticed by Scooby... This bothered me, not so much because of Scooby, but because the boxes were placed on the 2nd to last row from the bottom. I hadn't even noticed it, because I'm not 2 feet tall. The little girl, obviously, stood at the perfect height to see Scooby. I scanned the rest of the shelves and as you go up the products have a more adult appeal. The products advertised to kids are the bottom and about at the spot where a child sitting in a cart would see it. I was outraged. How had I never noticed it before? It was a stroke of marketing genius, that I'm sure many of you have already noticed, but I had never seen it before. How dare they market to kids (this isn't new, I understand, but my outrage is newly discovered)? I asked my mom if I did that sort of thing when I was little and she answered with a resounding "yes!" She had to resort to the rule that my sister and I could only pick out 1 thing to buy because we were so obnoxious. It's a wonder I never noticed before.

I think the reasons I was so oblivious were that a) I wasn't the one being targeted and b) I have only recently started studying up on this sort of thing. Now I wonder, what are they targeting at me?? I'm fairly certain that I am a marketer's golden child, because I truly am a product of advertisements. It makes me sick. I need to just start buying things I've never heard of with uninteresting boxes. That's the only way to be safe!

Choice Theory and Nussbaum

2007-09-04T13:40:00.001-06:00

So today I started volunteering (for the month) at my mom's middle school. She's an 8th grade math teacher, and this year she's decided to implement something called Choice Theory. You can find more out about it here at her blog. I witnessed the students first debriefing in Choice Theory, and below I've copied what I wrote for my mom's blog about what happened. The reason I'm including this because it seemed to me to be strikingly similar to what Nussbaum has to say (and other political philosophers) about flourishing. The approach with Choice Theory is more stoic, but overall the needs are quite familiar to Nussbaums list (life, bodily health/integrity, etc). I'm not in psych or education, but what I witnessed today was certainly familiar. Anyway, here's what I wrote about today (in the voice of a teacher, but really I was just a bystander):

Today was our first day with the 8th graders, and to start the year off we gave them their first lesson in Choice Theory. We started by having them play the triangle game during the 8th grade bonding time. The goal of the game was to pick two other people (who you aren't friends with) and --without letting them know that you've picked them-- position yourself in such a way that the three of you form an equilateral triangle. The game was a bit of a bust, because the students formed their triangles by talking and signaling to their friends. If done correctly, the triangles wouldn't be obvious, and you wouldn't know if someone else had formed a triangle with you in it. Instead we saw a bunch of mini-triangles comprised mainly of friends, that had clearly been organized amongst themselves. Down further I'll explain what the game was intended to teach, and I'll explain how the students proved our point even though they didn't complete it correctly.

Next we had them fill out index cards.
1. In the upper right corner they wrote a list of 3 people: one older, one younger, and one peer. These are people who have impacted their life in some meaningful way.
2. In the upper left corner they wrote a list of 3 things they would rather do today if they didn't have to come to school and money wasn't an option.
3. In the bottom left corner, they wrote 3 things they are good at or accomplishments they've made.
4. In the bottom right corner they filled out one rule they think everyone should have to follow (always), one rule that they think is really stupid, and one pet peeve.

Next we asked the students who, in the whole universe, they have the power to control (in thought, action, emotion, etc). Some said siblings and pets, but after a short discussion they all agreed that the only person they truly have control over is themselves. We told them that when they talk out of turn (which they were doing quite a bit of) it is irritating to us but there is nothing we can do to make them stop. They must stop themselves and exercise self-control. We also told them that all behavior is purposeful, and if they chose to sit and listen quietly, they were making that choice. If they choice to not listen and think "whoa, I wish they'd shut up," they were purposefully choosing to think and feel that. If someone makes you upset, you choose to be upset. We all try to control other people, but we can't. We can only control ourselves. We can try to coercive, manipulate, or persuade them, but ultimately each person must choose their own behavior.

This brings me back to the triangle game. The goal was to end up with a win-win situation where everyone formed their triangles without trying to control the other people that formed it. Had they done it properly, they would have shown the goal that Choice Theory works towards. However, they played the game by controlling other people, which showed one of their basic needs. At school, to succeed, you have to be right. They all wanted to be right, to get the game right, so they controlled each other to accomplish that. The need they were satisfying was their need to have power. Below I'll outline the four basic needs (taking survival for granted as a basic need), and how they fit into the index card activity.

The first need is love and belonging. The people in #1 represent those people who they love and value as friends or family. Everyone needs to be loved and feel belonged. Our goal this year is to make sure that every student feels like they are loved and like they belong. The second need is fun. The activities in #2 represent every one's need to have fun. Fun can be any activity that they enjoy, which can (and often) includes learning. One of our other goals is to make the learning process fun, so that they'll enjoy their time at school. The third need power. The positive form of power is power within. When you succeed or accomplish a goal, you feel power within yourself. That's a positive form of power. We want our students to learn how to tap their power within to succeed in the classroom. The other form of power that is not constructive is power over. When you try to control people other than yourself, you are using this form of power. We want to minimize the need people feel to have power over (including the teachers). The last need is freedom, which is represented by corner #4. Everyone wants a certain degree of freedom, and we need to determine what we want to be free to do and what boundaries we want other people to respect.

The overall aim of this year is to find a compromise between the students and the teachers. We want to have a win-win school year. That may mean that we need to allow more talk time in class or allow them to listen to their ipods during work time. At the same time, they will compromise by respecting our classrooms and behaving calmly. Ultimately, the choice is up to the individual. We want to teach the students to take responsibility for their actions. The atmosphere we will have this year will be determined by each and every student in our classes. If we can teach them how to choose wisely, then everyone will win. Let the year begin!

Working without benefits

2007-08-27T08:02:00.000-06:00

I came across this article in Sojourners. It's worth taking a look at (though I think you have to sign up to see it, but don't worry it's free and worth the sign up because they have other great articles). The article is about how it sucks to be a worker in the US because so many jobs don't have benefits that are desperately needed, and it's taking it's toll on the family. There wasn't much in there that I hadn't already come across, but I was glad to see that a Christian based magazine was showing awareness and concern for this problem. Here's my favorite part:

"We need to think long and hard about what kind of economy we want to create for the next generation of workers. What are the basic standards that should be common to all jobs, not just the best jobs? At the very least, the United States should follow the lead of other advanced economies and provide paid time off for workers who are ill, have an ill family member, or need time to care for a new child. We should also ensure that safe, affordable, and enriching child care is available to every parent. We need to incorporate into our policymaking the recognition that those working in low-wage jobs may be unable to make ends meet and that their employers are not filling in the gaps with benefits."

Of course the other side of this discussion is what will happen to businesses, esp small ones, when the fringe costs (is that what they are?) go up. Perhaps it shouldn't be all on the business' shoulders? Some days I wish I was an economist so I'd have a better idea of what was really at stake here.

The Potter problem and some philosophy to boot:

2007-08-16T20:57:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago a friend of mine gave me the first 5 Harry Potter books. I had yet to read any (or watch any of the movies), because it was just so trendy. I felt like reading them would be the equivalent to listening to N’Sync in the 7th grade. It was a matter of principle. It didn’t help that I’m not too keen on magic and the like. I try to avoid books/movies/shows that make magic look fun and cool and innocent. If you believe in the supernatural (which I openly admit that I do), then magic is nothing to take lightly. Those who do practice magic aren’t channeling positive forces (even if they think they are). If you remember my post on CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, I really believe that there are spiritual powers at war in this world. Any time you tap into a power not from God, well you can guess where I think it comes from. So I just never bothered to read the books. They were too trendy, and they make little kids think magic is cool (and I admit, after reading them, there have been several occasions where I’ve wished I had a wand to stupefy my students in swim lessons).

But even though I didn’t read them, I didn’t think they were any worse than every other secular book out there (unlike many other vocal Christians in the US that ardently boycott the series). A book without God is just that, a book without God. Of course there are wonderful books with God, and I love many of them (Narnia, Rings, etc). But that doesn’t mean that any book without God is bad to read just because He’s missing from it. Literary achievement isn’t limited to the pious, and there’s a lot you can learn (I know this is obvious) from those who don’t write from a religious perspective (see my Golden Compass post for one example). So I’ve decided to write about Harry Potter from my perspective, and I know many other Christians have already done this but I haven’t read a word of it because I didn’t want anything to be spoiled (so forgive me if I repeat what other thoughtful writers have already written, it isn’t intentional). And I think my discussion of the merits of Potter lends itself to a short discussion of whether we should introduce philosophy to children through their own literature (a subject I have never thought about myself, but have recently been introduced to by Professor Brighouse).

I don’t know if I’ll spoil the books for anyone, so don’t read this if you haven’t read them but plan too (though I don’t think I’ll give away too much, and I doubt there are many people left who haven’t read them yet).

The central plot in HP is one of a war between good and evil, a common enough story line. Voldemort, the evil antagonist, does a Satan slash Darth Vador move by moving to the dark side. His move was motivated by pride and a lust for power. Then you have Harry who is not extraordinary in himself, but rather becomes extraordinary by the combination of the love in his life and his willingness to do the right thing. In the end, love conquers all. Without love, you just can’t win, and you’re pretty miserable in the process. No amount of power can replace love. So minus the glorification of white magic (which, I suppose, is a powerful enough objection on its own, but I don’t think it outweighs the importance of the message in the books), the book does a good job of promoting the story of all time. Why do so many stories focus on the battle between good and evil? Why does love always seem to win out in the end? Why are the underdogs able to do extraordinary things? Well, you can guess what I have to say about that. Love wins because God is love. Evil is here because moral agents are prone to pride, and they have the choice to abandon God is they want. God’s love will win anyways, so those who embrace it (and those people tend to be the underdogs, those who need all the help they can get) also gain the power of His love. It’s a universal story because the battle is etched in our hearts. The God hole is there, the temptation to follow the route of pride is there, the love is there for the taking… The story can come in any shape or form, the characters may change, the setting may be different, but the conflict is the same.

The fact that so many stories have the same conflict speaks to the need that we have for God and His love. By reading secular novels (and going to secular movies and listening to secular songs) you witness humanity’s longing for it. I’ve always thought that sheltering yourself from the shouts of humanity for God is tantamount to ignoring God Himself. We need to listen to everyone else so we can begin to show them the love that we prize so dearly. A few years back some friends of mine and I decided to make a CD about God, but it would be filled with only secular songs. The songs we found spoke of love and redemption and second chances and the need to belong and be satisfied and have a purpose. The overwhelming cry of humanity is this very deep need for love, the unconditional and extraordinary kind. When I read Harry Potter, I hear this cry.

Well I was going to say more on that, but I fear I may just be repeating what other Christians have no doubt figured out already. So that’s all really. Not earth-shattering, but I thought it was worth saying again, as it’s an important lesson or us (believers) to learn.

Here’s where I was going to write about how HP and books like it lend themselves very nicely to discussing philosophy with children, but I think I’ll save that for a future post. Expect it soon enough.

More Egally Business

2007-08-16T20:13:00.000-06:00

I was recently referred to this article by Arthur Brooks in the City Journal. In light of my obvious egalitarian convictions, the article voiced one of the most common objections I’ve encountered. Strickly speaking, the concern is that egalitarians are too focused on equality of income. This could very well be true, egallies of all varieties may be missing the point as much as everyone else. But, my sort of egalitarianism (and the sort that I’ve had the most exposure to) is not like this at all. Equality of income (or even, overall assets) is not only ridiculously hard to maintain without an absurd amount of interference into people’s lives, but it also doesn’t achieve the sort of equality that I think every person deserves (which I will explain below).

The article goes on to show how conservatives tend to be more optimistic about people’s opportunity to move upward economically and socially, whereas liberals tend to think people are stuck where they are. Well, there is truth on both ends. Of course there are many people who are gifted with the necessary market-skills that will allow for them to break free from their less advantaged roots, but not everyone has the right sort of talents to do so. If a person is born more charismatic, good looking, intelligent, etc –they can’t boast that they deserve to have been born so. They also can’t say that they themselves achieved any sort of feat by being lucky enough to live at a time when such traits are highly marketable. Not that hard work doesn’t come in at all, I believe it certainly does, but there are many people in the lower ranks of society who work very hard with the talents they have, but they don’t have what the market requires for them to rise. Is that their fault? No. The fact that there are many working poor is sad, but true. There are working poor. If you work 3 jobs but earn only a meager salary with no benefits, what else can be expected of you? The question isn’t whether there is the opportunity for some to rise, but whether all those who deserve to rise can do so. Why should the back breaking work of the custodian go unrewarded all because he wasn’t born 7’ tall with a great lay-up shot? It’s not about opportunity for the lucky few, but for those who really are contributing to society in a meaningful way (not that bball players don’t, but do they really contribute millions of dollars worth—seriously?).

This quote made me smile (being a former conservative, yet not a liberal –sort of disliking all sides –but with definite lefty tendencies):

“It is small wonder, then, that conservatives tend to be happier than liberals today. The 2004 GSS showed that 44 percent of people who identified themselves as “conservative” or extremely conservative” were “very happy” about their lives; only 25 percent of self-identified liberals or extreme liberals gave that response. Conservatives believe that they live in a more promising country than liberals do, and that makes them happier.”

Couldn’t this just mean that conservatives might be more ignorant of the situation of everyone else in society, and so they may be less worried about the overall situation? I certainly wouldn’t put it past them ;) . This, of course, followed the explanation of a study where liberals (rich ones) thought there was less mobility in the US than poor conservatives. Well, perhaps the happiness with what you’ve got isn’t so much a function of your political leanings, but more about other ideological sympathies. Growing up as a WASP, you are taught to be content with what you have, but to work very hard anyways. WASPs also tend to be conservative (and don’t usually run into much if any discrimination). If the right really has a monopoly over the religious sect, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they were a bit more optimistic about their situation in life. But, that’s just a hunch. Maybe they controlled for religion, who knows.

This quote (and objection) didn’t surprise me:

“And those left behind, it’s important to note, will almost certainly not become happier if we redistribute more income. Indeed, they will probably become less happy. Policies designed to lower economic inequality tend to change the incentives of both the haves and the have-nots in a way that particularly harms the have-nots. Reductions in the incentives to prosper mean fewer jobs created, less economic growth, less in tax revenues, and less charitable giving—all to the detriment of those left behind. And redistribution can, as the American
welfare system has shown, turn beneficiaries into demoralized long-term dependents. As Irving Kristol put it three years before the federal welfare reform of 1996, “The problem with our current welfare programs is not that they are costly—which they are—but that they have such perverse consequences for
people they are supposed to benefit."”

Of course if we try to mend our already shoddy system it won’t do much good. That’s because you can’t build a house on the sand. Maybe we just need to tear it down and start again, which means we may also mean that we need to be a bit more creative. Income equality won’t cut it (though making the inequality itself less stark certainly wouldn’t hurt). It’s about making equal opportunity for people to live a flourishing life. You needn’t make 100 grand a year to flourish. What do you need? Well that varies from person to person. But Nussbaum has some ideas (bodily freedom, health, development of the mind, meaningful relationships, etc). I think I would just need enough money to ensure decent living arrangements, food, clothes, etc and maybe a family and a job that challenges me and is interesting. I don't think equality of income is necessary to give everyone a shot at this, but I think everyone does deserve a shot at a worthwhile life (even if their talents aren’t very marketable). If you are willing to work and do your share, you should have this opportunity (though you could argue that work ethic itself isn’t something you deserve to have but that you have by chance –a combination of genes and how you were raised). Income isn’t the only thing we need, but maybe we need a more encompassing education (how to take care of yourself, emotional ed, resources for parents, etc) and better healthcare.

This is more in line with what I think about things (though I think Brooks is mistaken about how well conservative policies really promote the sort of opportunity I’m thinking of):

“A more accurate vision of America sees a land of both inequality and opportunity, in which hard work and perseverance are the keys to jumping from the ranks of the have-nots to those of the haves. If we can solve problems of
absolute deprivation, such as hunger and homelessness, then rewarding hard work will continue to serve as a positive stimulant to achievement. Redistribution and taxation, beyond what’s necessary to pay for key services, weaken America’s
willingness and ability to thrive. This vision promotes policies focused not on wiping out economic inequality, but rather on enhancing economic mobility. They include improving educational opportunities, aggressively addressing cultural
impediments to success, enhancing the fluidity of labor markets, searching for ways to include all citizens in America’s investing revolution, and protecting the climate of American entrepreneurship…Placidity about income inequality, and
opposition to income redistribution, are evidence of a light heart, not a hard one. If happiness is our goal, those who promote opportunity over economic equality have no apologies to make.”

Brooks is right, it’s not just about the money. It’s about so much more! So let’s get things going already…

Where did all the egalitarians go?

2007-08-05T18:29:00.000-06:00

This post has been in the works (or at least in my head) for quite some time. I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at two fairly familiar political philosophy ideologies (egalitarianism and libertarianism) and for me to show you what I think of them and how I believe they stand in relation to the Christian faith. To be perfectly honest, I only just recently became aware of the former ideology this past year, so I can only skim the surface of this discussion and am not at all qualified to have much of an opinion. But that's never stopped me before, so here it goes.

I'll start with a basic overview of the egalitarian perspective as I understand it. According to the Standford Encyclopedia, egally's favor "equality of some sort: People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect. Egalitarian doctrines tend to express the idea that all human persons are equal in fundamental worth or moral status." As far as the general attitude, who wouldn't be an egalitarian? Most people (at least as far as they'll admit to others) believe that all people are just as important as any other person, and that no race/religion/sex/sexual orientation/etc makes you less valuable as a person. So far, so good. In fact, this attitude is proclaimed quite prominently by Christ and his followers. We are all, according to Jesus, beloved children of God. Each one of us is dearly cared for and loved just as much as every other person, and we should treat each other with that in mind. Love thy neighbor as thyself, because thy neighbor is just as important and worthy of respect and love as you are.

Of course, this is a lovely attitude to have, but a hard one to live. What does an egalitarian government look like? What sorts of policies would it have? The common conception is that everyone would have equal income/wealth. But that's not necessarily the case, because equality of income wouldn't be enough, nor would it accurately reflect an equal treatment of all persons within a society. Income and wealth (as Rawls would say, 'conceived broadly as they must be') aren't important in and of themselves; they are only important in so far as they can achieve some greater good (for what use is a bunch of paper bills that are intrinsically worthless?). Sen would go the 'capabilities approach', where what you're looking at are people's actual capabilities to achieve certain functionings. His approach is rather interesting, but of course I don't have much time to go into it here. The point is, equality is not limited to equality of resources, but can (or should) include people's opportunity to live flourishing lives. That's the sort of equality that I want to take a look at.

For me, everyone has some sort of initial right (as much as possible) to have an equal shot at living a flourishing life (which can, and will inevitably, vary from person to person). Being born to different parents or a different race/sex/etc shouldn't damage or better one's shot at flourishing. That of course, brings in all sort of problems when it comes to our market place, education system, family policy, etc. The currant range of incomes, for example, is completely ridiculous. People should earn more for more time spent working, and their job pay should reflect either the need for people to work in that field (ie backbreaking, drudgery jobs should be high in the pay range because they suck and those that have to do them should be compensated accordingly) or the importance of the field itself. That also means that education should be equalized so parents can't buy their children into better schools and therefore better paying jobs. That may also mean that parenting itself should be more closely monitored or better parenting education set up so parents can learn how to do a better job of it (those who know me well know that I'm often tempted to say parents should have to get a license to have kids-- which I'm only half kidding about). I think natural talent (intelligence, beauty, etc) should only be rewarded in so far as they help better the lives of everyone, because who can say they deserved to be born smart or attractive?

In non-ideal theory, it's all much harder than that. But you get my drift. It's the attitude that I care about for right now. The details can be decided by smarter people later on. Now, it seems as though Christians have a good reason to be egallys. After all, we all are equal in God's eyes, so why shouldn't we also treat each other equally? Why aren't more of us tempted to follow the egalitarian trend? I believe there may be several reasons that hold many of us back. And these reasons have a lot to do with (or in common with) the libertarian field of thought.

The Stanford Encyclopedia tells us that "libertarianism holds that agents are, at least initially, full self-owners. Agents are (moral) full self-owners just in case they morally own themselves in just the same way that they can morally fully own inanimate objects." In other words, I am mine and my stuff is mine and I have the right do with me or my stuff what I so choose unless it interferes with you and your stuff. This thought is very tempting, because who doesn't have a complex about their stuff and control of it? You do your thing and I'll do mine and that'll be that. When I put it like that (admittedly biased -- explanatory anecdotes to follow), you may wonder what this has to do with Christianity. It doesn't seem very Christ-like, so why would a Christian be tempted to embrace it? Well, there's this whole doctrine of free will that comes into play. God put us here, many Christians believe, with free reign over the course of our lives. He thought it good (for whatever end He has in mind) to give us the latitude to do with our lives what we will, so why shouldn't we give each other that same latitude? Of course with that freedom comes the freedom to mess up other people's lives (whether directly or not), but that's the price we pay. If God can appeal to some higher good than comfort (at the cost of suffering for many), than why shouldn't we? (I'm stealing this question from a friend--thanks for asking it)

Well here's how I think that sort of thinking goes astray. God did give us freedom over our own lives, but He did so to give us the opportunity to choose the righteous life. That means, we have the opportunity (and He wants us to use it) to do good in this world. We are given our freedom not so that we will choose to cause suffering, but so that we will choose to love each other and bring comfort to each other. To take that a step further, if we have a government set up in such a way that we have enormous influence (at least, compared to our predecessors) over how it runs, then we should use our ability to choose to choose a system that will best reflect the attitude of Christ, one where all citizens are treated equal. Libertarians value freedom as a concept, but freedom to really live requires more than latitude to do what you can with what you've got, esp when what you've got with the status quo sucks. Real freedom requires the capability to reach goals, not just the legal right to do so. That requires a whole different playing field from the one we've got right now. You may ask: why can't helping others be on a voluntary basis, why should the government be able to coerce our help? Well, collective action is one thing. We can only do so much as individuals, and it's hard to organize on the same level that the government could. Besides, if the government did go the egally route, it would be because the people chose it. Jesus told us to help each other like we're all one big family, and leaving everyone alone to fend for themselves won't cut it.

There's another issue I have with the whole set-up of the libertarian philosophy and the Christian perspective. Self-ownership (and ownership in general) bothers me quite a bit. I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve to live as long as I do. I don't deserve the abilities and circumstances I was born with and into. I don't own my body. All that I have is on loan, and it's all a gift. I'm supposed to do with what I have what I can until it's time to give it all back. I am a steward of my life and the "stuff" I have, and if I act like I own any of it then I won't be doing what I'm supposed to at all. Focusing on your rights and ownership and freedom to do what you want is all a very self-centered business. It's one we're quite prone to, and it's an attractive idea but it's not the right idea. We aren't our own, we are God's, and we are charged to take care of each other (even if we have to make sacrifices). Lay down our lives for each other-- that's the goal. It's tempting to say, like above, that if God lets us choose suffering then we should allow each other to choose suffering, but that's missing the whole point. My last post on Romans talked about that sort of attitude and how it doesn't make much sense. The gist was: all because our evildoing makes God look better (or makes people turn to him more), doesn't mean we should take that as license to do evil. We're still supposed to do the right thing, even if God can use our doing the wrong thing to further his plan. That might not make sense, and you might not see the connection with that and the libertarian attitude, so I'm sorry for not being able to better put into words my feelings on the matter.

That all being said, I'd like to leave here with some words of wisdom from my Pastor who gave a phenomenal (but challenging) message today. You can check it out here if you want (it's called "It's all mine"). The message was about Romans 12:3 which says, "Share with God's people who are in need." Sharing isn't a new concept, but it's so hard to do because we get so caught up in what's mine. So we looked at the parable in Matthew 25:14-on that talks about the master and the talents (probably 70lbs of silver, or the equivalent of an ordinary laborers wages for 20 yrs). The point is that the master gives his servants some of his money, and the servants are entrusted with it until he returns. The servants that take his money (notice, never their own money) and use it to make more for their master are considered faithful. The one who sits on the money and does nothing with what he's been entrusted with gets in trouble. We have to live like the first two servants, knowing that all that we've been given is never ours. We should use everything we have to give glory to our master, and when he returns he'll be pleased with us. It's never about what's mine, but what is his and how we use it for his purposes. Do I own myself? No. Do I have stewardship over myself and my "stuff" for the time being? Yes. So let me use what I've been given to follow Christ's command to love everyone in every way possible.

So where have all the egalitarians gone in our Churches? Why do we still care too much about our stuff and our lives and not other people? God is wondering the same thing...

(fyi, I don't think you have to be an egalitarian to be a Christ-follower, and you can still be a libertarian and be a Christ-follower, but I think it's important to remember the attitude we are supposed to take when we make these sorts of choices... and from my perspective the attitude of the egalitarian more closely aligns with Christ's message. But many other Christians may disagree, and my opinion is once again just that-- only my opinion and nothing more.)

**And as promised above, here are several anecdotes about my encounters with libertarians that have made me wary of them ever since. I thought it best to share my bias openly, because my opinion is obviously influenced by my real life experiences with libertarians and not just their ideology:

My first encounter with a real libby came in my discussion section for my contemporary moral issues class. The discussion was unproductive as it was because the section was loaded with business majors and no other philosophy students. While discussing surrogate motherhood (or some such topic), a fellow classmate volunteered that he disagreed with whatever stance we were talking about. When asked his reasons, he promptly replied that he was, in fact, a libertarian. When further asked how that affected his decision, he merely replied again that it was because he was a libertarian. End of story, no more discussion. You can imagine the thoughts that were reeling around my head after that display of willful ignorance.

My second encounter came when I met the heir to a rather large company. He was a very very wealthy white boy who stood to inherit more money than I'll probably earn in a lifetime. For him, being a libby was the "cool" and "trendy" way to be conservative economically without being thrown into the not-so-cool-for-20-somethings Republican camp. To be fair, he had every practical reason to be a libertarian, as that position would ensure that his large wealth and influence remained in tact. It's almost hard to blame him... other than the fact that if he weren't a white rich male he would hardly be so eager to preserve the status quo. So as you can imagine, I don't have much sympathy for the actual libertarians I've met (even if I have more for what their ideology actual says), because so far they've just been naive white boys with lots of money...

Thoughts on Romans

2007-08-03T13:05:00.000-06:00

The other day I came across a passage in Romans that made me pause. Paul was describing a theological arguement that (it seems) was starting to gain force. With the early growth of the church, Christ's message of grace was turning people's worlds upside down. The ancient Jews lived by the Mosaic law, and the whole idea of salvation by faith was quite disturbing to many of them. In fact, it was so uncomfortable for them that even some of the new believers couldn't shake their need to prove themselves through strict adherence to the law. But the concept of grace is not easily grasped, especially when you have spent much of your life trying to earn God's favor. If grace covers everyone, even the worst law-breakers, then what good is it to try and live an upright life? Isn't grace a slap in the face to all the do-gooder-over-achieving types? Well yes, and it's supposed to be. Our depravity shows God's goodness more clearly. It's in the darkness that the light penetrates the deepest. But with this grace comes a dangerous line of thought, one that Paul addresses here:

"But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, 'If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?' Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—'Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved." Romans 3:5-6

This passage stuck out because it seems like it's the reverse problem of evil argument. I didn't think that I'd seen anyone approach God's grace this way, but then I thought harder. This is an integral part of the faith vs. work debate. If our faith alone saves us, then what's the point of even trying to live a righteous life? But at the same time, if our works must save us, then how good is good enough for God? James tells us that faith and good works are not separate at all, the one without the other makes it dead. But anyways, the point is that I never thought the grace part was a problem. Today the big focus is whether or not a good and gracious God would even allow evil, but back then another question was whether a gracious God would be angry with evil at all (if it makes Him look better). Well, I'm at a loss. I just thought I'd pass that quandary along, because I've never seen it from that angle before. I mean, no one would have said that Hitler should get off easy because his depravity makes Mother Theresa look better (different times, I'm aware, but you get the idea). Who knew? The philosophical/theological problem du jour may seem kind of null tomorrow...

(Romans has proved a more interesting book than I thought, so maybe I'll have more later)

Whatever happened to the good childhood?

2007-07-27T15:22:00.001-06:00

So I've decided to have a go at a childhood/parenting discussion. I've just finished reading Neil Postman's book, The Disappearance of Childhood, which reminded me of the Good Childhood seminar I attended a few months ago. The question I've been struggling to resolve is this: if children are no longer children (in how they act, and how they are treated), is that really a bad thing? If children are becoming more and more like adults (or as Postman would add, adults are becoming more like children), what is really at stake?

For starters we can take a look at what I mean by children no longer being "children" in it's original sense. Historically, the distinction between children and adults was less a biological fact and more a social construction (that Postman claims arises with literacy, which has since been discredited). By social construction I mean that children were treated differently than adults, they were kept from certain secrets/mysteries of the adult world, they acted differently, etc. Children were, in essence, shielded from the realities faced by adults. The realities were then, in turn, revealed to them slowly and at a time when they would be ready for them. How were they protected? Well, in part, knowledge was in print, and to access that knowledge you not only needed to be able to read, but you also needed to be functioning at a high level of analytical thinking. Today the story is quite different. Knowledge of the adult world is indiscriminately broadcast to people of all ages through the medium of television. It's one thing for a child to read an inappropriate passage in a book (the extent of harm done would depend upon the strength of the child's imagination), and another for a child to be constantly bombarded with violence, sexuality, and materialism on the television. It takes zero effort to assimilate those images, and they inevitably take their toll on the ethos of children's culture. Postman's book was written somewhere around 20 years ago, and his concern was limited mainly to television. But I think it's also safe to add the concern of the affect the internet has on young minds. Parents rarely keep taps on their children's web surfing, and everyone knows the things they can find on there far surpass anything they'd see on primetime tv... This, of course, is old news, but it's worth remembering. I distinctly remember having free reign on the internet when I was in middle/high school. Thankfully, I was a total dork and spent most of my time looking up html codes for building web pages or IMing my friends, but that's not very typical, and parents ought to be more aware of what their kids are finding online...

Now, before I'm branded as the old fashion Puritan who is just overreacting, consider what's at stake. If the realities of adult life aren't suitable for children, then children ought to be protected from them. If they're not protected, then they will ultimately suffer for it. Consider this quote that I am shamelessly stealing from the Good Childhood Seminar. It's from from Juliet Schor’s study of the marketing industry:

Children are being exposed to plenty of glamour, fashion, style, irony, and popular music, that is, sex. Even the family-friendly Disney Channel is full of sexually suggestive outfits and dancing. One Radio Disney employee explained to me that the company keeps a careful watch on the lyrics, but is hands-off with the other stuff… Emma Gilding of Ogilvy and Mather recounted an experience she had during an in-home videotaping. The little girl was doing a Britney Spears imitation, with flirting and sexual grinding. Asked by Gilding what she wanted to be when she grew up, the three year old answered, “a sexy shirt girl”…. Mary Prescott [an industry professional] who is more deeply immersed [than other interviewees] in the world of tweening, confessed that “I am doing the most horrible thing in the world. We are targeting kids too young with too many inappropriate things…It’s not worth the almighty buck."

The saddest part is that this is entirely too familiar. I dare anyone to challenge the claim that today's youth are becoming more and more adult-like in their behavior and tastes. Mean Girls showed it most poignantly when one of the girls younger sister was dancing to Britney Spear's music video and no one seemed bothered by it in the least, as though it's expected for young girls to try and be sexy, even at the age of 7 or 8! I'm young enough to testify to this disturbing phenomenon. I distinctly remember the transition into middle school, where, for the first time, I became acutely aware of my appearance and that of the other girls around me. For the first few months I proudly wore my over sized sweaters handed down from my mom or neighbors. Slowly but surely the girls around me began to shake off their childhood clothes as they adopted the trends of the 7th and 8th graders (who in turn were mimicking the high schoolers who were themselves trying to dress like adults...). I hung in there for awhile, but then the teasing started, and eventually I too adopted the tweeny fashion that modeled itself after adult celebrities.

So children are being bombarded with the message that they ought to be more like adults: what's wrong with that? Is it liberating (as some people seriously suggest, much to my dismay) for children to be broken out of the bondage and suffocation of paternalistic restraints? Maybe it is liberating in the sense that children now have practically unrestricted access to the trials and tribulations of adulthood, but at the same time children are not necessarily ready for this reality shock. Yes, in reality, sexuality is a driving force in our society, but why should that be any concern of children? Why should children feel the need to dress/act provocatively when they aren't even physically ready for sex (let alone emotionally ready for it)? It all seems nonsensical, and that's why I'm so disturbed to see the lack of restraint in the adult sphere when it comes to the information/messages passed on to children. Of course children aren't ready to be adults, that's why they're children, so why aren't they being raised accordingly?

One answer is that adults aren't really adults anymore, not in the traditional sense. They act more and more like children, as though remaining forever immature will be the equivalent of some sacred fountain of youth. You've seen those cheesy talk shows where the children bring on their parents and grandparents in an attempt to get them to "act their age." You have grandmothers wearing miniskirts, fathers beating each other up at little league games, and parents arguing like children. Adults should act differently from children in the sense that they have learned how to hold off immediate gratification in pursuit of long term goals and have learned some self-restraint, but in today's culture that's far from accurate. I've seen enough shows where the parents seek help from someone (like the supernanny!) because they can't seem to control their kids, when the real problem is that they spend all their time trying to befriend their children (in some lackluster attempt at resolving some underlying insecurities) instead of parenting them. Children are now our friends, not our charges, not our responsibilities, so in essence, they aren't really children at all.

The dilemma of the disappearing childhood can be coupled with that of the quest for the "good" childhood. Is a good childhood one in which children are treated more like adults? For example, there are those who think that the middle class suburban childhood is the benchmark of a good childhood. But the middle class childhood is marked by it's tendency to treat children as mini-adults. Parents try to reason with their kids, they let kids make the decisions (from what they want for dinner, to whether or not they want to watch tv or do their homework), they put children in a myriad of organized activities (instead of letting them make up games or play spontaneous pickup games with neighborhood friends). Life becomes a competition, let the parent with the best (most accomplished) child win. While it's true that the middle class upbringing prepares kids quite well (overall) for the competitive marketplace, it seems like they are at the same time robbing children of the bliss of being a child. Why should a 6 year old be shuttled to a different organized sport, music lesson, or acting class every night? Why is the 5 year old deciding whether or not the family should stay in or eat out (and in the case of a girl at the preschool my roommate works at: whether or not the babysitter should have to stay for dinner too)? Children don't need to make those decisions; they don't need that many organized activities. What they need is time to let their imagination wander, to explore their own world without being thrust into the world of adults. They don't need to be maxed out, stressed out, and spoiled. They need to be treated like children, with proper restraint and proper room for growing the imagination and playfulness.

If the middle-class-ambition-driven childhood isn't "good," then what else is there? Should we aim for whatever makes children the happiest? That would certainly fit nicely with our hedonistic society that proclaims: pleasure is the goal, all is fair in the pursuit of it. But what children often want in order to be "happy" (and by happy, it usually means temporarily not a pain for the parents) is often in opposition to what will make them happy in the long run. That realization, of course, they aren't aware of (which is why they are children in the first place), but sadly parents aren't aware of it either. Of course the child wants McDonald's now, but when she's an adult does she really want to be plagued by the habit of eating unhealthily? Probably not, but as a child she didn't know that what happened to her then would affect the person she became later.

A side question to this issue is where Christian parents stand. I was asked once if being raised in a Christian household help shield me better from the materialism (etc) of our society. In many ways it didn't because I still grew up in a fairly affluent suburb where materialism reigned supreme. But at the same time, I was equipped with a pretty compelling message that taught me not to trust in worldly treasures. This varies from family to family, but, if a child is truly presented with Christ's message, then no matter what goes on in the their family they have something else to point them in the right direction. So in essence, being a Christian has shown me where I struggle with the materialism and whatnot of our culture, but that doesn't mean my childhood wasn't steeped in it. The only difference is that I'm aware of it, and I have a good shot at trying to turn that all around now... (this probably warrants it's own post, and perhaps I'll try to get one up soon)

All of that was really just a rambling way of saying that I'm worried about the situation of children in our society and where their future is headed. I'm worried as a non-parent, but I hope to be one, and I do have a sister in middle school who faces all of the aforementioned problems of today's children. Of course I didn't do much for outlining what those problems are; I just wanted to point to the problem as a whole and leave it up to you to think about it some more. I think I'll just leave the discussion here (as incomplete and unhelpful as it is, sorry), and I'll add a small confession. I write this post today as a total hypocrite because while writing it I'm also watching America's Next Top Model (my guilty pleasure) with my 13 year old sister. But hey, that just proves how society has failed me. At least I'm aware of it though ;)

Links:
Good Childhood discussion on CT
Disappearnce of Childhood book
My other parenting post

(okay, so maybe not a lot of links, sorry, but I might expand on a future post...)

More and Monopoly

2007-07-19T15:29:00.000-06:00

Well I finished readying Thomas More's Utopia a few weeks back, and I've finally found some time to write out some of my thoughts. Though, to be perfectly honest, the book left me with mixed feelings, and I have yet to resolve them. Perhaps my confusion is the result of reading this book immediately after Orwell's 1984, but who knows.

For starters, one of More's most forceful critiques was his stance on England's use of the death penalty. At the time, almost everything was punishable by death. More, rightly, points out that petty theft and murder are crimes that are not at all the same, and they shouldn't be punished the same either. He also points out, interestingly, that if a "Christian" nation is trivially putting people to death, then it is, in effect, overriding one of the basic commandments. He makes his observation as follows:

"God said, 'Thou shalt not kill'-- does the theft of a little money make it quite all right for us to do so? If it's said that this commandment applies only to illegal killing, what's to prevent human beings from similarly agreeing among themselves to legalize certain types of rape, adultery, or perjury? Considering that God has forbidden us even to kill ourselves, can we really believe that purely human arrangements for the regulation of mutual slaughter are enough, without divine authority, to exempt executioners from the sixth commandment? Isn't that rather like saying that this particular commandment has no more validity than human laws allow it? --in which case the principle can be extended indefinitely, until in all spheres of life human beings decide just how far God's commandments may conveniently be observed."

Personally, I am undecided on the death penalty. There are issues of how well can we really know that the person is guilty, and to what extent does the State have a right to take away the life of somebody. But do serial killers forfeit their right to live when they kill a bunch of people...? I'm not sure. Regardless, in More's case, he's quite right to point out that we shouldn't use capital punishment for just anything. I mean, the crime must be pretty horrible to warrant it. Anyways, this section just reminded me that I need to think on this some more (esp as a Christian, since Jesus' stance on mercy is pretty clear).

And then there's this wonderful part about how Raphael should give advice to political leaders (as a philosopher). The debate is whether or not he ought to, and whether or not anyone would listen if he did. More (the character) says that there's no room for "academic" philosophy, by which I think he means ideal theory, because it's "irrespective of circumstances." But there is, apparently, room for non-ideal philosophy, if only anyone would bother to care. He goes on to complain that "if we're never to say anything unconventional, for fear of its sounding ridiculous, we'll have to hush up, even in a Christian country, practically everything that Christ taught." That quote in particular made me laugh, as sad as that is.

Now here is where I think More is on to something. In Utopia, of course, there is no money and the usual things that we value (gold, gems) are worthless. Instead, everyone does their share and has what they need and they all seem to be content enough. Now all of that is quite attractive when you read it, but then you realize that it's far from practical (at least for a large nation). Utopia is an island with tons of natural resources, natural defenses, the people are raised to be of a certain sort, etc etc. But, one of the great lessons of their little hippy commune, is their attitude towards work. Check out this passage:

"They never force people to work unnecessarily, for the main purpose of their whole economy is the give each person as much time free from physical drudgery as the needs of the community will allow, so that he can cultivate his mind (yay!) -which they regard as the secret of a happy life."

In the US it seems like we live to work, whereas elsewhere in the world people work to live. Why the turn around? Maybe we can chalk this one up to the Puritans.... In any case, this was a discussion in my french business class where we discovered that the French (apparently) don't like to work, and they only want to work enough to have a decent quality of life. I'm not going to lie, our way seems to be quite stupid (working to work so we can work some more?), but I often find myself following in this stupid American tradition. I don't mean to say that we should do nothing at all, but we should have the free time to do the "work"/ activities that we enjoy (for some that means raising a family, for others it's education, and for some still it's something else entirely).

Moving along, here's a passage that struck me precisely because I've thought the very same thing myself. It's about our desire for precious stones when they look the same as non-precious stones (so it's not really an about the atheistic value, per se, but the whole rarity thing):

"There's another type of person I mentioned before, who has a passion for jewels, and feels practically superhuman if he manages to get hold of a rare one, esp if it's a kind that's considered particularly precious in his country and period -for the value of such things varies according to where and when you live. But he's so terrified of being taken in by appearances that he refuses to buy any jewel until he's stripped off all the gold and inspected it in the nude...But my dear sir, why shouldn't a fake give you just as much pleasure, if you can't, with your own eyes, distinguish it from a real one? It makes no difference to you whether it's genuine or not -any more than it would to a blind man!"

I really think he's on to something. Maybe in the future I should have a cubic zirconium for an engagement ring...(though we'll see if I still feel that way by then!). I never did understand what all the fuss was about. I mean, I've had people think my cheap Claire's earrings were real, so what does it matter anyway? If it's really about how it looks, then costume jewelery should suffice... ;)

Oh, and I particularly liked this bit about the law and lawyers (for those who are unaware, I am heading off to law school soon, so I suppose I ought to find this offensive and not funny). This part I think makes a lot of sense, and it's a wonder we haven't adopted it yet:

"It's quite unjust for anyone to be bound by a legal code which is too long for an ordinary person to read right through, or too difficult for him to understand."

The reason our's is so obnoxious is, of course, the lawyer's fault:

"If nobody's telling the sort of lies that one learns from lawyers, the judge can apply all his shrewdness to weighing the facts of the case, and protecting simple-minded characters against the unscrupulous attacks of clever ones."

Unscrupulous, I like the word usage here. What if one day I became a lawyer that's *gasp* unscrupulous. Heaven help us.

So, I thought the book was clever, obviously, it is after all a classic. It was a bit too unrealistic for me (yes, even me, a philosophy student), and I couldn't shake the image of what the State would turn into when it started to implement it (ie, big brother). But, the attitude is right, and we should at least take that away. This, of course, brings me to my follow-up story from a few nights back. I may have some socialist, maybe even communist, tenancies, but apparently in the face of good old capitalist competition those all melt away and reveal my true colors. By this I mean, the other night I played Monopoly with some of my friends and I found myself bending over backwards to get hotels on Atlantic Avenue, Ventnor Ave, and Marvin Gardens (the yellow properties). We were off to a great start because we landing on free parking 5 times in a row, and, apparently, all that monopoly dough can go to your head. Needless to say we ended up bankrupt with nothing by the end, so that shows you something. Everyone has an inner capitalist within, just waiting to be unleashed by a Parker Brothers game. So much for working together in social unity for the common good. Go straight to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200...

Bar Talk: US health care, or lack thereof

2007-07-08T12:55:00.000-06:00

I'm back with another fruitful bar discussion, only this time it came about quite unexpectedly. My bartending friend has actually left her job at the BW, so my dreams of finding stimulating conversation there with the BW's diverse crowd have been dashed. However, it seems that a college-town bar can be conducive to interesting discussions as well, and I found myself in the middle of one a few nights ago. Though, to be honest, I think the place has less to do with it than the fact that I tend to get more thoughtful about things when I've had a bit to drink, but doesn't? Anyways, the topic of the night somehow-- and I really have no recollection of how-- landed on politics. Those that know me well can attest to the fact that I loathe politics, and for all my political philosophy musings, I simply cannot bring myself to have faith in our current political system. But for all my political pessimism, there are some political issues that I can not shy away from. So when the guy I was chatting with mentioned that he has applied to help out in the Edwards campaign, I put away my pessimism and listened. And soon enough our conversation turned to health care, or more accurately, the lack thereof. We both agreed that the current system sucks, and something needs to be done. Everyone has a right to health care, not just the wealthy or those lucky enough to be in the right sort of jobs. But of course, it's all easier said than done...

You may have come across my post a month or so ago about my disgust with Guiliani's attitude towards health care. I used to share his attitude, and many Americans still do, much to my dismay. Namely he thinks that the quality will go down if we mess with the current system, and our quality is the best in the world so we shouldn't tamper with it. To put it roughly, he's unwilling to sacrifice the quality of care that he receives, all the while neglecting the millions of Americans who receive no health care at all, high quality or otherwise. What's the point of having excellent health care if no one can take advantage of it? But of course, there are the naysayers who boo and hiss at the idea of a universal system because it would, they say, never work. Well, let's have a look...

First, I thought it would be helpful to outline what our current system is like. For those not from the US, you may not be familar with our multi-payer / market system. And for those who are from here, it's important to look beyond your personal expereiences with health care and see what is happening in the big picture. I say that because I went a long time thinking our system was just fine precisely because I had great health insurance, well my mom who is a teacher had great insurance, and I've been a free-rider milking it for all it's worth. But my experiences aren't typical, so I thought I'd look for some answers elsewhere.

There's a great article here that gives an outline of our current system, and if you look here you can read up on a study about how our system is failing to meet quality standards. Here are some things I learned that I didn't know before:

The US spends more than other countries on health services (after you figure in GDP), but at the same time the US is below the median for it's use of medical services (physician visits, length of stay, etc). Take a look at the US dot. Way to be an outlier guys:
17% of Americans under 65 are completely uninsured (yikes), and the uninsured population is on the rise.
Being uninsured is not just a problem for the poor or unemployed. Most (70%) of the uninsured live in families with at least one worker. Also, one third of the non elderly uninsured earn up to twice the amount of the poverty line ($14, 000 ish for a family of 3).
My age group (18-24) is the least insured of all other age groups, with a whopping 30% of us going around without insurance.
Medical costs, not surprisingly, are on the rise, with the average cost of a day at the hospital costing over 10 ten times what it did 40 years ago.
For all three categories of care that are needed (chronic, acute, and preventative), the recommended care (of an appropriate quality) was provided only about 50% of the time.
When people don't receive the care they need, they are the ones who pay:

The US is behind many other developed countries in life expectancy, infant mortality rates, obesity rates...etc. Granted, there are many factors that contribute to this, but it's important to remember that widespread preventative care can do a lot of good. And, with the proper prevention, many Americans can lead the way in changing their daily habits that contribute to poor health.
Other effects of being uninsured: emotional stress or anxiety, job lock (being unable to leave a job solely because you need the insurance), and bankruptcy...among other things.

With over 45 million Americans without insurance, and millions more who are under insured, it's not hard to see that our current system isn't cutting it. In the Case for Universal Health Care, the writers point out that Americans treat health care as a privilege, like owning a car or a DVD player. However, many other countries treat health care like a right that everyone should be able to access, because they see health care more like a public or social good than a commodity to be bought by the highest bidder. After all, who can put a price on health? And even if you could, why shouldn't we make sure everyone has a decent shot at it? Morally speaking, good health is a stepping stone to leading a flourishing life. Like freedom of thought or expression, freedom to maintain an adequate level of health enables people, or gives them a foundation, to live a life that they choose and a life where they can flourish as a human being. If good health is a prerequisite (or some sort of capability, if you're a Sen fan) for living a good life (in whatever form that might be for you), then it should be at the top of the list of things that the people want their government to ensure. Political theorists would probably disagree with this, but I think that the purpose of the government is defeated when it fails to live up to the only reason it's around at all, which is to improve the quality of life that it's members have.

The next question is: what are the costs of reforming the system? Well, it would be expensive (I found an estimate of upwards of $70 billion). And if there's minimal/no cost-sharing (the individual paying something out of pocket), then healthcare might be overused (depending on structure of the solution). Also, employers that provide decent health care now might push employees to take the government provided program, a practice referred to as "crowding out."

And what are the costs if we don't? Well aside for the obvious detrimental effect on people's health, we can expect a loss in productivity from workers, a decreased time-span of years spent working all together, job lock, strain on businesses, and a loss in global competitiveness (because our products carry the cost of privately bought health care).

But there's hope yet, and Dr Kenneth Thorpe, an economist at Emory University, has some positive light to shed the question of health care reform. You can check out his non-partisan study here. The good news is that the government could save over one trillion dollars if it implemented a universal, public financed plan along with cost controls and further measures to improve efficiency.

And once again my goal is high: health care for everyone. Can it be done, I think so. Can it be done in the US, well, I hope so. But before anyone can do anything we must wake up the American population and make them aware of the truth behind our wonderful system. Nothing will change until people see the need. But then again, at the rate that people are loosing their insurance, that time may be coming sooner than you'd think.

Sources:
RAND nonprofit research findings
Nice overview of the US system
Case for Universal Health Care
Impacts of Health Care Reform: projections of costs and savings, K. Thorpe

Nobody likes an Evangelist

2007-06-29T08:32:00.000-06:00

Well this post is overdue, so my apologies. I've written a great deal about Christians in the US (or my impressions of them), and I've thrown it out there that I happen to be one, but I don't suppose I've given a very clear picture of what I believe and what mainstream Christians believe. I did give a brief list of some of my beliefs in the first post, but in this one I'll expand on it a bit better. Let me start by saying that I am an Evangelical Christian. There is no hiding it, and I have no shame in calling myself that. The question is: when I say Evangelical, what do you think of? And actually, while I'm asking you that, I'd really love for you to scroll down to the bottom of this post and leave me a comment with your definition or impression of what an Evangelical is. If you do this, do it before you read the rest. If you're definition changes, then let me know that too.

I've met quite a few people that equate evangelicals to Republican card-carrying fundamentalists, but that's far from the truth. While it's true that there a quite a few self-proclaimed "evangelicals" who give off that impression, they too are missing the point. In fact, I've grown up in a sphere of evangelicalism that is quite different from that, so it never occurred to me that other people (even other Christians) might be turned off by it. I've never thought of "evangelical" as a negative descriptor, but now I've realized that there has been a slide in it's usage that is causing quite a few problems. So... I thought I'd give it my best shot and set the record straight (though I owe thinking about all of this in a new light to pastor Chris who gave a very compelling message about this last fall --click on the Nov 5th sermon).

Wikipedia tells us this about the word evangelical:

"The term 'evangelical', in a lexical but less commonly used sense, refers to
anything implied in the belief that Jesus is the Messiah. The word comes from
the Greek word for 'Gospel' or 'good news': ευαγγελιον evangelion, from eu-
"good" and angelion "message". In that strictest sense, to be evangelical would
mean to be merely Christian, that is, founded upon, motivated by, acting in
agreement with, spreading the "good news" message of the New Testament."

So strictly speaking, an evangelical is someone spreading good news. So why the negative connotation? I've always considered evangelical to mean exactly that. I have some good news, and I'd like to share it. In fact, if my belief in this good news is right (and I operate under the conviction that it is) then I should be morally obligated to tell other people about it. If I kept this information to myself, I'd be culpable of a great moral harm. So it seems that I have a moral duty to let other people know what I believe. And that's where this whole thing really begins...

So I have this obligation to tell people about what I believe, but that doesn't tell me how I should go about it. Some people hand out tracks (those little salvation booklets), some televangelise, some go to foreign countries, and others spread the news a little more stealthily. Who's doing it right? Well, I'm willing to bet that every form of spreading the Gospel (yes, even televangelists) has the power to change people's lives. I believe that God can use anything and anyone. I do think some methods may be more effective than others, but whatever, that's just what I think and that doesn't mean anything anyways. To show you what I'm getting at, consider this passage from Philippians. Here Paul is telling us about a group of 'preachers' who are only preaching about Jesus because they want to stir up trouble for Christ's followers. The more they preach, the more trouble the early Christians get in. But, as Paul tells us, their bad motives actual serve God's purpose:

“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of
goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense
of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely,
supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what
does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false
motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” (ch 1:
15-18)

There's something to this, and I think this is more important than you realize. Consider the Christians who evangelize today because they've turned into salesmen who have to pitch their product to as many people as possible. Sometimes it seems like they think they're working on commission or something. That bothers me, a lot, but even if it bothers me that doesn't mean that God isn't using their mixed up motivation for his purposes. If you've seen the movie Leap of Faith with Steve Martin you'll know what I'm talking about with all this. He certainly wasn't pitching those tent rivals for God's glory, but even he was brought to his knees in the end.

But that's a bit off track, because most self-described evangelicals preach the Gospel out of love. We are accused (quite often) of being narrow-minded and offensive because we "think that we are right and everyone else is wrong." Well, if we thought that we had it wrong, I don't suppose we'd be telling you about Christ would we? And if you think evangelizing is some sort of power struggle over the truth then you've missed our mission entirely.

So what is our mission, you might ask. Well, it's simple really. We believe that this world is imperfect, but we believe that perfection is the standard to meet. If anything less than perfection was good enough, then just where is the line, and how could anyone possible know if they were good enough? And for that matter, all those naturally-inclined-to-be-a-good-sort-of-person people would be unfairly advantaged, right? Well they're not, because even they aren't perfect. But it's okay, because God knows we suck at doing this on our own... so He sent in a pitch-hitter. Think of it this way: everyone has a chance to cheat on the biggest test of all time, and the teacher is actually encouraging it. In fact, the teacher tells you that by cheating on this test, it shows that you accept your own inability to ace it without help. It's like the test is open book, only some students are convinced they don't need help, so they never open the book. That seems silly right? So the other students (evangelicals) are desperately trying to get the other students to open their books for this open book test. It's not that we're better, it's just that we accept that we're not good at this and we want all the other students to pass too.

Now here's my problem: I don't know if God has other books out there to help the students pass. But I do know that the best one (and the most informative one) is Jesus, and your safest bet is to listen to what he said. But what about all the students who never hear of the Jesus book? I don't know. God knows, and He knows their hearts, and I know He's looking out for them too. It's like the story of the sculptor who never heard the Gospel, but who, upon marveling at the works of his hand, stopped and praised the God who created his thumb because his thumb was able to make extraordinary things. God spoke to him, and God is speaking to everyone. The question is: are we listening?

So we have a message, and the message (believe it or not) can not be told completely with words alone. The message is love. God is love. God loves us. He sent Jesus to help us because He loves us. The great commission: go love everyone with the love of God. Be loved by God, and let that love overflow into the lives of those around you. If words come into the picture, fine, but if not, that's even better. People respond to love, because love speaks to their hearts. So when I say I'm an evangelical Christian, I mean that I spend my life (well, I do a poor job, but I try) loving other people. In that way, I am spreading the message of God, which is the good news, and that good news is his love manifested in Christ. People are hungry to be loved, and God's love will satisfy them. So it's time we make sure they find it. I must share this love, because not sharing it would be a crime. It would be selfish to keep the greatest gift of all time to myself. That's why I am an evangelical.

So is being an evangelical a bad thing? Well, is loving people a bad thing? You can disagree with my beliefs and still agree that if I believe what I do then I must live how I do or else I am a horribly selfish person. That's all.

"And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and to love one another as he commanded us." 1 John 3:23