social justice
Rational Choice Theory is Wrong
22/06/11 15:36
John Mccumber wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times Opinionator section.
Here's my understanding of the article: Mccumber is against Rational Choice Philosophy, by which he means an ontology, an epistemology, and an ethics. He believes that Quine, Carson, and Rawls put paid to the individual claims in each of those fields because, every theory is undetermined (which undermines the idea that we can choose between a distinct group of theories), we don't have certainty even in the short term, and every philosophy of choice, including rational choice philosophy, includes certain values. Mccumber further ASSERTS that Hegel made many of these observations and proposed an alternative to rational choice philosophy. In particular, Hegel showed the social character of reason (though, I must say, I stated that more clearly than Mccumber did). Mccumber is convinced that, even if Quine, Carson, and Rawls undermine individual aspects of rational choice philosophy, they tend, as does rational choice philosophy, to "absolutize choice," by which phrase I think Mccumber means that rational choice philosophy values choice as choice. (This, I take it, is why I think the video link I sent addresses rational choice philosophy's failure and why I thought it relevant to McCrumb, though, again, McCrumb has not been quite elegant in his discussion.) Mccumber finished with his conclusion "The result might look quite a bit like Hegel in its view that individual freedom is of value only when communally guided."
Here are two possible objections: It seems to (1) lay the onus of proof on allusions to Hegel and (2) it seems to end with the idea that we must trust in our community rather than our own decision making. I think point 1 is true: Mccumber relies heavily on Hegel, which is surprising. It's surprising, not because Hegel is wrong, but because I would imagine most people reading the NY Times have not read Hegel, and so it makes Hegel a poor choice for reference. Aristotle would have been much better, or simply stating the alternative better still. As for point 2, I think that the article does tend to favor some sort of conclusion along the lines that our community ought to do our thinking for us. The last line smacks too much of a right-wing Hegelianism: "The result might look quite a bit like Hegel in its view that individual freedom is of value only when communally guided." I say right-wing Hegelianism to contrast it with left-wing Marxist type hegelianism, which Mccumber seems also to reject. Also, because the problem with right-wing Hegelianism is exactly that Hegel's philosophy ends with the idea that the state is supreme. The state is the embodiment of the idea, which is worked out historically by Geist. Hegel might have meant that, or he might have meant something more subtle.
Okay, now to the most important point, Why do I think that rational choice philosophy is wrong? Part of the question centers on what one means by "rational choice philosophy”?
If it means simply "human beings make rational choices" then rational choice philosophy hardly deserves a name. This is true for Aristotle and Thomas as it is for Hegel and Kant, as it is for Rand and Rawls.
Then, is rational choice philosophy simply those three theses that Mccumber ascribes to it in his article: ontological clarity, epistemological certainty, and ethical egoism/wealth-mongering. If thisis what it means, then I think we've enough evidence to say Mccumber is right: rational choice philosophy has failed. We do not have certainty even short term. Think, for instance, of giving one's spouse flowers or some other present. We do it to be nice, but then the spouse might accuse one of cheating or doing something for which one needed to give flowers. At the every day level -- and certainly long term economic level -- rational choice philosophy does not pay out. Ontologically, there are not simple causal chains which we can pick up and choose between. This is the conceit behind the recent movie Limitless. The character has a 4-digit IQ which allows him to figure out how the market will move. But that is fiction. Too many things can cause the same phenomena which leads to indeterminacy between choices -- all could be equally rational. Finally, we are not people who seek only wealth and power to satisfy our needs. Sometimes, wealth and power can interfere with those needs. Here Limitless, the movie, gets close to pointing it out, but in the end it buys into this conceit as well. Now, if one buys into any of those three theses, then one might stil be a rational choice theorist. If we disagree on these points, then that gives us something more to discuss, but probably not on this thread.
Then, that leaves us with the question, could rational choice philosophy be something different or more? Mccumber is as obtuse here as Hegel. He writes at one point, though, the following: "Today, governments and businesses across the globe simply assume that social reality is merely a set of individuals freely making rational choices." So, I think by rational choice philosophy he means the three theses above plus the idea that "social reality consists simply in individuals freely making rational choices." Here, a long line of thinkers would disagree: Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Hegel, Marx, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, Joan Callahan, Carol Gilligan, Sara Ruddick, Kathleen Iannello (Decisions without hierarchy) among many others.
Why?
Simply put: we are not individual atoms bumping into each other on occasion. We are social beings -- social animals as Aristotle says -- which means that our identity (subjectivity in Foucault's philosophy) is shaped by and shapes our communities/society/traditions. Yes, I make rational decisions (I hope), but even my rationality is shaped by my culture: what I find more or less rational, what modes of reasoning are available to me, to what extent I’ve been trained to think reasonably, what forms of discourse I’ve been introduced to, etc. This fact does not make me any the less rational. Au contraire, it is the very conditions for being rational at all.
This, I take it, is the gist of MacIntyre’s theory in AV, and certainly the argument I bring to bear in Reason, Tradition, and the Good.
Here's my understanding of the article: Mccumber is against Rational Choice Philosophy, by which he means an ontology, an epistemology, and an ethics. He believes that Quine, Carson, and Rawls put paid to the individual claims in each of those fields because, every theory is undetermined (which undermines the idea that we can choose between a distinct group of theories), we don't have certainty even in the short term, and every philosophy of choice, including rational choice philosophy, includes certain values. Mccumber further ASSERTS that Hegel made many of these observations and proposed an alternative to rational choice philosophy. In particular, Hegel showed the social character of reason (though, I must say, I stated that more clearly than Mccumber did). Mccumber is convinced that, even if Quine, Carson, and Rawls undermine individual aspects of rational choice philosophy, they tend, as does rational choice philosophy, to "absolutize choice," by which phrase I think Mccumber means that rational choice philosophy values choice as choice. (This, I take it, is why I think the video link I sent addresses rational choice philosophy's failure and why I thought it relevant to McCrumb, though, again, McCrumb has not been quite elegant in his discussion.) Mccumber finished with his conclusion "The result might look quite a bit like Hegel in its view that individual freedom is of value only when communally guided."
Here are two possible objections: It seems to (1) lay the onus of proof on allusions to Hegel and (2) it seems to end with the idea that we must trust in our community rather than our own decision making. I think point 1 is true: Mccumber relies heavily on Hegel, which is surprising. It's surprising, not because Hegel is wrong, but because I would imagine most people reading the NY Times have not read Hegel, and so it makes Hegel a poor choice for reference. Aristotle would have been much better, or simply stating the alternative better still. As for point 2, I think that the article does tend to favor some sort of conclusion along the lines that our community ought to do our thinking for us. The last line smacks too much of a right-wing Hegelianism: "The result might look quite a bit like Hegel in its view that individual freedom is of value only when communally guided." I say right-wing Hegelianism to contrast it with left-wing Marxist type hegelianism, which Mccumber seems also to reject. Also, because the problem with right-wing Hegelianism is exactly that Hegel's philosophy ends with the idea that the state is supreme. The state is the embodiment of the idea, which is worked out historically by Geist. Hegel might have meant that, or he might have meant something more subtle.
Okay, now to the most important point, Why do I think that rational choice philosophy is wrong? Part of the question centers on what one means by "rational choice philosophy”?
If it means simply "human beings make rational choices" then rational choice philosophy hardly deserves a name. This is true for Aristotle and Thomas as it is for Hegel and Kant, as it is for Rand and Rawls.
Then, is rational choice philosophy simply those three theses that Mccumber ascribes to it in his article: ontological clarity, epistemological certainty, and ethical egoism/wealth-mongering. If thisis what it means, then I think we've enough evidence to say Mccumber is right: rational choice philosophy has failed. We do not have certainty even short term. Think, for instance, of giving one's spouse flowers or some other present. We do it to be nice, but then the spouse might accuse one of cheating or doing something for which one needed to give flowers. At the every day level -- and certainly long term economic level -- rational choice philosophy does not pay out. Ontologically, there are not simple causal chains which we can pick up and choose between. This is the conceit behind the recent movie Limitless. The character has a 4-digit IQ which allows him to figure out how the market will move. But that is fiction. Too many things can cause the same phenomena which leads to indeterminacy between choices -- all could be equally rational. Finally, we are not people who seek only wealth and power to satisfy our needs. Sometimes, wealth and power can interfere with those needs. Here Limitless, the movie, gets close to pointing it out, but in the end it buys into this conceit as well. Now, if one buys into any of those three theses, then one might stil be a rational choice theorist. If we disagree on these points, then that gives us something more to discuss, but probably not on this thread.
Then, that leaves us with the question, could rational choice philosophy be something different or more? Mccumber is as obtuse here as Hegel. He writes at one point, though, the following: "Today, governments and businesses across the globe simply assume that social reality is merely a set of individuals freely making rational choices." So, I think by rational choice philosophy he means the three theses above plus the idea that "social reality consists simply in individuals freely making rational choices." Here, a long line of thinkers would disagree: Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Hegel, Marx, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, Joan Callahan, Carol Gilligan, Sara Ruddick, Kathleen Iannello (Decisions without hierarchy) among many others.
Why?
Simply put: we are not individual atoms bumping into each other on occasion. We are social beings -- social animals as Aristotle says -- which means that our identity (subjectivity in Foucault's philosophy) is shaped by and shapes our communities/society/traditions. Yes, I make rational decisions (I hope), but even my rationality is shaped by my culture: what I find more or less rational, what modes of reasoning are available to me, to what extent I’ve been trained to think reasonably, what forms of discourse I’ve been introduced to, etc. This fact does not make me any the less rational. Au contraire, it is the very conditions for being rational at all.
This, I take it, is the gist of MacIntyre’s theory in AV, and certainly the argument I bring to bear in Reason, Tradition, and the Good.
Comments
Milgram Experiment
21/06/11 10:34
The Milgram experiment is a famous experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram to study obedience in the 1960's. The study involved three people: a "doctor" or person conducting the experiment, a "answerer" or someone who was supposed to answer questions, and the "questioner." The questioner was the real study of the subject, as both the doctor and the answerer were actors. The questioner watched as the doctor locked the questioner into restraining straps and hooked electrodes to the person. Then, the doctor took the questioner into a separate room. The questioner was instructed to apply increasing levels of shock to the answerer if the answerer failed to ask a question. The doctor gave stock replies to any question the questioner ask. The questioner could leave at any time but was told "the experiment must go on."
The question: to what extent would individuals, living in a modern industrial democracy, shock people at the directions of an authority figure?
You can see the experiment on youtube. As it turned out, 65% of people increased the shock to fatal levels even over the screams and protests of the person being shocked.
Why did some people obey the "doctor" and why did others resist?
What does the Milgram experiment tell us about human nature? Or does it say something instead about modern society?
What, exactly, can we expect to gain from studying ethics and moral theory?
NB: if you are a Marylhurst student, please make sure your name shows on the comments section so I can record the participation.
The question: to what extent would individuals, living in a modern industrial democracy, shock people at the directions of an authority figure?
You can see the experiment on youtube. As it turned out, 65% of people increased the shock to fatal levels even over the screams and protests of the person being shocked.
Why did some people obey the "doctor" and why did others resist?
What does the Milgram experiment tell us about human nature? Or does it say something instead about modern society?
What, exactly, can we expect to gain from studying ethics and moral theory?
NB: if you are a Marylhurst student, please make sure your name shows on the comments section so I can record the participation.
Student Protests in EU
13/06/11 12:28
A great article by Mathieu von Rohr and Helene Zuber on Spiegel online discusses the new youth protest movements across the EU. What are the youth protesting? The same thing that those in the Arab Spring have been protesting -- lack of jobs, lack of food, lack of everything. In Europe, we have well-educated young adults marching because they have no employment and nothing promising in the future.
I think of my own children now, two of them ready to take on the world and enter the workforce, but there are no jobs. What inheritance have we prepared for the younger generation? The pictures of the world from novels like Snowcrash and Rainbows End look more and more possible: a world of the unemployed and big corporate-states with the nation-states playing less and less of a role.
Yet, these movements comprise a sign of hope! Hope that people might begin to rethink their lives and take them back, to exercise autonomy at the political level.
But we need something similar in the States. We need more Walkervilles across the United States. We need to rise up and protest the corporate, bureaucratic, technological, capitalist systems that control our lives.
But the thing is, they only control our lives if we let them.
I think of my own children now, two of them ready to take on the world and enter the workforce, but there are no jobs. What inheritance have we prepared for the younger generation? The pictures of the world from novels like Snowcrash and Rainbows End look more and more possible: a world of the unemployed and big corporate-states with the nation-states playing less and less of a role.
Yet, these movements comprise a sign of hope! Hope that people might begin to rethink their lives and take them back, to exercise autonomy at the political level.
But we need something similar in the States. We need more Walkervilles across the United States. We need to rise up and protest the corporate, bureaucratic, technological, capitalist systems that control our lives.
But the thing is, they only control our lives if we let them.
Left, Sex, and Religion
11/06/11 11:26
Frank Schaeffer wrote a very interesting piece for the Huffington Post about how 60's radicals failed. They failed, he argues, because they fought the cultural wars at the cost of paying no attention to other liberal/left values like pro-unionism, regulation of the market, and worker safety. Instead, he writes passionately that
Chris Hedges is correct: the "liberals" and the American Left have been betrayed by people more interested in selling out to corporate America (who have been busy selling sex to us, and sexualized all selling) than in workers rights or the economy.
I think there's a lot to say for this position, but it misses something as well. That something it misses is the dominance of corporate capitalism and the consumer society. We do not just sell sex in this society; we also and more so sell violence. American views about sex and violence are the exact reverse of those of Europe. Sex is not considered too taboo in Europe, but violence is. And Europe has a much stronger position on unions, food safety, worker safety, etc. than does the United States. It's hard, then, to blame the left's embrace of the culture wars for the decline of other left agendas in the United States.
What could be the cause of these declines? In part, it is a separation of the culture wars from those other issues. And this separation results from the dominance of religion in American politics, a puritan religion which is more willing to embrace violence in the name of nationalism, a corporate laissez-faire capitalism at the expense of Gospel values, and a worship of money over a love of neighbor.
If we want to understand these issues that Schaeffer brings up, we have to look at the whole social consciousness of America.
Chris Hedges is correct: the "liberals" and the American Left have been betrayed by people more interested in selling out to corporate America (who have been busy selling sex to us, and sexualized all selling) than in workers rights or the economy.
I think there's a lot to say for this position, but it misses something as well. That something it misses is the dominance of corporate capitalism and the consumer society. We do not just sell sex in this society; we also and more so sell violence. American views about sex and violence are the exact reverse of those of Europe. Sex is not considered too taboo in Europe, but violence is. And Europe has a much stronger position on unions, food safety, worker safety, etc. than does the United States. It's hard, then, to blame the left's embrace of the culture wars for the decline of other left agendas in the United States.
What could be the cause of these declines? In part, it is a separation of the culture wars from those other issues. And this separation results from the dominance of religion in American politics, a puritan religion which is more willing to embrace violence in the name of nationalism, a corporate laissez-faire capitalism at the expense of Gospel values, and a worship of money over a love of neighbor.
If we want to understand these issues that Schaeffer brings up, we have to look at the whole social consciousness of America.
Agency and Needs
09/06/11 11:48
"A theory of human needs constitutes the foundation of a critical theory of society the end of which is the greatest expansion of the human person in a given concrete historical situation."
I wrote that sentence as part of a book proposal which I am working on. My book concerns human nature, particularly human nature as the foundation of a just society. It will be the backbone of a natural law theory and a critical politics based on that natural law theory. Human needs provides the contours for exploring those ethical and political issues. Any "right" we might have must be based, in some part, on how it satisfies or serves some human need.
The question that arises, that's been plaguing me, is, What is the relationship between these human needs and agency? I'm asking about agency because, in contemporary culture, both evolutionary psychology and social constructivism threaten agency. They threaten agency by either denying it and embracing some form of determinism (we are determined either by our biology or by our culture) or sharply curtail it. So one need that appears clear in the modern situation is a need for a better understanding of agency so that society can be more structured to enhance agency.
Thus, my original sentence points to the link between a theory of human needs and a theory of human agency. The greatest expansion of the human person in a given concrete historical situation concerns, essentially, the expansion of the person's agency in that historical situation. The needs and the agency mutually determine each other given the biological and sociological constraints that the individual finds herself in. That is, a theory of human needs presents the conditions for the exercise of agency, which means we must understand what kind of beings human beings are: biological-cultural beings.
I wrote that sentence as part of a book proposal which I am working on. My book concerns human nature, particularly human nature as the foundation of a just society. It will be the backbone of a natural law theory and a critical politics based on that natural law theory. Human needs provides the contours for exploring those ethical and political issues. Any "right" we might have must be based, in some part, on how it satisfies or serves some human need.
The question that arises, that's been plaguing me, is, What is the relationship between these human needs and agency? I'm asking about agency because, in contemporary culture, both evolutionary psychology and social constructivism threaten agency. They threaten agency by either denying it and embracing some form of determinism (we are determined either by our biology or by our culture) or sharply curtail it. So one need that appears clear in the modern situation is a need for a better understanding of agency so that society can be more structured to enhance agency.
Thus, my original sentence points to the link between a theory of human needs and a theory of human agency. The greatest expansion of the human person in a given concrete historical situation concerns, essentially, the expansion of the person's agency in that historical situation. The needs and the agency mutually determine each other given the biological and sociological constraints that the individual finds herself in. That is, a theory of human needs presents the conditions for the exercise of agency, which means we must understand what kind of beings human beings are: biological-cultural beings.
Top Schools, Affluent Students, Real Learners
03/06/11 12:09
It should come as no surprise to anyone, as pointed out on On Point, that top schools are dominated by the affluent. I've taught at several places, and one can see a clear economic divide between students in top colleges and those in colleges that aren't so top. At one school, students do not work jobs, live on campus, and dress in the latest fashion; at another, students work full time and can barely manage their homework because they have to pay for their college.
Likewise, we were told this week that congress has passed legislation that requires colleges/universities to graduate at 35% of their enrollment and place them in jobs in order to continue to receive money from the federal government. 35%? That is a fail!
What we see in both these cases are people profiting from the cost of education. On the one hand, top schools profit from the affluent because they are able to get donations from those affluent. Further, the affluent profit by default because they get "the best" education with the most opportunities. People will hire someone from Yale even if the person from the University of Kentucky is as qualified.
On the other hand, people at the for-profit colleges profit because they get federal money AND they rack students with debt that cannot be paid off.
So who looses: all of us? We have a generation of people indebted for a college education that did not produce the jobs they were promised or assured. We have a government who has to underwrite the student loans by taking money from our pockets and using it to pay for-profit loan institutions. And we have a growing income-gap that will undermine our whole society.
Why? Because we do not provide people with an education for free and because we do not insist that everyone works. Education and jobs are rights!
Likewise, we were told this week that congress has passed legislation that requires colleges/universities to graduate at 35% of their enrollment and place them in jobs in order to continue to receive money from the federal government. 35%? That is a fail!
What we see in both these cases are people profiting from the cost of education. On the one hand, top schools profit from the affluent because they are able to get donations from those affluent. Further, the affluent profit by default because they get "the best" education with the most opportunities. People will hire someone from Yale even if the person from the University of Kentucky is as qualified.
On the other hand, people at the for-profit colleges profit because they get federal money AND they rack students with debt that cannot be paid off.
So who looses: all of us? We have a generation of people indebted for a college education that did not produce the jobs they were promised or assured. We have a government who has to underwrite the student loans by taking money from our pockets and using it to pay for-profit loan institutions. And we have a growing income-gap that will undermine our whole society.
Why? Because we do not provide people with an education for free and because we do not insist that everyone works. Education and jobs are rights!
Poor Arguments for Natural Rights: On Michael Boylan
02/06/11 13:38
Michael Boylan, a professor at Marymount University in Virginia, makes two interesting but unsupportable claims in his recent post on natural rights. Boylan wishes to argue that there are such things as natural human rights. For him, natural human rights identify basic needs that must be met for human beings to exercise agency. This definition of natural human rights proves appealing and certainly we intuitively feel that human beings have rights to certain things like life and freedom without which they could not exercise agency (unless they are zombies).
The first questionable claim Boylan makes is
Instead, each nation would be free to treat its citizens as it chooses, subject only to the rule of power. Hitler would not have been wrong in carrying out the Holocaust, but only weak because he lost the war. The logical result of such a position is a radical moral relativism vis-à-vis various cultural anthropologies.
This claim proves first to be an appeal to emotion: none of us want another Holocaust and few of us in the United States want nations to be able to exercise power however they wish over citizens. The questions remains, however, whether it is true that without rights we have to settle for some relativism. Aristotle would find this position rather odd, considering that he was both a universalist and yet had no notion of natural human rights. (There are, of course, mistaken philosophers who argue otherwise, including Fred Miller Jr. and Roderick Long both of whom I address in a paper (“Rights, Individualism, Community: Aristotle and the Communitarian-Liberalism Debate," Review Journal of Political Philosophy 1 (1-2): 2003, 223-249)). We can argue against relativism and argue that Hitler was wrong by appealing to virtue or to duty or some other concept than rights.
The second claim that Boylan makes is
If your reasons refer to higher principles (such as the Golden Rule), then you cast your vote with the universalists: natural human rights exist.
The mistake here is to assume that because one upholds the Golden Rule, one de facto believes in natural human rights. Yet, this position cannot be sustained. I might believe and actually act on the Golden Rule, treating the other as I would wish to be treated, but this behavior can be explained through reference to virtue. It does not require a concept of rights, though other philosophers (including Kant and Ross) have suggested otherwise.
On the other hand, we use the concept of "rights" as a means to defend the needs of people and it works well sometimes. Most often, however, it fails. The concept of right does nothing to resolve the abortion. If the fetus is a living human person, then we are left with a conflict of rights and not simply rights but basic human rights of agency.
Boylan's primary concern in this particular post is the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa on which I've written a bit in this blog. It's useful to talk about the right to food or the right to free expression to discuss the needs that have driven people to rightly revolt. And thinking about these needs as related to human agency certainly proves a promising way to move. But we should not be fooled. This way of speaking proves particularly useful given our culture, and it captures something fundamental about human life, but it in no way proves that such things as natural human rights exist.
The first questionable claim Boylan makes is
Instead, each nation would be free to treat its citizens as it chooses, subject only to the rule of power. Hitler would not have been wrong in carrying out the Holocaust, but only weak because he lost the war. The logical result of such a position is a radical moral relativism vis-à-vis various cultural anthropologies.
This claim proves first to be an appeal to emotion: none of us want another Holocaust and few of us in the United States want nations to be able to exercise power however they wish over citizens. The questions remains, however, whether it is true that without rights we have to settle for some relativism. Aristotle would find this position rather odd, considering that he was both a universalist and yet had no notion of natural human rights. (There are, of course, mistaken philosophers who argue otherwise, including Fred Miller Jr. and Roderick Long both of whom I address in a paper (“Rights, Individualism, Community: Aristotle and the Communitarian-Liberalism Debate," Review Journal of Political Philosophy 1 (1-2): 2003, 223-249)). We can argue against relativism and argue that Hitler was wrong by appealing to virtue or to duty or some other concept than rights.
The second claim that Boylan makes is
If your reasons refer to higher principles (such as the Golden Rule), then you cast your vote with the universalists: natural human rights exist.
The mistake here is to assume that because one upholds the Golden Rule, one de facto believes in natural human rights. Yet, this position cannot be sustained. I might believe and actually act on the Golden Rule, treating the other as I would wish to be treated, but this behavior can be explained through reference to virtue. It does not require a concept of rights, though other philosophers (including Kant and Ross) have suggested otherwise.
On the other hand, we use the concept of "rights" as a means to defend the needs of people and it works well sometimes. Most often, however, it fails. The concept of right does nothing to resolve the abortion. If the fetus is a living human person, then we are left with a conflict of rights and not simply rights but basic human rights of agency.
Boylan's primary concern in this particular post is the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa on which I've written a bit in this blog. It's useful to talk about the right to food or the right to free expression to discuss the needs that have driven people to rightly revolt. And thinking about these needs as related to human agency certainly proves a promising way to move. But we should not be fooled. This way of speaking proves particularly useful given our culture, and it captures something fundamental about human life, but it in no way proves that such things as natural human rights exist.
Food Prices Rise
31/05/11 10:57
The BBC reports that food prices will rise 180% over the next 20 years. They've already risen 20% over the last 10 years. Much of the rise in food prices will result from global warming: less farm land, more frequent storms that destroy farmland, greater heat, etc. Of course, the people most affected by this will be the poor who already suffer greatly.
While I often promoted local communities and small farms on this blog as a means to greater freedom and agency, the response to global warming must extend out beyond the local communities: the global community must come together to frame policy that can mitigate the effects of global warming and especially limit the cost to the poor. On this point, I would side with Benedict XVI's call in Caritas in Veritate over Alasdair MacIntyre's trumpeting of the local community.
However, whatever set of policies the global community decides upon, those policies must be ones that support strong local communities, local markets, and local jobs. This is not an either or situation. We must have strong planning at the global stage that supports local communities.
The world has been talking about global warming for decades now. It is time to do something, and each of us have one primary responsibility: to stop supporting legislators who either do not believe in global warming or who work against legislation to combat global warming.
The clock is ticking!
While I often promoted local communities and small farms on this blog as a means to greater freedom and agency, the response to global warming must extend out beyond the local communities: the global community must come together to frame policy that can mitigate the effects of global warming and especially limit the cost to the poor. On this point, I would side with Benedict XVI's call in Caritas in Veritate over Alasdair MacIntyre's trumpeting of the local community.
However, whatever set of policies the global community decides upon, those policies must be ones that support strong local communities, local markets, and local jobs. This is not an either or situation. We must have strong planning at the global stage that supports local communities.
The world has been talking about global warming for decades now. It is time to do something, and each of us have one primary responsibility: to stop supporting legislators who either do not believe in global warming or who work against legislation to combat global warming.
The clock is ticking!
Two = 1
26/05/11 12:53
Two news items today should open our eyes to the fact that the so-called two-party system in the United States is really one-party: the party of corporate capitalism. Consider that the House passed a budget of almost $700 billion for the defense budget as reported on NPR. A different article on Wired explains why Senator Wyden (D- Oregon) wants to re-examine the Patriot Act. Turns out this hastily put together bill has language that allows the government a wide-range of privacy-invasive actions that have nothing to do with terrorism, like gathering data on a number of citizens from their phone records or internet usage. Both parties voted for both of these bills!
A "national" government is not really the best for true democracy, for the fulfillment of human beings. A "national" government bought and paid for by corporate interests has no interest in changing to benefit you and me. And the two-party system that continues to fight in the press really is playing a holding motion to keep us distracted while they pass whatever legislation they want to pass that has little to nothing to do with our safety or our well-being and which may, in fact, prove detrimental to our well-being.
While I have promoted local communities and local governments over and over on this blog, I also want to point out that, while our options at the national level are limited, we do have some. The first and primary option is to elect people from outside the two-party system of corporate democrats and corporate republicans.
A "national" government is not really the best for true democracy, for the fulfillment of human beings. A "national" government bought and paid for by corporate interests has no interest in changing to benefit you and me. And the two-party system that continues to fight in the press really is playing a holding motion to keep us distracted while they pass whatever legislation they want to pass that has little to nothing to do with our safety or our well-being and which may, in fact, prove detrimental to our well-being.
While I have promoted local communities and local governments over and over on this blog, I also want to point out that, while our options at the national level are limited, we do have some. The first and primary option is to elect people from outside the two-party system of corporate democrats and corporate republicans.
Obama's Address to Birtish Parliament
25/05/11 11:07
In his speech before the British Parliament, President Obama said that the time for America and Britain to be leaders of the world is now, and that the leadership begins with economic leadership.
"Adam Smith's central insight remains true today: there is no greater generator of wealth and innovation than a system of free enterprise that unleashes the full potential of individual men and women. That is what led to the Industrial Revolution that began in the factories of Manchester."
This remark mirrors the one he made in his state of the nation speech after being trammeled in the mid-term elections by Republicans. It signifies a move to the center, or supposed center.
Yet, as I wrote then, this really misunderstands what is required for prosperity at this point. What is a free enterprise? Is it laissez-faire capitalism, which is what libertarians and so-called republicans want? If so, then free enterprise is not very center. And is it true that free enterprise "unleashes the full potential of individual men and women"? Clearly not, if what we mean is laissez-faire capitalism. Rather, a free market at the local level of community provides the best means for unleashing the full potential of men and women. It also constitutes the best means for building communities which prove necessary for the development of individual men and women.
Notice, that later in the speech, President Obama states
"And so part of our common tradition has expressed itself in a conviction that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security - health-care if you get sick; unemployment insurance if you lose your job; a dignified retirement after a lifetime of hard work."
This tradition of providing for the basic needs of a citizen represents a true move toward recognizing the dignity of each and every human individual by providing a network of security for their individual pursuit of the good. What defines someone as center or left is the level and extent of those security measures. What must be of central importance, however, is the good of the individual's flourishing, which can only happen within a supportive community. That fact means, that human flourishing requires local communities centered on participatory democratic discussion of the common good, free markets, strong schools, and interactions between churches, clubs, and local government.
Obama is right to claim that
"the successes and failures of our own past can serve as an example for emerging economies - that it's possible to grow without polluting; that lasting prosperity comes not from what a nation consumes, but from what it produces, and from the investments it makes in its people and infrastructure."
These goals are worthy goals and ones which require national and international governance and treaties. The local community must be autonomous and free from market coercions that send jobs out of the community, but they must also be held to standards that protect the global environment and maintains infrastructure for trans-communal communication.
Obama is right in many of his ideas, but I caution once more against his too easy embrace of libertarian language and his seemingly lack of distinction between the goals he espouses and the methods to attain them.
"Adam Smith's central insight remains true today: there is no greater generator of wealth and innovation than a system of free enterprise that unleashes the full potential of individual men and women. That is what led to the Industrial Revolution that began in the factories of Manchester."
This remark mirrors the one he made in his state of the nation speech after being trammeled in the mid-term elections by Republicans. It signifies a move to the center, or supposed center.
Yet, as I wrote then, this really misunderstands what is required for prosperity at this point. What is a free enterprise? Is it laissez-faire capitalism, which is what libertarians and so-called republicans want? If so, then free enterprise is not very center. And is it true that free enterprise "unleashes the full potential of individual men and women"? Clearly not, if what we mean is laissez-faire capitalism. Rather, a free market at the local level of community provides the best means for unleashing the full potential of men and women. It also constitutes the best means for building communities which prove necessary for the development of individual men and women.
Notice, that later in the speech, President Obama states
"And so part of our common tradition has expressed itself in a conviction that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security - health-care if you get sick; unemployment insurance if you lose your job; a dignified retirement after a lifetime of hard work."
This tradition of providing for the basic needs of a citizen represents a true move toward recognizing the dignity of each and every human individual by providing a network of security for their individual pursuit of the good. What defines someone as center or left is the level and extent of those security measures. What must be of central importance, however, is the good of the individual's flourishing, which can only happen within a supportive community. That fact means, that human flourishing requires local communities centered on participatory democratic discussion of the common good, free markets, strong schools, and interactions between churches, clubs, and local government.
Obama is right to claim that
"the successes and failures of our own past can serve as an example for emerging economies - that it's possible to grow without polluting; that lasting prosperity comes not from what a nation consumes, but from what it produces, and from the investments it makes in its people and infrastructure."
These goals are worthy goals and ones which require national and international governance and treaties. The local community must be autonomous and free from market coercions that send jobs out of the community, but they must also be held to standards that protect the global environment and maintains infrastructure for trans-communal communication.
Obama is right in many of his ideas, but I caution once more against his too easy embrace of libertarian language and his seemingly lack of distinction between the goals he espouses and the methods to attain them.
Questioning Our Computer Competence
24/05/11 15:03
Douglas Rushkoff, on Think out Loud today, defended his view that we need to program or be programmed when it comes to computer technology. He had lots of interesting things to say about agency. In particular, he wanted to point out that, the less we know about the technology we use, the more likely we are to be programmed by it -- that is, that it will shape the way we make decisions or even think about what kind of decisions we can make without our knowing.
Rushkoff is not defending some luddite thesis here. He's making a clear point that we should carefully consider. He gave the example of a person using facebook. The person thinks that she is a customer of facebook, and the facebook is there to serve her interests. In fact, however, the person does not pay facebook. Advertisers and companies pay facebook so that they can market to the person using facebook. Thus, if we don't really understand what facebook is -- a means for marketers to reach potential consumers -- then we will more easily be tricked into making decisions we might have more control over under false pretenses.
We should not, also, dismiss this too easily as a case of false consciousness. We can have false beliefs about different things we use. Often, marketers work by causing us to believe false things about the products they market. We may even see through the marketing ploy -- do we really believe that drinking a certain beer will make us favorable to the hot members of the sex to which we are attracted? Yet, marketing and advertising work, and it often works because we are not careful about what we understand about the product.
Rushkoff is extending this idea to computers, computer technology, and new media. I think rightly so. Our lives are often constrained in ways we don't even bother to recogize. Take, for instance, the now famous debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Because of the way that Kennedy knew how to use the media for presentation, he easily was seen to have won the debate. The more the technology changes so fast that we cannot keep up with it, the more likely we are to fall to the influence of those who know how to use it. Another more practical example is birth: how does living in a technological society make us think about pregnant bodies? About birth?
So, the warning is simple: beware how you use technology? Ask questions to open up moments of agency? Here, we are our best defenders: asking questions and teaching our children to ask questions. Without questions, we might as well live in a brave new world.
Rushkoff is not defending some luddite thesis here. He's making a clear point that we should carefully consider. He gave the example of a person using facebook. The person thinks that she is a customer of facebook, and the facebook is there to serve her interests. In fact, however, the person does not pay facebook. Advertisers and companies pay facebook so that they can market to the person using facebook. Thus, if we don't really understand what facebook is -- a means for marketers to reach potential consumers -- then we will more easily be tricked into making decisions we might have more control over under false pretenses.
We should not, also, dismiss this too easily as a case of false consciousness. We can have false beliefs about different things we use. Often, marketers work by causing us to believe false things about the products they market. We may even see through the marketing ploy -- do we really believe that drinking a certain beer will make us favorable to the hot members of the sex to which we are attracted? Yet, marketing and advertising work, and it often works because we are not careful about what we understand about the product.
Rushkoff is extending this idea to computers, computer technology, and new media. I think rightly so. Our lives are often constrained in ways we don't even bother to recogize. Take, for instance, the now famous debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Because of the way that Kennedy knew how to use the media for presentation, he easily was seen to have won the debate. The more the technology changes so fast that we cannot keep up with it, the more likely we are to fall to the influence of those who know how to use it. Another more practical example is birth: how does living in a technological society make us think about pregnant bodies? About birth?
So, the warning is simple: beware how you use technology? Ask questions to open up moments of agency? Here, we are our best defenders: asking questions and teaching our children to ask questions. Without questions, we might as well live in a brave new world.
Rurum Novarum 120
14/05/11 20:16
On 15 May 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, On New Things, or, sometimes translated, On the Condition of Labor. It's the 120th anniversary of that letter. The letter marked the new era of Catholic Social Teaching, and led to such encyclicals as Hope and Joy, On Human Work, and Love in Truth. Rerum Novarum laid out the key themes of Catholic Social Teaching in the contemporary period: a concern for the poor in a world divided between free-market capitalism and state capitalism, a recognition of the right to work, health care, and education, the need for labor unions, and the need to embrace peace with justice.
We should keep these ideas in mind, for the problems of Leo XIII saw have not disappeared. In our current recessionary economy, we see attacks on labor, on unions, on health care, and on the right to work. We see rhetoric that says that those who are unemployed are lazy and need to take responsibility for themselves. And we see continual attacks on social programs that provide not even the bare minimum standard of living.
What Rerum Novarum calls us to remember is that Jesus Christ came to minister to the poor and that we all have a responsibility to care for the least of those among us. This means, first and foremost, recognizing that in the modern world, governments must step in to provide security for the least well off in society. This government must secure the social right to property while maintaining the ability of people to satisfy their needs and live a good life.
Let's take this opportunity to dedicate ourselves to that goal.
We should keep these ideas in mind, for the problems of Leo XIII saw have not disappeared. In our current recessionary economy, we see attacks on labor, on unions, on health care, and on the right to work. We see rhetoric that says that those who are unemployed are lazy and need to take responsibility for themselves. And we see continual attacks on social programs that provide not even the bare minimum standard of living.
What Rerum Novarum calls us to remember is that Jesus Christ came to minister to the poor and that we all have a responsibility to care for the least of those among us. This means, first and foremost, recognizing that in the modern world, governments must step in to provide security for the least well off in society. This government must secure the social right to property while maintaining the ability of people to satisfy their needs and live a good life.
Let's take this opportunity to dedicate ourselves to that goal.
Laziness
13/05/11 10:21
Laziness is learned behavior.
The other day, I was at the coffee shop when a grandmother and her 7 year old granddaughter came in. The grandmother was meeting a friend. The granddaughter picked out a decent puzzle and started working it. I watched her for a little bit because she was so entranced by what she was doing. It brought to mind the old Zen idea of mindfulness: wash the dishes when you're washing the dishes. Or, work the puzzle when you are working the puzzle.
Have you ever watched young children play. They are completely invested in their play. They may be making something from their imagination that will never work and involves saran wrap and aluminum foil and cardboard. But they are completely immersed in their activity -- in their work.
So, you see, we are born workers -- co-creators with God in the words of John Paul II.
So whence laziness?
We learn it.
Laziness is an outgrowth of a natural need ... the need for rest. In our contemporary, fast-paced, gratification culture, rest can take many forms, from watching television to doing puzzles. Our play can take many forms as well, and we can get caught up in entertainment -- from playing baseball to playing on the Wii.
The problem can be two-fold, then.
Either we get so addicted to our rest that we forget to work again or we get so destroyed in our creative capacities that we have nothing to take us away from our rest and play. The first problem is one that has been with people since the beginnings of civilization. When human beings first developed the capacity to rest, there was always the possibility -- as there is with any human activity -- to take it too far. And some few people who could did. But, for the most part, human beings are naturally industrious. We see this in children.
The second problem is a symptom of our modern lives. Capitalism destroys human creativity by denying us those activities which most engage our human capacities. Making money, as Aristotle noted, is not a human activity. Being engaged in the common good, raising families, and otherwise being in a practice are human activities because they exercise our most fundamental human powers. Capitalism must destroy this drive, for, given the real choice between doing something that increases the person I am or sitting around playing Wii, most human beings would, unless trained otherwise, choose the former.
A society like that of WALL-E is constructed from our basest nature. And it is one that results from corporate, consumer capitalism.
If this is true, and every time I see a child play I know it is, then we have to think about laziness in a way differently than we have. Yes, no one has a right to be lazy, and I am not justifying laziness. What I am saying is, laziness is a symptom of the system we have created. If we really want justice in the world, then the best thing to do is destroy the current system for one more human.
The other day, I was at the coffee shop when a grandmother and her 7 year old granddaughter came in. The grandmother was meeting a friend. The granddaughter picked out a decent puzzle and started working it. I watched her for a little bit because she was so entranced by what she was doing. It brought to mind the old Zen idea of mindfulness: wash the dishes when you're washing the dishes. Or, work the puzzle when you are working the puzzle.
Have you ever watched young children play. They are completely invested in their play. They may be making something from their imagination that will never work and involves saran wrap and aluminum foil and cardboard. But they are completely immersed in their activity -- in their work.
So, you see, we are born workers -- co-creators with God in the words of John Paul II.
So whence laziness?
We learn it.
Laziness is an outgrowth of a natural need ... the need for rest. In our contemporary, fast-paced, gratification culture, rest can take many forms, from watching television to doing puzzles. Our play can take many forms as well, and we can get caught up in entertainment -- from playing baseball to playing on the Wii.
The problem can be two-fold, then.
Either we get so addicted to our rest that we forget to work again or we get so destroyed in our creative capacities that we have nothing to take us away from our rest and play. The first problem is one that has been with people since the beginnings of civilization. When human beings first developed the capacity to rest, there was always the possibility -- as there is with any human activity -- to take it too far. And some few people who could did. But, for the most part, human beings are naturally industrious. We see this in children.
The second problem is a symptom of our modern lives. Capitalism destroys human creativity by denying us those activities which most engage our human capacities. Making money, as Aristotle noted, is not a human activity. Being engaged in the common good, raising families, and otherwise being in a practice are human activities because they exercise our most fundamental human powers. Capitalism must destroy this drive, for, given the real choice between doing something that increases the person I am or sitting around playing Wii, most human beings would, unless trained otherwise, choose the former.
A society like that of WALL-E is constructed from our basest nature. And it is one that results from corporate, consumer capitalism.
If this is true, and every time I see a child play I know it is, then we have to think about laziness in a way differently than we have. Yes, no one has a right to be lazy, and I am not justifying laziness. What I am saying is, laziness is a symptom of the system we have created. If we really want justice in the world, then the best thing to do is destroy the current system for one more human.
Distribution of Wealth
12/05/11 10:38
William Deresiewicz's article, which I commented on the other day, is filled with some interesting insights. Among these is the following:
As for shared governance, it is nothing other than one of the longest-standing goals of the left: employee control of the workplace. Yes, professors have it better than a lot of other workers, including a lot of others in the academy. But the answer, for the less advantaged, is to organize against the employers who’ve created the situation, not drag down the relatively privileged workers who aren’t yet suffering as badly: to level up, in other words, not down.
Today, it seems that people are attacking some people for having it good. For example, as I listened to a discussion about education yesterday on Think Out Loud, one speaker kept saying that teachers need to invest more in their retirement and health care costs. But the only justification for this claim is that the budget is tight and money has to come from somewhere. Why should it be from those who teach our children? We have to be able to answer that question before we can justify any such action.
The question we need to ask is, Why can't everyone have the same benefits that these teachers do? Why can't everyone have health care and retirement benefits?
Rather than attacking those who have just a little more than we do, we need to reconsider how we distribute wealth in society. The first step here is to actually recognize that we -- as a society -- distribute wealth. It is our laws and our systems which allow some people to get rich and others to be poor. We need to stop seeing these systems and laws as something outside of us and recognize that we have control over them and can design them to distribute wealth how we see as fair and just.
Which brings us to the second step: to recognize that wealth does not belong to one person as part of his or her person. This is a conceit that we've inherited from John Locke. We have a choice, though, between Locke's defense of private property and Thomas' defense of private property. For Locke, property is justified on two grounds: we have a property in our selves and the earth is unlimited in resources. The first ground is questionable, while the second we know to be completely false.
Thomas, on the other hand, says that property is justified only insofar as it benefits the common good.
So, once more, we recognize that discussion of the common good is necessary for a just society. But this is something I already said when I claimed that we have to be able to answer questions about the distribution of wealth in society.
As for shared governance, it is nothing other than one of the longest-standing goals of the left: employee control of the workplace. Yes, professors have it better than a lot of other workers, including a lot of others in the academy. But the answer, for the less advantaged, is to organize against the employers who’ve created the situation, not drag down the relatively privileged workers who aren’t yet suffering as badly: to level up, in other words, not down.
Today, it seems that people are attacking some people for having it good. For example, as I listened to a discussion about education yesterday on Think Out Loud, one speaker kept saying that teachers need to invest more in their retirement and health care costs. But the only justification for this claim is that the budget is tight and money has to come from somewhere. Why should it be from those who teach our children? We have to be able to answer that question before we can justify any such action.
The question we need to ask is, Why can't everyone have the same benefits that these teachers do? Why can't everyone have health care and retirement benefits?
Rather than attacking those who have just a little more than we do, we need to reconsider how we distribute wealth in society. The first step here is to actually recognize that we -- as a society -- distribute wealth. It is our laws and our systems which allow some people to get rich and others to be poor. We need to stop seeing these systems and laws as something outside of us and recognize that we have control over them and can design them to distribute wealth how we see as fair and just.
Which brings us to the second step: to recognize that wealth does not belong to one person as part of his or her person. This is a conceit that we've inherited from John Locke. We have a choice, though, between Locke's defense of private property and Thomas' defense of private property. For Locke, property is justified on two grounds: we have a property in our selves and the earth is unlimited in resources. The first ground is questionable, while the second we know to be completely false.
Thomas, on the other hand, says that property is justified only insofar as it benefits the common good.
So, once more, we recognize that discussion of the common good is necessary for a just society. But this is something I already said when I claimed that we have to be able to answer questions about the distribution of wealth in society.
Koch University
11/05/11 11:28
In a recent article, we discover how far universities are becoming corporations -- this time more blatantly. The Koch brothers have donated money to the economics department at Florida State University -- nothing unusual about that. What is unusual is that the donation comes with a rider: the Koch brothers formed the committee which chooses new hires and can veto any person proposed as a new hire. This rider violates centuries of tradition and academic freedom and further makes universities that much more indebted to corporations.
All of this moves, of course, result from the decreasing spending by the government on education at all levels. I wrote the other day about universities and institutions. An institution has the responsibility to gather external goods to support the practice, which includes finding a supply of money. As the federal government withdraws funds, the institutional aspect of higher education must replace that source of money. Now we see a direct selling of autonomy at the department level to a corporation intent on promoting its idea of government across the United States.
Faculty at the university must resist this move. Students must resist this move. People across the US must resist this move.
The more we sell-out on education, the more we sell the very possibility of democracy.
All of this moves, of course, result from the decreasing spending by the government on education at all levels. I wrote the other day about universities and institutions. An institution has the responsibility to gather external goods to support the practice, which includes finding a supply of money. As the federal government withdraws funds, the institutional aspect of higher education must replace that source of money. Now we see a direct selling of autonomy at the department level to a corporation intent on promoting its idea of government across the United States.
Faculty at the university must resist this move. Students must resist this move. People across the US must resist this move.
The more we sell-out on education, the more we sell the very possibility of democracy.
Universities as Institutions
10/05/11 11:41
In a recent article in The Nation, William Deresiewicz wrote
What we have seen instead over the past forty years, in addition to the raising of a reserve army of contingent labor, is a kind of administrative elephantiasis, an explosion in the number of people working at colleges and universities who aren’t faculty, full-time or part-time, of any kind. From 1976 to 2001, the number of nonfaculty professionals ballooned nearly 240 percent, growing more than three times as fast as the faculty. Coaching staffs and salaries have grown without limit; athletic departments are virtually separate colleges within universities now, competing (successfully) with academics. The size of presidential salaries—more than $1 million in several dozen cases—has become notorious. Nor is it only the presidents; the next six most highly paid administrative officers at Yale averaged over $430,000 in 2007. As Gaye Tuchman explains in Wannabe U (2009), a case study in the sorrows of academic corporatization, deans, provosts and presidents are no longer professors who cycle through administrative duties and then return to teaching and research. Instead, they have become a separate stratum of managerial careerists, jumping from job to job and organization to organization like any other executive: isolated from the faculty and its values, loyal to an ethos of short-term expansion, and trading in the business blather of measurability, revenue streams, mission statements and the like. They do not have the long-term health of their institutions at heart. They want to pump up the stock price (i.e., U.S. News and World Report ranking) and move on to the next fat post.
What Deresiewicz points to here is the colonization of the practices of higher education by institutional bureaucracy. MacIntyre points to this problem in After Virtue when he discusses the nature of practices. Practices comprise activities with their own internal goods; institutions are structure by which external goods (like money and prestige) are gained to support the practice. What can happen, however, is that the institution’s pursuit of external goods can subvert the pursuit of the internal goods of the practice/s. Bureaucracy breads itself and can soon overwhelm a practice, as has happened in higher education as well as elementary and secondary education.
The primary task of educators and everyday citizens is to resist this bureaucratization: to stop the growth both of the number of administrators in schools and the salaries these administrators earn. This must be a concerted political effort by everyone.
And it's not just higher education that we must worry about. Bureaucracy dominates our lives at all levels now. It's a cancer that is destroying our very society and which prevents seeking the common good.
If we want to leave a better world for our children, we must turn our attention to this fight now.
What we have seen instead over the past forty years, in addition to the raising of a reserve army of contingent labor, is a kind of administrative elephantiasis, an explosion in the number of people working at colleges and universities who aren’t faculty, full-time or part-time, of any kind. From 1976 to 2001, the number of nonfaculty professionals ballooned nearly 240 percent, growing more than three times as fast as the faculty. Coaching staffs and salaries have grown without limit; athletic departments are virtually separate colleges within universities now, competing (successfully) with academics. The size of presidential salaries—more than $1 million in several dozen cases—has become notorious. Nor is it only the presidents; the next six most highly paid administrative officers at Yale averaged over $430,000 in 2007. As Gaye Tuchman explains in Wannabe U (2009), a case study in the sorrows of academic corporatization, deans, provosts and presidents are no longer professors who cycle through administrative duties and then return to teaching and research. Instead, they have become a separate stratum of managerial careerists, jumping from job to job and organization to organization like any other executive: isolated from the faculty and its values, loyal to an ethos of short-term expansion, and trading in the business blather of measurability, revenue streams, mission statements and the like. They do not have the long-term health of their institutions at heart. They want to pump up the stock price (i.e., U.S. News and World Report ranking) and move on to the next fat post.
What Deresiewicz points to here is the colonization of the practices of higher education by institutional bureaucracy. MacIntyre points to this problem in After Virtue when he discusses the nature of practices. Practices comprise activities with their own internal goods; institutions are structure by which external goods (like money and prestige) are gained to support the practice. What can happen, however, is that the institution’s pursuit of external goods can subvert the pursuit of the internal goods of the practice/s. Bureaucracy breads itself and can soon overwhelm a practice, as has happened in higher education as well as elementary and secondary education.
The primary task of educators and everyday citizens is to resist this bureaucratization: to stop the growth both of the number of administrators in schools and the salaries these administrators earn. This must be a concerted political effort by everyone.
And it's not just higher education that we must worry about. Bureaucracy dominates our lives at all levels now. It's a cancer that is destroying our very society and which prevents seeking the common good.
If we want to leave a better world for our children, we must turn our attention to this fight now.
Cut to Oregon Families
03/05/11 10:49
As reported on Think out Loud today, Oregon is considering a cut to their assistance to low-income families with children. This assistance goes to those people with income less than 40% of the poverty level (about $600/month) who have children. It would mean that Oregon gave less money for less time than any other state.
Why?
To fill a budget deficit.
Let’s just be honest here: families are suffering. Now, more than any other time than during the great depression, more families are suffering more! Yet, Oregon wants to cut assistance to these low-income families.
What happens then?
Families become homeless.
Children are put into foster care (which, by the way, costs more than assisting families).
Lives are destroyed.
I know people on the right, people in the middle, and even some people on the left will say, Why don’t they get jobs? They’re lazy, and we can’t afford to take care of lazy people, now more than ever.
Laziness might be an issue for a small portion of people, but it is not an issue for children. And for the most part, people want to work.
We know, however, that jobs have disappeared. Instead of facing that issue -- that real world problem which government at the federal, state, and local level should address -- we blame the people who have lost jobs.
And who loses?
Children.
Which means we’ve failed one of our most important -- if not the most important -- duties of human beings -- of living creatures.
Why?
To fill a budget deficit.
Let’s just be honest here: families are suffering. Now, more than any other time than during the great depression, more families are suffering more! Yet, Oregon wants to cut assistance to these low-income families.
What happens then?
Families become homeless.
Children are put into foster care (which, by the way, costs more than assisting families).
Lives are destroyed.
I know people on the right, people in the middle, and even some people on the left will say, Why don’t they get jobs? They’re lazy, and we can’t afford to take care of lazy people, now more than ever.
Laziness might be an issue for a small portion of people, but it is not an issue for children. And for the most part, people want to work.
We know, however, that jobs have disappeared. Instead of facing that issue -- that real world problem which government at the federal, state, and local level should address -- we blame the people who have lost jobs.
And who loses?
Children.
Which means we’ve failed one of our most important -- if not the most important -- duties of human beings -- of living creatures.
Osama Bin Laden's Death
02/05/11 10:18
We’ve all heard the news. I watched President Obama announce it on television on Sunday, May 1st. Osama bin Laden has been killed by US forces in a raid deep in Pakistani territory. People celebrated outside the White House last night as the President made his announcement. A facebook page had 100,000+ likes within an hour and continued to grow. Others “rejoiced” at bin Laden’s death.
Rejoiced?
What is there to rejoice? The end of life? The end of terror?
We do need to pause for a moment and thank God that someone who committed such atrocities can no longer commit those atrocities. We need to pray for bin Laden’s soul. We need to pray for those whom he harmed and their loved ones.
Yet, we should never celebrate death except as a gateway to new life.
And we do not see new life right now.
In his announcement, President Obama said we have not yet defeated terror, that we still had much work to do.
He is, unfortunately, right in many ways. Yet, what does his announcement mean: it means that we are still indebted to a military-industrial system which structures the way that we interact with others across the globe and within our own nation. It means that we cannot yet lay aside the sword. It means that we will not cut the expenditure to the military which alone takes one third of our national budget. One third we are unwilling to cut while we continue to cut the need for the poor, the homeless, the old, the unemployed, the needy.
Yes, it is a good thing that Osama bin Laden can harm us no more, though I suspect his memory will harm us. I hope that we do not rue the day when we made a martyr of one of the worst terrorists of all time.
But it is a sad day, when we cannot lay aside the sword.
Rejoiced?
What is there to rejoice? The end of life? The end of terror?
We do need to pause for a moment and thank God that someone who committed such atrocities can no longer commit those atrocities. We need to pray for bin Laden’s soul. We need to pray for those whom he harmed and their loved ones.
Yet, we should never celebrate death except as a gateway to new life.
And we do not see new life right now.
In his announcement, President Obama said we have not yet defeated terror, that we still had much work to do.
He is, unfortunately, right in many ways. Yet, what does his announcement mean: it means that we are still indebted to a military-industrial system which structures the way that we interact with others across the globe and within our own nation. It means that we cannot yet lay aside the sword. It means that we will not cut the expenditure to the military which alone takes one third of our national budget. One third we are unwilling to cut while we continue to cut the need for the poor, the homeless, the old, the unemployed, the needy.
Yes, it is a good thing that Osama bin Laden can harm us no more, though I suspect his memory will harm us. I hope that we do not rue the day when we made a martyr of one of the worst terrorists of all time.
But it is a sad day, when we cannot lay aside the sword.
Bad Higher Education
27/04/11 11:22
A recent article on n+1 discusses the various abuses in higher education today. These abuses include the following:
1. Student loan debt
2. The financial profit from reshuffling debt the way financiers did with the housing market
3. For profit colleges
4. The fact that a college education means higher debt with no pay increase over the last 20+ years
5. Increase in administrators in college
6. The decrease in full-time faculty
7. The abuse of graduate students
8. The abuse of adjunct faculty
9. The lies and other deceits of colleges in the financial aid process
10. The job-is-everything mentality.
I’ve already spoken about several of these issues on this blog.
What struck me as appalling in this latest article, however, is the reported fact that by 2014, college administrators will outnumber college faculty.
Here we see, again, the new dark times that MacIntyre speaks about in After Virtue. These dark times are marked by the dominance of bureaucrats and managers who, rather than engaging in a practice, try to manage and control practices. Most importantly, such bureaucrats both undermine free agency and subvert the internal goods of practices.
For instance, philosophy, art, French constitute practices with their own internal goods. For philosophy, those internal goods include wisdom, rhetoric, and dialogue. Yet, because of the new system, what’s important in colleges consists, not in producing wisdom, but in producing people with degrees. If you don’t produce the right amount of degrees, then you aren’t worth anything, because degrees mean money -- income.
When we reduce education to income, as we have in this country for so long, we’ve undermined every possibility for freedom at the ground level.
1. Student loan debt
2. The financial profit from reshuffling debt the way financiers did with the housing market
3. For profit colleges
4. The fact that a college education means higher debt with no pay increase over the last 20+ years
5. Increase in administrators in college
6. The decrease in full-time faculty
7. The abuse of graduate students
8. The abuse of adjunct faculty
9. The lies and other deceits of colleges in the financial aid process
10. The job-is-everything mentality.
I’ve already spoken about several of these issues on this blog.
What struck me as appalling in this latest article, however, is the reported fact that by 2014, college administrators will outnumber college faculty.
Here we see, again, the new dark times that MacIntyre speaks about in After Virtue. These dark times are marked by the dominance of bureaucrats and managers who, rather than engaging in a practice, try to manage and control practices. Most importantly, such bureaucrats both undermine free agency and subvert the internal goods of practices.
For instance, philosophy, art, French constitute practices with their own internal goods. For philosophy, those internal goods include wisdom, rhetoric, and dialogue. Yet, because of the new system, what’s important in colleges consists, not in producing wisdom, but in producing people with degrees. If you don’t produce the right amount of degrees, then you aren’t worth anything, because degrees mean money -- income.
When we reduce education to income, as we have in this country for so long, we’ve undermined every possibility for freedom at the ground level.
EFM, or Dystopia Now
26/04/11 11:27
Rania Khalik, in a very powerful article, tells us about the new Emergency Financial Managers which governors can hire to go into a town or a school district and remove any semblance of democracy in the face of emergencies these governors have in fact created.
Alasdair MacIntyre has been warning about this for over two decades. When he writes that we need to protect local communities from the bureaucrats of the left and the right, he is talking exactly about this sort of maneuver. Bureaucracy removes any semblance or reality of democracy in the name of some “emergency.”
Dystopian fiction has warned about this as well, in Brave New World, 1984, Brazil, V for Vendetta and many others.
We have been warned but we have failed to do anything about to protect ourselves.
The question remains, What can we do in the face of EFMs? How can we protect our communities, our children, our future, and our democracy?
We must organize as small, local communities that embrace the common good and resist the powers of domination that come from EFMs and like-minded individuals. How do we do this?
By going to town hall meetings.
By supporting our unions.
By supporting our teachers and our schools.
By voicing our concerns.
By organizing.
By making sure we do not vote for either major party.
Alasdair MacIntyre has been warning about this for over two decades. When he writes that we need to protect local communities from the bureaucrats of the left and the right, he is talking exactly about this sort of maneuver. Bureaucracy removes any semblance or reality of democracy in the name of some “emergency.”
Dystopian fiction has warned about this as well, in Brave New World, 1984, Brazil, V for Vendetta and many others.
We have been warned but we have failed to do anything about to protect ourselves.
The question remains, What can we do in the face of EFMs? How can we protect our communities, our children, our future, and our democracy?
We must organize as small, local communities that embrace the common good and resist the powers of domination that come from EFMs and like-minded individuals. How do we do this?
By going to town hall meetings.
By supporting our unions.
By supporting our teachers and our schools.
By voicing our concerns.
By organizing.
By making sure we do not vote for either major party.
There But for the Grace of God...
18/04/11 11:28
In a recent article, George Lakoff holds that Obama has returned to a moral vision that democrats and progressives should pay attention. Lakoff summarizes that moral vision in the following words:
Democracy is based on empathy, that is, on citizens caring about each other and acting on that care, taking responsibility not just for themselves but for their families, communities and their nation. The role of government is to carry out this principle in two ways: protection and empowerment.
It seems to me, regardless of whether this vision is one Obama shares, that it should be one that you and I and Obama shares. As I’ve argued on this blog before, we are not alligators or vampires -- independent agents able to care solely for ourselves. Rather, we are social beings who require each other -- who require a community shaped by a common good -- to care for each other (when young, when old, when ill, when weak) and to live a good life (as Aristotle asks: who would want to live without friends).
Libertarians, Republicans, and other conservatives often speak about being responsible. Yet, responsibility extends beyond the self. Responsibility entails responsibility for those in my family and in my community and even in the larger world. Democracy can be one of the best ways to secure the community and the individual by both protecting and empowering. Yet, it seems that our discourse today in the public is never so much about empowering as it is about protecting from unknown enemies who might destroy our way of life.
If we empower people -- the people in our families, in our communities, in our world -- we undermine any possibility that others can destroy that way of life.
Which is a key idea to keep in mind as we enter Holy Week and our remembrance of the death of Jesus. Jesus died to empower us -- to lead us in making good decisions about caring for others. He did not die for Himself. It’s this central image -- Jesus care for others -- that must motivate our Catholic identity as those most concerned with issues of social justice. Until we do that, we are not really Christian.
Democracy is based on empathy, that is, on citizens caring about each other and acting on that care, taking responsibility not just for themselves but for their families, communities and their nation. The role of government is to carry out this principle in two ways: protection and empowerment.
It seems to me, regardless of whether this vision is one Obama shares, that it should be one that you and I and Obama shares. As I’ve argued on this blog before, we are not alligators or vampires -- independent agents able to care solely for ourselves. Rather, we are social beings who require each other -- who require a community shaped by a common good -- to care for each other (when young, when old, when ill, when weak) and to live a good life (as Aristotle asks: who would want to live without friends).
Libertarians, Republicans, and other conservatives often speak about being responsible. Yet, responsibility extends beyond the self. Responsibility entails responsibility for those in my family and in my community and even in the larger world. Democracy can be one of the best ways to secure the community and the individual by both protecting and empowering. Yet, it seems that our discourse today in the public is never so much about empowering as it is about protecting from unknown enemies who might destroy our way of life.
If we empower people -- the people in our families, in our communities, in our world -- we undermine any possibility that others can destroy that way of life.
Which is a key idea to keep in mind as we enter Holy Week and our remembrance of the death of Jesus. Jesus died to empower us -- to lead us in making good decisions about caring for others. He did not die for Himself. It’s this central image -- Jesus care for others -- that must motivate our Catholic identity as those most concerned with issues of social justice. Until we do that, we are not really Christian.
Self Help: Myth or Virtue
07/04/11 13:54
Talk of the Nation aired a show discussing Manning Marable and Malcolm X. Marable died earlier this week. On the show, Eric Michael Dyson spoke. One of the questions centered on what African-Americans can do to help themselves. Dyson noted that Marable and Malcolm X, as well as MLK jr. and many other prominent African-Americans have insisted that African-Americans must work to improve their situations, including improving their neighborhoods and cities. Along with that call, however, many have pointed out the structures in society that prevent people from helping themselves.
First, I want to recognize that this issue of helping one’s self is very important, and that society does support structures which often make it difficult if not impossible for people to help themselves -- to practice virtues of independence like phronesis. Take, for instance, education: the way we’ve distributed money for education in this country means that children born or raised in poor school districts have less access to books and computers -- and even papers and pens -- that people born in wealthier neighborhoods have. Having an education is necessary for developing phronesis. More to the point: these schools are often over-crowded, and so, even if a student does show some promise, they often cannot make anything near like the headway that someone born in other circumstances could make. This constitutes structural injustice -- structural sin.
Second, however, I wonder if we are wise to talk about self-help in this way. It’s too easy to start talking about pulling one’s self up by one’s boot straps. But, of course, one has to have boot straps to begin with, and usually the rhetoric about self-help and boot-strapping is a mask for that fact.
Certainly we have to support structures --including community education -- that help individuals develop those virtues necessary for independence -- including phronesis and self-esteem. Yet, we have to recognize that those virtues develop only within contexts of acknowledged dependence. We are each, as individuals, dependent on someone at times in our lives -- whether that means only when we are newborns and children, or whether it means throughout our lives. Yet, trying to develop self-esteem without recognizing our dependence on others is to develop a deformity: a vice of self-importance or narcissism.
Individuals and communities grow hand in hand.
First, I want to recognize that this issue of helping one’s self is very important, and that society does support structures which often make it difficult if not impossible for people to help themselves -- to practice virtues of independence like phronesis. Take, for instance, education: the way we’ve distributed money for education in this country means that children born or raised in poor school districts have less access to books and computers -- and even papers and pens -- that people born in wealthier neighborhoods have. Having an education is necessary for developing phronesis. More to the point: these schools are often over-crowded, and so, even if a student does show some promise, they often cannot make anything near like the headway that someone born in other circumstances could make. This constitutes structural injustice -- structural sin.
Second, however, I wonder if we are wise to talk about self-help in this way. It’s too easy to start talking about pulling one’s self up by one’s boot straps. But, of course, one has to have boot straps to begin with, and usually the rhetoric about self-help and boot-strapping is a mask for that fact.
Certainly we have to support structures --including community education -- that help individuals develop those virtues necessary for independence -- including phronesis and self-esteem. Yet, we have to recognize that those virtues develop only within contexts of acknowledged dependence. We are each, as individuals, dependent on someone at times in our lives -- whether that means only when we are newborns and children, or whether it means throughout our lives. Yet, trying to develop self-esteem without recognizing our dependence on others is to develop a deformity: a vice of self-importance or narcissism.
Individuals and communities grow hand in hand.
Greed and God
06/04/11 09:56
Most psychologically healthy adults recognize in their heart of hearts the moral perversion of the old economy, but may fear to speak up because so many experts—including even some religious leaders—continuously assure us in so many words that greed is good, even that God wants us to be financially rich and financial wealth is a mark of God’s favor.
So writes David Korten in a blog. And he’s right. But we need to look at the broader picture.
According to Max Weber, famed sociologist, an aspect of Christianity preaches that God favors his favorites by making them financially rich and, conversely, that being rich is a sign of God’s favor. Capitalism would not be possible, so Weber argues, without this Christian ethic. The ethic stretches back to the Old Testament too. Recall that Job was rich, and when he lost his wealth, his friends asked him what sin he committed.
We have to contend against this ethic that says God measures us by the amount of wealth we have. That paints a picture of a God of money, not a God of love. Jesus tells us over and over again, that His Father is a Loving Father.
And if we start thinking about Jesus, about God, and about religion in those terms, our picture of wealth and wealth creation must change. This contest -- the contest between the growth of profit and the growth of the human person -- constitutes the greatest challenge of all time and the defining element of our modern Western civilization. We are on the brink of choosing the wrong side as politicians attempt to strip workers of their rights, and as we condemn unions for sending jobs overseas. It is not unions that cause jobs to go over seas. Multinational corporations who define their values solely in light of the profit motive send jobs overseas.
Only by uniting against the wealth mongers and seeing God as love will we be able to overcome this trial and survive into a new, more wholesome age.
So writes David Korten in a blog. And he’s right. But we need to look at the broader picture.
According to Max Weber, famed sociologist, an aspect of Christianity preaches that God favors his favorites by making them financially rich and, conversely, that being rich is a sign of God’s favor. Capitalism would not be possible, so Weber argues, without this Christian ethic. The ethic stretches back to the Old Testament too. Recall that Job was rich, and when he lost his wealth, his friends asked him what sin he committed.
We have to contend against this ethic that says God measures us by the amount of wealth we have. That paints a picture of a God of money, not a God of love. Jesus tells us over and over again, that His Father is a Loving Father.
And if we start thinking about Jesus, about God, and about religion in those terms, our picture of wealth and wealth creation must change. This contest -- the contest between the growth of profit and the growth of the human person -- constitutes the greatest challenge of all time and the defining element of our modern Western civilization. We are on the brink of choosing the wrong side as politicians attempt to strip workers of their rights, and as we condemn unions for sending jobs overseas. It is not unions that cause jobs to go over seas. Multinational corporations who define their values solely in light of the profit motive send jobs overseas.
Only by uniting against the wealth mongers and seeing God as love will we be able to overcome this trial and survive into a new, more wholesome age.
MLK jr, Worker's Rights, April 4th
04/04/11 12:40
As Think Progress notes, Dr. King died 43 years ago today, marching and speaking about collective bargaining rights for trash collectors in Memphis, TN.
I’ve visited the spot where he was shot on that clear morning so long ago. It was a very spiritually moving moment standing outside the Civil Rights Museum looking into the hotel room he spent his last night.
Yet, 43 years later, we see one of the strongest attacks on collective bargaining rights in the history of the world.
Why?
We’re told we need to end collective bargaining of public employees in order to close the budget gaps at many state levels. We all know that is bull!
Republican governors across the US think they can end collective bargaining rights thus serving their rich contributors and making it less likely for people to vote in the future for their democratic rivals. But democrats are doing very little to help protect the worker when the worker is in power.
Here’s the truth: we have a moral choice to make between protecting the subject -- the worker -- or protecting the object -- the bottom line.
MLK jr got shot because he told us what God wanted.
I’ve visited the spot where he was shot on that clear morning so long ago. It was a very spiritually moving moment standing outside the Civil Rights Museum looking into the hotel room he spent his last night.
Yet, 43 years later, we see one of the strongest attacks on collective bargaining rights in the history of the world.
Why?
We’re told we need to end collective bargaining of public employees in order to close the budget gaps at many state levels. We all know that is bull!
Republican governors across the US think they can end collective bargaining rights thus serving their rich contributors and making it less likely for people to vote in the future for their democratic rivals. But democrats are doing very little to help protect the worker when the worker is in power.
Here’s the truth: we have a moral choice to make between protecting the subject -- the worker -- or protecting the object -- the bottom line.
MLK jr got shot because he told us what God wanted.
Budget Cuts April 2011
31/03/11 18:35
Reuters reports that Republicans and Democrats have settled on a basic outline of a budget to prevent government shutdown which no one wants. The $33 billion in cuts, Reuters reports, would do little to nothing to “plug a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion.” There was no discussion in the report about what such a cut might mean for the fledgling economy or about job creation. In other words, nothing was said factually about whether this cut in budget would hurt or help jobs -- which people need desperately. Nor is there any discussion of how the extension of Bush era tax-cuts to the rich add to the budget deficit, which might be interesting news to have. I also find it interesting that in these discussions, which often discuss targeting social security or medicare, that no mention is ever made that these funds are ones that tax payers pay into directly. That is, why is it not seen as stealing from you and me when Republicans or Democrats talk about cutting social security benefits or medicare, which are “ear-marked” on our checks separate from our other taxes.
Now, to more of the point. The agreement seems so far to impose “immediate cuts averaging 25 % of nearly every aspect of the government’s nonmilitary operations from food safety inspections to nuclear weapons monitoring.”
Why, as I’ve asked in another post, is military not targeted as something that needs cut equal with or even more so than food safety inspections? Have we not learned in the last twenty years that when we cut inspections and cut the people able to do inspections we endanger human lives? How many Americans have died from e-coli poisoning? How many people are in jeopardy if our nuclear reactors experience problems like Japan’s Fukushuma Daiichi plant?
These questions must be pressed on our legislators -- our REPRESENTatives. Who are they representing? The budget is a moral document. What moral choices are we making?
Now, to more of the point. The agreement seems so far to impose “immediate cuts averaging 25 % of nearly every aspect of the government’s nonmilitary operations from food safety inspections to nuclear weapons monitoring.”
Why, as I’ve asked in another post, is military not targeted as something that needs cut equal with or even more so than food safety inspections? Have we not learned in the last twenty years that when we cut inspections and cut the people able to do inspections we endanger human lives? How many Americans have died from e-coli poisoning? How many people are in jeopardy if our nuclear reactors experience problems like Japan’s Fukushuma Daiichi plant?
These questions must be pressed on our legislators -- our REPRESENTatives. Who are they representing? The budget is a moral document. What moral choices are we making?
Media Bias and War
30/03/11 11:19
Anyone listening to a variety of news and talk media can recognize the truth in this article about bias in the media. I don’t mean the supposed left-wing or liberal bias. No such bias exists, as been proven over and over by independent sources. The notion of a liberal bias in the media is a propaganda tool of the right. Rather, the media favors corporations and favors right-wing dialogue and phrasing of such issues. How else would you explain the complete inundation of the terms “death panels” and “government health care” over what the administration actually discussed during the health care debate? Another example mentioned in this article is that “out of "hundreds of stories" that mentioned health care reform "all but 18 of these stories made no mention of 'single-payer' ... and only five included the views of advocates of single-payer - none of which appeared on television."”
I want to focus on a particular aspect of this bias, however, an aspect that proves destructive to our nation and to our politics. The media has rarely discussed or mentioned the possibility of cuts to the military or to the defense budget. Neither party can afford to talk about such cuts because they will be seen as weak on defense, which, let’s be honest with ourselves, it what makes Americans really proud. How many days do we reserve each year to honor our war heroes and our army? I’m not suggesting that we ought not: these are brave men and women who defend our country and our ideals. Rather, I’m saying that the defense is our number one concern and is more sacrosanct than God Himself.
Yet, if we really want to balance the budget and honor our debt to the retirees – present and future – and to honor the right to health care – then cutting our military budget is, not only the easiest, but the least costly. We can cut our military budget by billions and still no one in the world would spend as much as the United States does on “defense.”
If we do not break past this bias in the media and in politics, we will continue to witness our country dwindle in debt, in failing to care for the elderly, the poor, the orphan, and those who have worked hard all of their lives. We will see the dissolution of the American dream.
I want to focus on a particular aspect of this bias, however, an aspect that proves destructive to our nation and to our politics. The media has rarely discussed or mentioned the possibility of cuts to the military or to the defense budget. Neither party can afford to talk about such cuts because they will be seen as weak on defense, which, let’s be honest with ourselves, it what makes Americans really proud. How many days do we reserve each year to honor our war heroes and our army? I’m not suggesting that we ought not: these are brave men and women who defend our country and our ideals. Rather, I’m saying that the defense is our number one concern and is more sacrosanct than God Himself.
Yet, if we really want to balance the budget and honor our debt to the retirees – present and future – and to honor the right to health care – then cutting our military budget is, not only the easiest, but the least costly. We can cut our military budget by billions and still no one in the world would spend as much as the United States does on “defense.”
If we do not break past this bias in the media and in politics, we will continue to witness our country dwindle in debt, in failing to care for the elderly, the poor, the orphan, and those who have worked hard all of their lives. We will see the dissolution of the American dream.
Fish and Crucifix
29/03/11 11:50
Stanley Fish discusses an interesting court case in the EU in his most recent post. The case concerns the attempt to hang crucifixes in classrooms in Italy. The education was sued because it violated a principle of the EU Convention on Human Rights: “the right of parents to ensure … education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”
Fish notes that the court -- which decided 15 - 2 (impressive) -- provided three arguments in favor of allowing the crucifix to be hung in classrooms. First, the crucifix, so the court said, it not a specifically religious symbol. (Part of me wants to say: Oh, ask a vampire.) Second, if it is a symbol, it represents the virtue of charity which Christians hold more sacred even than belief in God. (I’d like that reasoning to meet some of my students and fellow parishioners.) Finally, the court argued that the crucifix has various interpretation and, therefore, does not impose one meaning over another.
Fish concludes his argument by saying it does not matter to him at a certain level whether the courts allow crucifixes to hang in classrooms. What matters, instead, is the mental gymnastics the courts went through to deny that the crucifix is a religious symbol.
Several points could be made here, and I have to admit that I have some prejudice in this issue. The prejudice is not what you might think: it’s not my Catholicism. Rather, it’s my feelings about the Confederate flag. For me, the Confederate flag is more about the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazard than it is about anything to do with the Civil War in America. Context matters here. And the question becomes one of how do we balance the claims of those who are the descendents of the victimized with those claims of the people living today who have a different meaning for the symbol.
On this note, Fish dismisses too easily the idea that Christianity is about charity and not about belief in God. Yet, I think for many Christians, it is about charity. It must be if they are not to fall into the Euthyphro trap, which remains suspiciously absent from Fish’s diatribe. We believe in this God because He is charitable, because God is Love! What is more important, God or Charity? Might be asking the chicken and egg question. But my point isn’t that: it’s that context matters.
Which brings me to the specific case: Fish has made judgments about the interpretation of 15 people on a high court in the EU. Does he have the same nuance of understanding as these people? Does he grasp the cultural understanding of the crucifix for Italians or for the EU? Perhaps he does, but if so, that never makes it into his discussion. Why?
Because it doesn’t matter for his analysis. And that, I think, is the most important issue of all. Context always matters. I don’t mean that I side with placing the crucifix in the classroom or with waving the confederate flag in the south. Rather, I am arguing that we cannot make these moral judgments from abstract principles alone. And that is exactly what Fish is trying to do, in the end, despite his not caring about whether there are crucifixes hanging in the classroom in Italy or not.
Fish notes that the court -- which decided 15 - 2 (impressive) -- provided three arguments in favor of allowing the crucifix to be hung in classrooms. First, the crucifix, so the court said, it not a specifically religious symbol. (Part of me wants to say: Oh, ask a vampire.) Second, if it is a symbol, it represents the virtue of charity which Christians hold more sacred even than belief in God. (I’d like that reasoning to meet some of my students and fellow parishioners.) Finally, the court argued that the crucifix has various interpretation and, therefore, does not impose one meaning over another.
Fish concludes his argument by saying it does not matter to him at a certain level whether the courts allow crucifixes to hang in classrooms. What matters, instead, is the mental gymnastics the courts went through to deny that the crucifix is a religious symbol.
Several points could be made here, and I have to admit that I have some prejudice in this issue. The prejudice is not what you might think: it’s not my Catholicism. Rather, it’s my feelings about the Confederate flag. For me, the Confederate flag is more about the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazard than it is about anything to do with the Civil War in America. Context matters here. And the question becomes one of how do we balance the claims of those who are the descendents of the victimized with those claims of the people living today who have a different meaning for the symbol.
On this note, Fish dismisses too easily the idea that Christianity is about charity and not about belief in God. Yet, I think for many Christians, it is about charity. It must be if they are not to fall into the Euthyphro trap, which remains suspiciously absent from Fish’s diatribe. We believe in this God because He is charitable, because God is Love! What is more important, God or Charity? Might be asking the chicken and egg question. But my point isn’t that: it’s that context matters.
Which brings me to the specific case: Fish has made judgments about the interpretation of 15 people on a high court in the EU. Does he have the same nuance of understanding as these people? Does he grasp the cultural understanding of the crucifix for Italians or for the EU? Perhaps he does, but if so, that never makes it into his discussion. Why?
Because it doesn’t matter for his analysis. And that, I think, is the most important issue of all. Context always matters. I don’t mean that I side with placing the crucifix in the classroom or with waving the confederate flag in the south. Rather, I am arguing that we cannot make these moral judgments from abstract principles alone. And that is exactly what Fish is trying to do, in the end, despite his not caring about whether there are crucifixes hanging in the classroom in Italy or not.
Obama's Speech on Libya
28/03/11 17:38
President Obama in a televised speech defended the military actions in Libya. You will be able to hear any number of pundits on the radio and television dissecting his speech. Yet, I think a few things need to be emphasized that others will miss.
First and foremost: Obama says “The writ of the UN Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security.” I find this reasoning interesting and promising. Where George W. Bush made unilateral action the motif of his presidency, Obama insists, rightly I think, that the United Nations is important for military action. But, more importantly, he holds that the UN Security Council would be seen as crippled if a strong military did not carry out it’s will. How many times has the United States, however, prevented the UN from carrying out its mandate of maintaining peace among nations and preventing injustice?
I would also note that Obama’s position on the UN mirrors that of Pope Benedict XVI. In his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth), Benedict XVI called for a UN with teeth. Such a United Nations would be able to enforce human rights across the globe.
This belief in a UN with teeth, however, requires something that Obama did not address: a conception of a common good. That is, in order to have a truly global governing body, we must first establish a common good that such a governing body would protect. If you watch Star Trek, Star Fleet serves as the teeth of the Federation. Presumably the Federation has some common good it pursues -- living out the dream of Gene Roddenbery. But, until the world can agree on any such common good, the UN will either lack the necessary teeth to carry out its vision or, worse, it will be susceptible to corruption from those who do.
First and foremost: Obama says “The writ of the UN Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security.” I find this reasoning interesting and promising. Where George W. Bush made unilateral action the motif of his presidency, Obama insists, rightly I think, that the United Nations is important for military action. But, more importantly, he holds that the UN Security Council would be seen as crippled if a strong military did not carry out it’s will. How many times has the United States, however, prevented the UN from carrying out its mandate of maintaining peace among nations and preventing injustice?
I would also note that Obama’s position on the UN mirrors that of Pope Benedict XVI. In his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth), Benedict XVI called for a UN with teeth. Such a United Nations would be able to enforce human rights across the globe.
This belief in a UN with teeth, however, requires something that Obama did not address: a conception of a common good. That is, in order to have a truly global governing body, we must first establish a common good that such a governing body would protect. If you watch Star Trek, Star Fleet serves as the teeth of the Federation. Presumably the Federation has some common good it pursues -- living out the dream of Gene Roddenbery. But, until the world can agree on any such common good, the UN will either lack the necessary teeth to carry out its vision or, worse, it will be susceptible to corruption from those who do.
Democracy, Human Nature, Education
28/03/11 13:18
A recent post on Cracked.com gave 5 Reasons why human beings are not capable of democracy. These five reasons are
1. The wording of an issue can change our opinion on it
2. Watching the news tends to make us less informed
3. Political pundits are even worse at knowing the facts than the common person
4. The more informed one is, the more partisan one becomes
5. We hate each other over imaginary differences
Of these five reasons, only the first and fifth ones have anything to do with something inherent in human nature itself. The fact that wording can change our opinion on something concerns the way we process information. Processing has a lot to do with what George Lakoff calls framing: human nature means that, as individuals, we process information about the world through framing it in a particular way, which means that key-words act as codes that activate certain frames. The fifth issue concerns the tendency of human beings to exacerbate differences to find greater clarity and to categorize.
Neither of these points are necessarily detrimental to democracy per se. Both require greater education in the virtues, particularly the virtue of phronesis. Phronesis is the virtue of practical wisdom. We can true ourselves to think more clearly and more cautiously about issues. But training in phronesis requires a community willing to invest in such training and a community that is willing to limit the kinds of “violence” that harm the development of the virtue: yelling on television, commercialization of politics, divisive rhetoric.
A society aimed at the common good can and should embrace democracy.
The question is always one of the will.
1. The wording of an issue can change our opinion on it
2. Watching the news tends to make us less informed
3. Political pundits are even worse at knowing the facts than the common person
4. The more informed one is, the more partisan one becomes
5. We hate each other over imaginary differences
Of these five reasons, only the first and fifth ones have anything to do with something inherent in human nature itself. The fact that wording can change our opinion on something concerns the way we process information. Processing has a lot to do with what George Lakoff calls framing: human nature means that, as individuals, we process information about the world through framing it in a particular way, which means that key-words act as codes that activate certain frames. The fifth issue concerns the tendency of human beings to exacerbate differences to find greater clarity and to categorize.
Neither of these points are necessarily detrimental to democracy per se. Both require greater education in the virtues, particularly the virtue of phronesis. Phronesis is the virtue of practical wisdom. We can true ourselves to think more clearly and more cautiously about issues. But training in phronesis requires a community willing to invest in such training and a community that is willing to limit the kinds of “violence” that harm the development of the virtue: yelling on television, commercialization of politics, divisive rhetoric.
A society aimed at the common good can and should embrace democracy.
The question is always one of the will.
Food Production and 9 Billion People
24/03/11 09:38
As reported on Arstechnica, we are facing a food production crisis. Currently 7 billion people live on the planet. By 2050, scientists expect 9 billion people. Of the 7 billion people currently living, over 1 billion are starving.
So think about that: 1 out of every 7 people in the world could die from starvation!
And it can only get worse. We’ve maxed out what the world can produce. Environmental changes caused by global warming will make the world hotter, which means we have to change what crops we grow. Plus, we are short on clean water, which is necessary for farming. As the world warms and glaciers melt, sea levels will rise, put all of these people on less and less land -- which will make farm land even more costly.
On top of that, we’ve turned to bio-fuels to stop our dependency on oil. This move is one of the worst we could make. We’ve drive up the price of corn, we grow more corn -- which is costly to land -- and we’ve stopped people from growing other more healthy corn. Corn is costly to land because it takes such a large space to grow -- four feet between each plant -- and because it depletes the soil of nutrients.
We need to start thinking more clearly and more carefully about how we will feed people. This means rethinking the following:
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on these issues?
So think about that: 1 out of every 7 people in the world could die from starvation!
And it can only get worse. We’ve maxed out what the world can produce. Environmental changes caused by global warming will make the world hotter, which means we have to change what crops we grow. Plus, we are short on clean water, which is necessary for farming. As the world warms and glaciers melt, sea levels will rise, put all of these people on less and less land -- which will make farm land even more costly.
On top of that, we’ve turned to bio-fuels to stop our dependency on oil. This move is one of the worst we could make. We’ve drive up the price of corn, we grow more corn -- which is costly to land -- and we’ve stopped people from growing other more healthy corn. Corn is costly to land because it takes such a large space to grow -- four feet between each plant -- and because it depletes the soil of nutrients.
We need to start thinking more clearly and more carefully about how we will feed people. This means rethinking the following:
- small farms versus corporate farms
- meat
- water use
- water reclamation and clean water technology
- genetically engineered crops
- politics of food distribution
- eating seasonally/ habits of eating
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on these issues?
Unions, Higher Education
22/03/11 09:50
Stanley Fish has a conversation with Walter Benn Michaels about unions for public higher education. I’ve already posted why unions are good, what the attack on unions is really about, and on the value of education. Fish and Michaels address two other issues.
First, Fish addresses the issue that those who want to get rid of unions want to get rid of them because it undermines leftist politics. Of course, I’ve argued that little separates the left and right in America if we see those terms apply to Democrats and Republicans. If, however, we understand left as a belief system that rejects the dominant form of classical liberalism -- the atomistic and rational pursuit of self interest -- then the point needs to be made stronger. Education is about educating people to participate in politics -- in determining the common good. Fish addresses this in his discussion of Utah. Yes, good unions mean that employees have a say in the direction of their company and employment. Human beings should embrace the autonomy that unions can bring to their jobs. Rather, we have the right in this country arguing that unions “force” people to work, “remove” their say, and “limit” freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is why education is so important: so we can understand how political rhetoric changes the truth.
Second, Michaels makes the point that academics are workers. A lot of people don’t really believe this. Popular media paints a portrait of the academic who spends a few hours teaching and then plays golf the rest of the week, or who gets paid in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but has no office hours. I know of no one like this, though there may be a few. For the most part, most academics in the United State university system teach a lot and spend time researching a lot. And research is integral to our teaching. How many of you would want a company to make a product they’ve never investigated? Teachers, academics, are workers! Fish, in a moment of admirable humility, says he denied that for a long time and, because of his denial, opposed unions. But he’s come to see the truth now. The truth is much harsher than it appears. Must research institutions -- the ones with the great basketball and football -- rest on the back of teaching assistants -- paid around $10k per year -- and adjuncts -- paid per course, perhaps $3k per class. I knew one guy in PA who taught 7 classes at 3 universities in order to make around $20k. Academics are workers.
Still, the question of unions and higher education touches on something much more fundamental. The purpose of education and the need for universities. Alasdair MacIntyre has trenchantly discussed the way that corporations have taken over the university today. Universities are geared to produce workers and nothing else. The attack on unions is simply another way to make sure that universities do not fulfill their higher mission: helping us to understand our lives and our selves much better, so that we realize that the model of classical liberalism undermines our happiness rather than leads to it.
First, Fish addresses the issue that those who want to get rid of unions want to get rid of them because it undermines leftist politics. Of course, I’ve argued that little separates the left and right in America if we see those terms apply to Democrats and Republicans. If, however, we understand left as a belief system that rejects the dominant form of classical liberalism -- the atomistic and rational pursuit of self interest -- then the point needs to be made stronger. Education is about educating people to participate in politics -- in determining the common good. Fish addresses this in his discussion of Utah. Yes, good unions mean that employees have a say in the direction of their company and employment. Human beings should embrace the autonomy that unions can bring to their jobs. Rather, we have the right in this country arguing that unions “force” people to work, “remove” their say, and “limit” freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is why education is so important: so we can understand how political rhetoric changes the truth.
Second, Michaels makes the point that academics are workers. A lot of people don’t really believe this. Popular media paints a portrait of the academic who spends a few hours teaching and then plays golf the rest of the week, or who gets paid in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but has no office hours. I know of no one like this, though there may be a few. For the most part, most academics in the United State university system teach a lot and spend time researching a lot. And research is integral to our teaching. How many of you would want a company to make a product they’ve never investigated? Teachers, academics, are workers! Fish, in a moment of admirable humility, says he denied that for a long time and, because of his denial, opposed unions. But he’s come to see the truth now. The truth is much harsher than it appears. Must research institutions -- the ones with the great basketball and football -- rest on the back of teaching assistants -- paid around $10k per year -- and adjuncts -- paid per course, perhaps $3k per class. I knew one guy in PA who taught 7 classes at 3 universities in order to make around $20k. Academics are workers.
Still, the question of unions and higher education touches on something much more fundamental. The purpose of education and the need for universities. Alasdair MacIntyre has trenchantly discussed the way that corporations have taken over the university today. Universities are geared to produce workers and nothing else. The attack on unions is simply another way to make sure that universities do not fulfill their higher mission: helping us to understand our lives and our selves much better, so that we realize that the model of classical liberalism undermines our happiness rather than leads to it.
Why We Fight: Libya
21/03/11 08:00
Yesterday, I watched the movie Why We Fight, a documentary by Eugene Jurecki about the military-industrial complex in the United States. The film takes as its inspiration the farewell address by Dwight Eisenhower in which he warned Americans to remain vigilant that those who control arms production do not become an effective political influence. Jurecki’s film makes the argument -- and a persuasive one -- that we have not remained vigilant.
First, we are beholden to the war machine because it supplies jobs. One company, it noted, produces a jet that has parts made in each of the 50 states. Thus, not only are American citizens beholden to the company, but the elected leaders are as well.
For, second, the elected leaders know where the jobs are and know who greases the wheel. They have lobbyists at their door constantly. And what have we -- the citizens -- done to stop lobbying? Nothing.
Third, we do not demand news from our news media. Sure, we see reporters reporting from the front, but what reports do they give? Do they discuss the damage done to the innocent? The cost to human life? The cost to our peace? The cost to the social needs of people? Eisenhower noted, for instance, how many schools, hospital beds, homes could be built with the expense of one jet fighter. Do we demand information of that sort? Remember the whole WMD debate with Iraq? Our news did not, and we did not demand them to, report on whether there were such WMD. Turns out there weren’t.
Because, fourth, we have this whole industry -- from the Pentagon to the Think Tanks in Washington -- to justify war. They have created ways to take information out of context and convince us of something that is not true.
So I sit and think about these issues in relation to Libya. What don’t we know? What are our real reasons for fighting in Libya. I suspect some of our fighting in Libya is smoke and mirrors. By focusing our attention on Libya, the government effectively keeps our eyes off of Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and other places where people are struggling for their rights. They also keep our eyes off of Fukushima. (See this analysis here.)
Is the war in Libya just? I’ve suggested that it might be, but I would caution that these questions are not so easily answered. Perhaps the question should be, not about this or that war, but about the war machine that we live in. That clearly is not just.
First, we are beholden to the war machine because it supplies jobs. One company, it noted, produces a jet that has parts made in each of the 50 states. Thus, not only are American citizens beholden to the company, but the elected leaders are as well.
For, second, the elected leaders know where the jobs are and know who greases the wheel. They have lobbyists at their door constantly. And what have we -- the citizens -- done to stop lobbying? Nothing.
Third, we do not demand news from our news media. Sure, we see reporters reporting from the front, but what reports do they give? Do they discuss the damage done to the innocent? The cost to human life? The cost to our peace? The cost to the social needs of people? Eisenhower noted, for instance, how many schools, hospital beds, homes could be built with the expense of one jet fighter. Do we demand information of that sort? Remember the whole WMD debate with Iraq? Our news did not, and we did not demand them to, report on whether there were such WMD. Turns out there weren’t.
Because, fourth, we have this whole industry -- from the Pentagon to the Think Tanks in Washington -- to justify war. They have created ways to take information out of context and convince us of something that is not true.
So I sit and think about these issues in relation to Libya. What don’t we know? What are our real reasons for fighting in Libya. I suspect some of our fighting in Libya is smoke and mirrors. By focusing our attention on Libya, the government effectively keeps our eyes off of Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and other places where people are struggling for their rights. They also keep our eyes off of Fukushima. (See this analysis here.)
Is the war in Libya just? I’ve suggested that it might be, but I would caution that these questions are not so easily answered. Perhaps the question should be, not about this or that war, but about the war machine that we live in. That clearly is not just.
UN, Just War, and Libya
18/03/11 12:33
As the Christian Science Monitor reports, The Un has passed a resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and the use of force against Col. Muammar Quaddafi if he does not cease violence against protestors and restore power and water to rebel held locations. In a speech on Friday afternoon, President Obama laid out the clear reasons for voting for the resolution and participating in any military action against Quaddafi. Obama declared that the reasons for the sanctions and military action against Quaddafi included the protection of innocent life and the affirmation of universal rights, that the goal of such sanctions and action included the restoration of power and water and the cessation of attacks on innocents, and that the United States role would be limited, but that clearly no foreign military should participate in attacks against the citizens of Libya.
Given my discussion of Just War and the Middle East the other day, I think addressing the UN resolution from just war principles seems appropriate. I think that, given what we know, the UN resolution adheres to just war principles and that Obama’s stated opinion favoring the resolution adhere to just war principles.
The first principle of just war declares that war must be waged for legitimate goals with the aim of establishing peace. These goals include ending oppression and protecting the innocent from violence. Quaddafi is clearly attacking innocents and oppressing people. Second, just war must have a clear goal: the UN resolution and President Obama have established clear goals which are objective and measurable: the end to violence against innocents and the restoration of basic human services. War must be declared by a legitimate authority. Quaddafi has claimed that the UN has no right to interfere with his sovereignty. Yet, given that the resolution passed with wide support (even though Russia and China abstained from voting for the resolution), the question becomes one of the legitimacy of the United Nations. While I have no room to argue this here, I hold firmly to belief in the legitimacy of the United Nations and support, in fact, a stronger UN, one not hampered by the veto power of particular dominant nations. Finally, war must be the last resort. Here, Obama laid out the stages which have led up to the UN resolution. I think they’ve made a legitimate case for voting for the resolution. The question will become, To what extent will they or can they wait for Quaddafi to cease hostilities and restore basic services? This point will be something we will have to judge as we move forward
Given these points, a few others must be kept in mind about just war: primarily, the issue of proportionality and, second, the prohibition against attacking non-combatants.
I suggested in my post the other day, that a problem for modern warfare is the inability to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Even our most sophisticated weaponry ends up killing a significant number of innocents -- a number we gloss over with the term “collateral damage.” But for justice and for the innocent, collateral damage is anything but collateral -- it is testament to the wrongness of war and killing. Can we take military action against Quaddafi without injuring innocents? A no-fly zone seems possible, but what else?
Secondly, we must remember that violence in the war must be proportional to the violence imposed by the offending party. This level is hard to gauge. Clear violations present themselves in the form of nuclear attacks, which can never be legitimized. But to what extent can the Arab league, NATO, and the United States cause violence against Quaddafi and pro-Quaddafi forces?
The only to answer this question is the following: only that violence which is necessary to achieve the legitimate and clear goals of any violent action engaged in: the protection of human life and the restoration of necessary services for a good human life.
Let’s pray that little violence will be necessary to achieve these goals.
Given my discussion of Just War and the Middle East the other day, I think addressing the UN resolution from just war principles seems appropriate. I think that, given what we know, the UN resolution adheres to just war principles and that Obama’s stated opinion favoring the resolution adhere to just war principles.
The first principle of just war declares that war must be waged for legitimate goals with the aim of establishing peace. These goals include ending oppression and protecting the innocent from violence. Quaddafi is clearly attacking innocents and oppressing people. Second, just war must have a clear goal: the UN resolution and President Obama have established clear goals which are objective and measurable: the end to violence against innocents and the restoration of basic human services. War must be declared by a legitimate authority. Quaddafi has claimed that the UN has no right to interfere with his sovereignty. Yet, given that the resolution passed with wide support (even though Russia and China abstained from voting for the resolution), the question becomes one of the legitimacy of the United Nations. While I have no room to argue this here, I hold firmly to belief in the legitimacy of the United Nations and support, in fact, a stronger UN, one not hampered by the veto power of particular dominant nations. Finally, war must be the last resort. Here, Obama laid out the stages which have led up to the UN resolution. I think they’ve made a legitimate case for voting for the resolution. The question will become, To what extent will they or can they wait for Quaddafi to cease hostilities and restore basic services? This point will be something we will have to judge as we move forward
Given these points, a few others must be kept in mind about just war: primarily, the issue of proportionality and, second, the prohibition against attacking non-combatants.
I suggested in my post the other day, that a problem for modern warfare is the inability to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Even our most sophisticated weaponry ends up killing a significant number of innocents -- a number we gloss over with the term “collateral damage.” But for justice and for the innocent, collateral damage is anything but collateral -- it is testament to the wrongness of war and killing. Can we take military action against Quaddafi without injuring innocents? A no-fly zone seems possible, but what else?
Secondly, we must remember that violence in the war must be proportional to the violence imposed by the offending party. This level is hard to gauge. Clear violations present themselves in the form of nuclear attacks, which can never be legitimized. But to what extent can the Arab league, NATO, and the United States cause violence against Quaddafi and pro-Quaddafi forces?
The only to answer this question is the following: only that violence which is necessary to achieve the legitimate and clear goals of any violent action engaged in: the protection of human life and the restoration of necessary services for a good human life.
Let’s pray that little violence will be necessary to achieve these goals.
Defunding NPR
17/03/11 13:35
FOX News reports that the House voted to defund NPR. This defunding means that (a measly) $5 million of tax payed money would not go to support NPR programming. FOX notes, as well, that while Republicans have challenged NPR in recent months, the vote comes after a video caught an ex-NPR executive saying that the Tea Party was full of crazies and that NPR did not need the federal funding.
As I’ve said before, we need to look below the surface here. What’s going on? Surely, some might think that the “left-leaning” NPR should not be funded by tax payer dollars because it is biased and supports a particular view of the world. One wonders, of course, if NPR was “caught” denouncing democrats if it would be the target of the same kind of defunding legislation. But those questions really miss the point. What this legislation does primarily, since we KNOW that NPR can survive without the funding, is serve to divide the nation. NPR serves as a rallying point around which conservatives and liberals, or Republicans and Democrats, can mark out an identity.
If anyone were really worried about what sort of programming tax payer money should support, then the discussion would be much different. The legislation would aim to direct the money rather than simply denying the money.
Yet, such discussions require serious debate among, not only congress members who would rather avoid serious debate, but also you and I and every citizen in the United States. What do we expect from our programming? What do we expect from our tax payer dollars? Is the $5 million sent to NPR a real issue when billions upon billions go to supporting war and the war-machine to which we are so indebted? Why does the United States not have a system like the BBC in the United Kingdom?
These represent substantive questions which require dialogue and a development of a vision of the common good. Yet, American politics and American business cannot support discussions of the common good for it would undermine the pursuit of capital at all costs and would undermine the bureaucracy which tries to rule our lives.
So once more, I challenge each of us to begin talking about the common good and to find unity with each other rather than allowing ourselves to be divided by the political rhetoric that only serves to maintain the status quo and keep those in power in power.
As I’ve said before, we need to look below the surface here. What’s going on? Surely, some might think that the “left-leaning” NPR should not be funded by tax payer dollars because it is biased and supports a particular view of the world. One wonders, of course, if NPR was “caught” denouncing democrats if it would be the target of the same kind of defunding legislation. But those questions really miss the point. What this legislation does primarily, since we KNOW that NPR can survive without the funding, is serve to divide the nation. NPR serves as a rallying point around which conservatives and liberals, or Republicans and Democrats, can mark out an identity.
If anyone were really worried about what sort of programming tax payer money should support, then the discussion would be much different. The legislation would aim to direct the money rather than simply denying the money.
Yet, such discussions require serious debate among, not only congress members who would rather avoid serious debate, but also you and I and every citizen in the United States. What do we expect from our programming? What do we expect from our tax payer dollars? Is the $5 million sent to NPR a real issue when billions upon billions go to supporting war and the war-machine to which we are so indebted? Why does the United States not have a system like the BBC in the United Kingdom?
These represent substantive questions which require dialogue and a development of a vision of the common good. Yet, American politics and American business cannot support discussions of the common good for it would undermine the pursuit of capital at all costs and would undermine the bureaucracy which tries to rule our lives.
So once more, I challenge each of us to begin talking about the common good and to find unity with each other rather than allowing ourselves to be divided by the political rhetoric that only serves to maintain the status quo and keep those in power in power.
Just War, Bahrain, and Libya
16/03/11 14:16
Much is happening in the world right now, so much it’s hard to keep track. Since the 9.0 earthquake in Japan, the subsequent tsunami, and the troubles with the nuclear reactor, the news coming out of the Middle East has been downplayed or ignored. Yet, troubles are a-brewing in the Middle East, especially in Bahrain and in Libya.
Both places have witnessed protests against the reigning monarchs. Muammar Quadafi has ruled Libya for over forty years, oppressing people. In Bahrain, the ruling Suuni oppress the majority Shi’ites. The United States, which has a large naval base in Bahrain, has remained out of the conflict, while condemning the actions of Bahrain’s rulers and the Saudi Arabian use of force against the Shi’ites. Of course,this is easy for the United States: they are not the ones suffering or the ones who have no voice. They’re the ones with televisions, iPads, and iPods.
As I write that, however, I have to come face to face with the tradition of just war theory, a theory first proposed by St. Augustine in the face of invasions in the late Roman Empire and expounded upon by St. Thomas during the middle ages, as the fledgling kingdoms of Europe began to assert their authority and their military might. I have to meet this face to face because I condemned both Iraqi wars and even the war in Afghanistan. The two iraqi wars were waged, not over justice or the rights of the people, but over oil. And, as Pope John Paul II clearly enunciated, modern warfare can hardly ever be legitimated by the principles of just war. Why?
One principle of just war requires that civilians not be harmed. Yet, even with “smart” bombs and modern guidance techniques, we see thousands upon thousands of civilians murdered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even in Pakistan by the United States military.
So why should the United States interfere once more, this time in Bahrain or in Libya?
I’m not sure except this: I see people fighting for their freedom, for their rights, in the streets of Bahrain and in Libya. I wish they had not resorted to the violent protests and had remained non-violent like the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. Yet, what I’m witnessing is an offense against my moral sentiments: here are people trying to claim a better life for themselves by claiming rights that every person should enjoy. Yet, they are being beat by military forces that have oppressed them for decades.
What can I say to these people: protest but not violently, and then watch as their neighbors and themselves are mowed over by a military machine?
Sometimes being a moral philosopher isn’t easy. This time proves to be tough as nails.
Both places have witnessed protests against the reigning monarchs. Muammar Quadafi has ruled Libya for over forty years, oppressing people. In Bahrain, the ruling Suuni oppress the majority Shi’ites. The United States, which has a large naval base in Bahrain, has remained out of the conflict, while condemning the actions of Bahrain’s rulers and the Saudi Arabian use of force against the Shi’ites. Of course,this is easy for the United States: they are not the ones suffering or the ones who have no voice. They’re the ones with televisions, iPads, and iPods.
As I write that, however, I have to come face to face with the tradition of just war theory, a theory first proposed by St. Augustine in the face of invasions in the late Roman Empire and expounded upon by St. Thomas during the middle ages, as the fledgling kingdoms of Europe began to assert their authority and their military might. I have to meet this face to face because I condemned both Iraqi wars and even the war in Afghanistan. The two iraqi wars were waged, not over justice or the rights of the people, but over oil. And, as Pope John Paul II clearly enunciated, modern warfare can hardly ever be legitimated by the principles of just war. Why?
One principle of just war requires that civilians not be harmed. Yet, even with “smart” bombs and modern guidance techniques, we see thousands upon thousands of civilians murdered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even in Pakistan by the United States military.
So why should the United States interfere once more, this time in Bahrain or in Libya?
I’m not sure except this: I see people fighting for their freedom, for their rights, in the streets of Bahrain and in Libya. I wish they had not resorted to the violent protests and had remained non-violent like the protests in Egypt and Tunisia. Yet, what I’m witnessing is an offense against my moral sentiments: here are people trying to claim a better life for themselves by claiming rights that every person should enjoy. Yet, they are being beat by military forces that have oppressed them for decades.
What can I say to these people: protest but not violently, and then watch as their neighbors and themselves are mowed over by a military machine?
Sometimes being a moral philosopher isn’t easy. This time proves to be tough as nails.
Underwater Houses and Self-Reliance
15/03/11 09:30
In a post from the American Heritage Foundation about American exceptionalism, I found this little line:
All of these American ideals––political freedom and autonomy, citizen independence and self-reliance, limited government, religion, patriotism, and nationalist autonomy backed up by vigorous military power—comprise American exceptionalism.
Just before that, I heard on the radio that 20% of home foreclosures in the US are strategic ones: that is, even though the home owner has the capability to make the payments, they make the financial decision to walk away from a home that’s under water -- one on which they owe more than the home is valued at.
I thought about what this meant with respect to the idea of self-reliance. Yet, I was not thinking about how these people failed in self-reliance. Rather, I had in mind the way that the notion of self-reliance in fact keeps people in a situation which is financially untenable. Why?
We have an idea in America, broadcast on the movie screen over and over again, of the “man” who has “true grit” and is able to pull himself up by his boot straps. He is reliant -- no matter the cost to him, he will not fail in his obligations freely taken. This person is independent and autonomous in the strict meaning of the term: that is, the person is a law unto himself. AS my reference to Ture Grit shows, this idea applies to women as much as man, for the true hero of that book and movie is Mattie Ross, not Rooster Cogburn.
It is this idea that makes Americans pay untold prices to fulfill their obligations.
Yet, as America has evolved with the rise of capitalism, we’ve seen that corporations lack any notion of self-reliance. The corporate bail-out is only one example of such lack. In the case of under water houses, banks bear no costs and everyday citizens, who were most often swindled by a swift sales talk, bear the cost, while banks and others walk away stashing money away.
Why should the one least able to bear the burden be the sole one to bear it?
While self-reliance is a wonderful, bold idea, it is unrealistic in practice. Mattie would not have survived had it not been for Cogburn and Le Beouff. Our society cannot survive without a secure middle class of home owners. And banks could not survive except as free-riders on the backs of the rest of us.
I do not deny that people ought to honor their obligations. Rather, I suggest that honoring obligations must occur within a social milieu that makes the honoring of obligations a reasonable thing to do, rather than an irrational act in an irrational system.
All of these American ideals––political freedom and autonomy, citizen independence and self-reliance, limited government, religion, patriotism, and nationalist autonomy backed up by vigorous military power—comprise American exceptionalism.
Just before that, I heard on the radio that 20% of home foreclosures in the US are strategic ones: that is, even though the home owner has the capability to make the payments, they make the financial decision to walk away from a home that’s under water -- one on which they owe more than the home is valued at.
I thought about what this meant with respect to the idea of self-reliance. Yet, I was not thinking about how these people failed in self-reliance. Rather, I had in mind the way that the notion of self-reliance in fact keeps people in a situation which is financially untenable. Why?
We have an idea in America, broadcast on the movie screen over and over again, of the “man” who has “true grit” and is able to pull himself up by his boot straps. He is reliant -- no matter the cost to him, he will not fail in his obligations freely taken. This person is independent and autonomous in the strict meaning of the term: that is, the person is a law unto himself. AS my reference to Ture Grit shows, this idea applies to women as much as man, for the true hero of that book and movie is Mattie Ross, not Rooster Cogburn.
It is this idea that makes Americans pay untold prices to fulfill their obligations.
Yet, as America has evolved with the rise of capitalism, we’ve seen that corporations lack any notion of self-reliance. The corporate bail-out is only one example of such lack. In the case of under water houses, banks bear no costs and everyday citizens, who were most often swindled by a swift sales talk, bear the cost, while banks and others walk away stashing money away.
Why should the one least able to bear the burden be the sole one to bear it?
While self-reliance is a wonderful, bold idea, it is unrealistic in practice. Mattie would not have survived had it not been for Cogburn and Le Beouff. Our society cannot survive without a secure middle class of home owners. And banks could not survive except as free-riders on the backs of the rest of us.
I do not deny that people ought to honor their obligations. Rather, I suggest that honoring obligations must occur within a social milieu that makes the honoring of obligations a reasonable thing to do, rather than an irrational act in an irrational system.
Wisconsin, Unions, and Reality
12/03/11 11:27
Sorry to my readers for not posting the last two days. Hopefully this Saturday post will make up for it a little.
A lot has happened this week and over the last two weeks. In the Middle East and North Africa, we see continuing unrest. People are demanding changes in governments that have lasted for decades. Why? Because they don’t have food, they don’t have money to buy food, and they don’t have jobs. These are real reasons and real issues for real people who have been dominated all their lives by oppressive governments that allow no free speech and no free voice to the people they govern. More importantly, they govern, not for the people, but only for the interests of the leaders and the corporations and the oil barons. Yet, the United States stands by and watches, occasionally saying they support the people and want to see change, but it has to be governed, slow change. In other words, no change at all. Martin Luther King jr. was told to be patient, and he asked, When must we fight for social justice? NOW!
In Wisconsin, and throughout the United States, governors and politicians continue to attack the middle and lower classes in the name of “fiscal responsibility” in service to the corporations to whom they give tax break after tax break. If you are still unconvinced of what’s going on in Wisconsin, note this news that the bill Wisconsin passed, not only gets rid of collective bargaining rights, but allows government administrators to fire anyway who strikes. Governor Walker and the Republicans are not trying to save money or to raise revenue in order to run a good government. They are actively and systematically attacking unions and the ability of people to mobilize to fight for their rights against large corporations.
Maybe you are one of those free market thinkers that believes government should stay out of business and let corporations run themselves. Well, perhaps you should look at what happens when government does this. Before regulations were established, people worked seven days a week, sixteen hour days, including children. And when Reagan began cutting regulatory commissions, we saw an increase in e-coli outbreaks, corporate scandals, and general social ills.
Justice cannot be managed by letting large corporations “negotiate” with each and every person, because the corporation has all the power: you either take their job or you starve and watch your children starve. Those of you who hate Marx should remember that he watched seven of his children starve because of poverty during laissez faire capitalism.
We are in the same situation, and rather than having government serve our interests, we watch them serve the interests of the rich and powerful.
Perhaps someday, Americans will realize what’s going on in the Middle East and learn to stand up for their own rights in the same way.
Perhaps....
A lot has happened this week and over the last two weeks. In the Middle East and North Africa, we see continuing unrest. People are demanding changes in governments that have lasted for decades. Why? Because they don’t have food, they don’t have money to buy food, and they don’t have jobs. These are real reasons and real issues for real people who have been dominated all their lives by oppressive governments that allow no free speech and no free voice to the people they govern. More importantly, they govern, not for the people, but only for the interests of the leaders and the corporations and the oil barons. Yet, the United States stands by and watches, occasionally saying they support the people and want to see change, but it has to be governed, slow change. In other words, no change at all. Martin Luther King jr. was told to be patient, and he asked, When must we fight for social justice? NOW!
In Wisconsin, and throughout the United States, governors and politicians continue to attack the middle and lower classes in the name of “fiscal responsibility” in service to the corporations to whom they give tax break after tax break. If you are still unconvinced of what’s going on in Wisconsin, note this news that the bill Wisconsin passed, not only gets rid of collective bargaining rights, but allows government administrators to fire anyway who strikes. Governor Walker and the Republicans are not trying to save money or to raise revenue in order to run a good government. They are actively and systematically attacking unions and the ability of people to mobilize to fight for their rights against large corporations.
Maybe you are one of those free market thinkers that believes government should stay out of business and let corporations run themselves. Well, perhaps you should look at what happens when government does this. Before regulations were established, people worked seven days a week, sixteen hour days, including children. And when Reagan began cutting regulatory commissions, we saw an increase in e-coli outbreaks, corporate scandals, and general social ills.
Justice cannot be managed by letting large corporations “negotiate” with each and every person, because the corporation has all the power: you either take their job or you starve and watch your children starve. Those of you who hate Marx should remember that he watched seven of his children starve because of poverty during laissez faire capitalism.
We are in the same situation, and rather than having government serve our interests, we watch them serve the interests of the rich and powerful.
Perhaps someday, Americans will realize what’s going on in the Middle East and learn to stand up for their own rights in the same way.
Perhaps....
Us and Them: On Public Employees
08/03/11 10:03
Articles like this one on Yahoo irk me. This particular article discusses the frustration and resentment that private employees feel toward public employees for having seemingly better pensions and better pay while on the job.
As I’ve tried to state over and over, it’s exactly this attitude that the media, the government, and business want to encourage among everyone. It’s divisive at heart, and what better serves those in power than to keep us who are not in power divided among ourselves? What better way to maintain the system as is than to keep those of us who have an interest in changing the system divided among ourselves?
Yes, we should sympathize with Erin McFarlane who has been laid off and is now working part time jobs. We should sympathize with everyone who cannot retire and live comfortable at 65 for a good 30 or 40 years (and maybe longer). What we should not do -- what we should never do -- is see this as something others have and we don’t. Rather, we should investigate whose interests this really serves.
Otherwise, we are left with the conclusion that my colleague Bob posted: “I'm so horribly mad at families earning $75,000 per year including benefits. They are milking the system to death. Everybody should be one paycheck away from financial ruin, or the system just isn't fair.”
Instead, we should recognize that unions have worked for public employees and that we should demand unions for ourselves. We should run every company, from Walmart on down, out of business that does not allow its employees to unionize. The right to join in social groups for a common good is a moral right and a right defended by the Catholic Church and by the UN Declaration of human rights.
It’s time we begin to stop listening to divisive rhetoric -- whether from Fox of MSNBC -- and start uniting to make our lives better.
As I’ve tried to state over and over, it’s exactly this attitude that the media, the government, and business want to encourage among everyone. It’s divisive at heart, and what better serves those in power than to keep us who are not in power divided among ourselves? What better way to maintain the system as is than to keep those of us who have an interest in changing the system divided among ourselves?
Yes, we should sympathize with Erin McFarlane who has been laid off and is now working part time jobs. We should sympathize with everyone who cannot retire and live comfortable at 65 for a good 30 or 40 years (and maybe longer). What we should not do -- what we should never do -- is see this as something others have and we don’t. Rather, we should investigate whose interests this really serves.
Otherwise, we are left with the conclusion that my colleague Bob posted: “I'm so horribly mad at families earning $75,000 per year including benefits. They are milking the system to death. Everybody should be one paycheck away from financial ruin, or the system just isn't fair.”
Instead, we should recognize that unions have worked for public employees and that we should demand unions for ourselves. We should run every company, from Walmart on down, out of business that does not allow its employees to unionize. The right to join in social groups for a common good is a moral right and a right defended by the Catholic Church and by the UN Declaration of human rights.
It’s time we begin to stop listening to divisive rhetoric -- whether from Fox of MSNBC -- and start uniting to make our lives better.
Unemployment and Wanting Jobs
04/03/11 13:10
In a recent conversation with someone I consider a long-time friend and whom I respect, the discussion turned to people expecting the system to give them what they need rather than working for what they need or want. We often hear, especially during times of crisis, that unemployment is due to people being lazy or not wanting to work. They expect the system to pay them for sitting around and watching TV or having babies. I can remember people decrying the welfare queens throughout the 80’s and early 90’s. What I never heard, though, was why someone would want to stay at home with a bunch of crying babies just to avoid work? Note well, I was a registered Republican back then. Something should be said here, of course, about the idea of work and whether work includes taking care of children and the household, but I shall leave that aside for now.
Rather, I want to turn to this set of charts at The Atlantic. They compare the number of people that the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts being unemployed compared to those who want to work but do not count as being unemployed. Noticed that the number of marginalized has grown even when jobs have been added to economy. These are people who for whatever reason cannot find work. As a matter of fact, we know that if people are out of work for a long time, employers mistrust them and think that their lack of work is due to their own unwillingness rather than to the facts about the economy -- surely a poor judgment on the part of the employer.
The question these charts raise will most likely be hidden by the release of the new jobs created in February -- close to 200,000 jobs. Yet the question needs to be asked: why aren’t people who want to work working?
In On the Condition of Labor, Pope Leo XIII wrote that most people want to work. In On the Progress of Peoples, Paul VI wrote that people want “To do more, to learn more, to have more. The popes emphasize what I think is true: people want to work; they want to engage in those activities which they find meaningful and fulfilling. The problem is, as I’ve noted here before, that capitalism undermines those things which truly make us human -- the development of those truly human powers and abilities that define our species.
Which takes me back to that first question: does anyone prefer sitting around a house listening to babies cry? Maybe, but they do so because they find it meaningful work. Others, however, might prefer to get out of the house and pursue some other work but can’t find the work. Which, of course, returns us to the unemployment figures.
These figures are a disgrace to any human culture. They testify to a system or a structure of systems that denies human modes of being to a group of human people -- in this case, somewhere close to 15% of the American population, which does not include those who work part-time and would prefer full-time work.
Of course, some people would prefer to sit on the couch and watch television. I’ve met people like that. That raises other questions, however: why? Here I think we need turn no further than the system we live under. It’s a system that encourages the greatest pursuit of pleasure at the least cost. Sitting on the couch and watching television, if you can get away with it, is not a human way of life, but it is essentially a capitalist way of life.
Unemployment stands as a testament to our depraved way of life. A drop in the numbers only numbs us to that moral reality.
Rather, I want to turn to this set of charts at The Atlantic. They compare the number of people that the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts being unemployed compared to those who want to work but do not count as being unemployed. Noticed that the number of marginalized has grown even when jobs have been added to economy. These are people who for whatever reason cannot find work. As a matter of fact, we know that if people are out of work for a long time, employers mistrust them and think that their lack of work is due to their own unwillingness rather than to the facts about the economy -- surely a poor judgment on the part of the employer.
The question these charts raise will most likely be hidden by the release of the new jobs created in February -- close to 200,000 jobs. Yet the question needs to be asked: why aren’t people who want to work working?
In On the Condition of Labor, Pope Leo XIII wrote that most people want to work. In On the Progress of Peoples, Paul VI wrote that people want “To do more, to learn more, to have more. The popes emphasize what I think is true: people want to work; they want to engage in those activities which they find meaningful and fulfilling. The problem is, as I’ve noted here before, that capitalism undermines those things which truly make us human -- the development of those truly human powers and abilities that define our species.
Which takes me back to that first question: does anyone prefer sitting around a house listening to babies cry? Maybe, but they do so because they find it meaningful work. Others, however, might prefer to get out of the house and pursue some other work but can’t find the work. Which, of course, returns us to the unemployment figures.
These figures are a disgrace to any human culture. They testify to a system or a structure of systems that denies human modes of being to a group of human people -- in this case, somewhere close to 15% of the American population, which does not include those who work part-time and would prefer full-time work.
Of course, some people would prefer to sit on the couch and watch television. I’ve met people like that. That raises other questions, however: why? Here I think we need turn no further than the system we live under. It’s a system that encourages the greatest pursuit of pleasure at the least cost. Sitting on the couch and watching television, if you can get away with it, is not a human way of life, but it is essentially a capitalist way of life.
Unemployment stands as a testament to our depraved way of life. A drop in the numbers only numbs us to that moral reality.
Wisconsin Facts, Unions, and Justice
03/03/11 17:37
Fact Check has come out with some info on Wisconsin’s public-employee unions. It notes that Governor Walker faces a huge deficit in the billions, but also that teachers do not make anything near $100k as has been reported by conservatives. It does not address whether Walker’s proposal would cost money as some have suggested.
It’s great to have a system like Fact Check that investigates these issues in a way that you and I cannot. We have to remember, however, that facts are not the only issues here. More importantly, most, if not all, that I’ve written here defending unions, both for public employees and private employees, stands independent of these facts.
The issues come down to justice. An attack on public unions is an attack on all unions, and an attempt to destroy unions so that government and corporations have more power over the lives of people and can deny basic justice to people -- to you and me. When the employees have already agreed to cut their salaries and contribute more to their pensions, the issue of closing the budget no longer stands. The real issue is, and has always been, the justice that the state owes the employees and the defense of workers everywhere.
Yet, as I’ve insisted throughout my comments, we must turn toward more communal ways of supporting every day work -- like education. We must strengthen our local communities to resist the colonizing tendencies of government bureaucracies and corporate capitalistic imperatives. That remains our primary task in building a just society -- which will always be local first and foremost.
It’s great to have a system like Fact Check that investigates these issues in a way that you and I cannot. We have to remember, however, that facts are not the only issues here. More importantly, most, if not all, that I’ve written here defending unions, both for public employees and private employees, stands independent of these facts.
The issues come down to justice. An attack on public unions is an attack on all unions, and an attempt to destroy unions so that government and corporations have more power over the lives of people and can deny basic justice to people -- to you and me. When the employees have already agreed to cut their salaries and contribute more to their pensions, the issue of closing the budget no longer stands. The real issue is, and has always been, the justice that the state owes the employees and the defense of workers everywhere.
Yet, as I’ve insisted throughout my comments, we must turn toward more communal ways of supporting every day work -- like education. We must strengthen our local communities to resist the colonizing tendencies of government bureaucracies and corporate capitalistic imperatives. That remains our primary task in building a just society -- which will always be local first and foremost.
Unions, Governments, and Institutions
02/03/11 11:03
In another post condemning public-employee unions. I’ve already addressed how unions make good contributions and why public-employee unions are necessary to good government and recapturing justice in our society in a recent post. Kaus recognizes an insight I made when he writes “Because, while organized labor quieted down for a while, its institutional basis was not destroyed.” Public unions are necessary, especially now, to protect private sector unions. Of course, for Kaus, that’s no reason at all.
Having said that I want to take issue with something else he wrote: Kaus notes that “Democrats are the party that needs the government to be good at something other than mailing out checks.”
The problem here is that unions should not be a “party” issue. If government is truly for the people, and if each party represents the people, then each party -- and all citizens interested in the common good of the society -- should be for unions. Why? Because, as this article shows, unions are the only means of protecting hard working people from layoffs, decreased wages, decreased benefits, loss of pensions, and secure employment. All of these are social goods -- goods that can only be gained through the community. As such, they should be protected by any good government and any good government party. Not to protect them is to define one’s self as against the common good, or, in short, evil.
Yet, we have to recognize that Kaus’ claims that unions make government services bad is an oft heard complaint. It is, by the way, a mirror to what we heard in the 1980’s under Reagan: that unions make for bad work, they get paid for not working, they get more days off, they sit around all the time, etc. First, we have to recognize that these sorts of attacks are meant to divide us: we should be against those in unions. In truth, the community must come together if it is to survive, and that means resisting such divisive rhetoric, as I’ve noted here.
Yet, we must also caution that institutions often serve their own interests and that bureaucracy is a plague on our society and a plague on the human good. In other words, I accept the idea that institutions per se can have demeaning effects on human goods. Public-employee unions are part of our institutions today, and so some might be able to legitimately argue that public-employee unions are demeaning to the human good today. But we need to separate out the effects of the institution and the effects of the public-employee unions.
Institutions are necessary for our pursuit of goods. Without an educational institution, the pursuit of learning would be more difficult. Without institutions dedicated to law, to science, to the humanities, pursuit of the goods in those practices would falter. Yet, institutions, according to Alasdair MacIntyre, by their nature are aimed at the external goods necessary to maintain the practices they center on. Our problem today is that institutions in a capitalistic-bureaucratic system have completely hampered the pursuit of the internal goods of their practices.
Getting rid of unions does not solve that problem. Rather, restructuring the way our institutions work and ending capitalism provides the clearest way to resurrecting the goods of practices. This can be done first and foremost, and BEST, on the local level in the local communities. Unions have a role here too: public-employee unions in maintaining and supporting efficient running of local governments and as a safeguard to the withering away of private employee unions. Private employee unions as a means of protecting jobs, wages, benefits, and the goods of practices.
Having said that I want to take issue with something else he wrote: Kaus notes that “Democrats are the party that needs the government to be good at something other than mailing out checks.”
The problem here is that unions should not be a “party” issue. If government is truly for the people, and if each party represents the people, then each party -- and all citizens interested in the common good of the society -- should be for unions. Why? Because, as this article shows, unions are the only means of protecting hard working people from layoffs, decreased wages, decreased benefits, loss of pensions, and secure employment. All of these are social goods -- goods that can only be gained through the community. As such, they should be protected by any good government and any good government party. Not to protect them is to define one’s self as against the common good, or, in short, evil.
Yet, we have to recognize that Kaus’ claims that unions make government services bad is an oft heard complaint. It is, by the way, a mirror to what we heard in the 1980’s under Reagan: that unions make for bad work, they get paid for not working, they get more days off, they sit around all the time, etc. First, we have to recognize that these sorts of attacks are meant to divide us: we should be against those in unions. In truth, the community must come together if it is to survive, and that means resisting such divisive rhetoric, as I’ve noted here.
Yet, we must also caution that institutions often serve their own interests and that bureaucracy is a plague on our society and a plague on the human good. In other words, I accept the idea that institutions per se can have demeaning effects on human goods. Public-employee unions are part of our institutions today, and so some might be able to legitimately argue that public-employee unions are demeaning to the human good today. But we need to separate out the effects of the institution and the effects of the public-employee unions.
Institutions are necessary for our pursuit of goods. Without an educational institution, the pursuit of learning would be more difficult. Without institutions dedicated to law, to science, to the humanities, pursuit of the goods in those practices would falter. Yet, institutions, according to Alasdair MacIntyre, by their nature are aimed at the external goods necessary to maintain the practices they center on. Our problem today is that institutions in a capitalistic-bureaucratic system have completely hampered the pursuit of the internal goods of their practices.
Getting rid of unions does not solve that problem. Rather, restructuring the way our institutions work and ending capitalism provides the clearest way to resurrecting the goods of practices. This can be done first and foremost, and BEST, on the local level in the local communities. Unions have a role here too: public-employee unions in maintaining and supporting efficient running of local governments and as a safeguard to the withering away of private employee unions. Private employee unions as a means of protecting jobs, wages, benefits, and the goods of practices.
"Academic" Philosophy and Stanley Fish
01/03/11 16:27
Stanley Fish argues for the value of academic philosophy by citing the example of a conference on originalism in law. His argument makes perfect sense if you value academic philosophy. The problem is, academic philosophy is mere sophistry. It has nothing to do with the real immediate concerns of everyday human beings in their every day discussions. This is why someone like Alasdair MacIntyre attacks and condemns philosophy as practiced in the universities today. Like other academic disciplines, philosophy has been co-opted by the market system. All that matters is producing students who can write papers that have little meaning and will be read by a handful of others. That is not the origins of philosophy.
Philosophy, rather, begins with discussions of the good at the every day level. The more that the university corrupts the true spirit of philosophy, the more it comes under attack as not attending to the bottom-line, and rightly so. Philosophy, by its very nature, cannot attend to the bottom-line. Philosophy concerns, not making money or adding to the bottom line, but living the good life. This argument does not entail that those who are philosophically trained cannot earn money or run profitable businesses. Just the opposite. Ask CEO’s and they will tell you they want philosophers who think logically in management positions.
Yet, philosophy always comes into conflict when it begins to ask about the good. What is the good of this product? What is the good of this move? These are the sorts of questions that we need to ask at the local and national level. Insofar as philosophers practice academic philosophy, however, they undermine the ability to ask those questions.
Philosophy, rather, begins with discussions of the good at the every day level. The more that the university corrupts the true spirit of philosophy, the more it comes under attack as not attending to the bottom-line, and rightly so. Philosophy, by its very nature, cannot attend to the bottom-line. Philosophy concerns, not making money or adding to the bottom line, but living the good life. This argument does not entail that those who are philosophically trained cannot earn money or run profitable businesses. Just the opposite. Ask CEO’s and they will tell you they want philosophers who think logically in management positions.
Yet, philosophy always comes into conflict when it begins to ask about the good. What is the good of this product? What is the good of this move? These are the sorts of questions that we need to ask at the local and national level. Insofar as philosophers practice academic philosophy, however, they undermine the ability to ask those questions.
Wisconsin, Cuts, and Facts
01/03/11 16:12
Wisconsin’s Governor Walker unveiled his budget today which included 1.5 billion in cuts to education and government assistance program while not increasing taxes or laying people off. Walker insists that his budget is necessary and, further, that cutting collective bargaining is necessary to bring the budget into balance. But as a recent AP report shows, Walker’s facts are wrong: public employees do NOT make more than private employees when compared at same levels of employment and education. It is FALSE to compare a public employee’s wage, when said employee often has an advanced degree, to the wage of someone working as a clerk in a big-box store.
With respect to education, Walker “also proposed requiring school districts to reduce their property tax authority by an average of $550 per pupil — a move that makes it more difficult for schools to make up the lost money.” It’s unclear how reducing property taxes for schools that face a shrink budget serves the common good.
More importantly and more a smack in the face to the common person “Walker asked for $82 million in tax cuts, including an expanded exclusion for capital gains realized on investments made in Wisconsin-based businesses. The Legislature previously approved more than $117 million in Walker-backed tax cuts that take effect later this year.” How can one justify such tax cuts when the state is suffering from such dire financial straights? Can anyone continue to doubt that Wlker is at the fore-front of a battle of the rich against the poor?
Walker does not have in the front of his mind the common good of the people, for he continually tramps on the people.
Yet, as I stated in my last post, we face every day the wearing away of human dignity by corporations, corporate politicians, and bureaucracies. What people have to do is come together as local communities and insulate themselves as much as possible from the demeaning and dehumanizing budgets -- budgets which are clearly moral documents -- in order to build opportunities in their local communities for human development. This entails everyone in the community coming together, first, to dialogue and to seek out means to preserving the integrity of the community.
Essential to preserving the integrity of the community is public education. One move I think should be consider is the role Catholic schools do or do not play in the education system and what role they could play? So far, we play a divisive game: public versus private education, rich versus poor. We must move beyond these divides and find common grounds for the community itself.
With respect to education, Walker “also proposed requiring school districts to reduce their property tax authority by an average of $550 per pupil — a move that makes it more difficult for schools to make up the lost money.” It’s unclear how reducing property taxes for schools that face a shrink budget serves the common good.
More importantly and more a smack in the face to the common person “Walker asked for $82 million in tax cuts, including an expanded exclusion for capital gains realized on investments made in Wisconsin-based businesses. The Legislature previously approved more than $117 million in Walker-backed tax cuts that take effect later this year.” How can one justify such tax cuts when the state is suffering from such dire financial straights? Can anyone continue to doubt that Wlker is at the fore-front of a battle of the rich against the poor?
Walker does not have in the front of his mind the common good of the people, for he continually tramps on the people.
Yet, as I stated in my last post, we face every day the wearing away of human dignity by corporations, corporate politicians, and bureaucracies. What people have to do is come together as local communities and insulate themselves as much as possible from the demeaning and dehumanizing budgets -- budgets which are clearly moral documents -- in order to build opportunities in their local communities for human development. This entails everyone in the community coming together, first, to dialogue and to seek out means to preserving the integrity of the community.
Essential to preserving the integrity of the community is public education. One move I think should be consider is the role Catholic schools do or do not play in the education system and what role they could play? So far, we play a divisive game: public versus private education, rich versus poor. We must move beyond these divides and find common grounds for the community itself.
Corporations and Persons
01/03/11 13:08
A post on the Story of Stuff discusses the Supreme Court decision granting the “right” to corporations to make unlimited contributions to political campaigns. It rightly notes that corporations are not “persons” and that our democracy is in crisis. In that urges us to take back our democracy. One of the proposals for doing so is to pass a constitutional amendment that defines “person” so it does not include corporations.
The video is very informative and very interesting and makes a lot of intelligent, useful points. In general, I agree with a constitutional amendment to change the definition of person (and would urge that such a change include the idea that zygotes and fetuses are persons).
However, a constitutional amendment would take a long time to pass. Further, the same people that control political campaigns will have the ability to fight against any such amendment. In short, while I think that people CAN make change and SHOULD make change, the practicalities seem more limited.
We should not abandon hope or faith at this point. Faith means that we remain committed to working for change no matter how insurmountable the obstacle and how long it takes. Hope means that we believe in each other (and God for those of us who are religious) to work for the good. Faith and hope, however, can be exercised at both the national and the local level.
While we fight at the national level for amendments and contend against corporations, we must struggle at the local level to revitalize our communities to protect them from the power of corporations, national politics and decisions, and the bureaucracy that rules America. This struggle entails looking at what we can do to build local communities that are truly democratic and focused on pursuing a common good.
I know that this is easier said than done. But look, for instance, at what people did in High Point Seattle to make their community stronger and better by building better, more affordable housing? If one community can do, all communities can do it. What it takes is the collective will coming together to work for change.
Please respond with ideas about how to build local communities and make progressive change that defies corporations and bureaucracies.
The video is very informative and very interesting and makes a lot of intelligent, useful points. In general, I agree with a constitutional amendment to change the definition of person (and would urge that such a change include the idea that zygotes and fetuses are persons).
However, a constitutional amendment would take a long time to pass. Further, the same people that control political campaigns will have the ability to fight against any such amendment. In short, while I think that people CAN make change and SHOULD make change, the practicalities seem more limited.
We should not abandon hope or faith at this point. Faith means that we remain committed to working for change no matter how insurmountable the obstacle and how long it takes. Hope means that we believe in each other (and God for those of us who are religious) to work for the good. Faith and hope, however, can be exercised at both the national and the local level.
While we fight at the national level for amendments and contend against corporations, we must struggle at the local level to revitalize our communities to protect them from the power of corporations, national politics and decisions, and the bureaucracy that rules America. This struggle entails looking at what we can do to build local communities that are truly democratic and focused on pursuing a common good.
I know that this is easier said than done. But look, for instance, at what people did in High Point Seattle to make their community stronger and better by building better, more affordable housing? If one community can do, all communities can do it. What it takes is the collective will coming together to work for change.
Please respond with ideas about how to build local communities and make progressive change that defies corporations and bureaucracies.
How government operates
25/02/11 09:52
Protestors still stand firm in Wisconsin against a bill that would gut public employees of their ability to bargain collectively. Elsewhere across the United States, we see similar protests in similar circumstances. The fight over public employee unions continues. Meanwhile, President Obama meets to help figure out a way to grow business with business leaders. And people like the Koch brothers, among others, are reported to have the ear of Governor Walker and similar governors across the state.
The battle over public employee unions is important. It’s important as a measure to limit the power of corporations and state bureaucracies that back those corporations throughout the US. In the end, however, such battles are masks, covering over what the real discussion should be in this country.
How should politics be conducted? What is politics? What is the purpose of government?
The United States operates under the ideals of classical liberalism that bother Republicans and Democrats accept: people must be protected from the incursions of the government and free to do whatever they so desire. The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is the manner of trying to protect people. Neither group, however, questions the individualism that underlies classical liberalism or the view of the state or the view of how government works.
Alasdair MacIntyre has identified the modern state as a utility company. We expect certain things from the government in return for paying a certain amount of taxes. The only good it serves is that of the public good -- providing the means necessary for us to go about our lives buying the products we consumer every day.
Such an approach to government masks the practices we engage in every day where we come together to ask, What is the good of this community? This good is something more than public utilities -- it is the good of the chess club at the local library, which is not about providing a service but about teaching a way of doing things and a way of thinking about things.
We must begin to embrace this alternative and fuller ways of thinking about things in order to combat the oppressive colonization of our lives by corporate and bureaucratic interests. We cannot do this by backing off the unions. But while we stand there side by side supporting the unions, it might behoove us to ask, Why are we really here and how should government really work?
The battle over public employee unions is important. It’s important as a measure to limit the power of corporations and state bureaucracies that back those corporations throughout the US. In the end, however, such battles are masks, covering over what the real discussion should be in this country.
How should politics be conducted? What is politics? What is the purpose of government?
The United States operates under the ideals of classical liberalism that bother Republicans and Democrats accept: people must be protected from the incursions of the government and free to do whatever they so desire. The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is the manner of trying to protect people. Neither group, however, questions the individualism that underlies classical liberalism or the view of the state or the view of how government works.
Alasdair MacIntyre has identified the modern state as a utility company. We expect certain things from the government in return for paying a certain amount of taxes. The only good it serves is that of the public good -- providing the means necessary for us to go about our lives buying the products we consumer every day.
Such an approach to government masks the practices we engage in every day where we come together to ask, What is the good of this community? This good is something more than public utilities -- it is the good of the chess club at the local library, which is not about providing a service but about teaching a way of doing things and a way of thinking about things.
We must begin to embrace this alternative and fuller ways of thinking about things in order to combat the oppressive colonization of our lives by corporate and bureaucratic interests. We cannot do this by backing off the unions. But while we stand there side by side supporting the unions, it might behoove us to ask, Why are we really here and how should government really work?
5 Rules for Education: Maybe
24/02/11 12:58
In an article for Time online, Rotherman offers five changes for fixing education which have nothing to do with collective bargaining. These five changes are
While some of these changes might be useful, none of them address real issues of practice and “quality.” (Quality is a funny word that deserves its own post at some point.)
When I speak of practice, I refer, first off, to that notion I’ve already discussed in this blog: a goal-oriented activity with goods that can only be gained from practicing the activity and whose practice extends human potentiality. Whether teaching is a practice I’ll leave to the side for the moment. What is clearly a practice are those things that teachers are responsible for training the young in:
Each of these activities have their own goals, whether that might be to produce something beautiful, or to learn more about biological life, for instance. Further, the practice of these activities entails goods that we cannot get otherwise: learning how to blow a flute to produce an “F#” or communicating one’s thoughts clearly in one’s own voice. Finally, by engaging in these practices, we extend our own potentials as human beings: we learn how to listen to music more carefully or learn to recognize quality of art, etc.
Yet, we see that many students, once they’ve graduated from high school cannot read, cannot write, know little of biology, or can’t even balance a checkbook. This is often -- and I want to be careful to emphasize this point -- this is often NOT the fault of teachers in over-crowded schools with the lack of resources, nor is it the fault of labor unions, or, more generally, of collective bargaining. Many things can change about education in America.
The first thing, though, if we really want to educate our children to lead fulfilling lives -- and by this I do not mean the lives of acquisition which is mere slavishness -- then we have to address our whole approach to education in this society. Having discussions about this is a first step, one which local communities can have regardless of what happens at the level of the nation, the state, or the union.
I would encourage everyone to begin this discussion sooner rather than later.
- Fixing tenure
- More evaluations of teachers
- Removing last in, first out rules to also include quality of teachers
- Inflexible salary schedules
- Getting rid of forced transfers and bumpings.
While some of these changes might be useful, none of them address real issues of practice and “quality.” (Quality is a funny word that deserves its own post at some point.)
When I speak of practice, I refer, first off, to that notion I’ve already discussed in this blog: a goal-oriented activity with goods that can only be gained from practicing the activity and whose practice extends human potentiality. Whether teaching is a practice I’ll leave to the side for the moment. What is clearly a practice are those things that teachers are responsible for training the young in:
- music
- art
- mathematics
- reading
- writing
- science
- sports
Each of these activities have their own goals, whether that might be to produce something beautiful, or to learn more about biological life, for instance. Further, the practice of these activities entails goods that we cannot get otherwise: learning how to blow a flute to produce an “F#” or communicating one’s thoughts clearly in one’s own voice. Finally, by engaging in these practices, we extend our own potentials as human beings: we learn how to listen to music more carefully or learn to recognize quality of art, etc.
Yet, we see that many students, once they’ve graduated from high school cannot read, cannot write, know little of biology, or can’t even balance a checkbook. This is often -- and I want to be careful to emphasize this point -- this is often NOT the fault of teachers in over-crowded schools with the lack of resources, nor is it the fault of labor unions, or, more generally, of collective bargaining. Many things can change about education in America.
The first thing, though, if we really want to educate our children to lead fulfilling lives -- and by this I do not mean the lives of acquisition which is mere slavishness -- then we have to address our whole approach to education in this society. Having discussions about this is a first step, one which local communities can have regardless of what happens at the level of the nation, the state, or the union.
I would encourage everyone to begin this discussion sooner rather than later.
Why Collective Bargaining is Bad
23/02/11 13:10
Yuval Levin argues that Governor Walker’s “approach” against collective bargaining in Wisconsin is NOT an attack on collective bargaining. In fact, Levin suggests that public employees must do without collective bargaining for several reasons. These reasons are
Notice first, that what Levin’s argument does is pit public sector employees against private sector employees. This move is one I’ve warned against and argued against several times through my blog. The only way forward is, how do we unite to represent our interests and determine the common good? Our primary objective must be resistance of all moves by politicians, corporate elites, socialist dogmatists, and unwitting media elites that divide people from each other.
Second, let’s look at the last point just briefly, however: bargaining behind closed doors. This symptom portends, not just to public employee unions, but more particularly to the way government in the United States works. If we want to attack this one issue, then we should attack it head on at all levels of governments. One need not remove collective bargaining to open up the doors and let some fresh light onto what government officials do. Let’s open up the secret hearings of various committees in Washington. Let’s open up the negotiations between the president and the leaders of the two parties. None of this, though, requires a challenge to or denial of collective bargaining. And, in fact, no one complains that the employers and employees at Walmart bargain behind closed doors… Oh, wait, maybe that’s because there is no collective bargaining for Walmart or most private sector employees.
Which returns me to the first four points.
If we look at these claims, however, they show that curtailing public unions proves, not beneficial for the public, but beneficial only for corporations and the state. Most of these point – protections for work, exercise of political power, choosing one’s boss, influence of elected officials because we can actually meet with them – are those necessary to protect the dignity of any worker. These are exactly the sorts of things that unions are supposed to provide for their members.
Public sector unions are the last stalwart of those protections that all employees – all workers – should enjoy. What we need to see in government is government paying more attention to its citizens rather than to “corporations.” What we need is to see every day citizens exercise political power equal to, if not greater than, that of corporations, corporations who are supporting, for instance, Governor Walker’s attack on public unions. What we need to see is real choice of American citizens of their bosses, rather than being presented with pre-packaged, corporate-cleansed “options” between party Dee and party Dum.
Thus, we must reject Levin’s claim that “The notion that this involves an assault on some inalienable right to collective bargaining with the public is preposterous. Such collective bargaining is a privilege public workers have obtained by exercising their political muscle, and state officials around the country are right to try to roll it back to the extent they can.”
Unionizing is not a privilege. It is a right. We must repeat this: unionizing, including collective bargaining, is a right that people have – every person. We must repeat this to everyone, from writing the president and congress, to the governor, to your mom. It does not matter how public employees came to exercise this right, just like it does not matter how you and I cam to exercise the right to free speech or the right to due process. Why? Because we aren’t talking about political rights. We are talking about human rights – what no government should violate. And one of those fundamental rights, up there with the right to life, is the right to collective bargaining.
Unless we join with those in Wisconsin and say it over and over, then the Walkers and Levins of the world will take them away and make us just like China.
NB: Yuval depends for his information on an article by Daniel Desalvo in National Affairs. I will respond to this article separately.
- That public employees have lots of power without collective bargaining because they “are guarded by generous civil-service protections” that private sector employees do not have.
- When they organize, even without collective bargaining, they can exercise significant political power
- Which allows them to choose their bosses which private sector employees cannot do.
- And can improve their pay between elections by “influencing” elected officials because they have closer contact with them
- So that, public employees have collective bargaining they can make decisions behind closed-doors which should be made in public. This last is a problem for our democracy because it keeps something private that should be public.
Notice first, that what Levin’s argument does is pit public sector employees against private sector employees. This move is one I’ve warned against and argued against several times through my blog. The only way forward is, how do we unite to represent our interests and determine the common good? Our primary objective must be resistance of all moves by politicians, corporate elites, socialist dogmatists, and unwitting media elites that divide people from each other.
Second, let’s look at the last point just briefly, however: bargaining behind closed doors. This symptom portends, not just to public employee unions, but more particularly to the way government in the United States works. If we want to attack this one issue, then we should attack it head on at all levels of governments. One need not remove collective bargaining to open up the doors and let some fresh light onto what government officials do. Let’s open up the secret hearings of various committees in Washington. Let’s open up the negotiations between the president and the leaders of the two parties. None of this, though, requires a challenge to or denial of collective bargaining. And, in fact, no one complains that the employers and employees at Walmart bargain behind closed doors… Oh, wait, maybe that’s because there is no collective bargaining for Walmart or most private sector employees.
Which returns me to the first four points.
If we look at these claims, however, they show that curtailing public unions proves, not beneficial for the public, but beneficial only for corporations and the state. Most of these point – protections for work, exercise of political power, choosing one’s boss, influence of elected officials because we can actually meet with them – are those necessary to protect the dignity of any worker. These are exactly the sorts of things that unions are supposed to provide for their members.
Public sector unions are the last stalwart of those protections that all employees – all workers – should enjoy. What we need to see in government is government paying more attention to its citizens rather than to “corporations.” What we need is to see every day citizens exercise political power equal to, if not greater than, that of corporations, corporations who are supporting, for instance, Governor Walker’s attack on public unions. What we need to see is real choice of American citizens of their bosses, rather than being presented with pre-packaged, corporate-cleansed “options” between party Dee and party Dum.
Thus, we must reject Levin’s claim that “The notion that this involves an assault on some inalienable right to collective bargaining with the public is preposterous. Such collective bargaining is a privilege public workers have obtained by exercising their political muscle, and state officials around the country are right to try to roll it back to the extent they can.”
Unionizing is not a privilege. It is a right. We must repeat this: unionizing, including collective bargaining, is a right that people have – every person. We must repeat this to everyone, from writing the president and congress, to the governor, to your mom. It does not matter how public employees came to exercise this right, just like it does not matter how you and I cam to exercise the right to free speech or the right to due process. Why? Because we aren’t talking about political rights. We are talking about human rights – what no government should violate. And one of those fundamental rights, up there with the right to life, is the right to collective bargaining.
Unless we join with those in Wisconsin and say it over and over, then the Walkers and Levins of the world will take them away and make us just like China.
NB: Yuval depends for his information on an article by Daniel Desalvo in National Affairs. I will respond to this article separately.
Collective Bargaining is Only the Beginning
22/02/11 13:09
Sadly, the right-wing policies of the Republican governor in Wisconsin are only slightly more anti-worker than the Democratic governors in California, New York, Washington, Oregon, and elsewhere, who are dumping state deficits onto the backs of state workers and those who benefit from their services.
This is one of many excellent points that Shamus Cooke makes in his article on Buzzflash. As I’ve been arguing, the discussion in Wisconsin is not simply about collective bargaining. In fact, it is part of a class warfare waged by the rich on the poor. Further, I’ve made clear that democracy entails local decisions by local people, not decisions by representatives willing to give away everything to bow to the corporation. Corporations and governments in the United States, as elsewhere, work hand in hand to limit education, to limit unionizing, to limit real decision-making by the people for the people in order to maintain their own positions within a system they either do not want to or cannot question. Corporations on the one hand and state bureaucracies on the other collaborate, often intentionally but sometimes not, on reducing the agency of individual human persons and reducing the possibility for self-realization.
Such eudaimonaic potential rests in our collective hands. Yet, as Cooke makes clear, insofar as workers are willing to take the economic cuts proposed by the governor and the republicans, they fall into the hands of the corporations and the state. They remain dependent, as it were, on the state for their “public goods,” which are usually neither good nor very public, and subservient to the corporations who might take jobs away.
One questions we can ask is, What good would come about if corporations leave the state?
We focus so often on the negative: we’ll lose jobs, we’ll lose the community, we’ll lose our livelihoods. Perhaps, more importantly, we’ll lose our comfort zone.
But the real question remains, What can we make of the situation with our left with if the corporations actually leave us alone? What possibilities for local markets emerge? What opportunities for local businesses arise? What real chance for democracy fruitions?
These questions are the sorts of questions that communities focused on pursuing the common good must ask if the individuals in that community are to reach their true potential. It’s up to us to ask them.
This is one of many excellent points that Shamus Cooke makes in his article on Buzzflash. As I’ve been arguing, the discussion in Wisconsin is not simply about collective bargaining. In fact, it is part of a class warfare waged by the rich on the poor. Further, I’ve made clear that democracy entails local decisions by local people, not decisions by representatives willing to give away everything to bow to the corporation. Corporations and governments in the United States, as elsewhere, work hand in hand to limit education, to limit unionizing, to limit real decision-making by the people for the people in order to maintain their own positions within a system they either do not want to or cannot question. Corporations on the one hand and state bureaucracies on the other collaborate, often intentionally but sometimes not, on reducing the agency of individual human persons and reducing the possibility for self-realization.
Such eudaimonaic potential rests in our collective hands. Yet, as Cooke makes clear, insofar as workers are willing to take the economic cuts proposed by the governor and the republicans, they fall into the hands of the corporations and the state. They remain dependent, as it were, on the state for their “public goods,” which are usually neither good nor very public, and subservient to the corporations who might take jobs away.
One questions we can ask is, What good would come about if corporations leave the state?
We focus so often on the negative: we’ll lose jobs, we’ll lose the community, we’ll lose our livelihoods. Perhaps, more importantly, we’ll lose our comfort zone.
But the real question remains, What can we make of the situation with our left with if the corporations actually leave us alone? What possibilities for local markets emerge? What opportunities for local businesses arise? What real chance for democracy fruitions?
These questions are the sorts of questions that communities focused on pursuing the common good must ask if the individuals in that community are to reach their true potential. It’s up to us to ask them.
Wisconsin and Public Unions
21/02/11 13:29
With support from Mother Jones, Forbes notes that the Kock brothers are behind the attacks on public unions in Wisconsin, while simultaneously laying off 158 people from their paper mill, not for lack of demand, but because of better machinery.
Note, of course, that laying off so many people is easy to do when you don’t have a union protecting jobs. Note further that the Koch brothers help fund the Tea Party movement -- people upset about unemployment and blaming it on the government. This is a form of what George Orwell called double think: believing in two contradictory theses at the same time. The longer we continue to believe that jobs can be protected by getting rid of unions, the longer we continue to fall into the hands of those self-seeking individuals out only for profit. Note, also, that the Koch brothers are billionaires who fight against employee rights, environmental protection, and universal health care, supporting Republican and Tea Party candidates wherever they can. Clearly, this is a form of class warfare.
We must be careful, here, of course, because some of our own most sacred beliefs underlie what the Koch brothers are doing through Governor Walker in Wisconsin. Primarily these are beliefs in individualism and capitalism. Both of these are ideologies, by which I mean they are beliefs that essentially prevent human flourishing by exaggerating one aspect of human life at the expense of others. Yes, human beings are individual persons -- but we are individuals in society and cannot exist without society, as I’ve discussed. Yes, human beings have claims to property, but at the service of individual and community progress, not without limit. We must break from these ideologies if we are ever to move to a truly integrated society, like that called for by various popes in their social encyclicals, like that promoted by Alasdair MacIntyre, like that idealized by Aristotle.
Standing for unions is a step in the right directions. These unions must be focused on the development and protection of jobs in the local communities that support strong local markets -- what MacIntyre calls truly free markets.
Note, of course, that laying off so many people is easy to do when you don’t have a union protecting jobs. Note further that the Koch brothers help fund the Tea Party movement -- people upset about unemployment and blaming it on the government. This is a form of what George Orwell called double think: believing in two contradictory theses at the same time. The longer we continue to believe that jobs can be protected by getting rid of unions, the longer we continue to fall into the hands of those self-seeking individuals out only for profit. Note, also, that the Koch brothers are billionaires who fight against employee rights, environmental protection, and universal health care, supporting Republican and Tea Party candidates wherever they can. Clearly, this is a form of class warfare.
We must be careful, here, of course, because some of our own most sacred beliefs underlie what the Koch brothers are doing through Governor Walker in Wisconsin. Primarily these are beliefs in individualism and capitalism. Both of these are ideologies, by which I mean they are beliefs that essentially prevent human flourishing by exaggerating one aspect of human life at the expense of others. Yes, human beings are individual persons -- but we are individuals in society and cannot exist without society, as I’ve discussed. Yes, human beings have claims to property, but at the service of individual and community progress, not without limit. We must break from these ideologies if we are ever to move to a truly integrated society, like that called for by various popes in their social encyclicals, like that promoted by Alasdair MacIntyre, like that idealized by Aristotle.
Standing for unions is a step in the right directions. These unions must be focused on the development and protection of jobs in the local communities that support strong local markets -- what MacIntyre calls truly free markets.
March for Schools
21/02/11 13:22
Follow the link below to get information for marching to support schools.
http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/
http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/
Ain't That America: Wisconsin's Union Busting
17/02/11 13:08
I’ve already reported on union busting in Ohio. Now, Fox News reports on a bill in Wisconsin that will, among other things, remove collective bargaining for state employees, including teachers. One can almost accept what one republican senator states:
Republican state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald. "What this is is about the budget. We're $3.6 billion in the hole. We're not going to raise taxes to solve it. We all ran, you know, this last election cycle on saying that we are going to cut government spending. ... Everybody is going to have to do their part."
Except, closing a budget gap has nothing to do with removing collective bargaining rights. Removing collective bargaining rights, rights that both the United Nations, the United States, and Catholic Social Teaching demand, can only be seen as an attack on employees -- an attack on human beings as human beings.
In fact, TPM reports
Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.
Here we have clear examples of how lawmakers (in this case, Republicans) are actively attacking workers in order to provide cuts for businesses. Moreover, Governor Walker has threatened the use of the national guard in case people protest the legislation. Once more, we see that America is no longer the dream of people who believed in democracy and hoped for a better future. It has fallen to fear-mongering and capitalistic interests.
The question becomes, will people in Wisconsin and in Ohio and throughout the United States march for their rights and for government that represents the people and not the corporation? Will we take inspiration from Tunisia and Egypt, from Yemen and Bahrain, or will we continue to let government and business walk all over us because capitalism is the best and because democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest?
True democracy means we all participate for the common good. What Wisconsin and Ohio lawmakers are doing serves, not the common good, but the corporate good.
Republican state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald. "What this is is about the budget. We're $3.6 billion in the hole. We're not going to raise taxes to solve it. We all ran, you know, this last election cycle on saying that we are going to cut government spending. ... Everybody is going to have to do their part."
Except, closing a budget gap has nothing to do with removing collective bargaining rights. Removing collective bargaining rights, rights that both the United Nations, the United States, and Catholic Social Teaching demand, can only be seen as an attack on employees -- an attack on human beings as human beings.
In fact, TPM reports
Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.
Here we have clear examples of how lawmakers (in this case, Republicans) are actively attacking workers in order to provide cuts for businesses. Moreover, Governor Walker has threatened the use of the national guard in case people protest the legislation. Once more, we see that America is no longer the dream of people who believed in democracy and hoped for a better future. It has fallen to fear-mongering and capitalistic interests.
The question becomes, will people in Wisconsin and in Ohio and throughout the United States march for their rights and for government that represents the people and not the corporation? Will we take inspiration from Tunisia and Egypt, from Yemen and Bahrain, or will we continue to let government and business walk all over us because capitalism is the best and because democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest?
True democracy means we all participate for the common good. What Wisconsin and Ohio lawmakers are doing serves, not the common good, but the corporate good.
Obama, Spending, and Defense
16/02/11 14:06
Amy Goodman reports that Obama’s released budget includes cuts to spending that helps the old pay for heating while increasing defense spending. The cuts that are tagged for defense are not, in fact, cuts at all. It’s like when you go shopping and find a sale: in fact, the sale price often reflects the “normal” price because it is “reduced” from a proposed increase in the price. In other words, it’s a marketing scheme to get people to buy something. But just who is Obama and the Pentagon marketing to?
To us? But we aren’t buying, right. Because we really have no say in what the government allocates our tax money to pay for. Or do we?
We do, if we decide to become involved in politics, if we decide to vote outside the box and elect neither democrat or republican, or the pseudo-republicans in disguise known as the Tea Party. We have a voice if we decide to use it.
We have to resist arguments like that of Robert Gates who says greater cuts will jeopardize American security. As I’ve reported before, our spending far exceeds that of the rest of the world. In fact, we spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defense.
The question, then, is whether we will continue to allow Gates and Obama, democrats and republicans, to confuse the issue and choose to serve the military-industrial complex, or whether we will demand, as people all throughout the Middle East and North Africa are, that government serve us.
For in the end, we are the government, whether we realize it or not.
To us? But we aren’t buying, right. Because we really have no say in what the government allocates our tax money to pay for. Or do we?
We do, if we decide to become involved in politics, if we decide to vote outside the box and elect neither democrat or republican, or the pseudo-republicans in disguise known as the Tea Party. We have a voice if we decide to use it.
We have to resist arguments like that of Robert Gates who says greater cuts will jeopardize American security. As I’ve reported before, our spending far exceeds that of the rest of the world. In fact, we spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defense.
The question, then, is whether we will continue to allow Gates and Obama, democrats and republicans, to confuse the issue and choose to serve the military-industrial complex, or whether we will demand, as people all throughout the Middle East and North Africa are, that government serve us.
For in the end, we are the government, whether we realize it or not.
Mubarak's Resignation: No Real Change ... Yet
11/02/11 10:13
It’s all over the news, from BBC to al-Jazeera: Mubarak has stepped down, relinquishing command and turning it over to the military. Every democratic leader from Germany to the United States has stepped in to congratulate the Egyptians for the success of their peaceful demonstrations and for Mubarak’s honor in resolving the situation by stepping down.
Excuse me?
Since when is handing power over to the military a step towards democracy? It is not, and the leaders of western “democracy” need to call a spade a spade. But this is only what I’ve been saying for two weeks now, and warned about the other day.
Perhaps the last lines of the story from al-Jazeera say all that needs to be said, in this case:
In a statement read out on state television at midday on Friday, the military announced that it would lift a 30-year-old emergency law but only "as soon as the current circumstances end".
The military said it would also guarantee changes to the constitution as well as a free and fair election, and it called for normal business activity to resume.
Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tahrir Square said people there were hugely disappointed with that army statement, and had vowed to take the protests to "a last and final stage".
Excuse me?
Since when is handing power over to the military a step towards democracy? It is not, and the leaders of western “democracy” need to call a spade a spade. But this is only what I’ve been saying for two weeks now, and warned about the other day.
Perhaps the last lines of the story from al-Jazeera say all that needs to be said, in this case:
In a statement read out on state television at midday on Friday, the military announced that it would lift a 30-year-old emergency law but only "as soon as the current circumstances end".
The military said it would also guarantee changes to the constitution as well as a free and fair election, and it called for normal business activity to resume.
Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tahrir Square said people there were hugely disappointed with that army statement, and had vowed to take the protests to "a last and final stage".
Egyptian Possibilities: Hopes and Worries
10/02/11 13:03
Much can be said about recent events in Egypt.
1. Mubarak looks close to resigning
2. The army has been seen to kidnap people and threaten them if the opposition does not stop
3. Vice President Omar Suleiman, who will likely take over government if Mubarak steps down, has threatened a coup. Given his membership in the military, we could see a military dictatorship take over
4. Yet, opposition has strengthened with the release of Wael Ghonim with
5. Increasing numbers of protestors in Cairo and elsewhere,
6. And strikes throughout Egypt including along the Suez Canal.
The questions that I’ve been asking for weeks remain:
Can Egypt pull off a truly democratic revolution? Will they find a common good that they can define, or will they fall in line with other revolutions of the recent era, embracing capitalism as a way of life, not realizing the dangers there? And, still, what is the role of the army in the uprising? What are they doing as they continue to say that they stand with the people? The fact that citizens in Tahrir Square still chant that the army stands with the people proves troubling.
Here is where we stand, though: IF Mubarak resigns and Sulieman steps in, it gives the United States and other Western nations the excuse to say that the revolution has succeeded and to demand that protestors return home so that a “peaceful process” can move the revolution forward.
While I do not call for violence, I ask us to recognize that any peaceful process set up by Sulieman cannot be in the interests of the people of Egypt. Which means it cannot be in our interests.
What is needed is more strikes and continuing strikes. What is needed is an interruption in the status quo that gives the people power to push their demands forward in a peaceful way. Sure, many will most likely die in the face of such a movement, as the army will solidify behind a new government face that is one of its own.
Which is why Obama and other national leaders should be calling for more leadership from the people. Instead, we’ve been told repeatedly for the last few days that Obama has quit smoking. This news is just more smoke and mirrors, however, in the face of a possible world-changing historical event.
1. Mubarak looks close to resigning
2. The army has been seen to kidnap people and threaten them if the opposition does not stop
3. Vice President Omar Suleiman, who will likely take over government if Mubarak steps down, has threatened a coup. Given his membership in the military, we could see a military dictatorship take over
4. Yet, opposition has strengthened with the release of Wael Ghonim with
5. Increasing numbers of protestors in Cairo and elsewhere,
6. And strikes throughout Egypt including along the Suez Canal.
The questions that I’ve been asking for weeks remain:
Can Egypt pull off a truly democratic revolution? Will they find a common good that they can define, or will they fall in line with other revolutions of the recent era, embracing capitalism as a way of life, not realizing the dangers there? And, still, what is the role of the army in the uprising? What are they doing as they continue to say that they stand with the people? The fact that citizens in Tahrir Square still chant that the army stands with the people proves troubling.
Here is where we stand, though: IF Mubarak resigns and Sulieman steps in, it gives the United States and other Western nations the excuse to say that the revolution has succeeded and to demand that protestors return home so that a “peaceful process” can move the revolution forward.
While I do not call for violence, I ask us to recognize that any peaceful process set up by Sulieman cannot be in the interests of the people of Egypt. Which means it cannot be in our interests.
What is needed is more strikes and continuing strikes. What is needed is an interruption in the status quo that gives the people power to push their demands forward in a peaceful way. Sure, many will most likely die in the face of such a movement, as the army will solidify behind a new government face that is one of its own.
Which is why Obama and other national leaders should be calling for more leadership from the people. Instead, we’ve been told repeatedly for the last few days that Obama has quit smoking. This news is just more smoke and mirrors, however, in the face of a possible world-changing historical event.
7 February Update on Egypt
07/02/11 12:50
Talk of the Nation included a wonderful discussion about Egypt and the elements of a successful revolution. Unfortunately, it sounds as if all the elements are not present in Egypt. In particular, the historians on the show discussed the need for ground-level leadership of the revolution and strategic engagement at key spots against the government. One sign the revolution may not actually be happening in Egypt lies in the fact that the banks opened for operations today. This means that the protestors are not hitting the system enough to make it stop. They stopped it for a few days, but now it is beginning to return to normal.
I think that the guests pretty much understand what is going on in Egypt and are correct in their analysis. While some “leaders” have met with the Mubarak government, they are not from the people, which means, of course, they are not for the people or with the people. The question will be whether the protestors have the resolve to maintain the fight and whether they can educate themselves on bringing the system to a stop.
All of this, of course, goes back to my earlier discussion of democracy and a common good. The opposition protestors must come together democratically and determine the good their society aims at and implement leadership to engage the current regime where it is.
I think that the guests pretty much understand what is going on in Egypt and are correct in their analysis. While some “leaders” have met with the Mubarak government, they are not from the people, which means, of course, they are not for the people or with the people. The question will be whether the protestors have the resolve to maintain the fight and whether they can educate themselves on bringing the system to a stop.
All of this, of course, goes back to my earlier discussion of democracy and a common good. The opposition protestors must come together democratically and determine the good their society aims at and implement leadership to engage the current regime where it is.
Egypt, Climate, and Collapse
04/02/11 10:39
If you are familiar with history, then the story reported in Truthout today won’t come as any surprise. That story is familiar: repression combined with an inability to satisfy human needs joined with ecological crises leads to revolt and often the collapse of civilization. We’ve seen this scenario at least twice in the west: in the period of calamities around 1000 B.C.E. and in the fall of the Roman Empire and the “Dark Ages” from 600 A.D. - 1000 A.D. We are facing one now, though I am not as hopeful as many others have been about the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.
Food supplies are falling and they have been for some time. We’ve near exhausted the technological innovations that yield more food per land. Couple this with the fact of dwindling fresh water supplies and you have a scenario ready for collapse. In addition, our concentration on fossil fuels only worsens the soup: we use these fossil fuels to find more, and we develop highly wasteful bio-fuels, thus depleting our fuel supply, to support our fossil fuels as they dwindle.
Let there be no doubt: it is lack of food and employment that has led people to revolt in the Middle East and North Africa. The result remains unclear. Generally, people tend to embrace more conservative and parochial ideologies in fear of crumbling life styles. That certainly characterizes the United States, as the Tea Party rages against measures that could ease the burden of the every day family.
Our task now, as MacIntyre has urged for decades, is to develop and support local communities that can withstand the coming dark ages. We do this through education, through sustaining local markets and economies, which may include raising our own food, and through conservation of truly human life in the face of ever increasing bureaucratic strangling of our lives.
I hope the Egyptians can find a way forward to do this. I hope we all can.
Food supplies are falling and they have been for some time. We’ve near exhausted the technological innovations that yield more food per land. Couple this with the fact of dwindling fresh water supplies and you have a scenario ready for collapse. In addition, our concentration on fossil fuels only worsens the soup: we use these fossil fuels to find more, and we develop highly wasteful bio-fuels, thus depleting our fuel supply, to support our fossil fuels as they dwindle.
Let there be no doubt: it is lack of food and employment that has led people to revolt in the Middle East and North Africa. The result remains unclear. Generally, people tend to embrace more conservative and parochial ideologies in fear of crumbling life styles. That certainly characterizes the United States, as the Tea Party rages against measures that could ease the burden of the every day family.
Our task now, as MacIntyre has urged for decades, is to develop and support local communities that can withstand the coming dark ages. We do this through education, through sustaining local markets and economies, which may include raising our own food, and through conservation of truly human life in the face of ever increasing bureaucratic strangling of our lives.
I hope the Egyptians can find a way forward to do this. I hope we all can.
Education's Value
03/02/11 13:33
Stanley Fish’s recent post echoes concerns that I’ve voiced on this blog about education, especially in the United States under Obama. As a matter of fact, many people have been commenting about education in the US and its goals. Many of these questions center around the goal of education: is it to just get a job or is it for something more?
We must realize, I think, that the idea that education’s end goal was employment comprises a very recent understanding of education. Understanding this recent turn proves important, for what it heralds is the role of the capitalistic economy’s influence on our everyday lives. Schools today are, as Alasdair MacIntyre has been saying for a long time, producers: they produce workers for the system, dividing them into those who will be managers, those who will work in the service industry, and those who will remain unemployed and, thus, always on the margins of society. They train people to be cogs in a machine.
This evolution of our schools need not be inevitable. We can change it. Of course, when unemployment remains around 10% (while really being closer to 20%) and when we see jobs shipped over seas, and we see the US falling behind in many areas, our greatest fear is about the economy and getting a job. This fear serves the power interests and the system well, but it also comes out of our shared human nature. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, providing material support for our lives underlies the other needs we have -- including needs for self-realization and democratic participation.
The problem today, however, is that if we do not grasp our democracy and insist on participatory democracy, we will never be able to satisfy our real needs of jobs. We can do this at the local level, of course, by insisting that local school districts give the rights education to our children. We can do this in our own families by insisting to our children that education is not about getting a job but about living a fulfilling life and being a citizen. We can emphasize the point by showing that getting a job is not about what you know but who you know, and that most of what we need to know to perform a job we learn on the job.
But to do any of this, we have to begin to have these conversations in our local communities and with our friends and family. We have to resist the race to the top unless that race involves an education that addresses the whole person.
We must realize, I think, that the idea that education’s end goal was employment comprises a very recent understanding of education. Understanding this recent turn proves important, for what it heralds is the role of the capitalistic economy’s influence on our everyday lives. Schools today are, as Alasdair MacIntyre has been saying for a long time, producers: they produce workers for the system, dividing them into those who will be managers, those who will work in the service industry, and those who will remain unemployed and, thus, always on the margins of society. They train people to be cogs in a machine.
This evolution of our schools need not be inevitable. We can change it. Of course, when unemployment remains around 10% (while really being closer to 20%) and when we see jobs shipped over seas, and we see the US falling behind in many areas, our greatest fear is about the economy and getting a job. This fear serves the power interests and the system well, but it also comes out of our shared human nature. On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, providing material support for our lives underlies the other needs we have -- including needs for self-realization and democratic participation.
The problem today, however, is that if we do not grasp our democracy and insist on participatory democracy, we will never be able to satisfy our real needs of jobs. We can do this at the local level, of course, by insisting that local school districts give the rights education to our children. We can do this in our own families by insisting to our children that education is not about getting a job but about living a fulfilling life and being a citizen. We can emphasize the point by showing that getting a job is not about what you know but who you know, and that most of what we need to know to perform a job we learn on the job.
But to do any of this, we have to begin to have these conversations in our local communities and with our friends and family. We have to resist the race to the top unless that race involves an education that addresses the whole person.
Education and Egyptian Protests
02/02/11 10:53
Think out Loud interviewed two Egyptians today about the protests going on there. They shed much light on what’s going on in Egypt.
For instance:
1. The army is really in control. The Egyptian army is its own society, with its own malls and resorts, etc. While the Egyptian army has stated that it will not interfere with protestors, it has allowed government thugs into the protest area, which led to violence. It’s clear, then, that the army is playing a waiting game, trying to decide where they want to throw their support.
2. The Egyptian people still have a say. They can wrest some control from the army by standing firm.
3. Violence erupted only after government thugs were allowed amongst the protestors. This confirmed by CNN who interviewed some of the pro-Mubarek “demonstrators” who reported that they were paid to support Mubarek. Why? We must ask this since Mubarek said he would step down. More is going on then we see, obviously.
What I think proves hopeful, though, is something else the guests on Think Out Loud shared. They talked about how good the education system in Egypt is. Here we have the true source of the ability of the people to come together and make demands: education. Education, as MacIntyre points out, has the function of training people to ask questions, questions about the system. So any form of education -- even one like that in the United States that focuses on preparing some for careers in business and others for careers in service -- always has an underlying potential -- the potential for freedom. This cannot be an education from above -- which is important. Revolutionary education comes from learning about one’s tradition -- cultural, religious, scientific. Then people must use that education to ask questions about themselves, happiness, and their own society.
If we have hope for the future, it lies in education.
For instance:
1. The army is really in control. The Egyptian army is its own society, with its own malls and resorts, etc. While the Egyptian army has stated that it will not interfere with protestors, it has allowed government thugs into the protest area, which led to violence. It’s clear, then, that the army is playing a waiting game, trying to decide where they want to throw their support.
2. The Egyptian people still have a say. They can wrest some control from the army by standing firm.
3. Violence erupted only after government thugs were allowed amongst the protestors. This confirmed by CNN who interviewed some of the pro-Mubarek “demonstrators” who reported that they were paid to support Mubarek. Why? We must ask this since Mubarek said he would step down. More is going on then we see, obviously.
What I think proves hopeful, though, is something else the guests on Think Out Loud shared. They talked about how good the education system in Egypt is. Here we have the true source of the ability of the people to come together and make demands: education. Education, as MacIntyre points out, has the function of training people to ask questions, questions about the system. So any form of education -- even one like that in the United States that focuses on preparing some for careers in business and others for careers in service -- always has an underlying potential -- the potential for freedom. This cannot be an education from above -- which is important. Revolutionary education comes from learning about one’s tradition -- cultural, religious, scientific. Then people must use that education to ask questions about themselves, happiness, and their own society.
If we have hope for the future, it lies in education.
Egyptian Revolution March
01/02/11 10:12
Today, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Cairo demanding the abdication of Mubarek. In the midst of the crisis we are told about the triviality of US Mideast policy and Zizek claims that the West should embrace the revolutionary spirit asking similar questions to the ones I asked yesterday.
We are witnessing something truly historical here, but the question remains whether the people will continue to drive the history forward and what that future momentum leads to. I think it’s right to ask about the triviality of US Mideast policy. We’ve been in a holding position for decades now; our armed forces have trained for a long time for battle in the Mideast, a battle which we’ve engaged in for 9+ years now.
“Having long since opted in favour of political stability over the risks and uncertainties of democracy, having told ourselves that the people of the region are not ready to shoulder the burdens of freedom, having stressed that the necessary underpinnings of self-government go well beyond mere elections, suddenly the US has nothing it can credibly say as people take to the streets to try to seize control of their collective destiny.”
US policy has been one of double-think -- believing that we can support dictatorships to protect democracy. But all we’ve protected is OUR democracy, one that works poorly and is subject to the military-industrial complex. And we have to ask in all of this, Why is it that the people of Africa are revolting and yet we sit in our homes watching it on television, or more likely waiting for the next American Idol episode? We have near 10% official unemployment while real unemployment looms above that. We also have 11% of our homes vacant. Why do we not march? Because we’ve bought into the lie so easily and we’ve held on to the doublethink so long, that we do not recognize the opportunity of freedom when is calls out to us from the shanties of rural Africa and the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere.
Thus, I can only agree with Zizek’s statement:
The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly supported democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on behalf of secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all deeply concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance? Today, more than ever, Mao Zedong's old motto is pertinent: "There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent."
This chaos holds promise and peril. It is up to us to decide which.
We are witnessing something truly historical here, but the question remains whether the people will continue to drive the history forward and what that future momentum leads to. I think it’s right to ask about the triviality of US Mideast policy. We’ve been in a holding position for decades now; our armed forces have trained for a long time for battle in the Mideast, a battle which we’ve engaged in for 9+ years now.
“Having long since opted in favour of political stability over the risks and uncertainties of democracy, having told ourselves that the people of the region are not ready to shoulder the burdens of freedom, having stressed that the necessary underpinnings of self-government go well beyond mere elections, suddenly the US has nothing it can credibly say as people take to the streets to try to seize control of their collective destiny.”
US policy has been one of double-think -- believing that we can support dictatorships to protect democracy. But all we’ve protected is OUR democracy, one that works poorly and is subject to the military-industrial complex. And we have to ask in all of this, Why is it that the people of Africa are revolting and yet we sit in our homes watching it on television, or more likely waiting for the next American Idol episode? We have near 10% official unemployment while real unemployment looms above that. We also have 11% of our homes vacant. Why do we not march? Because we’ve bought into the lie so easily and we’ve held on to the doublethink so long, that we do not recognize the opportunity of freedom when is calls out to us from the shanties of rural Africa and the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere.
Thus, I can only agree with Zizek’s statement:
The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly supported democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on behalf of secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all deeply concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance? Today, more than ever, Mao Zedong's old motto is pertinent: "There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent."
This chaos holds promise and peril. It is up to us to decide which.
Egyptian Protests
31/01/11 13:47
"It is amazing these young people were able to acquire the sympathy of the Egyptian people and were able to launch protests that have paralyzed much of the country,"
For the second time in a month, we see growing unrest with a decades long dictatorship manifest itself in civil protests in Africa. What should conscientious individuals make of these protests in this day and era?
To begin, we should take heart in the courage that these oppressed show in trying to bring change in their country, and we should hope, moreover, for like-minded courageous individuals to work for change in our country and throughout the world. The root of this riots is lack of food, lack of work, and lack of political freedom. We should do what we can to support these movements, including putting pressure on the US government to provide material support in the form of food and other necessities to the rioting people. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the freedom of the people remains of paramount importance both as a fundamental human reality and as a political goal.
Freedom remains a human initiative. It is fundamental to human reality to be able to choose the direction of one’s life, to direct one’s conscience, and to participate in shaping the common good of the community. While have a democratic society is only a beginning, it is a beginning.
What we have to fear is that Tunisia and Egypt will adopt the ways and patterns of life of the modern Western world, accepting unquestionable, rampant capitalism and allowing their leaders to establish institutions that take the voice out of their hands rather than placing it in their hands. Democracy consists, not in electing representatives who will bow before the corporate and military elite, but in full participation in articulating and living out the common good of the persons in the community -- all persons, regardless of gender, race, orientation, religion, or status. These are the true legacy of the western world.
Philosophy, Politics, Pluralism
28/01/11 10:11
Lately, I’ve thought much about the role of philosophy in society, particularly in bringing about social justice and helping to create a well-ordered society, for lack of a better word. I’ve also thought about theology in relation to these issues. If one believe in God, believes that God is the final destination of human beings, what does that mean for society, for social organization, and for social justice? How can one order a society, or suggest principles for a just society, when one believes so much about God, yet knows that society is marked by pluralism -- religious pluralism, as well as philosophical, political, and cultural pluralism.
I am not, of course, the first to ask these questions nor the last, I’m sure. Jacques Maritain wrote that one of the characteristics of a society of free persons is that it is Christian or theistic, not in the sense that every member of society would be required to believe in God, but in that
The problem, of course, is that society’s religious pluralism means that no pluralistic society can recognize these things as such. Must we, then, separate into distinct enclaves? Such an answer does not help, partly because these individual conclaves form a society of themselves. That is, they need rules and laws to organize their relations with each other. So where does that leave the Christian? It is not enough to say that not everyone believe in God, for, according to Maritain, his society is “organically linked to religion.” Such an organic link cannot be maintained at the social level in a pluralistic society.
First, it is clear that theology or religion cannot answer the question here better than any other approach. Theology might have something to say about what sort of answer we should look for, but it cannot provide an answer because it ipso facto excludes the non-religious and the other-religious from its scope. Yet, can such an answer satisfy the one who believes that God is the end of society and the end of human persons?
Nor should we deny that in some rare instances some societies have existed which in fact were theistic, pluralistic, and supported freedom of individual persons -- al-Andalus being a primary example.
Second, it seems also clear that any answer to this set of questions must examine the purpose of society. Philosophy primarily carries the burden of answering that question based, to be sure, on empirical studies of sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics, among others. Yet, I’ve already said that philosophy itself is disputed within pluralistic societies. Philosophy, however, offers something that theology cannot offer in this case: an appeal to reason which all people are subject to. In fact, if the nature of philosophy is disputed, it might be that one task of society is to provide an arena for such disputes to occur, and this can provide a foundation for a society of free persons.
Here, then, we see some light, for what the nature of philosophy shows us is similar to what the nature of that strange creature homo sapiens shows us. Human beings are made for relational engagement with other as evidenced by the primacy of language and communication in their everyday lives and the primacy of dispute and social argumentation in philosophy. If we can agree to that, we might move even further along the road to addressing society.
I am not, of course, the first to ask these questions nor the last, I’m sure. Jacques Maritain wrote that one of the characteristics of a society of free persons is that it is Christian or theistic, not in the sense that every member of society would be required to believe in God, but in that
society recognizes God as the principle and end of the human person and prime source of natural law, is by the same token the prime source of political society and authority among [people]; and in that sense that it recognizes that the currents of liberty and fraternity released by the Gospel, the virtues of justice and friendship sanctioned by it, the practical respect for the human person proclaimed by it, the feeling of responsibility before God required by it, as much from him who exercises the authority as form him who is subject to it, are the internal energy which civilization needs for its fulfillment.
The problem, of course, is that society’s religious pluralism means that no pluralistic society can recognize these things as such. Must we, then, separate into distinct enclaves? Such an answer does not help, partly because these individual conclaves form a society of themselves. That is, they need rules and laws to organize their relations with each other. So where does that leave the Christian? It is not enough to say that not everyone believe in God, for, according to Maritain, his society is “organically linked to religion.” Such an organic link cannot be maintained at the social level in a pluralistic society.
First, it is clear that theology or religion cannot answer the question here better than any other approach. Theology might have something to say about what sort of answer we should look for, but it cannot provide an answer because it ipso facto excludes the non-religious and the other-religious from its scope. Yet, can such an answer satisfy the one who believes that God is the end of society and the end of human persons?
Nor should we deny that in some rare instances some societies have existed which in fact were theistic, pluralistic, and supported freedom of individual persons -- al-Andalus being a primary example.
Second, it seems also clear that any answer to this set of questions must examine the purpose of society. Philosophy primarily carries the burden of answering that question based, to be sure, on empirical studies of sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics, among others. Yet, I’ve already said that philosophy itself is disputed within pluralistic societies. Philosophy, however, offers something that theology cannot offer in this case: an appeal to reason which all people are subject to. In fact, if the nature of philosophy is disputed, it might be that one task of society is to provide an arena for such disputes to occur, and this can provide a foundation for a society of free persons.
Here, then, we see some light, for what the nature of philosophy shows us is similar to what the nature of that strange creature homo sapiens shows us. Human beings are made for relational engagement with other as evidenced by the primacy of language and communication in their everyday lives and the primacy of dispute and social argumentation in philosophy. If we can agree to that, we might move even further along the road to addressing society.
Torture and Catholics
27/01/11 14:06
A disturbing report shows that Roman Catholics are more likely to approve of torture than not. It should be noted that the sample size is relatively small, and I am reluctant to draw broad conclusions from it about Catholics across the United States. However, the fact remains that at least one sampling of Catholics approve of torture.
When I was growing up, we were taught that Jesus was selected to die by Pontius Pilate to help prevent a riot in Jerusalem in which many more would die. We were clearly taught by Notre Dame nuns that one of the problems with Jesus’ execution is the sacrifice of one for many.
Yet, I’ve taught on the death penalty across the bible belt, in Catholic colleges, and seminaries, and I find that Christians have forgotten this lesson. They argue, instead, that it is okay if a few innocents die if that’s what it takes to punish the guilty.
These attitudes are not Christian attitudes and certainly not Catholic attitudes. I do not mean, of course, to deny that Christians or even the Catholic Church has tortured people before. The description of such a sin to extract a confession opens Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and we know that torture was used in the inquisition. What I mean, of course, is that Catholic morality and Catholic philosophy call us to a different approach, and the fact that many Catholics either ignore or rationalize away this approach shows that the priests, bishops, and pope are not doing their job.
If you can look at the cross and recognize the suffering that Jesus Christ went through to redeem human beings and call yourself a Catholic and yet approve of torture for any reason, then you don’t understand the Cross and you don’t understand Jesus.
Of course, many will challenge me on this: what if it were your family who was threatened and the only way to get them help is to torture someone? That’s playing cheap and dirty. Of course, I would do anything I can to help my family. I also know, however, that torture rarely, if ever, gets accurate information, and all I would do in torturing someone is bring myself to their level. This is why the Joker is so effective in The Dark Knight. He doesn’t care that he gives information - wrong information -- to Batman. He’s caused Batman to lose his soul for just a little bit.
Torture is wrong and cannot be justified for any reason. That’s especially true if you are Catholic or believe in a loving God.
When I was growing up, we were taught that Jesus was selected to die by Pontius Pilate to help prevent a riot in Jerusalem in which many more would die. We were clearly taught by Notre Dame nuns that one of the problems with Jesus’ execution is the sacrifice of one for many.
Yet, I’ve taught on the death penalty across the bible belt, in Catholic colleges, and seminaries, and I find that Christians have forgotten this lesson. They argue, instead, that it is okay if a few innocents die if that’s what it takes to punish the guilty.
These attitudes are not Christian attitudes and certainly not Catholic attitudes. I do not mean, of course, to deny that Christians or even the Catholic Church has tortured people before. The description of such a sin to extract a confession opens Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and we know that torture was used in the inquisition. What I mean, of course, is that Catholic morality and Catholic philosophy call us to a different approach, and the fact that many Catholics either ignore or rationalize away this approach shows that the priests, bishops, and pope are not doing their job.
If you can look at the cross and recognize the suffering that Jesus Christ went through to redeem human beings and call yourself a Catholic and yet approve of torture for any reason, then you don’t understand the Cross and you don’t understand Jesus.
Of course, many will challenge me on this: what if it were your family who was threatened and the only way to get them help is to torture someone? That’s playing cheap and dirty. Of course, I would do anything I can to help my family. I also know, however, that torture rarely, if ever, gets accurate information, and all I would do in torturing someone is bring myself to their level. This is why the Joker is so effective in The Dark Knight. He doesn’t care that he gives information - wrong information -- to Batman. He’s caused Batman to lose his soul for just a little bit.
Torture is wrong and cannot be justified for any reason. That’s especially true if you are Catholic or believe in a loving God.
State of the Union 2011 -- Reflections
26/01/11 10:29
Here are my reflections on Obama’s SOTU for 2011.
“Just recently, China became home to the world's largest private solar research facility, and the world's fastest computer.”
It’s interesting that Obama does not reflect here on his own challenge during the Presidential campaign that the United States be a developer of first rate green energy before China develops it. Wouldn’t this moment be one for reflecting on his own failures in creating jobs over the last two years and of Congress not moving forward ob green initiatives?
“Remember – for all the hits we've taken these last few years, for all the
naysayers predicting our decline, America still has the largest, most prosperous
economy in the world. No workers are more productive than ours.”
Here, rather than questioning his own administration, Obama misses a chance to question what is going on in the economy in America. Yes, our workers are more productive -- more productive than they were 10, 20, and even 30 years ago. So why has not the wealth that comes from this production been shared by workers? Instead, workers have seen their wages stagnate while CEO’s pay and bonuses increase exponentially.
“What's more, we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea – the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.”
True, but then the question becomes, what is required for each person to shape their destiny? How best do we shape society so that each person can pursue her own dreams and goals?
“We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business.”
What does this mean? And why must we make America the best place to do business rather than the best place to achieve individual fulfillment and realization? There is no questioning here of the capitalist paradigm, which means it works as an ideology in our country masking the true issues that can make American lives better.
“We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government.”
Both of these points are true, but Obama has done nothing to do either. First, allowing the tax-cuts for the richest Americans to continue meant NOT taking care of our deficit. Second, reform in government means giving each person a voice, not simply a vote.
“Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation.”
Is this true? Should it be true?
“Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.”
This example suggests not. It suggests that what motivates innovation is an idea of a common good and heroic leadership. Where are these in our country today?
“I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow’s.”
This is certainly a start. The question becomes, is it too little too late?
“And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren't even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to 9th in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us – as citizens, and as parents – are willing to do what's necessary to give every child a chance to succeed.”
Of course this ignores the questions about what are the root causes of such failures? Is it our allocation of resources to schools? Why is it that a racial divide appears here? How do we see education? These are primary questions for reforming education, questions we must answer as a nation.
“Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done.”
And how are they to do this when they are both working?
“And this year, I ask Congress to go further, and make permanent our tuition tax credit – worth $10,000 for four years of college.”
Again, another step, but too little for sure. What is the average cost of college today?
“When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them. But I will not hesitate to create or enforce commonsense safeguards to protect the American people. That's what we've done in this country for more than a century. It's why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe.”
Safe?
“This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we have frozen the salaries of
hardworking federal employees for the next two years. I've proposed cuts to
things I care deeply about, like community action programs. The Secretary
of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that
he and his generals believe our military can do without.”
This reminds me of the parable of the poor woman who gave a penny and the rich man who gave a dollar. Why must the poor sacrifice when they’ve already have stagnated wages and the rich military-industrial complex has sustained increase after increase? We should remember that a budget is a moral document -- it tells our values. Where are American values?
“But Brandon thought his company could help. And so he designed a rescue that would come to be known as Plan B. His employees worked around the clock to manufacture the necessary drilling equipment. And Brandon left for Chile.”
Another example where innovation was spurred by love of humankind and not love of money.
There are no surprises in Obama’s speech. It follows a traditional format, laying out plans that do not address the real struggles of every day human beings, praising the army, and threatening cuts to human services rather than to that which destroys human beings. It is up to us, however, to demand more voice in our government, more direction of the money it spends, and more resources in pursuing our personal dreams which have little to do with money and much to do with friendship and love for those around us.
“Just recently, China became home to the world's largest private solar research facility, and the world's fastest computer.”
It’s interesting that Obama does not reflect here on his own challenge during the Presidential campaign that the United States be a developer of first rate green energy before China develops it. Wouldn’t this moment be one for reflecting on his own failures in creating jobs over the last two years and of Congress not moving forward ob green initiatives?
“Remember – for all the hits we've taken these last few years, for all the
naysayers predicting our decline, America still has the largest, most prosperous
economy in the world. No workers are more productive than ours.”
Here, rather than questioning his own administration, Obama misses a chance to question what is going on in the economy in America. Yes, our workers are more productive -- more productive than they were 10, 20, and even 30 years ago. So why has not the wealth that comes from this production been shared by workers? Instead, workers have seen their wages stagnate while CEO’s pay and bonuses increase exponentially.
“What's more, we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea – the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny.”
True, but then the question becomes, what is required for each person to shape their destiny? How best do we shape society so that each person can pursue her own dreams and goals?
“We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business.”
What does this mean? And why must we make America the best place to do business rather than the best place to achieve individual fulfillment and realization? There is no questioning here of the capitalist paradigm, which means it works as an ideology in our country masking the true issues that can make American lives better.
“We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government.”
Both of these points are true, but Obama has done nothing to do either. First, allowing the tax-cuts for the richest Americans to continue meant NOT taking care of our deficit. Second, reform in government means giving each person a voice, not simply a vote.
“Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation.”
Is this true? Should it be true?
“Half a century ago, when the Soviets beat us into space with the launch of a satellite called Sputnik¸ we had no idea how we'd beat them to the moon. The science wasn't there yet. NASA didn't even exist. But after investing in better research and education, we didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs.”
This example suggests not. It suggests that what motivates innovation is an idea of a common good and heroic leadership. Where are these in our country today?
“I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow’s.”
This is certainly a start. The question becomes, is it too little too late?
“And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren't even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to 9th in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us – as citizens, and as parents – are willing to do what's necessary to give every child a chance to succeed.”
Of course this ignores the questions about what are the root causes of such failures? Is it our allocation of resources to schools? Why is it that a racial divide appears here? How do we see education? These are primary questions for reforming education, questions we must answer as a nation.
“Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done.”
And how are they to do this when they are both working?
“And this year, I ask Congress to go further, and make permanent our tuition tax credit – worth $10,000 for four years of college.”
Again, another step, but too little for sure. What is the average cost of college today?
“When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them. But I will not hesitate to create or enforce commonsense safeguards to protect the American people. That's what we've done in this country for more than a century. It's why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe.”
Safe?
“This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we have frozen the salaries of
hardworking federal employees for the next two years. I've proposed cuts to
things I care deeply about, like community action programs. The Secretary
of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that
he and his generals believe our military can do without.”
This reminds me of the parable of the poor woman who gave a penny and the rich man who gave a dollar. Why must the poor sacrifice when they’ve already have stagnated wages and the rich military-industrial complex has sustained increase after increase? We should remember that a budget is a moral document -- it tells our values. Where are American values?
“But Brandon thought his company could help. And so he designed a rescue that would come to be known as Plan B. His employees worked around the clock to manufacture the necessary drilling equipment. And Brandon left for Chile.”
Another example where innovation was spurred by love of humankind and not love of money.
There are no surprises in Obama’s speech. It follows a traditional format, laying out plans that do not address the real struggles of every day human beings, praising the army, and threatening cuts to human services rather than to that which destroys human beings. It is up to us, however, to demand more voice in our government, more direction of the money it spends, and more resources in pursuing our personal dreams which have little to do with money and much to do with friendship and love for those around us.
Roe v Wade 2011
21/01/11 11:35
We remember the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion on Saturday. 53 million persons have been aborted since 1973, at best count.
Despite that significant and large attack on human life, the Roman Catholic Church, other churches, and conservatives in the United States are fighting a meaningless battle. Overturning Roe v. Wade is a waste of resources, makes the Church appear antagonistic to women, and detracts our attention from the real issues which will reduce the number of murders that occur annually, viz., proper health care and sex education, education in general, defense of women and bodily integrity, and a rejection of capitalism as a root cause of abortion.
Why is trying to overturn Roe v. Wade senseless? Because of the practical politics of the situation. While the moral principles the Church uses are correct, they are either not cognizant of or dismissive of the real political reality in the United States. That political reality is the following:
1. A sitting president chooses at most 2 supreme court judges per eight-year term. The president would have to choose enough nominees to create a secure substantial majority on the court to overturn RvW. Yet, often those who retire are in fact already allies to the cause. So the president does not have the viable opportunity to appoint enough members to court to overturn RvW.
2. Even if the president could appoint enough magistrates to overturn RvW, the president cannot guarantee that his choice would in fact overturn RvW. See Reagan and his nominees.
3. Even if the president could be certain AND could appoint enough nominees, they would have to be approved by congress who would surely not approve overturning RvW, and for at least two reasons.
First, it is congress’ self interest not to overturn RvW because it allows them to attract traditional allies in their run for office. No one wants to undermine their base on either side.
Second, the corporate powers who choose nominees for the citizens to vote on do not want to overturn RvW, and this for two reasons.
First, because keeping people distracted by RvW means they have control over the electorate and because it means people will not challenge capitalism.
Second, because it provides too much money for the corporations.
4. Even if the president could be certain AND she could appoint enough magistrates AND could get congress to approve them, all that would happen is that the abortion decision would switch to the states. In other words, there would either be no decrease in abortion OR there will be no decrease in abortion AND there will be an increase in back-alley abortions which maim and kill women. Why?
This fact is the most essential reason why the Catholic Church and others are wasting their time, resources, and focus on the real issues. Overturning RvW means that individual states then set the limits, if any, to abortion. Since not all states will limit access to abortion, then people in any state will be able to travel to a nearby state for an abortion. Overturning RvW would, at best, take the fight to each individual state which will lead to more sectarian violence, to greater divisions between the states and, thus, an greater destabilization of the government, and greater waste of resources, while continuing to loose focus on the real issues.
The real issues are those which lead women to choose to have abortions: lack of jobs, lack of stable families, career-focus, poor health care, poor communities, etc. The real foe in the abortion debate is not Roe v Wade; the real foe is capitalism and the individualism that terrorizes our country. Until the Church takes a more consistent ethic of life approach and a more supportive attitude toward women, then nothing will be done to end the murder that continues each year -- every day -- in the United States and around the world.
Despite that significant and large attack on human life, the Roman Catholic Church, other churches, and conservatives in the United States are fighting a meaningless battle. Overturning Roe v. Wade is a waste of resources, makes the Church appear antagonistic to women, and detracts our attention from the real issues which will reduce the number of murders that occur annually, viz., proper health care and sex education, education in general, defense of women and bodily integrity, and a rejection of capitalism as a root cause of abortion.
Why is trying to overturn Roe v. Wade senseless? Because of the practical politics of the situation. While the moral principles the Church uses are correct, they are either not cognizant of or dismissive of the real political reality in the United States. That political reality is the following:
1. A sitting president chooses at most 2 supreme court judges per eight-year term. The president would have to choose enough nominees to create a secure substantial majority on the court to overturn RvW. Yet, often those who retire are in fact already allies to the cause. So the president does not have the viable opportunity to appoint enough members to court to overturn RvW.
2. Even if the president could appoint enough magistrates to overturn RvW, the president cannot guarantee that his choice would in fact overturn RvW. See Reagan and his nominees.
3. Even if the president could be certain AND could appoint enough nominees, they would have to be approved by congress who would surely not approve overturning RvW, and for at least two reasons.
First, it is congress’ self interest not to overturn RvW because it allows them to attract traditional allies in their run for office. No one wants to undermine their base on either side.
Second, the corporate powers who choose nominees for the citizens to vote on do not want to overturn RvW, and this for two reasons.
First, because keeping people distracted by RvW means they have control over the electorate and because it means people will not challenge capitalism.
Second, because it provides too much money for the corporations.
4. Even if the president could be certain AND she could appoint enough magistrates AND could get congress to approve them, all that would happen is that the abortion decision would switch to the states. In other words, there would either be no decrease in abortion OR there will be no decrease in abortion AND there will be an increase in back-alley abortions which maim and kill women. Why?
This fact is the most essential reason why the Catholic Church and others are wasting their time, resources, and focus on the real issues. Overturning RvW means that individual states then set the limits, if any, to abortion. Since not all states will limit access to abortion, then people in any state will be able to travel to a nearby state for an abortion. Overturning RvW would, at best, take the fight to each individual state which will lead to more sectarian violence, to greater divisions between the states and, thus, an greater destabilization of the government, and greater waste of resources, while continuing to loose focus on the real issues.
The real issues are those which lead women to choose to have abortions: lack of jobs, lack of stable families, career-focus, poor health care, poor communities, etc. The real foe in the abortion debate is not Roe v Wade; the real foe is capitalism and the individualism that terrorizes our country. Until the Church takes a more consistent ethic of life approach and a more supportive attitude toward women, then nothing will be done to end the murder that continues each year -- every day -- in the United States and around the world.
Western Legacy of Universal Law
19/01/11 10:10
News media report today that President Obama pressed Chinese President Hu Jintao to respect human rights. Obama asserted that countries are more successful and societies more harmonious when human rights are respected. It’s unclear, of course, what “success” means here. Does it mean politically? Economically? Harmonious societies seem to be an end in themselves, but we should not be so quick here either. What sort of harmony are we speaking about? Can such harmony mask abuse of human rights?
These questions will be important to ask as we continue to see China rise in the world, soon to outgrow the United States as the main economic and political giant. They remain important for us to ask of our own nation, as well, as we continue to see our own abuse of human rights.
As we witness history here, though, as the West wanes in favor of the East, we want to make sure that the legacy of the West is passed on. That legacy is not capitalism or free market economics. That legacy is in the history of the development of the notion of human law, universal law, and human rights. The idea of law lays hidden far back in time in Mesopotamia. The first code of law exists still in the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian king. What’s central to understanding this code is the way that the law is written to protect the marginalized and poor of Babylonian society. It’s true, of course, that the law protects property; but the law also encodes certain basic duties of society to the poor.
We see this code get rewritten in different societies, until Athens and the Greeks make their own contribution to the notion of law. Because the Athenian army depended on the lower classes to row the triremes and to fight in the army, the lower classes were able to press for greater and greater protections from the rich and greater help from the state. In these times, the notion of “citizen” and “citizenship” takes place. Had it not been for the Greeks, we would not now think of citizens as those who have a say in government.
Moving on through history, Rome, the great inheritor of Greek culture, adds to the notion of law. Early Romans too pressed for protections from the rich and greater help from the state. Moreover, they were able to encode the notion of “universal law.” The true legacy of the Roman Empire is the way that it spread from the British Isles and the Western coast of Spain, from Northern Africa to the eastern borders of India, the idea of a universal law that applies to all people. For all their fears of invasion and their gross displays of wealth and violence and sheer gluttony, the Roman people gave us the greatest gift of history: the idea of a universal morality.
And it was, despite the tortures and the silencing and the outright violence and prejudice that a small group of religious believers pressed upon the world, that this notion of human law passed down from the Roman Empire to the early Europeans and to us. This law is based on respect for peoples and the notion that law should care for the downtrodden of society as much as anyone. In the early middle ages, monks and religious began to speak of these protections with new language -- the language of rights. These rights were always positive rights: people had a right to housing and food, to work, to family life. Only later with the rise of capitalism and the market economy did the notion of rights become “natural” and “negative.”
What we as citizens of the United States and other western democracies must do is pass on these notions of positive universal law, of citizenship as being part of the rule of government, and of the protection of the downtrodden and the marginalized, today encapsulated in the concept of rights. These are the true legacy that we can pass on to future generations and to a changing world.
These questions will be important to ask as we continue to see China rise in the world, soon to outgrow the United States as the main economic and political giant. They remain important for us to ask of our own nation, as well, as we continue to see our own abuse of human rights.
As we witness history here, though, as the West wanes in favor of the East, we want to make sure that the legacy of the West is passed on. That legacy is not capitalism or free market economics. That legacy is in the history of the development of the notion of human law, universal law, and human rights. The idea of law lays hidden far back in time in Mesopotamia. The first code of law exists still in the Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian king. What’s central to understanding this code is the way that the law is written to protect the marginalized and poor of Babylonian society. It’s true, of course, that the law protects property; but the law also encodes certain basic duties of society to the poor.
We see this code get rewritten in different societies, until Athens and the Greeks make their own contribution to the notion of law. Because the Athenian army depended on the lower classes to row the triremes and to fight in the army, the lower classes were able to press for greater and greater protections from the rich and greater help from the state. In these times, the notion of “citizen” and “citizenship” takes place. Had it not been for the Greeks, we would not now think of citizens as those who have a say in government.
Moving on through history, Rome, the great inheritor of Greek culture, adds to the notion of law. Early Romans too pressed for protections from the rich and greater help from the state. Moreover, they were able to encode the notion of “universal law.” The true legacy of the Roman Empire is the way that it spread from the British Isles and the Western coast of Spain, from Northern Africa to the eastern borders of India, the idea of a universal law that applies to all people. For all their fears of invasion and their gross displays of wealth and violence and sheer gluttony, the Roman people gave us the greatest gift of history: the idea of a universal morality.
And it was, despite the tortures and the silencing and the outright violence and prejudice that a small group of religious believers pressed upon the world, that this notion of human law passed down from the Roman Empire to the early Europeans and to us. This law is based on respect for peoples and the notion that law should care for the downtrodden of society as much as anyone. In the early middle ages, monks and religious began to speak of these protections with new language -- the language of rights. These rights were always positive rights: people had a right to housing and food, to work, to family life. Only later with the rise of capitalism and the market economy did the notion of rights become “natural” and “negative.”
What we as citizens of the United States and other western democracies must do is pass on these notions of positive universal law, of citizenship as being part of the rule of government, and of the protection of the downtrodden and the marginalized, today encapsulated in the concept of rights. These are the true legacy that we can pass on to future generations and to a changing world.
Unite
17/01/11 11:42
On the day before he died, Martin Luther King jr. said
“Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together. We’ve got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh’s court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that’s the beginning of getting out of slavery.”
I could stop there and let MLK’s words stand for themselves. I think, however, we can reflect on them even more. He is, of course, talking in part about racism. Racism divides person from person almost more than anything. King, however, was talking about more than racism. He was also talking about class. King worked for Civil Rights, but he also worked for economic justice and an end of war. And, of course, class dissolves human unity quite easily. Marx saw this: he wanted class conflict to be overcome. This point is often missed by the popes in their letters on Catholic Social Teaching. They write that communism divides people into classes and see a class warfare. That is not what Marx did. He saw the class warfare and said that the end of civilization would occur through overcoming class warfare.
This message is a Christian message, and it is a good one to reflect on as we celebrate the memory of MLK jr. and celebrate civil rights in our country. For more continues to divide us today.
We still suffer racism: just ask the African-American who does not get an interview because of his name or the Native American who cannot live on his traditional hunting grounds because the US government has not closed the uranium mines.
We suffer classicism: just ask the out of work woman who reads about the plutocrats who are raking in millions, even billions, while the rest of us stagnate.
We suffer sexism: ask the woman who is afraid to go to the police about her husband’s abuse.
We suffer religious discrimination: ask the Muslim whose mosque was threatened.
We suffer, most of all, political division: ask Christina Greene. Or ask Mitch McConnel who stated goal is the singular task of taking down Barack Obama.
Divisions prevent us from recognizing what we have in common as human persons. Divisions prevent us from recognizing a common good that we can pursue as a community of equals committed to each other’s welfare. Divisions prevent us from seeking economic justice for all for the liberty of a few.
We must seek unity if we are to move forward and find peace and a human life.
“Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we’ve got to stay together. We’ve got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh’s court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that’s the beginning of getting out of slavery.”
I could stop there and let MLK’s words stand for themselves. I think, however, we can reflect on them even more. He is, of course, talking in part about racism. Racism divides person from person almost more than anything. King, however, was talking about more than racism. He was also talking about class. King worked for Civil Rights, but he also worked for economic justice and an end of war. And, of course, class dissolves human unity quite easily. Marx saw this: he wanted class conflict to be overcome. This point is often missed by the popes in their letters on Catholic Social Teaching. They write that communism divides people into classes and see a class warfare. That is not what Marx did. He saw the class warfare and said that the end of civilization would occur through overcoming class warfare.
This message is a Christian message, and it is a good one to reflect on as we celebrate the memory of MLK jr. and celebrate civil rights in our country. For more continues to divide us today.
We still suffer racism: just ask the African-American who does not get an interview because of his name or the Native American who cannot live on his traditional hunting grounds because the US government has not closed the uranium mines.
We suffer classicism: just ask the out of work woman who reads about the plutocrats who are raking in millions, even billions, while the rest of us stagnate.
We suffer sexism: ask the woman who is afraid to go to the police about her husband’s abuse.
We suffer religious discrimination: ask the Muslim whose mosque was threatened.
We suffer, most of all, political division: ask Christina Greene. Or ask Mitch McConnel who stated goal is the singular task of taking down Barack Obama.
Divisions prevent us from recognizing what we have in common as human persons. Divisions prevent us from recognizing a common good that we can pursue as a community of equals committed to each other’s welfare. Divisions prevent us from seeking economic justice for all for the liberty of a few.
We must seek unity if we are to move forward and find peace and a human life.
Christina Green
13/01/11 13:55
More Rhetoric over Shooting
12/01/11 10:34
More and more is being written about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others, because of Sarah Palin’s video concerning the rhetoric of the blame game. The most interesting piece is by the fact checkers found here. I’ve noticed several interesting points in the discussion.
First, most of the commentators have had some sympathy for Palin. They admit that she has a good point to make: that the rhetoric needs to be toned down.
The problem is, Palin herself has ratcheted up the rhetoric with the ill-chosen use of the term “blood libel.” As each of the articles cited above will tell you, the term “blood libel” refers to the belief that Jews used the blood of Christian children to make their bread. Fact checker points out that Palin is not the first to use the term in the reaction to the shooting nor in the modern era of politics. Her use, however, is more prominent as she is -- for better or worse -- a more prominent person. Moreover, Palin is not Jewish and has referred to the States - rightly or wrongly -- as a Christian nation, while Giffords, who was shot, is Jewish. Whether others had used the term before or not, Palin should not have given the fact of the religious affiliations of those involved.
Second, I want to bring everyone’s attention to the quote that Palin lifts from Reagan. "President Reagan said, 'We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.'"
This point takes me back to the discussion yesterday on motivation. When we refuse to look at how society impacts motivation, we miss out on understanding who we are, how we act, and how we can change society to better ourselves. Certainly individuals bear the burden of blame when it comes to personal actions, but this fact does not exonerate society or culture from bearing some of the blame. A society which celebrates violence is partly responsible for the violence individuals cause. Just as a society that celebrates peace and love is partly responsible for the good someone does.
If this were not so, then we would not blame the culture of the Catholic Church for the recent sex abuse scandal. But we do.
Of course, what underlies Palin’s and Reagan’s claim is the rampant individualism I’ve discussed elsewhere in this blog. That celebration of individualism is itself partly responsible for the break down of the family and the high divorce rate as well as the current economic situation we find ourselves in. But that is a different topic.
First, most of the commentators have had some sympathy for Palin. They admit that she has a good point to make: that the rhetoric needs to be toned down.
The problem is, Palin herself has ratcheted up the rhetoric with the ill-chosen use of the term “blood libel.” As each of the articles cited above will tell you, the term “blood libel” refers to the belief that Jews used the blood of Christian children to make their bread. Fact checker points out that Palin is not the first to use the term in the reaction to the shooting nor in the modern era of politics. Her use, however, is more prominent as she is -- for better or worse -- a more prominent person. Moreover, Palin is not Jewish and has referred to the States - rightly or wrongly -- as a Christian nation, while Giffords, who was shot, is Jewish. Whether others had used the term before or not, Palin should not have given the fact of the religious affiliations of those involved.
Second, I want to bring everyone’s attention to the quote that Palin lifts from Reagan. "President Reagan said, 'We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.'"
This point takes me back to the discussion yesterday on motivation. When we refuse to look at how society impacts motivation, we miss out on understanding who we are, how we act, and how we can change society to better ourselves. Certainly individuals bear the burden of blame when it comes to personal actions, but this fact does not exonerate society or culture from bearing some of the blame. A society which celebrates violence is partly responsible for the violence individuals cause. Just as a society that celebrates peace and love is partly responsible for the good someone does.
If this were not so, then we would not blame the culture of the Catholic Church for the recent sex abuse scandal. But we do.
Of course, what underlies Palin’s and Reagan’s claim is the rampant individualism I’ve discussed elsewhere in this blog. That celebration of individualism is itself partly responsible for the break down of the family and the high divorce rate as well as the current economic situation we find ourselves in. But that is a different topic.
Giffords' Shooting and Politics
11/01/11 11:24
Much has already been written about the shooting in Arizona of Gabrielle Giffords and many others. I think, however, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has one of the more interesting and thoughtful pieces on this incident. Stewart, like the rest of us, I imagine, is disheartened. He is also thoughtful. One thing he points out, and I think he is correct, is that trying to find one direct line of cause from something Sarah Palin said or from some violent video game to Jared Loughner’s shooting spree is pointless. It cannot be done.
Human motivation, and this is what is at the center of this subject, is much too complex to pick out one cause and effect line for any event. We often ask, why do two people who were abused when they were younger end up being different -- one turning into an abuser and the other not? These sorts of questions rest on the premise that Stewart is questioning: that one cause leads to one effect or, more appropriately, one effect has one and only one cause.
My friend, Grant, pointed this out when he wrote, “Every time there's a shooting the left says ban guns & rhetoric & the right says ban video games & be less permissive. Yet there are more permissive 1st World countries with more guns per capita & the same games & divisions. Maybe we need to dig a little deeper?” Every time we try to find some concrete evidence for how something causes some other thing, we look for a direct cause. Perhaps we need to think more clearly about this and look more deeply. We are trying to use the methods of math and science and apply them to society and human action. This approach cannot work. It is an approach that is more and more accepted in our country and trumpeted by people working in evolutionary psychology who try to link human aggression to what human life was like 10,000 years ago in the Serengeti.
This fact is why it is wrong for political parties -- and the Left and the Right are both doing this -- are trying to lay the blame of the shooting at each other’s feet. Political parties are still playing politics in the face of this tragedy partly because, I suspect, they can’t help themselves and partly because of this underlying belief that every event has one and only one cause, when human motivation is much more complex. This point is why we need a much better account of human nature than has hitherto been provided.
We have to think more broadly, as well. Why there so many gun crimes and murders in the United States? We can see something about our culture, here. Something that might clue us in about why Loughner went on a shooting spree, how he was able to purchase a gun when he was known to be mentally unstable, and why he went after this particular group of people. But there won’t be an easy answer here.
And one thing that we -- you and I -- have to do is something that the political rhetoric refuses to do and won’t allow us to do -- question who and what we are as a society.
Human motivation, and this is what is at the center of this subject, is much too complex to pick out one cause and effect line for any event. We often ask, why do two people who were abused when they were younger end up being different -- one turning into an abuser and the other not? These sorts of questions rest on the premise that Stewart is questioning: that one cause leads to one effect or, more appropriately, one effect has one and only one cause.
My friend, Grant, pointed this out when he wrote, “Every time there's a shooting the left says ban guns & rhetoric & the right says ban video games & be less permissive. Yet there are more permissive 1st World countries with more guns per capita & the same games & divisions. Maybe we need to dig a little deeper?” Every time we try to find some concrete evidence for how something causes some other thing, we look for a direct cause. Perhaps we need to think more clearly about this and look more deeply. We are trying to use the methods of math and science and apply them to society and human action. This approach cannot work. It is an approach that is more and more accepted in our country and trumpeted by people working in evolutionary psychology who try to link human aggression to what human life was like 10,000 years ago in the Serengeti.
This fact is why it is wrong for political parties -- and the Left and the Right are both doing this -- are trying to lay the blame of the shooting at each other’s feet. Political parties are still playing politics in the face of this tragedy partly because, I suspect, they can’t help themselves and partly because of this underlying belief that every event has one and only one cause, when human motivation is much more complex. This point is why we need a much better account of human nature than has hitherto been provided.
We have to think more broadly, as well. Why there so many gun crimes and murders in the United States? We can see something about our culture, here. Something that might clue us in about why Loughner went on a shooting spree, how he was able to purchase a gun when he was known to be mentally unstable, and why he went after this particular group of people. But there won’t be an easy answer here.
And one thing that we -- you and I -- have to do is something that the political rhetoric refuses to do and won’t allow us to do -- question who and what we are as a society.
True Grit
10/01/11 14:17
I took the opportunity to watch the Coen brothers’ version of True Grit yesterday. I think I remember seeing the John Wayne version way back when, but I don’t remember much about it. I did, however, read the book by Portis before seeing the latest movie.
Stanley Fish has also commented on the recent installment. He concludes that True Grit is a religious movie. Religion in this movie I “is everything, not despite but because of its refusal to resolve or soften the dilemmas the narrative delivers up.” That dilemma, according to Fish, is that Grace is given freely -- arbitrarily -- by God regardless of whether one is good or bad in life. Mattie our heroine, for instance, loses her arm and lives as a spinster after avenging her father’s death. Fish does not consider, as one commentator on his blog points out, that “Justice is mine saith the Lord,” which could mean that Mattie is bad, just as bad maybe, as Ned Pepper or Tom Chaney, who killed her father. And, I think it is quite clear throughout the novel and the movie that Rooster Cogburn is no saint.
Fish’s conclusion hinges on his interpretation of a particular sentence that the book and movie share. Fish writes
“The springs of that universe are revealed to us by the narrator-heroine Mattie in words that appear both in Charles Portis’s novel and the two films, but with a difference. The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious.”
Fish sees two ways of understanding how “grace” is free: either one can go up to the lunch line and get it or God gives it to whomever God wants regardless of whether the person deserves it or not. Because Mattie’s world is so hard, and things just happen to good people and bad people, Fish concludes that grace is given indiscriminately by God to whomever God chooses. In many ways, this interpretation is quite Augustinian. Augustine makes it quite clear that if God must give grace to those who deserve and cannot give grace to those who do not deserve it, then we violate the Divine Will. God’s Will cannot be bound by our logic. God gives grace to whom God deems to give it to, good or bad. In this sense, the Coen film and the Portis novel are, not only religious, but Augustinian and protestant.
Yet, I would suggest that a third way presents itself for understand freely. Perhaps we don’t go to the lunch line to pick up grace if we want, and God does not give it to just anyone. Perhaps God gives grace to everyone at judgment day. Portis’ novel clearly depicts the harshness of life and the insight that we know from the Book of Job that the good often suffer and the bad often are rewarded. Yet, grace need not be given in this life, which is what I think the novel truly depicts. Grace is free, but everything else you have to pay for.
Of course, we know that isn’t true either. But perhaps rethinking our conception of grace might help us accept that fact of the present world.
Stanley Fish has also commented on the recent installment. He concludes that True Grit is a religious movie. Religion in this movie I “is everything, not despite but because of its refusal to resolve or soften the dilemmas the narrative delivers up.” That dilemma, according to Fish, is that Grace is given freely -- arbitrarily -- by God regardless of whether one is good or bad in life. Mattie our heroine, for instance, loses her arm and lives as a spinster after avenging her father’s death. Fish does not consider, as one commentator on his blog points out, that “Justice is mine saith the Lord,” which could mean that Mattie is bad, just as bad maybe, as Ned Pepper or Tom Chaney, who killed her father. And, I think it is quite clear throughout the novel and the movie that Rooster Cogburn is no saint.
Fish’s conclusion hinges on his interpretation of a particular sentence that the book and movie share. Fish writes
“The springs of that universe are revealed to us by the narrator-heroine Mattie in words that appear both in Charles Portis’s novel and the two films, but with a difference. The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious.”
Fish sees two ways of understanding how “grace” is free: either one can go up to the lunch line and get it or God gives it to whomever God wants regardless of whether the person deserves it or not. Because Mattie’s world is so hard, and things just happen to good people and bad people, Fish concludes that grace is given indiscriminately by God to whomever God chooses. In many ways, this interpretation is quite Augustinian. Augustine makes it quite clear that if God must give grace to those who deserve and cannot give grace to those who do not deserve it, then we violate the Divine Will. God’s Will cannot be bound by our logic. God gives grace to whom God deems to give it to, good or bad. In this sense, the Coen film and the Portis novel are, not only religious, but Augustinian and protestant.
Yet, I would suggest that a third way presents itself for understand freely. Perhaps we don’t go to the lunch line to pick up grace if we want, and God does not give it to just anyone. Perhaps God gives grace to everyone at judgment day. Portis’ novel clearly depicts the harshness of life and the insight that we know from the Book of Job that the good often suffer and the bad often are rewarded. Yet, grace need not be given in this life, which is what I think the novel truly depicts. Grace is free, but everything else you have to pay for.
Of course, we know that isn’t true either. But perhaps rethinking our conception of grace might help us accept that fact of the present world.
Prayer for Giffords
08/01/11 21:24
I just wanted to take a moment to offer a prayer for Congresswoman Giffords. I also want to offer a prayer for politics and politicians in America. May we find some way to work together for the common good.
Government Attack on Unions
06/01/11 15:00
A recent broadcast on labor unions discussed many points about the weakening of private sector labor unions, the squeeze government has placed on public sector labor unions, and the way that labor unions have been stolen from for years, and so now people do not want their taxes paid to subsidize labor union pensions for public sector employees -- firemen, teachers, police. Many governors are either attacking the very idea of labor unions -- suggesting legislation that either does not allow public sector employees to unionize or legislation which would prevent unions from requiring dues -- or by attacking traditional ways in which labor unions work -- for example, cutting pensions or demanding pay freezes.
The broadcast really brought out, however, that the attack by the government on labor unions supports the corporate attack on labor unions. The corporate world has really undermined private sector labor unions over the last 40 years, to where now only 7% of private sector employees belong to labor unions. When I first discovered this fact, I was amazed, because I’d heard so much about how labor unions control the world and how they make such demands on corporations. In fact, however, it is the corporations that have exercised control over unions and, thereby, also over non-unionized labor. Michael Zweig rightly claims then that “the attack on anything having to do with worker rights is now focused on public sector unions.”
Of course, the claim that government cannot pay what is due to labor unions is false. It can pay, but the people that we elect -- yes, so we are responsible for their decisions -- have other priorities, including funding a war, funding tax breaks for large corporations and rich people, and keeping themselves in office by raising corporate dollars to spend on elections.
We have to stand up for unions, stand up against the corporations, and stand up and demand that our elected officials represent us, not the corporations, or at least not the corporations at our expense.
The broadcast really brought out, however, that the attack by the government on labor unions supports the corporate attack on labor unions. The corporate world has really undermined private sector labor unions over the last 40 years, to where now only 7% of private sector employees belong to labor unions. When I first discovered this fact, I was amazed, because I’d heard so much about how labor unions control the world and how they make such demands on corporations. In fact, however, it is the corporations that have exercised control over unions and, thereby, also over non-unionized labor. Michael Zweig rightly claims then that “the attack on anything having to do with worker rights is now focused on public sector unions.”
Of course, the claim that government cannot pay what is due to labor unions is false. It can pay, but the people that we elect -- yes, so we are responsible for their decisions -- have other priorities, including funding a war, funding tax breaks for large corporations and rich people, and keeping themselves in office by raising corporate dollars to spend on elections.
We have to stand up for unions, stand up against the corporations, and stand up and demand that our elected officials represent us, not the corporations, or at least not the corporations at our expense.
Meaning of Marriage
05/01/11 12:54
Think out Loud held a discussion of the meaning of marriage today. I listened to part of the program which included interviews with Maggie Gallagher and Todd Simmons. Maggie did not marry her boyfriend who was the father of her first child, but is now married and works in Washington against gay marriage. Todd Simmons is a supporter of gay marriage, is “married” to another man, and they’ve adopted two children. Both came to the issue from different perspectives. Gallagher says that when she became pregnant in the later seventies, no one even suggested that she should marry the father of her child. Simmons grew up the son of a minister and hid his homosexuality until later in life. For Gallagher, it was her experience as a single mom that made her convinced that marriage is necessary for raising children. For Simmons, marriage arose organically from seeing how committed his husband is and the deep love he has for him.
Historically, marriage came about for many different reasons. Many marriages were, and even now in some countries still are, arranged to make political connections between families. Love had nothing to do with it. Even for people in common classes, love might have little to do with marriage. Today, of course, we think love is essential to marriage. Even the Catholic Church says that love must be the foundation of marriage for it symbolizes the love of Christ for his Church. Love, of course, can grow in relationships, even between people in an arranged marriage, just as love can fail in a relationship. Moreover, we know that, on average, children do much better in a household with a committed couple -- though if there is abuse, then the children and abused spouse are best removed from the situation.
How, then, should we think about the meaning of marriage given our history and given the current culture? What are we to understand by marriage?
I think it is clear that marriage -- however we define, whether as the ideological nuclear family of the contemporary period or the arranged marriages of Solomon, or something in the middle like marriage with the husband keeping concubines -- serves as the foundation of society. Marriage is a social institution that defines duties and responsibilities -- those of the couple to each other, of the couple to the children (and vice versa), and of the society to the couple.
If we look at that last aspect though, we can ask various questions. If marriage is meaningful for society, then why does not society address the many challenges that marriages face? We hear so much about how homosexual marriage will destroy the institution of marriage, but the institution of marriage has been under attack for far longer from other institutions in society.
In fact, it does not seem implausible to say that the greatest attack on the institution of marriage has been, not the recent possibility of homosexual marriage, but capitalism and the market economy in which we’ve lived over the last three hundred years. Homosexual relations did nothing to undermine the institution of marriage among the Golden Age Greeks of the third and fourth centuries BCE. Nor did homosexuality undermine the institution of marriage among the Lakota Sioux who were much more accepting of homosexuals than contemporary American society. An institution, however, that alienates individuals from themselves and from others can cause the breakdown of all social relationships, including, and perhaps especially, marriage.
If we truly value marriage, then, perhaps we should look at the real threats to it.
Historically, marriage came about for many different reasons. Many marriages were, and even now in some countries still are, arranged to make political connections between families. Love had nothing to do with it. Even for people in common classes, love might have little to do with marriage. Today, of course, we think love is essential to marriage. Even the Catholic Church says that love must be the foundation of marriage for it symbolizes the love of Christ for his Church. Love, of course, can grow in relationships, even between people in an arranged marriage, just as love can fail in a relationship. Moreover, we know that, on average, children do much better in a household with a committed couple -- though if there is abuse, then the children and abused spouse are best removed from the situation.
How, then, should we think about the meaning of marriage given our history and given the current culture? What are we to understand by marriage?
I think it is clear that marriage -- however we define, whether as the ideological nuclear family of the contemporary period or the arranged marriages of Solomon, or something in the middle like marriage with the husband keeping concubines -- serves as the foundation of society. Marriage is a social institution that defines duties and responsibilities -- those of the couple to each other, of the couple to the children (and vice versa), and of the society to the couple.
If we look at that last aspect though, we can ask various questions. If marriage is meaningful for society, then why does not society address the many challenges that marriages face? We hear so much about how homosexual marriage will destroy the institution of marriage, but the institution of marriage has been under attack for far longer from other institutions in society.
In fact, it does not seem implausible to say that the greatest attack on the institution of marriage has been, not the recent possibility of homosexual marriage, but capitalism and the market economy in which we’ve lived over the last three hundred years. Homosexual relations did nothing to undermine the institution of marriage among the Golden Age Greeks of the third and fourth centuries BCE. Nor did homosexuality undermine the institution of marriage among the Lakota Sioux who were much more accepting of homosexuals than contemporary American society. An institution, however, that alienates individuals from themselves and from others can cause the breakdown of all social relationships, including, and perhaps especially, marriage.
If we truly value marriage, then, perhaps we should look at the real threats to it.
Fragmented Manufacturing
04/01/11 12:37
On Here and Now today, they interviewed a professor from MIT about bringing manufacturing jobs to the US. Listening to the interview proved interesting because of the way she explained current manufacturing in the US and her comparison between the US, which has lost manufacturing jobs, and Europe, which has kept good-paying manufacturing jobs.
One important piece for understanding manufacturing in the US, the professor contended, proves to be what I shall call fragmentation of the manufacturing process. Before, an item might be manufactured in a particular building or company that included a technician, a designer, and other people working on the same item. Now, however, businesses have focused on their core function, and one place will design an item and send it somewhere else for technical engineering, and send that somewhere else to be manufactured. In other words, businesses, like IBM, have concentrated on one task and other companies have taken over other tasks for manufacturing a particular item. The MIT professor said that US manufacturing has not learned how to manufacture products given the new business model.
This point, I think, raises the issue of alienation. Marx pointed out that a person becomes alienated from her work when she does not create the whole product. When part of the manufacturing is taken away from a worker, that worker loses control over the product being made. She has less vested in the item, including less of herself, and, thus, can tend to see the item as something out there opposed to her.
MacIntyre pointed out early on that this alienation prevents us from exercising our fully human capabilities. For him, this inability constitutes one of the core moral problems for a capitalistic system.
We should not easily dismiss these points because they arise out of a Marxist analysis. At issue here is how to have a humanizing economy and a humanizing “business” model. Such a humanizing economy rests on making work serve human needs rather than making human beings serve work needs. It might be time we begin to question this fragmented model of manufacturing and ask whether it serves truly human interests.
One important piece for understanding manufacturing in the US, the professor contended, proves to be what I shall call fragmentation of the manufacturing process. Before, an item might be manufactured in a particular building or company that included a technician, a designer, and other people working on the same item. Now, however, businesses have focused on their core function, and one place will design an item and send it somewhere else for technical engineering, and send that somewhere else to be manufactured. In other words, businesses, like IBM, have concentrated on one task and other companies have taken over other tasks for manufacturing a particular item. The MIT professor said that US manufacturing has not learned how to manufacture products given the new business model.
This point, I think, raises the issue of alienation. Marx pointed out that a person becomes alienated from her work when she does not create the whole product. When part of the manufacturing is taken away from a worker, that worker loses control over the product being made. She has less vested in the item, including less of herself, and, thus, can tend to see the item as something out there opposed to her.
MacIntyre pointed out early on that this alienation prevents us from exercising our fully human capabilities. For him, this inability constitutes one of the core moral problems for a capitalistic system.
We should not easily dismiss these points because they arise out of a Marxist analysis. At issue here is how to have a humanizing economy and a humanizing “business” model. Such a humanizing economy rests on making work serve human needs rather than making human beings serve work needs. It might be time we begin to question this fragmented model of manufacturing and ask whether it serves truly human interests.
Higher Ed and Jobs
03/01/11 13:51
On Think Out Loud today, the guests discussed plans to change funding for higher education in Oregon. The guest commented on a variety of interesting issues, including how legislators deal with funding higher education. It should be common knowledge by now that legislatures both in Oregon and across the United States, as well as throughout the industrialized world, have cut back on funding for the last 30 years, if not more. Rising tuition rates coincide with decreased government funding of “public” education. What was more surprising to me was the claim that, in Oregon, at least, legislatures have gone into the university funding system and removed tuition money to make up for depleted government resources. In other words, if the state government faces a financial short fall, they have been known to take the money that students have paid in tuition to make up for that shortfall.
This action violates any number of moral principles, and I would think should violate a number of legal principles, but, I take it, does not.
We are all going to have to decide what to do about higher education -- you and I, the tax payer and the people who rely on this education for our futures. We will have to open up our minds on how we think about this though. If we only focus on funding education -- getting the cheapest bang for the buck -- we are going to be selling ourselves and our society short. We are going to be selling our children and grandchildren short.
We have to discuss the purpose of education.
Unfortunately, the education we’ve been provided at the elementary, secondary, and higher education levels have been inadequate for preparing us to engage in the debates necessary for these discussions. We can tell this in part because educational funding does not begin with a discussion of the purpose of education for a free society. It begins with one and only one goal -- getting people to jobs.
Don’t get me wrong: getting a job is important for everyone. Each and every human being has a right by virtue of being a human being of work, work paid at a living salary to support themselves in their families in humane living conditions. Education and work, however, should not be tied together in the way that it is sold to us.
I say “sold” advisedly. When I lived in Kentucky, the government instituted the slogan “education pays.” When we cheapen education in this way, we are being sold a bill of goods, because education is not about getting a job. Anyone who has ever held a job knows this, because we know that you learn what you need on the job. What education must do is prepare us to enter any job we want so that we can learn in that situation, so that we can adjust to new and changing circumstances, and so that we can live in changing and challenging times.
So long as we continue to discuss funding education without looking at humanizing education, however, we shall never achieve those goals. We will only end up in the movie Idiocracy.
This action violates any number of moral principles, and I would think should violate a number of legal principles, but, I take it, does not.
We are all going to have to decide what to do about higher education -- you and I, the tax payer and the people who rely on this education for our futures. We will have to open up our minds on how we think about this though. If we only focus on funding education -- getting the cheapest bang for the buck -- we are going to be selling ourselves and our society short. We are going to be selling our children and grandchildren short.
We have to discuss the purpose of education.
Unfortunately, the education we’ve been provided at the elementary, secondary, and higher education levels have been inadequate for preparing us to engage in the debates necessary for these discussions. We can tell this in part because educational funding does not begin with a discussion of the purpose of education for a free society. It begins with one and only one goal -- getting people to jobs.
Don’t get me wrong: getting a job is important for everyone. Each and every human being has a right by virtue of being a human being of work, work paid at a living salary to support themselves in their families in humane living conditions. Education and work, however, should not be tied together in the way that it is sold to us.
I say “sold” advisedly. When I lived in Kentucky, the government instituted the slogan “education pays.” When we cheapen education in this way, we are being sold a bill of goods, because education is not about getting a job. Anyone who has ever held a job knows this, because we know that you learn what you need on the job. What education must do is prepare us to enter any job we want so that we can learn in that situation, so that we can adjust to new and changing circumstances, and so that we can live in changing and challenging times.
So long as we continue to discuss funding education without looking at humanizing education, however, we shall never achieve those goals. We will only end up in the movie Idiocracy.
Education and the Common Good
30/12/10 15:43
Stanley Fish comments on the proposed legislation in the UK that would change the way higher education is paid for and how money is allocated to different disciplines in higher education. One might wonder whether we need yet another article decrying the fate of higher education in the contemporary world. One might also wonder why this blog would once more comment on the plight of higher education in the contemporary world. We know my position, right? And we know what’s at stake, right? Then let people make their decisions.
While some truth attends to the idea that a lot has already been said -- maybe even too much -- I think Fish points out something inadvertently and, seemingly, without realizing it, but something that proves very important to the conversation. Fish writes
“Higher education is no longer conceived of as a public good — as a good the effects of which permeate society — but is rather a private benefit, and as such it should be supported by those who enjoy the benefit. “It is reasonable to ask those who gain private benefits from higher education to help fund it rather than rely . . . on public funds collected through taxation from people who have not participated in higher education themselves.” No one who has not been to a university has any stake in the health or survival of the system.”
Higher education is no longer seen as a public good. Another way of saying this is that higher education is no longer seen as a common good. In fact, the very notion of common good has lost any real meaning in the contemporary world. Money constitutes the only common good, and that because it comprises something common between every one’s private good.
The common good, however, cannot be understood simply as the sum of every private good in society. Education exemplifies this point.
Educators fear, especially those of us in the humanities and social sciences, that privatizing education will entail that certain disciplines -- those that are not seem to correspond on a one-to-one basis with money and jobs -- will disappear through lack of funding. Imagine, though, what society would be like if this scenario truly resulted. The world would be without studies in literature, in philosophy, in psychology, or in political science.
So what, someone might ask, what good do those do us anyway? Or, maybe, someone will respond, no, philosophy doesn’t depend on being educated in philosophy.
Yet, we generally judge those societies without literature and without philosophy to be less valuable than those with literature and philosophy. Literature, philosophy, and political science, among other fields of knowledge, constitute real common goods -- goods that people share, that cannot be privatized, and that make society better just from being part of the culture. A society without them -- a people without them -- are impoverished and less human.
The real question, then, in the debates over higher education is a question about the common good -- whether there is any such common good, and what responsibility we as a society have to support that common good -- even if it produces no utilitarian results for us.
While some truth attends to the idea that a lot has already been said -- maybe even too much -- I think Fish points out something inadvertently and, seemingly, without realizing it, but something that proves very important to the conversation. Fish writes
“Higher education is no longer conceived of as a public good — as a good the effects of which permeate society — but is rather a private benefit, and as such it should be supported by those who enjoy the benefit. “It is reasonable to ask those who gain private benefits from higher education to help fund it rather than rely . . . on public funds collected through taxation from people who have not participated in higher education themselves.” No one who has not been to a university has any stake in the health or survival of the system.”
Higher education is no longer seen as a public good. Another way of saying this is that higher education is no longer seen as a common good. In fact, the very notion of common good has lost any real meaning in the contemporary world. Money constitutes the only common good, and that because it comprises something common between every one’s private good.
The common good, however, cannot be understood simply as the sum of every private good in society. Education exemplifies this point.
Educators fear, especially those of us in the humanities and social sciences, that privatizing education will entail that certain disciplines -- those that are not seem to correspond on a one-to-one basis with money and jobs -- will disappear through lack of funding. Imagine, though, what society would be like if this scenario truly resulted. The world would be without studies in literature, in philosophy, in psychology, or in political science.
So what, someone might ask, what good do those do us anyway? Or, maybe, someone will respond, no, philosophy doesn’t depend on being educated in philosophy.
Yet, we generally judge those societies without literature and without philosophy to be less valuable than those with literature and philosophy. Literature, philosophy, and political science, among other fields of knowledge, constitute real common goods -- goods that people share, that cannot be privatized, and that make society better just from being part of the culture. A society without them -- a people without them -- are impoverished and less human.
The real question, then, in the debates over higher education is a question about the common good -- whether there is any such common good, and what responsibility we as a society have to support that common good -- even if it produces no utilitarian results for us.
Dystopia Now
27/12/10 15:02
Christ Hedges paints a powerful and depressing picture. He argues that we are moving from the Huxley depicted dystopia of inane pleasure to the Orwellian dystopia of pure terror. Is he right? I hope not.
Clearly, though, we have been living in a Huxley-like Brave New World for several decades now. Alcohol serves as our soma, and, for many people, marijuana also serves. We argue about when, where, and how much we can ingest, ignoring other important rights that we might claim -- like the right to work at a living wage that can support our children in school and provide us a comfortable retirement. We buy into the system by constantly buying, due to the credit that we amassed over the last decades. As soon as we enter college, we are bombarded with offers of credit, credit in the form of low-interest loans to pay for our education and credit cards to purchase our pizza and beer for the weekends. Our lives often center around getting to the weekend because work is so painful.
Yet, we never question this. Oh, we are told to find work we love: “do what you love, and the money will follow.” How many of us have that luxury? And if we happen to fall out of work, well, it was because we didn’t work hard enough.
What do we do now? That is the question, really, that Hedges is asking. We can continue to move into the Orwellian hell that every high schooler learns about, or we can unite and stand up against the corporate culture.
Alasdair MacIntyre, of whom I’ve written before, predicted in 1981 that we were headed for a new dark ages ruled by the corporate and state bureaucrats. He declared we needed a new Benedict to lead us to a new way of life in the coming dark ages. If Hedges is right, then we still need that new Benedict.
Unlike the peoples of late antiquity, we have had warning upon warning in the form of dystopian novels and philosophers like MacIntyre. Yet, I wonder if we’ve listened at all to these prophets.
I am hoping in 2011, we do so more.
Clearly, though, we have been living in a Huxley-like Brave New World for several decades now. Alcohol serves as our soma, and, for many people, marijuana also serves. We argue about when, where, and how much we can ingest, ignoring other important rights that we might claim -- like the right to work at a living wage that can support our children in school and provide us a comfortable retirement. We buy into the system by constantly buying, due to the credit that we amassed over the last decades. As soon as we enter college, we are bombarded with offers of credit, credit in the form of low-interest loans to pay for our education and credit cards to purchase our pizza and beer for the weekends. Our lives often center around getting to the weekend because work is so painful.
Yet, we never question this. Oh, we are told to find work we love: “do what you love, and the money will follow.” How many of us have that luxury? And if we happen to fall out of work, well, it was because we didn’t work hard enough.
What do we do now? That is the question, really, that Hedges is asking. We can continue to move into the Orwellian hell that every high schooler learns about, or we can unite and stand up against the corporate culture.
Alasdair MacIntyre, of whom I’ve written before, predicted in 1981 that we were headed for a new dark ages ruled by the corporate and state bureaucrats. He declared we needed a new Benedict to lead us to a new way of life in the coming dark ages. If Hedges is right, then we still need that new Benedict.
Unlike the peoples of late antiquity, we have had warning upon warning in the form of dystopian novels and philosophers like MacIntyre. Yet, I wonder if we’ve listened at all to these prophets.
I am hoping in 2011, we do so more.
Conservative and Liberals in the Academy
23/12/10 17:04
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/were-all-conservatives-now/
Stanley Fish, in an article about higher education, claims that the people on the left and the right want the same thing in education: an education that leads to enlightenment. When liberals decry the corporate take-over of higher education through the reduction of taxes that support higher education or the move to privatize education and conservatives condemn predominant liberal-slant of higher education programs, they both reference the same ideal of the university. This ideal, for Fish, is that of university which seeks to “expand its knowledge . . . to rid itself of errors, and generally to increase its enlightenment.”
I find Fish’s take questionable. I have not been around as long as Fish, and hope someday that I will be, but I’ve been to a number of higher institutions. None of them have been particularly left-leaning. The programs which would tend to be left-leaning, the women’s studies programs or the African-American programs, are generally underfunded, do not offer majors, and are staffed by professors in other departments. Maybe my experience is selective, and I hope so. We need more diversity in higher education, not less.
Which brings me to the heart of my disagreement with Fish’s take. A system which turns to private dollars for education cannot support the ultimate goal of expanding knowledge, of ridding the current fields of knowledge of their errors, or of increasing enlightenment. Isn’t it time to stop and wonder why the increase in relativism in higher education coincides with the increased privatization and corporate manipulation of higher education. Relativism belongs, not only to the left, but as much if not more to the right. Relativism removes the possibility of establishing firm moral grounds and opens the door to corporate interests to influence research and teaching.
I’m not rejecting Fish’s take altogether. I’m simply suggesting the story he offers is too simplistic and the parallels he draws between the left and the right with respect to higher education need more careful thought. Only a higher education funded by public -- not private -- dollars can really answer the important questions here, and that seems to be the main difference between the conservative the liberal takes on these basic issues.
Stanley Fish, in an article about higher education, claims that the people on the left and the right want the same thing in education: an education that leads to enlightenment. When liberals decry the corporate take-over of higher education through the reduction of taxes that support higher education or the move to privatize education and conservatives condemn predominant liberal-slant of higher education programs, they both reference the same ideal of the university. This ideal, for Fish, is that of university which seeks to “expand its knowledge . . . to rid itself of errors, and generally to increase its enlightenment.”
I find Fish’s take questionable. I have not been around as long as Fish, and hope someday that I will be, but I’ve been to a number of higher institutions. None of them have been particularly left-leaning. The programs which would tend to be left-leaning, the women’s studies programs or the African-American programs, are generally underfunded, do not offer majors, and are staffed by professors in other departments. Maybe my experience is selective, and I hope so. We need more diversity in higher education, not less.
Which brings me to the heart of my disagreement with Fish’s take. A system which turns to private dollars for education cannot support the ultimate goal of expanding knowledge, of ridding the current fields of knowledge of their errors, or of increasing enlightenment. Isn’t it time to stop and wonder why the increase in relativism in higher education coincides with the increased privatization and corporate manipulation of higher education. Relativism belongs, not only to the left, but as much if not more to the right. Relativism removes the possibility of establishing firm moral grounds and opens the door to corporate interests to influence research and teaching.
I’m not rejecting Fish’s take altogether. I’m simply suggesting the story he offers is too simplistic and the parallels he draws between the left and the right with respect to higher education need more careful thought. Only a higher education funded by public -- not private -- dollars can really answer the important questions here, and that seems to be the main difference between the conservative the liberal takes on these basic issues.
True Failure of Capitalism
21/12/10 11:51
“The essential failure of capitalism is that the kind of society which capitalism creates is one that can never fully employ the skills of hand and brain and eye, the exercise of which is part of man’s true being” (Alasdair MacIntyre’s Engagement with Marxism, p. 6)
I’m thinking about this quote on several levels. Today, I will focus on the issue of the essential failure of capitalism.
The claim MacIntyre makes here is a claim about the moral failure of capitalism. The inability to employ those things which are part of our true being constitutes a moral issue in the fullest sense. So MacIntyre steps away from the Marxist analysis of capitalism as simply a poor step in the progress of history to the full freedom humanity will find at the end of history. Rather, he is pointing out that capitalism does not simply fail as a failed moment of history or as a moment of history that another stage will supercede.
We should look at this claim carefully at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. We should look at this claim carefully as capitalism has triumphed recently in America with the move toward a more corporate-friendly policy in Washington and across the world. We should look at this claim carefully as we stare out into the world looking for an alternative economic system.
We should look at this claim carefully as we celebrate the Christmas season -- the season of giving and of love.
I call to mind the third-fourth century saint, Nicholas of Myra, who was born of a wealthy family, but used his wealth to help others. Consider that famous story of how he three three bags of gold coins into the window of a man who could not marry off his daughters. That story embodies the truth MacIntyre points at: prostitution comprises a system in which the individuals involved cannot employ those things that make us most human. We can argue about whether marriage, especially arranged marriages at the end of the classic period, allowed such fruition for women. The point, however, is that Christian love and humanism require us to use our goods to support the flourishing, not only of ourselves -- which is centrally important -- but of those in our community who are most in need.
Capitalism can never allow that, mainly because capitalism cannot allow humanity to flourish. Oh, individuals can flourish, but a truly good city is one in which each member flourishes.
I’m thinking about this quote on several levels. Today, I will focus on the issue of the essential failure of capitalism.
The claim MacIntyre makes here is a claim about the moral failure of capitalism. The inability to employ those things which are part of our true being constitutes a moral issue in the fullest sense. So MacIntyre steps away from the Marxist analysis of capitalism as simply a poor step in the progress of history to the full freedom humanity will find at the end of history. Rather, he is pointing out that capitalism does not simply fail as a failed moment of history or as a moment of history that another stage will supercede.
We should look at this claim carefully at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. We should look at this claim carefully as capitalism has triumphed recently in America with the move toward a more corporate-friendly policy in Washington and across the world. We should look at this claim carefully as we stare out into the world looking for an alternative economic system.
We should look at this claim carefully as we celebrate the Christmas season -- the season of giving and of love.
I call to mind the third-fourth century saint, Nicholas of Myra, who was born of a wealthy family, but used his wealth to help others. Consider that famous story of how he three three bags of gold coins into the window of a man who could not marry off his daughters. That story embodies the truth MacIntyre points at: prostitution comprises a system in which the individuals involved cannot employ those things that make us most human. We can argue about whether marriage, especially arranged marriages at the end of the classic period, allowed such fruition for women. The point, however, is that Christian love and humanism require us to use our goods to support the flourishing, not only of ourselves -- which is centrally important -- but of those in our community who are most in need.
Capitalism can never allow that, mainly because capitalism cannot allow humanity to flourish. Oh, individuals can flourish, but a truly good city is one in which each member flourishes.
Lazy, Crazy, and Me
20/12/10 16:42
http://www.truth-out.org/why-lazy-jobless-myth-persists66059
It’s an unfortunate circumstance: millions of people are out of work, 99.9% of them through no fault of their own. As a matter of fact, without unemployment, capitalism would not be able to survive as it does. Some people must be out of work so that wages remain low. Many others have been cut because (1) their job has moved out of country for lower wages, (2) they were cut so that the bottom line could remain high, or (3) the business they worked for tanked because the economy tanked.
Instead of recognizing the truth of unemployment, however, that people fall into unfortunate circumstances often caused by others to protect their bottom line, we make up myths about the unemployed, most particularly that the unemployed are either lazy, crazy, or both. These myths, as the article linked above says, protect our self image and work as defense mechanisms in frightening times like the ones in which we live.
What’s crazy is that we as a people, as a country, continue to buy into the same lies and policy decisions year after year, election cycle after election cycle. Crazy is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result.
Let’s wake up and do something different, something that will protect people and that will allow each and every person to achieve full integral development.
It’s an unfortunate circumstance: millions of people are out of work, 99.9% of them through no fault of their own. As a matter of fact, without unemployment, capitalism would not be able to survive as it does. Some people must be out of work so that wages remain low. Many others have been cut because (1) their job has moved out of country for lower wages, (2) they were cut so that the bottom line could remain high, or (3) the business they worked for tanked because the economy tanked.
Instead of recognizing the truth of unemployment, however, that people fall into unfortunate circumstances often caused by others to protect their bottom line, we make up myths about the unemployed, most particularly that the unemployed are either lazy, crazy, or both. These myths, as the article linked above says, protect our self image and work as defense mechanisms in frightening times like the ones in which we live.
What’s crazy is that we as a people, as a country, continue to buy into the same lies and policy decisions year after year, election cycle after election cycle. Crazy is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result.
Let’s wake up and do something different, something that will protect people and that will allow each and every person to achieve full integral development.
War and Spending
19/12/10 12:08
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/12/17/house-overwhelmingly-approves-new-725-billion-military-spending-bill/
In more government news, congress passed the largest military budget in history, totaling $725 billion!
The hubris in passing such a bill with such a large majority of congress voting for it calls to mind the saying that “a government’s budget is an ethical statement because it shows the priorities.” How many of these people voted for tax breaks for the rich and threatened to withhold voting to extend unemployment benefits?
How can we justify this expenditure when we are cutting the social security tax by 2%? The military faces no threat of being underfunded whereas we know that social security will run out of funds by 2047 or before.
Much more can be said about this bill, but I think it is enough to keep in mind that this is the Christmas season -- the season of peace -- and that we clearly know the priorities of the US government.
Which means we know the priorities of the citizens of the United States.
In more government news, congress passed the largest military budget in history, totaling $725 billion!
The hubris in passing such a bill with such a large majority of congress voting for it calls to mind the saying that “a government’s budget is an ethical statement because it shows the priorities.” How many of these people voted for tax breaks for the rich and threatened to withhold voting to extend unemployment benefits?
How can we justify this expenditure when we are cutting the social security tax by 2%? The military faces no threat of being underfunded whereas we know that social security will run out of funds by 2047 or before.
Much more can be said about this bill, but I think it is enough to keep in mind that this is the Christmas season -- the season of peace -- and that we clearly know the priorities of the US government.
Which means we know the priorities of the citizens of the United States.
Recovery AND Recession
17/12/10 12:41
“Profits owe their V-shape in great part to employment’s L-shape.”
People ask me if the rich getting richer really mean that the middle class and the poor get poorer. Don’t we just increase economic growth, and those at the top are winners because they knew when to invest and had the money to invest?
The answer is quite simply no. We do not have an ability to create wealth out of nothing or to increase wealth on an infinite time line. If there are winners, it often means there are losers. This win-lose situation does not necessarily mean that the winners intend to harm the losers -- it might just be the system. Yet, in this financial market, over the last 40 years, we’ve seen time and time again evidence of the rich pushing programs that support tax breaks for themselves and prevented legislation to improve wages. Their claims that tax breaks to the rich produces jobs has been shown not to be true over and over in the last 40 years. This strikes me as intentional infelicity.
We can have economic recovery and we can live at a moderately well-off level if we set up our system to produce those goals. We can wipe out most poverty and certainly end hunger throughout the United States and the world. But those goals require an intention to make it happen and a will as well. Will means that we -- every one of us -- rise up and demand that tax codes and government policy stop favoring the rich at the expense of the poor.
The quote above is from http://www.truth-out.org/the-greatest-recovery-part-i66040?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TRUTHOUT+%28t+r+u+t+h+o+u+t+|+News+Politics%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
People ask me if the rich getting richer really mean that the middle class and the poor get poorer. Don’t we just increase economic growth, and those at the top are winners because they knew when to invest and had the money to invest?
The answer is quite simply no. We do not have an ability to create wealth out of nothing or to increase wealth on an infinite time line. If there are winners, it often means there are losers. This win-lose situation does not necessarily mean that the winners intend to harm the losers -- it might just be the system. Yet, in this financial market, over the last 40 years, we’ve seen time and time again evidence of the rich pushing programs that support tax breaks for themselves and prevented legislation to improve wages. Their claims that tax breaks to the rich produces jobs has been shown not to be true over and over in the last 40 years. This strikes me as intentional infelicity.
We can have economic recovery and we can live at a moderately well-off level if we set up our system to produce those goals. We can wipe out most poverty and certainly end hunger throughout the United States and the world. But those goals require an intention to make it happen and a will as well. Will means that we -- every one of us -- rise up and demand that tax codes and government policy stop favoring the rich at the expense of the poor.
The quote above is from http://www.truth-out.org/the-greatest-recovery-part-i66040?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TRUTHOUT+%28t+r+u+t+h+o+u+t+|+News+Politics%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
American Indigenous Tribes Are Nations
17/12/10 12:26
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20101217/AGENCY04/12170304/
In at least one step he’s gotten right in the last weeks of this turbulent year, President Obama has signed the United Nations treaty that recognizes indigenous peoples are independent nations. This means that the 565 recognized indigenous tribal groups in North Americans -- Native Americans, if you will, are sovereign nations. With good will and honesty, this move means that these Nations should be consulted on future decisions concerning their lands and practices.
This move is a great step forward in recognizing the dignity of people who had developed many wonderful cultures and practices before Europeans brought disease and war to the Americas that wiped out 90% of millions of first nation peoples. It’s way past time for Americans to fess up to the horrors they’ve committed throughout history against the Native Americans and have continued to commit. For example, the U.S. Government wants to open new uranium mines in North and South Dakota when they have failed to close off ones that they no longer use. Incidence of cancer is thousands of times higher on reservations than outside of reservations because of these open uranium mines.
Perhaps this recognition of national sovereignty signifies a move forward on the right path that will continue into the future.
In at least one step he’s gotten right in the last weeks of this turbulent year, President Obama has signed the United Nations treaty that recognizes indigenous peoples are independent nations. This means that the 565 recognized indigenous tribal groups in North Americans -- Native Americans, if you will, are sovereign nations. With good will and honesty, this move means that these Nations should be consulted on future decisions concerning their lands and practices.
This move is a great step forward in recognizing the dignity of people who had developed many wonderful cultures and practices before Europeans brought disease and war to the Americas that wiped out 90% of millions of first nation peoples. It’s way past time for Americans to fess up to the horrors they’ve committed throughout history against the Native Americans and have continued to commit. For example, the U.S. Government wants to open new uranium mines in North and South Dakota when they have failed to close off ones that they no longer use. Incidence of cancer is thousands of times higher on reservations than outside of reservations because of these open uranium mines.
Perhaps this recognition of national sovereignty signifies a move forward on the right path that will continue into the future.
More From Bernie Sanders: Break Up Banks
16/12/10 14:11
In his personal fillibuster concerning the tax deal “compromise” worked out between Republican senators and Obama, Bernie Sanders said
“In my view, if we are serious about understanding why the middle class is collapsing, if we are serious about getting this economy moving again long term, we have to have the courage to do exactly what Teddy Roosevelt did back in the trust-busting days and break up these banks.”
He is exactly right. The correct approach in the lat bank debacle was, first, to bail out the system, and then to break up the banks -- the mega-conglomerates which control most of the money in the world. If something is too big to fail, then it is too big to let stand as is. We cannot let any one individual or corporation control our lives to such an extent that we have to sacrifice ourselves for their personal benefit, especially on this scale.
We as individuals can do two things: first, we can pressure our representatives to break up the banks, something they have been reluctant to do. Second, we, as individuals, can take our money out of the national and international banks and put our money into credit unions. Credit unions help their communities, are more likely to loan to small businesses -- which, by the way, are the main job creators -- and are more likely to give and to give higher dividends to your checking and savings accounts. This suggestion came from Michael Moore months ago, and whether you like him or not, it’s a great idea. Take control of your investments, invest in your local communities, by investing in credit unions.
“In my view, if we are serious about understanding why the middle class is collapsing, if we are serious about getting this economy moving again long term, we have to have the courage to do exactly what Teddy Roosevelt did back in the trust-busting days and break up these banks.”
He is exactly right. The correct approach in the lat bank debacle was, first, to bail out the system, and then to break up the banks -- the mega-conglomerates which control most of the money in the world. If something is too big to fail, then it is too big to let stand as is. We cannot let any one individual or corporation control our lives to such an extent that we have to sacrifice ourselves for their personal benefit, especially on this scale.
We as individuals can do two things: first, we can pressure our representatives to break up the banks, something they have been reluctant to do. Second, we, as individuals, can take our money out of the national and international banks and put our money into credit unions. Credit unions help their communities, are more likely to loan to small businesses -- which, by the way, are the main job creators -- and are more likely to give and to give higher dividends to your checking and savings accounts. This suggestion came from Michael Moore months ago, and whether you like him or not, it’s a great idea. Take control of your investments, invest in your local communities, by investing in credit unions.
If you're smart and want it
15/12/10 10:42
Found on a response to an article about the tax deal:
“There isn't a finite amount of money in the USA - anyone can be rich if they plan and save and work and have some brains and initiative. And if you save some of it and/or are very successful at what you do in your life, then it belongs to YOU and you should be able to do with it as you please when you die.”
First, there may not be a limited amount of money in one sense, because we can always print more. That way, of course, leads to inflation and the devaluation of the dollar. In another real sense, however, a reality that smacks us in the face everyday, wealth cannot be created without limit. Not unless we discover a replicator like in Star Trek or they finally work out cold fusion. The earth is finite, and our continuing use of the resources like it is infinite is destroying us. This belief in the infinity of wealth, though, goes back as far, at least, as John Locke who thought the whole world was like early America -- an infinity of resources. Reality has told us it is not.
Second, this response goes back to my post from yesterday. If you earn the money, then it is YOURS. Who taught you how to earn money? What society created tax codes that allowed you to keep the money you earned? Or better, failed to close tax loop holes that allowed you to keep money you earned? This belief that what I earn is mine epitomizes the individualism that plagues our country. Money -- wealth -- is created within and because of a community that provides opportunities for wealth to be created. The wealth is as much a product of the community as it is of any one or several individuals.
Thomas Aquinas understood this, when he held that the right to property was a utility right. Individuals have a right to property because it is the best way to steward that property for the community. Stewardship, however, goes against individualism.
Finally, it is simply hubris and blindness that allows anyone to believe that anyone can be rich. If that were so, we would not have over one billion people living in near-starvation or starvation conditions.
“There isn't a finite amount of money in the USA - anyone can be rich if they plan and save and work and have some brains and initiative. And if you save some of it and/or are very successful at what you do in your life, then it belongs to YOU and you should be able to do with it as you please when you die.”
First, there may not be a limited amount of money in one sense, because we can always print more. That way, of course, leads to inflation and the devaluation of the dollar. In another real sense, however, a reality that smacks us in the face everyday, wealth cannot be created without limit. Not unless we discover a replicator like in Star Trek or they finally work out cold fusion. The earth is finite, and our continuing use of the resources like it is infinite is destroying us. This belief in the infinity of wealth, though, goes back as far, at least, as John Locke who thought the whole world was like early America -- an infinity of resources. Reality has told us it is not.
Second, this response goes back to my post from yesterday. If you earn the money, then it is YOURS. Who taught you how to earn money? What society created tax codes that allowed you to keep the money you earned? Or better, failed to close tax loop holes that allowed you to keep money you earned? This belief that what I earn is mine epitomizes the individualism that plagues our country. Money -- wealth -- is created within and because of a community that provides opportunities for wealth to be created. The wealth is as much a product of the community as it is of any one or several individuals.
Thomas Aquinas understood this, when he held that the right to property was a utility right. Individuals have a right to property because it is the best way to steward that property for the community. Stewardship, however, goes against individualism.
Finally, it is simply hubris and blindness that allows anyone to believe that anyone can be rich. If that were so, we would not have over one billion people living in near-starvation or starvation conditions.
Individualism as the Root Problem
14/12/10 15:25
From Bernie Sanders:
“Their ultimate aim is the basic repeal of almost all of the provisions that have been passed in the last 70 years to protect working people, the elderly, and children. They believe in a Darwinian-style society in which you have the survival of the fittest; that we are not a society which comes together to take care of all of us. You take care of me in need and I take care of you and your family; that we are one people. Their strategy is pretty clear. They want to ultimately destroy Social Security.”
What Bernie Sanders did, standing before the senate for over 8 hours, pointing out the problems with the legislation that the Republicans and Obama “compromised” on for taxes is remarkable. What is more remarkable is how he gets to some of the core issues plaguing our nation. One of those issues is that of individualism.
Many people in our country, not only Republicans but also Democrats, embrace an individualism that believes we are individuals responsible for our selves and that we receive nothing from anyone. It is a denial of human nature, a denial of reality. We are, as Alasdair MacIntyre argues, essentially vulnerable beings dependent on a community for the development of our independence. We are not alligators who can scramble from our mothers wombs and fend for ourselves. Even when we mature, we human beings are communal beings who rely on each other for support in our development as fully flourishing individuals.
A healthy tax system would respect this aspect of our nature and would be designed to promote the full integral development of all human beings in the commonwealth. That means, jobs with a living wage for each person, health care -- because we never know when or who will get sick or for how long, education -- not education for a job but education for being citizens who can determine our future and the future of our society, because we learn what we need for a job ON the job. This list is just a start, but it undermines any argument for a tax break for the richest of the rich.
Whatever happened to “United we stand, divided we fall”?
“Their ultimate aim is the basic repeal of almost all of the provisions that have been passed in the last 70 years to protect working people, the elderly, and children. They believe in a Darwinian-style society in which you have the survival of the fittest; that we are not a society which comes together to take care of all of us. You take care of me in need and I take care of you and your family; that we are one people. Their strategy is pretty clear. They want to ultimately destroy Social Security.”
What Bernie Sanders did, standing before the senate for over 8 hours, pointing out the problems with the legislation that the Republicans and Obama “compromised” on for taxes is remarkable. What is more remarkable is how he gets to some of the core issues plaguing our nation. One of those issues is that of individualism.
Many people in our country, not only Republicans but also Democrats, embrace an individualism that believes we are individuals responsible for our selves and that we receive nothing from anyone. It is a denial of human nature, a denial of reality. We are, as Alasdair MacIntyre argues, essentially vulnerable beings dependent on a community for the development of our independence. We are not alligators who can scramble from our mothers wombs and fend for ourselves. Even when we mature, we human beings are communal beings who rely on each other for support in our development as fully flourishing individuals.
A healthy tax system would respect this aspect of our nature and would be designed to promote the full integral development of all human beings in the commonwealth. That means, jobs with a living wage for each person, health care -- because we never know when or who will get sick or for how long, education -- not education for a job but education for being citizens who can determine our future and the future of our society, because we learn what we need for a job ON the job. This list is just a start, but it undermines any argument for a tax break for the richest of the rich.
Whatever happened to “United we stand, divided we fall”?
Bernie Sanders Speech on Economy
05/12/10 12:15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OtB298fHY&feature=player_embedded
This video shows Senator Bernie Sanders’ speech in the Senate discussing the extension of tax cuts for the middle class and against those for the richest Americans. His speech is passionate and rational. He points out that the economic crisis and the high unemployment in the United States result from tax breaks to the wealthy and the massive amounting of wealth by the richest people in America. Well worth the watch.
This video shows Senator Bernie Sanders’ speech in the Senate discussing the extension of tax cuts for the middle class and against those for the richest Americans. His speech is passionate and rational. He points out that the economic crisis and the high unemployment in the United States result from tax breaks to the wealthy and the massive amounting of wealth by the richest people in America. Well worth the watch.
Sunday 5 December 2010
05/12/10 12:12
For any one, Catholic or otherwise, who thinks social justice is not as important as the well known hot-button issues, the first reading from Sunday 5 December 2010 might be kept in mind. It is Isaiah 11: 1-10
1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. 10 In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious.
St. Nicholas, Tax Cuts, and Unemployment Benefits
03/12/10 16:32
Reports today make note of the fact that the US Congress has passed a bill extending tax cuts for the middle class but not the upper class and, further, that such a bill has no chance to pass in the US Senate. The Senate and Republicans will most likely force an extension of tax cuts for everyone because, on their arguments, we should not raise taxes in a recession or economic down turn.
As we reflect this weekend on the upcoming celebration of St. Nicholas of Myra who gave to the poor, who is the patron saint of prostitutes, thieves, merchants, and children, it’s good to reflect how his own life gave perspective to the poor here. His most famous work, of course, is saving the three daughters of a poor man from prostitution by secretly giving a dowry for each. Here, we have the example of how a Christian would take out of his largesse to help the poor.
While it might be true that raising taxes during a recession is detrimental to the economy, we have to put this rule of thumb in perspective. First, much of our current economic recession results, in part, from government transferring large amounts of money from the poor to the rich, especially through tax cuts. Second, we have to realize that local, state, and national revenues are far short of what they need to be to help the marginalized, the unemployed, the children, and working poor of our country. An increase to modest levels of taxation on those making more than $250k per annum will not worsen the economy and will help governments respond to those in need, especially the unemployed and children. Children are especially vulnerable. The rich will continue to be able to send their children to private schools if their taxes are increased, whereas the poor will have even more cuts to their current school services without more revenues coming in.
At a political level, the inability of the democrats to have passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits and to extend tax cuts for the poor and middle class is a failure of nerve, a failure of principle, and a clear inadequacy to do what government has a clear responsibility for: taking care that all of its citizens have an opportunity for integral development.
Let us spend this weekend praying to St. Nicholas for the poor, the marginalized, the women who will have to turn to prostitution to feed their families, the children who will suffer from inadequate education, and for merchants -- but those who provided honest work at living wages to all and those who see only the bottom line.
As we reflect this weekend on the upcoming celebration of St. Nicholas of Myra who gave to the poor, who is the patron saint of prostitutes, thieves, merchants, and children, it’s good to reflect how his own life gave perspective to the poor here. His most famous work, of course, is saving the three daughters of a poor man from prostitution by secretly giving a dowry for each. Here, we have the example of how a Christian would take out of his largesse to help the poor.
While it might be true that raising taxes during a recession is detrimental to the economy, we have to put this rule of thumb in perspective. First, much of our current economic recession results, in part, from government transferring large amounts of money from the poor to the rich, especially through tax cuts. Second, we have to realize that local, state, and national revenues are far short of what they need to be to help the marginalized, the unemployed, the children, and working poor of our country. An increase to modest levels of taxation on those making more than $250k per annum will not worsen the economy and will help governments respond to those in need, especially the unemployed and children. Children are especially vulnerable. The rich will continue to be able to send their children to private schools if their taxes are increased, whereas the poor will have even more cuts to their current school services without more revenues coming in.
At a political level, the inability of the democrats to have passed legislation to extend unemployment benefits and to extend tax cuts for the poor and middle class is a failure of nerve, a failure of principle, and a clear inadequacy to do what government has a clear responsibility for: taking care that all of its citizens have an opportunity for integral development.
Let us spend this weekend praying to St. Nicholas for the poor, the marginalized, the women who will have to turn to prostitution to feed their families, the children who will suffer from inadequate education, and for merchants -- but those who provided honest work at living wages to all and those who see only the bottom line.
On the Way To Vilnius
26/07/10 14:44
Waiting in Toronto for my connecting flight to Copenhagen and then from there to Vilnius for the 4th International Society for MacIntyrean Enquiry Conference. I’ve read some of the papers already and am very excited to head off in that direction.
My paper addresses technology, Marcuse, and MacIntyre. I try to use MacIntyre’s critique of Marcuse to redirect that critique. I think there is something very applicable still today to Marcuse’s analysis of technology. Schoolman captures this in part: it’s that Marcuse recognizes that technology works in ways independent of and yet in similar ways to brute political force. This insight lets Marcuse call technology totalitarian. In many ways, can’t we see this. We are subject to the technology of the world. Technology, for instance, let’s us live in the suburbs and drive to work. But the commute is a commute away from the community and away from our families.
Or consider the way that technology has invaded security at the airport. We must go through the X-ray search of our bags. This means we stand in line, in the corrals set up, to be processed.
But even more, consider how technology constrains the ways we work and think in the world. More later.
My paper addresses technology, Marcuse, and MacIntyre. I try to use MacIntyre’s critique of Marcuse to redirect that critique. I think there is something very applicable still today to Marcuse’s analysis of technology. Schoolman captures this in part: it’s that Marcuse recognizes that technology works in ways independent of and yet in similar ways to brute political force. This insight lets Marcuse call technology totalitarian. In many ways, can’t we see this. We are subject to the technology of the world. Technology, for instance, let’s us live in the suburbs and drive to work. But the commute is a commute away from the community and away from our families.
Or consider the way that technology has invaded security at the airport. We must go through the X-ray search of our bags. This means we stand in line, in the corrals set up, to be processed.
But even more, consider how technology constrains the ways we work and think in the world. More later.
Charity in Truth 3: Economic Participation
27/03/10 14:39
"Goal of rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy. From the economic point of view, this meant their active participation on equal terms in economic process” From Caritas in Veritate
One of the best elements of Benedict XVI's encyclical is its reminder that we are in charge of the economic process. We don't act or talk this way much of the time. But in fact, if we don't consume -- if we don't shop, or bank, or work and put money into the economic system -- then the economic system does not work.
What Benedict is calling us to do is to remember that we are responsible for participating in the economic system. We need, however, a state to protect our actice participation in this process, a participation that must be equal. An economic system that denies some participants participation or gives to some greater power or voice than others violates our human dignity.
Not only that, but it undermines the economic system. Why would we say that government works better through democracy but deny the same fact about the economy? A progressive and satisfying economic system is one in which each and every human beings can participate as equals.
Let's support those institutions which promote such equal participation, whether they be co-ops or credit unions or other forms of local economies.
One of the best elements of Benedict XVI's encyclical is its reminder that we are in charge of the economic process. We don't act or talk this way much of the time. But in fact, if we don't consume -- if we don't shop, or bank, or work and put money into the economic system -- then the economic system does not work.
What Benedict is calling us to do is to remember that we are responsible for participating in the economic system. We need, however, a state to protect our actice participation in this process, a participation that must be equal. An economic system that denies some participants participation or gives to some greater power or voice than others violates our human dignity.
Not only that, but it undermines the economic system. Why would we say that government works better through democracy but deny the same fact about the economy? A progressive and satisfying economic system is one in which each and every human beings can participate as equals.
Let's support those institutions which promote such equal participation, whether they be co-ops or credit unions or other forms of local economies.
Charity in Truth 2: Economy
20/03/10 11:27
In his latest social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI asserts that love in truth must be the foundation of the economy. He holds that human beings are gifts, and, as such, mutual trust must be the foundation of economic transactions. Charity -- love -- is desiring the good of the other. That desiring of the good for others must be part of the economic system. Thus, gratuitiousness is the FOUNDATION of justice not something over and above justice.
This is a powerful vision, a prophetic call on what the economy can be. It is not something that can be acheived by laissez faire capitalism or state socialism. It means a fundamental reorganization of the economy.
But how do we everyday citizens engage in such a reorganization?
One thing that Benedict XVI recommends is co-ops. Get involved in a co-operative grocery that has purchsing power thought the collective bargaining of its members. For those of us living in the Willamette Valley, one such co-op is Life Sources in Salem. But there are many around. The idea here is simple: we exercise our rationality and will by coming together as a collective based on charity and mutual trust to determine a common good and pursue it on the market. This common good is something above and more important than mere profit, which is an individual pursuit. Profit does not rely on trust; in fact, it's built on mistrust. The recent economic crisis which depended, in part, on banks taking out insurance policies that someone would efault on a loan is an example of what concern for profit can do. The gift of Bob Red Mill's foods to its employees is an example of what charity can accomplish.
We reorganize the economy by rejecting the big business model that looks at profit over people and embrace local ecnomies. Shop at your local farmers market or your locally owned grocery store (IGA), Grow some of your own food to control your economy. Eat at local eateries rather than chain restaurants. Choose a local bank or credit union over national and international banks who profitted from the government bailouts.
And place charity above justice, for there is no justice without charity.
This is a powerful vision, a prophetic call on what the economy can be. It is not something that can be acheived by laissez faire capitalism or state socialism. It means a fundamental reorganization of the economy.
But how do we everyday citizens engage in such a reorganization?
One thing that Benedict XVI recommends is co-ops. Get involved in a co-operative grocery that has purchsing power thought the collective bargaining of its members. For those of us living in the Willamette Valley, one such co-op is Life Sources in Salem. But there are many around. The idea here is simple: we exercise our rationality and will by coming together as a collective based on charity and mutual trust to determine a common good and pursue it on the market. This common good is something above and more important than mere profit, which is an individual pursuit. Profit does not rely on trust; in fact, it's built on mistrust. The recent economic crisis which depended, in part, on banks taking out insurance policies that someone would efault on a loan is an example of what concern for profit can do. The gift of Bob Red Mill's foods to its employees is an example of what charity can accomplish.
We reorganize the economy by rejecting the big business model that looks at profit over people and embrace local ecnomies. Shop at your local farmers market or your locally owned grocery store (IGA), Grow some of your own food to control your economy. Eat at local eateries rather than chain restaurants. Choose a local bank or credit union over national and international banks who profitted from the government bailouts.
And place charity above justice, for there is no justice without charity.
Charity in Truth 1: Integral Human Development
18/03/10 21:33
"Integral human development implies the advance towards the true good of every individual, community and society, in every single dimension of human life: social, economic, political, intellectual, spiritual and religious."
This vision of human society is a PROGRESSIVE vision. It's a vision based in the Gospels, in the Christian tradition, and in the natural law tradition stemming from St. Thomas Aquinas. It calls for the flourishing of human beings -- each and every one -- in all dimensions.
Benedict XVI defends and elaborates on this vision in his encyclical Charity in Truth. I originally approached this encyclical with skepticism. But it paints a truly impressive picture of what human society can be. The notion of integral human development recalls the best of Aristotle and the words of Wilhelm von Humboldt quoted by J. S. Mill: the purpose of society is the fullest development of the human person for every one.
This vision of human society is a PROGRESSIVE vision. It's a vision based in the Gospels, in the Christian tradition, and in the natural law tradition stemming from St. Thomas Aquinas. It calls for the flourishing of human beings -- each and every one -- in all dimensions.
Benedict XVI defends and elaborates on this vision in his encyclical Charity in Truth. I originally approached this encyclical with skepticism. But it paints a truly impressive picture of what human society can be. The notion of integral human development recalls the best of Aristotle and the words of Wilhelm von Humboldt quoted by J. S. Mill: the purpose of society is the fullest development of the human person for every one.
Bob Red Mill's Given to Employees
11/03/10 21:15
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html
The founder and owner of Bob Red Mill's natural food decided to retire. He gave his company to the employees. A wonderful act of charity and justice. I can't say enough good things about this. Bob Red Mill's produces things like corn meal, polenta, whole grain stone ground wheat, pancake mix, etc. It's always good an made in Oregon.
A tremendous sign of hope for our society.
The founder and owner of Bob Red Mill's natural food decided to retire. He gave his company to the employees. A wonderful act of charity and justice. I can't say enough good things about this. Bob Red Mill's produces things like corn meal, polenta, whole grain stone ground wheat, pancake mix, etc. It's always good an made in Oregon.
A tremendous sign of hope for our society.
Unemployment as Social Sin
15/12/09 08:48
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/us/15poll.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The statistics here are frightening but not as frightening as they could be. How can anyone doubt the sinful nature of unemployment and the capitalism that causes it with this information? And yet, we hear more and more about abortion and so little about thespiritual cost that comes with unempolyment. These lives -- these lives of the unempoyed -- are just as valuable as those of the unborn and suffer just as much when their lives are aborted through capitalist profit. Where is the spiritual leadership for sustainable development, for sustainable green energy, for sustainable living.
Abortion results from the same carefree laissez-faire attitude that drives capitalism. It's the same as unemployment -- these lives are not valuable. These lives are not convenient. These lives are not profitable.
What we need is a change in attitude! A change away from the usury that controls our everyday lives. Until we live sustainable lives, we will always abort the unwanted because they aren't sustainable -- whether that's abortion of fetuses and embryos or abortion of whole living beings to a system of nihilism. Is it any wonder that zombies and vampires capture our modern minds they way they do?
The statistics here are frightening but not as frightening as they could be. How can anyone doubt the sinful nature of unemployment and the capitalism that causes it with this information? And yet, we hear more and more about abortion and so little about thespiritual cost that comes with unempolyment. These lives -- these lives of the unempoyed -- are just as valuable as those of the unborn and suffer just as much when their lives are aborted through capitalist profit. Where is the spiritual leadership for sustainable development, for sustainable green energy, for sustainable living.
Abortion results from the same carefree laissez-faire attitude that drives capitalism. It's the same as unemployment -- these lives are not valuable. These lives are not convenient. These lives are not profitable.
What we need is a change in attitude! A change away from the usury that controls our everyday lives. Until we live sustainable lives, we will always abort the unwanted because they aren't sustainable -- whether that's abortion of fetuses and embryos or abortion of whole living beings to a system of nihilism. Is it any wonder that zombies and vampires capture our modern minds they way they do?
Leonard Peltier Denied Parole
21/08/09 14:03
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112116843&ft=1&f=1001
Peltier was once again denied parole. This even though he's had no reported infractions in 10 years. Supposedly authorities decided that releasing Peltier would diminish the seriousness of his crime. Really? That's the best they could do? No trumped up reports from the jail about drug use or other criminial acitivity? Just the "seriousness of his crime"?
The Native American truly is invisible in this country. Euro-Americans cannot allow Peltier free because it would be letting people know that you can defy the system and survive.
Continue to pray for a man unjustly jailed and unjustly held.
Peltier was once again denied parole. This even though he's had no reported infractions in 10 years. Supposedly authorities decided that releasing Peltier would diminish the seriousness of his crime. Really? That's the best they could do? No trumped up reports from the jail about drug use or other criminial acitivity? Just the "seriousness of his crime"?
The Native American truly is invisible in this country. Euro-Americans cannot allow Peltier free because it would be letting people know that you can defy the system and survive.
Continue to pray for a man unjustly jailed and unjustly held.
McNamara and War
09/07/09 20:11
With the passing of Robert McNamara, we have a moment to reflect on a common understanding of human nature.
McNamara was the principle architect behind the Vietnam War. We know now that early on McNamara knew the US couldn't win. But he didn't recommend pulling out (thus violating one of the principles of just war theory handed down through the ages). What's more interesting for me is that McNamara that human nature was essentially and ultimately aggressive. He thought we would always be at war. How much, I wonder, did later presidents inherit his belief bout human nature.
This thought has been held by many. It even shows up in fiction. Elizabeth Haydon writes a wonderful fantasy series The Symphony of Ages. One of the main characters is Achmed the Snake. Achmed believes that peace is just an intermission between wars when the intelligent plan for the next war. It's just human -- or bolg - nature.
But to what extent does human history testify to this? And to what extent can we escape war? Obviously, war marks human history, highlighting many of the transitions in time. But we needn't believe that war is inescapable. What we need to do is look at how societies avoid war. Democracy isn't necessarily the answer. However, an article in Discover suggests some possibilities:
Empowering females
Control Population Growth
Find Alternatives to Fossil Fuels
Avoid Tribalism
Avoid Religious Fundamentalism
We should recognize that human nature is fluid. As fluid, we can change our fates. We can make the world the way we want. But this means taking progressive steps toward making that future real and taking steps which increase the likelihood of that future. It's just like losing weight and maintaining a healthy life-style -- plan ahead, work hard, and don't be pessimistic in the face of inevitable stumbles.
McNamara was the principle architect behind the Vietnam War. We know now that early on McNamara knew the US couldn't win. But he didn't recommend pulling out (thus violating one of the principles of just war theory handed down through the ages). What's more interesting for me is that McNamara that human nature was essentially and ultimately aggressive. He thought we would always be at war. How much, I wonder, did later presidents inherit his belief bout human nature.
This thought has been held by many. It even shows up in fiction. Elizabeth Haydon writes a wonderful fantasy series The Symphony of Ages. One of the main characters is Achmed the Snake. Achmed believes that peace is just an intermission between wars when the intelligent plan for the next war. It's just human -- or bolg - nature.
But to what extent does human history testify to this? And to what extent can we escape war? Obviously, war marks human history, highlighting many of the transitions in time. But we needn't believe that war is inescapable. What we need to do is look at how societies avoid war. Democracy isn't necessarily the answer. However, an article in Discover suggests some possibilities:
Empowering females
Control Population Growth
Find Alternatives to Fossil Fuels
Avoid Tribalism
Avoid Religious Fundamentalism
We should recognize that human nature is fluid. As fluid, we can change our fates. We can make the world the way we want. But this means taking progressive steps toward making that future real and taking steps which increase the likelihood of that future. It's just like losing weight and maintaining a healthy life-style -- plan ahead, work hard, and don't be pessimistic in the face of inevitable stumbles.
Philosophy, Morality, and Emotion
07/04/09 16:59
Discusses an article which says philosophy is dead since psychologists have determined that emotion, not reason, determines how we act morally. Links this to an ill-formed understanding of the human person. Read More...
Ideological Shifts in Budget?
01/03/09 18:03
Read this: http://www.truthout.org/030109A
"Republicans and Democrats alike say the budget request, which seeks $3.6 trillion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, marks the biggest ideological shift in Washington since the dawn of the Reagan administration."
The shift refers to no longer spending money to cut taxes for the rich and to make sure that, just like the rest of us, the defense department has to keep to a budget. It is a shift from cut taxes and spend republicans, like Reagan, Bush and Bush jr, to a tax and spend. But maybe that is what we need right now.
What worries me is that Obama needs to make sure that at the end of ten years, the deficit stops growing. We need to be able to keep to a budget as a nation. And I'm all for expanding right now in order to grow jobs, which means growing a tax base. But that h as to work. And I'm very worried about leaving our children and grandchildren with a debt, because we were unwilling to control our appetites.
In the end, then, the ideological shift isn't far enough. Obama differs from the Republicans and the majority of democrats in the priorities he sets, priorities with which I agree to a significant degree. But let's take a serious look at the market and how it works in our world, the way it contorts our ideas and our desires. This must be a fundamental move away from market capitalism as is to a more localized economy which supports the small farmer, the family, the community, the center of a secure society. Ideology must shift farther before we loose to big business and go down with them.
"Republicans and Democrats alike say the budget request, which seeks $3.6 trillion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, marks the biggest ideological shift in Washington since the dawn of the Reagan administration."
The shift refers to no longer spending money to cut taxes for the rich and to make sure that, just like the rest of us, the defense department has to keep to a budget. It is a shift from cut taxes and spend republicans, like Reagan, Bush and Bush jr, to a tax and spend. But maybe that is what we need right now.
What worries me is that Obama needs to make sure that at the end of ten years, the deficit stops growing. We need to be able to keep to a budget as a nation. And I'm all for expanding right now in order to grow jobs, which means growing a tax base. But that h as to work. And I'm very worried about leaving our children and grandchildren with a debt, because we were unwilling to control our appetites.
In the end, then, the ideological shift isn't far enough. Obama differs from the Republicans and the majority of democrats in the priorities he sets, priorities with which I agree to a significant degree. But let's take a serious look at the market and how it works in our world, the way it contorts our ideas and our desires. This must be a fundamental move away from market capitalism as is to a more localized economy which supports the small farmer, the family, the community, the center of a secure society. Ideology must shift farther before we loose to big business and go down with them.