Author Archives: Dave Mathwin

8th Grade Civics: A Friend in Need . . .

by Dave Mathwin

This week in Civics class we looked at our support of the Afghan insurgency during the 1980’s. Next week the students will be involved in a big project where they have to decide why, when, and how to support the Afghan soldiers against the Soviet invasion, but we started by looking at Machiavelli’s thoughts on auxiliary and mercenary troops.

Machiavelli has harsh words for rulers who rely on mercenaries, but to the suprise of many, he had even more reservations about the use of auxiliary troops.

He begins chapter 13 of The Prince writing,

Auxiliary armies – that is, when you ask a powerful ruler to send military help to defend your town – are likewise useless.

Auxiliaries may be efficient and useful when it comes to achieving their own ends, but they are almost always counterproductive for those who invite them in, because if they lose, you lose too, and if they win, you are at their mercy.

To fight his neighbours, the emperor of Constantinople brought 10,000 Turks into Greece and when the war was over they wouldn’t leave, which was how the infidels began to get control of Greece.

So anyone looking for a no-win situation should turn to auxiliaries, because they are far more dangerous even than mercenaries. With auxiliaries your ruin is guaranteed: they are a tightly knit force and every one of them obedient to someone else; when mercenaries win they need time and a convenient opportunity before they can attack you, if only because they’re not a solid united force, you chose them, you’re paying them, and hence it will take the man you put in command a while to build up sufficient authority to turn against you. To summarize, the big danger with mercenaries is their indecision, with auxiliaries their determination.

Mercenary troops are only in it for the money. They are expensive, and cannot be relied upon. They have no investment in the cause and hence cannot be relied upon to fight with any real spirit. But still, because

  • You pay them, and
  • You created them

they lack organization and direction apart from you. They won’t help you much, but neither will they hurt you either, aside from your checkbook.

Auxiliaries are a different category.

  • They exist independently of you, directly accountable to others, not yourself
  • They have their own ideas, agendas, etc.
  • They have cohesion and can fight well

You won’t have to pay auxiliaries, at least not directly. They have much greater fighting capability than mercenaries. But, you are playing with fire. You may travel together for a time, but in supporting them, you may be nurturing a monster that could later turn on you.

Machiavelli mentions another possibility with the use of auxiliaries later in the chapter, writing,

When, with luck and good leadership, Charles VII, Louis XI’s father, had pushed the English out of France, he saw that a ruler needs his own troops and so set up a standing army of both cavalry and infantry. Later, his son Louis disbanded the infantry and began to hire Swiss mercenaries. It’s now plain that this mistake, together with others that followed, is what lies behind France’s present troubles. By giving this important role to the Swiss, Louis had weakened his whole army, since, with no infantry of their own, his cavalry were now relying on others, and once they’d got used to fighting alongside the Swiss they started to think they couldn’t win without them. As a result the French are unable to take on the Swiss in battle and won’t fight anyone else without their help. So French forces are now mixed, part mercenary and part their own men. Such composite forces are much better than just auxiliaries or just mercen- aries, but much worse than having all your own men. France’s situation proves the point, because if the standing army Charles recruited had been reinforced or just maintained, the French would be unbeatable. But men are so thoughtless they’ll opt for a diet that tastes good without realizing there’s a hidden poison in it.

In this case, the use of auxiliaries weakens yourself. You grow too soft, figuring that others can handle the hard things.

There are a variety of examples of both principles. Here I will just cite two:

  • As to the first principle, in WW II we used and nurtured the Soviet army. It was quite weak even in 1941. But they initiated internal reforms and got a lot of aid and supplies from England and the United States. By 1943, the Soviets turned things around decisively. By 1945, they were an exceedingly formidable army that crushed the Germans. No question–England and the United States were aided tremendously by the Soviets in the fight against Germany. One can definitely claim that the Soviets had more to do with the defeat of Germany than England or the U.S. Even before the war ended, the Soviets began occupying territory and opposing us. It took the better part of the next four decades to defeat them.
  • As to the second, in the post World War II world, much of Europe has in fact used the United States military as “auxiliaries.” Countries such as Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, etc. have armies of their own, but they are essentially ornamental. Rightly or wrongly, much of Europe opposes aspects of our foreign policy but they have no means of opposing it effectively, as they have no means of acting independently in a military manner.

Machiavelli makes his point about self-reliance referencing a famous biblical story:

I’d also like to bring in a parable from the Old Testament. When David offered to go and fight the Philistine trouble- maker, Goliath, on Saul’s behalf, Saul gave him his own weapons to bolster the boy’s courage. But no sooner had David put them on than he refused the gift, saying he wouldn’t feel confident with them, he would rather face the enemy with his own sling and knife. In the end, other people’s arms are either too loose, too heavy or too tight.

This brings us to our decision in the mid-80’s to support the Afghan insurgents against the Soviet invasion of their country.

On its face, this seemed like a simple decision for a few reasons:

  • While Soviet control of Afghanistan in itself would not have given the USSR much of a strategic gain, Afghanistan does border other countries of crucial strategic value like India and Pakistan. It was reasonable for the US to conclude that we should prevent the Soviets from winning in Afghanistan.
  • However, we did not want to fight in Afghanistan ourselves, because of a lack of political will to send our own troops, and our understandable reluctance to directly engage the Soviets with the prospect of nuclear weapons lingering over the Cold War.
  • Given the terrain of the country, and the fighting spirit of the people, guerrilla tactics in mountainous regions seemed like an ideal strategy.
  • However, with the use of attack helicopters, the Soviets effectively could counter this high ground advantage, as the insurgents had no effective weapon against them.

A variety of intelligence analysts concluced that with a compartively small expenditure, we could decisively turn the war against the Soviets by provided the Afghan fighters with missile launchers and high powered sniper rifles. We were correct. Our cash, weapons, and training helped deal the USSR a decisive blow in Afghanistan. Many believe that their failure in Afghanistan helped lead to the collapse of the communist regime and the end of the Cold War.

However . . .

Our support of the Afghan insurgents unfortunately matches up with all the reasons why Machiavelli cautions against using auxiliary armies to help achieve your own ends. To recap, auxiliaries

  • Have their own agenda which may differ radically from yours
  • You have little to no control over their actions, and they have the internal strength and will to pursue their own goals
  • Your aid to them makes them stronger

Many of those we aided in the 1980’s used the weapons and training to take over the country themselves after the Soviets left. The strongest of these forces proved to be the Taliban, who then gave aid to terrorist groups such as Al-Queada, who attacked us on 9-11. Machiavelli’s pattern and prediction came true.

We later went back to Afghanistan ourselves in a mirror image of the Soviet invasion in the 1980’s. Like the Soviets, while we had a great deal of tactical success over many years, we could not achieve a strategic victory in the final analysis.

In the end, Machiavelli’s insistence that one do things themselves, or not at all, has much to commend it.

The Red Pants of France

by Dave Mathwin

Barbara Tuchmann’s The Guns of August discusses the controversies, dilemmas, and human drama in the days leading up to World War I. She puts a special focus on the war plans developed by France and Germany in the years leading up to the war. The two plans reflect much about the two nations. Germany’s Schliefflin Plan

  • Relied heavily on rail transport with precision timetables
  • Relied heavily on heavy artillery and all of the other goodies of industrialization
  • Involved violating Belgian neutrality, but no matter–the winner would determine the post-war narrative, and they had to go through Belgium to make their plan work.

France’s Plan 17 relied

  • Heavily on initiative in the field for individual commanders, with the emphasis on attack
  • Much more than Germany on the human element, “men win wars, not machines,” and so on–what the French called “elan.”
  • They eschewed heavy artillery, feeling that it would slow their men down and give them a dependent mindset.

Both sides had perfect awareness of the other’s plans, and both thought the strategic situation favored their own side. The French, with their army in red pants, hearkened back to an older time. Some called for the uniforms to be replaced with a more drab color less visible on the spectrum. The French general staff refused absolutely. The red pants embodied the spirit and will of the army, a refusal to bend to the industrial spirit of the age.

Alas, German organization, artillery, and precision destroyed the French army in first weeks of the war, inflicting at least 250,000 casualties. France had to adjust, and while they managed to stave off disaster at the Battle of the Marne, the dash and the human initiative would fade away just like the red pants. They too brought out heavy guns and “succumbed” to the Germany way.

As events unfolded, both sides ended up digging into the ground for what became known as Trench Warfare, which characterized the fighting in the western front right through 1918. Historians usually offer a variety of explanations for this unusual development–neither previous or future wars would ever use trenches so completely.

  • Some focus on the significant imbalance between defense and offense that existed between the western powers. Heavy weaponry for the most part had little mobility at this time, which limited offensive capability and gave an enormous advantage to the defensive.
  • Some focus on the narrow geography between the German and French borders, which meant an extreme concentration of men and machines. More space on the Eastern Front, for example, meant some more mobility and much less trench digging.

These explanations have merit but I think miss the larger picture.

The triumph of the metric system presaged military developments in World War I. The old systems of measurements had its roots in human experience and proportion, i.e., the “foot.” or the “stone” (about 14 pounds), which would be local and based on the weight of an actual stone in a particular town or region. The new system greatly maximized standardization, minimizing locality, and made it easier to count, measure, multiply, and so on. In other words, the new system granted one more power.* The Industrial Revolution continued this standardization, which naturally granted increased power to produce goods on a mass scale

But all of this power came from literally digging into the earth to obtain the necessary raw materials for the engines of industry and war. As industrialization reached its peak manifestation, the soldiers too dug into the earth. Perhaps the eastern theater of war saw less trench warfare because it had less industrialization. It seems a curious symmetry exists between the birth of the modern war machine and trench warfare, and we should endeavor to explain it. In other words, the creation of industrialization (digging into the earth), and its apotheosis (trench warfare) mirror each other (in the picture of the soldiers above, change the uniforms and the men could look exactly like miners). For Europe, World War I ended the belief in the inevitable progress of mankind, represented by science/industrialization and democracy. One can easily argue that science and democracy (in the form of mass media, mass mobilization, and mass production) made the war much more deadly than any previous conflict.

We can begin by noting the symmetry between birth and death. Interestingly, many ancient cultures buried people in the fetal position, linking birth and death in a circle, which I discussed here.

Perhaps this should not surprise us, as birth and death have something of a symbiosis.

We see a similar symmetry in rock music. I grew up partially in the Grunge Era. I took great delight in the transition from 80’s pop to Nirvana and Soundgarden. But anyone who reflects for a moment should see something odd going on with music in the 1990’s. In his excellent book on that decade, Chuck Klosterman made two keen observations:

  • The grunge attitude and aesthetic brought about the end of rock and roll. The whole foundation of rock music involved stardom, mass appeal, etc. Grunge artists had massive success while deriding, mocking, and hating that success, a kind of matter-anti-matter collision. In this sense, Kurt Cobain’s tragic suicide** can be seen as a harbinger, a death-knell for the genre as a whole. In many ways, the power that comes with stardom brings not life, but a kind of death, just as the power granted by industrialization ushered in an era of millions of deaths in war.
  • What was with the litany of songs with large portions of lyrics devoted either to nonsense, mere sounds, or garbled unintelligibility?

We’ll get to that list momentarily. We saw something similar at the birth of rock and roll in the late 50’s-early 60’s, in the form of a variety of songs with nonsense/unintelligible lyrics that made their way into the American psyche.

All of these songs share the exuberance that characterizes the birth of an era. The nonsense, the invented sounds, reminds one of little kids discovering their mouths for the first time.

In the 90’s you have Klosterman’s list of songs with nonsensical and unintelligible lyrics. But this time, the tenor, and atmosphere of the songs embrace not the excitement of new life but chaos, meaninglessness, and death.

  • Of course, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” with Weird Al parodying the song’s unintelligibility.
  • Blur’s “Beetlebum,” and “Song 2.” “Song 2” has a something of exuberance in it, but the video clearly shows it is the excitement of destruction, not creation. No coincidence then, that Paul Veerhoven used this song to promote his movie Starship Troopers, which parodied the meaninglessness of fascistic violence.
  • Trio’s “Da Da Da.” Volkswagen used the song expertly to hint at the banality of life for young men. Leave it to the Germans, I suppose.
  • Basement Jaxx’s “Bingo Bango.” Yes, the song has an upbeat mood to it, but the video hints at disorienting chaos.
  • “Mmmmm Mmmmmm Mmmmmm” by the Crash Test Dummies. The song has beauty, but it is the beauty of an elegy. The group’s other hit, “Coffee Spoons and Afternoons” talks about receding hairlines, hospitals, drinking coffee in the afternoon wearing pajamas–not exactly the stuff of birth.
  • At first glance, Hanson’s “Mmmmbop” may seem to have the stuff of “life” embedded within, but after listening for about 90 seconds, thoughts of anger, hatred, and despair flood one’s being. The song is hypnotically annoying/infuriating.

The end of rock music mirrored its beginning, but the mirror has cracks.

Historians date the birth of the modern state at different points. One can trace the beginnings in the later Renaissance, and things look more clear at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. But to see the state as we know it, with its bureaucracy, centralization, uniformity of law, and military organization, we have to look at Napoleon. We have a fascination with Napoleon for good reason–undoubtedly he embodied something romantic, something of promise, in his early years.

But 100 years later, that civilization, while having much more power at its disposal, actually approaches its death–a variety of historians (Niall Ferguson, Oswald Spengler) see World War I as the end of the west. Certainly at least, Europe–the core of western civilization– has never recovered from that conflict. Western civilization’s power and identity had its start with going into the earth in hope that its raw materials would give us power to establish Kant’s dream of perpetual peace. It ended differently.

Dave

*A variety of people have pointed out this connection between counting, numbering, and power. This may be why King David suffered such a strong rebuke when he took a census in Israel. He tried to count “excessively,” i.e., he tried to consolidate power inappropriately at the end of his reign.

**In an interview with Vulture magazine, Klosterman commented,

What is so profound about Nirvana is that the relationship ended up becoming real. The song “I Hate Myself and Want to Die.” The idea that a person who writes that song also does commit suicide — that is so on the nose. People would say things like, “If that guy hates fame so much, why doesn’t he just stop?” We did not fully believe that Kurt Cobain was actually unhappy. And then when he killed himself, it made that music suddenly weirdly true.

He was presenting ideas in a culture where irony was the central understanding of all messages, and he seems to have had no ironic distance at all. It actually was incredibly sad and depressing to him that people he didn’t like loved his music. It legitimately bothered him that, say, homophobes liked his music. It bothered him in a way that for other artists, it would’ve been seen almost as branding.

8th Grade Civics: The Paradox of the 1990’s

by Dave Mathwin

This week in Civics we explored the 1990’s, not so much in the specific events, but the cultural trends that shaped that decade.

Having lived through the 90’s as a young man, I remember them as good times. I enjoyed much of what the culture offered, such as grunge music and the chance to wear untucked flannel shirts. And yet, the 90’s pose a curious problem. Having definitively won the Cold War, we should have been happy and celebratory as a nation. And yet, the 80’s, a time of uncertainty and the fear of nuclear war, appear as the decade of optimism. In the 1990’s, we appear wracked by self-doubt, angst, and a loss of confidence. The popular image of the time is that of the disaffected slacker.

Logic dictates this should not have been the case. After all, throughout most of the 90’s we had

  • Economic Growth
  • Former Enemies in Europe becoming fast friends (i.e., Poland, Romania, etc.)
  • New, exciting technologies such as the internet (the legacy of the internet is debatable, at the time everyone thought it would be great).
  • A more peaceful world
  • The expansion of trade and the modern advent of globalization (today the legacy of this is hotly debated, at the time it seemed a slam-dunk to most).

And yet, it was during this time that our culture began to fragment in weird and unexpected ways. I have some theories as to why this might have happened, but first, let us note the sharp difference between the late 80’s and the early 90’s.

In terms of fashion, the 80’s were defined by bright colors, and bold choices. Things were bright and big.

Whatever one might think of such choices, they certainly come from a place of confidence (perhaps too much of it :).

In the early 90’s things shift dramatically to a look now known as “heroin chic.”

We are used to the issue of confusion between male and female and the blurring of lines between them. This has it roots in the 90’s as well, as these fashion shoots indicate:

A theme in 90’s fashion is the empahsis is not on the accentuation of the human form, but its dimunition (perhaps especially for women). Now that it is the 90’s, we are not supposed to have colors, or happiness. We are supposed to feel bad about things. But exactly what we are to feel bad about . . . we’re not sure.

Any perusal through the popular music of the 1980’s reveals an era loaded with upbeat songs with big, bright production values. Even the “bad boys” generally were not angry or sad, but celebrating partying, doing bad things, etc.–think Van Halen and AC/DC. These bands were agressive in their sound, but optimistic in their tone, i.e., it was time to have a good time.

Coincidentally or no, almost exactly as the Soviet Union completed its collapse, Nirvana released its album Nevermind (which already hints at Gen X disengagement) and its most popular song, “Smells like Teen Spirit.” Some of it’s lyrics read

Load up on guns, bring your friends

It’s fun to lose and to pretend

She’s over-bored, and self-assured

Oh no, I know a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us.

This song, and others by Nirvana, ask us to engage with apathy, disillusionment, chaos, without really pinpointing the problem, exactly. Other famous grunge bands such as Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden would follow suit. They sang about emptiness, apocalypse, and other such topics (think of Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun” or Stone Temple Pilot’s “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart”). Like the fashion of the early 90’s there seemed to be a desire to destroy what was generically considered “human,” at least in the 1980’s. We no longer believed in what we were, or who we were.

True, by the mid-late 90’s, these cultural trends would shift again somewhat. Grunge and the fashion style of “heroin chic” would fall out of fashion. But the stage was set for significant transition in other modes of life. The old norms that guided society were starting to fade away. Thirty years later, we are still looking for new norms to hold us together.

We are getting used to political polarization, and many of us reading this have essentially grown up with it. I did not. The 1980’s still experienced a reasonable amount of cooperation and consensus building. That changed with the election of 1992, when the winning candidate, Bill Clinton, failed to get a majority of the popular vote in a three person race. In his candidacy, Clinton broke with typical norms governing how politicians should act, appearing on the Arsenio Hall show and playing saxophone along with the house band. Republicans followed suit, and were early in the political talk-radio space, which had more aggressive and angry messaging. The center was losing its grip, but we did not see this at the time.

Again, all of this should be strike us a curious. Most cultures experience something of a golden age in the aftermath of significant military victory, such as Athens after the Persian Wars, or England after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or the Dutch after their own defeat of Spain. This did not happen with us. We should have been confident and exuberant. But this pattern did not materialize for us as it had in the past.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the advent of the 1990’s saw the publishing of what would become a very influential book in China, Wang Huning’s America against America. Huning had visited America for several months in the late 1980’s and wrote about his observations. Huning went on to serve as a top advisor to three Chinese premiers and still holds a top position in the government today. Many see Huning’s book as having a strong impact on the development of China and their view on the United States.

Huning saw culture, tradition, and shared values all eroding in America. This is a fairly common critique of democracies in general, and so nothing particularly new. Huning had good things to say about America that many other foreign observers might share. There are a few observations he made, however, that seem prescient and influential over the next three decades.

  • The title of the book is taken from the Chinese term yíhuò [疑惑] meaning “puzzle” or “doubt.” America had effectively turned itself into a yíhuò [疑惑] which has made Americans equally puzzled by their own system. For Huning, America was trapped in a puzzle. It was in a battle  against itself.
  • As one online commentator notes, “One of his observations in particular would be very influential for China’s new path forward: the power of technology. The use of electronic payments like the credit card shocked him, as did the emergence of computers. But he also understood that this technological process would eventually remake the very people it was supposed to serve. Sometimes it is not the people who master technology, but the technology that masters the people. If you want to overwhelm the Americans, you must do one thing: surpass them in science and technology.”
  • Huning saw most Americans as fundamentally disconnected from each other, and wrote that, “Lonliness is a major burden on the political system.” If true, perhaps grunge music was not such an anomaly at all, but a logical consequence of this unconscious feeling.

One can certainly argue that Huning took some of his observations too far. His fear of social fracturing, combined with his adoration of technology, has led to institutions like China’s dystopian social credit system. But his observations in themselves may have merit.

The legacy of the 1990’s is complicated, but it is where the seeds were planted for many of our modern problems.

Dave

8th Grade Literature: Hide from Yourself

by Dave Mathwin

This week we continued with Act II of Macbeth and saw the development of the themes introduced in Act I.

In our last post we saw how the witches introduced this theme of confusion into the play, both in where they resided, and how they spoke. Now we see their evil spread to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

Different versions of Mabeth productions show the witches in different ways. My favorite is the recent Coen brothers film of Macbeth. They only have one witch, and in the play there were three. But the way this witch speaks to herself is like speaking to others. Are the other witches there that we cannot see, or is she driven to schizophrenia by her evil?* I am guessing the latter. The way she unnaturally unfolds her body mirrors this division within her soul (the flapping of her arms also introduces the idea of the witch as a crow or raven, an important element in the play we will touch on next week).

Towards the end of Act I, Lady Macbeth challenges Macbeth to murder Duncan. To do this she calls his manhood into question, a curious tactic considering that we know Macbeth to be the major hero in the battle. One might guess that this tactic would not work, but Macbeth has already let the witches’ prophesies into his heart and mind. He is already confused, and his confusion will grow over time.

To get Macbeth to betray Duncan, Lady Macbeth also calls the nature of manhood into question. The traditional view is that one key factor that separates man from beast is the fact that man can think, reason, and deny himself. A hungry dog would not pass up a meal, but it is possible, for example, for a man to fast for a higher purpose. Lady Macbeth flips this on its head, telling Macbeth that he is wrong for letting “I dare not,” wait upon, “I would.” For Lady Macbeth, what makes a man is that he never denies himself what he wants. When Macbeth expresses second thoughts, Lady Macbeth calls him a “beast,” yet it is a man that can second guess himself, and not a beast.

Can one exist in such an upside down world?

Even before Macbeth actually kills Duncan, he begins to have a hard time with reality. We see this start with his vision of bloody dagger. He is not sure if it is a “dagger of the mind” or real.

After he murders Duncan, Macbeth utters the famous line that he has “murdered sleep.” For the rest of the play, sleep will elude Macbeth, and we can see this is as a physical manifestation of his evil deed. Sleep is restorative, taking our tattered body and mind and making it whole again. Macbeth has torn the kingdom asunder so it is right that he is denied wholeness. In a broader sense, Macbeth’s murder has severed him from nature, as he murdered his “natural lord.” The idea of a “natural lord,” may seem odd to us, but it was a common idea in medieval Europe. For those in Shakespeare’s time, one is born into a particular condition, and one generally stayed in that condition. This was no hardship but a comfort (at least in theory for most). One knew one’s place in the cosmos. King’s had their position not because they were great but “by the grace of God.” The order of things just simply “was.” The eldest son ruled, not because he was the best son, but because that was the nature of things. No one earned their place. Your place was a gift.

Honoring King Duncan and obeying him was the right thing to do, of course. But it was also the “natural” thing to do, just as it is natural for the sun to rise in the morning and set at night. One should strive to conform oneself to the order of nature.

Macbeth’s murder of Duncan (a guest in his own home) unravels the kingdom and also the fabric of creation itself. He has robbed himself of his own place in the world, and now neither God, his fellow man, or even creation itself will give him comfort. He has nothing left, and now he cannot even comfort or reason with himself. Macbeth states that, “To know my deed ’twere best not know myself.”

Macbeth’s schizophrenia aptly matches that of the witches he encountered in Act I. His descent will continue.

Dave

*One reason why I like this artistic choice is that the witch (maybe) talking to herself, seeing things, etc. mirrors what happens to Macbeth. He thinks he sees a dagger and a ghost, and maybe he does, and maybe not. The mirroring of the witches and Macbeth is certainly hinted at in the text of the play, and I think it quite clever to show this visually.

8th Grade Literature: Fair is Foul

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

This week we started our next book in our curriculum, Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth‘s plot is fairly straightforward, and this gives us a clear opportunity to see how Shakespeare’s literary genius shapes the meaning of the story through his use of language and setting. Shakespeare was also an expert psychologist, and again in this instance, the simple structure of the plot allows us to explore more fully what happens to a human being when they make the wrong choices.

Shakespeare inhabited a world where the concept of the “Great Chain of Being,” where each thing, and each being, in the created order has its proper place. When the world is properly ordered, the world becomes intelligible and we can know how to act meaningfully within the world. This concept stems from the Genesis creation account, which begins with chaos, and then over time God makes distinctions between sea and dry land, plants and animals, men and women, and so on.

Understanding this will help us put Macbeth’s terrible moral choices in the proper context, and the play explores, among other things, the questions of “what is a man?” and “what is a woman?”

We this theme introduced in Act I, Scene 1, where we meet the the “weird sisters,” the three witches. Their famously end this scene with the words,

Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

First, we note that Shakespeare wrote all of his plays in Iambic Pentameter. Iambic meters have a slightly lilting quality, with an alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables. The original tune for “Amazing Grace” is iambic, for example. But Shakespeare opens this play with the witches speaking in Trochaic Tetrameter. Trochaic meters have the opposite structure of iambs. Their first syllable is stressed, the second unstressed, and so on. Trochaic speech then, is often harsh and uneven, the opposite of melodic.

Here is a quick primer on Iambic Pentameter:

And here is a brief intro to trochaic tetrameter:

It makes sense that the witches would use this kind of speech, The rhythms contrast sharply to the speech of the other characters, which sets them apart phonetically but also spiritually. Fundamentally, the witches are not really women, and not really human. Of course, they possess the requisite DNA for a human being, but we would not want to define a human being strictly by DNA alone. Their evil actions deeply mar their humanity through by deeply eroding the image of God within them. More specifically, they are not just human beings generally but women in particular. For Shakespeare and others, women primarly have a nuturing role in the created order, and have the unique gift of bringing life into the world. Here in scene one, the witches (who have beards, another clue to the confusion of their being and their sex) talk of nothing other than murdering others through their manipulation of the elements.

Shakespeare has them meet on a heath, a particular kind of Scottish landscape. Heath’s are uncultivated, wild places, usually damp and misty, with scrub brush here and there. The disorder of the heath presage the disorder of the play. In such places, it is easy to get lost physically, and this mirrors the spiritual wilderness Macbeth will put himself in with his choices later in the play.

So while the plot of Macbeth is straightforward and satisfying in certain respects, the context in which the events unfold will challenge the views of modern readers. Many of us see our moral choices, whether good or bad, happening on something akin to a blank canvas. What matters for many today is not our surroundings or our bodies but merely our will. For Shakespeare and others of his time, an important ingredient in our moral choices was our place in the created order and those around us. In Shakespeare’s worldview, we invite ruin upon ourselves when we assume that our context, our place in the created order, can simply be overwritten by our mere choice. Such actions will inevitably confuse us and distort our view of reality, as happens to Macbeth. In addition, our confusion spreads to others and chaos reigns. Among many other truths, this play shows us that no man is an island.

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle and Terminal Lucidity

by Dave Mathwin

Many who have worked with the elderly, such as doctors and nurses, have noted a pattern of a curious and often confusing phenomena, called “terminal lucidity.” A patient may be ill and lingering for some time. Then, they experience a burst of mental clarity and physical energy that seems to come from out of nowhere, which can last for hours or even days. The families and friends of the patient often misinterpret these events. They believe that the patient has recovered and will get better. In reality, such an event usually means that death is near. In some mysterious way for some mysterious reason, this can often be how a person prepares to die.

One can witness a similar phenomena with civilizations in general. A few years ago I wrote another post that explored this same pheonomena related to industrialization and World War I, and related that era to the 1990’s. In some ways, the experience of terminal lucidity resembles that of a newborn, with periods of intense activity coupled with lots of sleep. The end and the beginning resemble each other.

That same post looked at the 1990’s. That era, curiously enough, resembled the beginning of post-WW II America in a few odd ways. But in retrospect, what we experienced in the 1990’s was not a rebirth of a new America, but the terminal lucidity of post-WW II America.

Some may question this. Did not America experience all of the following in the 1990’s?

  • Significant Economic Growth
  • Invention of transformational technologies (internet, cell phones)
  • An era of global peace in many ways sponsored by America
  • In cultural matters, record sales of albums and newspaper circulation reaching its peak most likely around 1989.

This last item is noteworthy, and an example of the terminal lucidity experienced in both industries. The internet, designed to maximize the flow of information, might initially seem a logical extension of both the music and print mediums, but in fact, ended up destroying them.

In his Politics, after defining the key features of different forms of government, Aristotle then goes on to show how each of these respective orders can break down. They usually break down, he notes, when certain trends within a society, sometimes beneficial at first, get extended beyond their normal bounds, and then begin to work against the poltical order rather than for it.

The portion of text we worked with from Book V of the Politics is lenghty, so I will summarize it here:

Problem 1: Insolence and Greed

By this Aristotle means rulers (we can think of judges, senators, etc.) that use their power to enrich themselves. If just one or two people in power did this, and if they took just a little, it might not be noticed. Even if it was noticed, the problem could be dealt with.

The issue would be if other judges/senators caught on and joined in. Quickly those stealing would realize that the pot of gold was finite. They would then compete to see who could take how much by forming alliances with other senators and judges. Then, we would have the equivalent of different gangs competing for turf in the same city, and the state would cease to function.

Problem 2: Superiority

The state functions normally, but then something arises that causes a portion of the state (such as the presidency) to grow disproportionately in power. Perhaps this was necessary given the circumstances, but if balance is not restored, the constitution as people know it would collapse.

Problem 3: Fear

Imagine a general who committed war crimes who does not want prosecuted. The way out of this could be for him to take everyone that was loyal to him and usurp the ruling power. If he was in charge, there would be no prosecution.

This may sound far-fetched, but you could argue this is exactly what happened to the Roman Republic under Julius Caesar.

Problem 4: Loss of Balance and Proportion

This is similar to #2, but can arise more slowly, and for good motives. Think of someone who wants to get stronger. They go the gym, but only work out their arms and their calves. After several months they are stronger in some ways but their body would look weird and cause problems for the person.

In the same way, it may be natural and good for the state to grow. Imagine a port city that suddenly experiences a boom in trade. Certain people would benefit directly, such as dock workers and harbor masters. But if these benefits did not spread to the city at large, it would be disproportionate growth. Or perhaps a country experiences dramatic growth in one industry but decline in others. This would shift the equilibrium of the state.

Problem 5: Change

Change is in some ways inevitable and can be good. But Aristotle cautions against change that comes too quickly, or change that alters the identity of a state. As people we may change, but if we become in some ways a different person, that will cause problems with our relationships. The same is true in culture at large.

Problem 6: Immigration

Aristotle is not averse to the growth of a state, provided that it grows slowly and “naturally.” Aristotle is in favor of the state sometimes admitting strangers. But if a state brings too many people in with a different culture and religion, then this will cause tension and alter the way group dynamics function.

It is interesting to think about this as it applies to America. Aristotle’s context was the Greek city-state, which were always much smaller than modern countries, ranging from a few thousand to perhaps ten thousand in most instances. In this context, taking in even just several hundred new people would alter things significantly. Aristotle is primarily concerned here not with whether the impact of the new population would be good or bad necessarily. He primarily focuses on the change and destabilization the new population would bring to the body politic.

Whatever position we might take on the current disagreement about immigration in America, we can see that the issue has caused a great deal of controversy and sharply divides our population. If our immigration policy could remain steady for decades, rather than shifting sharply back and forth, our politics would be much better off.

Problem 7: Improper Construction of the State

This is not a problem that develops, but one that lies latent at the inception of the state. With this issue, we can imagine that at a city’s founding, the design of the constitution was flawed in some way. Maybe the founders did not think clearly enough. Maybe some saw the problem, but wanted to rush things through in the belief that things would work themselves out. But over time the latent misalignment would reveal itself, creating an impossible situation of faithfulness to a faulty constitution or revolution.

Those who have watched enough war movies are familiar with this dilemma. A regiment receives orders, but everyone knows that the orders make no sense and would lead to mass casualties. Many want to disregard the orders. But others counter that following orders is what makes an army an army. It’s what holds troops together on the same page. Without orders, who are we and what have we left? The divisions the troops would experience mirror the divisions a society would have with a faulty constitution.

Not all of the issues Aristotle raises mirror the analogy of terminal lucidity that happens to presage shifts in the life of a civilization, but some do. Possibly, for example a slight increase in presidential power could benefit a society at certain times under certain conditions. The society then thinks more is always better, and leans into presidential solutions for their problems. The executive branch might then think that they are experiencing a golden age of presidential power, while in fact, a hard reset might be just around the corner. Or imagine corrupt officials starting small, but then organizing their graft on a large scale. It might appear to them that they have never been “better off” but having involved so many in the corruption, things are bound to unravel soon enough.

Aristotle always comes back to the idea of balance and proportion, and we see this in his ideas about the problems states face.

Dave

Oligarchies, Expansion, and a “Time of Troubles”

by Dave Mathwin

I posted this originally back in 2012.  While I could have added some new thoughts to the post I wrote directly on Eric Voegelin’s Science Politics, and Gnosticism (found here), I thought it better to include in this post as a sub-set on the idea of territorial expansion.

It may very well be that to read Eric Voegelin is to be confused.  I have had my struggles with his book Order and History: The Ecumenic Age.  But, remembering that he made a special study of gnostic ideas and philosophy, I found his thoughts on the origins of Gnosticism and its relation to territorial expansion very intriguing.

Gnosticism has many permutations, but at its core it propounds an opposition of matter and spirit, the soul and the body, and so on.  Some biblical scholars believe that the Apostle John may be attempting to counter Gnosticism in his epistles. Those who have read St. Augustine’s Confessions know that he involved himself in the gnostic ideas of Manicheism before converting to Christianity.  But gnosticism as a general philosophy pre-dates the coming of Christ by many centuries. Voegelin writes on its origins,

The genetic context to which I refer is the interaction between expansion of empire and differentiation of consciousness.  In pragmatic history, Gnosticism arises from six centuries of imperial expansion and civilizational destruction (p. 21).

Thus, we may assume that gnostic ideas had their roots in the first great ecumenic empire of the Persians, and this fits with the Zoroastrianism and its adoption by Darius I as the semi-official religion of his court.

As to the “why” behind the link between expansion and Gnosticism, I am less able to penetrate Voegelin’s thoughts.  But I believe that we can surmise the following:

  • Significant expansion destroys our sense of proportion.  If the empire is everywhere, it is nowhere.
  • Lacking perspective, we lack attachment to place.  Without attachment to place, we lose our attachment to creation itself.  As an old Irish proverb states (I’m not quoting exactly), “Those who travel much lose their faith.”
  • The power that comes with empire inflates one’s sense of self and distances us from others.  As Chesterton stated, one should pray in valleys, not mountaintops.

Related to the original post below, the disconnect from creation might form the spiritual basis of the problems faced by expansion.

Having recently glanced over The Goebbels Diaries I wondered —  did Hitler’s refusal to allow Rommel to withdraw at El Alamein, and his “fight to the last bullet” order to Von Paulus at Stalingrad arise not from hope of victory but desire for the extinguishing of matter?  As Germany’s territory increased, Hitler seemed more focused on a “refining” cataclysm for creation than in actual victory.  Once separated from creation, we come to hate it, with death as the (perceived) only escape.

And now, the original post . . .

Reading Explorers of the Nile spurred on a thought experiment.

While I have not been overly compelled by the story, there have been several interesting tidbits.  Regardless of one’s feelings toward the Victorian age in general, or the Brits in particular, one can’t help but admire the sheer will and energy of the second great wave of western exploration (the first being in the 15th-early 16th centuries via the Atlantic).  Many hundreds of men risked everything for the sheer thrill of discovery, and yes, for the glory of it as well.  In the early phases from ca. 1840-1860’s, most of this exploration seemed to me to have a generally innocent tinge to it.  The more acquisitive imperialism came later.

This energy and striving for glory reminded me of late Republic Rome, and the quote from Sallust in The Jurgurthine War, which reads,

I have often heard that Quintus Maximus Publius Scipio, and other distinguished men of our country were accustomed to declare that, whenever they looked on the masks of their ancestors, their hearts were set aflame in the pursuit of virtue [i.e. worthy deeds].  Of course they did not mean that the wax or the effigy had any power over them, but it is the memory of great achievements that kindles a flame in the breasts of eminent men that cannot be extinguished until their own excellence has come to rival the reputation and glory of their forefathers.

It struck me that it was during the later phase of the Republic that Rome grew the most in size.  If we look at a map of the Mediterranean at the beginning of the first Punic War in 264 B.C. . . .

Mediterranean, 264 BC

we see that Rome, though decent in size, does not dominate.  They have their sphere, along with Carthage, Egypt, Macedon, etc.

If we fast-forward 100 years we get a different picture, and as the map below indicates, Rome continues to grow almost geometrically down to the death of Caesar in 44 B.C.

Roman Growth Timeline

While Rome had a Republic at this time, I agree with Toynbee that while the government had democratic elements, it was for all intents and purposes an oligarchy.  The aristocratic senate dominated policy, however much voting by the masses took place.

Is there a connection then, between oligarchic democracies and expansion?  As time marched on from Charles I, England did by fits and starts become more democratic.  But 19th century England surely was not democracy in our sense of the word, and instead like the Republic showed strong oligarchic tinges.  As a monarchy, England’s overseas holdings were modest compared with the rest of the world, ca. 1800. . .

Colonisation, 1800

But a century later, after more democracy (while still having an oligarchy) and we see a different scene:

British Empire, 1920

As in late Republic in Rome, we have a near doubling in size.  Of course, something similar could be said of the other major European powers during the same time, many of them become more democratic after 1848, though again, like England, not fully so until after W.W. I.

Two examples do not really suffice to prove the connection.  But three will!

America gets accused of being an imperial power, but I think the charge false in our current, strongly democratic time.  It might have had more merit in the more oligarchic 19th century, however.

America, 1800:

America, 1800

America, 1900:

When America became more democratic in the 20th century, our expansion rapidly slowed.  Now, to be fair, we acquired Louisiana “fairly” from France by buying it, and Alaska fair and square from Russia.  But the same cannot be said for the Philippines, or the vast territory taken from Indians, including territory in Louisiana.  Both Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant thought that our war with Mexico in 1846 to be manifestly unjust.

If we believe Thucydides, and call Athenian democracy in its golden age really a Pericles-led oligarchy of the best (a claim, to be fair, disputed by the great classicist Donald Kagan), we again see this principle of growth.  In 490 B.C. Athens stood as one city-state among many.  Not so 50 years later. . .

Map, Athenian Empire 431 B.C.

As to why oligarchic democracies have such expansionistic tendencies, I cannot say.  Perhaps it can be the subject of another post filled with wild theories.  But it does seem clear that this period of expansion leads to a “Time of Troubles,” for all parties involved.

For England and the rest of Europe, expansion gave way to the two World Wars.  America had its Civil War, caused largely by the exacerbation of the slavery issue.  The inflaming of the slavery question in its turn had its roots in the Mexican-American war in 1846.  Athens and the Greek world faced the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.).  Though the proximate causes and results of these conflicts differ, they each have an age of expansion to precede it.

Any thoughts from anyone else, with more examples, or a connection between oligarchic democracies and expansion, are heartily welcome.

Blessings,

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Regime Change

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings all,

Before Christmas break we wrapped up our unit on the Cold War, and right at the end of that era we initiated a military operation to remove a leader from a Latin America country. In 1989 we invaded Panama to depose the de facto leader, Manuel Noriega. He eventually surrendered and was convicted at his trial in the United States. Purely from the perspective of a history teacher, our actions in Venezuela occurred at just the right time. We discussed in class some similarities and differences bewteen the two events, and brought in Machiavelli’s perspective to aid our discussion.

We struck at Noriega for a variety of reasons that can likely be condensed to

  • Drugs
  • Safeguarding the democratic process in Panama
  • Protecting the viability of the Panama Canal

Operation Just Cause was controversial then and now, with questions abounding about its legality according to international law and the constitutional powers of the presidency. Depending on which source one uses, casualties ranged from 500 to 1000 people, But in terms of results, most everyone agrees that the United States achieved its political goals in the operation. In time Panama became a stable, democratic state friendly to US interests. At the time, the people of Panama overwhelmingly supported the operation, and Panama’s subsequent political history bears this out.

Time will tell regarding the ultimate success of our extraction of President Maduro. Will he be convicted? Will Venezuela transform politcally? Will the US garner support in the region or not? Such questions will need a few years before we have the answer. But we can look to history and its observers to aid our speculation amidst our confusing political moment.

In class we looked at two chapters of Machiavelli’s The Prince to inform our discussion.

Machiavelli examines how one ruler can take effective control of another land and govern it either personally or via proxy. As usual, Machiavelli avoids the moral question of whether or not one should or should not do so, and concentrates on the conditions for success should one wish to undertake the action.

He identifies two paths to success:

  • Control the territory through occupation. This requires patience and a lot of money. But if one has the resources (both financial and in terms of political and military will) this will usually give one success.
  • Destroy the territory and scatter its inhabitants. This is simpler and much more effecient than the above option. However, many will consider these actions cruel and your reputation as a ruler will be sullied for posterity.

Machiavelli frankly admits that because of this, few rulers should consider seeking to control other lands. Most lack the stomach for it. Most, he argues, unable to “rip off the band-aid” will attempt to be “nice,” or take short-cuts, and their efforts will ultimately fail. It would have been much better if they never attempted anything in the first place.

Various political scientists have tried to tease out the principles behind Machiavelli’s to apply them to modern actions. For example, if one wants to occupy an entire geographic region one must indeed scatter the inhabitants of the entire region. But what if the “territory” you wish to occupy is merely the seat of power itself? In that case, when one “scatters the inhabitants” you can confine yourself to those with political power rather than the whole of the population. Here is one clue as to why Panama might have worked, for we entirely dismantled Panama’s governing elite and rendered it’s military ineffective. In Afghanistan, we certainly did not sufficiently “scatter” or destroy the Taliban, and they were able to return to power.

Time will reveal whether or not our actions in Venezeula will turn out for good or ill. Machiavelli would likely argue that taking out only Maduro would qualify as a half-measure that will likely make things more difficult for us in the long run. We shall see.

Perhaps Machiavelli’s most infamous section of The Prince comes in chapter 17, where he writes,

Coming now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.

Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable.

A question arises out of this, namely: Is it better to be loved than feared or better to be feared than loved? Well, one would like to be both; but it’s difficult for one person to be both feared and loved, and when a choice has to be made it is safer to be feared. The reason for this is a fact about men in general: they are ungrateful, fickle, deceptive, cowardly and greedy. As long as you are doing them good, they are entirely yours: they’ll offer you their blood, their property, their lives, and their children—as long as there is no immediate prospect of their having to make good on these offerings; but when that changes, they’ll turn against you. And a prince who relies on their promises and doesn’t take other precautions is ruined.

What is Machiavelli advocating?

First, we can note that when Machiavelli uses the word “love” he does not have the Christian definition of the word in mind. From the context, it seems that he means something akin to infatuation. We have seen how certain people rise to prominence only to experience a fall a few months later (Elon Musk comes to mind as a recent example), and given the context, I think this is what he means. Having people be infatuated with those in power does give leaders a brief moment when they could hypothetically receive a lot of support and accomplish a great deal. But like the wind, such infatuation comes and goes.

Fear also does not last forever, but it does last longer than “love” as Machiavelli defines it. By “fear” Machiavelli means (I think) the obedience and stability inspired via wanting to avoid punishment. It is stability, I think, that is Machiavelli’s key concern. For example, Machiavelli understands that leaders can be immoral, but if their immorality affects the lives of the public, such as raising taxes and pocketing the money yourself, you will not last in power long. The people will not take kindly to the disruption you brought into their lives. On the other hand, if a ruler had a mistress and destroyed his marriage, that wouldn’t be a good thing, but it would not directly impact the lives of the people. In such cases, the public will usually either forgive or look past your misdeeds.

Here is a positive spin on Machavelli’s trade-off:

Many parents, for example, do not want to be seen as the “bad guy.” In addition, the amount of decisions parents make in a day can be wearisome, and it is hard to always know what is right. Thus, some parents will often hedge about certain decisions. “Dad, can I do ‘x’?” The dad has doubts about ‘x,’ but also (like any parent), likes to say “yes” to his son. He is ultimately not sure about ‘x’ and wants to think about it.

So, dad hedges, and says, “Maybe you can do ‘x,’ under certain parameters for a certain length of time. Let me think about it.” The dad hopes that he shows that the child that he is reasonable and open. But often these kinds of actions produced confusion and unhappiness in the child.

The dad who simply says, “No,” and adds, “and you know better than to even ask,” seems cruel at first glance. The child may be momentarily upset, but will get over it soon. Above all, the child knows where he stands, and experiences no confusion. In the end, this child is probably happier in the long run.

Alas, I (and perhaps others who read this as well) have often tried the hedge described above and found experience to be a hard, but fair, teacher.

8th Grade Literature: Medea at a Crossroads

by Dave Mathwin

As we move into Book Three of the Argonautica we get introduced to Medea, which sets up the central dramatic problem of the epic.

Greek literature followed Greek religion and delved into the nature of human choice, Fate, and the gods. Actions between men and the gods are often countered and then countermanned again. The gods push and pull against each other and mankind mirrors their actions. The line between what humans can control and what they must submit to from the gods is always blurry, and so it is in our story.

Jason was set on a quest by his uncle to retrieve the Golden Fleece, an ancient gift representing kingly power. Jason claims the throne belongs to him, so it is somewhat natural that he should need some emblem of royal dignity to accompany him. He was set on this quest to fail, however, as his uncle intended. The owner of the fleece, Aeetes, will never relinquish it. Jason has so far shown he lacks the brawn to overpower anyone. He has shown cunning and diplomacy in spurts, but that will not be enough to defeat Aetes in his own backyard.

At this point, Hera, backed by Athena, enters the story. She is a fan of Jason, as Jason one time did Hera a good turn when she was disguised as an old woman. More to the point, she hates Jason’s uncle Peleus, who regularly ignored her altars. She wants Jason to have the fleece, and decides to use Aeetes’ daughter Medea to help him get it. Medea is shot by Eros/Cupid, and falls irrevocably in love with Jason. This is tragic largely because Medea will be torn between her “love” for Jason and for her duty to her family and city. For her, helping Jason would be akin to treason. If she gains Jason, she will lose everything else.

Her choice of Medea is not random. Medea is a priestess of Hecate, and Hecate was the goddess of witchcraft, liminal borders, and magic.

Hecate was also the goddess of crossroads, which is reflected in the three directional statue of Hecate above. And this is appropriate as well, for Medea’s decision whether or not to help Jason will put her life on an irrevocable path. She will risk everything for Jason, but Jason may not be worth that risk.

The Argonautica is more slippery than previous Greek epics. The Iliad is rife with tragedy but has a tragic granduer. The Odyssey gives us a flawed hero but also justice and catharsis at its conclusion. The Odyssey also gives us a wise and virtuous heroine in Penelope.

Here in the Argonautica we have neither a bold hero or a virtuous heroine. Medea is sympathetic, but she is no Penelope. In many ways the story wants to see her action as selfish, though today many would not view it so. We are much more individualistic than the ancient Greeks. Medea’s actions cut her off from everyone and everything–except Jason. If Jason cannot successfully integrate her into his world, she will have no world at all. The Greeks thought that acting virtuously required a social context. For Aristotle, to be without a defined community made it impossible to realize one’s full humanity. Medea’s choices put her in danger of essentially becoming a non-person.

The postscript for Jason and Medea is a bitter one. Medea flees with Jason, and Jason agrees to marry her out of sympathy, gratitude, and in part, to keep her safe. But from the start their relationship was off balance. Medea was much more drawn to Jason than Jason to Medea, and Medea had to give up a great deal more than Jason.

Still, Jason had to give up something as well. He was the son of a king, and to marry a king’s daughter would certainly not be beneath him. But, he married Medea without her family’s consent (her father wanted Jason dead) and so his marriage would likely bring conflict to his own land even if he made it back safely. To marry without the family blessing of either side put their relationship at risk from the word ‘go.’

There is an interesting vignette in Medea’s story not in The Argonautica but in other versions of the story. On their way home, Medea has an encounter with Queen Arete, who can be compared to Penelope in terms of virtue and the best of feminine wisdom. Medea asks Arete for advice, and Arete tells her to leave her history of magic, spells, and sorcery behind, especially when it comes to her relationship with Jason. In the end, Medea will not follow this advice. In a classic instance of particularly Greek irony, her use of magic to keep Jason attached to her only ends up driving her away. Jason and Medea eventually have children (the number varies according to the source), but in the end, Jason divorces Medea. To make sure that Jason will have no heirs and no legacy, Medea murders his new bride and her own children as well.

The original readers knew all of this lore, and all of adds extra weight to Medea’s choice to help Jason and his crew escape. Medea chose wrongly, but the tragedy of Greek literature is that choosing rightly still would have meant the deaths of Jason and his crew at the hands of Aetes, and the failure of his quest. If the quest failed, well, we have no story. Hera and Jason sacrifice Medea for their own ends, and Medea destroys her family (and even later murders her brother) to achieve her own ends as well.

Earlier this week we had fun discussing what elements a good relationship needs, such as family support, mutual attraction, similar backgrounds, and so forth. The class did not always agree about where to rank these elements in their order of importance, but it became obvious that Jason and Medea had very little to build on and much working against them. In their favor, we can note their mutual attraction for one another, and the fact that both came from royal families. Against them, we can list:

  • Neither had the blessing of their families
  • Their “relationship” was formed very quickly in a very intense situation
  • Jason owed far more to Medea than Medea owed to Jason.
  • Conversely, after her betrayal Medea depended entirely on Jason for her protection and status. She uses this at times to guilt Jason into marrying her.
  • They had very different experiences growing up
  • Medea’s service to Hecate made Jason suspicious of her, while at the same time, her powers were needed at crucial moments to save Jason and the crew.
  • They forced enormous stress from the very start of their attraction for one another.

It is easy to see that Jason and Medea had little chance for a successful future together.

In the end, everyone may or may not be playing everyone else, and this quest does not give us the catharsis that we hope for. This is what makes The Argonautica a late-civilization epic, and why we can compare Jason’s character to the context of Machiavelli’s The Prince, which we are also reading this year.

Dave

A Donut Shaped Universe

by Dave Mathwin

If anyone every feels a tinge of excitement opening Plato’s Republic for the first time, many find the text quickly snuffs it out. This foundational philosophical work starts off with a rather mundane conversation. Then, when Plato starts to talk about how the state should be built, one of the first points he makes is that no one should more than one job, one task. Stay in your lane, and do not deviate. Otherwise, “great evil” would result.

Such pronouncements strike moderns as absurd and non-sensical. I like Plato and think The Republic deserves its place in the canon, but I too never really liked the explanation given by various commentators about this section of the work.

Ah . . . but Jane Jacobs may have discovered the answer–one I had never heard or considered before.

All readers know the pleasure of discovering a new author, with the prospect not only of the current book in front of you, but of all of their other works. Well, historians get the same thrill as seekers of fiction, and I have to say . . . Jane Jacobs has been too long absent from my life. I am not sure if I agree with her, but that is not the point. The best teachers you have had may not have agreed with you, but pushed you to think, explore, and wonder.

But I have another qualification for a good historian–one cannot be simply a “one thing after another” type of historian. I would say that such people are in fact not historians–however good their research skills–for historians must create meaning. This means that historians must consciously synthesize even if they do not wish to overtly systematize. Jacobs showed in her most famous work (which I have not read) The Life and Death of American Cities that she can pick order out of the seemingly scattered flotsam of different neighborhoods.

One wants to agree with such people, and I find it annoying for the moment that I cannot decide quite what I think about one of her perhaps lesser-known works, Systems of Survival, a book that attempts to unify the entirety of history into two moral systems, or two ways in which civilizations, organizations, or movements, can order themselves. I admire the audacity of the attempt, and I love too that she organizes her thoughts in the form of hypothetical conversations–more books should take this accessible approach.*

Jacobs broadly identifies two “casts of mind” throughout history that derive from these two moral modes of being. The first, the “Guardian,” and the second, the “Commercial.” I think that “Cosmopolitan” fits better (my first minor disagreement with Jacobs), but I will stick with her terms. She has two of her characters demonstrate this with the following conversation:

Guardian: The love of money is the root of all evil.

Commercial: The love of power is the root of all evil.

G: History tells of the dynasties and the fates of nations and empires.

C: History tells us of how social, material, and economic conditions have changed.

G: The most valuable archeological findings are of art, religious artifacts, tombs, of kings, etc.

C: The most valuable artifacts are clues to how people lived everyday life, how they made their living, their tools and materials.

G: War and preparations for war are normal and peace a hiatus from war.

C: No–peace is normal, war is the aberration.

G: Man is a territorial animal.

C: People are city-building animals.

G: Knowledge is a weapon or possibly an adornment

C: Knowledge is a tool.

G: Intelligence gives us insight into others’ way of thinking–we should focus on what divides us.

C: Intelligence means primarily the ability to pick up new skills and good reasoning.  We should focus on what unites us.

G: China is prosperous at our expense.

C: China’s prosperity raises everyone’s standard of living.  Economic gain is not zero-sum.

G: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’

C: The state exists for the sake of the people–that’s Locke, Rousseau, Madison–the social contract.

These casts of mind come from what Jacobs describes as two “moral syndromes.” By “syndrome” she simply means that the various parts of the moral system necessarily run together. She calls these the “Commercial” and “Guardian” moralities, and part of the vim and dash of the book is that she commits to the idea that these two “syndromes” are all that have ever existed. The values of each system are . . .

The “Commercial” Syndrome

Shun Force–Come to voluntary agreements

Be honest–collaborate easily with strangers

Compete–but respect contracts and other voluntary agreements

Use initiative and creativity

Be open to new things–change should be embraced

Be thrifty and efficient

Promote comfort and convenience

Dissent is valuable for the sake of the task

Invest for productive and practical results

Be optimistic

The Guardian Moral Syndrome

Shun trading, and exert prowess

Be disciplined and obedient

Value tradition and the ‘old ways’

Respect hierarchy–strive for loyalty

Make rich use of leisure–be ostentatious

Dispense largesse

Group exclusivity strengthens internal identity

Treasure honor

Jacobs has much to say about both, and of course both go right and wrong in different ways. In general, most of the world used to subscribe to a Guardian morality and now certainly the first world at least has shifted to the Commercial syndrome. But the shift has not been absolute, as ancient Babylon and classical Athens strike me as mainly “Commercial” in nature, and even “Guardian” civilizations had Commercial aspects. Cities, and any civilization with a port, generally need to adopt a commercial mentality.

I found myself much taken with her analysis, as it explains a lot of the success and frustrations we have with our predicament. The benefits of the Commercial syndrome seem almost second-nature. Our religious and political freedoms arise from it. The material comforts we enjoy come from the speed of innovation (and its accompanying trampling of tradition) over the last 250 years.** Many of our “freedoms” have also resulted from a variety of moral innovations, especially in the area of sexuality. To point out the obvious, if we like democracy we have to value collaborating with strangers.^

But a second look reveals its weaknesses. A “Commercial” society will never build pyramids or cathedrals–hence the constant critique of the vanilla-tapioca nature of democratic culture. The promotion of comfort will make it hard for us to sacrifice without an extreme need. The combination of valuing comfort and dissent make it hard to act as one with common purpose.

The Guardian Syndrome obviously has its associations with aristocracy and its attendant abuses–be they spiritual (such as pride), moral, (indolence) or otherwise–we see right away. But the Guardian syndrome can also give more civic-mindedness & “noblesse oblige.” Those in a Guardian society know their place and need not fight for it. Most every kind of environmental advocate, for example, uses aspects of the Guardian syndrome, i.e., hedging in and protecting defined spaces, and knows the futility of their approach to a Commercial syndrome society (something that Paul Kingsnorth discovered).

But back to Plato . . .

Jacobs surmises that what Plato might have meant by his condemnation of having more than one job or “calling” strongly correlates to these moral syndromes. When we “mix” these syndromes together we have the possibility of dangerous moral hybrids. A few examples . . .

  • In the 1980’s NYC sought to help fix crime on their subways by injecting the Transit Police (police have a natural Guardian morality) with certain Commercial incentives. The cops got rewards for things like efficiency, i.e., numbers of arrests, and competition (promotions for higher numbers). The result–Transit Police began falsely arresting people least able to fight the charges–the poor–who were mostly minorities.
  • The Nazi’s took certain aspects of the Guardian morality (such as defense of the homeland) and combined them with Commercial science, whose ‘innovation’ had spawned new racial theories, military ideas, and industrial capacity.
  • Marx hated bourgeois Commercial morality. But all of his theories lay rooted in western political categories of thought. One result–A generally Guardian mentality in terms of communal unity, but applied on a scale of universal Commercial ideology. Guardians tend towards being apolitical, but the Soviet Union also united the Guardian aspect of loyalty with Commercial ideological innovation. So–to be on the wrong side of the prevailing ideology=disloyalty to the state.

Yes, Jacobs also discusses positive moral hybrids, but seems to lean towards Plato’s conclusion that mixing them brings problems more often than solutions.

So far, so good. I found Jacobs’ thoughts stimulating and illuminating. Where I part ways with her comes with her theory of how these two moral syndromes developed. She postulates a material cause for each, with the guardian mentality arising from war, and the commercial from trade. But it is mind that generates matter, so to speak. It is mind that shapes matter. I won’t defend this proposition here, suffice to say, as a Christian I reject a strictly materialist argument for the origins of civilization. But, Jacobs has a point. These moral syndromes have ancient roots–more ancient than she supposes.

For civilizations to work, they must take into account both unity and diversity. Something must bring them together for a society to form at all, yet if this “something” binds them too tightly it will neglect their individuality. This has its roots in Being Itself. God is both Unity (1 God) and Diversity (3 Persons).

Christ, being both God and Man incarnated this duality/tension. He revealed to us both what I will “Open” and “Closed” ways of being. The Open way shows how God shows Himself in Nature (Ps. 19:1) or our fellow man (Mt. 25). Marriage is an icon of Christ and His Church. (Eph. 5). In other words, the Open way encourages us seek Truth in our experience of the world.

But just as often, we are encouraged to take the Closed way. We must gouge out our eye if it causes us to sin (Mt. 5). St. Paul often posits enmity between the world, the flesh, and the Spirit. Christ tells us that we must “hate” even our mother and father for the sake of the Kingdom. The Closed approach urges us to seek the Truth by narrowing, not broadening, our focus and shunning the trappings of this mortal coil that we might see God and God alone.

So is the Open or Closed way superior? The answer, of course, is ‘Yes.”

I love that the world Jacob’s presents has coherence–two halves, coming together to make a whole. The problem is that, like a donut, it lacks a center. Without this center, Jacobs’ outstanding observations lack any real meaning. But with the center, we have the possibility of real coherence.

And who would complain about having an extra bite of a donut?

Update . . . if only Jane Jacobs were here to comment on the Blue Angels flyover that happened Saturday (May 2, 2020), she might argue that one’s reaction to the event would pefectly pigenhole a person into one of the two aforementioned moral syndromes–if we keep in mind that heavily symbolic and “ostentatious” nature of the event:

Commercial:

  • This display wasted money that could have been used to so much better practical good
  • This display wasted time and effort.
  • This display foolishly misdirected our attention–encouraging the American public to look at the shiny object, rather than a) the problem itself, or b) the politicians and agency heads responsible for gross mismanagement of the whole pandemic.

Guardian:

  • We live by symbols, and having our most famous and powerful planes flyover gave the nation a powerful symbol of American pride and resolve.
  • These “unnecessary” displays are in fact, absolutely necessary. We are not materialists–we need such acts to lift us out of the mundane of our lives. We need ‘elevated’ out of our current circumstances. We need inspiration as a people if we are to win the “war” against the virus.
  • Leaders act responsibly when they provide these symbols for the people–something to inspire awe and help unify them.

*Another notable fact about Jacobs–she had no college degree and can be therefore classified as an amateur. Toynbee would have rejoiced.

**Though–different writers from different perspectives, such as Tyler Cowen, Ross Douthat, Peter Thiel, and even Jane Jacobs herself (in her last book Dark Age Ahead) have declared that innovation has essentially ceased in western economies.

^This kind of collaboration also seems on the decline, in Congress, in marriages (Republicans don’t marry Democrats, and vice-versa), etc.–and this may herald a decline in democratic practice.

Rebels Against the Future

by Dave Mathwin

(The Grumpy Old Man podcast that touches on some of these themes can be found here.).

**************************

A few years ago at the Circe Institute conference Andrew Kern made a startling statement.  In the midst of his opening speech he mentioned the Luddites.  I have always assumed (like most of us I suppose) that the Luddites attacked the mechanical looms for economic reasons.  But Kern suggested that perhaps the Luddites acted unknowingly for more fundamental reasons.

All throughout ancient literature (which people in the early 19th century would be familiar with) weaving relates strongly to wisdom.  So Penelope’s weaving, for example, is not merely a clever device to stall the suitors.  She represents wisdom and faithfulness in contrast to the suitors who grasp for power and wealth.  They will not confirm Odysseus’ death, rather they will take what they want in defiance of the pattern of creation and marriage.  The idea of the “fabric of society” closely relates to weaving, and so on.

So, Kern surmised, the Luddites didn’t just act to try and preserve their jobs.  They may have acted to preserve the idea of wisdom itself, though almost certainly not overtly but in a sub-conscious, Jungian sense.

I thought the idea intriguing at the time, but perhaps a bit of a stretch.  But I started to look for weaving in ancient literature.  To my surprise Plato uses weaving in his dialogue “The Statesmen” as an analogy for good government. With Jason and his Argonauts we see Medea the sorceress contrasted with Queen Arete, who is weaving when we first meet her.  In Homer’s The Odyssey we see a couple of references to the span of life compared to a thread (7.197-198, 24.38-29).  Melville uses similar imagery in chapter 47 of Moby Dick, and we also see it in the Upanishads.  Isaiah 38:12 reads, “My life was with me as cloth on a loom, when she that weaves draws near to cut off the thread.”

The philosopher Porphyry uses very similar imagery in his On the Cave of the Nymphs, another reference to the Odyssey (13.102-112).  Here Homer refers to a murky cave which contains, among other things, “looms, likewise of stone, on which the nymphs wear weave sea-purple garments.”  Porphyry writes (and we should remember that he–unfortunately–believed in the pre-existence of the soul),

What symbol could be more appropriate than “looms” for souls descending to birth and the creation of the body?  , . . For flesh is formed in and around the bones, which in living beings resemble stones.

We should not miss the connections to the fundamental facts of weaving, birth, death, blood, and the like.

So perhaps Kern, and the Luddites themselves, were on to something.

I finally went in search of a book on the Luddites and came across Rebels Against the Future by Kirkpatrick Sale.  Sale gives a good overview of the Luddites but does little else.  He gives us some important perspective, showing us that the Luddites had nothing against technology per se, but only against, to quote from a Luddite letter, “Machinery hurtful to commonality.”   He clearly favors the Luddite cause and shows many examples of their courage.  Sale’s explanation for the Luddites ultimate failure, however, leaves out to my mind the most basic reason.  In resorting to violence, they at times fired upon common men like themselves, and thus abandoned their moral high ground.  Furthermore, their use of violence played directly into the hands of their adversaries.  Once they broke the law, the state naturally would defend the men behind the machines.  And the state had much more force to use than the Luddites.*  Had the Luddites exercised more patience and used a non-violent, grass-roots approach, history might have been different.  As to how different, Sale offers no thoughts.  Did industrial looms pose more of a threat than factories that performed other tasks?  Would it be possible to industrialize in some areas and not others?  If other countries industrialized their economy, and thus, their armies, what would the consequences be for a non-industrial country?  The age of imperialism might offer some hints on this, and questions about community balanced with security (among other questions) should be asked.

Sale just scratches the surface.  Maybe not much else exists to see.  Maybe the Luddites had no higher purpose than saving their jobs.  But I think the Luddites continual references to “commonality” hints that Kern had more insight than I first supposed.  I will hope to find other books that can take the issue deeper.

My favorite part of Toynbee’s sixth volume of his A Study of History deals with his examination of what he calls archaism.  “Archaics” in his context seek to recover their civilization in a time of crisis by using a time-machine to travel back to some imagined golden age.  We should much prefer archaism to “futurism.”  The past has the advantage of having an actual reality and thus restrains action somewhat.  The futurist has no such limitations, and the evil they work in their earnest desperation will likely be much more terrible.  Toynbee points out that archaists would usually rather be archaeologists than politicians.  Alas, political realities set in and something must give.  The impossibility of drawing back the masses to the past with you means that archaists often choose violence in the end.  And this ends up dooming their movement.**

I think the Luddites use of violence contributed heavily to their defeat, but I would not call them “archaists.”  They sat on the knife-edge of change and saw a darkness on the horizon.  The “past” they tried to preserve was in fact the present.  Given that they did not reject all technology they had no wish to futilely put the brakes on all aspects of societal change.  They saw clearly what the Industrial Revolution would do to their communities and their sense of self.  If they did not submit to “archaism” they had more psychological flexibility at their disposal, which makes their use of violence more troubling to me.  Perhaps in the end they simply lacked the very rare traits necessary to translate those ideas politically.

Or perhaps their concerns went far away from politics.  Perhaps they saw themselves as doomed crusaders, but bound, like crusaders, to something deeper and older than politics.

Maybe.

According to the Tradition of the Church, at the Annunciation the Virgin Mary was found by Gabriel in the Temple . . . weaving a veil for the Temple where she resided, and some icons of the Annunciation (such as the one below from the 14th century in Serbia) show this as well.

In Hebrews 10:20 we see the identification with Christ’s body with the veil of the sanctuary (10:20), and we know that both the Temple curtain and the Body of Christ were broken for the life of the world.  Father Maximos Constas writes, “With the strictest visual economy, then, Mary’s thread gives consummate expression the . . . continuum of conception and crucifixion.”^

From St. Epiphianos:

About Eve and Mary it was said, “Who gave women the wisdom of weaving, and the knowledge of embroidering? (Job 38:36).  For the first wise woman, Eve, wove material garments for Adam, whom she had stripped naked.  This labor was given to her, for it was through her that the knowledge of nakedness was acquired, and thus to her was given the task of clothing the perceptible body.

To Mary, on the other hand, it was granted by God to give birth to the Lamb and the Shepherd [cf. John 1:29, 10:11], so that from his glory we might be clothed in a garment of incorruptibility (1 Cor. 15:53-54).

And from St. Nelios the Ascetic:

The Theotokos [that is, Mary, the “Mother of God”] displayed such “wisdom and manifold knowledge” (Job 38:36) that, from the wool of the Lamb who was born from her, she was able to clothe all the faithful with garments of incorruptibility.  For all true Christians stand at the right hand of the King, in golden-fringed garments, embroidered in myriad forms of the virtues.

So it may be that the liturgy of the loom points us toward the wisdom of knowing salvation itself.  I’d like to believe that the Luddites thought likewise, and would love for someone to prove or at least suggest this in another book about them.

Dave

*Gene Sharp makes brilliant points about the benefits of non-violent struggle against states or state-sponsored entities in “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” available online.

**I.e, Tiberius Graachi, who committed himself almost entirely to non-violence.  But he did violate the Roman constitution and so became a law-breaker.  This may have cost his movement the fence-sitters they needed, and it also opened the door for the Senate to respond with force.

^The entirety of this paragraph owes everything to The Art of Seeing by Father Maximos Constans, pp. 108-109, as do the quotes below, found on p. 129

8th Grade Literature: The Dog Days

by Dave Mathwin

One of the advantages of reading ancient texts is that they expose us to an unfamiliar world with an unfamiliar way of thinking. But for us to appreciate this we sometimes need to look behind some of the archaic or strange phrases we encounter to help the story make sense. After we get a sense of the story’s meaning, we can then consider its application for us today.

At a few different points in the story the narrator compares Jason’s attractiveness to the star Sirius. This star appeared close to the sun betweeen July 3-August 11, the so called “dog days” of summer. The Sirius star is the brightest sun in the constellation Canis Major (hence the term “dog days”). Some surmise that the ancients believed that the closeness of this bright star added to the heat of the sun, intensifying all things about what summer brings.

We can perhaps easily understand why human beauty would be linked with that of a star. The brightness of Sirius stands out above all other stars in the sky, just as when we notice that special someone across the room, all others fade from view. But in comparing Jason to Sirius in particular, Apollonius gave a foreshadowing hint that his audience in AD 300 would have understood immediately in a way we do not.

The ancient Greeks valued temperance and finding a mean between extremes. Cold and heat both bring good things, but the extremes of both are destructive. Excessive heat brings destruction to crops and to the soul. We know that on hot days, for example, crime increases. Our tendency towards anger and lethargy increases with extreme heat.

Romantic feelings are also associated with heat, but it is Spring, not Summer, that we associate with romance. Summer brings excess, and this foreshadows the destructive relationship Jason will end up having with Medea. The brightness of Sirius is a foreboding brightness. Too much light can harm just as much, or perhaps even more, as too much darkness.

But there is a flip side to the dog associations Apollonius foists upon Jason, and this subtlety helps makes The Argonautica literature worthy of our attention

Dogs had a dual place in ancient and traditional socieities (something we have touched on regarding Roland in this post). To recap briefly, dogs are, on the one hand,

  • Linked with false prophets and unrestrained appetite

but on the other,

  • Associated with obedience, humility and protection.

As noted previously, Jason does not exercise typical heroic leadership. He is not an unstoppable warrior like Achilles. He does not lead from the front like Roland, or possess the single-minded brilliance of Captain Nemo. Jason does show great concern for his men. He is a guardian, of sorts, for his crew, and this fits with how dogs were viewed in the Roman empire. We see here two Lares on a coin, and you can see the dog form:

Here is a later image, where they take a more distinctly human form:

So this connects positively to Jason’s leadership, and Apollonius includes this imagery to let you know of Jason’s strengths.

But dogs in the ancient world were never quite fully domestic creatures as we are used to today. They guarded borders, but would not have been brought inside the home. But Jason is the son of a king, and he should be king himself, were it not for his usurping uncle. Throughout the story, however, Jason rarely seems comfortable as a leader. He hangs back, he worries, he has insecurities. Initially his crew thought Hercules should lead. In one instance, he decides to leave an island at night because of a fair wind, but everyone knows that we have bad associations with night because of the confusion it can bring. Sure enough, Jason ends up leaving Hercules behind by mistake, and turning a ship around in the ancient world to row against the wind is basically impossible. In another instance, friendly hosts mistake Jason and his crew for invaders (again, this happens at night), and Jason accidentally kills the host king. When it comes time to box the brutish Amycus to allow them to leave his island peacefully, it is not Jason that steps forward, but another crew member.

Those who know the full story of Jason (which we will discuss at the conclusion of the Argonautica) understand that Jason will continually feel trapped and pressed by circumstances, and not able to transcend them. He never attains the greatness associated with other Greek heroes.

All this is wrapped up in Apollonius’ references to him as Sirius, the dog star, which many in the ancient world feared to see.

8th Grade Civics: Value Propositions

by Dave Mathwin

This week we looked at a debate about immigration to highlight a crucial skill Aristotle wishes to teach us, a skill democracies are prone to lack. As we saw last week, advocates of different political ideologies or platforms tend to absolutize the values their position highlights, while forgetting that their position inevitably fails to cover every conceivable value. We are finite creatures, and our values are finite, in the sense that every gain/advance will come at a cost. We have to leave something behind.

This is experientially true. If you want to get married and have a family, you have to sacrifice the fun of dating and meeting other people. If you have children, you have to leave behind the life of doing what you like and disposable income. You can certainly argue that married life with a family is a better choice than a life of perpetual dating. But worst of all would be the person who tried to have both at once. The married person who also wanted to date other people would wreak a great deal of havoc. The perpetual dater might simply provoke raised eyebrows.

Theologically this rings true as well, i.e., “Except a seed fall to the ground and die, it remains only a single seed; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). If we are to have life, either spiritually or physically, we must have death, whether that be physical death (the food we eat) or the death of a way of life (giving up a life of dating for marriage).

When faced with a controversial and thorny political issue such as immigration, I wanted the students to use Aristotle’s template to do the following:

  • See the strengths of each side of the argument
  • Understand the costs/what you have to sacrifice to achieve your aim
  • Discern that the debate was not about good values vs. bad values, but involved deciding which kinds of values to prioritize over other values.

The debate we viewed can be seen here:

Both speakers made good arguments, but I wanted the students to see the key underlying assumptions each side brought to the debate. How we view those key assumptions will likely determine what side we favor.

Not everyone loves argument by analogies, but I think analogies have a lot of power to distill key principles of an argument.

The “Pro” side of the debate (Prof. Kaplan) argues that people should be able to travel freely to seek out the best life for themselves they possibly can. He uses the analogy of a house and guest in the following manner:

  • Kaplan declares that he is not arguing that whomever wishes should be able to come to his house if he does not want them in his house.
  • If he wants someone to come in his house, and that someone wants to come, he should be allowed to come to Kaplan’s house. True, his neighbor might disapprove, but what business is it of theirs anyway?
  • He asserts that the “Con” side of the debate essentially argues that people should not have the freedom to extend invitations to people to come over to their house, and that those invited should not have the freedom to accept. This is absurd.

The “Con” side of the debate (Prof. Wellman) also uses the illustration of a house, but with a different emphasis from Kaplan:

  • He asks us to imagine that he leaves his house and goes to a conference for a week. When he returns, he asks his wife what she did while he was gone. She replied that she played cards with friends, got her hair done, and volunteered. Wellman implies that it would be absurd for him to object to such activities.
  • But, his wife then adds, I also decided to adopt a child from a foreign country. Here he is–meet your new son! Wellman declares that he would have every right to object to this action. His wife’s “freedom of association” has dramatically impacted his own freedom of association without his consent.

There are some deeper foundations to the arguments from both sides.

Kaplan, a libertarian, seems to believe in two key principles. The first is that the individual is the primary unit of society, and so our laws should be oriented around maximizing individual freedom. Secondly, libertarians tend to believe that maximizing economic freedom (which includes the free movement of labor) is a primary way to boost freedom overall. Economic growth is a moral issue, for greater economic growth means a better life for more people, especially those on the border between the lower and middle classes. So, in his analogy of the house, the homeowner is an employer and the guest is a potential worker.

I am not sure of the philosophical background of Wellman, but he argues that the group (though perhaps not necessarily the family, a la Aristotle) is the primary political decision making unit. Decisions that involve altering the makeup of a household/political community should be made by the community as a whole (or their representatives). In his “house” analogy he envisions a family rather than an employer.

Both analogies are persuasive, and both have their limits. Kaplan’s analogy doesn’t work as well when the guest wants to blast heavy metal music out of his window, which would obviously adversely affect the community. Wellman’s analogy makes perfect sense when comparing adoption to citizenship. But what if his wife just invited a friend over for coffee (maybe similar to a temporary work visa)? Hypothetically Wellman might still object to associating with his wife’s friend, but in that case our sympathies go to his wife. We would expect Wellman to bear up with the “incovenience” of the temporary association.

Deciding between these two positions boils down to the key divide between seeing the group/family or the individual as the primary political unit of society. Kaplan is suspicious of governments exercising authority over the individual, and Wellman much less so.

Hopefully, the students will see how their beliefs about these key “fork in the road” questions influence their position on immigration, whatever that might be.

Have a great weekend,

Dave

10th/11th Grade: Bismarck and “Unnatural States”

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we began to look at German unification, orchestrated under the brilliant and controversial Prime Minister of Prussia Otto von Bismarck.

Bismarck raises some important and perhaps uncomfortable questions about leadership.  What is the line between serving the interests of your country and serving God?  Should nations be treated akin to how one would treat individuals, and therefore punished and rewarded like individuals?  Or, should nations be thought of as artificial entities that do not have to play by the same rules as people?  Cardinal Richelieu of France ((17th century) said that, ‘People are immortal and thus subject to the law of God.  Nations are mortal ] and are subject to the law of what works.’ That is, artificial and unnatural creations — one can’t imagine the universe as it is without gravity, but it would be the same universe without the United States.  This hearkens again to Richelieu who would have argued that while Frenchman are Catholic, France is not.  France can’t be Catholic any more than a cardboard box could be Catholic.  Frenchmen may be redeemed, but France will have no heavenly judgment or reward.  For better or worse, Bismarck would have agreed with him.  He also said,

If one wants to retain respect for laws and sausages, don’t watch them being made.

Politics for Bismarck was a dirty business, and there was no point pretending that success would not mean getting his own hands dirty.  But for Bismarck, the world of international politics remained essentially unredeemable, a conclusion Christians may not wish to share.

While there are many debatable aspects of Bismarck, a few things are beyond dispute.  He gained an advantage over some of his foreign political adversaries in part because he recognized what the Industrial Revolution would mean for politics before others.  He realized that

  • Mass production would lead to a ‘mass society,’ where mobilization of opinion could make a huge difference.
  • Old aristocratic Europe was finished, at least in the sense that kings and nobles could no longer act without direct reference to their populations.  The press and public opinion would be nuisances to others.  Bismarck saw them as opportunities for making Prussia’s actions much more potent.

Bismarck is  controversial because

  • He used democracy, but he did not believe in democracy. Bismarck “believed” in a strong state and saw democracy as a possible end to create that state. But he would also use other means to suit his purpose. In the end for Bismarck, ‘blood and iron,’ not speeches, win the day.  Force and strength were the best projections of power, though to be fair to Bismarck, he believed in a limited/surgical use of force.
  • Bismarck was the ultimate realist.  He believed that concerning oneself with justice, for example, could lead one to get carried away, to lose focus.  The primary motivation for policy should be whether or not it serves the interest’s of the state.  Don’t first concern yourself with rewards or punishments.  Do what serves the ends of the state.  A foreign policy built primarily on  morality (an example might be punishing or rewarding a country based on their human rights record) was not proper for a nation, however much individuals should be concerned with it.

As an example of his policy we can look at his actions during the Polish bid for independence from Russia.  When the Poles attempted to break from Russia almost every major power gave speeches expressing their support for the Polish cause.  They did so, no doubt, for a variety of reasons:

  • The Poles vs. Russia was a great underdog story and everyone loves an underdog
  • Independence movements were rife throughout Europe and everyone loves to bandwagon.
  • Polish success would weaken Russia’s power, and most wanted Russia weakened whenever possible.

Bismarck shocked everyone by not supporting the Poles, but even offering public support — and troops — to aid the Russians in crushing the rebellion.  Why did he take such a position?

  • Speeches make you feel good and important, but speeches themselves will not help the Poles one whit.
  • These speeches, however, will serve to alienate Russia, and you would have gained nothing and angered a major power. The words of encouragement you offered Poland (without actually helping them) might even alienate Poland as well (think of a situation where you are carrying something very heavy, and someone nearby offers words of encouragement but doesn’t lift a finger to help. You probably would not have warm feelings for that person).
  • No foreign power would actually send troops to aid the Polish, so again, the expressions of support meant nothing in reality.
  • The Poles, without foreign aid, would certainly lose.

Thus, it seemed far better to Bismarck to go against the grain and actually aid his country by standing up for Russia in their time of need.  Yes, other countries would get momentarily upset at Prussia’s actions, but again, it would mean nothing.  Bismarck planned to cash in  the favor he performed for Russia later, and he did in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

To put Bismarck’s actions in perspective, think of the “Free Tibet” movement that we occasionally hear about.  Lot’s of people make speeches to end Chinese occupation of Tibet.  But . . . no one will actually do anything about it.  No one would risk war with China over this issue.  The words of sympathy given to Tibet 1) Do nothing for the Tibetans, 2) angers China, which makes them 3) not just worthless, but counterproductive.

To put Bismarck’s actions here in perspective, imagine if a U.S. president not only did not support Tibet, but publicly supported China.

It would be a bold move.

This does not mean that Bismarck was personally amoral.  Rather, if nations are essentially ‘pieces on a chessboard’ they cannot be sinned against.  You can sin against people.  But you cannot sin against shapes on a map.  This hearkens back to Richilieu’s foreign policy for France some 250 years prior, and to Machiavelli before that. In the same way, no one would call you a ‘sinner’ if you bluffed in poker.  The poker game is in a sense, an alternate reality where different rules apply.  For Bismarck, the same is true of politics.  We see this philosophy come through in his famous musings after Prussia’s victory in the Austro-Prussian War:

We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard. If Austria were severely injured, she would become the ally of France and of every other opponent of ours; she would even sacrifice her anti-Russian interests for the sake of revenge on Prussia. . . .The acquisition of provinces like Austria Silesia and portions of Bohemia could not strengthen the Prussian state; it would not lead to an amalgamation of German Austria with Prussia, and Vienna could not be governed from Berlin as a mere dependency. . . .Austria’s conflict and rivalry with us was no more culpable than ours with her; our task was the establishment or foundation of German national unity under the leadership of the King of Prussia.

….To all this the king raised no objection, but declared the actual terms as inadequate, without however definitely formulating his own demands. Only so much was clear, that his claims had grown considerably since July 4. He said that the Austria could not be allowed to escape unpunished, and that, justice once satisfied, we could let the misled backsliders off more easily; and he insisted on the cessions of territory from Austria which I have already mentioned.

I replied that we were not there to sit in judgment, but to pursue the German policy. Austria’s conflict and rivalry with us was no more culpable than ours with her; our task was the establishment or foundation of German national unity under the leadership of the king of Prussia.

Passing on to the German states, the king spoke of various acquisitions by cutting down the territories of all our opponents. I repeated that we were not there to administer retributive justice, but to pursue a policy; that I wished to avoid in the German federation of the future the sight of mutilated territories, whose princes and peoples might very easily (such is human weakness) retain a lively wish to recover their former possessions by means of foreign aid.

If we wish to dismiss his ideas, we should pause first.  After all, it is wrong to kill, but a nation can commission soldiers to kill, and we do not say they sin necessarily by doing so.  People shouldn’t lie, but a nation can spies to disseminate false information.  Is this sin?  If we say no, we have a dilemma on our hands of how we think of states as they relate to ‘individual’ morality.

In the end, Bismarck’s creation of a unified Germany would radically change European politics.  Germany became the greatest land power on the continent immediately.  But the change went deeper than that — the rationale for how a state comprised itself changed.  The idea of a “Germany for Germans” would spread and eventually undo European empires, and sow the seeds of the militant democracies of the early 20th century.

The unification of Germany also was a harbinger of the new kind of state created by the Industrial Revolution. England had already experienced the Industrial Revolution and benefitted from it. But the warp speed creation of Germany, and how it utilized various cultural and military aspects of industrialization, would serve as a blueprint for other nations. Next week we will look at how the Industrial Revolution reshaped society.

Many thanks again,

Dave Mathwin

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle and the Problem of the Good

by Dave Mathwin

This week we continued to look at Aristotle thoughts on how societies actually function and the downstream effects of how we make decisions.

Democracies foster freedom, which we appreciate. This freedom inevitably produces disagreements, but we expect this and factor it into our society and politics. But Aristotle wants to see what it is we disagree about, why we disagree, and whether or not we are aware of what this means.

In Book III of his Politics Aristotle writes,

Who shall govern when different groups within a state seek power? Suppose, for example, that we want only the “good” to govern—that is, those who live best and possess the best abilities– no matter their number [that is–if they are the majority or a small minority]. It is always best for the good to govern, but if within a state, there exists no common method of determining who is “good” [i.e., no common moral or religious criteria to decide] then such a method is not open to the populace. 

Criteria are necessary. If oligarchies wish to make the “good” those with a sufficient amount of wealth, or proper birth, then such a claim can be understood by all. But not all will agree with the criteria. 

How can even expediency agree with such a view? If we say that birth or wealth confer the right to rule, what about those with better birth, or more wealth? In only a short time, then, will such a system descend into the rule of one man.

But those who favor the rule of the many [democracy] have similar problems. Should the many rule simply because they are more numerous? We have seen, however, that the “good” are in short supply. If we give rule to the many because they are stronger than the few, or simply more numerous, we are logically driven to conclude that where one man or one group is stronger than another, they should have more power than others. But neither would we want what is best to be determined by mere counting.

All of this shows that neither birth, nor wealth, nor mere numbers, are the proper principle from which to govern a state.

Aristotle begins by making the obvious assertion that every society should want those that are “good” in power making decisions for us. We would naturally want those who are wise, just, intelligent, and so forth to govern. The problem arises when we have no concrete, agreed upon method for determining what wisdom and justice mean. For example, does one gain wisdom through growing up poor in an isolated rural area, or by growing up wealthier in an urban area and traveling the world, attending great schools, and so forth? We could say that both paths could or could not produce wisdom. But this wouldn’t help us unless we know how to choose between the two kinds of wisdom when presented to us. Likely, most would disagree about that question.

In absence of any concrete criteria about the more important metaphysical questions, societies turn to something more measurable, such as birth, wealth, or in the case of democracies, numbers. This has the advantage of being obvious and measurable, i.e., “Everyone from one of these 10 families can govern, or everyone with ‘x’ amount of money can govern. In the case of democracies, those with the majority of votes can govern. This can eliminate disagreement about who gets to rule, but as Aristotle points, out this gets us nowhere towards discovering “the good.” Ultimately, societies that disagree about the nature of ultimate “goods” will eventually, most likely, either devolve into factional principalities, or require force to hold everything together via force and centralization of power.

As mentioned, democracies give a great deal of freedom to its people to form their own conclusions and give them rights that they may express their opinions freely. In fact, one can argue that democratic societies almost encourage disagreement. This solves and creates problems all at once.

We discussed in class that we have problems as a society not so much because one side is good and the other is bad, but because we fail to agree how to properly order different virtues. We used the following example:

Imagine that you have a group of 100 people living in the wilderness. Other groups of people live around you, some are hostile, some are friendly, some could go either way. You built walls around your enclosure to protect your group and to give them a defined place to call home.

One night Tom and Bill are charged with guarding the walls and the gate of entrance. At the gate a man knocks. You don’t know him, but he appears hurt and sick. Do you let him in?

Tom thinks not. You are not sure about this man. He could be a spy, he could be faking, he could be dangerous, he could even be an assassin. Your primary duty is to protect the people behind the walls. Tom’s heart strings are tugged, but he steels himself to his primary duty of protecting those behind him.

Bill wants to let him in. The man seems to be strong and skilled. If we help him, he could help us and strengthen our community. Besides, we have a duty to care for those in need that goes above our duty to defend the walls.

The question should not be, “Who is the bad one, Tom or Bill?” Both Tom and Bill have good values and want to do good things. The question instead should be, “Who wants what is best in this circumstance?”

If Tom and Bill (symbolic stand ins for the community at large) actually instead agreed either to let him in or not, you have a cohesive society with a clear hierarchy of values. If they disagree, well, let the games begin.

We can drill down further. This decision might be context dependent. Suppose that instead of one man at the gate, there were thirty. Here the risk/reward of letting them in increases dramatically, and one can reasonably think that the risk outweighs the reward. But if we change the scenario from thirty men to one small child asking for asylum, the risks disappear, and it seems obvious that Tom and Bill should let them in (though one student objected, stating that, “No way! She could be one of those specially trained child assassins! :).

But even as the decision becomes context dependent, one still needs an agreed upon hierarchy of values to ensure a stable society. Without this, Aristotle suggests, you will need to be guided by concrete criteria that will solve the surface level problem. But, while an individual or a society can bury the metaphysical issue for a time, it will return. When it does, such questions will demand an answer.