Author Archives: Dave Mathwin

Mr. Kipling’s Army

by Dave Mathwin

Some years ago I read A Perfect Mess, a delightful book that sought to demonstrate the blessings of individuality in business and life.  The book centers on the basic idea that creating uniformity in how people work, process, and store information, though it looks efficient, will in fact harm the bottom line for 2 main reasons:

  • Acquiring the time and means to store information takes more time and money than we might think, and
  • It forces everyone into a mold few people (except the fussy bureaucrat) work well within.

The authors cited the real-life example of two newsstands on the same New York street.  One store had all the modern accoutrements, such as computer reordering systems, a large selection, beautiful decor, and a helpful staff.  The other was a father-son operation that had less of everything.  But only the father-son store stayed in business.  All that selection, decor, staff, and computer systems came with a steep price tag.  Somehow the poorly-lit, somewhat ramshackle father-son operation worked just fine.

I thought of A Perfect Mess reading the similarly entertaining Mr. Kipling’s Army by the pre-eminent military historian of the Victorian era, Byron Farwell.  Certain things about the British army of this period seem almost impossible to believe.

For one, no one commanded the army.  By this, I don’t mean that no one person commanded the army, I mean that no agreement existed as to whether or not the Crown or Parliament commanded the army.  No “Joint Chiefs of Staff” existed.  Different people commanded different sections of the army, but at root the army had no unity of command.

The practice of purchasing army commissions continued long into the 19th century, which allowed anyone with enough cash and enough desire to immediately assume the rank of Lt. Colonel.  True, some disagreed with this practice. But it had numerous supporters, among them, the Duke of Wellington, who argued that the purchase of commissions gave the upper echelon of officers a direct stake in the well-being of the army/country.

Furthermore, various physical handicaps had no bearing on one’s ability to serve.  Some generals could not hear.  Some could not walk.  Some could not even see, being legally blind.  No one seemed to mind.

The army never grew even close to the size of armies in other European countries such as Prussia and France.  But this same “pint-sized” army was also spread out further over the globe than the military of any other country at that time.

Despite all this, none can doubt that the British army of this period did more with less than anyone else.  Quite simply, they were an enormously effective force, and between 1815-1914, more effective than anyone else.*

Farrwell offers no direct answers to this seeming paradox, but he packs the book with so many choice nuggets that one can begin to answer the question for themselves.  A key feature of the British army in this period would surely be regimental pride and identity, though not, as we might expect, army pride and identity.

The numerous regiments had their own uniforms, customs, mascots . . . a unending list of distinctives.  Sometimes these distinctives included actual violent rivalries with other regiments, but no matter.  If the British had one sacred guiding principle in this era it amounted to this: Do not mess with regimental traditions.  They tolerated almost anything not to violate this sacrosanct dictum, including actual criminal behavior by some soldiers, i.e., “Smashed shop windows at Blenheim Square?  And today is the third Saturday of March?  Pay no mind, that’s just the boys of the 10th Essex.”

The British may have gone too far with their one sacred principle, but they chose well.  Various testimonials abound at how the accretion of tradition and custom built a very strong sense of unity and identity within each fighting line.  The Romans (another effective army!) did something similar for much of its history, grouping soldiers as much as they could by village.  You fought next to those you lived with.  Almost every officer hated getting pulled from regimental ranks into a staff job.  Parting with the regiment meant parting with family.

Armies get their modus operandi, hence their effectiveness, from the societies that create them.  When a natural meshing occurs between army and society, the armies will have much more power because they will have more confidence, consciously or not.  Military action has a greater chance of meshing with society at large, which again adds to the effectiveness of military action.

The British did this brilliantly, whether they realized it or not.  The 19th century in England saw a curious blend of aristocracy and democracy.  The power of the monarch and the House of Lords all underwent a steady transformation towards more democracy, but a strong aristocratic flavor remained.**  Even the “defensive” dress (as brilliantly put by Lord Clark in his Civilization series) of the middle and upper-middle class showed an aristocratic motive to distinguish themselves from the masses.  Chesterton’s early 20th century work  The Club of Queer Trades delightfully pays homage to the British mania for clubs at the turn of the 20th century.

The British saw to it that each regiment was its own club, its own mini-aristocracy with its own traditions, dress, and way of life.  Anyone in a regiment would immediately become part of a mini-society that would give them a holistic identity apart from the rest of society.  As even our modern political scene teaches us, people will fight hard to maintain their sense of identity.

All of this should make us ponder our current situation.  I remember reading an article some time ago that mentioned that over the last 10 years the military has seen a huge spike in those hoping to become snipers.  Maybe this is the result of video games, but maybe not.  Military movies for decades focused on the heroism of the average Joe.  Now our movies and many of our military operations focus on our special forces, a kind of aristocracy within the military at-large.  And yet, our country may be moving in a more populist direction.  If so, this would put some tension between our military and our society which in theory could damage its effectiveness.

Or, possibly what we think is populism is in fact an extension of a kind of hyper identity awareness.  We do see a rise in the role of personal identity with issues surrounding sexuality and gender, and perhaps race as well.  If this is correct, then our military and society may be moving in a more feudal/aristocratic direction, not in the sense of having a defined upper class by birth, but by the segmenting of “Society” into multiple different smaller societies and interest groups.

Or perhaps its instead some weird combination of things, as may often be the case with American history.

Dave

*For now we will leave aside the moral aspects of their military adventures.

**Barbara Tuchman discusses this aspect of English life at this time vividly in The Proud Tower.

 

 

 

 

 

Aristocratic Age

Spit and Polish v. Drill

Link to sp. forces

 

El Campesino

by Dave Mathwin

The book jacket to El Campesino: Life and and Death in Soviet Russia boasts that, “this is not another memoir of a tortured intellectual wrestling with his conscience.  This book is in every sense a tense narrative of action, played out against the world’s most important struggle.”

Enough obsessive Russians!  “I was elected to lead, not to read!”

This blurb is accurate, however.  The main character, Valentin Gonzalez, “El Campesino” (the Peasant), is indeed a man of action and not reflection.  His narrative tells the story of his struggle in the Spanish Civil War, which makes him a hero of the Communist Party.  Feted by the Soviets, they whisk him away to Russia for specialized training.  He quickly grew disillusioned with the El CampesinoSoviet system.  His fiery personality led to numerous conflicts with party officials, which led to his imprisonment.  Gonzalez’s relentless forward-looking energy helps him escape not once but twice from prison camps, and eventually to freedom–the stuff of legend.

Such a triumph would indeed never happen with a more introspective “intellectual wrestling with his conscience.”  Gonzalez’s accomplishments come with a host of morally questionable actions he takes, but true to his nature, he hardly blinks an eye.  Gonzalez tells us that in the gulags the political prisoners often die within six months, while the ordinary criminals find ways to survive.

He decided to survive.

Of course one can’t help but root for him.  In many respects we certainly should root for him–for one, we obviously have to root against the Soviets.  Some introspection, some torturing of his conscience, however, might have helped him do more than merely survive.

One incident fairly early in the book jumped out at me that illumined the dark caverns of the Soviet system, and humanity besides.

Upon their arrival in Moscow Gonzalez and other “Heroes of the Revolution” received royal treatment.  Each of them had a “maid” assigned to them.  These maids came young, pretty, perfumed, and quite willing to do anything at all.  In fact the girls sought to sleep with them.  This, they knew, would be part of their weekly evaluations.

Possibly one of these “heroes” might have traditional ideas about sexual behavior and marriage (Gonzalez did not).  But such a man would face a terrible dilemma.  If he did not sleep with her, she might receive poor evaluations and perhaps even a punishment.  He would feel sympathy and wants to protect her.  So he sleeps with her.  But the maids sleep with the men primarily to put them off their guard so that they might reveal “anti-Soviet” thoughts.  They received big rewards for successfully extracting useful information for the NKVD.

The Soviets certainly recognized our need for fellowship and intimacy, but they exploited this not only to turn people against each other, but to turn someone against their very selves.  This result seems almost inevitable given the circumstances.

The life of Father George Calciu, however, shows us a different path.

Father George lived in Romania and came of age just prior to the communist takeover after World War II.  They arrested him in 1948 not so much for any specific crime, but mainly because he was one of the younger, educated set that the communists needed to make their own.  The old did not matter so much.  Romania’s traditional culture and deep roots in the Orthodox faith could die out with them.

Father George and others like him went to an Orwellian style prison designed to break them psychologically more than physically.  Their captors sought via a variety of techniques to separate them from the past and themselves straight out of 1984.  Father George confessed that such methods worked.  He said things to his interrogators he regretted.  After some months he found that he could not remember much about his childhood.  He could not remember how to pray.

Father George CalciuThen two things happened.  First, he realized that he did remember one prayer–“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”  This helped him remember himself and led to his remembering the the Lord’s Prayer and a few others.  Second, the interrogation process culminated when they successfully recruited prisoners to help them torture other prisoners.  Father George had said things he regretted, but this he would not do.  He felt terribly alone, for if he had agreed to this, he would have found at least some form of fellowship, some kind of sense of team with the other guards.

But then a curious thing happened.  The jailers lumped all the resistant prisoners together, perhaps not wanting them to infect their own converts.  Here Father George found a new community centered around their mutual faith in Christ and a commitment to human dignity.

Now, he knew himself again.

Some years after his release he felt called to deliver a series of Lenten sermons to Romania’s youth and a similar pattern emerged.  The seminary where he taught knew these messages might provoke trouble with the authorities.  They refused to support him, and once again Father George found himself alone.  But he went forward anyway, and to his utter shock, thousands and thousands of students came to hear him each week.  His “Seven Homilies to the Youth” had an international distribution.  He faced a second term in prison.  But now he was an internationally known dissident, and this gave him a small measure of protection.  In both instances, Father George refused to give in to the communist inspired ideals of community.

I admire the courage and audacity of Valentin Gonzalez.  But Father George Calciu showed us a better way.

 

 

 

 

 

To be a god, or not to be a god . . .

by Dave Mathwin

As Tyler Cowen would say, file what follows under “speculative” . . .

Recently NBA superstar Kevin Durant stunned the sports world by leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder and signing with the Golden State Warriors.  To be more precise, what shocked and troubled many people was not so much that he left Oklahoma City, but that he went to an already dominant and record-setting team.

Sports has morphed into a weird place in our culture.  We have 24 hour sports television and radio.  These media outlets discuss far more than the games themselves.  Rather, sports has become a springboard for all other kinds of topics ranging from race, sexuality, and so on.  Sports has become possibly the most visible bell-weather of our culture.  Look at the recent inclusion of female announcers (not just sideline reporters) on Sunday Night Baseball, for example, or the presence of a trans-gender athlete in ESPN’s most recent ‘Body Issue.’

So when the sports world blows up over something, it signals that a fault-line has moved close to the heart of our culture.

We give our star athletes huge amounts of money and adulation.  In exchange, we expect them to follow a code.  This code applies really only to the superstars, however, and perhaps especially to NBA superstars.  Football is still the bigger sport, but no player plays more than 1/2 a game, and with helmets and 22 people on the field, stars have less visibility.  Baseball players have longer careers and make more money, but the structure of the game limits the actions of hitters and fielders to a few brief moments.

In basketball the best players play about 80% of a given game and have multiple opportunities to display different offensive and defensive skills.   With only 10 players on the court, one truly great player can swing a game far more than in other sports.  Certain trends in the NBA point to its rise in prominence in our culture, first in terms of the money in the sport,

and then in the increase of viewers over the last few years.

The combination of our love of sport in general and the specifics of the NBA game gives basketball players the chance to reach transcendent status.

Apparently a code exists for NBA superstars that runs something like this:

  • To be truly great, you must win championships
  • These championships should be won with the particular superstar as the clear ‘alpha-dog’ on his team.
  • We expect the superstar to overcome obstacles on his way to Mt. Olympus.  This is the established pattern.  For example, Isaiah Thomas and the Pistons had to go through Boston, Jordan had to beat the Pistons, Duncan and the Spurs had to beat the Lakers, and so on.  There must be a definable journey that mimics that of mythic heroes.
  • The truly great superstars stay with their original team and make it their own.*  To leave for another team risks being labeled a man without a country, a man without honor because he has no one to honor him.

Durant violated certain key aspects of this code.  He not only left his original team, he joined a team with perhaps the best player in the league already there in Steph Curry.  Not only that, he joined the team that had beaten his team in the playoffs.

He failed his test.  As one prominent commentator stated, “I’ve never seen a weaker move by an NBA superstar.”**

Durant himself justified his decision by stating simply that he thought it in the best interest of his development as a basketball player.  It seems simple enough, and of course morally no one can have any real problem with his decision.

The problem with the decision for many is that it was a “selfish” decision done to “chase a ring” in the “wrong way.”

The fact that we expect a kind of self-denial, a form of asceticism, in our NBA super-star athletes, indicates something close to worship.  For all true worship involves sacrifice in every major religion that has ever existed.  Many of our democratic cultural values tell us to choose what you want, maximize your opportunities, having options, and so on.  Rarely, for example, will any politician make the grave error of calling for self-denial on the part of all people.  But we do place this demand on those we wish to add to the pantheon of gods, on those we seek to worship.

If we think that sports might be America’s de-facto religion, we may not have to look any further than this.

************
If you have further interest, check out my podcast on sports and culture with Steve and Marc at the link below:

*Lebron James’ return to Cleveland after a an ill-executed hiatus a few years ago, then winning a championship this year, perhaps only adds mustard to the above narrative.  Perhaps Kevin Durant might do the same a year or two from now.   The ‘withdraw and return’ narrative has a great deal of potency.

**Another prominent commentator defended Durant from criticism levied by Oklahoma Thunder ownership about disloyalty to his team.  He rightly pointed out that this same owner moved his team from Seattle to Oklahoma City.  How dare he talk about loyalty to a particular place?

On paper he is entirely correct.  What the commentator failed to note, however, is that we don’t care about owners.  They are faceless, amorphous, rich men.  We don’t seek to worship owners, whereas we do seek this with certain players.  Hence, the reason for the so-called double-standard.

A Sin Against the Gift of Self

by Dave Mathwin

I had a startling realization over this past Christmas that I might be getting old.

My son received an album by The Who as a present and I ended up reacquainting myself with their music as we listened to it together in the car.  Hearing again especially some of their earlier music, all the fuss “eggheads” made in the 1960’s about rock music destroying the youth, and ultimately destroying our civilization, made total sense.

How could this be happening to me?  It could possibly have something to do with the minivan in the driveway . . .

My reaction came not so much from their penchant to destroy their instruments (which I always just found pointless and hardly scary or “revolutionary”) but from the lyrics, rhythm, etc.  Everything seemed to be about angst, alienation, anger, emotional distress, “I’m better than you,” and so on.  Again — some of this changed as they matured as people and musicians in the 1970’s.

“Kid’s these days!”

But if one reflects on popular music in general we see that The Who (who at least were interesting and talented) probably were not nearly as “dangerous” as some other bands/pop stars.  So much even of the best pop music (even early Beatles) aims for the lowest denominator of teenage emotional distress.*  So much of it seems so small, petty, narrow, trapping us inside ourselves.  When we consider that the goal of the Christian life is “contentment in all things” through union with God and our fellow man, we see how obviously such music works directly against that.

In her recent interview with Tyler Cowen the always engaging Camille Paglia talked of how she finds the culture of today small and largely pointless.  In contrast, the culture she grew up in celebrated the large and grand.  The Ten Commandments has the huge statue of Pharaoh move across the screen, or the vast expanse of the desert in Lawerence of Arabia.  Today the internet opens up a whole world and yet we sit fixated on tiny screens.

Perhaps there is a connection between the two.

In the Church’s patristic era a variety of monks described a spiritual state they called “acedia.”  Through a series of unfortunate twists and turns the sin of acedia would come to thought of as mere laziness.  But originally, it meant something deeper and more profound than this.  Abbot Jean Charles Nault seeks to recover its original meaning and its relevance for today, in his book The Noonday Devil.  He attempts to explain the meaning of acedia with roots in apathy, boredom, and indifference.  The middle section, where he discusses the work of Thomas Aquinas, got a bit tedious for me at least (which is a shame because St. Thomas is not tedious).  Despite this, one sees clearly that Abbot Jean has written a useful and timely work.

Abbott Nault begins by tracing the development of the idea of acedia, first recognized, or at least, written about, by the early desert monastics.  Anyone familiar with the writings of such fathers know they possessed profound spiritual and psychological insights.  We can see this when they called acedia the “noon-day devil.”  In the middle of the day in the desert the sun comes to its height and the heat–and the torpor of the day– reach their peak.  Bodies and minds alike become wet noodles.  But more than this, with the sun at its height we see no shadows and are not conscious of time passing.  Without shadow and the passing of time, we lose a sense of mystery.  Without mystery, we grow disenchanted with the world.  Soon enough, we grow not just disenchanted with the world, but our very selves.  In due time, disenchantment leads to disgust even with our very existence.

Hence, Abbot Nault brilliant summation that acedia is a “sin against the gift of the self.”

Since the first to discuss acedia were desert monastics the original applications had to do with desert monastic life.  Acedia took a variety of forms:

  • Temptation to leave one’s cell/calling — variety is the spice of life, so we say.  For the monastics no monk needed anything that was not already in his cell.  The temptation to seek variety led to a dissipation of spiritual energy.  A love of variety only masks a disgust with creation itself.
  • Too much concern for one’s physical health–this seems hardly akin to “disgust with oneself” or creation.  But if we look closer . . . hypochondriacs are navel gazers.  They  misplace their vision and will not look at the stars.  This obsession leads down the path of disenchantment, first  with creation, and then with the self.  Some recommend frequent meditations on death as a special cure for this.  Take care of your body all you like, but death will take you all the same.  In addition, meditation on death will mean meditation on a mystery, and the possibility of re-echantment with the self, creation and ultimately, with God.  In fact, meditation on the brute fact of one’s death was a frequently prescribed remedy for acedia.
  • Neglect in observing the rule–often the temptation is to ‘minimize’ the rule and make things easier.  Sometimes others sought to go beyond the rule to great extremes.  Both paths seek one’s own way in the spiritual struggle, however, and this leads to isolation from community.  Both paths fail the discipline of “staying in your lane” and contentment with what has been given.
  • Aversion to manual labor–this seems more like what we would expect to hear
  • Desire for “worldly pursuits”–service, activity, and so on.  Surely these are good things!  And they are, but “remain in your cell.”  Stay in your lane.

The monks gave various cures for acedia such as exercise, combining work and prayer, and so on.** But none of the remedies allowed the monk to avoid his true calling, and hence, his true self.  “Have the discipline and the desire to become truly human.”

The devil has craft.  He masks acedia in various ways, one of them being the desire for self-preservation.  We feel that our routines suffocate us.  We need fresh air, a change of pace–surely God created such variety for a reason!  But this desire to embrace the so-called fulness of ourselves is false.  In reality we seek to escape ourselves.  This subtle deception makes itself evident when we switch from an “open” approach to life rooted in love to a “closed” approach rooted in obligation.  No lover seeks to perform the minimum to show his intention to his beloved.  But most of us get out of the dentist office as soon as possible.  We take a “closed” approach to our disciplines when we see them as taking instead of giving life.  We erect walls and a moat around our identities.  This so-called self preservation actually shrivels and dissipates us.  We avoid the self by scattering it to the four winds. Without true self-knowledge we will end up dealing with God only when we “have to.”

Many years ago I met very briefly a bishop not terribly unlike some of these desert monastics in terms of his habits.  He was old, thin, and spoke in a quiet though melodious voice.  Yet he easily seemed to me the most “solid” person in the room.  The weight of his personality struck me with great force.  Here, I thought, is a real person, whose discipline of heart and will have made him an infinitely stronger man than myself.^  I recall thinking, “If for some reason he tells me to jump, I will certainly ask, ‘how high?'”

One can easily see how acedia would have a field day in our modern world.  Good evidence exists that the multiplicity of choice in fact makes us less free. We have a hard time avoiding distraction, but the real problem is that we do not want to avoid it.  Many of us crave distraction to keep us away from ourselves, and most of us carry an easy means of distraction in our pockets.  To return to Paglia’s observation, a world of small screens will lead to small minds and a great dullness.

Despite the appalling landscape of our own hearts, I see some ground to build upon.  The Church still understands that monogamous marriage leads to great fulfillment and a true understanding of love of God.  Many often say that they did not really know their spouse until marriage.  So too, many of us did not really know ourselves until practicing marriage either.  We understand here the value of “staying in your lane.”

But progress in our culture on this issue may involve a different understanding of human experience and our place in the world.  We should remember the “middle way” of the desert fathers.  “If you are hungry, eat.  If you are tired, sleep.  But . . . do not leave your cell.”

— Dave

 

*This was not the case as much with groups that came out a more weighty blues tradition, like the Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin, and especially, . . . most especially, Jimi Hendrix.

**In a whole other section Nault describes that a frequent remedy for acedia involved lamenting and weeping over one’s sins.  A trivial person, just like a trivial culture, will not be able to take anything seriously.  A true sense of personal sin will give you the  humility to “stay in your lane.”

^The desert fathers have a reputation for extreme severity that the many quotes in the book do not support.  Obviously their monastic life included more asceticism than exists in the world, but all in all, they strove for the “middle way.”

 

“It Absolutely Will not Stop. Ever.”

by Dave Mathwin

I know very little about the history and culture of India, but I feel comfortable saying that they have been around for a long time and possess a very deep sense of cultural identity and tradition.

But in the 20th century, India started to embrace certain key components of western democracy, and introduced new political and cultural strands into their way of being.  I think India bears watching.  They can serve as a petri dish for an experiment.  When democracy interacts with a tradition, who wins?  Can a reasonable peace and balance exist between them?  Or, must one destroy the other?*

For the sake of this post we will not assume that tradition is bad and democracy good, or vice-versa.  Both can be good or bad depending.

I thought of this as I came across an article about hotels in India.  As a traditional society, India has more “conservative” views on marriage and sexual morality.  But democracy seeks to empower individual choices.  Free-market capitalism looks for niches–ways to empower and monetize these choices.  Unmarried couples in India apparently have a hard time getting “privacy.”

Enter StayUncle. The New Delhi-based startup has tied up with hotels where unmarried couples can rent rooms for a duration as short as 8-10 hours. The idea is to help them with affordable rooms, without feeling uncomfortable or unsafe.

“There is no law in India that prohibits (unmarried) couples from renting a room,” Sanchit Sethi, founder of the year-old startup, told Quartz in a phone interview. “As long as you have a government identity card, you should be given a room. We don’t live in the 1950s anymore. What we are trying to do is change the mindset of hoteliers.”

“Couples need a room.  Not a judgment.”

As the article came from a western newspaper, naturally no assumption existed that perhaps India’s discouragement of unmarried couples having hotel rooms has any validity.  They want something–an opportunity to live as they choose–and so naturally we should find some way to empower (and monetize) those choices.  “We don’t live in the 1950’s anymore.”*

What we want now is all that matters.

I thought of Empire of Liberty, where author Gordon Wood points out that almost immediately after the Revolution many of our founders watched aghast as “the people” began eroding many traditions.  One can argue that the Constitution represents a (mostly failed) attempt to put the brakes on the rapid pace of change.

I imagine that, given another couple generations of modern democratic practice in India, most of their traditions don’t stand a chance.  There is something thrilling, horrifying, and inexorable about the march of democratic ideals through traditional societies.  The Terminator reference from poor, doomed, Kyle Reese has its place here.

In the U.S. we have already legally embraced gay-marriage.  Now we moved onto tackling other “traditional” ways of thinking in the form of trans-gender issues, as predicted by both opponents and proponents of gay marriage.  Both democracy and tradition have their good and bad applications.  But I have serious doubts that we can redefine ourselves, our experience, and our place in the world at will and continue to find meaning.

Perhaps the root of the problem comes from the Enlightenment, or the Scientific Revolution, or the printing press/Reformation, or platonic gnosticism, or somewhere else. Whatever the root, a fixation on purely abstract principles or ideas will lead to an abandonment of meaning and rationality in the end.  In his A Philosophy of Inequality Nicholas Berdyaev makes this point quite well.  Absolute equality as a pure idea makes sense, he admits, much like a parallel lines continuing to infinity.  But such equality remains a fiction, a fantasy.  When we try and apply it reality we get the disasters of Revolutionary France, Stalinist Russia, or Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

We see the link between inequality (not servile inequality, but meaningful, purposeful difference) and meaning right in Genesis 1. God creates an intelligible, good world, and does so through distinction and duality, i.e. night and day, sea and dry land, man and woman.  Making sense of our world requires dividing it, in a certain sense.  To see meaning, to see God, we must see distinctions in creation.

The U.S. crossed the bridge of normalizing sexual relationships outside of marriage decades ago.  Again, now we have moved on to gender issues.  We long ago stopped defining gender by certain expected patterns or code of behavior. Now we do not even wish to define it biologically.  If we say now that gender can be defined purely based on one’s own personal, abstract feelings and thoughts, we will enter uncharted waters.  We risk losing the ability to say that anything means anything at all.

With no map to guide us, we should prepare for getting lost.

Dave

*China is conducting a similar experiment.  They attempt to maintain traditional Chinese values, technocratic top-down party political control, and a free market.  On the one hand they have yet to embrace democracy politically, so we might assume a slower pace of change.  But on the other, their economy is more modern and powerful than India’s, so this change might happen faster.

**The 1950’s reference gives this quote a distinctly American feel, as that era is considered the last gasp of traditional morality for U.S.  I don’t know if the same could be said for India or not.

Many on the left decry the “cultural imperialism” of the west, and they have some good points to make.  But have they considered that the non-traditional morality that those on the “academic left” tend to support is also a form of cultural imperialism?

11th Grade: Defending the Indefensible

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we tried to understand why England and other nations allowed Germany under Hitler to increase its power, in repeated violations of the Versailles treaty.  Hindsight is always 20/20, and of course we know that lack of action spelled disaster for millions around the world.  But we need to avoid finger-wagging, and we need to shun the assumption that if we had only been there in the 1930’s, we would have done the right thing.  If we do not attempt to understand the past, we cannot learn from it.

We note first that the Versailles treaty that ended World War I was unpopular in England almost from the very beginning. Many perceived that it came down too hard on Germany.  As parents, perhaps you too have known the position of being too harsh at first with your kids, and then facing the dilemma of either a) Stick to an unjust course and not back down, or b) Change your initial pronouncement and back down.  Neither option satisfies, but especially if option ‘a’ would also mean hard work at keeping several countries on the same page and equally contributing, it’s easy to see why England went with option ‘b.’  They did so despite the protestations of France, who usually wanted to be harder on Germany than the British, which puts France’s 1940 collapse in a slightly different light.  Ironically, we celebrate (rightly) England’s resistance to the Nazi’s in the early 1940’s and mock France for surrendering.  But in the 1930’s, France in general wanted to be much tougher on Germany than England, but could never get English backing to prevent Germany’s rise to power.

Secondly, for a century prior to World War I England’s basic foreign policy goal meant establishing a continental balance of power.  After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, their basic theory stated that the presence of weak nations induced the stronger ones to fight over them.  Hence, a weak Germany might tempt both France and the Soviet Union towards war over German territory.

So many English statesman actually wanted a stronger Germany to balance out eastern and western Europe.  England drew upon quite recent history for this, as the Austria and Russia’s mutual interest in the Balkans (see map) plunged the world into World War I.

If we look at the map of Europe in 1933, we see British fears that central Europe could be a second Balkans, keeping in mind that the Soviet Union has seized the ‘slashed’ territory.

We also should not forget the situation in Asia in the 1930’s.  Traditionally we date the beginning of World War II in 1939, but Japan began an aggressive foreign policy in 1931 with their invasion of Manchuria.  While Japan did not directly threaten anything Britain held, they began to edge closer to their crucial outposts in Singapore and Hong Kong.  From Hong Kong, India stood just around the corner.  British policy had to take into account the possibility of enemies in the Pacific as well as the continent, and they got almost no help from the U.S. in dealing with the Japanese in the 1930’s.  One gets a sense of this if you look at the British empire ca. 1930.

Japan’s stark rise is almost as dramatic as Germany’s.  They had a rich cultural heritage but almost no natural resources with which to construct a modern military.  Japan looks like an aggressor in 1941, and in many ways they certainly were.  But we must rewind 100 years to the treaty imposed by Admiral Perry in 1858 upon them that forced open their borders.  While one can argue that forcing Japan to open up to western trade benefitted them in some ways, it was done on our terms and not theirs.

The allies made the mistake of humiliating Germany in the wake of W.W. I, and both England and the U.S. made the same mistake with Japan.  The humiliation continued in 1922 when England and the U.S. imposed upon  Japan a treaty that forced the Japanese to have a smaller navy than either England or the U.S.  Many in Japan felt that the west would only tolerate Japan remaining in an “inferior” position.  Japan could have acquiesced to this inferior status, and accepted what geography gave them, or they could try and change it.  The 1922 treaty proved that western powers were not going to let them do it in a peaceful way.  If they wanted more power, they were going to have to take the raw materials of others, which they began to try and do in 1931 by invading Manchuria.  One could argue that England was their in how to craft an empire.

The Allies were the good guys in W.W. II, but it is unfortunately a relative term, and we must be careful not to be smug about it.  In some ways we created the monsters that tried to destroy us.  The only real image of “great nations” they had in 1930’s were European ones who got there via imperialistic colonialism.  With China and Manchuria, I’m sure they thought they were doing what it took to be a “great nation.”

Finally, the economic situation needs our consideration.  Prior to World War I, Germany and England traded more with each other than anyone else.  Like other nations, the Depression hit England hard.  A stronger Germany would mean a stronger German middle class, and a stronger middle class meant better markets for English manufactured goods.  Many economists today believe, that a rising Chinese middle class will benefit our economy.  Ford, I believe, sells more cars in China than they do in the U.S., for example.   We have seen recently in our own time how “the economy” can dominate our own nation’s psyche.  I posed this dilemma to students. . .

Suppose you are a Senator whose state has a technology company that employs thousands of people, one that does  hundreds of millions of dollars in business with China.  Into your office comes someone from your state, who argues that because of human rights abuses and persecution of Christians in China, you should push for severe trade restrictions to try and get China to change their behavior.  Would you agree with her?

In class nearly every student said something like. . .

  • We cannot afford to lose business with China and put thousands of people out of work.
  • China’s human rights abuses is an internal matter for China, and while unfortunate and regrettable, we really can do little to change it.

Does this not sound similar, perhaps, to how nations reacted to Nazi persecution of Jews, ca. 1935?

niall-ferguson-the-war-of-the-world

Much of what I said above I found in Niall Feguson’s book The War of the World, and especially from his chapter “Defending the Indefensible.”  In fact Ferguson makes the claim that appeasement did not cause W.W. II.  Rather, a war which had already began in the Pacific led to appeasement in Europe.  Interestingly, though England tragically miscalculated in regards to Germany, they thought that Japan posed a more imminent danger than Germany was in one sense correct.  Japan’s attack of China predated Germany’s attack on Poland by a couple of years.

Neither Ferguson or I mean to exonerate England of course, but hopefully the students had a better understanding of why events transpired as they did.

Many thanks,

Dave Mathwin

Music Covers and “Renaissances”

by Dave Mathwin

One of the ways I think you know you may have hit upon a good theory is if it applies to a variety of areas of life.  If a historical theory holds water, it will do so by revealing something about the human experience in general, not just particular time periods.  Toynbee really impressed me with his theory of how civilizations interact across time, and this article got me thinking about how Toynbee’s theory of “Renaissances”  might apply with artists who cover other people’s songs.

As Toynbee elucidated, not all renaissances are created equal, with some giving life, and others taking it.  Music fans know that not all music covers have the same impact.  Some stink while others succeed.  But why?  Can we apply any general principles to our investigation related to our study of civilizations?  What makes for good or bad cover songs?

One of Toynbee’s theories is that interaction between two living civilization will bear more creative fruit than interactions between live civlizations and the ghosts of dead ones.  We only need to imagine the possibilities inherent in an active conversation between two people, and passively receiving a recording from the past to see the difference.  We can call a ‘living’ band one that is active at the time one of their songs is covered, and a ‘dead’ one as a band/artist no longer active.

First let’s examine some successful covers and see if they fit into the theory.Here are two great originals. . .

Toynbee claimed that one reason why interactions between the living can have more vitality is that the copying civilization (or in our case, artist) are by definition freed from the burden of rote homage.  They can’t merely repeat what the other existing band could easily do better, so they change it and put something of themselves into it.

Below Hendrix and Aretha Franklin cover Dylan and Redding.  These cover versions are deservedly better known, and superior to the originals:

Interestingly, Franklin patterns her version of ‘Respect’ right along Redding’s lines, but the switch of narrator from man to woman and slower tempo adds to the song’s swagger and gives it more life. Perhaps her gender difference with Redding allowed her to confidently assert herself rather than just mimic him.  With Hendrix, he takes Dylan’s song and gives the lyrics the weight, mystery, and energy they deserve.

Along the same lines, Joe Cocker had success interacting with the Beatles on his classic cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends,” at Woodstock, while the Beatles were technically still a living ‘civilization.’

Part of the reason for Cocker’s success is that he feels no need to emulate the Beatles, and is smart enough to know he cannot try and copy what the Beatles could do much better.

But not all would be so insightful.

Here is the Beatles’ “Come Together.”

A few years after they broke up and became a ‘dead civilization’ Aerosmith produced this monstrosity (and if anyone thinks that Ringo didn’t really have any chops, just compare his “light on his feet” performance with the elephant stomps of Joey Kramer):

Here Aerosmith, bringing back the ghost of the recently ‘dead’ Beatles, falls into a common trap.  They feel the need to pay homage, and lose any sense of creative space, producing the lifeless result we might expect under such conditions.  Lest you think Aerosmith an isolated example, let’s do another.

First, the classic original. . .

And now, Sheryl Crow’s regrettable cover of the then recently ‘dead’ Guns N’ Roses:

The problem is not that either Aerosmith or Crow lacks talent.  The problem is their proximity to the ‘dead’ source material creates the additional psychological burden.

Another principle for Toynbee is that of geographical distance.  Closer geographical proximity usually means closer cultural affinity, and less overall freedom.  We saw how in 15th century Europe southern Italy acted with less freedom to the classical revival than northern Europe in the post I linked above.  The Greeks and Romans were the southern Italians’ next door neighbors, but not so to those in the north.  The same can hold true in genres of music.  We see that when Aerosmith, a rock band, covers another rock band (the Beatles) the process of mimesis is often mechanical.  Hendrix and Dylan occupied different genres, as did Joe Cocker and the Beatles.  Franklin pulled off the very unusual feat of occupying similar territory as the artist she covered successfully, but as we’ve seen, the fact that Redding was still a ‘living civilization’ freed her at least from mere mimicry.

Jazz artists over time have often covered standards from popular music, but by the 1980”s-90’s this process grew stale.  Some jazz groups have started to revive the practice of using popular music as source material, but freed from attachment to the ‘Great American Songbook,’ they can choose from a whole new catalog.  Here is a ‘standard’ from my youth:

And here is The Bad Plus, completely reinterpreting it:

The ‘geographical’ difference of genre gives The Bad Plus much more freedom to create something new.

If you, like me, are willing to call Toynbee’s theory a success, are there others areas of life where we can apply his principles?

Many thanks,

Dave

And finally, a cover so awful and so bizarre I am shockingly at a loss for words to begin to categorize it.  Laugh, cry, or go running headlong screaming into the night — I can’t decide!  I dare anyone to actually listen to the whole thing. . .

11th Grade: Trusting our Leaders

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

We began the week by looking at the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.  His presidency would do much to shape the future of American politics for many reasons.

Fairly or not, the quarterback gets most of the praise or blame for wins or losses, and the same holds true for the president and the economy.  On paper, Hoover had everything going for him as America faced the onset of the Great Depression.  He had experience administering relief work after World War I.  He had broad bipartisan support for many of his policies.  But personality wise, he could not be “relatable” to the public.  Increasingly Americans felt alienated from him, and turned their wrath and desperation his way.

Hoover did not remain aloof from suffering.  He pushed a variety of aid packages through Congress, though they had little success in stemming the tide.  None of this mattered.  What the people required of their president had changed.  Advances in movie and radio technology made the president more accessible, and as such, he needed to be more relatable.

Early in the week we asked the question: “What makes a president more trustworthy?  His ‘credentials’ or his life experience?”  I gave the class two choices of candidate:

  1. An ivy league graduate with a Ph.D in political science, candidate 1 also speaks fluent Chinese and Arabic.  He is personal friends with the U.N. Secretary General and the World Bank.  At every level he graduated with honors and his Ph.D thesis became a best-selling book.  But he grew up with a ‘silver-spoon’ in his mouth, has driven BMW’s his whole life, is personally quite wealthy, etc.  He never had a blue collar job or submitted a resume. He is unmarried with no children.
  2. Candidate 2 is no dummy, but never distinguished himself at school.   He is not wealthy, and grew up lower class and worked his way through college through a variety of odd-jobs.  He married his high school sweetheart and has three children.
Who do you trust more?
Most of the class said they would vote for #1, but others disagreed.  For the latter group, trust had more to do with identifying with that person rather than with their credentials.
In the last presidential race, for example, we saw how the question of being relatable plagued Mitt Romney, who has impressive ‘on-paper’ credentials.  Even when he tries to be a regular guy, it doesn’t come off quite right.
With Hoover one also can’t help but sense a certain stiffness:
Not so with FDR, as even a minute or two of this clip reveals:
We saw also how the Great Depression changed other things. . .
  • One of the subtle shifts that happened in the 1930’s was our attitude towards government itself.  It is probably generally true that previous generations thought of government as removed from the people, even if it was not opposed to them — a kind of necessary but awkward appendage.  Now, government was seen as a helpful and natural tool of the people’s interests and needs.  To be fair to Roosevelt, this idea was not merely his invention.  One can see its roots in the populism of Andrew Jackson.  The extension of voting rights to minorities and women meant that our representatives could more legitimately reflect the population as a whole.  Both of these approaches to government have their roots in the Christian tradition, with St. Augustine tending to see government negatively, and St. Thomas Aquinas, among others, seeing it more positively.
  • We looked at a few specific government programs of the time and asked the question, “Why is it that some government programs stick  around past their original purpose?”  While many New Deal programs did stop during World War II or shortly thereafter, some, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, have lasted until today.  While I don’t want to neglect the fact that many people probably agree that certain programs, like the SEC and FDIC, have had lasting value, I think it more interesting to consider the previous question.  I presented two options to the students:
1. Programs stick around because governments, like people, like power. Individuals like power as much as government does, but government has a much greater capacity to hold onto it because of their monopoly of force and concentration of resources.
OR
2. Does the answer have more to do with our particular system of government, that is, federalism?  If we take the TVA as an example, we  see that a few people (and a few congressmen) benefit a great deal from the program.  When the cost is spread out over a whole, it becomes relatively small, so it is unlikely to bother most of us very much.  A few people are very motivated to keep it, and the vast bulk are not motivated enough to contest it.  Besides, our own congressmen may do similar things for our region that others do for Tennessee.  As a country in general, we accept that deal.
The question of entitlement programs, for example, is political as well as financial.   With the population aging, the current power of the AARP, for example, is unlikely to get smaller.  We can also see different meanings or applications of the concept of equality at work.  On the one hand, government inaction on any particular issue can reinforce the idea of equality.  Doing nothing means not favoring anyone, and letting people work deal with their issues with no hindrance from government.  This has the advantage of consistency and simplicity.  We discussed, on the other hand, the fact that some situations are starkly unequal, with the situation not likely to be any different without decisive and concerted action from government.  What benefits, and what costs, do we want to absorb as a society?
Last week we went back to wrap up some issues from the 1920’s, specifically, the tremendous social impact due to the changing role of women.  We first looked at how the general mood and pace of the times, as well as the changing roles between the sexes, might influence dancing.  We had fun looking at this. . .
But the changes had a broader impact on how women interacting in society in general.
As women gained equality with men in the right to vote, we saw how women’s fashion changed.  They were ‘liberated’ and their dress reflected it:  
But interestingly, some took the idea of equality with men even further, and they began to dress like men, cut their hair short like men, and so on . . .
images-2
images-1
It seems to me that there would be something tragic if women felt that to gain equality with men they had to emulate men, and thereby lose something of their identity as women.
I wanted the students to compare the feminine ideal of the 1920’s with the Victorian era, which we looked at a few months ago.  My gut is that neither era represents a Biblical ideal.  Looking at the mountain of material on Victorian dresses (ca. 1850-1900) makes me think that they obscured true femininity just as the 1920’s did (take a look at the ones from 1850 — 3rd row on left), as to my mind there is something unquestionably ridiculous in how Victorians viewed women as incurably fragile.
A Century of Fashion
Most students asserted that if they had to choose, they would choose the 20’s ideal over the Victorian, arguing that women had more respect in that period.   This did not surprise me, as there is something distinctly modern and familiar with the 1920’s.   Some students last year astutely pointed out that there are two kinds of respect.  In the 1920’s women unquestionably had more political and social freedoms.  No one should underestimate the importance of this.  But they may have lost some of the respect that came with being a woman specifically.  With this exchange, something of the ideal of chivalry, of deference to women, would inevitably be lost.
Ideally, as God made both men and women in His image, for humanity to best reflect that image we should want men to be men and women to be women in the truest possible sense.  What that means exactly will certainly be debated, but the students agreed that neither the 1920’s or the Victorians had it right.
Many thanks,
Dave M

“Securing the Blessings of Empire to our Posterity”

by Dave Mathwin

Years ago G.K. Chesterton wrote,

[The problem] I mean is [modern] man’s inability to state his opponent’s view, and often his inability even to state his own.  . . . There is everywhere the habit of assuming certain things, in the sense of not even imagining the opposite things.  For instance, as history is taught, nearly everyone always assumes that it was the right side that won in all important past conflicts. . . . Say to him that we should now be better off if Charles Edward and the Jacobites had captured London instead of falling back from Derby, and he will laugh. . . . Yet nothing can be a more sober or solid fact that that, when the issue was still undecided, wise and thoughtful men were to be found on both sides.  . . . I could give many other examples of what I mean by this imaginative bondage.  It is to be found in the strange superstition of making sacred figures out of certain historical characters, who must not be moved from their symbolic attitudes. . . . To a simple rationalist, these prejudices are a little hard to understand.

Our Constitution has proved itself an enduring and effective document.  Some have an admiration for it that verges on veneration, which can obscure the fact that the success of the Constitution was hardly foreordained.  The election of 1800, and of course the Civil War, pushed its limitations to the brink.  We forget too that many reasonable and intelligent men had strong objections to the Constitution.  Some of these objections proved chimerical, but some had remarkable prescience.

I referenced George Mason’s strenuous objections in another post, but to quickly recap, Mason believed that the South should have required a super-majority to pass all trade legislation.  Mason believed that economic differences would eventually tear the North and South apart, and requiring this provision would ensure more unity.  Unfortunately the south kept slavery in exchange for a trade legislation passing like any other law.  Sure enough, states like South Carolina and Georgia cited unfair trade legislation as reason for secession in 1860.

Most expected some form of strengthening of the national government to come out of the convention in Philadelphia.  Many objected, however, not so much because the federal government would be stronger, but because the states would cease to have any importance in the new scheme.  Defenders of the Constitution rushed to quell such fears.  Obviously the states would continue to have their contributions to make, and so on.  Once again, those that objected to the Constitution had it right.  Today states play no vital role in shaping policy or the identity of the country and merely serve as a kind of organizing mechanism for national politics.

The reasons for why some objectors saw the future diminution of states fascinates me the most, however.  Many jumped on the first three words, “We the people,” and saw a totally new basis for governance.   In making the amorphous “people” the basis for authority in the country, some argued that the United States would transform eventually into a kind of democratic empire-state.  It may sound odd for modern sensibilities to equate “the people” with empire.  But the founders thought in the context of Rome’s history.  Rome’s emperors sought to bypass the aristocracy and the Senate and appealed directly to the “people.”*  Tacitus criticizes many emperors not because of their abuses to the people, but perhaps largely because of their abuses to the senatorial class.  If the preamble had said, “We the states,” it would have indicated that ultimately the senate would take the lead in shaping the tenor of American political life.  “We the people,” would shift the focus to the presidency, which meant that the founder’s stated goal of a federated republic would inevitably get superceded by the people/nation.  This shift from states to the “people” also greatly magnified the role of the Supreme Court far beyond the intent of the founders, as some recent and controversial decisions have overridden state laws.

Indeed, something like this happened over the course of the 20th century, and we see it accelerating recently.  Bill Clinton felt our pain and played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show.  As candidates, Bush and Gore both appeared on Oprah Winfrey.  While in office President Bush worked hard to maintain a “regular guy” image.  President Obama went on Marc Maron’s podcast and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, using more sophisticated forms of direct appeal to “the people.” If Trump is our next president, he will remind me of some of the practical, irascibly likable, yet for the most part dangerously erratic Roman general-emperors.**  Such direct appeals to “the people” from the president I’m sure would have horrified Washington, Madison, and even Thomas Jefferson.

But they would not have surprised some of the Anti-Federalists.

Because the anti-federalists were right about their objections does not mean that we were wrong to ratify the Constitution.  I still believe that despite its flaws it probably represented the realistic “best we could do” under the circumstances.  But the objections of the so-called “Anti-Federalists” shine great light on where we are now as a nation.

 

Dave

 

*Caligula was certainly a nut, but the story of him making his horse a senator (if true) may have actually been a calculated swipe at the Senate itself and not necessarily evidence of his insanity.

**Thinking about comparisons for Trump . . . he may not quite fit any one particular emperor.  One colleague offered Marius as a mirror image.  Marius was wealthy, a “new man,” who infuriated the Roman aristocracy, who proved powerless to stop him through normal political means (it took a bloody civil war instead).  Another offered Emperor Theodosius I.  Though not a “general-emperor,” he was gruff and impulsive.  He did terrible things on foolish whims (the massacre in Thessalonica), but proved capable of repentance and subsequent bold and important decisions (as to whether or not Trump can prove capable of repentance . . . we’ll have to wait and see).

His American President counterpart has to be Andrew Jackson.  He was not a founder or the son of a founding father.  He lacked a “European” education.  He introduced the idea of campaigning for office, to the horror of the political elite of the time.  His time on the frontier made him a rough, blunt character.  He made a variety of controversial decisions that definitely divided people — i.e. closing the national bank, South Carolina’s attempts at state nullification, and some horrifying decisions like the Cherokee’s and the “Trail of Tears.”

Historical opinion on Jackson is as varied as his acts in office.  But, however one views him, the U.S. survived a Jackson presidency and we just might survive a Trump presidency.

His likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, lacks the personality to connect with and directly appeal to the people that would put her in unusual company among modern presidents, like George Bush Sr., and perhaps, Nixon?

 

 

 

 

Games People Play

by Dave Mathwin

Many of my clearest memories from growing up involve sports.  I am a middle-aged man but I still remember the time I recorded three consecutive outs at third base playing t-ball.  I have a very clear memory of exactly when and how I hit a double in high school off an all-county pitcher, easily the best hit of my life.  I remember too the crucial error I made in a key game against Kennedy High my junior year, and the fact that I struck out three times in my last game as a senior.

“The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”

I suspect that I am hardly alone having such vivid memories of sport.*  But such memories come not just from playing “on stage” (if you count playing in front of 50 people a stage), but also the pickup games of football or basketball with neighborhood friends.  Naturally I grew up watching local sports teams and at times had my moods rise and fall with their success or failure.  But recently I have thought about the impact of sports and the culture around sports more as an observer.  Concussions in the NFL, the high salaries and high ticket prices, the surrounding sports culture with athletes, fans, and parents — all of this has had me reconsider our fascination with sport.

Good Game by Shirl Hoffman has many strengths.  At times it delves into anecdotes and could be more scholarly in approach.792100  But all in all the book gets one off to a good start in thinking about sport from a Christian perspective.  We certainly have to start somewhere, because in many ways our churches have been entirely co-opted by the sports culture.

As Hoffman points out, however, the connection between sports and religion is rooted in the most ancient of cultures.  Athletic contests in the ancient world had strong connections to gods and came accompanied with sacrifices.  This should not surprise those who played sports.  Anyone who has caught a fly ball, thrown the perfect pass, etc. knows the thrill of uniting mind, body, and spirit.  Great athletic feats can provide a sense of peace and simultaneous elation that hopefully comes, as God allows, in worship.  Athletics at their best can represent a kind of dance that mirrors the “circle dance “of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Perhaps formal religion and sport need not go together, but we cannot deny the religious undertones of athletic achievement.

In its early years the Church faced the problem of how to separate sports from their pagan contexts, just as they did other areas of life.  No absolute unanimity in the historical record exists but it appears that Church leadership consistently condemned Roman athletics for their brutality, but also for their spectacle.  The games didn’t just impact those who fought  or raced, but also the fans who fell prey to meaningless hatreds.  Christians should not disturb their souls with such pointless cares.  In saying this the Church did not downplay the significance of athletics.  On the contrary, they fully recognized their power to mold and shape a culture.

To understand the full context of the Church’s condemnation, we have to understand the goal of the Christian life.  The Christian should strive to attain an inner stillness of heart, a union with God.  Such a person fully united to God will not be shaken by the things of the world, though certainly they deal with the world.  Such a place of contentment comes only with effort and striving after it however, and we should certainly not go out of our way to disturb it. Many of the great saints testify to how easily we can forfeit such a grace.  Getting angry because of a bad call by a referee, or because a team with a certain color jersey lost a game, will inevitably disturb and distort our hearts.  The glory and adulation given to athletes even in the ancient world would certainly not aid in a person’s quest for humility.  Hypothetically, one might be perfectly humble as throng’s of spectators chanted your name, but their point seemed to be, why put yourself in that situation to begin with?  The reverse stood as well.  The one who strikes out or who misses the last shot may be hounded with a different kind of attention.  Both kinds hurt the soul.

However, the Church had no consistent condemnation of informal games.  Exercise had its place, as did amusement, and combining the two in moderation could bring benefits.  But laced throughout almost all literature on the subject comes warnings to be careful.

As the church grew in scope and influence, it began to have a chance not merely to react against their pagan environs but to formulate a positive platform for sport.  Hoffman argues that right around the time when St. Francis gave us back nature and St. Thomas reason, the Church had “a moment” ca. 1250-1450 when sports could have been recaptured.  Games happened on Church holidays in communal contexts, and maintained an informal atmosphere about them.  Sports had their place within a larger religious context.  But then the games grew too violent.  Add to that, the Reformation had various Protestant groups trying not to be Catholic.  And so they eschewed the celebrations and amusement on holy days and condemned all accompanying events (which included sports at times) as “Catholic.”

Here I think Hoffman overstates the case somewhat.  He himself acknowledges the Church’s failure, despite centuries of condemnation, to eliminate knightly tournaments.  Such tournaments often were not deadly but certainly contained much violence and injury.  Nothing they tried seemed to work.  Finally by the late 1500’s the Church adopted the tack of, “if you can’t beat them, join them,” and issued favorable statements about tournaments along the lines of how tournaments could train soldiers to fight the infidel.  This naturally only added to their list of failures to influence athletic culture, reminding me of Homer Simpson’s comment to his daughter, “But Lisa, if I become part of the mob I can steer it in new and helpful directions.”

So yes, we have problems delineating the relationships between sports and faith, but these problems have always existed.  However, Hoffman rightly points out that today we have a much worse problem, because a) Sport dominates our culture  much more profoundly now than in the past, and b) The evangelical church in general has made no attempt to offer any critique, and has in some ways joined the mob.

Evidence for the idea that sports has become our de facto religion abounds.  Parents will rearrange schedules and make huge sacrifices of time and money so their kids can play sports, but will rarely make even a fraction of those sacrifices for church activities.  Weekends have now become the proprietary ground for athletics.  A veneer of, “this will build character” seeps into our justification for this, but evidence that sports builds character is exceedingly skimpy, and plenty exists that it in fact, does just the opposite.**  As Jay Leno quipped, “I see in the news that even more athletes are in trouble with the law.  Imagine the state of things if sports did not build character.”

Aside from this, no one has yet justified theologically how competition can flow from a Christian ethic that teaches to put others before oneself.  Some have tried by stating that competition must be built into the nature of creation itself, because it appears that culturally and economically we need competition to thrive.^  But this assumes that the most fundamental aspects of our life in Christ would be impossible to practice even if sin had never entered the world.

What much of the church has actually bought into, Hoffman argues, is a version of Christianity that Frank Deford called “Sportsianity.”  It emphasizes the martial virtues, where, “accomplishment and struggle are favored over mystery, joy, and spiritual insight. One member of a sports ministry organization pointed to Mike Singletary, former star for the Chicago Bears, who ‘broke 13 helmets on the football field, and he will tell you that he plays football to the best of his ability because Christ wants him to.'”

Whatever we do, we should do for the glory of God.  But this does not mean that we can do whatever we like.  Indeed, the only way to justify such thinking is to equate sports with war.  If we justify sports this way, I cannot find a  justification for dedicating childhoods and an early adulthood to pretending that these games have significance.   At least the knights who fought in tournaments would actually later fight in wars.  Indeed, the Church has experienced a similar tension with war and sport in its history.  The general testimony of the Church has been that Christians may fight in just wars to defend the weak or prevent the aggressive spread of evil.  As we have seen with tournaments, at times Christians justified sports for just this reason — recall the Duke of Wellington’s comment that the Battle of Waterloo was won on school athletic fields.  But this assumes, however, that we impute all kinds of horrible things to the team with the different color jersey.

Anyone who has watched their child play competitively knows how easily such insane and bizarre thoughts creep into our heads.  The other coach/player becomes “evil.”  Observe most any athletic competition for children 10 and over and see pagan tribalism reborn.  We can argue that this is merely a dress-rehearsal for real life, war, or what have you, but the feelings become quite real, the impact on the soul quite damaging.

Hoffman points out that when Christians today borrow sports rhetoric they do so as followers, not leaders.  They remain consistently co-opted by the sports culture.  And this should make us question what exactly happens to us when we play and watch sports.  Why is it that certain impulses seem to take over, and why should we put ourselves in this position?  Are we co-opted because of the weakness of our witness, or, is the power of sport simply too great a temptation for even strong Christians?

Hoffman’s book leaves many questions unanswered, but he raises important questions, and one can see many possible connections to other areas of life.  Just recently Donald Trump won the South Carolina primary, aided in no small measure by evangelicals.  “Trump is a fighter,” Mark Burns, pastor of the Greenville, S.C.-based Christian Television Network, told Fox News. “He is the one to fight for Christianity and for our conservative values we hold dear.”

What values is the man talking about?  I have no idea.  How can it be that we should “fight for Christianity?”  I have no idea.  But I suspect that one link has to do with the fact that parts of the American church have been co-opted entirely by “Sportsianity.”

Dave

************
If you have further interest, check out my podcast on sports and culture with Steve and Marc at the link below:

*I realize though that I may have been a bit odd growing up.  As a white suburban kid I looked for heroes in the NBA and instead of Michael Jordan or local great Jeff Malone, for some reason I latched onto Detlef Schrempf.  A friend of mine from high school recently sent me a basketball card of Schrempf as a gift, where he is being guarded by, quite appropriately it seems,  Brad Lohaus.  Two white titans in action!

**Hoffman cites the testimony of athletes in different sports who describe the trance-like state they enter into to compete.  In this state, they reduce their opponents to something sub-human in order to “destroy” them.  Running-back Freeman McNeil was criticized by his coach when he broke down crying on the sidelines as a result of a block he made that injured an opposing player.  His coach said, “I understand his feeling, but that’s the way the game goes.  Obviously what happened [McNeil allowing his grief to impact his play] wasn’t good, and he realizes that.  Ultimately McNeil apologized to the team for not “staying focused” and not “being a leader.”

Perhaps no one minded when Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theismann’s leg and got upset because no one doubted his ferocity.

^In Vol 2 of his A Study of History, Toynbee points out that for civilization to thrive, geography must present a challenge to its inhabitants.  In other words, if the geography is too good, the soil too rich, etc. there is no call for a response from the inhabitants, who then stagnate at a low level of development.

12th Grade: Making it up as You Go

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we wrapped up our look at Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention.  We touched on many subjects, but centered on one particular issue that illumines both the glory and the problems of the heritage of that august assembly.

As the constitution neared completion, the delegates debated how the document would be received by the public.  What would make the Constitution the law of the land?  Should the states ratify it through their state legislatures, or should a general, national plebisite of the “people” make the decision?

The issue seems mundane, but at its root lay certain key ideas and problems.

If the states ratified the Constitution, it might seem that the states had superiority over the federal government the document created.  Charlemagne, for example objected to being crowned “Holy Roman Emperor” by Pope Leo III (he would crown his son and successor before the Church had a chance), much in the same way that Napoleon refused to allow Pope Pius VII to lay the imperial crown on his head.  He who crowns the king has authority over the king.  If the states gave the Constitution authority, they implicitly would hold supreme power.

The problem with this approach was that the delegates wanted to create a document that significantly increased the power of the federal government relative to the states.  A handful of delegates at the convention wanted to get rid of states altogether.

Another option involved a national ballot referendum and a direct appeal to the people. Bypassing the state legislatures would help emphasize the new power base of the national government.  It would exist not on the foundation of the states, but on the people/”nation” at large.*  So far, so good.  But most of the delegates gravely distrusted the wisdom of “the people,” and feared putting so much power in the hands of those they felt could be easily manipulated.^  So they had to flip a coin, basically, between Scylla and Charybdis.

As the delegates debated an even deeper issue arose.  Why were they in Philadelphia in the first place?  On whose authority?  “If we exist under the authority of the Articles of Confederation,” they might have thought, “then we must give ratifying authority to the states.  But if we exist under the Articles, then we must abide by the key principle of the Articles and not make any new changes without the unanimous consent of all the states.”  But with the decisions they already had made unanimous consent had been rare.  Besides, some states did not have any delegates at the Convention at all. Clearly then, they could not be proceeding under the Articles of Confederation or they would have to rework almost everything.

“But if we are not here under the authority of the Articles,” then who or what gives us the authority to make any decisions?  Will the new government get formed under our own assumed authority, or the authority of ‘the people?’ Are we just making this up as we go?”  I do wonder if the delegates felt themselves at the edge of a great precipice, or on the threshold of a dark and mysterious house, with little idea of what might come next.

One debate surrounding the American Revolution is the question as to whether or not the founders were “radicals” or “conservatives.”  Some scholars (like Edmund Burke) see the Americans as conservatives trying to preserve traditional ideas of government.  In this view it was the English, not the Americans, who were the real “radicals.”  As much as I hate to disagree with Burke, I think the vast bulk of the evidence suggests that the founders were the radicals (historians like Bernard Bailyn and Christopher Ferrara agree) and changed the very basis of modern governance.

Back in ancient times kings derived their authority from the gods.  Though the Greeks may have departed from this briefly in the golden age of their democracy, their philosophers rooted all legitimate authority in notions of Truth/God (Plato), or the Natural Law (Aristotle).  The Romans had a republic, yes, but their political offices often had religious overtones and the early Romans at least did everything with reference to the gods.  In Christendom, kings clearly believed they derived their authority ultimately from God, and that the state should reflect in some ways God’s kingdom and His governance on Earth.

The founders made no such assertions.  They formed a government rooted in Locke’s theory of the “consent of the governed” forming the basis of all legitimate power.  This gave the founders a great deal of freedom to improvise, but also created difficult dilemmas.  How should the “consent of the governed” be measured?  What if what the governed consent to changes over time? Without a clear and fixed point of reference, notions of authority, legitimacy, and morality inevitably would shift over time.

The founders should receive praise, I think, for creating a thoughtful system of government that did well in preventing abuses of power (relatively speaking) and allowed for a healthy tension of unity and diversity within the country. But even some of those present in Philadelphia in 1787 had a premonition that had little claim to authority beyond their own ideas.  Some made reference to history with their political ideas, others to experience.  But very few sought to root their thoughts in any authority beyond that.  The ripples effects of this certainly linger with us today.  What gives the Constitution authority is that we agree it has authority — we consent to its authority.  But as that authority has its roots in day-to-day consent, so too the meaning of our consent will change over time.  Hence, we decide Constitutional question by majority vote.  We may lament this, but the Constitution itself has little more to offer us.

Blessings,

Dave

*Patrick Henry objected to the Constitution because he recognized this shift of power in the first three words, “We the people . . . ”  He recognized the diminished role states would play in the new government.

^Reading Madison’s notes, students were routinely surprised to see the attitude of most delegates towards “the people.”  A great question to ask might be, “How democratic is the Constitution really?”

Alexander Nevsky and Humphrey Bogart

by Dave Mathwin

Whenever I teach about ancient Egypt that civilization always impresses me with its “weight.”  I mean that the Egyptians expressed an utter confidence in the meaning and purpose of their civilization.  We see evidence for this in a variety of places, but I draw attention to the “Tale of Sinuhe,” one of the more beloved early Egyptian folktales.  The story recounts some impressive adventures of Sinuhe abroad, but the climax of the story is not found there.  Sinuhe triumphs when he returns home, when he receives the favor of the king, and (strange to our ears, no doubt) when the king grants him a lavish tomb.  The story concludes,

There was constructed for me a pyramid-tomb of stone in the midst of other pyramids.  The draftsmen designed it, the chief sculptors carved in it, and the royal overseers made it all their concern.  Its necessary materials were made from all precious things one desires in a tomb shaft.  Priests for death were given to me.  Gardens were made for me just as is done for the highest servants.  My likeness was overlaid with gold.  His majesty himself made it.  There is no other man for whom the like has been done.  So I was under the favor of the King’s presence until the day of death had come.

All Sinuhe ever needed was in front of him the whole time, a Hallmark card ending if there ever was one.

Of course the Exodus dramatically and deservedly shook this confidence,* and at times the “weight”and “presence” of Egypt would no doubt feel oppressive and claustrophobic  (as it does for me with the Great Pyramid of Giza), but, nevertheless, they had a marvelous run.

Recently reading a collection of tales from medieval Russia, I had a reaction not unlike the one I have with Egypt.  Russia is different than America — obviously.  But how so?  A quick look at literary luminaries reveals much.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn undoubtedly deserves its high praise, but then one reads The Brothers Karamazov (roughly contemporary works) and discovers something entirely different.  Twain bounces here and there and constructs a fanciful lark (for the most part) out of the idea of rebellion against society.  Though he is thoroughly American, there remains something of the delightful English politeness about him, making his points in circuitous fashion.  Dostoevsky writes from a much more solid, earthy foundation.  The “earthiness” of his foundation gives it all the more spiritual impact.  He writes not of ideas at all — except to criticize them and the very concept of “ideas.”  Instead he comes from a place of absolute confidence in a particular reality.  In his stories the rebels are the bad guys, who try and introduce discontent into the Russian soul.

Just as we have no particular historical roots as a nation, so our folktales take on a whimsical character and have no particular roots in history (i.e., Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, etc.).  Even when Twain makes his best points, they take the form of jokes.  Dostoevsky . . . not so much.**  So Russian folktales usually seem to have much more direct historical roots and could rarely be described as “whimsical.”

In the tale told of about the Polish king Stephen Bathory’s siege of the Russian town of Pskov (ca. late 16th century) we see all of these characteristics.  It speaks of “Holy Russia” without a trace of irony.  When the “pagan” king’s army advances past some of the outer defenses, the story turns:

. . . in the Cathedral of the Life-Giving Trinity the clergy incessantly prayed with tears and moaning for deliverance. . . . [they] began to weep with loud voices, extending their arms to the most holy icon.  The noble ladies fell to the ground and beat their breasts and prayed to God and the most Pure Virgin; they fell on the floor, beating the ground with their heads.  All over town women and children who remained home fervently cried and prayed before holy icons, asking for the help of all saints and begging God for the forgiveness of their sins . . .

After an extended poem on the power of God the tide turns, and the people rally.  But they need to stem a breach in the defensive wall.

. . . [the Russian commanders] ordered that the icons be brought to the breach made by the Poles.  Once the holy icon of the Holy Virgin of Vladimir had protected Moscow at the time of Tamerlane.  Now another was brought because of Stephen Bathory . . . and this time the miracle happened in the glorious city of Pskov,  . . . for divine protection invisibly appeared over the breach in the wall.   . . .  All the commanders, warriors, and monks cried out in unison, “O friends, let us die this day at the hands of the Lithuanians for the sake of Christ’s faith and for our Orthodox tsar, Ivan of all the Russias!

In his marvelous, Everyday Saints, Archimandrite Tikhon of the Pskov Caves Monastery related a story about a particular bishop caught in an unfortunate position amidst a large crowd.  Uncertainty reigned in Moscow in a public square during the collapse of communism in the early 1990’s.  Some soldiers came over to shield the bishop from the crowd and began to take him into their vehicles for protection.  Many in the crowd, however, thought the soldiers were imprisoning the bishop.  The Archimandrite relates that several people rushed out towards the bishop, saying, “It is happening again [i.e., the Communists imprisoning church officials]!  This shall not be!  Come brothers, let us help this good priest.  Let us die for him!”  Soldiers dissuaded them from hurling themselves on their bayonets only by careful explanation of their purpose.

A particular sense of reality is evident, and an absolute confidence.

Our heroes play different roles.  Even the golden age of Hollywood, when America supposedly bursted with confidence, gave us heroes like Humphrey Bogart — a man “in the know,” and somewhat detached.  We love the reluctant hero.^  Russians remember instead princes like Alexander Nevsky, who when attacked by the Swedes, supposedly went immediately to church, where

remembering the song from the Psalter, he said: “O Lord, judge those who offended me.  Smite those who set themselves against me, and come to my aid with arms and shields.”

Before his death, Alexander took the most strict of monastic vows, the “schema.”

Alexander’s reaction today could only be mocked by the west, just as Putin’s physicality — be it swimming in icy lakes or wrestling tigers, or whatever — becomes late-night fodder.  But Putin, consciously or not, sincerely or not, very likely taps into something deep within the Russian soul and Russian history — the fearless leader of absolute confidence with not a trace of detached irony.^^

Those who do not like President Obama sometimes don’t see that his appeal has little to do with his policies.  Rather, he embodies a certain idea of American hip culture.  He tells deprecating jokes with wry humor, a wink, and a nod.  He appears on Marc Maron’s podcast and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld. So too we in the west, I think, fail to understand Putin’s popularity.  Perhaps he channels Alexander Nevsky, not Humphrey Bogart.^^^

Dave

 

*I favor a late Exodus date, and so see Ramses II as the beginning of the end, and not an “Indian Summer” after the decline had already begun in earnest.

**Of course Dostoevsky can sometimes be very funny.  I laughed aloud at various points in The Brothers Karamazov, and The Gambler. But Twain was known as a humorist, and while the idea of Dostoevsky as a one man show is funny, the show itself . . . would not be.

^Might Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt of the Mission Impossible movies serve as an exception?  He has none of the smirks of a James Bond.  Hunt “believes” — believes in what?  Who knows?  Who cares?   We don’t watch the movies out of love for the Ethan Hunt character, but for the stunts, scenario’s, etc.

^^The Archimandrite Tikhon has been involved with some controversy and mystery due to his “relationship” with Putin.  An excellent interview with him is here — recommended.  The interviewer represents a typical western perspective and the Archimandrite shows that he is not a modern-westerner.  We should realize that a) Putin may have a sincere religious faith, and b) St. Petersburg will not orient Russia in the way that Peter the Great or other westerners might wish.

^^^Russia has experienced a dramatic rise in religious affiliation since the communist collapse, but not a corresponding rise in regular church attendance, at least according to one Pew Research study.  I don’t mean to suggest that Putin faithfully believes and practices like Prince Alexander.  If left utterly detached from the Faith, Russia’s earthiness will become frighteningly barbaric. As many have noted — Russia is a land of great sinners and great saints.

 

12th Grade: Constitutions for Dummies, by Dummies

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

Several weeks ago the Government class discussed the basics of Plato and Aristotle’s philosophy.  One goal I had in this was for students to understand . . .

  • How fundamental ideas about the nature of reality, and the nature of God, help form one’s ideas about government.
  • How one’s view of the nature of humanity (is mankind a body & soul? What is the relationship between our body and soul?) impact how one governs.
  • What relationship should context & history have in a given situation?

I shared an example from my own life that illustrates some of these issues.  Many years ago I lived in a townhouse community run by an HOA.  The development placed about 5 trashcans every 1/4 mile or so.  When people walked their dogs (and we had a high population density of dogs) we commonly deposited the refuse in the trashcans.  But during warmer weather, more people walked their dogs, and the additional heat made the trashcans, well, stink.  This was unfortunate.  Was it a “problem?”

The HOA came up with a rule: No more deposited dog waste in trashcans.  This, they hoped, would solve the problem.

One can view their solution in two basic ways, from a Platonist and Aristotelian perspectives.

The Platonist would argue. . .

  •  The law is a good one because it seeks to better the condition of all.  The neighborhood would become a nicer neighborhood.
  • The people would be encouraged to accept more direct personal responsibility for their pets — taking the refuse to their own trashcans would help them be more responsible overall.

The Aristotelian might respond. . .

  • The law is foolish because people will likely not obey it.  They will either continue to deposit the refuse in the trashcans, or worse, simply not pick it up at all.
  • The law cannot be enforced.  The HOA has no mechanism to police the area.  Thus, people’s disobedience will only encourage a more hostile attitude towards the HOA than they may already have.  In other words, a good law can only be called “good” if people actually obey it, no matter how good in theory the law might be.

I hope students enjoyed this unit.  I then wanted to have the students see how some of these ideas applied in the making of our own government.  To that end we spent the last few days reading Madison’s diary of the constitutional convention debates. We see that different people had different perspectives, different notions of what “liberty” meant and how to achieve it.  They wrestled with the big ideas, referencing key political texts, but also worried how those ideas would apply in the current political climate.  Some of there more lengthy debates seem immediately relevant today, others quite arcane.The decisions they reached sometimes came from unanimity, but more often came through compromise and disagreement.  And despite their brilliance, they failed dreadfully in not foreseeing a popular presidency, and what this meant for the Vice-Presidency.

I had a few main goals with this particular unit:

  • I wanted students to see that political agreements required a great deal of compromise.  I don’t mean to use compromise as a word of praise or derision.  Some compromises achieve great things, others, like the compromises made on slavery, condemn the future to deal with an issue that has had time to fester.
  • I wanted students to consider whether or not the many compromises they made had roots in their agreement on fundamental principles, or whether America was built on band-aids to the deep divisions between Americans at that time (and now).  If they agreed on fundamental principles, what were they?  If they had no agreement on such principles, why not?
  • What did the Constitution do particularly well?  In what areas did it fail?
  • Many of the men at the original Constitutional convention had years of experience in law and government, and an education that rooted them to the classical world.  And yet at times the decisions made seemed based more on arbitrary circumstance than profound guiding principles.  Should this worry us, or is this the way of the world?  Or perhaps it’s a gift, a reminder that we are all in need of God, that none of us, however intelligent, will ever have all the answers or the stamina to decide them fairly?

 

Thanks again,

Dave

 

Death by Abstraction

by Dave Mathwin

“A theology without practice is the theology of demons.”  So said St. Maximos the Confessor.  Abstractions have never held any weight within Christianity.  The devil believes, and it makes no difference.  The Incarnation explodes the possibility of the efficacy of “abstraction.”  God became a particular man at a particular time in a particular place.*

We see this theological truth spill out into other areas.  Beware, for example, of vague descriptions of “Human Rights.”  Without application in a particular context, such “rights” have no meaning.  Hence France’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man” declared in 1789 gave absolutely no protection to anyone during the Reign of Terror in 1793.  The Committee of Pubic Safety interpreted such rights as they pleased to do what they wished.  Beware the man with grand visions of glory who cares nothing for the actual human cost.  On such foundations were the great tyrannies of the 20th century built.

A great deal of debate exists as to the question, “What is America?”  Different answers have been given to this question, but we don’t often stop to question why we have so much debate about our identity.  I think the root of this problem lies in the commonly accepted idea (whether it is true or false) that America has its origin in certain ideas about liberty, freedom, and so on, not in any particular experience in history.  In a few other posts on this blog I muse on this question (see here and here if you have not wearied of me quite yet:).

Some historians argue that America took a decided turn with the victory of the North in the Civil War.  Proponents of this do not necessarily assert that the South was “good” and the North “bad,” though some may argue this.  Some in this school of thought, like Clark Carlton from Tennessee Tech, don’t even put the focus on the good of one side vs. the other, or on state’s rights and federal power, but rather on culture and the idea of what America actually is or should be.

Carlton argues that the two sides in the Civil War represented two different ideas about America.  The North, dominated by a New England ethos, believed that America had its roots in certain ideas that should have application everywhere for all men.  The South, rooted in a very different migratory pattern (discussed brilliantly by David Hackett Fischer in Albion’s Seed, by far the best book I’ve read on colonial America), saw America as a place to transplant a certain kind of Anglo-Celtic way of life.

I lack the wherewithal to discuss the merits of this theory, except to say that it has enough plausibility to deserve consideration.  For the moment let’s assume its core proposition and explore its possible merits.  For the theory to hold water, we would need to trace the development of abstract ideas throughout the history of New England and see its pernicious effects.**  Of course this means that we find that they did in believe such abstractions.

Recently I read the The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex by Owen Chase, written in 1821.  The book tells of the shocking attack and sinking of their ship by a sperm whale, the inspiration for 51-cWJypx5L._SX355_BO1,204,203,200_Melville’s Moby Dick.  Most American whaling crews hailed from the New England area, as did the Essex.  The account held my interest all the way through.  For our purposes here, I couldn’t help notice, however, how the author spoke about God.  I don’t believe he ever used the word “God,” referring instead to “Providence,” or “the benefits of the Creator,” or something like that.  Certainly they never made any reference to Jesus Himself.  Such language left me cold.  Whether or not the author and his crew believed in Christ I cannot say, but this impersonal and ultimately abstract language is certainly not a Christian way to speak about God.  It seems to exactly mirror the Transcendentalists like Emerson, who of course hailed from New England.^

As their journey in the lifeboats continued, their supplies of food obviously dwindled.  At first when crewmen died they buried them at sea decently.  But after several weeks they grew more desperate, and fell to eating parts of the deceased crew’s body before burial.  They did so even though they still had small amounts of bread left, so they had other options.  One of the lifeboats even eventually drew lots to see who would be shot, so his flesh could be consumed.  A man named Owen Coffin drew the short straw and apparently submitted to his fate willingly.

So all in all eight crewmen survived, but at what cost?  I do not judge them too harshly.  They endured severe trials and privations.  After several weeks I’m sure they had nothing left physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I have never endured anything remotely akin to their ordeal.  Yet in the writing of the account itself I expected some remorse, some second-guessing of their practices, especially given the time proximity of their rescue to their cannibalism.  In hindsight, such horrors probably were not even necessary for their strict survival.  But Mr. Chase has no such reflections.

I can’t help but wonder if their cold and distant manner of speaking about God might contribute to their cold, impersonal view of each others lives and bodies.  This surprised me because earlier in the book he wrote touching passages about the attachment of the crew to each other.  After the ship sunk the crew found themselves in three separate lifeboats.  Chase talks movingly of losing sight of their fellow ships at night and their frantic efforts to find each other lest they be separated.  But in the end, I suppose, their abstract notions of life won out.

But this crew did not invent such a way of speaking.  These abstractions must have had their roots somewhere.  We might start with the New England Puritans.  Initially, it seems that the Puritans were anything but abstract in their views.  They practiced a very particular way of life and belief.  But a second look tells otherwise.  I have no wish to “pile on” the Puritans, who get a lot of bad press, much of it undeserved.  I admire certain things about them.  But their strong Calvinism does lead one to a kind of abstraction regarding God.  God’s abstract “will” often asserts itself to the fore in Puritan theology, pushing more personal characteristics such as love, mercy, etc. to the periphery.  Their conception of the “will” of God swallowed up all individual personality.  So I think we can say that abstraction had its roots in the foundation of New England society.^^

The American Revolution had many of its roots in New England, and there again we can say that they had an attachment to abstractions.  They began by charging the British with violating their rights as British citizens in 1765, but ended by conceiving of Lady Liberty (a goddess?), and human rights that should apply to all men everywhere.

This abstract seed has grown many branches, some good and some bad.  The root issue seems to be the idea that once a certain group of people latch onto a particular incarnated meaning of “liberty,” they seek to apply to all everywhere.  So we have the New England abolitionists on the one hand, and LGBT rights on the other.  Both have very different seeming applications, but both might have the same root.+

In the end I’m not sure “abstraction” was a distinctly New England problem.  Carlton sees the Civil War as a turning point for American ideals of abstract liberty, and here I disagree.  Perhaps New England held to such “abstractions” more than others, but by 1800 at least these ideals had spread most everywhere.  Where I agree with him fully, however, is that latching onto abstract propositions to guide us has resulted in many theological and civil problems.

As we end the Christmas season, may the truth of the Incarnation lead us in a different direction.

Dave

 

*Hence the importance of the prologue of St. Luke’s gospel, the historical books of the Old Testament, and various other portions of Scripture.

**I don’t mean to leave aside the possible pernicious effects of Anglo-Celtic culture.  For his part I don’t believe Carlton means to glorify this culture.  Rather, he seems to assert that the culture was uniquely their culture, and thus they (and not anyone else) had ownership of its strengths and sins, slavery obviously among them.  Their moral life remains their responsibility and not those of other states/countries, or the Federal government.  Perhaps he might continue to argue that taking it out of their hands in a way absolved them of ownership and responsibility — creating a pernicious distance between themselves and their political and cultural lives.  Did this then lead to actually more mistreatment of blacks?  It seems hard to argue this, as slavery ended because of the Civil War.  But . . . perhaps this “distance” gave them more subconscious permission to continue subjugating blacks as an act of defiance?  This would be a pretty radical idea, one that we could not test and can therefore only speculate.  But it does seem a bit of a stretch to me.  Still, I am only speculating as to his argument.

^Such manner of speaking about God is not only confined to New England, however.  Washington, Jefferson, and other southerners spoke in a similar  way.  This may cast doubt on Carlton’s thesis.

^^We can find other examples, I think.  The Puritans did not really grow a local culture, but rather “imported” and imposed a large measure of it from the Old Testament — or at least their interpretation of it.  We might argue that Puritan culture was the byproduct of abstract theological ideas.

+On the issue of slavery Carlton argues that the New England abolitionists accomplished nothing in part because of their abstractions.  They had no roots in the culture they critiqued.  They merely espoused vague notions of liberty.  He wanted southern abolitionists (such societies did exist, at least in the upper South) to solve the issue — alas, they did not.  But neither, I suppose, did northern abolitionists.  They both failed alike to avert Civil War. As to why America could not solve this issue legislatively, as England did, I’m not sure.

Retreat to Move Forward

by Dave Mathwin

I confess to having a strong antipathy to smart phones.  I know that they have their good uses.  But I am bewildered as I see people bring them out at various times and places.  I wonder what has become of us.

Now, I also realize a large amount of hypocrisy on my part.  I should also ask what has become of me.  I don’t have a smartphone . . . but I love my iPod, and I check my email too much.  In my mind, if technology had stopped advancing after Apple came out with its 160 GB iPod classic, I would be content.  But even if I am right that our prolific use of smartphones do us harm, what can be done?  After all, retreating from them seems impossible, and time marches on.  To stop advancing technologically would condemn us to economic stagnation.  To actually prevent technology from further advancing would probably require a government more powerful than would be good for us.

So it appears that we’re stuck.

But, maybe not.  The premise of Noel Perrin’s Giving up the Gun: Japan’s Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 is that a people can halt a certain kind of technology without radically changing their society.  While certain particular features of Japanese society allowed for this, Perrin states rightly that this example disproves certain well-entrenched ideas about technology and progress, among them:

  • That one must “keep up with the Jones'” to have a successful society
  • That technological progress comes as a whole and not in parts.  In other words, many falsely assume that to halt “progress” in one area will prevent advances in other areas.
  • That halting progress will put a society irrevocably behind other societies.  Instead, when Japan did decide to adopt modern weapons in the late 19th century, they very quickly caught up to others and soon posed a significant military threat.

So first we can examine why Japan could nearly eliminate guns from their society, and then secondarily, we can consider its possible application for us.

I initially assumed that Japan’s restrictive trade practices limited their contact with firearms from the start.  Not so — in fact they made significant use of firearms well into the 1560’s, and European traders remarked quite favorably on their quality.  We might also assume that Japan had a low-level of technology in general, but again — not the case.  To quote Perrin,

Japan had already reached a high level of technology.  Her copper and steel were probably better, and certainly cheaper, than any produced in Europe.  Despite enormous shipping costs, the Dutch found it profitable to send Japanese copper 10,000 miles from Amsterdam.

. . . In iron and steel Japan could undersell England, the recognized leader of European producers.  [Japan also] led the world in paper products.  For 200 years they were the leading manufacturer of weapons.  These were top quality weapons, too, especially the swords.  It is designed to cut through tempered steel, and it can . . .

In a country often experiencing some kind of conflict at some point, they well understood the value of rifles.  But by the end of the 16th century Japan decided against all forms of military mechanization so successfully that they generally disappeared for 250 years.

Of course others in Europe saw the problems with firearms.  Martin Luther said that, “Cannon and firearms are cruel and damnable machines.  I believe them to be the direct invention of the Devil.”  But Germany went on to become the pre-eminent arms manufacturer.  Many French aristocrats inveighed vociferously against the impersonal nature of such weapons, as well as the fact that their introduction would broaden war beyond the aristocracy.  But they too followed the general trend.

Certain factors within Japan made it more likely that they would have success while Europeans failed.  Being an island did not hurt.  Their demographics also played a role.  In France, for example, the warrior aristocracy represented about .1-.2% of the population.  In Japan that number reached close to 10%, which gave them that much more influence.   Japanese swords also had such a high quality that the difference in effectiveness between a sword and a 16th century gun was less than in Europe.

But Perrin argues that the main factor lies in the role of the sword in Japan.  In Europe some swords had religious and symbolic significance, i.e. King Arthur’s “Excalibur,” or Roland’s “Durendal.”  But in Japan, the sword almost literally represented the soul of warrior for every samurai.  Swords were an extension of the self.  Making them obsolete would in effect, make themselves obsolete.  They would have no purpose as they would have no identity.

Perrin relates an interesting story along these lines.  One group of samurai besieged the castle of another warrior.  Eventually it became obvious that the besiegers would win, whereby the besieged asked for a conference.  He explained to his attackers that he had several swords inside that he wished to preserve from destruction.  Would the attackers agree to receive the swords and preserve them?  And so, the defenders, with solemn ceremony, transferred the swords to the attacking army and then retreated back into the castle.  After which, the attackers set fire to the estate and all those inside perished.

Many aristocratic warriors in Europe and Japan detested firearms because it made combat itself impersonal and unredeemable.   We see many examples of dialog during combat in the Arthurian tales, but it seems the Japanese took this to another level.  Perrin gives us one such example, as Warrior ‘X’ tried to behead Warrior ‘Y’ unsuccessfully, who was wounded and exhausted.

Y: Are you fluttered, sir?  You see you have no success.  Look, I wear a nagowa (an iron neck collar).  Remove it, and you can cut off my head.

X: (Bows to “Y”) Thank you sir!  You die an honorable death.  You have my admiration!

One could even argue that Japanese warriors sought not so much victory, but an honorable death.  Firearms dramatically increased the chance that you would die without an honorable end, without a chance to “fly the flag” at the last moment — however much it increased your chances of victory.

Early Japanese firearm manuals acknowledged this and more.  To fire guns well, such manuals stated, one even had to put the body in “demeaning,” inelegant postures.  For the Japanese, the gun represented not just another weapon, but another view of humanity.

Firearms returned late in the 19th century.  Ironically, Admiral Perry told them that if they wanted to keep others like him away, they would need more modern weapons.  Japan then turned on a dime and within a generation had a respectable military force.  Within two generations they posed a grave threat to the most modern of militaries and nearly conquered all of Asia.  The absence of mechanized weapons for three centuries put them at no real disadvantage once they determined to catch up.

One of the oldest tropes in the history of History is historians wishing for bygone days of yore.  But I think our worries about technology go far beyond nostalgia.  Advancement is now so rapid that we have no time to contemplate or evaluate the role of technology in our lives.  We have to ability to develop “social antibodies” to the problems with technology.  As such, we have within the last 10 years become utterly dependent and quite possibly addicted to the internet.  Paul Graham, the innovator behind Reddit, Dropbox, and a variety of other programs, writes,

. . . And unless the rate at which social antibodies evolve can increase to match the accelerating rate at which technological progress throws off new addictions, we’ll be increasingly unable to rely on customs to protect us. Unless we want to be canaries in the coal mine of each new addiction—the people whose sad example becomes a lesson to future generations—we’ll have to figure out for ourselves what to avoid and how. It will actually become a reasonable strategy (or a more reasonable strategy) to suspect everything new.

In fact, even that won’t be enough. We’ll have to worry not just about new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. That’s what bit me. I’ve avoided most addictions, but the Internet got me because it became addictive while I was using it.

Do we have any hope of emulating the Japanese and pausing our technological growth?

A few other random examples of at least halting technology exist (such as Elizabeth I preventing indoor plumbing), but I can’t think of another example of a society moving “forwards,”* then “backwards” with the adoption of certain technologies.  Japan’s insular geographic position helped them, as did their demographics, governance, and culture — and I find these last two most significant.

Americans rarely acknowledge the fact that aristocracies come with some benefits, or at least, alternative possibilities.  Japan’s warrior elite had the political and social status to make the ban stick.  Add to that the pull of a unique and deeply distinctive Japanese culture, one that perhaps approximated that of ancient Egypt in its power to unify a large mass of people in a particular way of life (another geographically insulated civilization).

We have no geographic isolation.  Nor does our culture have anything close to Japan’s gravitational pull, i.e. — our capital exports little more than bureaucracy to the rest of the country.  And finally, our democratic system has something close to a zero-percent chance of desiring, or certainly enforcing, such a return to earlier ways.  Self-denial simply has very little place in democratic cultures.

Now I think it’s time for me to check my email . . .

Dave

 

Matt Zoller of RogerEbert.com writes,

We’ve become a one-handed species. We keep one hand in reserve for taking out a wallet, digging in a purse, swiping a Metrocard, helping up a person who’s fallen on the sidewalk, whatever. The other hand is for Making Sure We Got This.

I know, I know. This has been going on for a few years. It’s not a news flash; it’s who we are as a species. I’m Grandpa Abe Simpson yammering about onion belts. I should climb onto the ice floe and shove off. Or say, “Oh yeah, things change, technology changes, it’s no big deal” and quit complaining.

But I think it deserves ongoing consideration and argument, because it’s everywhere.

Is it merely different from, but in no way inferior to, older forms of participation, as people who are addicted to doing it tend to claim when they read pieces like this one? I have no idea. Only a cognitive researcher could say with any authority. But it’s a major and visible change. It’s species-wide.

And I’ve personally not heard any convincing arguments against the idea that it means we have become, in some basic way, detached from our own existence; that life itself is becoming a supplier of material for Instagram, Flicker, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and the like, rather than a thing that happens to us, and that we absorb with our bodies and minds, not with our phones.

*I think it would be a nearly impossible to construct a good argument that mechanized weaponry represented an advance for civilization.