Author Archives: Dave Mathwin

History and the Resurrection

by Dave Mathwin

Some months ago I picked up the book The Resurrection and Modern Man, by the Patriarch of Antioch Ignatius IV.  I have yet to wrap my head and my heart around even the first 20 pages.  But in light of the fact that Easter has come, I thought a few passages worth quoting:

Let us listen to Him who sits on the throne and declares: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5).  “I make all things new,” is not a program; it is an event, in fact the only Event of history.

We propose to be neither archeologists of Christianity nor sociologists of a revolutionary Chruch: all that is radically outdated.  We must instead be prophets of the New Creation and visionaries of the resurrected Christ.

In Christ death has been overcome, but among those who are of the lineage of the Woman of the Apocalypse, it still has to be definitely conquered (Rev. 12:17).  . . . If we do not take this fact into account, our response to the Word of God will be nothing more than ecclesiastical triumphalism or pathological repentance.  In other words, the New Creation appears in history as a battle against death; it can only be perceived as a paschal drama.

. . . the New Creation is explained not by the past, but by the future.  It is clear that the action of the living God can only be transformative and creative.  . . .Any other god than the Lord is a [dead] god.  And it is high time that our modern consciousness bury him.  This multiform god, who lives in the “old consciousness” of man stands behind man as a mere cause.  This old god dominates, organizes, leads man backwards, and finally alienates him.  There is nothing prophetic about this god; on the contrary he always follows after as the ultimate reason for the unexplainable or as the last recourse for irresponsible people and their actions.  This false transcendence is as old as death itself; it is an idol made by the hands of man and for which man feels a passionate jealousy (Gen. 3).

Irenaeus of Lyon says that we are to “know that He has given us something completely new by giving us Himself, He who had been announced in former times;  He is the new principle of life which was to come, to renew and enliven humanity.”

Wonderful words for a wonderful day, if only I could fully understand them!

Have a blessed Easter,

Dave

Sir Paul’s Secrets to Success

by Dave Mathwin

Perhaps Paul McCartney could have been another example in this post.

His new album “Kisses on the Bottom” has occasioned a flurry of attention for the music legend.  I heard his interview with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” and enjoyed Paul talking about the music he heard growing up, and how his work didn’t seek to escape from the old standards, but build upon them.

He specifically mentioned two of what he called “tricks”  from the old songwriters that he incorporated into the Beatles:

  • Switching from Major to Minor Key, and then Back to Major

The first example he recalled from the Beatles was one of their early hits, “From Me to You.”  The verses are in major — “If there’s anything that you want, if there’s anything I can do,” etc.  But then it switches to minor when he sings, “I’ve got arms that long to hold you, and keep you by my side . . .”

  • Taking a Song Full Circle

McCartney talked about an old standard called, “Cheek to Cheek,” which begins with a theme, leaves it, and returns to it at the end.  He referenced “Here, There, and Everywhere,” and we might add on a grander scale the entire second side of Abbey Road that begins with “You Never Give Me Your Money.”

Of course the Beatles had tremendous success for many reasons, but the fact that they followed Toynbee’s prescription for successful creativity surely played a role.  In the interview McCartney specifically mentioned how they consciously set out not to reject the past, but instead borrowed what they could and put their own spin on it.

And yet, his latest album seems to do exactly what the Beatles did not do, for based on what little I’ve heard, it seems that he tries to recreate the past, not make something new.  Perhaps this is why his new release falls flat, for me at least.

Rooting for Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder?

by Dave Mathwin

I’m a Redskins fan.  How can I possibly feel bad for Jerry Jones?  For that matter, how can I root for Dan Snyder?

Recently, Commissioner Roger Godell levied fines against the Cowboys and Redskins for violating salary cap regulations in 2010.  The Redskins will lose $36 million in cap space this year, $10 million for the Cowboys.

Except of course, that there was no salary cap in 2010, and all the contracts tendered by both teams that year had league approval.  Beltway Sports has a good take here, with links to other articles about this issue.

Ah, but wise Godell, declared after the fact that Snyder and Jones violated the principles of competitive balance implied in the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.  So they didn’t actually violate any actual rule, they merely refused to what, salute the “shield” snappily enough?  Snyder and Jones have fallen victim to an ancient legal principle known as,

PRIVILEGIUM

Black’s Law Dictionary defines the term this way:

In Roman law, a special constitution granted the Roman emperor the right to confer on a single person some anomalous or irregular right, or imposed an anomalous or irregular obligation, or inflicted on some single person some anomalous or irregular punishment.  When such privilcyia conferred anomalous rights, they were styled “favorable.”  When they imposed anomalous obligations or irregular punishments, they were styled “odious.”

I think it’s safe to say that Jones and Snyder got the odious kind.

Numerous horrible and amusing stories abound about the worst emperors, but even some of the worst, like Nero, could be erratic in someone’s favor.  In AD 68 Nero competed in the Greek Olympics and entered the chariot race.  He did not even manage to finish, but the Greeks awarded him the prize for most outstanding rider in the competition.  In gratitude, Nero absolved all of Greece from tributary taxes.

No fools, those Greeks.

More often than not it worked the other way, like when Caligula made looking down at his bald head a capital offense, or when Tiberius made breathing wrong treasonous (yes — the Tiberius example exaggerates a little).

Both Snyder and Jones are easy to root against.  We must restrain our impulse in this case, especially if we realize that

  • The league said yes to the all their 2010 contracts
  • Now the league says, “You should have known that yes meant no.”
  • For not knowing that yes means no, we restrict your right to spend your money as you see fit according to the agreed upon rules for this year.

The case reminds me a bit of the trial of Charles I, another monarch easy to dislike.  He had haughtiness down pat, as you can see here:

Or here:

Through various high-handed measures he alienated much of the country and provoked a civil war.  After his defeat, Parliament put him on trial.  By law, Parliament could hear treason cases, but the problem for Parliament was that Parliament wasn’t really there.  The army had gotten rid of most of Parliament’s elected representatives, and the entire House of Lords for ideological reasons.  Seeing the writing on the wall, Charles refused to recognize the court’s legitimacy and did not even enter a plea.  With rare insight, he stated to the so-called court,

I would know by what power I am called hither … I would know by what authority, I mean lawful; there are many unlawful authorities in the world; thieves and robbers by the high-ways … Remember, I am your King, your lawful King, and what sins you bring upon your heads, and the judgement of God upon this land. Think well upon it, I say, think well upon it, before you go further from one sin to a greater … I have a trust committed to me by God, by old and lawful descent, I will not betray it, to answer a new unlawful authority; therefore resolve me that, and you shall hear more of me.

I do stand more for the liberty of my people, than any here that come to be my pretended judges … I do not come here as submitting to the Court. I will stand as much for the privilege of the House of Commons, rightly understood, as any man here whatsoever: I see no House of Lords here, that may constitute a Parliament … Let me see a legal authority warranted by the Word of God, the Scriptures, or warranted by the constitutions of the Kingdom, and I will answer.

 If it were only my own particular case, I would have satisfied myself with the protestation I made the last time I was here, against the legality of the Court, and that a King cannot be tried by any superior jurisdiction on earth: but it is not my case alone, it is the freedom and the liberty of the people of England; and do you pretend what you will, I stand more for their liberties. For if power without law, may make laws, may alter the fundamental laws of the Kingdom, I do not know what subject he is in England that can be sure of his life, or any thing that he calls his own.
The other NFL owners have nodded in assent to Godell, just like the Roman Senate always did under the emperors.  But they should be careful.  If the richest and most visible can be dealt with arbitrarily, who will speak when the Bills, Browns, or Jaguars come into Godell’s sights?

Moral Clarity Amidst Moral Fatalism

by Dave Mathwin

In the aftermath of the horrible shootings in France, and in light of this post last week, I rejoiced to see real moral courage and clarity from Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayadd.  After the terrorist Mohamed Merah claimed to act on behalf of Palestine, he commented.

It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life. This terrorist crime is condemned in the strongest terms by the Palestinian people and their children. No Palestinian child can accept a crime that targets innocent people.

Walter Russell Mead has a great perspective here.  I wouldn’t change a thing.

Alas, Fayadd’s words stand in contrast to esteemed Moslem scholar Tariq Ramadan who stated,

[The shooter’s] political thought is that of a young man adrift, imbued neither with the values of Islam, or driven by racism and anti-Semitism … A pathetic young man, guilty and condemnable beyond the shadow of a doubt, even though he himself was the victim of a social order that had already doomed him, and millions of others like him, to a marginal existence, and to the non-recognition of his status as a citizen equal in rights and opportunities.

…he was French, as are all his victims (in the name of what strange logic are they differentiated and categorized by religion?), but he felt himself constantly reduced to both his origin by his skin color, and his religion by his name.

Again, thanks to the esteemed Mr. Mead.
Neither I or Mead seek to overlook French treatment of their Moslem population and the real problems it has caused.  Nor do I wish to be unduly harsh on Mr. Ramadan, because unfortunately, many far worse things than Ramadan’s words have been said in France in the aftermath of the tragedy.  But Mead rightly notes that, while Ramadan in no way approves of the shootings, he does not see (or perhaps he does all too well?) that he provides a kind of exoneration for the killer.  Society allowed him no identity, thus he possessed no real will to resist the urge to some perverted form of imaginary revenge.
So many issues could be raised here, but with no disrespect to the victims intended at all, I immediately thought of the issue of fatalism.  With so much focus on the “will of Allah,” Islam has always had fatalistic strands imbedded within some of its varied expressions.  One could say the same thing about certain strands of Protestant Calvinism.  But I do not think Calvin himself fell prey to this fatalism.  And that is the point.  The fatalism came later, with Calvinism in decline.
This is the way of fatalistic ideologies.  They are passive, not active, and manifest themselves when civilizations/religions have played their last cards.  So Babylonian dream interpretation finally covered every facet of life by Nebuchadnezzar’s time, as this partial list shows:

‘If a date appears on a man’s head, it means woe. If a fish appears on his head, that man will be strong. If a mountain appears on his head, it means that he will have no rival. If salt appears on his head, it means that he will apply himself to bald his house….If a man dreams that he goes to a pleasure garden, it means that he will gain his freedom. If he goes to a market garden, his dwelling will be uncomfortable. If he goes to kindle a firebrand he will see woe during his days. If he goes to sow a field, he will escape from a ruined place. If he goes to hunt in the country, he will be eminent. If he goes to an oxstall, (he will have) safety. If he goes to the sheepfold, he will rise to the first rank.’

 And so on, and so on.
The Romans turned to Stoicism only in their empire phase.  Soviet Russia followed the doctrines of economic class fatalism blindly off a cliff.  Even Austrian economists, with whom I often agree, have to be careful that they don’t say, “The market made me do it.”
But some might object.  “The Babylonians reached their territorial peak under Nebuchadnezzar, as did the Romans under Marcus Aurelius, a Stoic emperor, as did the Soviets under Stalin.  So how can fatalism represent decay?”  Hitler talked about being a mere tool of “providence,” and certainly strove for expansion.   It happened with the Soviets, who took all of Eastern Europe.  The most rapid period of expansion in the U.S. also matches the time when markets were at their freest,or most laissez-faire, ca. 1870-1900.
Radical Islam (which is the most fatalistic) today wants a restoration of Moslem power at its medieval apex, a significant expansion of power.
Maybe this connection is purely coincidental, but I think not.  But that means we have to offer some kind of explanation for this paradoxical idea that a passive approach to the world results in territorial expansion.
I myself have no magic bullet, but will tentatively offer a personal theory.  G.K. Chesterton noted that children have the capacity to delight in monotony.  The world is fresh and life-giving in their eyes.  Give them a ball or three blocks, and they are content.  Their world can be small because everything delights them.  Life is one continuous party.
The fatalist tells the sad tale of boredom.  Small things in life no longer delight.  For them, the world must grow larger in a desperate search to fill the void.  But this search for more ironically detracts from their humanity.  For soon they exhaust their own ‘inner man’ and, like bugs drawn to porch lights, they seek the collective, the ‘force,’ the vast bowl of tapioca pudding.  They find meaning in having no purpose, an end to their boredom, an end to themselves.  As Eric Hoffer noted, it is the bored, not the poor, that are primarily attracted to all-consuming mass movements.
I can do no better than quote Chesterton:

The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.

The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

Michael Knox Beran’s “Forge of Empires”

by Dave Mathwin

Beran’s book looks at Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck, and Alexander II, three contemporary heads of state who remade their respective countries.  Beran attaches the word “revolutionaries” to each of these rulers, though not all revolutionaries are created equal.

One can read this book even if you’re only interested in one or two of the people, as I was.  I thought his comparison of Bismarck and Lincoln refreshing.  Historian James McPherson called the Civil War a “Second American Revolution,” and I think Beran would agree.  If we think about the Civil War like this it puts a new perspective on Lincoln’s presidency.

To my mind the Confederacy acted much like the British did in the late 18th century.  I think the British had technical legality on their side, but to focus on that alone missed the most important details.  They were right, for example, to insist that the colonies never had a separate existence apart from England, like say, Ireland did until it was incorporated into the British empire.  But though correct in the barest factual sense, England overlooked the reality that American had de facto operated independently in almost every way since the 17th century.  While some townships in England had no direct Parliamentary representative (and so the colonists shouldn’t feel it their absolute right to have one), England ignored the great differences between an English township and colonies across the ocean.

So too the Confederacy may have been technically correct about federal power as it related to the slavery question.  But as one student of mine said, “It’s slavery, who cares about the Constitution.”  Anti-slavery advocates called for the country to be guided by a “higher law” than the Constitution.  When the southern states objected to this idea, they immediately lost the real argument.  They put the Constitution itself, which they claimed to follow, in the perilous ground of complete irrelevancy.  If it could not solve the slavery issue, what good was it?

By 1861 the Constitution had proved inadequate to deal with fundamental questions of human existence.  So yes, Lincoln did skirt some constitutional guidelines.  But he must be understood in a revolutionary context.  Revolutions happen in part because the current system fails to deal with reality.  Revolutionaries often find themselves cast off from traditional moorings because the tradition’s failure led to the revolution in the first place.  Revolutionary movements therefore have great opportunity and immense danger inherent in them.  So yes, Lincoln did play fast and loose with certain constitutional provisions (as did Jefferson Davis in the South).  But we should marvel at how much he preserved, rather than what he bent or broke.  The Civil War did change America, but I would argue that it was Lincoln’s moral sense, and a Christian moral sense from around 1862 on, that preserved much of the best of what the founders bequeathed.

Bismarck, like Lincoln, was a brilliant politician who forged a nation from a confederacy of provinces.  But that is where the similarities end.   He manipulated other countries and even his own king.  He cared enough about democracy and constitutionalism to use it when it suited him, but he always came back to force, his weapon of choice.  Bismarck was in certain key ways a friend of the Jews, and so I very much want to believe he would have hated Nazi rhetoric.  But his insistence on using force to bypass the democratic process bore terrible fruit generations later.

Most of their portraits reveal this basic difference.  Bismarck, for example often posed in military garb, which suits his whole political philosophy.

On the left, realpolitik with a heart, on the right, realpolitik with nothing but politics.  It sounds sentimental and mushy, but it takes a gentle hand and mercy to make sure that revolutions do not become tyrannies.

Chester G. Starr’s “The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History”

by Dave Mathwin

Starr wrote his book to respond to Alfred Mahan’s  The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783.  Many consider that work an indispensable classic, an essential plank in the argument for sea power trumping land power.  What drew me to Starr’s tome was his criticism of Mahan’s “lackluster prose,” and essential “indigestibility.”  I too dipped my toe in  Mahan’s waters and had the impression that it was a book that everyone says they’ve read without actually doing so.

After that, Starr gets into his thesis, which is that sea power has not been nearly as decisive as we might think.  For Starr, Mahan was not all wrong, but at least mostly wrong . . . in certain ways.

And with this moderately wishy-washy thesis lies most of the problem with Starr’s book.  In the end, he can’t quite deliver the coup de grace to Mahan.  He only wishes us to modify Mahan . . . somewhat.  This stance has the advantage of being eminently reasonable, but the disadvantage of being rather dull and not very helpful.  And he only wants us to think about the ancient world.  The modern era he leaves untouched and unresolved, even though that was the era Mahan mostly dealt with.

So, this book is hardly Mahan’s nemesis, but Starr still has some good points.

The first is that most major ancient empires eventually acquired navies, yet none of them met their end at sea.  Persia finished off Egypt by land, the Greeks finished off Persia by land, Sparta took Athens on land (at least at the very end of the Peloponnesian War), Hannibal brought Rome to its knees via a land invasion, and Rome itself met its doom from the northern barbarians who were light years away from having fleets.  So how could naval power be all that decisive?

If we carry his point to the modern era, naval dominance did not help Portugal, Spain, or the Netherlands maintain their role in world affairs for very long.

With his second major point Starr approaches something of a broad analysis applicable across time.  Naval powers will usually face a Catch-22 of sorts.  Only a well-organized, wealthy, and successful state can achieve naval superiority, giving that state a much wider reach.  But this wide reach comes with great responsibility.  As Admiral Crowe commented,

Sea Power is more potent than land power, because it is pervading as the element in which it moves and has its being.  . . . A maritime State, is, in the literal sense of the world, the neighbor of every country accessible by sea.  It would be natural that a State supreme at sea should inspire universal jealousy and fear, and be ever in danger of being overthrown by a general combination of the world.  Against such a combination no single nation could in the long run stand, least of all a small kingdom not possessed of a people trained to arms, and dependent on overseas commerce for food.

The danger in practice can only be averted . . . on condition that the national policy of the naval State is so directed to harmonize with the general desires and ideals of all mankind, and more particularly, that it is closely identified with the primary interests of the majority of mankind.

By  the time most states have the infrastructure to have a big navy they also have the arrogance to match.  England avoided Athens’ fate in part because of her geography, though she certainly had arrogance.  America today finds that our global reach makes us many enemies as well as friends.

Naval power opens a state up to other temptations.  More efficient global markets reduce the need for self-sufficiency and fosters increased specialization.  But if the global network fails, the naval power may look homeward and find an empty shell.  Thus did Starr anticipate some of the problems of modern globalization.

Starr had some good ideas, but needed more audacity to carry them through.  Well, perhaps Mahan’s massive reputation cannot be felled at a single blow.

 

 

Jim Ottaviani’s “Suspended in Language”

by Dave Mathwin

Like many of you, I decided that I was not a Math/Science person sometime around 8th or 9th grade.  I hit Algebra and never looked back.  Only recently have I started to regret that choice, or rather, the false dichotomy of that choice.  Reading this essay helped me see why the so-called division between the humanities and sciences has happened.  Maybe my lack of math sense is not all my fault!

The famous “Lockhart’s Lament” essay I linked above has two main points:

  • We teach math all wrong because we teach it in a way totally divorced from reality
  • Math should be taught like a a humanities class.  Instead of random symbols we need story and context.  In short, Math and Science involve art as much as Literature or History.

Inspired by Lockhart, I no longer believe myself a lost cause in the area of science.  But I am also a realist, and so turned to the comic book medium for help.

The book’s art does the job, although it does not inspire.  Ottaviani does better with the story itself, and makes the mythical Neils Bohr into a recognizable human being.  Much of the science remains beyond my understanding, but one aspect of Bohr’s life struck me and reminded me of Lockhart’s essay.  For Bohr, theoretical physics needed to involve poetic interpretation.  Physicists need to read between the lines and create an artistic vision through inspired guesswork.  “By faith we reach understanding.”

Bohr is perhaps best known for his atomic model: 

Bohr quickly dismissed this model as inaccurate.  All physicists agree that atoms don’t look like this,  and yet it has stuck around.  Why?  The book does not speculate, but we can.  Surely something of the model’s sticking power has to do with its visual elegance.  Also, the picture gives you an instant explanation.  Finally, no one has given us something better.  This is part of Bohr’s point.  He wasn’t right about the structure of the atom, but he was more right than someone who makes no guess at all. If you insist on omniscience you will end up knowing less than if you just made your best guess, and visual poetry communicates more truth than esoteric symbols.  Hence, the book’s title borrows a phrase from Bohr.  The deepest scientific truths remain “suspended in language.”

I am very encouraged to think science can function like the humanities, and making this link is the best shot we have at getting more students interested in math and science.

Dave

Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”

by Dave Mathwin

This book tackles many of the same themes as The Masque of Africa, and like that book this one too is a short but powerful work.

I cannot say if Achebe is entirely accurate about his portrayal of African tribal clan life in the Victorian era, but reading him makes me think that surely he must be accurate, so vividly does he draw the characters and action.  In the hopes of not repeating my Masque of Africa thoughts, the book touches upon many important themes:

1. Does Christianity fulfill or go against native religions?

This debate has gone back almost to the beginning of Church history itself, and Achebe does not try and solve it.  But he does a great job giving us the tension not only in different missionaries, but in the society itself.  Is the paganism of the African tribes a foundation to build upon or a negative force to be supplanted?  Or is it both/and instead of either/or?

Sometimes the reader sees the dignity and cohesiveness of tribal religion.  The Africans understand religion far more than the average agnostic westerner.  But just as often we see the terrible darkness and fear that the African religion produces.  Achebe must be given tremendous credit for not flinching in this area.

2. Religion and Culture

Again, more than many westerners, Achebe understands the importance of religion, because once the religion is changed, the culture must as well.  The missionaries quickly bring in education to the clans, as well as a different law system.  How much of this must by default come with Christianity I can’t say, but surely, for example, education must come with Protestantism.

3. Africa as a Template for Europeans

In a controversial essay, Achebe called Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” at root a racist book.  Though Conrad certainly took a strong anti-colonial stance, Achebe believed that for Conrad, Africa had no independent legitimate existence of its own to be taken seriously.  Instead, Conrad, like the rest of his time, can’t help but view the world as their “blank slate” to work out their own issues.   Achebe is too good a writer to paint things in stark black and white, but he does work this attitude into the story.  Even when “doing good” the British tend to think of themselves on their own terms, rather than consider the Africans on their terms.

Things Fall Apart is well worth your time.

V.S. Naipaul’s “The Masque Of Africa”

by Dave Mathwin

This book is short, but dense and challenges readers from at least three backgrounds, including:

  • The Generic ‘Religion as Binding Ritual’ type

I always want to tear my hair out (but can’t because I have none) when I hear people talk about traditional tribal religion as giving shape to communities, providing a pattern of life, and so on, and therefore lament its passing. Yes, it does provide a “pattern of life,” but that is hardly what tribal religion (or any religion) is really about. Make no mistake, according to Naipul many Africans really believe in forest spirits, curses, and charms. They will kill cats (and on rare occasions people) suspected of bringing a curse, sell animals for sacrifices, have the ‘Juju Man’ come and beat ‘offending’ women, and so on. How’s that for a ‘pattern of life?’

Both Christianity and Islam have made huge inroads in Africa over the past century, but Naipaul shows how much traditional religion still survives in Africa, and is even mixed here and there with some Christian ideas.

It’s no good pointing fingers, however.  We in the West should think about how much our cuture influences our view of reality.  I remember a conversation long ago with a friend who asked me what I thought of Eastern medicine.  I expressed my doubts, to which she retorted, “Doesn’t Western medicine proceed with an equally, if not more unbiblical view of mankind as a mere collection of chemicals to be manipulated?”  She had a point.

  • The More Conservative Christian Type

Many Christians (like myself) are unaware of what it means to change one’s religion in the midst of very deep rooted traditions. I wonder if we have taken into account the social and psychological dislocation that results from this religious change. Naipaul subtly shows how Africa’s sense of itself has been uprooted in part by imperialism, and  religious change. This sense of dislocation impacts all areas of life and may contribute in part to much of the continent’s political instability, among other things. And perhaps this is why traditional paganism has a lingering hold. Despite its black magic and confusing ritual it does provide something comfortable and familiar. It is a pattern of life, for all that.

Having said this, one can see the stifling impact ‘traditional’ religion has. The medicine man has to be bribed and appeased.  There are veils of secrecy and fear. What we would consider normal social interaction can’t exist in such an environment. Again, back to my first point, you can’t have meaningful ritual or binding ties without those rituals rooted in some kind of belief. So choose those beliefs carefully. I think one of the African Church’s challenges over the next few decades will be to somehow create a Christian culture that is fully ‘African.’ As the western Church has failed at this task in  our own culture for the past 350 years or so, I have no advice to give them, and wish them more success than us.

  • The African Philanthropist

Maybe westerners are just too impatient with Africa, and because we usually think of religion as a condiment, many well meaning and good humanitarians (better people than myself) have no idea what Africa’s real challenges are. After Rome’s fall, it took Europe about 500 years to reach a ‘pattern of life’ that could bind people together socially and create viable political institutions that could be transferred over time.  None of this happened until the continent was essentially Christian, at least in name. And when it had not fully happened, it took ‘Strong Men’ like Charlemagne to hold things together. Are we wrong to think Africa can do this in the 50 odd years or so since most countries gained independence? It may be that we hold them to much higher standards than we hold ourselves to in our own history.

Naipaul manages to detach himself from his writing and report in deadpan style. He forces the reader into an uncomfortable position. Many times I just wasn’t sure what to make of what he saw, although I don’t know if Naipaul always knew either. I felt uncomfortable, but not in a bad way.  Overall, this book made me have a greater appreciation for 1) African Christians, who even in ‘Christian’ places face unusual challenges, and 2) The idea that religion does more to shape a place than any other factor. In the end, individuals and communities are what they worship, whether consciously realized or not.

Dave

The Integration Between Technology and the Arts

by Dave Mathwin

One of the things that has struck me in reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Job’s is how much Job’s saw himself as an artist.  These artistic impulses help explain a lot about Job’s personality, but also the design of his products.  He cared deeply for simple, integrated elegance.  Bill Gates and others criticized Jobs for making Apple computers closed systems and “robbing people of choice,” as some might say.  But how many artists do collaborative projects?  Once you have a finished work of art, it’s finished.  No artist would allow someone else to add a few brushstrokes here and there.

Some like Apple, and some don’t.  But I don’t think anyone could deny that Job’s largely successful attempt to integrate art and technology is a big reason for Apple’s success.  Western culture is starved for this integration, and while the cult status Apple enjoys among some devotees unnerves many, we should realize that Apple products tap into a deep need we have to make our lives a unified whole.

When teaching Descartes I discovered that for much of his work he made his own accompanying drawings.  As far as I know, we have yet to see someone like him, one who combines art, science, and math to such a degree.*

I don’t agree with Descartes’ worldview, but when I see his art part of me wishes I could.

Dave

* I recently realized with delight that the great 20th century physicist Richard Fenyman took art lessons with a friend to help him communicate the emotion of scientific ideas.  But he doesn’t come close to Descartes in my book.  His drawing of people are pretty good, but he couldn’t get the same touch with his famous diagrams.  Looking at Descartes’ drawings, I almost get the sense of what he was trying to say.  I have absolutely no idea what Fenyman tried to communicate with his famous diagrams. . .

 

 

 

 

Asimov’s “Foundation” and Wikipedia

by Dave Mathwin

Last summer I read Asimov’s “Foundation” and enjoyed it.  The plot twist early on (*spoiler alert*) of having the encyclopedia project  function as a ruse to get scientists to an outlying planet hooked me for the duration.  In the story, the mere act of compiling information wasted time. 

Reading Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization, The West and the Rest” got me thinking about encyclopedias again.  Here is my review, and here is another slightly more positive take from which I extracted this quotation (thanks to Marginal Revolution for the link):

In 1420, when London was a backwater, Nanjing was the world’s largest city, and Ming China “had an incontrovertible claim to be [its] most advanced civilization.” That it was a center of learning he makes plain with a typically entertaining detail: the Emperor tasked 2,000 scholars with creating “a compendium of Chinese learning” that “filled more than 11,000 volumes,” which was “surpassed as the world’s largest encyclopedia only in 2007 … by Wikipedia.” So what happened?

Ferguson then goes on to outline the swift decline in China’s navy as the main answer, just as Paul Kennedy did in his The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.  Like Asimov, I have a different theory: China’s encyclopedia itself was a symptom of a disease that already manifested itself in the body politic.

The Roman’s first encyclopedia, for example, came in its post-Diocletian phase, a time of  desperate attempts to conserve what they had lost centuries earlier. There’s the rub; most often, encyclopedias and dictionaries come from a conservative reaction against change.*   A fear of losing something pushes us to gather our nuts frantically for the coming winter.  Thus, it makes perfect sense that the Chinese followed up its massive encyclopedia with a concomitant reaction against traveling to contact new people and ideas and risk losing what they had so carefully tried to preserve.

I use Wikipedia in desperate moments when I forget a date before class, and I think that it has gotten more reliable over the years in giving a general idea of things.  But I have no sympathy with the pleas it makes for support.  For one, we could easily do without it, but something deeper bothers me.  Many, many creative, curious, and intelligent people spend their time for Wikipedia merely repeating and compiling what others have already said elsewhere.  What Truman Capote famously said of “On the Road” could be said of Wikipedia: “That’s not writing. It’s typing.”

Blessings,

Dave

*I admit that the Dictionary made by the French philosophes had a more militant, aggressive character, and is an exception to this rule.

Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization: The West and the Rest”

by Dave Mathwin

I did not read this cover-to-cover, so take everything with a handful of salt. 

I liked what I read, but this book feels uneven and rushed in parts. Perhaps that is because his subject is so big. While it feels incomplete, the book does raise some pertinent questions, given the recent rise of China and India.

Ferguson asserts that the great shift in power from East to West that started ca. 1500 can be traced to what he calls six “Killer Applications” (sometimes he uses the word ‘Apps’ – bleah!). They are science, medicine, work ethic, consumption, property rights, and competition. In no order, my thoughts:

  • Some of this feels dated. It seems to me that Paul Kennedy already treated some of these topics regarding competition, openness etc. in his ‘Rise and Fall of Great Powers.’ Ferguson is a great controversialist but this does not feel controversial
  • Couldn’t science and medicine go together?
  • As usual, he has many great visual aids, graphs, etc.
  • Ferguson has an interesting take on the decline of religion in Europe vs. America, and he roots the difference at least in part on America’s more total embrace of competition and the market and its application to churches. He makes the astute observation that having done so, America’s consumer oriented churches will feed an enfeeblement of values that unhindered consumerism brings with it. Thus, while American churches will tell its parishioners to do what we say, not what we do — it probably won’t work.

This was a rare moment of interesting argument for Ferguson (in this book at least), but it doesn’t hold up for me. True, Europe has its state churches, but people are not forbidden from going to Catholic churches in England or Baptist churches in France. The real difference must lie elsewhere — in a deeper place.

The whole religion question seemed like a great opportunity for Ferguson. Here he truly dabbles in some controversy, such as mostly agreeing with Weber’s much discredited ideas surrounding Protestantism. He discusses the rise of Christianity in China and calls it a significant factor in China’s recent rise. By his not not so subtle implication, the decline of Christianity in Europe might be cause for its decline. But having broached the topic, he swerves away. The whole religion question seemed like a great opportunity for him. But he just dips his toe. Jump in, Mr. Ferguson! Sometimes I disagree with you but I like that you make people think and reconsider their ideas. He does not do that here as in some of his other books.

Another moment of missed argument – the idea of a civilization’s ‘confidence.’ He dismisses some of Kenneth Clark’s views on civilization but then basically agrees with one of Clark’s key points, that civilizations need ‘confidence’ to survive. He then comes close to calling out various Western academics that teach nothing but the evils of Western civilization. He almost asserts that such people undermine the basic psychological foundations of the west, an argument many conservatives make. But again, he does not press it home or follow its implications.

This is what makes this work so tame in comparison to others. He no longer acts like the young historian out to take on the world, like in ‘The Pity of War.’ I disagreed with decent chunks of that book, but it was fun to read. This one is boring, if not still informative.

He raises, but leaves wide open, the question of whether or not China’s rise will mean a smooth transition for the West or not. China has gotten more powerful by adopting many of the ‘Killer Applications’ that made the West. Is this good for us? Should we root for China to become more western? Will the U.S. in 20 years be China’s partner like England is to the U.S.? Or will it go worse for us? Ferguson hints, dances, and leaves it in the air.

Here’s hoping that Ferguson takes some time off from books and tv, goes into a cave, and emerges five years from now with something better.

11th Grade: Market Psychology

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,


This week we looked at the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and how it happened.   Not all Stock Market crashes cause deep depressions or recessions, and in fact, many now argue that the Great Depression had many other factors besides the ’29 crash.  For example, only about 3% of Americans owned any stock at all in 1929.  But I do think that the crash both revealed and foreshadowed deep problems within the economy as a whole, and so I still thought it worthwhile to examine.  At the very time, for example, when the stock market rose dramatically, key industries like agriculture and construction showed major signs of weakness.
Not only that, it gave us a great platform to discuss the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000, which did not bring about substantial economic harm, and the crash of 2008 recently which did.  What were the differences in the two, and which was 1929 more like?  It seems that the 2000 dip revealed a weird anomaly in the economy, whereas in 2008, the problems lay much more at its heart, with our financial system in general.  Here are a few different graphs that show similar drops in the market, but each had its own particular effect on the economy:
This graph suggests that maybe market ‘crashes’ are simply ‘corrections.”
We spent two days this week on our own’Stock Market of the  1920’s’ activity.   My main purpose was not recreate  entirely how stocks are actually sold and have value.  I wanted the students to focus on understanding the psychological aspect of not only stock value, but the  value of anything at all.  After all, what makes our paper money  valuable in itself?  Only that we have all agreed as a society that it  does carry value.  If we lost that belief, the economy would collapse  shortly.  
In our game the four teams quickly got a handle on how they could disrupt other teams.  Each began with a diversified portfolio, but watchful eyes soon noted who had accumulated the most amount of a certain stock.  Other teams would then work hard to devalue that stock, trying to sell it to others at ridiculously low prices, with the some teams countering by buying it way too high.  
This instability made the market wobbly, whereby the ‘government’ (myself) stepped in to buy shares at market prices.  Unfortunately, this strategy left the government holding a great deal of unpredictable stock.  Luckily for all, one investor decided to buy back from the government at slightly higher than market rate, which boosted market confidence in general.  That move propelled them to a narrow victory.
I hope the students had fun, as I did watching their not very subtle machinations against one another.
Blessings,
Dave Mathwin

12th Grade: Wag the Dog

by Dave Mathwin
This week we looked at Athens’s disaster in Sicily and the subsequent extensive fallout.
Why did Athens lose in Sicily?
Part of Thucydides’s brilliance as a historian is that does not look merely at battles and personalities, but finds ways to link events to a grand narrative.  Athens had so many strengths, and one could argue that their democracy itself was a product of their search for excellence and truth.  But it appears to me, at least, that something began to go wrong just prior to the Peloponnesian War with the completion of the Parthenon.  The Parthenon is of course one of the great architectural achievements in history.  Ostensibly, it is a temple to Athena, the patron goddess of the city.  But a closer look at the carvings on the Parthenon reveal not scenes of gods or goddesses but of events in their own history.  Did Athens really create a temple to their own glory?  Did they think they had arrived?  Did they begin to, in essence, worship themselves?  What would this mean for them?
This question is related to the idea of democracy itself?  Is democracy about voting?  Is it only about having a voice?  If so, then democracy becomes naval gazing, only about perpetuating itself through a process, serving no higher end.  If democracy (or any form of government) serves a higher ideal, it has a built in check upon itself.  But if we don’t have this, then whatever result we come up with must indeed be democracy, it must serve us well by definition, because it serves ourselves.  This kind of attitude, of which ancient Athens has no monopoly, will lead to disaster.  Imagine traveling with your head down continually.  You would drive off a cliff at some point.  G.K. Chesterton has a great quote about self-worship (what he calls ‘The Inner Light’) in his book ‘Orthodoxy”:

 That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.

The problems with the Sicily expedition can be traced to the problems with their democracy.  Alcibiades wanted the expedition, Nicias opposed it.  Both were wealthy, experienced in politics and military matters, and each had their own constituency.  Alcibiades was the fire to Nicias’s ice.  Their personal and political rivalry spilled over into the formation of Athenian policy.  The tail had begun to wag the dog.  Among other things, Nicias’s political maneuverings against Alcibiades led to drastic changes in the composition of the fighting force and, perhaps even the goal of the mission.  One wonders if they realized this.  With their heads down, I think not.  In my opinion they thought. . .
– We voted, just as always
– We picked experienced people
– We have followed the procedures and processes defined by law
Therefore,
– Everything is fine, or possibly even better than fine
I don’t think they had the wherewithal to realize that they had just voted for a massive expedition that had no real relation to their war with Sparta far from home against a powerful enemy.  The man who ultimately led the expedition, Nicias, argued against any expedition at all.   In my opinion, the disaster in Sicily was the terrible price exacted for their self-worship.  AJ Toynbee wrote in “An Historian’s Approach to Religion,”
‘The strength of the devotion that parochial-community worship evokes holds its devotees in bondage even when it is carrying them to self-destruction; and so the warfare between contending parochial states [i.e. war between Athens and Sparta] tends to grow more intense and devastating in a crescendo movement.  . . . All parochial community-worship ends in a worship of Moloch, and he exacts more cruel sacrifices than the Golden Calf.  War to the death between parochial states has been the immediate external cause of the breakdown of almost all, if not all, the civilizations that have committed suicide up to date.”
Their failure in Sicily brought about the collapse of their democratic regime.  Their god had failed to provide for their basic needs, and he needed replaced.
In this election season, we do well to remember that we cannot call ourselves a democracy if we merely count votes.  Democracies work when they serve higher purposes than themselves, and fail when the process becomes the end in itself — a means of power over our fellow men.
The oligarchs that replaced the democracy in Athens did no better, ruling wantonly based on their own pent up sense that it was “their turn.”  We sometimes see this happen when one party, shut out of Congress for a time, suddenly gains control.  With this attitude in place things go poorly, and the Gingrich led government shutdown in the 1990’s comes to mind.
Democracy came back, but the instability engendered by these power struggles did the Athenians no favors in their war effort.  In our discussion as to why Athens lost the war, I threw out a few theories bandied about by historians, such as the superiority of infantry over the navy in general, and the Sicily invasion in particular.  But most agreed that Athens made themselves their own worst enemy through their arrogance.  Their self-worship turned their gaze inward.  They never had a filter for their decisions beyond their own immediate wants, and they never opened themselves to an external variable like “justice” to use as a guide.
Next week we will look at the Plato’s critique of democracy, and Aristotle’s response to Plato.  While studying these two titans the students will read Euripides’s The Bacchae to help us get some important issues in a different way.
Blessings,
Dave Mathwin

10th Grade: The World Turned Upside Down

by Dave Mathwin
Greetings,
This week we discussed the preamble to the Declaration of  Independence.  While the particular grievances have come and gone,  Jefferson’s preamble is deservedly remembered.  In 1765 the colonists  talked of ‘English liberties,’ and protested on that basis.  In the  Declaration, however, we see the concept of universal human rights  enunciated.  The colonists were not fighting to be English, but in a sense to be more human.  While Jefferson was a deist and not a  Christian, he is clear to point out that these rights are universal because they originate in the fact that we are created by God.  In  class we discussed how these ideals have shaped our nation.
Many in the world, rightly or wrongly, accuse us of meddling, not minding  our own business, and so on.  Whether this charge is just or not can be debated.  What we can trace back to the Declaration, however,  is that we seek in some measure to spread our ideals not because they’re ours, but because we believed that they belonged to  all.  Are we right about this crucial assertion?  Clearly the words of the Declaration not only reflected, but also molded and shaped our self perception as a nation.
Again, this does not mean that we have always done this, or done it well, or at the right times, places, and so on.
We wrapped up the fighting of the war this week as well, and focused on the crucial battles of Saratoga and Yorktown.  To help cement the impact of these battles we did a card game activity, where the rules and structure of the game give an advantage to the ‘favorite.’  However, I hoped that the students would discern that the underdog had certain advantages as well:
– They could afford to play more recklessly, since they had less to lose
– If they got lucky or could bluff their way to 1 big success, they could simply fold (i.e. retreat in orderly fashion) and wait until the end of the game — until time ran out.
Many of you may have seen an action movie where the lone hero has to fight his way into a compound, boat, or some other such structure.  Despite being outnumbered, miraculously he kills the bad guys and escapes.  Along with Hollywood escapism at work, our hero does have one advantage.  Every person he sees on the boat he knows immediately is a bad guy.  He can shoot first, ask questions later.  Because the bad guys are so numerous, chances are nearly every person the bad guys see in the shadows is on their side.  They hesitate and give the hero the advantage, showing how their numbers work against them at least in some ways.
I could easily stretch this analogy too far, but British failures at Saratoga and Yorktown show the great difficulty the British faced winning the war.  How could they solve the problems that created the war in the first place through violence?  The situation between England and their colonies from 1764-1775 craved a political response that the British proved unable to provide.  Victory through violence therefore required an absolutely crushing military defeat, and this mean they would have to take chances to achieve it.  Both times they did this, it backfired mightily upon them.  To add to their problems, Americans could afford to take chances occasionally because their victories would mean so much more than British ones.  England’s  political bungling in the decade prior to the war prepared the way for their defeat.  I touch on some of these issues in this post on whether or not generalship can be “clutch” or not here.
Next week we will begin our unit on the Constitution and our mock Supreme Court Activity.  Many thanks for all your support,
Dave Mathwin
Here is the song supposedly played by the British at their Yorktown surrender: