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8th Grade Civics: Democracy Moderated

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

This week we nearly wrapped up our look at Machiavelli’s The Prince and also, in light of the conflict in Iran, revisited sections of Machiavelli related to “occupying territory.” The conflict in Iran also relates tangentially to the section we examined this week on the ruler and his relationship to flattery.

Machiavelli writes,

I do not wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, for it is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, unless they are very careful and discriminating. It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full, because men are so self-complacent in their own affairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into contempt. Because there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you; but when every one may tell you the truth, respect for you abates.

Therefore a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him, and then only of those things of which he inquires, and of none others; but he ought to question them upon everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions. With these councillors, separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be preferred; outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.

Machiavelli continues with an example that was “modern” to his own time:

I wish on this subject to adduce a modern example. Fra Luca, the man of affairs to Maximilian, the present emperor, speaking of his majesty, said: He consulted with no one, yet never got his own way in anything. This arose because of his following a practice the opposite to the above; for the emperor is a secretive man–he does not communicate his designs to any one, nor does he receive opinions on them. But as in carrying them into effect they become revealed and known, they are at once obstructed by those men whom he has around him, and he, being pliant, is diverted from them. Hence it follows that those things he does one day he undoes the next, and no one ever understands what he wishes or intends to do, and no one can rely on his resolutions.

Some might say that Machiavelli’s observations do not really apply to our situation, seeing as how we do not have “Princes” and “Courts”where they can be flattered. I believe, however, that

  • With the significant growth of executive power since WW II, and perhaps especially in the post 9/11 era, we may be moving into something more similar to Machiavelli’s scenario than we may realize.
  • The dynamics of power and human nature are likely to be quite similar regardless of the particular political system involved.
  • Machiavelli’s thoughts about flattery are related to the idea of democracy in general, specifically–if we take democracy as a good thing, is it possible to have too much of a good thing? How “responsive” to the people do we want our political leaders to be?

If we see this metaphorically, we might envision the man bereft of good counsel and surrounded by flatterers akin to a man on a deserted island. Though he may be surrounded by people, he is in fact alone, for all he sees and hears will only be a reflection of himself. The leader who allows everyone to speak his mind anytime is surrounded by everything all at once, akin to a man bobbing along after being washed away by a flood, with no proper means to distinguish good advice from bad.

I recall reading about a famous marketing study done at a store offering samples of their distinctive jams and jellies. They wanted to boost sales, and had a table offering around 15 different products for shoppers to choose from. This ploy did not boost sales. Customers might try a sample but rarely then went and bought it from the shelves. The store brought in a consultant, who told them to limit their samples to two or three at most. This move boosted sales immediately. Their first strategy overwhelmed their customers, who might have enjoyed the sample they had, but would then wonder if perhaps one of the other 13-14 options might be better.

Machiavelly suggests that what is needed is not so much a certain number of opinions, but a certain type of person who has a proper procedure for how to hear and process different opinions.

A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but only when he wishes and not when others wish; he ought rather to discourage every one from offering advice unless he asks it; but, however, he ought to be a constant inquirer, and afterwards a patient listener concerning the things of which he inquired; also, on learning that no one, on any consideration, has not told him the truth, he should let his anger be felt.

We explored these thoughts in class and it led to us trying to connect them to the situation in Iran.

First, Machiavelli’s insights inform us that democracy may be a good thing, but it is a relative, and not an absolute good. Leaders who constantly shift their ideas and policies based on polling will not lead. They will lose respect and essentially abicate their position. But for democracy to work, our leaders have to listen and stay connected to the people to some degree. Again, democracy needs proper channels to give us effective governance.

Machiavelli was not considering democracy when he wrote this chapter, but his thoughts can readily be applied to our situation. The students considered whether or not an elected official or one who inherits his position would potentially be more subject to flattery. As the students observed, on the one hand

  • Those who inherit power might come from a society where those with less status regularly and by custom offer those of higher birth praise and privilege. Flatterry would come naturally in such a situation.

But on the other . . .

  • Those who inherit power in theory have no need to support their right to rule with adulation. They do not need the acclaim of the people to rule. They have no need of the people to rule, so they should be immune from flattery
  • Democratically elected leaders have to constantly have an eye on the polls, and they make seek an admiring entourage to insulate them from the criticism that comes with any democratic country.

With the growth of presidential power over the last few generations, combined with having a large professional standing army, the need to consult Congress or public opinion before military action has decreased significantly. The growth of technology has significantly compressed time and space, so that the speed at which things can happen has increased dramatically. If everyone can be faster, you have to be faster still. In this environment, public consultation and debate can be seen as a luxury even a democracy cannot afford. The advantages of surprise, while not decisive, have also likely increased as the ability to pinpoint targets and destroy them has also increased. For example, most everyone would argue that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was a success. And yet, in that very successful (for it’s time at least) attack, the Japanese missed many crucial potential targets, including fuel depots, power stations, factories for ship-building, and the like. Had the Japanese hit these targets, any effective US response in the Pacific could have been delayed by several months. Today, the addition of 7-8 more missiles with precision guidance could take care of that problem.

All of this could in theory be cited in support of a massive attack without Congressional support or any public conversation in the preceding weeks leading up to the attack. However, such actions would signal new democratic norms moving forward. If these new norms harden into consistent practice, this even more weight put on our already fraught presidential elections, for it would further concentrate executive power.

However, as Machiavelli hints, democracy requires some public discourse, and some “counsel” from other avenues of democractic power. Here Aristotle, our other main reading partner this year, would likely agree with Machiavelli. The best things in life come in the form of the golden mean between extremes.

Dave

8th Grade Literature: Giving and Taking Away

by Dave Mathwin

For our next unit, we will examine short stories and literature that deal with the question of technology and its impact on humanity. In thinking about “impact,” we will think about how technology changes society, but more importantly, about how technology changes how we conceive of the meaning of our humanity. I know that this will be a challenging unit, but I hope that the students will enjoy it.

We are used to thinking of technology as neutral. Something is invented, such as a hammer, and the hammer is neither good nor bad. Rather, we can do a good thing with the hammer (build a house) or a bad thing (hit someone on the head with it). But we, the human being, remain independent from the hammer. We give meaning, form, and function to the hammer. The communication, or interaction, is, in this view, all a one-way street.

There are elements of truth to this idea, but it is an incomplete view of our interaction with the tools we create, whether those tools be a hammer, a dishwasher, or a computer. As we interact with the hammer, there is a sense in which the hammer is interacting with us and changing us thereby.

This happens even with our most simple tools, such as a hammer or shovel. We can forget the psychological impact and just focus on the phyical changes that we undergo when weilding these tools. Someone who spent their days hammering and shoveling would experience a change in their body, as certain muscles would grow where before they were possibly weak. The hammer and shovel would change our body, and this is obvious. The fact that we have the slogan, “If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” indicates that we perceive that something psychological happens between us and the hammer in our interactions, even if we do not directly perceive it.

There is a Chinese anecdote which runs as follows:

As Tzu-Gung traveled through the region he saw an old man working in his vegetable garden.  He had dug an irrigation ditch.  The man would descend into his well, fetch a vessel of water in his hands and pour it out into the ditch.  Then he would repeat the process as much as necessary.  While his efforts were significant the results seemed meager in comparison.

Tzu-Gung said, “There is a way whereby you can irrigate a hundred ditches in one day with little effort.  Would you like to hear it?”  [He then proceeded to explain the pulley-system with a larger bucket and grooves running out to the ditches].

Then anger rose up in the man’s face. “I have heard my teacher say that whoever uses a machine does all his work like a machine.  He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine loses his simplicity.  He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul–and so we lose all honest sense.  It is not that I do not know of such things: I am ashamed to use them. 

Very few of us would be willing to go in all the way with the Old Man in this story. But it is important we understand the trade-offs involved in our use of technology. What technology gives is usually quite obvious and useful. What it takes away is just as much a part of the story, though it is less obvious.

I would summarize the relationship of technology to humanity thusly:

Every increase in power creates an increase in vulnerability.

For example, a match creates fire much more quickly than sparks from two pieces of flint, or rubbing two sticks together. A match gives us power over the element of fire. However, having matches means we have lost the skill of creating fire in the traditional way. If our box of matches gets wet, we would be incapable of making fire. We now must devote extra energy to keeping the matches dry, men from previous eras had no such concerns.

Or imagine a person who wants to travel from New York to Los Angeles.

  • Walking would take the longest amount of time, but the physical act of walking risks only a twisted ankle
  • Running would take less time, but increase the possible injury risk to a broken ankle or leg
  • Riding a bike would take even less time, but a crash on a bike could badly injure parts of our whole body
  • Riding a car would reduce the trip from weeks to days, but if we make a mistake driving, or something big goes wrong with the car, we could be badly injured or killed.
  • A plan would make the trip in hours instead of days, but even a mild mechanical problem with the plane would mean death as the almost certain result.

We can also think of how much power comes from our invention of electricity. Among other things, electricity allows us to be vastly more productive than civilizations of earlier eras. We can make many more things much more quickly. But, if the electrcial grid went dark, what we could produce would drop to near zero. We have become completely dependant on electricity for most things that sustain our civilization. Our electrical grid is perhaps our greatest vulnerability.

The ancients were well aware of this trade off. Plato includes an anecodote in his “Phaedrus” dialogue that may have been from Egypt involving the invention of writing.

 At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, “This,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. “

Thamus replied: “O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”

Some may argue that there is nothing inevitable in this trade off. Hypothetically, we did not have to abandon riding horses to drive cars, or abandon working with flint as we used matches. Hypothetically, we could have maintained modes of production that did not need electricity in tandem with the development of the power grid. Possibly, this is true, but I cannot recall an instance where this actually happened in history. In general, it seems we have to accept the trade-off, all or nothing, for good or ill. Technology seems to “require” this of us. Often the tail wags the dog with technology (think of how much of our society has been oriented around the car), and this seems to be the rule and not the exception, at least since the Industrial Revolution.

The costs of technological advances are usually hidden, which clouds our discernment about adopting such ideas or not. We see what it gives, and not what it takes away. This is the main theme of our introductory story, The Monkey’s Paw.

8th Grade Literarture: A Tale Told by an Idiot

by Dave Mathwin

In the Socratic dialogue “Cratylus” Socrates and his friend Hermogenes attempt to discover if language has any real meaning. We know that words can take on or lose meaning depending on context and time. But can the word “door” actually mean something absolute. Can language convey more than our momentary cultural attribution of particular sounds.

Socrates wants to find the origin of names and words, and believes that words, if they are to have any meaning at all, must have a connection to ultimate reality. He comments,

So just as a shuttle is a tool for dividing warp and woof, a name is a tool for giving instruction, that is to say, for dividing being.

“Giving Instruction” can be interpreted as giving us wisdom. Words must be a clue to reality, and how we use words must convey something about how we perceive meaning in the world. Language then, cannot belong onlyto an individual, but neither is it a purely democratic medium. We don’t get to vote on the meaning of words. Rather, language is a cultural possession, a trust, and a storehouse of meaning.

So Cratylus is right in saying that things have natural names, and that not everyone is a craftsman of names, but only someone who looks the natural name of a thing and is able to put its form into letters and symbols.

But Socrates also understands that language has a fluid aspect to it, and no one time, place, or word, can fully grasp ultimate wisdom and pure being.

Perhaps you didn’t that [the names] are given on the assumption that the they name are moving, flowing, and coming into being. . . . Wisdom (phronesis) is the understanding of motion (phoras noesis) and flow. Or it might be interpreted as taking delight in motion. . . . Wisdom signifies the grasping of this motion.

In other words,language and meaning can bend, but not break. Understanding this difference is one of the keys to any healthy life and culture.

I open this post with this blurb about language because as Macbeth transpires, the title character and Lady Macbeth lost their hold on the nature of reality. Both of them can no longer trust their perception. Is a dagger really in front of Macbeth or not? Has the ghost of Banquo really appeared to him or not? Does Lady Macbeth actually have blood on her hands or not? Both of them lose their ability to perceive the world around them, and this only adds to the confusion of their internal moral compass. For them, the meaning of words, the meaning of sight, and the meaning of life itself, all disappear.

One of Macbeth’s most famous soliloquies in the play reads,

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Some see this as evidence of Shakespeare’s pessimism or even nihilism, but we must remember that this speech is given by the villain of the play at the very end of his moral decline. At this point in the story, Macbeth has completely abandoned the moral and social ties that bind him to his fellow man and to creation. As a result, he can make no sense of his experience of the world. Other characters around him affirm the possibility of creating a sensible state once again, but not Macbeth. He does not wish to die but confirms that he has no particular reason to live. He is trapped in a world without meaning of his own making.

One common theme in Shakespeare’s work is the confusion and decay that happens when the normal structure of society gets upended. Shakespeare belonged to a world where the basic order of society was regarded as divinely given, or at least partly divinely ordained. Modern democracies do not share this belief, seeing the social hiearchy as continually fluid, Some believe that all hiearchy should be continually dismantled and the social oder continually refreshed. But even if we do not share the convictions of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, we can observe the effects of a social order that lacks clear delineation.

Our lives are governed mostly by routine. Some find this stifling. I believe (along with Edmund Burke and others) that routine actually liberates. When we need to think and rethink all of our actions and decisions, it brings paralysis, not freedom. Shared routines allow us to easily perceive meaning in the actions of others. Routines also free us up to think and ponder, for example, the meaning of a Shakespeare play. We would not have this freedom if we had to overly scrutinize the meaning of our wardrobe, to give just one example. We would be stuck wondering if a polo shirt or t-shirt would be more appropriate to do the day’s tasks.

Without routine and established order, we would exist in a world where we could not perceive meaning. All standard social cues would be abandoned. Communication with those outside your social and ideological circle would be impossible. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both confuse the meaning of words during their descent into madness and death, especially around the meaning of the words “man” and “woman.”

The “good news” in this situation is that nature itself cannot abide this situation for very long. Meaningful order and hiearchy must reassert itself. This is what Macbeth briefly experiences before his death, when “Birnham Wood” comes to fight with him.

Macbeth’s simple plot hides an important message for us, not just about morality, but about the structure of society as a whole, and what role language plays in the construction of society.

Dave

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

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

He begins chapter 13 of The Prince writing,

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

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

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

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

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

  • You pay them, and
  • You created them

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

Auxiliaries are a different category.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Load up on guns, bring your friends

It’s fun to lose and to pretend

She’s over-bored, and self-assured

Oh no, I know a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Literature: Hide from Yourself

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

Can one exist in such an upside down world?

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

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

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

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

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

Dave

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

8th Grade Literature: Fair is Foul

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a quick primer on Iambic Pentameter:

And here is a brief intro to trochaic tetrameter:

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle and Terminal Lucidity

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Problem 1: Insolence and Greed

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

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

Problem 2: Superiority

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

Problem 3: Fear

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

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

Problem 4: Loss of Balance and Proportion

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

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

Problem 5: Change

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

Problem 6: Immigration

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

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

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

Problem 7: Improper Construction of the State

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

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Regime Change

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings all,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He identifies two paths to success:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Machiavelli advocating?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Literature: Medea at a Crossroads

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Literature: The Dog Days

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Linked with false prophets and unrestrained appetite

but on the other,

  • Associated with obedience, humility and protection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Civics: Value Propositions

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

The debate we viewed can be seen here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great weekend,

Dave

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

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

In Book III of his Politics Aristotle writes,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Literature: Back to the Front

by Dave Mathwin

This week we started our next book, The Argonautica, sometimes called Jason and the Argonauts. The story involves a sea journey with a motley assorted band of travelers in search of the famous golden fleece. The story contains a variety of tropes common in all epic literature, but the author, Appolonius oF Rhodes, adds a unique twist to the story that sets this text apart from other Greek epics, one that dovetails nicely with some of the questions we explore in civics class.

All stories of epic heroes inevtiably look to interpret the past. The hero has already done his work and lived on in the minds of men. The author then celebrates the hero and his accomplishments. The hero may be a complicated figure, but his mission and his impact is not. Epics usually are about the founding of a city/civilization, (The Aeneid) or the re-founding, or transition between two epochs (like The Lord of the Rings, or perhaps The Iliad and The Odyssey).*

But The Argonautica, written around AD 300, is not like this. The author has a different agenda, which perhaps comes from his different political and historical context.

Right in the beginning of the story, we notice some odd things for a heroic epic:

  • The crowd that gathers to see the crew off on their adventure are not cheering, but crying and wailing for those they fear never to see again.
  • The men of the ship do not pick Jason to lead them, but Hercules. Hercules defers to Jason, but the choice of Jason as the leader was made by him, not the crew.
  • Right after the ship leaves the harbor, we see Jason full of doubt, not confidence. His doubt is immediately contrasted with the swagger of a another crewmember.

Apolloinius wants us to wonder about the nature of Jason’s heroism, or perhaps even question it entirely, again, an odd way to begin an epic poem about a famous hero.

The first known written Greek epic poem was very likely the Iliad, which dates to somewhere around 800 BC. But the story of Jason chronologically predates Homer and the events of the Trojan War (in one scene we see the crew waving to the infant Achilles, for example). Homer wrote in the context of the end of the Bronze Age/Greek Dark Ages and the beginning of the city-state era. Thus, he could look back wistfully in part because he could look forward with hope.

But Apollonius writes in the midst of a free-fall decline of the civilization he inhabited. The third century AD saw Rome continuously involved in civil wars. The Roman Emperor at the time Apollonius wrote was Diocletian (reigned 284-305 AD). Diocletian at least understood the crisis, and did attempt to hold back the tide of Rome’s cultural collapse. Unfortunately, his most significant attempt to restore Rome involved an all-out persecution of Christians, which had the unintended effect of hastening Rome’s demise.

We have no idea what the story of Jason entailed originally. We can guess how Apollonius reinterprets the tale, as he has Jason faced with a serious of impossible choices. Unlike other epic heroes, Jason seems to have limited agency over events. His actions seem scripted for him. At his best, Jason finds a way to negotiate his way out of difficulty. This is certainly an important political skill, but it may not be “heroic.” Jason’s world mirrors that of Apollonius’ world in certain respects. The best one can hope for is to kick the can, and hope that maybe things will turn out ok in the end.

In this structure we see the tragic dimension of much of Greek literature. GK Chesterton may have said it best, when he wrote that,

It is said that Paganism is a religion of joy and Christianity of sorrow; it would be just as easy to prove that Paganism is pure sorrow and Christianity pure joy.

Such conflicts mean nothing and lead nowhere. Everything human must have in it both joy and sorrow; the only matter of interest is the manner in which the two things are balanced or divided.

And the really interesting thing is this, that the pagan was (in the main) happier and happier as he approached the earth, but sadder and sadder as he approached the heavens. The gaiety of the best Paganism, as in the playfulness of Catullus or Theocritus, is, indeed, an eternal gaiety never to be forgotten by a grateful humanity.

But it is all a gaiety about the facts of life, not about its origin. To the pagan the small things are as sweet as the small brooks breaking out of the mountain; but the broad things are as bitter as the sea. When the pagan looks at the very core of the cosmos he is struck cold. Behind the gods, who are merely despotic, sit the fates, who are deadly. Nay, the fates are worse than deadly; they are dead.

*Tolkien wrote his great work in the years right after World War II.

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle on justice and Justice

by Dave Mathwin

We tend to think of “Justice” almost exclusively in terms of the proper punishment of bad behavior. If someone robs a bank, we say that justice is done if he is caught and sent to prison. If someone is wrongfully accused, we declare that justice is done when the judge dismisses the case.

The ancient world, however, had a broader conception of the word “justice,” using it to describe all things being rightly ordered in one’s life and in the life of the body politic. A rightly ordered world might involve things that are directly moral, or sinful. So, for example, having one’s bed could be a portion of having a “just” house, but not making the bed would not necessarily be a sin. It would however, be a defect.

We see this use of justice in Old Testament frequently, such as in Psalm 54, which reads, “O God save me in thy name, and judge me in thy strength.” Here the psalmist is not asking God to punish him for his sins–far from it. Rather, God’s judgment and His salvation are one in the same. The psalmist is asking God to rightly order his being, to put him back together again appropriately, which would involve much more than overt sin.

Aristotle noted long ago that different forms of government have different forms of justice which both make sense and are incomplete all at once. He writes,

What are the oligarchic and democratic ideas of justice? Both sides have part of justice on their side, and both sides fail to express justice in its fullness. 

In democracies justice means equality, especially in the distribution of political power. That is, political power should be put in the hands of as wide a range of people as possible. A poor man, for example, holding power with no experience or education, is considered a triumph. This creates, in their view, a stable state where everyone feels included, and this is “justice.”

In oligarchies, inequality in the distribution of power is considered just. If people are not equal in wisdom, education, wealth, and the like, they should not have an equal share of political power. This helps the state have rulers that are best able to govern. In turn, a well governed, stable state will be “just.” 

The advocates of democracy and oligarchy both make erroneous judgments. Democrats hold that if men are equal in basic humanity, they should be equal in the distribution of power and property. Oligarchs hold that if men are not equal in talent, wisdom, and skill they should not be equal in most anything else.

True justice means that those who have contributed to the proper end [it’s reason for being] of the state, should have rights, property, and power in proportion to that contribution. For that reason, all must pay attention to the “goal” of the state in which one lives.

Aristotl’e ideas might seem confusing, but if we break the concepts down into something smaller and more in line with our experience, it might make more sense.

Imagine a family has three sons, Bob (18), Joe (12), and Sam (6). One evening the mom discovers that the she has three Oreo cookies left in the pantry. What would be just, and most likely to lead to a harmonious order within the family. Most would probably suggest that here the focus should be on pure equality, i.e., each son gets one cookie each.

But imagine now that the mom has three different sized pieces of steak, small, medium, and large. Most would likely not argue that justice requires them to cut up all the steaks and give each the same amount. Here most would lean towards something along the lines of the oldest getting the biggest steak, the youngest the smallest, and so on. To be sure, this is still “equality,” but it manifests itself differently here. If the family also had a 6 month old son, no one would suggest that justice demands he should get steak, as his stomach could not even digest it properly.

Parents usually treat their children differently when it comes to bedtimes, to the great annoyance of the younger siblings. Most, however, intuit that it would not be just to have all three go to bed at the same time. Here the context differs, and the meaning of justice would differ as well.

Ideally a state will have a degree of flexibility around their concept of justice, allowing for context to have its say. But as Aristotle suggests, what direction a society leans toward will depend on what that society values as its purpose or goal. For example, if you live in a society that believes that age should be respected above all else, you would defer decisions to the elderly, and you would give them the best seat at the table, and so forth. This is not equality, but it is justice according to one’s guiding principles.

An example more close to home comes from Elaine Calabro’s article in The Atlantic about Canada’s practice of MAiD, or “Medical Assistance in Dying.” The practice has grown from allowing euthanasia only in cases of advanced terminal illness, to those who simply want to avoid suffering. Calabro writes, “At the center of the world’s fastest growing euthanasia regime is the concept of patient autonomy. Honoring a patient’s wishes is of course a core value in medicine. But here it has become paramount.” Some physicians express moral or practical objections, but most who work in the industry find their work meaningful. As one physician noted regarding his work in assisted suicides, “We’re so happy [the patient] got what they wanted.” Given the basic values that created the practice, its expansion was “inevitable” according to the author.

Here we can note that a core value, i.e, people fulfill their purpose by achieving their desires, which drives much of economy, politics, etc. has simply morphed into the medical and ethical field. Hence, “Justice” in this case means giving people their autonomy, their say, in the most important life decisions. One can easily see how various other democratic practices and ideals come from this same source. This shows how one particular view of justice works in some areas (we should pick our political leaders, and pick what we want for desert)* might not work in other areas of life. We have already seen how parents use different views of justice depending on context in family life, and this is a good argument for its application to political life.

But which form of justice should be used when, and why? This is at the core of many of our current political disagreements. Aristotle also hints at the fact that these “justices” must somehow be connected to Justice in some final sense. Without agreement on Justice, we will struggles with our mini justices.

Dave

*I have a variety of friends who have traveled in Europe, and especially as one moves south and east (Italy, Greece, etc.) they notice that when going to a restaurant, often the proprietor will size you up and tell you what you will have. If you object and point to the menu, saying, “I was hoping for some lamb instead of the pork,” you will simply be told that “There is no lamb, only pork.” Eventually you agree to “submit” or leave the restaurant.This shows a different culture around food, but also a different culture around authority, tradition, the individual, and so on.