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8th Grade Civics: Aristotle helps explain Vietnam

by Dave Mathwin

In Book V of his Politics Aristotle writes that

Constitutions are preserved when their destroyers are at a distance, and sometimes also because they are near, for the fear of them makes the government keep in hand the constitution. 

Wherefore the ruler who has a care of the constitution should invent terrors, and bring distant dangers near, in order that the citizens may be on their guard, and, like sentinels in a night watch, never relax their attention. He should endeavor too by help of the laws to control the contentions and quarrels of the notables, and to prevent those who have not hitherto taken part in them from catching the spirit of contention. 

Some of this may seem jarring to us, as Aristotle is usually so calm and reasonable! Still, we should try and understand him.

First, by “constitution” Aristotle means something much more than the laws or political processes of a particular state. He refers more broadly how a particular order is “constituted,” in all its parts, i.e., its decision making, laws, culture, economics. One can think of their own familes as a kind of “constitution.” Parents make some “laws” that are explicit (perhaps, “no phones at the dinner table”), and there are some things that your family just “does not do.” You have ways of making decisions as a family that might vary, but would vary in a predictable fashion.

Let us suppose that mom and dad have a family meeting and declare together that “We are going to the beach this summer for vacation. You accept this as final even if perhaps you preferred to go elsewhere. You can now prepare to enjoy the beach as best you can. But what if dad says “beach” but mom says, “cabin in the mountains.” Their division would spark division amongst the children. Everyone would see the possibilities, and everyone would have an opinion. The uncertainty breeds division.

But division over where to go on vacation is relatively harmless. Imagine a different scenario with more at stake. Someone new moves into the neighborhood. He does live next door, but he is on your street several houses down. Some say that the new neighbor is a nicy guy, even if he is quirky and a bit mysterious. No one seems exactly sure what he does for work, of if he has a family. But he seems a bit lonely, so its important to reach out. Others say that he is a bad guy, mysterious for all the wrong reasons. He is someone to be avoided. But no one can say anything definitively.

Now imagine if your parents lacked clarity on how they viewed him. Sometimes they see him as a potential threat, sometimes they see him as a someone they should reach out to. They send mixed messages. They cannot decide. The kids too would be confused, and likely divided themselves. All kinds of theories would emerge in favor of every kind of approach.

This is the problem Aristotle alludes to. A threat far away is no problem. We have clarity on the situtation, and can relax. A threat close by also unites us, and again, it is the clarity that unites. A possible threat maybe in gray zone, maybe not, will pose a problem for the constituted order, even if they never actually attack. Their mere presence in the miasma of the in-between will breed internal division and disunion. Most “constitutions,” after all, are eroded from within rather than without.

It is the lack of clarity that divides internally.

In our own nation’s history we can think of some recent examples. Before we entered WW II, for example, the nation was seriously divided over whether or not we should involve ourselves in wars so far away, whether in Africa or Asia. Yes, the Nazi’s were bad, but how much did their “badness” impact us? After Pearl Harbor, we no longer had any doubts about the threat they posed, and we enetered the war entirely united.

This principle played itself out in our own living memory. After 9/11 as a nation we had clarity about our invasion of Afghanistan. We were attacked, and our attackers were there. We had our “Pearl Harbor” moment regarding Islamic terrorism. We invaded Afghanistan under a banner of national unity.

A few years later, we invaded Iraq with much less national unity and much less clarity. Was Iraq a threat? Well, maybe. Perhaps they had weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps Saddam Hussein would actively try to help those who wanted to harm us, but maybe not. We had no national agreement, but invaded anyway. The war lasted longer than we thought, cost more than we thought, and likely contributed to the financial collapse of 2008. One can argue that politically and culturally, we have not recovered from the fallout of these events.

Should we have invaded either country? The question is certainly important, but we can understand Aristotle’s point even better if we eliminate what we “should have” done from the equation. After all, the invasion done under the banner of unity did not have ultimate success (the Taliban is back in power), and the one conducted under national strife seems to have had some positive lasting effects (the constitution we helped install in 2005 still holds in Iraq). The question Aristotle wants us to consider is which conflict proved worse for our own constituted order, and here we have an obvious answer.

When we look at the Vietnam War, we again have a conflict almost guaranteed to cause internal division and threaten our constitution. We can see the violence and massive cultural changes in terms of family breakdown, the sexual revolution, drug culture, etc. as a byproduct of our involvement in a war in which we lacked clarity on the nature of the threat.

One the one hand, protecting South Vietnam could be seen as vital to our interests for many reasons:

  • We had pledged to defend the country from communist agression. Whether or not we should have done this, once declared, we had to back up our words if we wanted our words honored in other places throughout the world.
  • We had an interest in stopping the spread of communism, which was/is an evil ideology that wrecks great harm wherever it goes.
  • South Vietnam’s coastal geographic position made it a key strategic point of all of Southeast Asia.

But the fall of South Vietnam could be seen as not a threat to us for equally valid reasons:

  • Chinese and Soviet communism did pose a threat to us. But Vietnamese communism was more nationalistic, and thus, no real threat to the United States
  • Furthermore, Vietnam had a history of conflict with China. It would be in our interest not to fight them but to court them as an ally against China.
  • The perceived moral imbalance of a wealthy industrialized power attacking a poor peasant nation would never hold politically in the US, a country that mythologizes the underdog.

At the risk of oversimplifying a complex period in our history, our lack of clarity over a threat in the grey area led us into a labryinth that could only lead to the altering of our constittuted order.

6th Grade: What is a King?

by Dave Mathwin

When I was a senior in high school I was co-captain of our baseball team (this may seem like bragging, but it’s not. We were terrible and that year, so was I) we had a routine to start practice. The players would head out about 5 minutes before the coach, and we would talk and mess around. When our coach came out, he would whistle and circle his hand in the air. This was the signal for us to start our warm up run, which was about a mile loop around the school. One day before the coach had come out, my co-captain and I looked at the sky and saw dark clouds looming. We talked to the team and said that we should start running now. It was going to rain, and we wanted to get in as much practice time as we could.

It seemed like a good idea to us, but no one else thought so. We argued a bit, but the team stood firm. “We start running when Coach comes out and whistles.”

Well, having stuck our necks out, three seniors (we roped our friend into it as well) started running, and we figured the team would follow.

But . . . we looked back after a few minutes and no one had budged. The coach came out and the rest of the team started running. He waited and when the three of us reached him, he pulled us aside and asked us what we were doing. We explained, and he said, “I get the idea–it was a fine idea. But remember this, if no one is following, you aren’t leading.”

This happened about 35 years ago but his comment has always stuck in my mind, and from time to time I wrestle with whether or not I agree. Is leadership about people following, or setting the right example? Well, maybe the answer is “yes.” It’s true that leaders need followers. But we want followers to be on the right path, giving themselves to a proper goal. That requires people setting the right example.

I told the class this story and I did get them to agree that it involves both, but there can be (and was) lots of disagreement as to the percentages for each part of leadership. Some declared that setting the right example was more important, and others the opposite.

Where we land on this question will greatly impact how we view the reign of Charles I. Events during his time in power would greatly impact the future of English governance, the American Revolution, and our concept of rights. We will probably naturally lean towards supporting those who opposed Charles, but we should check ourselves before diving in, and think about how much of proper leadership means setting a good example, and how much it means getting others to follow. Another way to set the terms of this question . . . how much of leadership is directed “upwards” towards God and how much is directed “outwards” towards the people.

In terms of setting an example, Charles scored high marks. He was a genuine Christian and a devoted father. He and his wife genuinely cared for one another. He lived much more righteously than Henry VIII, and to a lesser degree, both Elizabeth I and his own father James I. He was devoted to his duties, and lived conscientiously.

Alas for Charles, such care in some ways only alienated him from many in Parliament. For example, his wife was Catholic. Like most every royal person in his era, Charles’ marriage was arranged. He had religious differences with his wife, but accommodated her as best as he knew how, building a private chapel for her and allowing her to have her French confessor present at court. What could have been viewed as kindness was seen as weakness and pandering to many.

When we look at Elizabeth, we see someone fully confident in her role and identity as king. She projects “outwards” toward us. We feel her presence.

With Charles, we see the opposite. He seems concerned, unsure, and turned almost entirely inward to himself.

In an abstractly moral sense, Elizabeth is not better than Charles. Personality differences are not moral differences. In a political sense, she succeeded at a far greater level.

Charles, like many introverts, had strong convictions but weak people skills with those he did not know personally or trust. This led him to make decisions that backed his friends, rather than decisions in line with proper procedure. Indeed, throughout his reign Charles had difficulty with standard trappings of the procedure and protocol of kingship, even in celebratory contexts. We see this with his coronation. Elizabeth’s coronation was both enormously expensive and a smashing success. At the end of her procession she spoke to the crowd, saying,

I thank my Lord Mayor, his brethren, and you all.  And whereas your request is that I should continue your good lady and queen, be ye ensured that I will be as good unto you as ever any queen unto her people.  No will in me can lack, neither do I trust that I lack any power.  And persuade yourselves, that for the safety and quietness of you all, I will not spare, if need be, to spend my blood, God thank you all. 

It was a wild success, and established the basis of her rule for the next few decades. Charles canceled his own coronation procession, preferring something much cheaper but also much more private. He had an emissary deliver the following letter to the Mayor of London:

Whereas your lordship and the rest of that Court now formerly directed by letters from the right honourable Earl Marshall, to prepare and erect in several places within the city various and sundry pageants for the fuller and more significant expression of your joys upon his Majesty, and his royal consorts intended entrance through your fair city: His Majesty having now allowed his said purpose, and given me Command to signify such to you, it may please your Lordship to take notice thereof by these, as also remove the said Pageants, which besides the particular charge they accrue, do choke and hinder the passage of such as in coaches or carriages that have occasion to go up and down.

If Charles thought this was the right thing to do, he was unfortunately mistaken. People saw someone denying them a festival, denying them a chance to see their king in glory, for if the King is England, then the king is all of them at once.

Another crucial issue surrounding Charles’ leadership involved the issue of the spirit and letter of the law. As a society we want both templates operating. For example,

  • We want the spirit of the law to determine what “speeding” means. We do not give tickets for going 56 in a 55 zone. In the same way, jaywalking in Manhatten is one thing, and jaywalking on a quiet suburban street another.
  • We want the letter of the law to determine what a bank robbery is. If you walk into a bank, wave gun, and walk out with 50k, you’re punishment will be substantively the same if you wave a gun and somehow walk out with $10.

Charles’ political instincts misfired with this dichotomy with the issue of taxes. English law forbade the king from issuing any new taxes without the consent of Parliament. Charles wanted taxes raised for a war with the Scots, a war that Parliament would not support, and so they denied Charles the right to impose a new tax. Charles accepted this, but then reinstated a tax used under Elizabeth I to raise money to prepare for the invasion of the Spanish Armada. Technically, of course, this was not a “new tax.” Charles was within the letter of the law. But certainly he sidestepped its spirit. England’s taxation laws were designed to prevent a king from waging war without Parliamentary consent, which Charles found a way to conveniently sidestep.

No one doubts that Charles failed at ruling in an effective manner. Everyone agrees that he was a good man, if awkward and politically frustrating at times. Many in England disagreed with his political views regarding kingship. The question everyone would eventually be faced with was, “Should one attempt to overthrown Charles? Has he lost the right to rule?”

This question would divide the people of England, and likely divide our own class as well. We’ll examine this question next week.

Many thanks,

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle and the Veiling of Authority

by Dave Mathwin

This week we continued with Aristotle and examined the idea of how monarchies function and preserve their power. Aristotle was a good Greek, and so in the final analysis he did not view monarchy as the best form of government. However, he acknowledged that monarchies had strengths, and we looked at his advice (which Machiavelli likely would have agreed with) regarding how kings can maintain their power and authority.

He wrote that,

A king will best preserve his throne through moderation. The less he exercises authority, and in the fewest areas of civic life, the greater his power. 

To start, kingship in certain religious contexts is best preserved through mystique, which is ruined by excessive action. The less areas of action, the less his subjects will envy him. The survival of Spartan kingship may be attributed partly to the original division of power between two kings, and partly to the moderation afterwards by Theopompous. He may have strengthened the kingship by divesting himself of some of its powers.

Despotic tyrannies may be preserved in two ways, one of which was proved by Periander of Corinth, who found men of spirit who might oppose him and had them executed. But additional measures are possible, the main being the forbidding of common meals, associations, clubs, and education, or in other words, making every citizen a stranger to his fellow man.

Another line of policy involves getting information about everyone through a network of spies. This entails a secret police, like the female spies employed at Syracuse, or the eavesdroppers sent by the tyrant Hiero to public gatherings.

We can consider both the legitimate and illegitimate use of moderation and “veiling” one’s power.

Aristotle alludes to the mystique of kingship that exists in part because of its overt connections to religion. In pre-modern Christian societies one assumed the throne “by the grace of God.” There was a conscious acknowledment that one did not “earn” the kingship through merit. Being the oldest son of the reigning monarch meant nothing in of itself. In other ancient societies, some kings reputedly had special connections to the gods, and in some places (such as Egypt), kings were demi-gods themselves.

Religion has power both through what it reveals and what it conceals. Recall the times in the gospel when Christ tells people not to tell about His healing miracles (ex: Mt. 16:20), or the fact that He spoke in parables (Mk. 4:12) to obscure meaning.

Veils are meant on one hand to obscure our view, but on they other, they reveal something else. Think, for example, of the robes and regalia of a king. In part such accoutrements are there for symbolic purposes. They also help the ordinary man disappear, and then subsequently reveal “the king.” In crucial moments (such as depicted in the video, when Charles II dissolved Parliament) words are best kept to a necessary minimum.

In a more down to earth manner, most parents know that they cannot comment about everything their kids do. They instinctively know that if they comment on everything they will soon lack the ability to speak about anything to their kids. Especially as your kids get older, you have to pick your spots. When my own kids were teenagers, I remember discovering that my attempts to rationally explain why they could not go “X” party only resulted in prolonged arguing and frustration. After I switched to simply stating “You cannot do ‘X,’ end of story, there was still anger, but less frustration, and it was much less prolonged. Such is the power that comes with veiling authority.

As your status elevates, you should speak less, but conversely, what you say carries greater weight. My paternal grandparents, for example, never told me what to do, except on two occasions, once when I was twelve, once when I was nineteen. In both instances, there was no question in my mind about heeding their advice. Asking something significant from me so rarely meant their words carried great weight. Of course my parents dealt with me in a more direct manner on a daily basis, and consequently had to say much to me than my grandparents. Naturally, sometimes I listened to my parents, and sometimes I did not.*

In monarchies no necessary “reason” existed as to why a particular family assumed the throne. No one needed a “reason.” Someone in medieval France or ancient Babylon did not need “convinced,” no defender of the king needed to syllogistically prove why “X” should reign. It was an accepted fact of their existence, akin to the rising and setting of the sun. In democracies, the very fact that we have choice means that person X might not have been president if only a, b, or c had happened. The opposition party immediately tries to minimize the reach of the current president, and begins planning to unseat him in the next election.

Aristotle mentions how monarchy can distort itself into a tyranny through the use of informants and a secret police. Such measures make sense for monarchies, in a way, for they parody the power that comes from the mystery of kingship. A well trained secret police can have great effectiveness because we both fear and revere secrets. Secrets have authority, whatever the end to which they are put.

Democracies value transparency and openness. We naturally distrust those who keep secrets, and voters need informed on the issues. Many see the rise of social media and Youtube as a great boon to our democratic political life. I grew up in an age of curated information. For political news to reach me, it had to pass down through various institutional filters in government and the media. Now we can get so much more information so much more quickly, and have no need of the institutional filters that existed for so long. Politicians can also speak more directly to people anytime they want on any issue.

But politicians, like parents, should not spout off indescriminately. They should in some measure hoard their ammunition and craft something of a mystique.** We can grant that democratic leaders need more visibility to the people they represent. But if everything is worthy of comment, quite soon nothing will matter to anyone. Those in power will find their arsenals either empty or full of duds.

Dave

*This dynamic may explain a common frustration of parents–they tell their kid to do ‘x,’ dozens of times and get no result. Someone adjacent to the family says the same thing and their children immediately think it’s a great idea.

**Teachers should do the same. Don’t be the teacher that lets your students know a laundry list of your personal likes, dislikes, voting habits, etc. or students will not see you in the mantle of “teacher,” but just as another regular Joe on Instagram.

6th Grade: Domino Theory

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

This week we continued to look at the effects of the Reformation as they played out in the actions of nations. We began looking at the different religious paths different people took in the early decades of the Reformation, whether they embraced conservative or radical Protestantism. This week we began looking at the political fallout from these religious changes, with a special focus on the Spanish Armada, a conflict bewteen Spain and England.

To enter this world we should begin by trying to understand the idea of religious wars. We are used to seeing how religion can influence politics, but we have an aversion to wars fought directly for religious goal and aims. Certainly, such conflicts have mixed results in the annals of history. We may not see religion as a worthy cause because we do not believe that fighting could create a new religious reality.

But, a look at history does reveal that sometimes this does happen. The Moslem conquests of Arabia and North Africa bear this out.

In addition, there are two reasons to fight wars: 1) You believe you can win, and 2) You believe it is your duty. Sometimes the two overlap.

G.K. Chesterton’s famous quote (spoken by a character in his novella The Napoleon of Notting Hill, so it may not fully represent his own views) reads,

There were never any just wars but the religious wars.  There were never any humane wars, but the religious wars. For these men fought for something they claimed at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue  of a man.  A Crusader at least thought that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king, or tinker that it could capture.

Chesterton reminds us that if our faith truly forms the heart of who we are, fighting for something like resources or even security seem petty in comparison.

Finally, we can say that if a person or country’s faith truly forms the center of their life, when politics and religion overlap, one should be the cart, and the other, the horse.

Hopefully this sets the context for what we see in Europe in the late 16th century.

The Reformation brought about religious persecution on all sides. In general I see it shaking out this way:

  • In Germany whether or not Catholics persecuted Protestants or vice-versa depended on circumstances and locale.
  • In France, Catholics persecuted Protestants, and
  • In England, Protestants persecuted Catholics (the reign of “Bloody” Mary notwithstanding).

Catholic persecution in England heightened significantly under Elizabeth I. Priests were hunted down and executed. Catholic nobleman had their property seized and their fortunes confiscated. As Elizabeth was the head of the country politically and religously, Catholicism was viewed as treason. Hence, the methods of execution involved, among other things, drawing and quartering. Catholics considered Elizabeth a heretic and Catholics were excused from the need to obey her authority. This raised the temperature considerably, as we might imagine.

We perhaps can identify more with the situation if we think of hypothetical conditions more in line with our own experience. At this time, religious identity formed the core of political reality. Imagine a world where at some point, the US had a revolution where the winners altered the constitution not completely, but significantly. We then lived with this new political reality and new constitution for 50 years. Suddenly, a faction arises that wanted to fully restore governance under the original Constitution. They have strong backing from other countries and good international connections, but lack significant support within the US itself. Which side would be right, and which wrong, in this scenario?

Mary Queen of Scots’ entrance into England and her seeking of asylum further complicated matters. Elizabeth and Mary were cousins, and had a long relationship/friendship. But now both were queens, and while Elizabeth was Protestant, Mary stayed Catholic.

Mary was on the run for her possible involvement with the murder of Lord Darnley in Scotland, or at least, her support of his murder. Protestants had gained the upper hand in Scotland, and she abdicated the throne. She came south hoping that Elizabeth would protect her. Perhaps she had purely personal motives. But perhaps, as some suggest, she came into England as a potential heir to the throne. As a Catholic, she would undue the work of Henry VIII and throw England back into chaos again.

So, while she was Elizabeth’s personal friend, she was simultaneously her political enemy. In time, she had Mary executed for treason, under debatable circumstances.

Spain’s king Phillip II had been married to Mary I (Bloody Mary) for a few years before her early death. In the late 16th century Spain was one of the more powerful countries in Europe, with a large navy and geo-political interests outside of Europe. England’s navy had attacked Spanish ships continuously over the past several years, and raided the Spanish coast to destroy parts of Spanish ports. Finally, Spain was in a war to try and keep their holdings in the Netherlands. Dutch Protestants fought for their independance, and England kept funneling aid to them.

So, for a combination of religious, political, and strategic reasons, Phillip II attempted to invade England. He sent a huge fleet of ships to land off the Dutch coast to pick up troops, which would then be ferried across the sea to land in England. A combination of terrible weather and poor decisions doomed the fleet to decimation. Some ships returned to Spain eventually, but Spain’s power received a check from which they never quite recovered. In turn, the status of England rose tremendously.

When we examine the past, we often seek to find good guys and bad guys. This is natural and often appropriate. But sometimes we face a situation where this type of clarity eludes us. This should push us towards humility and empathy for those that struggled differently to live rightlty before God in their own time.

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Insanity Strategy

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

As we progressed in our look at WW II, I wanted to the students to consider both Japan and Germany’s strategy in light of Machiavelli’s advice to those who conquer territory.

To sum up (for a fuller look review the Machiavelli and Janus post previously), Machiavelli offers victors two options. To have success one can either:

  • Utterly destroy the area, wiping the slate clean and allowing you to put your stamp upon it, or
  • Occupy the area with a large number of your forces.

The first involves gaining the reputation of a moral monster, the second involves significent expense and the need for constant supervision. But if one is willing to undertake either of these options, holding onto conquered territory becomes possible. What most opt for, however, is neither option. They (understandably!) wish to avoid significant cruelty, so they rule this out. But neither are they willing to pay the financial and political costs of occupation, so they opt with something lighter, something guaranteed to have the conquered territory slip out of your hands within a few years.

But Machiavelli’s advice is predicated on the fact that the ruler begins the conquest with at least the requisite funds needed. He seems to assume that the suggested conquest is at least possible in the practical sense.

Japan and Germany had formidable armies, and both had great success early in the war. But each country embarked on strategies that made no logical sense. Both bit off vastly more than they could chew, and instead of recognizing their mistake and withdrawing to a defensive perimeter, they doubled-down on those mistakes.

Which means that we should wonder if Germany and Japan considered them strategic “mistakes.”

First we can look at a map of Europe at the height of Germany’s conquests:

And secondly, a map of the height of Japanese territorial gains in early 1942:

We see that both countries enveloped territory vastly greater in size and population than their own countries. Occupying this amount of land and people would not be possible for them. However, neither the Japanese or the Germans had any aversion to extreme cruelty. So could that “work?” Again, no. Both the Germans and the Japanese did horrible things to civilians (be they Jewish, Slavic, Chinese, or Phillipino, respectively), they lacked the manpower to destroy such vast population groups. What they did accomplish was to perpetrate enough terror so that the population they could not destroy would be guaranteed to turn against them, forcing them to dedicate resources not just to the conventional armies of their enemies, but also the civilian militias within the territory they conquered.

This begs the question as to why these armies embarked on a strategy practically guaranteed to fail.

Perhaps, they wanted to fail. Or at least, they considered “success” a dramatic, cataclysmic failure, a pulling down of the roof on their heads.

This may seem a dramatic claim, but several examples I believe prove this point.

From the German side*

  • Hitler’s refusal to allow retreats or strategic withdrawals from El Alamein or Stalingrad, both of which turned into catastrophic defeats.
  • Hitler’s plan for the Battle of Bulge in winter 1944 was wildly risky and likely to result in disaster, but he preferred this “all or nothing” strategy to holding firm behind the Rhine river.

From the Japanese side

  • Japan refused to dedicate any resources to rescuing downed pilots–conquer or die an honorable death were your options.
  • When the US navy/marines captured Guadalcanal the Japanese refused to withdraw into a defensive perimeter, and instead issued orders to defend every area of territory no matter the odds.
  • By the end of the war, Japan used suicide bombers in airplanes to try and sink enemy ships. They did not do so thinking that this would win them the war. It was a means to provide an honorable death for many young officers.

Many may not be aware that Hitler and others in his inner circle were huge fans of Wagnerian opera. Hitler’s favorite opera was entitled Rienzi, a story of a minor Roman offical who rebels against the corrupt nobles. For a time, he has success and tries to estbalish a just polity. But soon after he is betrayed. Rienzi himself refuses to compromise, and the people turn against him. Rienzi eventually perishes in flames started by the mob.

At the end of the war, Hitler had his chance (or perhaps orchestrated it on purpose?)** to have life imitate art. Convinced he had been betrayed by the generals and the German people, he stayed in his bunker and saw Berlin burn around him. After his marriage to Eva Braun, they committed suicide together. Hitler gave orders that their bodies be burned so they could never be discovered by their enemies.

My main goal in discussing these difficult things with the students was to try to help students make connections between beliefs, ideologies, and the results of the war itself. Germany and Japan had bad strategies for winning the war because they had bad beliefs and ideological commitments, which in turn led to oppressive cultures. This, in turn, created a climate where victory in war became extremely unlikely.

Although, perhaps both sides got what they really wanted in the end. The Nazi’s achieved their norse Ragnorak, and Japan had its version of a samurai’s honorable death.

Have a great weekend,

Dave

*To be fair, many German generals who were not Nazi ideologues did not agree with these decisions.

**We have no way of knowing for sure (that I am aware of) whether this opportunity was orchestrated on purpose or not. However, I would not be at all surprised if he did. Towards the end of the war, Hitler withdrew from reality and deeper into his fantasies and ideals.

6th Grade: Welcome to the Jungle

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings All,

This week we continued with seismic changes brought about by the Reformation, which started as a religious movement, and then quickly morphed into vehicle for altering the entire cultural and political landscape of Europe. For better or worse, a new world emerged in the wake of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli.

At the end of last week we summed up the differences between the different thinkers and movements in the following manner:

  • The Magisterial Reformation (Luther, Calvin, etc.) saw the church as corrupt, but the state as a secure bulwark either against the church or as a platform upon which to build a new society. Luther, for example, sympathized with the peasants who rebelled in 1524 but urged them to be crushed without mercy. Calvin wanted the state to work with the church to change laws and to use the force of law to enforce church teachings.
  • The Radicat Reformation (Anabaptists mostly) saw the church as corrupt, but also the government and the “world” as a whole. Everything needed torn down and rebuilt from the ground floor. They saw earthly powers just as much a part of the problem as the Catholic church. Everyone, be they Catholics, Lutherans, or Calvinists, saw the Anabaptists as enemies and persecuted them. To be fair, when Anabaptists had a chance, they did engage in some persecution themselves.

But the Lutherans and Calvinists also disagreed amongst themselves and persecuted each other. They agreed on the nature of salvation, but disagreed on how to apply their doctrines in everyday life.

  • Lutherans focused on freedom in Christ from the Law. The best thing we can do as Christians is to simply trust in the love of God and stop thinking about yourself. If you sin, that happens, use it to help draw you closer to God. Focusing on your sins, where you have been good, and where you have been bad, is just another means to keep thinking aobut yourself instead of God.
  • Calvinists saw Lutherans as taking the grace of God for granted. Christ saved us not to whatever we liked but to obey God and follow his commandments. God takes how we live seriously, and we should to. Being mindful of ourselves and our behavior is how we show how we love God.

I asked students how they would seek to resolve these dilemmas and choose who was right, or at least, more right than the others. They did a wonderful job of suggesting solutions and then adjusting them when others commented. It is certainly fine to be unsure about question like this, as these are deep and difficult questions. We will tackle why everyone persecuted everyone else for their beliefs later on, but Europe descended into chaos. Nobody had clean hands.

This week we looked at the English Reformation, inaugerated by Henry VIII, and continued especially via his daughter Elizabeth I.

As always, to understand the English Reformation we have to know what preceded it. We we see a particular swing of the pendulum we best understand it by knowing about the swing to the other side. In the early 1300’s, England stood poised to become the dominant power in Europe. They had a popular and successful king, they were winning a war with France, and they had more overall political and cultural unity than most any other European power. But over the next 100 years, they experienced a period of convulsive events that upended most everything:

  • The onset of the Black Plague (which also impacted the rest of Europe)
  • The death of the heir to the throne
  • A complete reversal of fortune in their protracted war with France
  • The abdication and mysterious death of Richard II
  • The unexpected early death of Henry V, victor at Agincourt.
  • The War of the Roses (1455-85) between the aristocratic houses of Lancaster and York, which saw the untimely deaths of Henry VI as well as Richard III.

Henry VII was actually a relatively minor Lancastrian nobleman who came to power in part because he was the last man standing. England needed and craved stability, and when Henry married Elizabeth of York, people were satisfied. England could move forward.

Henry VII had two sons, Arthur and Henry. Arthur died as a young man, leaving his son Henry the only bridge between future stability and political chaos once again. Henry was never supposed to be Henry VIII, but . . . these things happen, and they change the course of history.

Wherever the Reformation took root, it did so for slightly different reasons and took different forms.  Some say that the English Reformation was driven more by personality and nationality than theology, and there may be truth to this.  In time, Anglicanism would develop a distinct theological voice, but in the beginning the marriages of the monarch determined much of the course of events.

When we think of Henry VIII we often think of a domineering and abusive man, perhaps too much in love with his own power.  This may capture much of the truth of who Henry was, but he did not necessarily begin that way.  He had great intelligence.  He spoke fluently in perhaps three different languages.  He was an accomplished musician and dancer. He wrote a legitimate and scholarly treatise on the sacraments and he had He had a love for crowds and spectacle, and England adored him in the early years of his reign. He seemed genuinely in love with his wife Queen Catherine, who bore him a daughter named Mary.

But the fact that he had no son, and his wife was getting on in years, gnawed at him. In addition, he found himself head over heels smitten with another woman named Anne Boleyn. Henry insissted that his marriage to Catherine had no validity, because Catherine had been briefly married to his elder brother. The Church disagreed and refused to grant a divorce or an annulment. So Henry broke from the Catholic faith (he had made arguments against Luther years earlier) and made himself the head of the Church of England. After that, he could divorce Catherine and marry Anne rather easily. 🙂 Of course not everyone went along with this, and some (such as the Catholic martyrs John Fisher and Thomas More) lost their lives for refusing to sign on to the new order.

Had Anne bore Henry a son, who can say what might have happened, but Elizabeth was her only surviving child. Henry eventually accused her of adultery and witchcraft and had her beheaded. Anne protested her innocence to no avail. His next wife, Jane, died in childbirth. He divorced his fourth wife Anne of Cleve, and also executed his fifth wife, Cehterine Howard. His sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, managed to outlive Henry. By the look of her, she may have been made of sterner stuff than his previous wives, having mastered the ‘stern library’ look. 🙂 Many credit her with guiding Henry’s son Edward (from his brief marriage to Jane Seymour) in the Protestant faith and making sure he held the Protestant line after Henry’s death.

No English king, with the possible exception of Henry II, had weilded more power than Henry VIII. And yet, I think that his grasping was not driven by strength but weakness. Many of his portraits cannot help but reveal a suspicious, gnawing insecurity. Here is a portrait of him as a young man, perhaps in the very earliest days of his reign:

And him in middle age well into his time in power. The wary eyes are still there:

Six years after the death of Edward VI (who died at age 14) his oldest half-sister Mary became queen.  History knows her as “Bloody Mary,” because of her persecution of Protestants.  In many ways she deserved this epithet, but we must try and sympathize with her.  Henry unjustly divorced and banished her mother Catherine of Aragon.  She had little contact with Protestants, and plenty of time to nurse a grudge, to plan to right the wrongs of the past.  We might understand better if we we realize that she thought that Henry had “ruined the country,” and God placed her in authority to bring England back to the faith and right previous wrongs.

To this psychological motivation we should add that neither Henry or Mary’s mother lived very long. What if she felt that she had precious little time to accomplish her goals before her death? As the saying goes, “Beware of an old man (or woman) in a hurry.” In this image to the right we see the same gnawing insecurity her father could not hide. Like Henry she knew she needed a son if her attempt at reform would last, but as an older woman nearly past childbearing years, she had little hope of a suitor actually appearing. We can lament the tragic nature of her life without condoning her actions. When we see her portrait nearly at the end of her life and reign, we see the same wary countenance as her father.

unframed presentation

It would be left to the daughter whose birth must have dramatically disappointed Henry, the daughter of Anne Boley, Elizabeth, to attempt to consolidate the turbulence of the realm. We will look at her efforts next week.

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Aristotelian Fractals

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings All,

In the first post of the year, we talked about the debate various theologians and political scientists have had about whether or not government is a byproduct of sin, or would have existed regardless of whether or not we live in a fallen world. Part of this debate involves what we think the proper function of government should be, and how we arrive at government in the first place.

Aristotle developed a philosophy that supports the idea that the state is “natural,” that is, the state arises from what it means to be human apart from the reality of sin. He writes,

Because it is the completion of associations that exist by nature, every city exists by nature, having itself the same quality from which it grew. It is the logical end to which natural associations move, and the nature of things exists in their “end,” or purpose. Now self-sufficiency of a state is its proper end, and so the best place for a city to aim.

He who is without a city [community] is either a poor sort of being, like one whom Homer wrote about when he said,

‘Clanless and lawless and heartless is he.’

The man who is by such nature unable to join a city at once plunges into a passion for conflict, war, and strife. He cannot bond with his fellows, and only seeks to chop down rather than to plant.

Aristotle saw the family as the natural result of the family. When we think of our identity, we might assume that we are “ourselves” in a completely isolated way. But if we pull back, we see that we are who we are because of a variety of factors completely outside our control. Biologically, we inherit our DNA from our parents. Culturally, we are influenced by our families, our neighborhoods, and things that happen to us. Whenever we use the word “I” we cannot escape the reality of “Thou.”

If we define the self by those around us, Aristotle found it perfectly reasonable to argue that we need connections to others to realize our humanity in general, and our individual identities specifically. The state arises from the need for families to come together not so much to decide matters of right and wrong, but to expand our identity. Those without connections to others will become bestial, and lose something crucial to themselves. Just as our identity comes from others as people, so too families need to find their place among a larger group of familes.

Aristotle’s ideas might be more than mere theory. This development of family, to clan, to state, might actually have taken place in the Greek and Roman world, among other places.

Part of understanding Aristotle’s concept involves grasping the nature of “fractals.” We can define a “fractal” as a pattern that repeats itself at different scales, with smaller fractals containing the essence of the carrier of the pattern.

We should ask ourselves if

  • The family is a fractal of the state

Or

  • The state is a fractal of the family.

The difference is subtle, but has importance. If we prefer the former, the state gives legitmacy/support to the family. If the latter, the state derives its legitimacy/support from the family. But whichever side we might prefer, a relationship between the two remains. We all see, for example, political polarization, and a decline of our political culture. If we beleive in Aristotle’s connection between the state and family, this decline should not surprise us. The family has been in crisis for some time in our country. One is a fractal of the other.

The ripple effectes of our decision about priority has expanding fractals of consequences. On the one hand, radical individualism makes no metaphysical sense.

  • We did not create ourselves
  • Who we are has a strong relation to our parental DNA
  • Where we grow up, those around us, etc., all do much to shape our identity.

So it is obvious that our identity comes from outside of ourselves.

But we cannot swing in the opposite direction and declare that no such thing as personal identity exists. Societies that assert that no one has any identity outside of the collective are primed to become totalitarian monsters. Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and Mao’s China all prove this out. Such regimes wreak havoc on the world, as WW II bears out.

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Machiavelli and Janus

by Dave Mathwin

This week we began our first reading of Machiavelli, one of the more controversial and intriguing political thinkers in history. I hope that the students will find him enjoyable and thought provoking.

Machiavelli comes with a reputation. To say that someone is “Machiavellian,” means that they are conniving, amoral, and without scruple. His most famous work, The Prince seems to famously advocate that “the ends justify the means,” another phrase from which many of us shrink.

Students are welcome to their opinion of Machiavelli, whatever that might be. But first we have to make sure we understand him if we want to reject his approach.

We can begin tackling the troubling phrase, “the ends justify the means.” As a categorical absolute, this statement makes no sense. It makes as little sense as its opposite, “No ends justify the means.” This phrase usually means means that anything that one does to achieve a legitimate goal is justified. But even the most extreme devotee of this idea would not say that anything one does to achieve a goal be within bounds. When faced with an “end,” such as discovering buried treasure, we realize that some means would be justified to find it, and some would not. So context matters.

For example, if a single guy on sabbatical from his job with some money to burn wanted to take a few weeks to run around the globe in search of treasure, most would think that fine. If a family man on a tight budget did the same thing, we would raise an eyebrow and question the proportionality of the end and its means.

Machiavelli never directly said, “the ends justify the means,” but it is true that, while he recognized context and limits, he willingly expanded the boundaries of ends and means in ways not explored previously.*

Machiavelli did not invent poltical science as a discipline, but he did found its modern incarnation. Previous to Machiavelli, political thinkers started with an “absolute,” a particular idea of the good. They then sought to have the state in question molded to that absolute idea. For Plato, this meant the world of the Forms. For Aristotle, this was the golden mean revealed in nature and experience. But other civilizations followed along this model. Medieval society, for example, had as its guiding star the phrase “on earth as it is in heaven,” and sought to model their political order around the heavenly order of seraphim, archangels, angels, and the like. Ancient Egypt looked back to a mythic past of harmony and balance, and Pharaoh’s ruled in attempt to recreate this balance, which they called Ma’at. Many other examples exist.

Machiavelli started from the other end. He wanted rulers to look at the situation they faced in real time first and not concern themselves with ideals not immediately relevant to their experience. But Machiavelli definitely had a goal in view. He wanted the Prince to stay in power, not, I think, for the sake of power itself, but to bring about stability. Stability in itself was a worthy aim, because its lack would almost assuredly usher in violence on a broad scale.

In The Prince Machiavelli deals with various scenarios in which a ruler might strengthen or jeopardize his ability to stay in power.

Our first example involved what Machiavelli described as a “Mixed State.” Let us suppose you have a country (Redland) in which you have a Redland ruler with Redland people. Unfortunately their king is incompetent or destructive in his rule in some way. This leads to some in Redland to conspire with the king of Blueland to come in to Redland, and take over Redland for himself. Taking Redland would be relatively easy. After all, the fight is not fair, and it is not fair in your favor. Blueland’s army has to fight Redland’s army, but Blueland also has the assistance those within Redland who actively conspire to get you to take over, so your victory is quite likely.

But once Blueland takes over Redland, Blueland’s ruler will face many problems quickly, in fact, more problems than if they defeated them “straight up.”

For one, Blueland has to reward those in Redland who helped you to win. But how much should one trust such people? If you don’t reward them, they will turn against you just as they turned against their previous ruler. If you reward them too much, you will alienate your own army, as well as strengthen those who have already proved untrustworthy to their ruler.

If Redland has a different culture, customs, and language than Blueland, you will face additional problems (Machiavelli cites the example of Louis XII of France who quickly conquered, and then quickly lost, the city-state of Milan). Ideally, you can get away with changing as little as possible (mimicking the general policy of the Romans and Cyrus the Great of Persia). If you make the mistake of introducing new forms of taxation on the conquered people to pay for your conquest, you start the clock on your expiration date as the new king of Redland.

So far Machiavelli merely analyzes the problems. This aspect of Machiavelli is not what makes him controversial.

The controversy comes in what follows. A commentator from another era might have then said, “So, we see that Blueland should not conquer Redland even if invited in by a Redland faction.” Machiavelli essentially says, “If you find yourself in a position akin to the king of Blueland, how do you then maintain your power?” He does not concern himself with the morality of the conquest, but supposes the conquest as a thing that happened. The question then becomes, “What do I do now?” rather than “What should I have done?” Some argue he goes farther, and in effect tells rulers how to do the wrong thing and get away with it. Personally I don’t go this far in my reading of Machiavelli, but I understand how others might. Regardless of what we think of what Machiavelli is doing, he certainly puts the emphasis on the pragmatic over the ideal.

He lays out the options:

  • If you withdraw entirely from Redland and effectively say, “Whoops, my mistake,” there will be chaos not only in Redland but also among your own people in Blueland, as you will look like an idiot who puts his hand to the plow but doesn’t see it through. You might lose power in both places. Again, rulers might want to keep their power for selfish reasons, but amidst political chaos, violence increases and many suffer. So withdrawal from Redland would likely help no one.
  • What most attempt is some kind of half-measure, where you try to govern your new territory from Blueland and find yourself continually frustrated. This would be akin to trying to babysit toddlers via Zoom. It wouldn’t go so well.
  • Most are not willing to do one of the two things that at this point must be done. You can either 1) Occupy Redland, or 2) Destroy Redland and repopulate it with people from Blueland.

Both paths come with problems. Occupying Redland will be expensive, and requires a great deal of energy and determination. Do you have the money and patience for this? Most do not.**

The quickest and easiest solution is to burn the territory and scatter the populace. Then, you resettle the land with your own people. This saves you the cost of paying your army for years on end, and gets all the bad stuff out of the way right at the start. The Normal Conquest of 1066, for example, largely fits this pattern. This obviously involves a lot pain and suffering for people in the short term. But it actually creates long term stability. Better to rip off the band-aid in one go than to prolong uncertainty and instability for decades.

Is this “the ends justifies the means?” Yes, and no. He does not counsel that Blueland should have invaded in the first place. He does argue that once Blueland has gotten their hands on a “Mixed State,” they have only bad choices in front of them. The best of the bad choices is the “morally correct” one, the choice that 1) Preserves stability in the long run, and 2) Deals quickly and decisively with the problem.

Again, Machiavelli differs from previous political theorists in that, while those before Machiavelli directed their ideas toward a particular end or goal, Machiavelli has it both ways. Like the Roman god Janus, he has two faces.

I look forward to seeing how the students will react to Machiavelli’s approach as the year continues.

Dave

*Our squeamishness about “the ends justify the means” is exposed somewhat in our love of stories where a man has something horrible happen to his friends or family, and then goes on a rampage to get his daughter back, or avenge his partner’s death, or something like this. Most often these movie heroes cause a great deal more destruction than they themselves experienced, but we cheer them on anyway.

**The Romans grew their power in Italy largely through this method, which requires extraordinary patience and conviction of purpose, something Machiavelli does not mention, though perhaps he does elsewhere.

9th Grade: Civilization and the Garments of Skin

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings all, I hope that you will enjoy these updates and that you will find them helpful throughout the year.

We began our Ancient History class this week by looking at a biblical framework for understanding what a civilization is and how they function in our lives. Scripture does not spell this out directly, but if we find some illuminating details if we read the early chapters of Genesis closely.

We see in Genesis 2 that Adam and Eve were “naked and unashamed” before God and each other. I urged the students not to understand “nakedness” primarily in physical terms, but in spiritual and psychological terms. They were unclothed (whatever that might have meant), yes, but they lived without masks and artifice. They experienced God, each other, and creation around them directly.

After their sin Adam and Eve hide from God and wear fig leaves. They need a barrier between themselves and God, each other, and the world. In Genesis 3:21 we read that God made for them “garments of skin” as they left Eden. Whatever the nature of these garments might have been, they are obviously a more extensive covering than fig leaves. These garments may have been skins from animals in Eden, meaning that they were clothed in death. We note further that these garments are given

  • As a result of the fall, but
  • Not as part of the curse of the fall.

These garments are, in a sense, a gift from God to help them cope with exile from Eden.

We then see Cain murder his brother Abel. Cain was a farmer, Abel a shepherd. Certainly there is nothing wrong with either occupation. But there varying occupations meant that Abel wandered with his flock while Cain stayed put and worked the ground. When God disciplines us, He does so to draw us back to Him, to reconnect with Him and those around us. This obviously holds true for God’s punishment for Cain.

Cain is told to wander. Why might this be?

  • Cain murdered Abel, and so now God is trying to get Cain to become a wanderer like Abel. He needs to identify with his murdered brother.
  • Cain needs to be “naked” again, to return to something like a paradisal state. In other words, he needs to come to know God again, to become dependant on Him. Cain needs to remove all of his “coverings,” all the barriers he has erected between himself and God.

But Cain clearly does not accept his punishment or obey. Instead, he builds a city! He stays put. First, we have fig leaves, then garments, and now, the biggest covering of all in the form of buildings and other civilizational trappings. Strange as it may seem, Genesis 4 clearly shows us that the implements of civilization come from the line of Cain. We have no connection to the ancient world, but ancient readers would have seen the clues more easily.

  • The lyre (4:21) was a small harp, the strings of which were made from animal intestines.
  • Pipes were often made from the horns of animals

So we see that this “covering” of civilization comes from death, just as the original garments of skin.

Tubal-cain was the father of those who forge bronze and iron, which fits into the general pattern of further exile from Eden in the following ways.

  • First, we know that Eden was on a mountain (Ez. 28:13-14). Exile from Eden meant coming down the mountain of God.
  • There is nothing wrong with farming, obviously. But we should note that farming involves digging into the earth, i.e., descending further into the earth, moving down from the heights. Most of the best farmland is in vallyes, of course, down the mountain slopes.
  • To get the material to forge metal instruments, one has to go much deeper into the earth. We should see this as as Cain’s descendants not just going all the way down the mountain of God, but going under the earth–going further away from God.

The connection between these actions and violence becomes clear directly following this description of the origins of civilization. Lamech, who as the seventh generation from Adam should have represented completeness and rest,* instead stands for a celebration of vengeance and murder. It is telling that in the godly line of Seth in the following chapter, nothing is mentioned about the implements of civilization. Origin stories recorded from other civilizations, such as Hesiod and Ovid, also link metalurgy with violence and war.

This does not mean that civilization is evil, any more than farming, music, or mining is evil. But we should see civilization as another layer of the garments of skin, a “supplement” we now need to get by in the world and interact with one another.

We can perhaps understand the idea of a supplement working both for and against us if we think of something we use every day, such as makeup. Wearing makeup is not wrong. If used in the right way, it can reveal and accentuate beauty. But if you overuse it, makeup becomes a mask we wear to hide ourselves from others–such a person disappears behind the mask they create. What can work for us now works against us. To take an example with guys . . . I go to the gym most mornings before school. Most of the guys I see are there to lose some extra baggage, or get a modest workout. Occassionally, one sees someone so dedicated to improving themselves physically that they no longer look quite normal. Finally, to take an example all of us may relate to, the same can be true of caffeine. We feel tired and we need to get things done, so we drink some coffee. We feel great and can move on with our day. But if we take it too far, coffee becomes something we need even for normal functioning. What once aided us now binds us.

Makeup can be a good thing, and so can coffee. But we might consider that possibly, might it be best of all to use neither? So too, civilization provides many good things for us. It has been the default form of existence for almost everyone who has ever lived. Civilization provides, shelter, social organization, and protection. The specialization inherent in civilization can dramatically increase our standard of living and allows us to build incredible buildings.**

But . . . speaking of buildings, we also have the Tower of Babel. Civilization can do so much for us, in fact, that we can lose our “nakedness” and our dependance on God. To take one example, we don’t feel the need to pray for rain, because if the crops don’t grow where we live, the store can get food from somewhere else. We can easily light a match to make fire, but at the same time, we lose the skill of creating fire on our own. This trade-off happens with many aspects of civilized life.

Just about every city we encounter in the Old Testament is viewed negatively. We have mentioned Cain’s city, and the Tower of Babel, but there is also Abraham’s time in Egypt, Sodom, Jericho, Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, etc., etc. In fact, I can think of only one viewed differently, Salem, which later becomes Jerusalem. It is Jerusalem which begins the process of the redemption of cities, the incorporation of the garments of skin into the New Heavens and New Earth (Rev. 21).

My goal with introducing this material is to help orient us in our study of the many great civilizations of the past. We should neither get too enamored of them, nor see them as a curse or blight. Rather, we should view them as a blessing that is part of a fallen world, that can become a curse if we’re not careful.

Enjoy the weekend,

Dave

*Compare Lamech to Enoch in Genesis 5, also a seventh generation descendant from Adam through Seth.

**To reinforce the idea of the dual nature of the Garments of Skin, we can see the Tabernacle as a covering akin to a city. God commanded that it be built. It is interesting that the same (or perhaps a very similar word) to describe the main builder of the Tabernacle, Bezalel, is also used to describe Tubal-Cain–a craftsman. Bezalel is a good guy, Tubal-Cain a bad guy. They both used similar skills with similar tools to do similar things towards very different ends.

8th Grade Civics: Name and Fact

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

This year, before we delve into specifics about America towards the spring semester, we want to take time to examine the big questions about culture and governance that apply to all civilizations everywhere.

To that end, we spent time this week with Aristotle’s thoughts on what makes a state. We looked at an excerpt from his Politics which reads,

It must be the case that only a shared sense of goodness and justice amongst its citizens can make a state. Merely occupying the same territory together with other men cannot make a state, as can be shown through example. If the citizens of Megara and Corinth [bitter rivals, but very close geographically] were put under one government together, that would not make them one in fact. 

Nor can a state be made merely through common association and interest. Suppose a group of people with different professions—a carpenter, a farmer, a merchant— all living together exchanging goods under a common system of law. Imagine their number to be in excess of 10,000 [a very big number for ancient Greeks]. Imagine these people had nothing in common other than the necessities of living and obedience to the law. 

The members of this group all might come together in a common place to exchange goods and services, but if each person treated their own house and their own person as a state unto itself, how could they be a state, even  if they happened to occupy the same geography?

It is clear, therefore, that a city is not only people occupying the same geography under the same law. Their true unity must come from their common purpose and common life together. True– no state can exist without a sufficient number of people living under the same law. But this in itself cannot make a state.

Aristotle wants us to distinguish between “name” and “fact.” We can all understand, for example, that if I held up a pencil and called it a pen, that would not in fact make it so. Even if I made this assertion for years, the pencil would not be any closer to a pen than when I started.

We can take this a bit deeper. Imagine someone made a robot that looked just like you. It talked like you, walked like you, and more or less mimicked you perfectly. We might even call this robot by your name. But the robot is not you. Among other things, it lacks what we cannot directly see or observe, such as a soul, a conscience, thoughts and beliefs, and so forth. Calling it “you” would not make it so. In other words, we properly name things not just by what they are made of, but by their purpose, their “telos” or end. What a thing is made from is not what a thing “is.”

If we apply this concept to country’s, we may find ourselves a bit uncomfortable. Aristotle pushes us to think of a state as more than a group of people following the same laws, within a defined border, exchanging goods and services. This, he argued, may be a country in name but not in fact. It may look like a country from the outside, but from the inside, nothing exists to bind the people together. The people have no shared purpose, no shared “telos,” no shared love.

Some may remember CS Lewis; The Dawn Treader, where the characters meet an old man (Ramandu) who is in fact a retired star. Eustace remarks that in his world, starts are not people but huge balls of flaming gas. Ramandu corrects him, saying that, “Even in your world, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.” In other words, mere physical composition does not determine being. So too, a state cannot be defined merely as people living in a place on a map.

I asked the students to think about whether or not Aristotle would call the United States today a country in fact, or in name only.

In favor of the “name only” position some argued that

  • We do not share a common religion
  • We do not share a common culture
  • We do not have a common point of attention with movies, music, or other media
  • We are deeply divided politically, with many not trusting our basic institutions
  • We have essentially become “states unto ourselves.” With online shopping, we don’t even need to interact with each other to buy and sell things

But others countered that

  • Sports provide us a way to come together across cultural, religious, and polticial divides
  • American ideals of freedom and self-determination still unite (almost) all Americans
  • When we have to, as in the case of natural disaster or war, we can still “rally round the flag.”
  • Sure, Americans fight with each other, but we always have. Think of our nation’s identity like a big, noisy family that argues with each other but still gets together for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We find a way to “hug it out.”

As always, the students are encouraged to take whatever position they think correct and defend it as best they can.

We also started the “History” portion of our class, and began where the class left off last year after the 1920’s. During the 1930’s the world experienced a great deal of suffering. As individuals, how we respond to suffering forms a crucial part of our well being. Some degree of suffering is inevitable, and learning how to handle it appropriately is a crucial skill, not only for individuals, but nations as well.

The rise of Fascism, especially in Germany and Japan, came about mainly because they failed to handle suffering in anything approaching a Christian manner.

For a Christian, suffering comes sometimes as a direct result of our own actions, sometimes as a result of the fault of others, and sometimes for no direct causal reason. Whatever the cause, our suffering should always spur on reflection, humility, and a turning to God. Following this path can be difficult, but . . . this is the path. Possibly Germany, and especially Japan, could make a good case that they had been mistreated by England, France, and the United States. They chose the path of blaming others (Jews, or westerners, etc.) and vowed never to be mistreated again.

They used this impetus to swing way too far in the direction of Unity (racial unity, cultural unity, etc.) and Purity. They created societies that had a great deal of rage, and received power drawn from that rage. For a time, they were formidable military foes.

Thanks so much for your support, and have a great weekend,

Dave

6th Grade: Hierarchical Collapse

by Dave Mathwin

Last week we discussed in class some of the key values and concepts of the pre-modern world. One crucial aspect of the medieval world involved their relationship to hierarchy. Most moderns understand that we need some form of hierarchy to allow us to have a society. But we tend to see these hierarchies as artificial and transient. We have an abundance of stories where those with power get humbled and even humiliated by the little guy. It’s built into our cultural DNA.

Medieval people thought differently. They did not automatically assume that those higher than you in status were better people, but they believed their status had a reality to it beyond mere earthly contingency. They thought this for a variety of reasons, among them:

  • Scripture has a host of examples of God choosing, either directly or indirectly, the leaders of His people. We can recall the example of Moses, Samuel, the prophets, the apostles, etc.
  • The earliest Christian writings after the first century, such as “The Didache” and the letters of St. Ignatius, speak of church hiearchy
  • Many early Christians interpreted the words of the Lord’s Prayer, “thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven,” as meaning that we should attempt to imitate the pattern and ‘life’ of Heaven here on Earth.

Possibly the most influential voice on the subject were the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopogite.* His short treatise On the Celestial Hiearchy described the ranks and orders of angels in Heaven, and he then applied this reality to our life on earth. We looked at a quote from this text in class, which reads,

Hierarchy is, in my judgment, a sacred order and science and operation, assimilated, as far as attainable, to the likeness of God, and conducted to the illuminations granted to it from God, according to capacity, with a view to the Divine imitation. The purpose, then, of Hierarchy is the assimilation and union, as far as attainable, with God . . .

In other words, hierarchy on earth does not exist merely to keep order. We have hiearchy on earth to imitate heaven, to be drawn into the life of God, and to become more like Christ. Thus, living within a God-appointed hierarchy was a crucial aspect of one’s spiritual life. Living outside of hierarchy was therefore a metaphysical and spiritual impossibility.

But what happens when the hierarchy strays and abuses their position? Can there ever come a time when one separates oneself from that hierarchy? And—are you sure you have the right hierarchy? These questions formed the background to the the first significant event we will study this year, the Reformation.

The Reformation was a complicated event that involved many historical factors. Forces such as economic and political change, the Black Death, and so forth all had a part to play in the Reformation. But for a few reasons, I want to focus on the people involved with the students. First, while acknowledging complexity is important, I don’t want to overcomplicate things for sixth graders. Secondly, while economic forces, for example, have importance, “economic forces” do not make decisions. People make decisions, and we should put our focus there.

The Church existed as essentially one physical institution for the first 1000 years of its existence. Then, in 1054 (though in fairness this date is disputed by some, others would put the date at 1204 when the Crusaders sacked Constantinople), the Church split between the east (Orthodoxy) and the west (Catholicism). Still, if you lived in the west, your life essentially remained unchanged after this split. Everyone was Catholic, and the Church thrived in the Middle Ages. One only has to look at the magnificent gothic cathedrals, and the lives of luminaries such as Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assissi, Catherine of Siena, and many others to see a vibrant spiritual life.

However, by the late 15th century, much of this had disappeared, at least in the leadership/hierarchy of the church. Many of course lived vibrant Christian lives but starting in at least the 1370’s, the church was wracked with a succession of poor leaders that lacked spiritual vision and wisdom. The start of 1500’s saw the western church beset by corruption. Many had advocated for reforms, and many had tried various means to improve the church, but these efforts had not gained enough momentum.

No one expected that an unknown German monk named Martin Luther would upset the entire apple cart, not even Luther himself.

It is important to note that no Catholic church historian would deny that the church had grave problems leading up to the Reformation. The difference between Luther, his followers, and the Catholic church was not that one side saw problems and the other didn’t. They often (though not always) agreed on what the problem was. They disagreed on what the problem meant.**

When Luther, an Augustinian monk, published his 95 Theses he did not intend to start a revolt. He sought debate and discussion on points of Church doctrine and practice. Many within his monastic order agreed with him about what he wrote. Pope Leo X himself agreed with some of what Luther wrote and tried to put a stop to some of the abuses Luther pointed out in Germany.

How this snowballed into a full-blown religious revolution is complicated, and my goal is to make it intelligible for the students. Luther posted his theses in 1517 with general support from many. By 1521 he was excommunicated. What happened? I focused on what I see as the central dividing line between those that supported Luther and those that stuck with the church.

  • Luther believed that Scripture had authority over Church tradition and church hierarchy. Luther was convinced that his reading of Scripture was correct. For him, the issue involved putting God’s word above human authority.
  • The Catholic church obviously believed in the authority of Scripture. They wanted Luther to submit his ideas to the Church. He had taken vows of obedience as a monk. Before debating any particulars, they wanted Luther to affirm that he would live according to the vows he took. Luther’s denial of the Church’s authority, and his casting off of his monastic habit, looked to them like a married man wanting a divorce, or a private telling the joint chiefs that he did not need to obey their orders.

The question of Luther’s obedience relates particularly to his vocation. Luther became a monk, and every monk took a vow to Go of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Of course, not everyone needs to become a monk or should. We can compare this in some ways to joining the military. Not everyone can or should join. But if you do join, every recruit needs to obey the orders of their superiors.

Imagine a private writing a long treatise about problems in the high command and making his concerns public. This in itself could be viewed as a problem. Now, suppose that the generals agreed with the private about some things, maybe disgareed with him about others. They tell him to sit tight and be quiet while they consider.

The Catholic hierarchy basically chose this path. They focused on Luther’s vow of obedience, and his need to submit to authority. But increasingly, Luther started not to view the Catholic hierachy as a legitimate authority, and thus, his vows were not binding.

Finally, I would suggest that Catholics believed the best way to serve God was within the hierarchy He established, and Luther thought the only way to serve God was to separate himself from it. Catholics do not say that every pope and every bishop is godly or even a Christian. Israel had some good kings and many bad ones. In Israel, one was not supposed to rebel against even the worst of kings. Nor did anyone ever rebel against corrupt priests. In turn, Luther made a sharp contrast between church hierarchy and civil authority. Church hierarchy had the higher authority of Scripture over them, whereas civil leaders were, on earth at least, accountable only to God.

Many joined Luther in his bold and courageous stance. He inspired many. But Luther was a volatile man–a great revolutionary, but not a good diplomat. Many who agreed with a variety of his beliefs could not join him in separating themselves from the institutional church, such as Erasmus. We looked at a collection of quotes from Luther that show him at his best and worst.

Some may have familiarity with the myth of Cronos/Saturn and his children. Saturn, rebelled against the Titan Uranus, castrating him and freeing his siblings. He then became the supreme power in the cosmos. But he worried, realizing that he had established a precedent, whereby his own children could overthrow him. To prevent this, he ate his own children. But he could not stop what he had put in motion, and later his own children, freed from his belly, overthrew him as well.

Luther faced a similar challenge. His actions moved the locus of authority from the universal institution to local communities and individuals. Many peasants had grievances against the nobility. Luther agreed with them that they had legitimate reasons for their concerns. But when the peasants rose in armed rebellion against the nobility, Luther was horrified, and urged that the rebels be crushed without mercy. Luther did not have a high view of Church authority, but did have a very high view of political authority. Others failed to agree with the distinction Luther made.

Soon various other Protestants emerged, many with much more radical ideas than Luther. Which ideas would win out? How could society hold together? This would be one of the key problems that would shape the next century in Europe.

Have a good weekend,

Dave

*The dating of his life is much disputed, with some believing he lived in the late first or early second century AD, and others arguing for a date much later in the sixth century.

**This is akin to disputes about the meaning of Scripture. People generally agree on what the Bible says. They disagree about what the Bible means.

6th Grade: That was Then, This is Now

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

Welcome to the blog I use to update parents on what we are studying in class. These posts are not meant to directly repeat everything we said in class. Rather, I hope these posts will give parents and students a good idea of the general themes we discussed during the week, and a means of continuing the conversation at home if you wish.

This year we focus on what happened to the western world between roughly 1500-1800 AD. At the start of this period, western civilization still operates on a pre-modern mindset, though definite cracks are present in the civilization that has lasted roughly since the time of Charlemagne. By the time we finish the year, everything looks much more familiar to us in terms of politics, a scientific worldview, and the role of the individual in society. Over the course of our year together, I will ask the students to begin to evaluate for themselves what they think of these changes.

How we study the past depends in part on how we approach the past. Some fall immediately into one of two camps.

  • What is old is worse than what is new. For these people, change is a positive force in civilization.
  • What is old is better than what is new. For these people, change almost always makes things worse.

There exists a third option, however, which is the approach that I take, and that I want the students to adopt, which is,

  • What is old is not necessarily better or worse than what is new. Change brings things that likely have aspects that make things better and worse simultaneously. So,
  • When we say “pre-modern” we should not immediately think that is better or worse than something “modern.” We have to step back a bit and try to evaluate the changes we see with care.

Does this mean that everything is relative, that nothing can be called better or worse than anything else? I don’t believe this. But cultivating this approach does mean that we cannot make snap judgments about the past. Before choosing which path we think is better, we have to pause and try to understand each path first.

So, before embarking on our study of the modern world, which has its origins around the year 1500, we need to understand and review the world that it replaced, and that was our main task for the week.

We began by looking at a few key differences about the modern and pre-modern world, with one of them being what each civilization “receives” vs. what we create or choose on our own. What we receive is what we essentially take into our identity without a thought. For example, we receive a world in which the sky is blue. It’s not up for discussion, it “just is.” In contrast we believe that we can and should choose our political leadership every few years. Here are some things that medieval world believed one “received”

  • Their faith–one grew up in the faith and one did not interact with other religious denominations or choices
  • Your political leaders–the king was the oldest son of the last king. Certain families were dukes or lords, and their sons would inherit their position
  • Your station in life . . . some were nobles, some merchants, some farmers, etc. and that’s the way it was.
  • Your family crest, colors, and traditions

Many moderns would be very uncomfortable living this way. We believe that personal choice, and the freedom to choose one’s path, is a bedrock aspect of our humanity. It is hard to conceive of life lived in any other way. By contrast, medieval people would have thought that we elevate choice to the position of an idol. One can imagine them saying, “Look at what has happened to you now that everything is up for grabs. You believe you can change churches, your political leaders, and now, some people believe that receiving their biological sex is akin to tyranny? Addiction to choice has driven your society crazy.”

Some in the modern world would fire back that the lack of choice made medieval society stale. So many people may have been stuck in jobs or roles that they had no talent for. Expanding choice means expanding human development and improving society overall. More choice gives you societies with more prosperity, longer life spans, and greater human flourishing.

There are tradeoffs with both the expansion and restriction of choice. More opportunities create different ways to succeed, and different ways to fail. Next week I will ask the students to make a hypothetical choice.

  • You will be guaranteed a basic middle class life. You have a steady job, two cars, and a family. But just like you cannot change out your family, you cannot change out your job. You will have to stay at the job for your whole career. You will be able to vacation once a year to a beach somewhere. You will live in the same place for the entirety of your life, but people will know you and you will have personal connections to those around you.

Or

  • You have no guarantees about jobs, family, or where you live. You will have the freedom to do whatever you like, to take what job you like, and to live where you like. You can change these things as often as you like. You could become fabulously wealthy. But, you could also fail and become poor. Also, you might make friends, but you have no built in community to support you. You will have to find that on your own.

Which would you choose, and why? Hopefully you can see that neither option is necessarily right or wrong. Both have good and bad things about them. More fundamentally, both options have different ideas about how a life is best lived. The first option, representing the pre-modern world, emphasizes that knowing and nestling into’s one place is how we best live out our lives. The second option, representing the modern world, tells us to blaze a trail, make our mark, or create our path. Certainly most every movie made for children emphasizes this crucial theme of the modern world.

How the change from the pre-modern to the modern world will be the main focus of our year together.

Thanks so much, and have a great weekend,

Dave

8th Grade Civics: The One and the Many

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

Welcome to the first post of the year. I hope that students will find these updates helpful for review, and parents will enjoy getting a sneak peek into the classroom. Perhaps these updates can help you continue the conversations we have at school at home if you so wish.

We began the year by giving some theological context to some of the main issues that we will discuss this year. Understanding political isssues and the decisions of governments often involves understanding not just differing moral priorities, but different theological beliefs and emphases.

If we want to understand human life and experience, we must first understand the nature and reality of God Himself. He is the foundation of all life and existence, and “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). When individuals pattern their lives after the life of God, they are able to live more fully within the world God made. The same is true of civilizations and governments.

When we ask the question, “Who is God?” we affirm that God is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, and the Spirit is not the Father. Each person of the Trinity is distinct, but each are united in “essence.” In God, Unity and Diversity cohere in perfect harmony.

Marriage reflects Trinitarian reality in certain ways. Husband and wife are “one flesh” but they are not the same person. They have a unity that does not destroy their individuality. In fact, many couples would say that their unity enhances their individuality–that they become more fully themselves through their unity. This is one clue to know that you are in a good relationship. When we experience this, we experience a glimpse of Trinitarian life. Possibly, however, you have seen couples where this balance is out of whack.

Some couples might have a problem of too much diversity. They live separate lives and have no influence on each other. They do nothing together. They have no common purpose. Other couples (usually younger couples maybe first starting to date) could have the issue of too much unity. They cannot function apart. They can seemingly do nothing without the other, and their identity becomes completely submerged in the one they are dating. Or we can take individuals as an illustration. Some people go too far towards unity of their being. For example, one may have seen in books or movies a character that has trained for years as a covert operative. He is brave and skilled, but cannot relate to people in normal life or even be happy when not on a mission. At the other end, we have people who have too much diversity in their being, so much so that they cannot hold the different parts of themselves into a coherent unity. Schizophrenics reside at the extreme end of the ‘Diversity’ scale.

I believe governments, socieities, and cultures, function much in the same way as people. Societies can also have unity and diversity problems.

Of course, unity is good, and diversity is good. But just as there are Trinitarian heresies that over emphasize the unity of God (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and others that deny the diety of Christ), and those that over-emphasize the diversity of the three-personal nature of God (such as those who say that God changes from the Old to New Testaments, or other such examples), so too societies can encounter problems when they put undue emphasis on either unity or diversity.

For example, totalitarian societies (such as communist or fascist regimes) put too much emphasis in unity. Individual distinctives get erased as everyone bows down to the dictates of the regime. In these societies, one’s identification with political leadership becomes so pronounced, that even something small such as mild criticism of the rulers becomes a blow against one’s own being. To take an extreme example from our present day, you can see this in the hysteria of North Korean state funerals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTKopeQhiDo

But you can have the opposite problem of too much diversity. Without anything in common between citizens, no society would be possible. We would all be in the position of Robinson Crusoe, left to our own devices with no one to help us. Even an anarcho-capitalist, for example, must at least pre-suppose a common currency and robust contract laws to uphold the freedom of exchange.

As we discussed in class, some areas of civil life call for an emphasis on unity. For example, we have to all obey the same traffic laws. On our roads, one can’t drive too fast, or too slow. We need a common language and common currency to interact with each other. Other areas of life–or at least, life in a democracy–call for an emphasis on diversity and individuality. We believe that we should be free to choose our religion, and our political beliefs.

In general, societies that can recognize key fundamental truths about reality will function much better than those do not.

Of course, this does not mean that every decision is easy. There are gray areas where it can be hard to tell whether or not to emphasize Unity or Diversity. We brought up in class the example of a society at war. Winning wars requires a high level of shared purpose and unity. But what if the war is unjust? And–who should make the determination if the war is unjust? Should we leave it up to individuals?

Whatever the opinions of the students might be, I want them to understand that these questions are difficult. We talked about whether or not America emphasized unity or diversity, and everyone agreed that for better or worse, our civilization emphasizes diversity. That can work. Striking the perfect balance may be impossible, or what the perfect balance might be could depend on time and place. The important thing is to understand who we are so that we can have discernment in how we act. For example, it’s good to be an extrovert, and it’s good to be an introvert. Sometimes our tendencies work for us, and sometimes against us. If we can understand our tendencies as a person and as a civilization, we have a better chance of living with wisdom.

8th Grade Literature: Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies

by Dave Mathwin

Great movie directors tell a good story, but some of the very best know how to encapsulate the entirey of the movie’s tone and meaning within the first few minutes. Perhaps the most memorable recent example of this came in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, with its opening bank robbery scene:

After these first few minutes the viewer knows that the Joker is an agent of chaos, and that chaos and confusion will reign for the next two hours. Like a Russian nesting doll, the whole is contained in its parts.

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding tells a story of young adolescent boys stranded on an island during wartime. It is an adventure story, but Golding packs a great deal of philosophy and theology into his tale. His opening paragraph reveals a great deal about the story as a whole. It reads,

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. He was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry; and this cry was echoed by another.

Golding packs a great deal into his description.

  • “The boy with fair hair” we will soon learn to be Ralph, who has fair hair because he is going to be one of the main characters that tries to make things right between the boys. He stands for their best chance at justice.
  • We see that he has a “school sweater,” which lets us know that he attends an English prep school. His outfit is very much out of place in this setting, which clues us in that the boys, whatever their intentions may be, will be “up against it” throughout the story.
  • The “long scar” refers to a large cutting made in a jungle or forest. In this case, we soon find out that this scar was made by the crash of a plane the boys were on. The “scar” in the jungle foreshadows the violence the boys will experience, and the marks their experience will leave on their souls.
  • The presence of a “red and yellow” bird lets us know that we are in a tropical “paradise” of sorts. This paradise has “creepers” (a term for vines that hang from trees) in it, however. Creepers can look like huge snakes (some of the younger children will mistake them for snakes) and the use of this term should recall the Paradise of Creation and our fall into sin.
  • This red and yellow bird makes a “witch-like” cry, letting us know that nature itself, despite abundant food and water, will work against the boys. They are in a hostile environment.

We see, however, a chance at reasonable order come almost right away, in the form of a conch shell. A conch is a large shell found on beaches. Ralph finds one of his own and manages to learn how to blow it, and the noise gathers the scattered boys. Golding’s choice of the conch to have this role is not coincidental. A conch is

  • Intricate
  • Beautiful
  • Mesmerizing with its sound (if played correctly)

But the conch is also fragile. One careless moment around the rocks and the conch would shatter. With the conch as his symbol of order, Golding lets us know that he sees order as precious but also tenuous. In the world the boys inhabit, order is not the natural state of affairs. We’ll see Ralph struggle not so much with moral mistakes in his leadership, but “tactical” mistakes, such as holding an important meeting late at night, and making meetings too long. Even small mistakes such as these have big consequences. The chaos of nature waits right under the surface, ready to assert its dominance.

The book’s title is a reference to the biblical Philistine god of life, fertility, and prosperity. The Hebrews saw him differently, as a demon associated with decay and death. They called him Baal-zebub, or roughly translated, “Lord of the Flies” (2 Ki 1:2-6). Early in the story, the younger children (ages 6-8 or so) believe that there is a “beast” lurking in the forest. As the story progresses, Golding unfolds the identiry of the beast, and who exactly is “Lord of the Flies.” Possibly, the answer the story gives may surprise the students.

Have a great weekend,

Dave

8th Grade Literature: Inevitable v. “Evitable”

by Dave Mathwin

This week we finished our look at Asimov’s I Robot with it’s final story, “The Evitable Conflict.” Our first story involved a companion robot that could move but not speak. The last story moves decades into the future to a world where AI/robots essentially run the world though extensive and precise economic planning and coordination. War is a thing of the past, as is unemployment. Unquestionably humanity fares better in this new world, but accompanied with trade-offs

The final story has a somewhat banal premise. The seamless economy, the “perfect” robots, have performed wonders, but a few of their calculations have been slightly off. These errors have not caused any serious problems. Workers displaced from one industry, for example, quickly find work in another. But could these small errors presage the collapse of machine driven learning and governance? If so, would the people’s of earth (nations do not really exist anymore) descend into chaos?

The speed of AI advances has brought the subject of technology and human autonomy to the forefront of our minds, but the question is an old one. Many myths deal with this question, as does the Bible.

For example, both Hesiod and Ovid in their mythologies write about technology that comes soon after a golden age, a nod to the idea of Edenic paradise. Hesiod writes,

First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.

He goes on to write,

But when earth had covered this generation also — they are called blessed spirits of the underworld by men, and, though they are of second order, yet honour attends them also — Zeus the Father made a third generation of mortal men, a brazen race, sprung from ash-trees; and it was in no way equal to the silver age, but was terrible and strong. They loved the lamentable works of Ares and deeds of violence; they ate no bread, but were hard of heart like adamant, fearful men. Great was their strength and unconquerable the arms which grew from their shoulders on their strong limbs. Their armour was of bronze, and their houses of bronze, and of bronze were their implements: there was no black iron. These were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and left no name: terrible though they were, black Death seized them, and they left the bright light of the sun.

We see in Genesis this same pattern linking the devlopment of technology with violence. In Genesis 4 the line of Cain first developed the implements of civilization, including cities, tools, and the arts. After killing his brother, Cain was condemned to be a wanderer. Adam and Eve had been covered with “garments of skin” after the Fall, for they could no longer be naked (we should read this in literal, but also metaphorical terms). We could no longer have a direct relationship with creation or God Himself. Cain’s punishment was meant to return him to “nakedness,” to help reconnect with God and the enormity of his terrible deed. Cain rejected that and immediately began to make “coverings” for himself in the form of a city and other implements of civilization.

We see that cities/”civilization” have a bad rap in the first section of Genesis. This obviously starts with Cain, but continues with the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Egypt. There are hints of another possible path, however, with Melchizadek in Genesis 14. The same tools that are used to isolate Cain’s line from God can also be used to build the tabernacle and other sacred vessels, which brought the Israelites potentially closer to God. We get a hint of the redemption of cities when King David takes Jerusalem and makes it his capital. Finally, in Revelation 21 we see that redemption means something more than a mere return to the Garden. Instead we have a garden enclosed with a city, which indicates that though technology involves “coverings” that come from the Fall, that too becomes part of the redemptive story.

Our relationship with technology should reflect this tension and this hope. Technology enhances human power and potential, which is not always a bad thing. But at the same time, those same advances make us reliant on the tool itself. For example, the Israelites were not forbidden from using chariots (a significant ancient military technology) but they had to limit their use of them and other means of obtaining power (Dt. 17:16, Is. 31:1, etc.). For centuries technology developed, but at a measurable pace. Over the last 150 years, and perhaps especially in the last 60-75 years, the speed of development and its immediate integration into society has made it difficult to know where the line between help and hindrance might be. Many of us might choose to limit our interactions with phones, for example, but nearly all of us have to interact with computers, cars, and a host of other technologies all the time to function at a baseline in the modern world.

In “The Evitable Conflict” Asimov shows himself as essentially an optimist about technology. We can coexist and thrive even with highly advanced and “intelligent” machines guiding us. Many fear that AI will stifle human activity and imagination. Asimov envisions a world where AI instead unlocks and spurs human innovation, and in this Asimov anticipated our modern debates by some 75 years.

In Asimov’s world we design all artificial intelligence to obey the three laws of robotics, and the first law means that robots are not allowed to harm humans. They have to obey humans, and preserve their own existence as well. In the story the characters grapple with the following options as to what happened:

  • The machines have made wrong conclusions. If true, this means that the premise that we should follow the advice of the machines may be faulty as well.
  • The machines have been fed false information deliberately by an unknown source. If true, this would mean that the machines were being delibearately led to false conclusions, which also would mean that the advice of the machines should always be viewed with suspicion.

By definition the machines cannot be wrong. But even if they were, they have developed too far too quickly for humanity to have any idea how to find the error and repair them. In an ironic twist, the advancement of machines means that only advanced machines can fix the machines.*

The protagonist of the stories, robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, suggests that the robots may be giving slightly inaccurate information on purpose, in a sense, to protect themselves and to preserve human flourishing. At the end of the series of stories in I, Robot, the robots have learned to understand human emotions as well as the fluctuations of human behavior. It is perhaps possible that the AI can make things “perfect” in certain ways but it also “knows” that humanity won’t really accept that. So–the machines adjust, much like in the movie The Matrix.

The Head Coordinator suspects that some other regional heads are actually part of the Society for Humanity, which attempts to push back against our reliance on the machines. He then suggests that such people should be arrested and the organization banned.

Dr. Calvin advises against this. For one, such an action might make them martyrs and inspire more resistance. But her main objection is that the machines have taken such factors into account already. The small “errors” of the machines are in fact there on purpose to allow for humanity to have enough sense of autonomy that they do not rebel against the machines.

Asimov seems to be in favor of this state of affairs, but admittedly, I find it hard to be sure what he thinks.

Last week I showed the movie Primer to the class, for a variety of reasons. I wanted to expose them to sci-fi in another format, and I wanted to show them that great stories (the movie won many awards, and is a favorite of mine, so I am biased) do not need fancy effects or locales to achieve their purpose. But my main purpose in doing so was so that we could discuss the movie alongside of “The Evitable Conflict.”

The movie’s two main characters have two different perspectives on our relationship to time and causality. Without too many spollers, the story has two friends Aaron and Abe inadvertantly invent a means to go back in time for a day or two. They both realize the possibilities inherent with this for good or bad. They decide to use the machine a few times to get rich. But soon a rift develops bewteen them.

  • Aaron wants to unlock the metaphysical possibilities of the device. He doesn’t mind getting rich, but it’s not what really motivates him. Above all, he hates sameness and routine. His job, his middle class life, family, etc.—he chafes against it all. Could things have been different? Now, the machine allows one to try and see.
  • Abe believes that the order of things must be preserved at all cost. He is willing, through a very careful process, alter their lives (and no one else’s). But messing with order itself introduces the possibility of endless permutations that could destroy reality as we know it.

Most major technology that gets mainstreamed into society seems to have a paradoxical effect on us.

  • On the one hand, the new technology seems to offer nearly limitless possibility
  • On the other hand, it seems to create more uniformity of our human experience, not more diversity.

For example, Netflix offers thousands of different things to see. But most of the time, most of us,

  • Browse around for 10 minutes, then
  • End up watching one of the top shows advertised by Netflix

One might think that we would constantly be running into people telling us about the great show they unearthed on a streaming platform that you had not heard of before. But for most people, this rarely happens.

Another example . . . when the internet first became mainstream most believed that consumers would now have almost unlimited options about where to shop. We would no longer be confined to whatever stores we located nearby. And yet, most of us most of the time go to Amazon and buy what we need there. Amazon is so effecient and convenient, we feel no need to “shop around” like we might have 30-40 years ago.

Whether consciously or otherwise, Asimov tapped into this paradox with the last story in I, Robot. On one hand, following the advice of the machines leads to, by most means of measuring, greater human flourishing. But this state of affairs seems so homogenous, so routine, that it seems to be something “less” than human. Is Asimov then suggesting that machines are overall “better” than humans? Perhaps not, but I do think he believes that both have something to teach the other. That in itself is quite the controversial claim.

DM

*My dad has told me often that “back in the day” more or less everyone could repair their car with a small amount of knowledge and a few tools. Now, fixing cars requires specialized knowledge and tools. In many cases, fixing cars first means hooking your car up to a computer for it to diagnose the problem.