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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.

8th Grade Civics: An Experiment in Freedom

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

Having spent much of the year with 20th century history, Aristotle, and Machiavelli, we now shift our focus (without leaving either of them entirely behind) to our own Constitution and how it functions. The ‘tent pole’ related to this will be an extensive activity related to how our system of government works, and how our founders conceived of how democracy should best function.

Living 250 years after the fact, we take certain things about America for granted. Having lived with the same Constitution and the same general ideas for so long, we can imagine that such things are simply part of the structure of the universe at some level. In fact, many key concepts about the Constitution were radical for its time, and the founders saw it that way. America would be, and perhaps still is, an experiment whose final results may be undecided.

In the late 18th century, the main prevailing idea about democracy and republican government involved two key assumptions:

  • Democracies can work, but only within communities that are essentially homogenous, where people know each other and trust is high. Too much diversity within a community would create the need for a strong centralized state to hold people together, which was antithetical to democracy.
  • Plato thought the ideal size of the city should be 5000. Aristotle avoided choosing one fixed number, but thought that a large city of, for example, 100,000 people would be ungovernable. Other subsequent political thinkers thought likewise. All agreed that large republics would lead to the breakdown of democracy. The example of Rome proved this. The collapse of the Republic between 133-31 BC had many factors, but their overseas expansion into Africa and other parts of the Mediterranean certainly contributed.

Many often dismiss Plato as an impractical idealist, and some of his thought may deserve this. However, in his section of The Laws where he argues for the right size of the city, he makes the salient points that

  • We cannot rightly choose leaders if we have no way of actually knowing them
  • Communities are built first on trust, not law, and we cannot trust each other without having the possibility of knowing one another.
  • A community must have a “center,” which binds both in a spiritual/cultural manner and in a physical manner. This geographic center (usually a religious site) needs to be easily accessible to all for the community to function.
  • The larger the community, the more opportunity for variation exists. In a small community, differences between the wealth of each citizen would likely be moderate. But in a bigger community, with greater variation introduced, those differences would grow. In Beverly Hills, some houses are bigger than others, but everyone has a nice house. In a poorer area, houses are not as nice but everyone’s house is equally not as nice. If you combined Beverly Hills with poorer areas together, then you would have a problem.*

A more contemporary political writer admired by the founders was the French judge Charles Secondat Montesquieu,wrote in his Spirit of the Laws that

It is natural for a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist. In an extensive republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too considerable to be placed in any single subject; he has interests of his own; he soon begins to think that he may be happy and glorious, by oppressing his fellow-citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country.

In an extensive republic the public good is sacrificed to a thousand private views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is more obvious, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses have less extent, and, of course, are less protected.

In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the different states had to decide how they would exist together. Combining would create a huge country, and every prominent thinker in every state knew political theory. Creating a government with greater central unity would have advantages, but could democracy survive the size and diversity of the country? Many had grave doubts.*

After the creation of the Constitution in 1787, each state hotly debated its merits. Many prominent revolutionaries (such as Virginia’s Patrick Henry) opposed its ratification. This led to James Madison and Alexander Hamilton (with an occasional assist from John Jay) to write a series of essays now known as the Federalist Papers, which made the case for the Constitution to the public at large.

James Madison wrote two of the more famous essays (#10, #51) that tackle the problem of large republics. In these essays, Madison ingeniously (though controversially) turns the problem of large republics on its head and attempts to flip the script. Madison begins by identifying faction as the key enemy of democracy. A “faction” comprises a group of people within the state who combine to act adversely to the public interest. An example might be a group that wants to pass a law imposing an extra tax on everyone with red hair. Such a law would obviously unfairly benefit the general population at the expense of a few.

Madison admits that given the fact that

  • Democracies allow for people to be different and believe different things, and
  • People are naturally selfish and unreasonable,

factions will inevitably exist. What to about them? We could either eliminate them or control their effects, i.e., limit the damage they cause. To eliminate them would mean refusing the population liberty and creatings stifling centralized governement. The cure would be worse than the disease.

The other option involves controlling their effects, and here Madison ingeniously and controversially flips the script. He argues that, in fact, a large republic can better control factions. In a small population, if the “tax the red haired people” faction comprised a majority in a small city, the faction would prevail. But that same faction would represent only a small part of a larger population and would pose no real threat to governance.

Of course, other factions would exist, some of them just as pernicious or worse. But the multiplicity of factions spread out over a significant area would end up canceling each other out. The large geography and the large population would act like water, which moderates the extremes of temperature.

One has to admire Madison’s audacity and ingenuity. The question remains–was he correct? One can reasonably answer the question in the following ways:

  • Madison was correct because we are still here 250 years later. We still have our Constitution and regular federal and state elections. We have had issues, bumps, and bruises but those are inevitable in any case.
  • Yes, Madison was right for his time but given our situation, his idea fails to land. Madison could not have foreseen the advent of mass media, which changes the equation. Mass media allows for the formation of a national consciousness and hence, nation-sized factions. We have seen factions take over and destroy both Germany and Japan in the 20th century, with the Nazi Party and a military dictatorship, respectively. One could argue that a faction ruled Russia/Soviet Union for nearly 75 years.
  • No, Madison was wrong. He had a brilliantly inventive idea, but one that simply was not correct. We have had continual problems with trying to live out a national life with a large republic. We barely survived the election of 1800. We had the Trail of Tears, the Nullification Crisis, the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, COVID controversies, etc. Aristotle and Plato were correct–a large republic creates too many problems, regardless of the presence of mass media or not. We would be better off with thousands of different smaller communities scattered throughout the continent.

Whatever one might think of Madison’s ideas, we should realize that our founders conceived of America as an experiment that might not work, and that each succeeding generation has to maintain the delicate balance required to keep a republic.

Dave

*Plato thinks faction is a problem, but believes that distraction is the biggest problem a state can face, and he relates this to the disparity of wealth that can exist between citizens. He writes,

The form of law which I should propose as the natural sequel would be as follows:-In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues-not faction, but rather distraction;-here should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty, nor, again, excess of wealth, for both are productive of both these evils. Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or wealth. Let the limit of poverty be the value of the lot; this ought to be preserved, and no ruler, nor any one else who aspires after a reputation for virtue, will allow the lot to be impaired in any case. This the legislator gives as a measure, and he will permit a man to acquire double or triple, or as much as four times the amount of this. But if a person have yet greater riches, whether he has found them, or they have been given to him, or he has made them in business, or has acquired by any stroke of fortune that which is in excess of the measure, if he give back the surplus to the state, and to the Gods who are the patrons of the state, he shall suffer no penalty or loss of reputation; but if he disobeys this our law any one who likes may inform against him and receive half the value of the excess, and the delinquent shall pay a sum equal to the excess out of his own property, and the other half of the excess shall belong to the Gods. And let every possession of every man, with the exception of the lot, be publicly registered before the magistrates whom the law appoints, so that all suits about money may be easy and quite simple.

8th Grade Literature: Robots on the Brain

by Dave Mathwin

This week we began our reading of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, a famous and influential collection of short stories oriented around the theme of human interaction with robots in the near future. Asimov wrote these stories in the 1940’s and 50’s, but he was remarkably prescient about some of the issues and concerns those in the future (us) would have about the advances in this kind of technology. The stories begin with robots that interact with humans but cannot talk, to robots that make active predictions, invent religions, and learn to lie which pose a host of problems for their human inventors. I don’t see Asimov as warning his readers so much as informing them that the advance of robots, whether ultimately for good or ill, is inevitable.

Asimov has robots developed with three laws:

  • A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm
  • A robot must obey the orders of a human being, unless that order conflicts with the first law
  • A robot must protect its own existence so long as doing so does not conflict with the other two laws.

The laws are hierarchically structured, so that Law 1 takes precedence over Law 2, and so forth.

The three laws look solid. Their simplicity is their strength. But stories deal with the implications of these three laws, as the technology develops. One of the strenghts of Asimov’s work is that what looks simple on its face becomes complex as we interact with the new technology.

Some time ago a friend who worked as a computer programmer said something to the effect of, “Computers will do exactly what you tell them to do. When we have a problem with a computer, we likely either a) Do not understand what we told the computer to do, or b) We told the computer something different than what we thought we told them.” This holds true in the stories we have read so far.

The first story involves a robot that a family buys to serve as a companion for a young child. Obviously, they want the robot to be safe, and to look out for the safety of the child. The robot would have to be accommodating to get along with the child. But this in turn means that the robot would then enjoy what the child enjoys as a robot would, which means . . . all the time. What child wouldn’t want a companion that essentially plays with you and accommodates you whenever you want.

The child, naturally, would bond to the robot and forget about other children. The mother in the story sounds exactly like parents today. The concern is the same, only the particulars have changed. Every mother who worries about their child’s attachment to their phones, computers, or video games (why can’t they play with children instead of machines?), sounds just like the mother in the opening story, “Robbie.”

But . . . if the child is happy and if the robot protects her from disaster (which he does), and if robots are the way of the future and are simply part of how kids grow up these days, then the presence of robots becomes inevitable eventually. In this way, the mother in the story comes across slightly as the “bad guy” and such is the subversive nature of Asimov’s first story. Asimov wants us, I think, to be precise about the nature of our objection to robots.

  • Is it that we dislike change? But change in any society is inevitable.
  • Is it that we dislike the speed of change? The change may be uncomfortably fast, but if others are doing it, won’t we have to adapt to keep up? Civilizations that fall behind often get absorbed by other civilizations.
  • Is it that we dislike this particular form of technology? Ok, but how would a robot differ qualitatively from other technology that we already use? For example, a dishwasher is a robot that does not move or talk, though it does communicate with us. Our phones cannot move but can talk back to us on some level.

My impression is that with these stories, Asimov wants to force us to come to a clear understanding of what our views of life, technology, and “progress” actually are. We can’t dislike something just because it is new, or just because it is shocking or unnerving. For example, when cars were an extremely disruptive technology when first introduced, but are now just part of society. But I am also guessing that Asimov would not simply agree that any new thing must therefore be adopted. The hard question remains—where to draw the line, and why?

In the first story, “Robbie” (the robot) becomes more human like the longer he interacts with the child. For example, he learns to have favorite stories. But for humans to interact with robots, they have to learn to think according to the 3 Laws, which means, thinking like robots think. In time, some kind of overlap between robot and human “psychology” and behavior become inevitable, another unintended consequence of technology.

In all the stories, Asimov sets up the narrative so that the robot cannot really be blamed. They follow instructions. The problem is that we cannot anticipate all the ways in which they might follow those instructions, and how that will change society and humanity all at once.

In one story this means that robots learn to lie in ways similar to humans. As robot technology advances they interact more socially with humans. When we interact with those we know, we do not always tell each other the unvarnished truth. We might tell a friend that an outfit looks good even if we don’t think so, as just one example. After all, we don’t want to “harm” our friend by telling them what we really think. As the stories progess and our interaction with robots gets more complex, the robots’ ability to follow Law 1 (no harm to humans) increases. This, in turn, means that robots start to tell people what they think they want to hear, which leads to great confusion.

8th Grade Civics: Democracy Moderated

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

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

Machiavelli writes,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But on the other . . .

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

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Literature: Giving and Taking Away

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

There is a Chinese anecdote which runs as follows:

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

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

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

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

I would summarize the relationship of technology to humanity thusly:

Every increase in power creates an increase in vulnerability.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Literarture: A Tale Told by an Idiot

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave

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

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

He begins chapter 13 of The Prince writing,

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

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

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

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

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

  • You pay them, and
  • You created them

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

Auxiliaries are a different category.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Load up on guns, bring your friends

It’s fun to lose and to pretend

She’s over-bored, and self-assured

Oh no, I know a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave