Tag Archives: history

6th Grade: Welcome to the Jungle

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings All,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

unframed presentation

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

Dave

8th Grade Civics: 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.

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

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 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 Civics: The Paradox of the 1990’s

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Load up on guns, bring your friends

It’s fun to lose and to pretend

She’s over-bored, and self-assured

Oh no, I know a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello, how low?

Hello, hello, hello

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle and Terminal Lucidity

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Problem 1: Insolence and Greed

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

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

Problem 2: Superiority

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

Problem 3: Fear

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

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

Problem 4: Loss of Balance and Proportion

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

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

Problem 5: Change

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

Problem 6: Immigration

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

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

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

Problem 7: Improper Construction of the State

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

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

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

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

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Regime Change

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings all,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He identifies two paths to success:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is Machiavelli advocating?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Literature: The Dog Days

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Linked with false prophets and unrestrained appetite

but on the other,

  • Associated with obedience, humility and protection.

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Civics: Value Propositions

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

The debate we viewed can be seen here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great weekend,

Dave

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle on justice and Justice

by Dave Mathwin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave

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

8th Grade Civics: Machiavelli, Watergate, and Getting Good at Being Bad(?)

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings Everyone,

This week we continued our look at Machiavelli, and paired up chapter 8 of The Prince with the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Nixon is best known for the Watergate scandal that led to his resignation during his second term in 1974. This is a fair verdict of history. However, we do well to remember that Nixon had a variety of foreign policy successes during his tenure, such as

  • Initiating a policy of detente, and the SALT treaties signed with the Soviet Union which contributed to easing the nuclear arms race.
  • Assisting in peace negotiations between Israeal and other Arab nations duirng the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
  • His historic overture to China and our opening of diplomatic relations. While we may wonder today at the ultimate legacy of our shift in China policy over the last 50 years, at the time it was a revolutionary move that likely helped hasten the end of the Cold War.

Domestically, Nixon had several initiatives that may surprise some who know him only through the prism of Watergate:

  • He started several new government agencies, such as the EPA, OSHA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  • He took the US economy off of the gold standard
  • He reshaped financial policy by creating the Office of Management and Budget*
  • He passed the Clean Water Act

Some of these policies were popular, some not, but we cannot question that for a time he was an effective political leader and easily won reelection in 1972. But the Watergate scandal, and Nixon’s actions during the scandal, unraveled everything very quickly, and we should consider why this was the case. For that, we turned to Machiavelli’s insights about rulers who exercise “villainy.”

Machiavelli begins chapter eight of The Prince discussing two infamous rulers, and begins with Agathocles of Sicily, writing,

The son of a potter, he led a life of the utmost wickedness through all the stages of his fortune. Nevertheless, his wickedness was accompanied by such vigor of mind and body, that having joined the miltia, he rose through its grades to become praetor of Syracuse. . . . He [then] called together the people and Senate of the city, having imparted his design to fight Hamilcar the Carthaginian, . . . at a given signal had the senators and all the rich men of the city murdered, [eliminating all who could oppose him]. . . . And although he was twice beaten by Carthage and ultimately beseiged, he was able not only to defend the city, . . . but also [expand its territory into Africa] and [eventually] brought the Carthiginians to terms. In the end, he maintained his position as prince by many courageous and perilous expedients.

It cannot be called virtue to kill one’s fellow citizens, betray one’s friends, be without faith or pity, and without religion, by which methods one may indeed gain an empire but not glory.

Machiavelli goes on to cite the example of someone contemporary to his own day, who used many of the same methods as Agathocles. Later in the chapter, he continues,

Some may wonder how it came about that Agathocles, and others like him, could, after infinite treachery and crueltry, live secure for many years in their country without being conspired against by their subjects; although many others have, through their cruelty, been unable to maintain their position in times of peace, to say nothing of the uncertain times of war.

Machiavelli then answers his query, writing,

I believe this arises from the cruelties being used well or badly. “Well” used may be called those (if it is permissable to use the word of evil) which are committed once for the need of securing oneself, and which afterwards are not persisted in, but which are exchanged for methods as useful to the citizens as possible. Cruelties ill used are those which , although at first few, increase rather than diminish with time. Those who follow the former method may remedy in some measure their condition with God and man, as did Agathocles. As to the others, it is impossible for them to maintain themselves. . . . a conqueror must arrange to have all his cruelties come at once, so as not to have to resort to them every day . . .

We can first note that almost no political leader follows his advice, and indeed, in a democratic system, following his advice (supposing that one should do so, a different question entirely) becomes almost impossible. To get elected, one must promise good things, and certainly not state that one will begin their term by doing various evil deeds. To get elected, one must at least give the appearance of either a) healing the harms done by the previous leader, or b) prevent the harms that the challenger will introduce should they be elected.

The elected leader usually then enjoys a honeymoon period, an era of good feelings, where people assume the best and enjoy the change. Then, later, when the leader makes missteps, they are judged harshly for them. Among other things, these missteps go against the grain of their earlier cultivated image.

For presidents that serve two terms, the second term usually brings crisis and controversy. Truman’s second term had the Korean War, Johnson’s second term had violence in cities and the escalation in Vietnam. Nixon had Watergate, and Reagan the Iran-Contra scandal. Clinton had the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment. Bush had to face increasing difficulties and costs in Iraq, as well as the financial crash of ’08. The good feelings engendered by Obama in his first term disappeared during his second. There appears little escape from this pattern.

Perhaps one problem modern political leaders have is that they have little chance to exercise physical courage in any direct way. This limits their chances to win the favor of the people and renew their mandate, so to speak. Agathocles, for example, didn’t just take political risks that paid off, he regularly risked his own life.

Crtics of Machiavelli assert that he encouraged rulers to do evil things, or at least, gave them a pathway for doing so. This is possible, but I think we have to think more deeply about his words. Machiavelli does not say one can be a great ruler by doing evil, but q successful one. There is a difference. If one regards politics as an inevitably dirty business, then one needs to be aware of how to use the dirt. The divide, I think comes between those who think the dirt cannot be avoided, and those who think that it can. Machiavelli would tell us that the problem with modern leadership is not the dirt on their hands, but that they tell us that their hands are clean.

Dave

*I would suggest that the “throughline” for understanding both his foreign policy successes, his domestic policy initiatives, and the Watergate scandal is that of control. Nixon was not process oriented but idea oriented. He was suspicious of collaboration and had a hard time trusting others. He believed he was the one who best control events and outcomes. So, taking the economy off the gold standard gave the Fed more control over the economy, his budget reorganization put more power into the executive branch, and perhaps he created other federal agencies to extend executive power even in areas traditionally not managed by government. As for Watergate, rather than come clean at first and accept minor damage, he believed he could control the messaging and prevent problematic fallout. His miscalculation on this (in addition to his actual obstruction of justice) led to his demise.

8th Grade Civics: Machiavelli Explains Vietnam

by Dave Mathwin

This week we continued our look at the Vietnam war. The fall of South Vietnam has many causes, but given our limited time with this period, we need to try and find the “core” of why our policies and military intervention failed to prevent North Vietnam from absorbing South Vietnam.

Machiavelli’s speciality involves viewing different events through a few key principles, one of them involving how states get created and how people come to rule them.

He writes,

Those who solely by good fortune become princes from being private citizens have little trouble in rising, but much in keeping atop; they have not any difficulties on the way up, because they fly, but they have many when they reach the summit. Such are those to whom some state is given either for money or by the favour of him who bestows it; as happened to many in Greece, in the cities of Ionia and of the Hellespont, where princes were made by Darius, in order that they might hold the cities both for his security and his glory; as also were those emperors who, by the corruption of the soldiers, from being citizens came to empire. Such stand simply upon the goodwill and the fortune of him who has elevated them — two most inconstant and unstable things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position; because, unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not reasonable to expect that they should know how to command, having always lived in a private condition; besides, they cannot hold it because they have not forces which they can keep friendly and faithful.

States that rise unexpectedly, then, like all other things in nature which are born and grow rapidly, cannot have their foundations and relations with other states fixed in such a way that the first storm will not overthrow them; unless, as is said, those who unexpectedly become princes are men of so much ability that they know they have to be prepared at once to hold that which fortune has thrown into their laps, and that those foundations, which others have laid before they became princes, they must lay afterwards. 

Machiavelli goes on to cite examples of men who gain power through nepotism, such as Cesare Borgia, who demonstrated enormous energy and creative drive. Borgia had the respect of some, and the fear of most. He had many successes. And yet, as Machiavelli notes, even a man of such ability as Borgia had his power eroded almost the moment his father died. If Cesare Borgia failed, we can count on almost everyone failing in some way in such a position.

We will understand Machiavelli better if we understand his terminology, especially the word “Fortune.” For example, a person might get into Harvard not because of their achievements but because of a large contribution from their parents. A king might place his favorite in charge of a conquered province, regardless of his connection to the people there or his experience. All this would be an example of Fortune at work.

Very few places in Machiavelli’s day made political decisions via elections, so his advice may seem outdated. But if by “princes” we take “rulers” more generally that will help us understand his words more clearly.

When looking at South Vietnam, we should first realize that in many ways, the state was created by “Fortune” artificially. True, the Vietnamese people had existed for centuries, and Vietnam as a region had existed for centuries. But after the French lost control of what was then called Indochina in 1954, Vietnam was partitioned into North and South Vietnam by treaty. The US had a heavy hand in making sure this happened, and we had good reasons for doing so. We wanted to stop the spread of communism, for one (the North was basically communist controlled) and we wanted to preserve the long southern coastline for shipping, trade, and other security reasons. But South Vietnam was essentially created by “Fortune” and its president, Ngo Diem, was in power at least partly due to our influence.

Machiavelli would have said that the fall of South Vietnam 1975 had a lot to do with the circumstances of its founding in 1954. It would have taken extraordinary leadership to overcome the inherent problems involved in its somewhat artificial creation. Unfortunately, President Diem displayed some of the worst characteristics of leaders created by Fortune.

To be fair to Diem, he was an intelligent man and a staunch anti-communist. He likely also held sincere Christian beliefs. He had a real desire to see South Vietnam succeed. He showed courage in the war for independence from the French, for in eschewing both communism and colonialism, he made himself vulnerable to reprisals from both parties. He wanted a democratic Vietnam, and had well thought out ideas of how to map democracy onto Vietnamese culture and history.

Having said this, many leaders created by Fortune can forget that they did not truly earn their position. This can lead them to overconfidence, which in turn leads them to isolate themselves from the populace.* Diem made several missteps, among them

  • He was a Catholic in a largely Buddhist part of Vietnam. Historians debate the nature of his treatment of Buddhists as democratic equals, but his policies towards them failed to connect. Eventually, he ended up cracking down on the civil liberties of Buddhists.
  • He held elections, but almost certainly rigged them in his favor, or at least, significantly exaggerated the extent of his winning margins.
  • He practiced nepotism, giving family members key governmental posts. If these family members had great ability, this could have mitigated the political cost of nepotism. As it was, his family members were corrupt and unstable. One of his brothers, for example, was a professed admirer of Hitler.

When the US finally decided to withdraw its support of Diem in 1963, a successful coup attempt happened almost immediately. But one coup can lead to another, and South Vietnam never again had a stable government. After hearing about the coup Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam, reportedly stated that, “I can hardly believe the Americans would be so stupid.” The North Vietnamese government wrote that,

The consequences of the 1 November coup d’état will be contrary to the calculations of the US imperialists … Diệm was one of the strongest individuals resisting the people and Communism. Everything that could be done in an attempt to crush the revolution was carried out by Diệm. Diệm was one of the most competent lackeys of the US imperialists. Among the anti-Communists in South Vietnam or exiled in other countries, no one has sufficient political assets and abilities to cause others to obey. Therefore, the lackey administration cannot be stabilized. The coup d’état on 1 November 1963 will not be the last.

Indeed, this unfortunately proved prescient. South Vietnam experienced many other changes in leadership over the next several years, and no regime ever had anything like stability. In such an environment, American military efforts were akin to pouring water into a sieve. South Vietnam crumbled as the US inevitably withdrew its support, and US culture crumbled as well, with the domestic and foreign scene mirroring each other in some ways.

Dave

*The story of South Vietnam partially foreshadows what happened in Afghanistan in 2001-2020. Our invasion helped install Hamid Karzai in power, and he began his term in office with significant international acclaim and support. Based on my very limited knowledge it seems to me he was a better leader than Diem, and smarter about how he tried to unite different factions. Karzai was intelligent and courageous. In time, however, his relationship with the U.S. soured, and he was accused of corruption from different facets of the Afghan and international community. Afghanistan could not maintain the momentum of the early 2000’s, and in time the Taliban returned. This quasi-democratic interregnum lasted about 20 years, roughly the same amount of time South Vietnam existed.

8th Grade Civics: Aristotle helps explain Vietnam

by Dave Mathwin

In Book V of his Politics Aristotle writes that

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is the lack of clarity that divides internally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8th Grade Literature: Introduction to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

by Dave Mathwin

Next week we will start our next book for the year, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Verne’s stories captivated the people of his time. Many of his books have been made into movies, which is one measure of cultural resonance. His stories had straightforward plots and generally stock characters, which aided their serialization into the popular magazines of the day. So on one level, I hope that the students enjoy the story as an adventure tale.

But like any great author, a particular worldview informs the work, and the story raises interesting questions for us to consider.

The Relationship Between Technology and Freedom

Verne wrote in the mid-late 19th century, a time of enormous technological change, perhaps a shift greater than what we have experienced the last twenty years or so. The Industrial Revolution not only remade the economy, it shifted how we worked and lived as a society. This period saw the spread of democratic ideals throughout Europe and America as well, and the casting off of traditional institutions and ideas. Elites across the western world lost a great deal of status, which culminated in World War I. So one the one hand, the growth of political freedom and technology went hand in hand.

Yet in our day, we see that the relationship between technology and freedom is not so straightforward. Our phones give us immediate access to information everywhere, but they also track us and have a way of fixating our attention. Computers allow us to be more creative and productive at work but this also means that work can follow us anywhere at anytime. Cars allow us to roam with more speed and flexibility than at any previous time in history but they break down frequently and require us to work long hours to maintain them.

This paradox is not confined to our day. For example, most saw the obvious benefits of the Industrial Revolution in the abundance of goods at cheaper prices for a great mass of people. In very real ways, the standard of living went up. To achieve this, millions of people had to work menial, robotically repetitive jobs in factories for 12-14 hours a day.

In Verne’s story, Captain Nemo consciously sought to free himself from the constraints of civilization’s laws and mores, and takes to the sea . . . where he spends his life confined in a metal shell. The Nautilus gives and takes away from Nemo and his crew in equal measure. We shall explore this relationship as we read.

The Relationship Between Man and Society

We often define freedom as the absence of constraints, i.e., no one tells me what to eat for lunch, or what movie to see, or who to vote for. In this respect Nemo and his crew are “free.” But as already noted, this form of freedom comes with a price. Philosophers and theologians outline another view of freedom, one where the constraints put upon us actually aid us in achieving our proper ends as men and women. For example, a train is certainly constrained by the tracks on which it moves. Yet those very constraints help the train be what it what it was created to be. Without tracks, a train cannot fulfill its proper “end,” or (to use Aristotle’s phrase) “telos.” A train sitting in the woods has no freedom to be a train.

So too, our families, communities, and our country certainly put constraints upon us. Children and adults alike resent them at times. We might rather play the video game than do our homework. We might rather finish our movie than clean the kitchen or change the diaper of a crying child. On a societal level, our politicians can annoy and disappoint us, and we may pine for other lands where the grass seems greener. Captain Nemo is the classic “tortured soul” that our culture has trained us to admire. We can certainly appreciate Nemo’s courage, intelligence, and devotion to his crew. But we need to see how Nemo’s separation from civilization has also warped his sensibilities. Our connections to those around us shape who we are, and without them, we are left with the freedom of the void.

Many business leaders, politicians, and the like, reflect that it is “lonely at the top.” I remember my pastor in college confiding to me that most all of his truly good friends were other pastors. They shared a common bond that others cannot quite relate to. So too, a ship’s captain will likely find the highest level of kinship with other captains. But because Nemo has severed ties with the world, he cut himself off from the possibility of that kinship. He has his ship, his books, and his studies, to comfort him.