• Obama accuses McCain of lacking a thing which he himself, arguably, lacks even more. A word for that? Hypocrisy perhaps?
• Global temperatures still dropping. Global mean temperature is not “weather”, I think, and is relevant for those who believe the Gore get-rich-quick global warming scheme.
• In which a push for more complexity in public discourse goes suddenly off the rails.
• A better way to argue.
• Putting modern fuel economy in perspective. Driving slower indeed helps fuel economy, I think I’d be getting 100-120 mpg if I drove 40 on the highway.
• Baseball. Part two here.

• A new Bible translation based on the LOLCat lingo. Blasphemy or not?
• Liberty and Chesterton.
• Promises, global warming and the Democrats. CO2 unreleated to global warming?
• Shouldn’t that list be “heaven’s most wanted”?
• The Habermas/Ratzinger debate re-framed in terms of socialism, i.e., is the socialist state self sustainable?
• New Jersey gets it exactly wrong.

Christian thinking has a strange relationship with poverty. There is at the one hand a strong a call for charity,  to aid the poor, the opressed, and those in need. On the other hand, there is:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

via Luke 6. And Romans 5:

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

So, imagine for a moment, that the dreams of the world economists is bears fruit. That by intelligent policy the world leaders managed to thread the needle between freedom and social networking/support and as well come up with a workable plan and solve the “bottom billion” problem and poverty world-wide is solved. Everyone on the planet by dint of management of resource and economic management is now wealthy. Poverty is no more.

Then … no more will anyone be able to rejoice in his suffering … and have endurance, character and thereby hope (see Benedict on Hope).  Everyone will be as shallow and hedonistic as the average American, without the tempering of either latent Puritan or religion to guide them. Oh, joy.

Furthermore, how should we interpret “blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” … Does that urge us to aid the poor and help them to become wealthy like us … thereby of course causing them to lose the kingdom of God (for there reward will then be in the here and now). Or does is more likely mean that we should not ourselves run the treadmill seeking salvation, ease, and happiness via material things.

So what is the way clear of this apparent paradox, that we are to help the poor … but that being poor is in and of itself a good thing. I have some thoughts … but I’m going to leave them for a later time.

Comments?

From a theological perspective at least. Heresy? Via the corner.

GG: Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA: Yes.
GG: What is sin?
OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.

I can’t imagine a way to spin that as reasonable in or out of context. Sin is being out of line with Obama’s values?

Well, in the light that for the liberal/progressive hypocrisy is the only sin … that makes sense. That is, the only error one can make is not “being true to oneself” or acting differently than one the values one believes in.

However … that isn’t what sin is.

• Milk and sawdust.
• A top 10 “evil men” list … correlate with Marxism?
• Christ and feminism.
• A book and a hero.
• A film, I am David, which I saw in the theater and also recommend it highly.
• The best worst gadget of the year.

Intrade is a betting pool, which uses a market model to “predict” political and other sorts of events. However, it misses many essential features of market which make it less reliable as a device for optimization than one would imagine. Intrade came up in a discussion this morning and the reflections below are the result.

Marxism caricatures the market with a vision of workers slaving away “making stuff” and the “owners” fat catting it up reaping the profits which they fail to share with the blue collar set. However, a casual inspection of actual business in the real world demonstrates a number of important errors in this model (and as well in the Intrade model of market).

The free market works not just because of flexible financing methods like the stock markets, but because there are optimizations in a lot of places. The “workers” at the blue collar level work. But the rest of the business/management is not just “an owner”  collecting due proceeds. There are engineers, maintenance, and developers working on developing new ways of either getting their product out the door with less cost or higher productivity and developing new products. There are sales and advertising people working to find new ways to bring what is made to market. 3M for example, when their engineering people came up with a glue that “failed” … because it didn’t dry some bright people realized that a non-drying glue could be useful … and now post-its are everywhere. A market and demand for a new product was “created” by engineering errors and smart product development people. These people would likely be placed as  “owners” not “workers” in the Marxian caricature of industry. Additionally, management or “owners” do work hard as well. A lot of market development and sales and corporate strategic alliances are developed which cut the deals necessary to get the raw materials and financing necessary to keep a business afloat. Just as working on an assembly line is “work”, so is management. It just requires a different skill set. The point is that a great deal of free market efficiency comes from a lot of people hunting for better ways of doing very many things at the same time. It doesn’t come from market structure, i.e., stock market and particular banking methods. It comes from people being motivated by their best interests (making money and staying in business) to think and work hard to do things the best way. A lot of local optimizations making for fast global optimization.

The Intrade problem is that the majority of market efficiency and innovation is tied up in mangement (those alliances and financing and other engineering/product development) noted above … but this facet is lacking in the Intrade mode. “Placing bets” in a market framework might be a good polling mechanism … but it is basically parimutual betting which doesn’t insure optimal results.

Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength has in the last week been running a series on spiritual resources for the terminally ill and their caregivers. Now, where I’m placed in my life’s journey has not found me interacting closely with the terminally ill and I’m not naturally very emotive/empathic anyhow. However, it so happens that this Sunday afternoon our choir visited a terminally ill member of our congregation who is (had been) a member of the choir. I hadn’t gotten to know at all over the past year so we haven’t been visiting until now. But … to the point. When we visited we sang a few songs.

As our final song, our choir sang St. Simeon’s prayer (in the west the Nunc Dimittis) :

??? ???????? ??? ?????? ???, ???????, ???? ?? ???? ??? ?? ??????,

??? ????? ?? ???????? ??? ?? ???????? ???,

? ????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ??? ????,

??? ??? ?????????? ????? ??? ????? ???? ??? ??????.

or more usefully, i.e., in English (which is actually how we sang it but some Greek was sung, i.e., the Paschal Toparion)

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

This is a song well known in Orthodox liturgy as it is part of the Great Vespers service, which in the States is sung every Saturday night.

On the drive home, we were discussing in our family whether this was appropriate to sing in the presence of the dying. I think it is, for that is the precise context of St. Simeon’s urge to speak these words. He has now seen the Christ child and is, as an elderly and likely infirm man … ready to depart … life. The common usage of this song is at the end of a service, and often “now let thy servant depart” is taken as to depart from this place of worship and return to secular life. However, that is now what was meant in the original context. So in that regard, as a song for the dying … it both is appropriate and may provide some comfort.

Comments?

• Someone forgot we are licensed, ordained into the laity by our Baptism.
• A book, not in French, on the Maid of Orleans.
• American death-ways … noted.
• A man, a whale, a town.
• Mr Hefner … found wanting.
• Fictional life and art.

In chapter 19 of the first conferences of St. John Cassian, it is noted that our thoughts have three origins. That the thoughts we perceive come from God, Satan, or ourselves. Discernment is then of crucial importance. What does Abba Moses (the desert ascetic whom St. John is interviewing in the Conferences) say about discretion? Well, he says quite a bit, for he finds that one of the most important virtue for a Christian. One of the things he says is (chapter 10 of the 2nd conference):

The answer how true discretion may be gained.

THEN Moses: True discretion, said he, is only secured by true humility. And of this humility the first proof is given by reserving everything (not only what you do but also what you think), for the scrutiny of the elders, so as not to trust at all in your own judgment but to acquiesce in their decisions in all points, and to acknowledge what ought to be considered good or bad by their traditions. And this habit will not only teach a young man to walk in the right path through the true way of discretion, but will also keep him unhurt by all the crafts and deceits of the enemy. For a man cannot possibly be deceived, who lives not by his own judgment but according to the example of the elders, nor will our crafty foe be able to abuse the ignorance of one who is not accustomed from false modesty to conceal all the thoughts which rise in his heart, but either checks them or suffers them to remain, in accordance with the ripened judgment of the elders. For a wrong thought is enfeebled at the moment that it is discovered: and even before the sentence of discretion has been given, the foul serpent is by the power of confession dragged out, so to speak, from his dark under-ground cavern, and in some sense shown up and sent away in disgrace. For evil thoughts will hold sway in us just so long as they are hidden in the heart: and that you may gather still more effectually the power of this judgment I will tell you what Abbot Serapion did, and what he used often to tell to the younger brethren for their edification.

This is counter to much of protestant praxis, which relies heavily on trusting in your own personal abilities of discernment. The practice of confession, of the spiritual guide/father is one largely lost in the modern Roman church and in even more in the American protestant with the Yankee tradition of self-reliance. Even in Orthodoxy there is a lot of latitude regarding confession and spirtual guidance and traditions widely vary. For myself, I have discovered that the sacrament of confession to be a great joy and help in feeding and strengthening my spirtual life and journey.

My question for my readers is this. Take as granted that discretion is of crucial importance. Then is Abba Moses wrong in what he says about discretion? Is the virtue of humility a prerequisite for discretion? If not, where is Abba Moses error?  And if so … does how your tradition seeks and strengthen your personal virtue of true humility?

Historically, in the Christian church there were “eight grevious or deadly sins” … which Pope Gregory (the Great) the the 6th century dropped the 7th to prune the list to 7. The one dropped ironically can be translated as “self-esteem.” This is ironic in view of the public school’s emphasis on self-esteem as a virtue. It should, I would think, give us today pause to consider that what was for 600 years in the Christian tradition one of the cardinal sins is in the “wisdom”  of our age thought a virtue. Who do you think more Godly, the Coptic ascetics or the modern west?

Commenter Don Trabue had remarked earlier that he had never heard of St. John Chrysostom. It’s likely he, and many other protestant readers, are not aware of St. John Cassian either. His writings, life, and works. Wikipedia has this to say. In part it was the writings of St. John Cassian as excerpted in the Philokalia (and the pdf linked above) that cemented my sojourn from my Western Protestant roots and into Eastern Orthodoxy. Unless I am discouraged by comments or email  I will (sporadically) post entries like this in an attempt to educate and inform readers in the West of Eastern traditions and their Patristic roots.

• One man’s path to God, in this case Gary Gygax and D&D.
• Higher education and China. And in the UK a reverse trend?
• Havel on Global warming.
• Shooting piscene critters in a large wooden cylindrical water container.
• Still not getting it, freedom of religion in Iran.

In the discussions following my ethics post on SCO, I finally realized (comment #17):

You are not arguing for traditional conservative morality, you are arguing for Kantian (moral absolute) deontology. I don’t think Christian meta-ethics are either deontological or teleogical … or absolutist. I think, if pressed, I’d define Christian ethics is pneumatological … but that just occurred to me so I’m going to have to think that through in my next essay.

Modern ethics, wiki tells us, is divided today into deontological and teleological camps, or roughly speaking rule based ethics vs consequence based ethics with some variations. Christian ethics is neither. But then, what is it?

What does my claim that Christian ethics is pneumatological mean. That means, our ethical choices should be inspired by the Spirit (of God). St. Siluan (of St. Siluan the Athonite) suggests that this is, in part, accomplished by striving take  first choice  that springs unbidden to our mind as he believes that is, more often that not, is not from yourself but from the Spirit. Likely as well, one’s prayer life, ascetic struggle, and liturgical/sacramental participation play into that ability of the Spirit to influence you in this way. As well, Scripture and the traditions passed from the Fathers can be a guide for us … when we lack personal inspiration.

Frequent commenter Dan Trabue has several times noted with distaste the idea that he views conservatives (or neo-conservatives whatever they might be) call good, things which he terms “a lesser of evils.” I think this is not just a distinction without difference, in my view of ethics “lesser evil” is a meaningless statement.

I view the study of ethics as a study of the good. When we make a choice (practice ethics) we choose the good. Our view of what is good is defined by our choice. That is to say, my choices define my view, my understanding of what good means. The set of choices that I make in my life, therefore defines and elaborates my (perhaps evolving) view of what good means.

Mr Trabue would like to posit that killing a child is always evil/bad. If one was faced with a trinary ethical choice:

1. Press button A, one child (yours) dies.
2. Press button B, 10 children (foreign) die.
3. Do nothing, all the children and you die.

Pressing button A is not “the lesser evil”, it is a way of defining your view of good. Choice #1 -> less children dying is good), #2 my child is more valuable than those of others because of my prior responsibilities or the value placed on your family, or #3 my active choice to kill is always wrong. You can choose, but whatever you do choose will result by your choice in the death of children and at the same time defines your view of good.

The point is, the choice you make is not a lesser evil, it defines your view of what good means.

• Heh.
• The Christian carnival is at Bounded Irrationality.
• Defeat in Iraq … the reasons why contemplated by al-Qaeda.The Mahdi army wanes as well.
• A contemplation on America. Islam and polygamy in America.
• 133 mph with a 50 cc displacement gas engine.
• Choice hotels … modern slavers?

• Well, if you wonder at what point gas prices will affect driving habits, the answer $4.
• Not impressed by book burning in Israel.
• Marriage. Two posts. One. Two.
• In a Memorial day post, a liberal/progressive observes “things are really bad here”. I suppose that’s true things are really bad here … if by “bad” you mean “good”. The notion that “things are bad” in the US today demonstrates an amazing level of ignorance.

In a recent post, I was writing in what I hoped was a provocative fashion, about thinking long term. In that essay I concluded that stability and adaptability are two features which are identifiably necessary for a state which has any hope of lasting for a significant period of time, and by significant I mean more than a millenia. Stability is not a feature our state and government finds as an essential feature. It is not something on which we base praxis or our lawmakers policy.

Jefferson (and his co-authors) wrote in the Declaration that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness was the end of government. Happiness in Jefferson’s mind, if not in our less well educated modern ones, meant eudaimonia, which he following Aristotle would have tied to virtue (and the pursuit of the same). Liberty today as well, has been corrupted in meaning. But I would propose that of the three ends of government noted just above are not equal in value for a nation which hopes to last for a significant period of time. Life for example, which many modernist/futurists look to a time when our life span escapes the three score and ten (give or take) that nature has allotted and would extend that indefinitely, which would of course as a consequence redefine “human” and human society and not very likely in a better way. Liberty as well, if liberty is freedom from restraint, will find itself in the mix betwixt the stability/adaptability tension identified earlier.

Three primary factions of our political discourse, the progressive/liberal, the libertarian, and the conservative all naturally hold the same ends of government as essential but prioritize them differently. The progressive values enforcing or “creating” equality as the most important end of government, the libertarian to enforce and protect our liberty and the conservative our Happiness. Part of the difficulty of our discourse between the factions comes when fails to realize this split in underlying assumptions, to address it in our rhetoric, and a failure of imagination. We fail to imagine the consequences and reasons for our opponents points of view and end up just spitting at the other side. In part this means, while I think that Happiness and its pursuit is the most important end of government, that isn’t universal.  So, let’s look at elsewhere first. Read the rest of this entry