Jason Kuznicki has some remarks spinning from a previous post of mine on Jim Anderson extended blog-based discussions on the ethics of vigilante activity. Here is Mr Kuznicki’s post. Here’s the post of Mr Anderson’s to which he refers and the original proposition and … for completeness my first post on this matter.

Mr Kuznicki offers:

To the extent that there must be laws (and only to that extent), the laws should be clearly expressed and regularly enforced. Laws that are unclear in their expression or irregular in their enforcement allow the legislators and law enforcement agents too much leeway. They give the state too much power. They also sap private initiative, because it’s important for private actors to have some reasonable expectations of how the state will behave in the future.

What this leaves out, and what one might have expected to have been the case in part in the Western folkway, is what is the case (even in the idealized “paradise” situation) in which the state has laws which it expects citizens to enforce. Consider the example of personal assaults in an idealization of the Western folkway. In the first case, of personal assaults such as battery or rape, the statutes and penalties against such things were minimal. A likely reason for this is that it was expected that individuals and their families would “take care” of such insults themselves. Now this led on occasion of course to the much celebrated mountain feuds between Western folkway clans in which the insult to one family matter would be “handed” in a way that the original injured party found excessive and responded in kind … leading to a never ending chain of responses. However, my guess would be, not having studied the matter, that feuds of that type were the exception not the rule. That most of the time the culture/society had a shared understanding within the society of a reasonable response and meeting that was the norm. Read the rest of this entry

1. Of fools and money.
2. Lent and Job.
3. Whence the inflation?
4. Niceness.
5. Beatitude and blessing.
6. When rational … isn’t.
7. In which I get mentioned … in a somewhat confusing manner, as Mr Kuznicki is labeling “not libertarian” a place and time (the 18th century Western backwoods “folkway”) which he has in the past admitted as libertarian. I’ll work on a more substantive reply to this tonight. I wonder if Mr Kuznicki read my original essay at all and not just Mr Anderson’s summation.
8. Tabular awesome inspired by elemental patterns.
9. Bond. Inspired by “M?”
10. That pene-enclave thing.
11. Gay rights or something else?
12. Mr Obama and company channeling Nero?
13. “Obama thinks it’s time to get back in the market” … from a man (Obama) who never bought stocks even with a 6 figure salary and 7 figure book sales.
14. And they want free money and a pony in their backyard too.
15. Anti-semitism and anti-immigration bias on the rise in Europe?
16. Unhappy moderates.
17. Ms Sebellus … catholic?
18. A trend to give atheist libertarians and believing big-government people pause.
19. Looking at “stimulus”.
20. Well, one reason is that is ignored, is that informing people that Joe Biden is not the sharpest tool in the shed isn’t news.

Duality is a mathematical property linking structures through transformations. One of the simplest duality transformations for illustration are the Platonic solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron). The simple transformation one performs on these solids is to “exchange” corners and faces.  A cube transforms into an octahedron … which is simple enough to imagine in one’s head. The icosahedron and dodecahedron also exchange through this transform. The tetrahedron, mathematically speaking, is special as it is “self-dual” and under the same transformation is unchanged.

Similarly in emotional contexts, various emotions and other notions are thought dual. The yin-yang of Taoist Chinese thought brings up a host of dual concepts and emotions: good/evil, love/hate, strong/weak, male/female and so on. The eight(seven) cardinal sins and virtues of Evagrius (Pope Gregory) also have a parallel structure.

Tonight, in as part of the Compline service after the second night of reading the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete we said the (famous) “Great Lenten” prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian:

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despondency, lust for power and idle talk.
(Prostration)

But grant unto me, Thy servant, a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love.
(Prostration)

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see mine own faults and not to judge my brothers and sisters. For blessed art Thou unto ages of ages. Amen.
(Prostration)

O God, cleanse Thou me a sinner (12 times, with as many bows, and then again the whole prayer from the beginning throughout, and after that one great prostration)

This prayer also has a duality construct as noted above, but the pairings are not traditional to our ways of thinking. Sloth/chastity, despondency/humility, patience/lust for power, and love/idle talk. One has two options when considering this pairing. One is that the pairing is mistaken that the author, St. Ephrem, did not mean for the connection to be made. However the monastic and meditative life that was much more common in the times in which St. Ephrem lived and for that reason I think that it is more likely than not that the connection was intended.

So with that in mind, consider that one might need to counter those sins of sloth with chastity, despondency with humility, lust for power with patience, and idle talk with love.

1. Waiting for God’s justice.
2. What the Left won’t admit, “It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama’s proposed policies go well beyond what we might need just to respond to the economic crisis; he’s making a bid for great changes in national policy.”
3. On the “hoping he’ll fail” meme.
4. For those who claim the Pope is “out of touch” … a comparison.
5. As one who thinks that there should be a Constitutional barrier preventing the government to provide insurance (because politicians ignore actuarial data to get votes) … perhaps they should get out of the loan business too for much the same reason.
6. Housing bubble.
7. Payroll spending.
8. Boing.
9. Wall street, global warming science, likely just a few of many casualties of “over-reliance” on computer modeling.
10. A question.
11. Reading in Job for Lent.
12. A problem with captalism, the productive and competent people are all busy doing things leaving government to the ninnyhammers.
13. Global warming taking a nap?
14. Theodicy.
15. Fasting from idle talk and a few other things.
16. Sudan.
17. Markets and the Ukraine.
18. Coffee and the endurance athlete.
19. Math links.
20. Now and then, a quote.

From the book on Father Arseny, a Russian priest who suffered decades of inhumane treatment in the Stalinist gulags and “special camps” for being an active member of a subversive organization (the Christian church).

I remember the visit of Bishop N. in 1962. He was a serious theologian, a philosopher, and many said, a good confessor. He came to have Father Arseny hear his confession. Many spiritual children of Father Arseny were going to the church where Bishop N. served.

He stayed for two days, during which time he confessed to Father Arseny and also heard his confession. They talked about the fate and the future of the Church in the Soviet Union and about what was important for the believers. Looking at Father Arseny’s library he pronounced, “The faithful one needs only the Gospel, the Bible, and the works of the Holy Fathers. All the rest isn’t worthy of attention.”

Father Arseny remained silent for a few moments and answered, “You are right, Your Holiness, the most important things are in those books, but we must remember that man as he develops nowadays is very different from man in the fourth century. The horizon of knowledge has become wider and science can now explain what couldn’t be understood then. The priests today must know a great deal in order to be able to help believers make sense of the contradictions he sees. A priest has to understand the theory of relativity, passionate atheism, the newest discoveries in biology, medicine and most of all modern philosophy. He gets visited by students of medicine, chemistry, physics, as well as by blue collar workers, and each one of them has to be given an answer to his or her questions such that religion doesn’t sound anachronistic or just a half-answer.”

1. Running downhill.
2. Left and jihad … common goals?
3. Sex and marriage.
4. Modern heroes.
5. Verse.
6. Stuck on stupid.
7. A Lenten podcast on a great prayer.
8. “All conservative variants of …”, hmm, I’m not sure I buy that.
9. A Lenten meditation (HT: Mark D Roberts)
10. Bank crises and policy.
11. A fisking.
12. 10 tips for life.
13. Seeking a wise materialist.
14. Anti-Semitism in London.
15. In the government must be all things to all people category.

Lent

1. Some Lenten prayers.
2. Lenten … offsets!?
3. Looking in at Lent from the outside.
4. Ashes.
5. And economics.

Not Lent.

1. One perspective on nationalizing banks.
2. Police in Afghanistan.
3. Stimulus … a chance of bringing Chicago (corruption) to a National scale.
4. Venn – Obama.
5. Confessions and a return?
6. Running man.
7. Zap.
8. A view from outside.
9. What is not pro-life.
10. Pro-choice and rape.
11. Negation.
12. Storm and … cheestastic?
13. A film.
14. Worm.

Lent.

1. Memories of Lent past.
2. As Sacramental memory.
3. Cinema.
4. Some suggestions.
5. Verse.

And elsewhere.

1. Fuel cells and the cell phone.
2. An empty room.
3. 10 statements on evolution by Kim Fabricus.
4. Paintball arms race … top of the food chain.
5. Some history of science, gauge theory.
6. Afghan and supply chains.
7. What does he mean when he said, “I don’t believe in big government?”
8. That recent speech, between the lines.
9. Incomprehension mapped.
10. UFO.
11. A libertarian looks at Jindal.
12. Science and politics … last century.
13. Evil and self.
14. Carnival.
15. Japan and anthropomorphic origin of climate change. I also saw, I didn’t keep the link (sorry), that another group was trumpeting polar ice retreat. Why, I wonder, is that significant when (record?) polar ice advance is not? If weather is not climate … sorry but that’s not significant.
16. A speechwriter defends Jindal’s response.
17. Swim.
18. Ducking debate.

Last year for Lent, I had an (inspired?) somewhat strange idea for Lent. There is a age-old wedding tradition in the form of a little ditty aimed at guiding the bride when she prepares her garment for the feast. That tradition goes in the manner of a ditty, she is to wear,

Something old,
Something new,
Something borrowed, and
Something blue.

I read. If I had time and less concerns I’d read a lot more, but I really enjoy study and reading. As a result, my Lenten tradition, now all of two years old, is to read 4 from books during the Lenten journey. And … the strange part is, I select these books based for good reason on that marriage ditty. I don’t have my borrowed book as yet, but the other three are the following:

1. The old book is a book I’ve read and am going to re-read. For this book, I’m going to re-read The Brothers Karamazov. I finished this about a year ago but just before completing it I read in this little book on theodicy The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? by David Bentley Hart that a important theme in the Brothers K is the posing and the Christian answer to the theodicy problem.
2. The new book is a book newly acquired. Two books have vied for this as both seem really good. But I’ve selected God, Man and the Church by Vladamir Solovyev. Mr Solovyev was a late 19th century religious philosopher who influenced both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, judging by his wiki page and the introduction which I’ve glanced through, this will be an interesting read.
3. And the blue book, is likely going to recur as the blue book for quite some time to come, Saint Silouan, the Athonite by the Archimandrite Sophrony has a blue cover … and is full of the teaching and example of an exemplary saint. Mount Athos is the holy mountain in Greece, a treasured and holy place for the Eastern Orthodox churches. Twenty monasteries dot the hillside and many, if not most, have been there for more than a millenia.

Lent

1. Lent with the Dominicans.
2. Denial.
3. Fasting as feasting.

Other

1. The Christian and the pagan.
2. Approaching the end.
3. 900 days.
4. The mythical moderate.
5. Science and belief.
6. Against the stimulus.
7. Symbol and Trinity.
8. Construction and 2009, a prediction.
9. Accepting the Taliban?
10. Epistemic modesty.

Soccer and ashes. Fat or Shrove Tuesday is celebrated by liturgical Western Christians tonight. Tomorrow with less sackcloth but still with ashes they begin their Lenten journey. The Eastern half of Christianity begins Lent at sundown (or after Vespers) Sunday night this weekend as the Julian calendrical calculation this year puts Lent a week later than the Gregorian.

For those who do partake of the Lent tradition, I’d like to offer an invitation from the East. This Monday through Thursday many of the Eastern churches will be offering the The Great Canon: The Work of Saint Andrew of Crete as an evening Lenten meditation and prayer. I’d invite any who are interested in a meditative liturgical very repentant service to search out and find an Orthodox parish near them (for Americans this may serve as one place to look but other ethnic Orthodox churches may be closer, their web site should give a time when the Canon is being offered and directions.) and this coming Monday to partake of the Canon. For those Western visitors, please be aware the Orthodox perform prostrations during this service. It serves to heighten the sense of repentance for those taking part. As a note to visitors, there is no stigma in not taking part. If you do not feel this movement is part of your worship vocabulary … that is perfectly fine. Depending on where you go, the music (a capella voice) might be a little, uhm, shaky. But the Canon is primarily not a musical experience, listen to the words and think on their meaning and connection to you. This is an extended walk through Scripture connecting events through repentance to your life. A microcosm of Lent in four days. A jumping off point for the rest of the journey to Pascha (Easter).

Failing that invitation, two books might be of interest. Orthodox liturgist Alexander Schmeman’s Great Lent: Journey to Pascha and Khouria Frederica Matthews Green’s First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew both are books which can provide background and perhaps a gentler introduction to the Great Canon and are both well recommended reading for the season.

1. Race advice which is transferable to other avenues of life.
2. Except, due to cholesterol, my dietitian informs me cheese is not a food … it’s a garnish.
3. Iran slumping?
4. Crime pays?
5. Water and Spirit.
6. Verse.
7. Violation of law.
8. In five short (long?) months … ta-daaa.
9. On that scientific authority thing.
10. Getting parenting very very wrong.
11. F-22. Stimulus?
12. A gigabyte now and then.
13. Sssspiiin.
14. We need some gridlock in the beltway faaast. Huh?
15. On theodicy.
16. Links … I thought the Krugman criticism cogent.
17. Mornings.
18. Loony ranting wackjobs haters. Whatever.
19. Very cool art.
20. Abduction.

Carl Olson of the Insight Scoop notes an article noting a term which he predicts will be in our future, scientific authoritarianism. The cited article notes:

Scientific authoritarianism, as I am using it here, holds that political decisions should be compelled by the political preferences of scientists. It is a very strong form of the ‘linear model’ of science and decision-making that I discuss in my book, The Honest Broker. Hansen believes that the advice of experts, and specifically his advice alone, should compel certain political outcomes.

There are just a few matters that need to take into account in this matter.

• First off, it is my experience that there are two features found in many of the first rank scientists in our midst. First off, the best and brightest scientists in various fields don’t have the slightest interest in giving advice to politicians and in fact when they do offer political advice they offer very bad advice. I might add that theologians and religious leaders as well, for the most part, also are very horrible when they enter into the political world. There are some good reasons for this. Skills are involved in politics. The ability to read people, judge motivations and to have an estimate of the possible and so on are political skills. To become talented and to rise to the top of a scientific discipline requires three things: talent or genius, a love for inquiry, and a concentration on that field virtually to the exclusion of all else in life. Those people who are at the first rank usually have no talent, or frankly, desire to spend any time with exercising any authority. For them, their life is wholly given to the chase for the truths hidden by and in nature. To make an analogy with popular culture from cinema, while we might hope for our scientific authority to rise from the Mozarts in our midst, we’re going to get the Salieri’s who are the ones who will sully themselves with such matters.
• Second, those scientists who are not blinded by the possibility of exercise of political authority, i.e., those who are honest with themselves, are aware of the vast gulf between what we know and what is out there to be known. To put it baldly, any scientist who assures you that we “know” the best policy is a liar or a fool. We “know” so very little about ourselves, our universe, and how it is put together.
• Michael Polanyi in Personal Knowledge offers for us a glimpse at how much we deceive ourselves regarding about the epistemological certainties in science. I cannot recommend this book enough (although I’ll ruefully admit I really do need carve out the time to finish it).

A joke which is part of the culture of Physics and the pursuit of knowledge in that discipline.

A policeman encounters a drunk one night, who is on his hands and knees searching for something in the night beneath a street light. The policeman asks him, “What are you looking for?”
The drunk replies, “My keys.”
“Where did you drop them?” asks the bobby.
“Over there,” the drunk points down the block.
“Why are you looking here then?”
“I can’t see over there, because the light is here,” replies the drunk.

Our search for the mysteries of the universe and ourselves are a lot like that. We search under the light. Our keys … our understanding is to be found, so often, elsewhere down the road … in the dark.

So much of physics and our physical understanding of the universe assumes linearity. The mathematical behaviour and our understanding of linear PDEs and non-linear ones are much like comparing oranges to not-oranges. We look at and search for understanding under the light of just a few lamps. Gradually we uncover and begin to use a few more. But, we are just beginning. To pretend otherwise is foolishness. My advice would be to spurn those offering to give us scientific authority are who are assured in their results and their knowledge and don’t first show evidence of humility and uncertainty and demonstrate they posses a firm grasp of the magnitude of our ignorance.

1. Penicillin and Lent.
2. Induction and inference.
3. That nasty brutish and short thing.
4. Prayer request.
5. Power and efficiency.
6. Brand name and prestige.
7. Winter.
8. Offensive prayer.
9. Ms Pelosi is perhaps the tip of the non-catholic catholic iceberg.
10. 1st Corinthians in the modern world.
11. damned lied … and statistics.
12. That right to privacy.
13. Is that a thing which is needed?
14. Beowulfs.
15. And a pony for everyone too?
16. Putting his cards on the table.

1. Foreclosures … one solution.
2. TARP and the difficulty of bucking markets.
3. That cartoon two views allow and censure.
4. Le Tour of February, in pictures.
5. A suggestion for those “really smart fellows” in the Obama Admin.
6. An economic rant.
7. Of the default “evil men” of hollywood.
8. Increased productivity … sources of same.
9. Women and friction.
10. Uh … no.
11. The Administrations plans that will destroy the economy.
12. Two martyrs.
13. A for “effort” … or “accomplishment” and mastery?
14. On American greatness.
15. What goes into making/baking prosphora (the bread used in communion) for the Orthodox.
16. Thinking about love, but which of the four loves ala Lewis (or the Greek lexicon) is meant here?
17. Nailing down truth … or not.
18. From the desert.
19. On repentance.
20. Oops. Faked climate data.
21. And a interesting photo to wrap up.