1. Mr Adler with some advice for the GOP.
2. On IQ.
3. The Church is not full of good people … it is full of people like me.
4. Locating the not-so-good arguments on one side of the Catholic-Protestant debate, of which I’ll admit to being on the sidelines (HT: Michele McGinty)
5. City tracker.
6. From St. Gregory, some imaginative (daring?) words.
7. A game of pigs and men.
8. Not having recursion doesn’t make programming easier, why is it assumed that language is different?
9. Mr Spector it seems, has a race problem.
10. Doing the deed.
11. A question posed.
12. The Samaritan impulse.
13. Spring and the hearts of men (and women).
14. From the Ms Palin expensive clothing file.
15. “Take that cup from me”  … said a Washington lawyer.
16. Hmmm.
17. An interpretation of declining Christian demographics.

Last week an interesting conversational point arose in our discussions after liturgy. An initial Chinese translation of the Bible translated “sin” in a legalistic way. That is a transgression, breaking laws for which penal or other atonement is required. A newer translation which connects with Chinese culture much stronger and likely hits the real meaning of the word. That word translated back into English would be that sin is best translated in Chinese as disharmony. I think the notion that sin=disharmony is natural. My “working definition” of the word has been sin is “that which separates us from God” … which in my view links far better to disharmony that to a “breaking the rules” definition.

Ann, blogging as Weekend Fisher at the eponymous blog, writes about the perception of Puritans for being joyless and very deontological in their habits. If the Puritans were actually joyless and as serious as many of their chroniclers and history seems to paint them, then the root of that problem was that their notion of sin was flawed in the same was as the above translation. However, from the exterior that may be hard to judge. Very often “rules” seems to dominate a culture and time or religion when from the interior that isn’t really the case. As an extreme case, monastic rules of order can seem very deontological and rules based, but that isn’t necessarily the case in practice.

Ann asks:

If we start with a set of laws like the Ten Commandments, then the Puritans make sense. But what if the true foundation is much more basic than that? What if the foundation of morality is when God looked at creation and declared that it was good? What if a love of the good is the foundation of morality? What if the two greatest commandments — love of God and love of neighbor — are meant to remind us of that?

The Pslamist writes and the Fathers seem to repeatedly concur that the “Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.” That is, that “love of the good” (a very Greek concept) is not the starting point, but that the Fathers travel very quickly from a starting point of the Fear of God which leads them to God’s love and from thence to personal humility which forms a grounding plane for their normative ethical behavior. My question for Ann would be how ‘love of the good’ which is precisely aligned with Platonic notions of a foundation for ethics if not a basis for almost all the philosophical content derived from Platonic ideas, e.g., virtue ethics … how does that separate from Greek ethics? Where does it ultimately differ? Is it merely a different idea of what constitutes the good? Is that enough? I suggested some time ago, that Christian ethics are pneumatoligical, based on our being inspired by the Spirit. Is that wrong? Is it connected or not?

Mystery. Religion uses the term mystery a lot. Trinity is a mystery. Sometimes it is said that Jesus dual nature as God and man kept distinct and separate is a mystery. Eucharist and God’s participation is a mystery. I offer that in this modern world this term is misunderstood today, one might blame Edgar Allen Poe, whom if my schoolday memory is correct founded the literary genre of the “mystery” novel. Mystery in that sense is something not understood. A popular modern notion of “mystery” is something which cannot be understood rationally. And in part this is right. But in a better sense, the related word “mystical” should be examined. A mystical cult or religion is one in which the divine is experienced personally. Mystics of any cult, be it Sufi, Christian, Hindu, or Bhuddist seek personal contact and experience of the divine. Mysticism means personal experience. The Trinity in the Christian religion is a mystery. That doesn’t mean that it is meant to be “taken on faith” where faith itself means the simple notion of believing in that which is not seen or known. The Trinity is something which we are meant to personally connect with on a personal level.

Ultimately however these two meanings, the classical mystery story or mystery in science and the mystic/mystery of religion do connect. The mystery story is solved when the characters experience and come to fuller understanding of the crime in question. The scientific mystery is resolved when the scientist (personally) experiences and understands the resolution of the paradox or that which was in question. Religious mystery is a thing which cannot be transmitted by word and reason. It can only be hinted at with word and reason. We like to think that science too is like that … but most of it is not. Science, or most of it, too is a field which needs to be experienced to be transmitted. Michael Polanyi in Personal Knowledge writes of the unexplainable skill or riding a bike. I found it amusing that his description of how we turn a bike was incorrect. Mr Polanyi offers that to turn a bike while riding, we turn the handlebars in the direction we which to turn in a fashion which is hard to describe.  Yet unless you are going very slowly countersteering is how a bike is turned. The point is that much more than is normally admitted of science and scientific advancement is an art. Becoming a scientist is an apprenticeship, filled with the passing on of personal knoweldge and experience, transmission of the mysteries of the field, that is required.

1. Heh.
2. Brandon answers yesterday’s question.
3. Art that will move you.
4. A review.
5. Travel?
6. From a Vespers hymn.
7. Continuing the art/beauty theme for today, ring tones.
8. From the “not making any sense” side of the left. All the soldiers did in fact get good treatment and attacks by terrorists and non-uniformed personnel is not likely at all connected with our treatment of terrorists in Iraq. There are good arguments against using torture … this just isn’t one of them.
9. So … Mr Obama’s policies have already (?!) created 150k jobs. I think a stronger and stronger case can be made for the Innumeracy of our President.
10. Riding Gila.
11. Dude, just say “Yo!”.
12. Retaining our humanity.
13. Microcosm, macrocosm and man.
14. A decision.
15. The first part problem with a Churchillian quote by Obama … it’s a fabrication. The second part of the problem is that some SS officers were in fact tortured.
16. “I think we are losing ground” … thanks Mr Obama.

Fertility rate demographics deftly explained…

Mr Sandefur poses an interesting question, well actually the question that it prompted for me was not at all the point of his post but be that as it may, he writes:

My favorite living writer, John Varley, is a candid man. He’s also a proud hippie. So when he says something about politics, it’s candid hippiness, and thus a good opportunity to see how weird that sort of thinking (obviously in the ascendant now) really is.

I haven’t read John Varley since the mid 80s, but that prompted a question for me, namely was who is my favorite living (fiction) writer. To which I have no ready answer, but I have a few suggestions for my favorite (living) writer spread across a few different categories

1. Fiction in General: Dan Simmons. If you like the Homer epics read his Ilium and Olympos books. This is his latest (Drood: A Novel), which I have not read yet.
2. Classical fantasy: Steven Erickson. He’s coming to the end of an intensely complicated series of 10 books, intricately imagined. Start with Gardens of the Moon and be warned there’s a deluge of characters and names. Many if not most return in later books. But if you like your fantasy with to be epic in breadth, realistic character motivations and a gritty combination of the fantasy equivalent of nuclear war as seen from the trenches … stick with it. The ride is worth it.
3. Historical Fiction: Sharon Kay Penman. Her writing gripping and interestingly enough on of the most difficult parts of her writing is how the narrative seems to jump randomly forward in her characters life … but the reason for that is fascinating. It’s because she only writes and imagines in narrative scenes of a her protagonists lives which are supported by the historical record (with the addition of one or two fictional characters to help her fill out the narrative). I’d highly recommend The Sunne In Splendour: A Novel of Richard III and Here Be Dragons to start.
4. Honorable Mention: Matt Ruff.With Ayn Rand getting back in the news, every libertarian with any sense of humor should have Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy on their list as required reading to be a card carrying libertarian or … if you just like to laugh out loud while reading a book. And Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls was a fascinating psychological thriller

How about you?

1. Torture and the choice put plainly.
2. Puritanism examined.
3. A new Christian blog aggregator … and hobbity news.
4. More on why consequentialist arguments about torture don’t work (or are dishonest).
5. Plugging a magazine.
6. I liked the book a lot too.
7. Fact checking Mr Obama.
8. Two race reports … by the racers from Gila. Women’s and men’s plus some pro-racer pre-race hijinks from Garmin at the Tour of California.
9. Two men, Locke and Berkeley and a crucial question.
10. A message in a bottle from a hell on earth.
11. But … will it work better.
12. Mr Obama’s budget innumeracy in perspective.
13. The Democrats expressed faux outrage at the price of Ms Pelosi’s clothes in the campaign. We await a repeat of that outrage at this price tag.

So say the “worst case” statistical models at Indiana University.

However, researchers state that time is of the essence and that models could change every 12 to 24 hours, depending on how quickly various governments react to the threat.

So… what’s your wager?

In the nineteenth century in California a housing bubble popped. Californians promised themselves that never again would they come to believe that could depend on housing prices would rise indefinitely.

In the nineteenth century scientists consistently and continued to deny the possibility that rocks (so-called meteorites) could fall from the sky (via Personal Knowledge), evidence be damned.

Today we too believe ourselves immune to this failing. We insist that our epistemic armor has no chinks. We think that our understanding of man, society, and our surroundings is improving and in the main correct.

Epistemic humility, to know that we do not know, is as was noted just a few (countable number of) weeks back by that Socrates fellow that knowing the actual extent of our expertise and knowledge is the first step to wisdom.

One of the consistent features of the political left and specifically our Administration today is a distinct lack of epistemic humility. They are the “smart” ones who have the answers. They will avoid the sins and faults of other side committed because they are far more clever, because their epistemic skin has been dipped in the Styx and is invulnerable to the slings and arrows and mortal failings unlike the clueless other guys. How long will it take then for Paris, aka reality, to slide the poisoned arrow into their ankle?

Near the beginning of this Wall St. Journal opinion piece, noting how car companies have been "bailed out" for decades, is this breakdown of who will own General Motors once the new restructuring is in place.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) would own 39% of GM. The federal government would own 50%. The creditors will be shafted with just 10%.

Emphasis mine.  And then there’s this, from Merriam-Webster.

Main Entry:

so·cial·ism 

Pronunciation:

\?s?-sh?-?li-z?m\

Function:

noun

Date:

1837

1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

Emphasis mine, again.  The two emphases appear to be synonymous.  When speaking of the problems in the auto industry back in November, Rahm Emanuel was quoted.

“Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Mr. Emanuel said in an interview on Sunday. “They are opportunities to do big things.”

Yeah, I’d say remaking the entire American economy qualifies as a "big thing".  The only way I see this as not becoming a permanent thing is if the experiment fails because GM (and the UAW) still fails.  If not, it’s going to be a wild ride as the government decides to nationalize more and more "for the good of the people".

1. Jet lag, and rat research.
2. Marxist paranoia … begging the question if the flue requires close contact of human, avian, and porcine populations … where are the birds and people in that particular scenario?
3. If your choices however historically have proven good … why does it matter that your explanation is not necessarily right.
4. Ancient gadgetry.
5. Yes, I think it shows the artist is “an idiot” too … although idiot might not be my first choice of terminology. How about blinkered fool or should the term “pander” get in their somewhere.
6. Peace?
7. Macrina suggests her next close reading project.
8. Will retractions and corrections fly in a flurry … or not? And if not why not?
9. On the obscenity in broadcasting judgement. I think in discussions what is being missed is that the SCOTUS doesn’t (rightly) adjudicate on what is ethical or moral but if the law penned by Congress and the action in question are Constitutional.
10. Eudaimonia read wrongly or at least a very non-Aristotelian take on pursuit of happiness.
11. Mr Bush and Mr Obama, two (Jacobin) birds of a feather?
12. Manliness matters.
13. Torture and pacifism conjoined.
14. History repeats.
15. A possible shift, explanations requested.
16. A conversation which should embarrass liberals.
17. What separates the casual user from the addict on the bike, I don’t think I ever get on a bike without checking tire pressure first.
18. A “profuse” apology? or defining apology down.
19. Please. If “everyone” makes new music … then that new music will suck. A great percentage of new music by people with training and talent sucks … just think if people without training or talent start making music. Oh, joy.
20. Asceticism and American piety.

One thing that comes to mind when issues regarding increased influence by the government in healthcare. Today there are no public hayrides. Why? Because somewhere someone decided they could sue if some rambunctious teenage got hurt during the ride … which mean insurance was required … which meant no more hayrides. How much public interest in health care of this sort not give increased impetus to control risk or other behavior deemed not necessary if that activity has but the smallest negative impact on public health and subsequently public insurance rates. Hayrides are harmless romantic fun that were once common in the New England autumn. Now they are only a private affair hidden from any organized groups that might be subject to suit.

There is a notion among so many today, and my impression is that this idea is found more on the left than the right, that if someone is injured especially badly then there is necessarily another at fault. Actual accidents do not exist in their world. And that it is right to use legal proceedings after any substantial injury to redress the wrong and to locate (or invent) a guilty party and get them to pay. This is, I think, quite a childish impulse. I don’t understand how an adult can act on such an idea in the absence of evidence or any suggestion of malfeasance or malice.

Negligence is often cited as a cause for accidents and used as a proxy for fault. Tiger Woods occasionally misses a nominally routine putt. Jose Calderon has an 2008/9 NBA free shooting percentage of 98.052%. Why not 100%? After all free throws are routine. The point is that humans performing any routine activities will occasionally fail or introduce a mistake. Accidents can occur which are not intentional and are not actionable. All too often an error is cause for suit even when it is an “honest” mistake. An obvious rejoinder is that this is what courts are for, to distinguish between honest mistakes and ones which arise from malice, greed, or other intentional errors. And yes, that is the case. But the courts should not be the place where this issue is explored, but the place where evidence of error is tried.

Health care and any overhauling thereof should not be done lightly.  It should not be rushed through Congress, like, say, the TARP bill was.  This is a big deal.

Well, apparently Obama thinks it’s too big to fail.

President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are poised to trample Republican opposition to his health care bill with a controversial legislative tactic known as reconciliation.

The fast-track process would protect Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system from a potential GOP filibuster and limit the Republicans’ ability to get concessions. It also would give Democrats far more control over the specifics of the health care legislation.

Under typical Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to advance a bill, but reconciliation would enable Democrats to enact the health care plan with just a simple majority and only 20 hours of debate.

Democrats hold 56 seats in the Senate, and two independents typically vote with the party. Republicans have 41 seats, and there is one vacancy.

Republicans have complained furiously about the prospect of health care reform passing under fast-track rules. But they’re not planning to go down without a fight.

And that’s not the only ill-considered option not being properly considered.

But Democrats aren’t stopping at health care. Obama’s plan to cut private banks and other lending institutions out of the market for student loans would also move on a filibuster-free path.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday that most House and Senate negotiators have resolved most of their differences over a congressional budget blueprint designed to advance Obama’s agenda through Congress. The measure will set the rules on how Congress considers Obama’s agenda for the rest of the year.

Lawmakers are rushing to agree on the budget framework in time to give Obama a victory within his first 100 days in office.

The negotiations have centered on the annual congressional budget resolution, which sets the parameters for the legislation that follows. Congressional votes next week would provide a symbolic victory for Obama’s sweeping agenda to enact a universal health care system, invest in education and clean energy and cut the exploding budget deficit to manageable levels.

Obama marks his 100th day in office on Wednesday.

This is big government run amok.  All Republicans can do at this point is try to get in amendments to ameliorate the damage.  Some Congressman, and many constituents, including those at the recent Tea Parties, complain that far too many legislators didn’t actually read the bill or know what was in it.  And yet they’re going to do it again; make the same mistake twice, very deliberately.

A government big enough to make these sweeping changes in the blink of an eye is big enough to foul it up in a big way.  And there’s a better than even chance it will be fouled up the faster it’s done and the less debate there is.

1. I think Origen noted that feature in Scripture just a few years earlier (that is the idea that there are “blue parakeet verses”, which cause you to stumble so that you might pay closer attention).
2. Faith and unbelief … from a modern Saint.
3. A new novel and the battle between liberal and conservative Catholics.
4. Plans of mice, men, and God.
5. A sticking point in the torture debate.
6. Considering autism … more here. All of this skirts the important question of how to love your neighbor especially when your neighbor is disordered.
7. Those touting the marginal benefits of universal health insurance … are innumerate? (one might also recall that there are 15,000 late term abortions per year of which over half are not for reasons of health of mother or child).
8. Egypt and Darfur.
9. Roman catacombs in Bethlehem.
10. Timing issues at the Globe.
11. Praising that cup of joe.
12. What passes for logic on the left … remains however “high test hokum.”
13. Churches talk on high level backchannels.
14. Two books recommended.
15. Odd phrasing in the context of the flu.
16. Turkey is touted as the prime example of a secular Muslim state … but is there a better example?
17. A beautiful bride … and the meaning of marriage and mortality.

Equality. Liberty. Virtue. These are all features which all citizens of almost every state will agree are good and required for a civil and stable union in some measure. I’ve claimed before that today’s progressive/liberals, libertarians and conservatives differ largely in that the different groups differ in the relative importance they place on these values. That is liberal/progressives value equality the most, libertarians liberty, and conservatives virtue. And it’s not that progressive/liberals find virtue or liberty bad, just that these things are less important than equality and so forth.

What does it mean that one values virtue in a civic sense? There are certainly things it should not mean but often does, that is often this is confused with the idea that particular virtues are required and preeminent. The Greek political thinkers thought that the primary purpose of the state was to create an environment in which the virtues of its citizens would and could be cultivated. Virtue for them was the road to happiness. In our day and age, so many confuse happiness with pleasure and therefore forget the importance of virtue. Now, the Greek city states were small enough that a much more pronounced uniformity of opinion about what constitutes virtue could be established in one community. This helped of course but is not essential.

C.S. Lewis in the The Abolition of Man suggests the notion of a universal sense of right and wrong within all people. Put in the context of virtue, there is a common core notion of what virtues are which all societies and people hold common. Different societies value different virtues with varying gradings and, again at the periphery, some virtues are thought vices and vice-versa, for example modern educators think self-esteem is a virtue and many Christian fathers taught self-esteem a vice. The existence of these differences is however often used mistakenly to suggest that the common notions of virtues in the main are held all cultures and societies.

From the standpoint of political thought and theory however the matter is that a multicultural society, of which most of us belong, can and should foster the development of virtues in its citizens and that this can be done without prejudicing which virtues its citizens value and are being in effect fostered and developed by the state. The primary purpose then of a state is to create an environment in which its citizens can cultivate virtue. So that we can be come better, happier as individuals. As a consequence this requires freedoms (liberty) and equality. But the goal of that liberty (and therefore also where it may and might be restricted) is to foster virtue. Again, where the purpose of equality between citizens is to allow each to cultivate his or her own virtues. Enforcement and encouragement of that equality is not for the purpose of granting equality qua equality to each but to allow each full opportunities to cultivate individual virtue.

I brought this thought up in a comment on Mark’s post on torture; it’s fine to be against torture, but what do you consider torture?  John McCain, having endured the Hanoi Hilton, might have one definition.  Abu Zubaydah’s definition is to be in a cell with a stinging insect.  What about tickle torture?

Danny Carlton presents some food for thought on this subject.  I’m open to your comments on this because this really made me stop and think.

Waterboarding does no permanent, physical damage. It makes one think they are drowning, which I would imagine is an incredibly unpleasant feeling. Another unpleasant feeling–the fear that your children will be taken away from you, and you’ll never see them again. This is done daily across the US by overzealous social workers attempting to force "confessions" from parents suspected of abuse or neglect. Given the choice I think I’d prefer waterboarding.

The logic behind the Fifth Amendment is that when faced with fear, a person may very well lie about their guilt or innocence choosing imprisonment over torture or death. The result is not the truth or justice. But when the goal isn’t a guilty verdict but information needed to save lives the equation changes.

The question then becomes, is it fair or just to put a person through a mentally unpleasant event in order to extract information which can save lives? Ironically those who scream loudest against waterboarding would be those most adamantly in favor of allowing social workers unfettered power in using just as merciless and cruel techniques against parents suspected of abuse or neglect, most often based solely on an anonymous tip.

Whether we as a "civilized society" can tolerate torture has been answered by how we allow social workers and police to use mental torture on those suspected of a crime. Since waterboarding results in no actual physical harm to the person the difference then is whether we will tolerate what we allow on US citizens barely suspected of a crime to be used on known terrorists who have information that could save lives. 

Why is this even a debate?

Is torture wrong?  Seems pretty clear cut that Americans believe it is, which is good to hear.  But those on the Left berating the Bush administration then go beyond the poll results and say that Americans are against waterboarding specifically.  No, they said they were against torture, and again, it all depends on what you mean by that. 

Are you against putting a caterpillar into Zubaydah’s cell and telling him it’s a wasp?  Or are you against hanging someone by meat hooks for 3 days?  Is there a difference in those techniques?  I think there is.  Are they both torture?  Depends on your definition, I suppose.

What’s your definition, and what is it based on?