Stones Cry Out

The Unlearned Lessons Of the Twentieth Century: An Essay On Late Modernity by Chantal Delsol, a french contemporary philosopher seems like a very interesting book. Ms Delsol self describes herself as a neo-liberal. This book came up in a search of book in the “Library of Modern Thinkers” series which summarizes the currents of thought of (mostly conservative and libertarian) important political, economic and philosophical figures. This book is very much different in that it is a (striking it seems) essay by one of these figures and not another author or expert summarizing and putting their works in perspective. Over the next few weeks (months?) I’m going to examine, hopefully chapter by chapter, the topics and ideas presented in this book.

In the introduction (chapter 1) Ms Delsol poses following, “Imagine and heir who has just been informed that his inheritance consists of a trunk full of serpents.” This is how she presents our present inheritance from the turbulent 20th century. The 20th century began with hope and a looking for great promise of the future and is ending with shame over totalitarian excesses. Ours is an age which is rejecting hope.

She also suggests why this age might be termed “late modernity” in particular to call to mind particular parallels with late antiquity. Like (Western) Rome of late antiquity, our society shows similar signs of aging in its arts. Late antiquity had “an affirmation of art without meaning, literature which was simultaneously pretentious and trivial, and a dwindling population.” Hmm. Sound familiar?

There is yet, one idea which had sprung forth in late antiquity which still remains, perhaps wounded and ailing today, that offers promise. The idea of the dignity of individual man remains. This idea had come under assault in the 20th century, notably in the totalitarian regimes but in other venues as well. Ms Delsol offers in what follows a clarion cry for the necessity of preserving this core principal.

From Chuck Asay:

What’s that definition of “insanity”, again?  Ah yes, doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.

1. Some thoughts on prayer from St. Isaac the Syrian via Macrina.
2. On being skinless.
3. Connecting Powerline and Chesterton. More Chesterton here.
4. On politics and conservatism.
5. Beldar on Sotomayor.
6. What price cap and trade?
7. Help in reading Žižek on-line (free).
8. Yes, the fairness doctrine has been killed, but the program of stifling the oppositions voice has not.
9. A coincidence? Perhaps not.
10. The despot and enlightenment.
11. Afghan.
12. Via Joshua Clayborn, data on Ms Sotomayor.
13. Libertarians seem to concur that Conservatives are better on issues of liberty.
14. The “really smart” Democrats apparently don’t think very hard, uhm, failing to imagine that one might support chastity for the unmarried.
15. Duh.
16. In my opinion that terrorist group needs a new name.
17. A Marxist skewers Dawkins.

Recently I had noted earlier, following my reading of Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, that between the Galilean/Copernican period and Newton’s Principia no new scientific data (no facts) arose to distinguish between these two theories. Yet by the time of Newton’s writing of the Principia the dispute was settled. This was settled not by facts but by a process that has more in common with religious conversion than than the popular notions of what is comprised by scientific method.

Physics has seen three major revolutions. Following the development or conception of what we in this “late modernity” [aside: more on that later] period call Physics by the Greeks the overriding principles underpinning reality were driven by a belief that the world and cosmic bodies followed geometric and numeric patterns. Observation and insight were interpreted within this framework. During the period noted above, a conversion began to occur. A mechanical constraint arithmetic model replaced the old. This held until the latter part of the 19th to the early 20th century when it too was replaced. Currently the view of how to best understand the universe is one driven by mathematical invariances (symmetries). Data and experiment are not and have not been the driving force in moving persons and communities from one to another underlying model for how to perceive nature. Passion and persuasion and conversion are better descriptions of what occurred.

Yesterday I began to unwind what Polanyi was driving at with his attack on the mechanistic view of nature. He principally objected to the idea that that the all kinds of experience can be understood in terms of atomic data. This is more than just a rejection of reductionist methods of scientific advancement. And it is not something which today is abandoned with the discovery of quantum uncertainty, i.e., the free willed electron. Scientific metaphors have a way of becoming dominant metaphors applied outside of their realm of application. Consider how uncertainty, relativity, and evolution are examples of scientific ideas have been abused when used as metaphor in the social arenas. The scientific community using those ideas has given a strange credence to their application in other arenas. So too has the notion that man and his society is ultimately are just collections of clockwork apparatus. It is the dangers related to those, essentially abuses, of the conception of a comprehensible, mechanistic, deterministic universe applied to social studies (econ and politics) and life sciences that the chief dangers lie.

Consider the following abbreviated example, which I hope to elaborate on later. Man when viewed in a mechanistic way enables one to set aside models of human dignity in favor of man as a consumer. Hedonistic consumerism can replace a more, well, frankly human (and realistic) view of man in society.

Back when Mr Bush was nominating people for President, I made what I felt was a strong argument that the Senate should have readily nominated his appointees. I stand by this argument now that the other party is now in the White House. I based this argument on Mr Hamilton’s Federalist Paper #76. Mr Hamilton notes:

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

He also notes just prior, mentioning consequences of what might occur if the Senate took too active a role in vetting and selecting nominees.

Hence, in every exercise of the power of appointing to offices, by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who compose the assembly. The choice which may at any time happen to be made under such circumstances, will of course be the result either of a victory gained by one party over the other, or of a compromise between the parties. In either case, the intrinsic merit of the candidate will be too often out of sight. In the first, the qualifications best adapted to uniting the suffrages of the party, will be more considered than those which fit the person for the station. […] And it will rarely happen that the advancement of the public service will be the primary object either of party victories or of party negotiations. [emphasis mine]

In view of the last two decades of despicable SCOTUS and other similar interviews, Mr Biden and his parties behavior during the Thomas hearings comes to mind, a rejoinder to Mr Hamilton might be, “D’ya think? They might put considerations of party before who might be fit for the station.”

Mr Hamilton suggests the Senatorial advise/consent be exercised to insure the nominee free from “unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.” If Ms Sotomayor is free from these issues, my view would be to approve her to the position.

Should a court be where "policy is made"?  I thought that’s what we had elected representatives for.  But Obama’s pick for the highest court in the land, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, seem to think so.  (Well, until she realizes she’s being recorded, and then she gives a wink and a nod to the audience.)  Another liberal judge who thinks it’s his or her job to form the law rather than interpret it.

And from this article about the pick comes this wonderful line:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

If she were a Republican, that would have been labeled "racist".  But she doesn’t stop there.

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Her remarks came in the context of reflecting her own life experiences as a Hispanic female judge and on how the increasing diversity on the federal bench “will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.”

Blind justice will now be peeking, if Sotomayor is confirmed.  I continue to think that these kinds of judges still don’t recall that Brown v. Board of Education was decided by nine white guys.  Unanimously. 

And I’d like to note that my objections to this court pick have absolutely nothing to do with her gender or national origin.  It is the Left that is overly hung up on this, as I noted in this post during the confirmation of John Roberts.  And Sotomayor, in bringing this up, is not only overly emphasizing this irrelevant point, but setting up opponents to be tarred as "racists". 

The whole idea that one’s race or gender, in and of itself, should alter one’s view of the law in this day and age, is saddening, frankly.  The fact that we have an African-American President is not the beginning of racial reconciliation and equality, it is one of the culminating events of it.  It shows we have a majority in this country that doesn’t care much your color as long as they approve of your character.  That’s "The Dream".  No, we are have not been perfected in this, but we are not perfect in anything.  There are always problems.  There are always improvements to be made.  But as a nation, I think we can hold our heads up high on this matter. 

However, Judge Sotomayor thinks white guys, over half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, still can’t judge fairly.  Thanks for your vote of confidence.

Laplace, some years ago, came up with a notion. This idea was that if one could determine the position and momenta of all the particles in the universe at a given time, then the time evolution of the universe would fix all future events of the universe. This notion is one which persists as some level today. The notion that the all kinds of experience can be understood in terms of atomic data. This is an impossible scenario, yet it persists.

Polanyi writes (pg 141) in his book Personal Knowledge:

Yet the spell of the Laplacian delusion remains unbroken to this day. The ideal of strictly objective knowledge, paradigmatically formulated by Laplace, continues to sustain a universal tendency to enhance the observational accuracy and systematic precision of science, at the expense of its bearing on its subject matter. […] I mention it here only as an intermediate stage in a wider intellectual disorder: namely the menace to all cultural values including those of science, by an acceptance of a conception of man derived from a Laplacian ideal of knowledge and by the conduct of human affairs in the light of such a conception.

There are two threats Polanyi envision to such a notion. One would be a systematic sweeping cultural rejection of science as a perversion of truth. Polanyi wrote this in the 50s, today these currents are becoming perhaps more relevant. The root cause of the modern rejections of science are due to the corruption of science itself by the errant (and dominant) Laplacian error. The second threat is the peril to science from the very acceptance of a scientific outlook based on Laplacian fallacy being used to guide human affairs.

I’d planned to get further on this today … but it’s after ten and I have to turn the pedals some more today. I’ll get back to this.

1. Original sin on offer from a left leaning Christian blogger.
2. The beginning of an interesting discussion on condoms, AIDS, and being human.
3. A parable, in “spite of your books”.
4. Memorial day, remembered.
5. A book published.
6. Pakistan.
7. Is this the real colors of the Administration on abortion.
8. A non-catholic reviews Angels and Demons.
9. Liturgy and the blue roads.
10. Christian ghost stories.
11. The essential problem with Mr Obama’s notion of a “reset” in Russia-American relations.
12. Freedom, and the left and the right.
13. Art and the left.
14. Inconsistencies in Sri Lanka.
15. That connection between credit and massive US borrowing.
16. Of journalism and method.
17. Christians in Egypt.
18. A movie suggested.
19. Maths and Physics.

From Michael Ramirez:

(Click on the cartoon for a larger version.)

Until Hamas is willing to alter their charter, calling for the destruction of Israel, is there any reason to think they’re negotiating in good faith?

Following similar action in the House, the Senate voted (rather overwhelmingly; 90-6) to reject the shutdown of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.  The Left has made this a drumbeat for years, but now that they’re in a position to actually do something about it, they suddenly get all NIMBY on the issue.

Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said that none of Guantánamo’s detainees should be transferred to the US to stand trial or serve time in prison. “We don’t want them around,” he said. “I can’t make it any more clear … We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.”

“Terrorists”?  I thought they were a bunch of wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time, dragnet detainees that the ACLU is just waiting to spring.  But now Harry Reid is calling them “terrorists”.  Well yeah, that does rather change the calculus on the whole situation, doesn’t it?  If we’d only known then what we know now, right?

And it seems most of the countries where Obama thought he could pawn off these “victims cum terrorists” are closing their doors, after saying that they would be open lo these many years.  Apparently, they were “just words”.  So now, Congressional Democrats find themselves between Barack and a hard place, a situation of their own making as their candidate campaigned on, apparently, “just words”, but no real exit strategy from Gitmo.

But Scott Ott, news satirist at his own site and now columnist at the Washington Examiner, “reports” that Obama has announced a new tactic; simply declare the detainees as “fetuses”.

While accused terrorists have access to attorneys, and nearly-limitless legal appeals, a fetus has no legal standing, cannot speak for itself, and is subject to the death penalty without regard to guilt or innocence.

Civil rights advocates have pressured Obama to follow through on campaign promises to shutter Gitmo, but even Democrats in Congress have resisted bringing the inmates to U.S. soil for trials and incarceration.

“We can debate whether enemy combatants have access to protections under the U.S. Constitution,” said Obama. “However, no serious person would grant such protection to an embryo or fetus. The loss of 240 fetuses wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in a nation where more than 3,000 of them hit the Dumpster daily.”

The president noted that America’s global reputation has been devastated by U.S. treatment of terror suspects, but that “our treatment of a million fetuses each year earns us nothing but admiration, and requests for clinic-funding from those who aspire to be like us.”

Sources acknowledged continuing White House debate about whether a terrorist who escapes from Gitmo alive can still be treated as a fetus.

Nobody, save for some right-wing extremists, could possibly object to that, eh?

From Chuck Asay:

(Click on the cartoon for a larger version.)

He’s just going to introduce efficiencies into the system, that’s all.  No, really.

1. A review of a book about Hilter and his religious belief.
2. Mr Beckwith responds to Mr Leiter.
3. School, Sisyphus or the Circles?
4. Rome and the mongol.
5. Considering the news and reporters.
6. The passage of man.
7. Discourse.
8. V.
9. Forgetting the Gospel.
10. Some inconvenient items regarding Mr Obama’s speech.
11. That economic disaster, old news?
12. Those two speeches, Mr Cheney and Mr Obama.
13. Plans needed for chucking things.

1. Carnival time, Bahstahn style.
2. Links from Mr Challies.
3. Pirates avenging wrong … likely not.
4. A ratio.
5. Quiet the noise.
6. Debunking some global warming overreach.
7. A Stadium.
8. Hmm.
9. On Orthodox evangelism.
10. Some thoughts on Mr Vick.
11. A prayer request.
12. Hubris.
13. On childhood myth.
14. Obama as lizard.
15. Pseudogamy.
16. Check the pants.
17. The exposition problem.
18. Looking at women’s “progress”.

The pseudonymous Larry Niven blogging as the <a target=”_blank” href=”http://rustbeltphilosophy.blogspot.com/”>Rust Belt Philosopher</a> often attacks various defenses of the theodicy problem. I haven’t been reading his blog for much more than a month but it seems possibly he locates the best and most potent objections to Christian belief in the failure, in his view, to solve the theodicy problem adequately. On one former post I had commenting his comments on theodicy he remarked that I’d “offered nothing new.” Well here is something, perhaps, new.
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Theodicy centers on the question of why does the Christian God who has been declared to have significant power in the universe and who is claimed to be Good then allow evil and unearned suffering to be subjected to the innocent. I will now attempt to present what might be considered a narrative defense of this question.

Why is Dicken’s Tiny Tim allowed to suffer, Dickens is writing stories and we will, for now, assume that the story has in mind the furtherance of good and furthermore as author commands complete control over his story. Why does any number of good characters in narratives by any number of authors allow minor characters to suffer undeserved evil? Dickens is not unique. Any number of minor (and major) characters undeserved suffering in novels in which the end of the author was to expose and explore truth and beauty. The crux of the narrative theodicy response that the suffering of the underserved is justified by the demands of the larger narrative. Yet at the same time, unlike in a writers narrative, the protagonists have free will. They can make moral choices and as a result can fail to rise to fulfill the role to which they were fit.

In the book about the life of <i><a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0881411809?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pseudopolym05-20&amp;link_code=as3&amp;camp=211189&amp;creative=373489&amp;creativeASIN=0881411809″ id=”static_txt_preview”>Father Arseny, 1893-1973</a></i> toward the end of the book (which contains fragmented stories from people whose lives where touched by Fr Arseny) there is a report of a particular saintly woman, Mother Maria of whom Fr Arseny hears her final confession. The person recounting this story fragment is confused as to why Fr Arseny was so affected by her confession and life’s story for to him here story seemed mundane and ordinary. Fr Arseny explains that at this point in his life, as his own mortality was near, he was so very thankful that God gave to him the chance to hear her story and her example, which was a continual narrative of her putting her own concerns and desires aside for the sake others linked at the same time with a continual turning towards God. My suggestion here is that the suffering of those around her (whom she helped) provided grist for her life’s story <i>for the benefit</i> of Fr Arseny and his story, which being shared helps the rest of us.

Modern materialism rejects the notion that there is purpose in the unfolding of our lives and in history. Dame fortuna for the materialist reigns supreme. So the question of a narrative theodicy requires some justification for rejecting dumb luck as the only meaning for our lives. The question is not to test the narrative model against the materialist model per se (at least to begin) but first to examine if the narrative model is internally consistent.

Judeo-Christian tenents from Genesis and other writings offer that we are both made in God’s image <i>and </i>suggest that narrative is a key feature of both God’s plan and our nature. The notion of God’s unfolding narrative with Israel is not foreign to the text or the interpretative tradition. In the narrative of the man born blind in the Gospel of John the answer to why he might have suffered for decades as a blind man was answered in effect that it was so because he was to take part in <i>this narrative </i>unfolding today, i.e., so that Jesus might heal him. The justification for his being blind was his role in the narrative of Jesus life. Charles Taylor in <i>the Secular Age</i> recounts many of the reasons and mechanisms that arose through the previous four or five centuries that meaning has been leached from our view of history and the world around us.

This is all I have time for tonight, so at this point discussion may be fruitful. Hopefully there may be enough here to chew on.

I’ve been light on the blogging this week (mostly copying and pasting) because my eldest is graduating from high school this evening.  We’re turning a corner as a family; the first one to leave the nest on her way to college, and the changes in both her life and the lives of those, well, left behind. 

It’s one of those events that is very happy and yet in a way sad.  My mother-in-law said that she felt a sadness recently and didn’t know why.  Today she realized it; she’s grieving.  Our daughter is taking the first step to leaving our home, after having spent almost her whole life with us, and the absence will be definitely felt.  Our in-laws live about 15 minutes away, and they see us quite regularly, once a week at church if not more often, so they’ll feel the same sense as well. 

Yes, it is sad, but the joy in this time will overshadow it.  The pride in watching our daughter graduate with honors (something her old man could never do) will push that aside.  Having family and friends come together and celebrate this time will overcome any sorrow that the day brings.

I’ll miss my little girl as she hits the road and turns a corner to discover the next era of her life, in college.  Yes, it is sad, but I’m excited for her.  I remember this time in my own life, and it was thrilling. 

Tonight, we all turn the corner, and we can’t wait to see what’s there.