I have a dear friend with whom I have some rather strong, though never mean-spirited, disputes. Quite understandably, he finds my idealism to be very frustrating, and also feels, fairly, that the reasoning which I undertake from my ivory tower is not always taken with full consideration for those who are too busy leading hectic and difficult lives to ponder and pontificate endlessly about how the world ought to work. Specifically, this came up in relation to the Pope Benedict's statements about AIDS and the larger subject of birth control.
I may risk seeming partial if I quickly jump to the defense of my pope. Nonetheless, while I can understand why people believe that his statements were controversial and even dangerous, I think there was merit in what he said. The idea that condoms are helpful in the fight against AIDS appears to be self-evident. But, as my friend would point out, we have to be careful about applying a purely theoretical situation without taking into consideration its implementation. This is something condom proponents are careful to do when discussing the shortcomings of abstinence--namely, that it is not always practiced--but which they fail to do when addressing the similar drawbacks to the condom approach. Condoms have such-and-such a failure rate if used correctly; but this does not mean that they will always be used thus. Nor is it true that sexual behavior will remain static if condoms become more prevalent. It is distinctly possible that condoms will actually cause people to engage in more risky behavior. But this isn't correct, no matter how much some may wish it were so. As Rory Leishman makes clear:
Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard University, is one of the leading authorities on AIDS. In an illuminating article in First Things, he wrote, “Consider this fact: In every African country in which HIV infections have declined, this decline has been associated with a decrease in the proportion of men and women reporting more than one sex partner over the course of a year — which is exactly what fidelity programs promote. The same association with HIV decline cannot be said for condom use, coverage of HIV testing, treatment for curable sexually transmitted infections, provision of antiretroviral drugs or any other intervention or behaviour.”
This said, it deserves pointing out that the pope would, as all Catholics should, still oppose the utilization of all forms of birth control even if it were somehow demonstrated that condoms actually do reduce the rate of HIV. This can be a difficult thing to accept, but this is merely to say that the end does not always justify the means. Roman Catholics could never accept, for instance, compulsory abortions for unborn children likely to be born in poverty. The right to life is inviolable. In the same way, because condoms violate the natural law, it can never be acceptable to use them, even if the intent is to reduce the spread of AIDS.
I can go into details later if there is interest, but for now I'll let catholic.com summarize:
Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.
But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.
Now there is a way around this which the Church has termed Natural Family Planning (NFP). They could have done better with the name, as it implies that planning the size of one's family is acceptable so long as one doesn't use a condom to do so. This is a misinterpretation of NFP, if an understandable one because of the name; but also because too often members of the Church teach NFP in a way that implies that abstaining from sex during periods of fertility so that a married couple doesn't have kids is fully in accordance with Church teaching. Again from catholic.com:
Married or engaged couples often are taught the legitimacy and the techniques of NFP with little or no mention of that other part of the Church’s teaching that insists that couples need "just reasons" (Humanae Vitae 16; Catechism of the Catholic Church 2368) for using NFP if they wish to be free from blame before God. (Indeed, I think we need now from the magisterium some less vague and more specific guidelines as to what actually constitutes a "just reason.")
Often such couples hear nothing of the fact that "Sacred Scripture and the Church’s teaching see in large families a sign of God’s blessing and the parents’ generosity" (CCC 2373). Still less frequently are they informed that, according to the magisterium, frivolous or materialistic considerations are in themselves inadequate criteria for deciding when NFP can be justified (cf. Gaudium et Spes 50).
It is commonly asserted that parents cannot always afford to raise large families. To an extent this is true; I will look down from my tower long enough to empathize with the poor. But it is also true that we as a country are very wealthy, and that many of us can raise more children than we believe we could. One should add, too, that for Catholics, Matrimony is a sacrament, bringing with it untold graces from which the bride and groom may draw for support as they raise their children.
Best of all, perhaps, are examples of good strong Catholic families. The pope can't raise one of his own, naturally, though he may be a good shepherd to his flock. But if married Catholics produced large and loving families, I can't help but think that the world would look harder and more sincerely at her prohibition on birth control. In any event, they can hardly look on us more wildly than they do, and as Christ told us they would.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Four days in
As part of my not so secret plan to read most of the world's great literature, I've been making my way through Boccaccio's Decameron, specifically, G.H. McWilliam's translation. I've been called out recently for being too quick to shout overrated when confronted with a classic, but the term seems to fit here. I'll attempt to make my case about my choice of adjective in a bit. For now, I'll pay the book the compliment writers like well to hear: his book is a joy to read. Daniel Boorstin describes McWilliam's version as "colloquial". This is probably the right word, as the book isn't weighted down by abstruse terminology, and has, one might guess, some of the flare of the original, neither of which are assured when dealing with a classical work in translation.
Boccaccio's style is magnificent, and each narrative--considered separately--is wonderfully told. It would be inaccurate to consider the Decameron to be merely an assemblage of short stories, since he weaves an entire narrative, complete with Black Death backdrop, of which the stories are simply the most prominent part. Yet the book does contain a number of what could best be termed short stories. In an age in which Twitter is, at least momentarily, fashionable, it seems out of place to praise brevity. But there is something to be said for authors who keep their stories as compact as necessity demands. The same cannot be said, alas, of the book.
The back of my copy insists that: "With equal felicity [the stories] range over comedy and tragedy, morality and bawdy; and the skill with which Boccaccio matches the style and mood of his prose narrative to the tales and their tellers us as astonishing as the variety of a collection which has often been imitated but never bettered." I'll concede that I've never read a better collection of one hundred stories; but to suggest that the variety is astonishing isn't exactly true. I have six more days to go, but if the pattern continues, he could have subtitled the Decameron: one hundred stories about sex. This is a slight exaggeration, since on occasion the lovers are unable to consummate their affections before being killed in tragic fashion.
Future readers would do well to head the advice of Will Durant that the stories "were not meant to be read in any great number at one time." (The Renaissance, p.38) I've been reading two or three before bed. This seems to work reasonably well, though the feeling of repetitiveness can only be heightened if the reader attempts to digest more than that number at any one time.
To take a page at random, I come upon the third day's third story, in which "a noblewoman of striking beauty and impeccable breeding" who neglects the "beastly caresses" of her husband and falls in love with "an extremely eligible man in his thirties". She cleverly uses a naive friar as the catalyst to attain the object of her desires; their consummation ensures that both "nearly die of bliss"; after which "they slept together no less pleasurably on many later occasions".
Now it might be tempting to excuse my distaste as snobbish prudery, but I don't think this is justified: first, because a good Catholic should never stoop to puritanism, and second, because I actually do like the book. I merely think it's much too much about the same thing. Or, to paraphrase Weezer: I'm tired of reading about sex.
Maybe that's why God invented economic treatises.
Boccaccio's style is magnificent, and each narrative--considered separately--is wonderfully told. It would be inaccurate to consider the Decameron to be merely an assemblage of short stories, since he weaves an entire narrative, complete with Black Death backdrop, of which the stories are simply the most prominent part. Yet the book does contain a number of what could best be termed short stories. In an age in which Twitter is, at least momentarily, fashionable, it seems out of place to praise brevity. But there is something to be said for authors who keep their stories as compact as necessity demands. The same cannot be said, alas, of the book.
The back of my copy insists that: "With equal felicity [the stories] range over comedy and tragedy, morality and bawdy; and the skill with which Boccaccio matches the style and mood of his prose narrative to the tales and their tellers us as astonishing as the variety of a collection which has often been imitated but never bettered." I'll concede that I've never read a better collection of one hundred stories; but to suggest that the variety is astonishing isn't exactly true. I have six more days to go, but if the pattern continues, he could have subtitled the Decameron: one hundred stories about sex. This is a slight exaggeration, since on occasion the lovers are unable to consummate their affections before being killed in tragic fashion.
Future readers would do well to head the advice of Will Durant that the stories "were not meant to be read in any great number at one time." (The Renaissance, p.38) I've been reading two or three before bed. This seems to work reasonably well, though the feeling of repetitiveness can only be heightened if the reader attempts to digest more than that number at any one time.
To take a page at random, I come upon the third day's third story, in which "a noblewoman of striking beauty and impeccable breeding" who neglects the "beastly caresses" of her husband and falls in love with "an extremely eligible man in his thirties". She cleverly uses a naive friar as the catalyst to attain the object of her desires; their consummation ensures that both "nearly die of bliss"; after which "they slept together no less pleasurably on many later occasions".
Now it might be tempting to excuse my distaste as snobbish prudery, but I don't think this is justified: first, because a good Catholic should never stoop to puritanism, and second, because I actually do like the book. I merely think it's much too much about the same thing. Or, to paraphrase Weezer: I'm tired of reading about sex.
Maybe that's why God invented economic treatises.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Angry and alienated
Camille Paglia speaks:
There is something dangerous afoot -- an alienation that can easily morph into extremism. With the national Republican party in disarray, an argument is solidifying among grass-roots conservatives: Liberals, who are now in power in Washington, hate America and want to dismantle its foundational institutions and liberties, including capitalism and private property. Liberals are rootless internationalists who cravenly appease those who want to kill us. The primary principle of conservatives, on the other hand, is love of country, for which they are willing to sacrifice and die. America's identity was forged by Christian faith and our Founding Fathers, to whose prudent and unerring 18th-century worldview we must return.
One of the very large differences between conservatives and libertarians is that while the former possess an ideology which is perfectly compatible with nationalism, such compatibility is effectively impossible for the latter, for whom an intense antipathy for centralization of any kind exists. This is not to say that patriotism will ensure that conservatives bow down in blind allegiance to the State, only that, as we saw during the Bush presidency, such blindness isn't impossible.
On the one hand, of course, I am fully in agreement with conservatives over the danger that the left poses to the existing social order. Doubling the money supply, taking over private companies, stepping up the war on foreign countries: these are all very bad things. But these are all the sorts of things for which Bush, as well as those who supported him, deserves blame. True, our last president stopped short of outright nationalization. But by shamelessly flaunting the Constitution during the first bailout, he established that what would later be denounced--inaccurately--as "socialism" by conservatives was not in any way antithetical to conservative principles. When Obama alluded to the fact that bailouts could be defended pragmatically, he was able to do so in part because this was the only conceivable defense for the original Bush bailout. And while it's hard to believe McCain would be moving more quickly than Obama to redistribute wealth from ordinary Americans to plutocrats using the inflationary Federal Reserve, it's absolutely inconceivable that the man who suspended his campaign to see the first bailout through Congress would govern with fiscal responsibility.
This, above anything else, is what makes the conservative response to Obama so amusing. It's what gave liberal criticisms of Bush their similar charm. The difference between the two governing parties is minute--just ask Arlen Specter. The two political parties are in agreement on most of the fundamental issues; the highly touted disparity between them simply doesn't exist. Despite his supposed right-wing extremism, Bush's domestic policy was basically akin to that of LBJ. And despite the fact that Obama was elected largely out of disgust for his predecessor's unnecessary war, we're set to be mired in Iraq until the end of 2011 at the very least.
To a political outsider, it can be quite humorous to view the vitriolic epithets which the partisans hurl at one another. On the other hand, there is, as Paglia points out, "something dangerous afoot". I mentioned earlier that Obama is taking us down the road of fascism; after all, Mussolini's other term for it was corporatism, which strikes me as a decent way to describe the way things are now done. Nonetheless, this doesn't imply that the Republicans are immune to the temptations of fascism. Since this much misunderstood ideology is one in which the State is seen as a totalitarian entity, in the sense of encompassing all, it's easy to see why modern liberals would be more prone to espouse it. On the other hand, the Republicans are more liable to give in to military adventures, which might suggest a better fit with the Italian implementation of Fascism. This follows from what I've said above about the essential similarities between the two parties.
Back to the alienation whereof Paglia spoke. To the conventional observer, given the political situation, unification is fundamentally impossible; such virulence can only escalate into violence. Although he made unity a large part of his campaign, polls suggest we are more divided than ever under Obama. But since this division is largely ephemeral, grounded in little more than emotion, unification is not as implausible as it may seem. I wonder what kind of leader could effect such a change, and what such a leader would do with a large group of angry and alienated people.
There is something dangerous afoot -- an alienation that can easily morph into extremism. With the national Republican party in disarray, an argument is solidifying among grass-roots conservatives: Liberals, who are now in power in Washington, hate America and want to dismantle its foundational institutions and liberties, including capitalism and private property. Liberals are rootless internationalists who cravenly appease those who want to kill us. The primary principle of conservatives, on the other hand, is love of country, for which they are willing to sacrifice and die. America's identity was forged by Christian faith and our Founding Fathers, to whose prudent and unerring 18th-century worldview we must return.
One of the very large differences between conservatives and libertarians is that while the former possess an ideology which is perfectly compatible with nationalism, such compatibility is effectively impossible for the latter, for whom an intense antipathy for centralization of any kind exists. This is not to say that patriotism will ensure that conservatives bow down in blind allegiance to the State, only that, as we saw during the Bush presidency, such blindness isn't impossible.
On the one hand, of course, I am fully in agreement with conservatives over the danger that the left poses to the existing social order. Doubling the money supply, taking over private companies, stepping up the war on foreign countries: these are all very bad things. But these are all the sorts of things for which Bush, as well as those who supported him, deserves blame. True, our last president stopped short of outright nationalization. But by shamelessly flaunting the Constitution during the first bailout, he established that what would later be denounced--inaccurately--as "socialism" by conservatives was not in any way antithetical to conservative principles. When Obama alluded to the fact that bailouts could be defended pragmatically, he was able to do so in part because this was the only conceivable defense for the original Bush bailout. And while it's hard to believe McCain would be moving more quickly than Obama to redistribute wealth from ordinary Americans to plutocrats using the inflationary Federal Reserve, it's absolutely inconceivable that the man who suspended his campaign to see the first bailout through Congress would govern with fiscal responsibility.
This, above anything else, is what makes the conservative response to Obama so amusing. It's what gave liberal criticisms of Bush their similar charm. The difference between the two governing parties is minute--just ask Arlen Specter. The two political parties are in agreement on most of the fundamental issues; the highly touted disparity between them simply doesn't exist. Despite his supposed right-wing extremism, Bush's domestic policy was basically akin to that of LBJ. And despite the fact that Obama was elected largely out of disgust for his predecessor's unnecessary war, we're set to be mired in Iraq until the end of 2011 at the very least.
To a political outsider, it can be quite humorous to view the vitriolic epithets which the partisans hurl at one another. On the other hand, there is, as Paglia points out, "something dangerous afoot". I mentioned earlier that Obama is taking us down the road of fascism; after all, Mussolini's other term for it was corporatism, which strikes me as a decent way to describe the way things are now done. Nonetheless, this doesn't imply that the Republicans are immune to the temptations of fascism. Since this much misunderstood ideology is one in which the State is seen as a totalitarian entity, in the sense of encompassing all, it's easy to see why modern liberals would be more prone to espouse it. On the other hand, the Republicans are more liable to give in to military adventures, which might suggest a better fit with the Italian implementation of Fascism. This follows from what I've said above about the essential similarities between the two parties.
Back to the alienation whereof Paglia spoke. To the conventional observer, given the political situation, unification is fundamentally impossible; such virulence can only escalate into violence. Although he made unity a large part of his campaign, polls suggest we are more divided than ever under Obama. But since this division is largely ephemeral, grounded in little more than emotion, unification is not as implausible as it may seem. I wonder what kind of leader could effect such a change, and what such a leader would do with a large group of angry and alienated people.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Channeling Robert Smith
However big I ever feel / It's never enough
Whatever I do to make it real /It's never enough - The Cure
Paul Krugman is quickly becoming one of my least favorite people. If you thought record deficits and takeovers of private companies might be small indications that government is getting out of hand, than I present to you the economics go to guy over at the Old Gray Lady. The reason that we've failed to spend our way out of our national debt problem isn't because such an attempt is absurd and contradictory, and therefore doomed to fail. Instead, it's because we haven't printed enough money:
"A second stimulus is becoming clearly urgent. They need a very, very strong stimulus," said Krugman, a Princeton University professor and a New York Times columnist.
It's tough to know where to start pointing out the flaws with this recommendation. Two basic problems jump quickly to mind. First, by using subjective terms, he can always repeat his claim that when the stimulus fails to stimulate, it's because it simply wasn't big enough. I'd like to see someone confront him and get him to nail down an exact figure; but it'd be even better to just come up with an outlandish number and ask him if that should close the "output gap". I mean, if 1.5 trillion dollars will merely "ameliorate" the problem, then 5 trillion dollars should solve it completely. And if we spend 100 trillion dollars, why, we'll all be millionaires--at least.
The other problem is that he never even considers the fact that economic intervention profoundly distorts the market, something it absolutely must do. There's simply no way you can double the money supply in a few months without doing irreparable harm to the currency. The law of supply and demand applies to every economic good, including money. If you can't tell what will happen to demand when you double the currency, you just might be a Keynesian.
There's also something deeply disconcerting about the fact that there's no way Krugman will ever be held responsible for his asinine economic suggestions. None of the neo-Keynesians had any clue that there was a bubble--or that it would burst. But when a crisis emerges which they never accounted for, and for which they have no explanation, the media nonetheless goes to them for advice.
It's a direct parallel to the way we handled the Iraq War. When it became obvious to all but the most staunch true believer that the war was not proceeding according to plan, we didn't ask those who got it right in the first place; instead, Bill Kristol was given column space next to Krugman. And besides, the reason the war didn't work was that our strategy was just a bit off. A surge was needed. Think of it as a stimulus, only with people instead of money.
Heck, now that Kristol is gone, maybe Krugman can take over as the token neo-conservative over at the Times. It strikes me as a pretty easy job. Whenever your policies fail, you need only recommend that they be applied with increased vigor.
Whatever I do to make it real /It's never enough - The Cure
Paul Krugman is quickly becoming one of my least favorite people. If you thought record deficits and takeovers of private companies might be small indications that government is getting out of hand, than I present to you the economics go to guy over at the Old Gray Lady. The reason that we've failed to spend our way out of our national debt problem isn't because such an attempt is absurd and contradictory, and therefore doomed to fail. Instead, it's because we haven't printed enough money:
"A second stimulus is becoming clearly urgent. They need a very, very strong stimulus," said Krugman, a Princeton University professor and a New York Times columnist.
It's tough to know where to start pointing out the flaws with this recommendation. Two basic problems jump quickly to mind. First, by using subjective terms, he can always repeat his claim that when the stimulus fails to stimulate, it's because it simply wasn't big enough. I'd like to see someone confront him and get him to nail down an exact figure; but it'd be even better to just come up with an outlandish number and ask him if that should close the "output gap". I mean, if 1.5 trillion dollars will merely "ameliorate" the problem, then 5 trillion dollars should solve it completely. And if we spend 100 trillion dollars, why, we'll all be millionaires--at least.
The other problem is that he never even considers the fact that economic intervention profoundly distorts the market, something it absolutely must do. There's simply no way you can double the money supply in a few months without doing irreparable harm to the currency. The law of supply and demand applies to every economic good, including money. If you can't tell what will happen to demand when you double the currency, you just might be a Keynesian.
There's also something deeply disconcerting about the fact that there's no way Krugman will ever be held responsible for his asinine economic suggestions. None of the neo-Keynesians had any clue that there was a bubble--or that it would burst. But when a crisis emerges which they never accounted for, and for which they have no explanation, the media nonetheless goes to them for advice.
It's a direct parallel to the way we handled the Iraq War. When it became obvious to all but the most staunch true believer that the war was not proceeding according to plan, we didn't ask those who got it right in the first place; instead, Bill Kristol was given column space next to Krugman. And besides, the reason the war didn't work was that our strategy was just a bit off. A surge was needed. Think of it as a stimulus, only with people instead of money.
Heck, now that Kristol is gone, maybe Krugman can take over as the token neo-conservative over at the Times. It strikes me as a pretty easy job. Whenever your policies fail, you need only recommend that they be applied with increased vigor.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Inflation is here
One very large problem with the bailouts is that there is absolutely no way to determine how much money will need to be created to solve the crisis. This presupposes that some magical amount does in fact exist; but surely even the most ardent Keynesians would admit that if we printed too much money, the currency would become worthless through hyperinflation.
To give an obviously absurd example, but one which nonetheless demonstrates the point, if the Obama administration agreed to mail a one billion dollar check to every American, although a naive glance might suspect that this would add wealth to the economy, the reality is that the dollar would lose virtually all of its value. And because this would happen so quickly, it is likely that the price structure would be destroyed completely; like the German Papiermark, it might be burnt for warmth, but it would have lost all real value as an economic medium of exchange. So while the usual parties clamor about a deflation trap, there is a real risk of hyperinflation, too--especially when one considers that the money supply has been doubled in the last several months.
Armed with similar information--and with an extensive economic background with goodly doses of Mises and Rothbard--Congressman Ron Paul recently voiced his concerns about runaway inflation to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke:
I have a couple of questions, but first I want to mention that I find it awfully frustrating at times when we always talk about inflation and we only talk about the prices and say, “We have prices under control, there is no inflation”. We have to realize that the monetary base, the liquidity was doubled in a few short months. To me there is a lot of inflation out there. It’s already inflated, we’re in the midst of inflation. Because the prices haven’t gone up doesn’t mean we don’t have the distortion.
Now since both Paul and the Chairman are well versed in economics, and since his time is short, he doesn't always define his terms--though I'm betting he will in his forthcoming book. But in order to understand his point, it might be helpful to give a definition. For while the tendency is to gauge inflation by looking at prices--by using a fraudulent CPI--an increase in prices is actually a symptom of inflation. The great Austrian economist Murray Rothbard defines inflation as "an increase in the money supply not consisting of an increase in the money metal." (America's Great Depression, p.12)
When the money supply is inflated, each unit of currency becomes worth less than it was before the inflation occurred. It may take some time for the market to adjust to this increase in the money supply, but the end result is a currency whose values has been much depreciated. Inflation is the reason why an increase in wage rates is often insufficient to cover the increase to the cost of living.
What Paul is saying is that focusing on prices is entirely the wrong thing to do. Since the money supply has doubled, the currency has already been inflated. We may not want to experience it, but since it's happening presently, it is only a matter of time before the symptoms of inflation--i.e. high prices--set in, which will further hurt the economy.
He continues:
Moreover, it is unclear why price stability should be a good thing. We who live with an always inflationary Federal Reserve might react skeptically to such an assertion: of course prices should be kept stable. After all, one couldn't suggest with any seriousness that they should always continue to rise. On the contrary, it would be most desirable if prices, specifically those of consumer goods, fell. And in the free market, this is precisely what happens. As capitalism produces more goods with less labor, the extra goods drive down the cost of that good and provide more people with that good than ever before. Meanwhile, the displaced labor can be allocated to produce goods to meet other market demands, to the betterment of all.
As Rothbard points out, speaking of the economic bubble of the 1920's which led to the Great Depression:
Federal Reserve credit expansion, then, whether so intended or not, managed to keep the price level stable in the face of an increased productivity that would, in a free and unhampered market, have led to falling prices and a spread of increased living standards to everyone in the population. (ibid. p.171)
Of course, now that the money supply has doubled, it's a bit silly to expect prices to fall as they would in a market free from the tangles of the Federal Reserve. Nor is it likely that even prices stability will be achieved. But should Bernanke's "unlikely scenario" become a reality sometime during the coming year or two, we may profit from yet another reminder that current economic policy is as irrational as it is ineffective in achieving its desired ends. Maybe then we'll finally put an end to it.
To give an obviously absurd example, but one which nonetheless demonstrates the point, if the Obama administration agreed to mail a one billion dollar check to every American, although a naive glance might suspect that this would add wealth to the economy, the reality is that the dollar would lose virtually all of its value. And because this would happen so quickly, it is likely that the price structure would be destroyed completely; like the German Papiermark, it might be burnt for warmth, but it would have lost all real value as an economic medium of exchange. So while the usual parties clamor about a deflation trap, there is a real risk of hyperinflation, too--especially when one considers that the money supply has been doubled in the last several months.
Armed with similar information--and with an extensive economic background with goodly doses of Mises and Rothbard--Congressman Ron Paul recently voiced his concerns about runaway inflation to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke:
I have a couple of questions, but first I want to mention that I find it awfully frustrating at times when we always talk about inflation and we only talk about the prices and say, “We have prices under control, there is no inflation”. We have to realize that the monetary base, the liquidity was doubled in a few short months. To me there is a lot of inflation out there. It’s already inflated, we’re in the midst of inflation. Because the prices haven’t gone up doesn’t mean we don’t have the distortion.
Now since both Paul and the Chairman are well versed in economics, and since his time is short, he doesn't always define his terms--though I'm betting he will in his forthcoming book. But in order to understand his point, it might be helpful to give a definition. For while the tendency is to gauge inflation by looking at prices--by using a fraudulent CPI--an increase in prices is actually a symptom of inflation. The great Austrian economist Murray Rothbard defines inflation as "an increase in the money supply not consisting of an increase in the money metal." (America's Great Depression, p.12)
When the money supply is inflated, each unit of currency becomes worth less than it was before the inflation occurred. It may take some time for the market to adjust to this increase in the money supply, but the end result is a currency whose values has been much depreciated. Inflation is the reason why an increase in wage rates is often insufficient to cover the increase to the cost of living.
What Paul is saying is that focusing on prices is entirely the wrong thing to do. Since the money supply has doubled, the currency has already been inflated. We may not want to experience it, but since it's happening presently, it is only a matter of time before the symptoms of inflation--i.e. high prices--set in, which will further hurt the economy.
He continues:
What if we have a situation where prices, which is not the best measure of inflation, but let’s say the consumer price index (CPI) is going up 8% to 10% and there is no economic growth. Where are you then, because that’s not impossible, it’s happened. It’s happened in our history, it happens throughout the world, it’s a common thing, it puts you between a rock and a hard place. If you drain, interest rates go up and the economy further crashes. If you don’t, you have the explosion.
Can you give me an idea what you precisely would do if you face the situation where prices were going up 10% with no economic growth?
A very sensible question. To which Bernanke responds:
Well, I think that’s an unlikely scenario but we certainly would have to take steps to ensure price stability, because if inflation gets out of control we know it has very adverse effects on the economy, both in the medium and long term and so we would obviously have to address that.
The Chairman prides himself as a student of the Great Depression. I'm hoping he realizes that President Hoover also attempted to keep prices stable. Specifically, he insisted that businesses keep wages up--which they did. For those fortunate enough to have jobs, the Great Depression wasn't unbearable; but those forced out of the labor markets when wages were maintained at a much higher rate than the market could support were less lucky. Anyway, outside of outright price controls--which, aside from being an affront to liberty, have deleterious effects--it is difficult to see how the Government will maintain price stability--though I'm not doubtful that they'll try to do so.Moreover, it is unclear why price stability should be a good thing. We who live with an always inflationary Federal Reserve might react skeptically to such an assertion: of course prices should be kept stable. After all, one couldn't suggest with any seriousness that they should always continue to rise. On the contrary, it would be most desirable if prices, specifically those of consumer goods, fell. And in the free market, this is precisely what happens. As capitalism produces more goods with less labor, the extra goods drive down the cost of that good and provide more people with that good than ever before. Meanwhile, the displaced labor can be allocated to produce goods to meet other market demands, to the betterment of all.
As Rothbard points out, speaking of the economic bubble of the 1920's which led to the Great Depression:
Federal Reserve credit expansion, then, whether so intended or not, managed to keep the price level stable in the face of an increased productivity that would, in a free and unhampered market, have led to falling prices and a spread of increased living standards to everyone in the population. (ibid. p.171)
Of course, now that the money supply has doubled, it's a bit silly to expect prices to fall as they would in a market free from the tangles of the Federal Reserve. Nor is it likely that even prices stability will be achieved. But should Bernanke's "unlikely scenario" become a reality sometime during the coming year or two, we may profit from yet another reminder that current economic policy is as irrational as it is ineffective in achieving its desired ends. Maybe then we'll finally put an end to it.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Fascism cometh
Conservatives have debased themselves so pathetically during the last eight years--and more--that it may be difficult to take them seriously. Recently, the tea parties attempted to draw attention to the egregious deficit spending of the Obama administration, were mocked and maligned by the mainstream media. Whatever the merits of the particular forms the protests took, it is surely laudable to point out that, just as our forebears lamented being taxed without representation, it is similarly unjust to require future generations to pay for the excesses of today. But if Obama deserved scorn for the size of his deficits, conservatives erred grievously in failing to call Bush to task for the very same thing. It is true that Obama's deficits are larger, much larger; nonetheless, the state could never have grown so rapidly had the political right not abdicated so completely in their defense of limited government. I do not doubt that the intentions of the Obama administration would be quite similar, but even supposing that an almost unknown and unproven Senator who leaned so severely leftward could capture the office without Bush's aid, at least conservatives would be able to agitate for limited government without appearing to be the seething hypocrites that they are.
Having dispensed of the Bush conservatives, we may now profitably examine the nature of conservatism itself. Divorced from the political considerations which have arisen recently, conservatism is rooted in a steadfast defense of tradition. It does not simply oppose all change; this would be folly, and would remove all potential for moral progress. Instead, it implores agitated reformers to be patient before attempting to enact massive change. Conservatism knows that change for the sake of change is not only bothersome, it is dangerous, because it undermines the rituals and institutions which are the very marks of civilization. Reformers also tend to overstate the effects of pronouncements from above, and understate the unintended consequences of altering an aspect of any organism so complicated as society, consequences which can be seen very clearly in the excesses of the French Revolution. If an institution is to change to address a particular deficiency, a careful examination must be made of the problem; only when it has been properly studied will it be possible to produce its remedy.
It is unfortunate, then, that conservatives have disgraced themselves, because their admonitions are desperately needed right about now. It would be nice if there existed a real opposition to the all but inevitable growth in government, though right now, simply slowing the growth would be a much welcome change from the roller coaster ride that has been the first one hundred days.
At the risk of being maligned as simply another indignant right-winger, I must insist that several aspects of the current administration make it particularly dangerous. First, the president and his staff have a great deal of naive optimism about their ability to reform the world. As leaders have found out before, there are severe limitations to what men can do to better humanity, about which Obama and his minions seem blissfully unaware. As John Derbyshire points out:
It looks very much as if the president is oblivious to everything we've learned about social programs and educational reforms in the last 40 years—and by "we" I include policy analysts on the left as well as right. The guy never indicates that he is aware that we've tried a whole bunch of the same stuff he wants to try and evaluated it repeatedly and—read my lips—it doesn't work.
It is certainly too early to insist that the Obama administration is a failure. On the other hand, despite the rhetoric of change, almost every move the president has made has been in the direction of increasing drastically the power of the government. I know of no historical parallels in which an economy as unhealthy as ours has embarked on a similar course to their edification.
This gets us to the second dangerous aspect of the Obama administration. Like any progressive politician, he favors action over inaction, even when we're not clear about how to act. Speaking of the economic stimulus in the aforementioned speech, Obama said:
I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years.
These are dubious claims. Setting aside my libertarian principles for the sake of the argument, it is possible that certain actions made by the government could have helped the situation. But to insist that any action whatsoever was preferable to doing nothing is absurd. This is when a thoughtful and principled conservative would step in and insist that we first attempt to understand the problem. Then we can go about finding a solution. Simply acting wildly is neither sensible nor responsible.
Later, in the same speech, Obama stated:
I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.
I interrupt briefly to remind him that members of AIG took bonuses after this speech. And although it has not received as much attention, much of this money was used by the company to shore up debts to foreign banks. It's unclear how this benefits the American economy. On the other hand, it illustrates the point that acting before thinking is bound to produce unintended, and unpleasant, consequences.
Still, this plan will require significant resources from the federal government –- and yes, probably more than we’ve already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade.
Here we have another senseless defense of action over inaction, always and everywhere. I hesitate to bring up the next point, because it is liable to be misinterpreted as hyperbole. The tendency to see the State as an all encompassing entity and the cult of action are signs that Barack Obama is yet another American fascist president. Let me attempt to make my case.
First, Benito Mussolini's dictum of "nothing outside the state" is in full accordance with not only Obama's positions, but with most of those of the ruling elite. We take it for granted that Il Duce knew a thing or two about fascism. Even Republicans tend to conceive of very little outside of the state, whatever their rhetoric might say. For instance, support of "school choice" might seem like a good way to reform the broken educational system, but it still concedes the point that we should all pay money to the State with which it will then educate our children. Home-schooling is more drastic, and explicitly anti-Fascist, because it insists that some things should be done by entities without any relation to the State. On a similar note, social security reform would maintain the fiction that it is the role of the State to care for its subjects when they enter retirement.
Second, the tendency to act without a plan, merely in the hope that trying things is preferabble to leaving them alone is further evidence of fascism. As Jonah Goldberg puts it in Liberal Fascism:
Mussolini's main governing themes were expediency and opportunism... Mussolini zigzagged every which way, from free trade and low taxes to a totalitarian state apparatus. Even before he attained power, his stock response when asked to outline his program was to say he had none. "Our program is to govern" the fascists liked to say. (p.48,130)
Similarly, Obama has a vague end for which he has acted in his attempts to save the economy. But nowhere is there any evidence of a plan; in fact, no one even seems to know where all of the bailout money went. We should see further evidence of this when the bailouts fail, necessitating more action by President Obama. But we can perhaps see better evidence of American fascism in action by looking to President FDR, whose New Deal, after all, was the inspiration for the latest round of government expansion. Again, from Goldberg:
Today many liberals subscribe to the myth that the New Deal was a coherent, enlightened, unified endeavor encapsulated in the largely meaningless phrase “the Roosevelt legacy.” This is poppycock. “To look upon these programs as the result of a unified plan,” wrote Raymond Moley, FDR’s right-hand man during much of the New Deal, “was to believe that the accumulation of stuffed snakes, baseball pictures, school flags, old tennis shoes, carpenter’s tools, geometry books, and chemistry sets in a boy’s bedroom could have been put there by an interior decorator.” When Alvin Hansen, an influential economic adviser to the president, was asked — in 1940! — whether “the basic principle of the New Deal” was “economically sound,” he responded, “I really do not know what the basic principle of the New Deal is.” (p.130)
Given how little time Obama has had to govern, my conclusion may seem a bit forced. But I wanted to get it out here now because if I had to give a prediction, I would say that as things progress during this administration, we're more and more likely to descend toward totalitarianism--which is a term Mussolini used to describe, quite positively, his own system of government. Now, this doesn't mean that Obama is going to line up the right-wingers to be shot; nor will he necessarily begin to jail dissidents in large numbers--though his idealogical predecessors, Lincoln, Wilson and FDR all did this.
What it does mean is that government control will become pervasive. Price controls may be instituted; rationing may return. Behavior will be closely watched, and seemingly innocuous activitied will be curtailed. Freedom will fade even further. Look for Alexis de Tocqueville's portrait of a despotic democracy to become all too real:
It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd...
The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Having dispensed of the Bush conservatives, we may now profitably examine the nature of conservatism itself. Divorced from the political considerations which have arisen recently, conservatism is rooted in a steadfast defense of tradition. It does not simply oppose all change; this would be folly, and would remove all potential for moral progress. Instead, it implores agitated reformers to be patient before attempting to enact massive change. Conservatism knows that change for the sake of change is not only bothersome, it is dangerous, because it undermines the rituals and institutions which are the very marks of civilization. Reformers also tend to overstate the effects of pronouncements from above, and understate the unintended consequences of altering an aspect of any organism so complicated as society, consequences which can be seen very clearly in the excesses of the French Revolution. If an institution is to change to address a particular deficiency, a careful examination must be made of the problem; only when it has been properly studied will it be possible to produce its remedy.
It is unfortunate, then, that conservatives have disgraced themselves, because their admonitions are desperately needed right about now. It would be nice if there existed a real opposition to the all but inevitable growth in government, though right now, simply slowing the growth would be a much welcome change from the roller coaster ride that has been the first one hundred days.
At the risk of being maligned as simply another indignant right-winger, I must insist that several aspects of the current administration make it particularly dangerous. First, the president and his staff have a great deal of naive optimism about their ability to reform the world. As leaders have found out before, there are severe limitations to what men can do to better humanity, about which Obama and his minions seem blissfully unaware. As John Derbyshire points out:
Every age has its characteristic follies, and those follies have their correctives. The folly of the present age in America is a facile, infantile optimism, that recognizes no limits to human abilities or the wonders that can be wrought by politicians, bureaucrats, and generals. The corrective is a firm, measured pessimism.
The danger posed by the Obama administration would still exist even if he proved to be a masterful statesmen. That he has thus far governed with roughly the same incompetency of his predecessor is hardly encouraging. The parallels do not end there, alas. One of the aspects of the Bush presidency which leftists correctly identified as deeply problematic was his inability to change his mind on matters even when facts revealed his position to be tenuous. No matter how poorly the war went, Bush was convinced that we had acted rightly and that history would bear this out in the end. But cannot much of the same be said of Obama? When the stimulus fails, and his ridiculous environmental policies do nothing to alleviate the elusive global climate change; when State run schools are still producing half literate dregs in dilapidated buildings despite exorbitant funding; and when the situation in Afghanistan remains hopeless despite a surge, are we even reasonably confident the president will re-examine his principles. As Charles Murray observed during Obama's State of the Union speech:It looks very much as if the president is oblivious to everything we've learned about social programs and educational reforms in the last 40 years—and by "we" I include policy analysts on the left as well as right. The guy never indicates that he is aware that we've tried a whole bunch of the same stuff he wants to try and evaluated it repeatedly and—read my lips—it doesn't work.
It is certainly too early to insist that the Obama administration is a failure. On the other hand, despite the rhetoric of change, almost every move the president has made has been in the direction of increasing drastically the power of the government. I know of no historical parallels in which an economy as unhealthy as ours has embarked on a similar course to their edification.
This gets us to the second dangerous aspect of the Obama administration. Like any progressive politician, he favors action over inaction, even when we're not clear about how to act. Speaking of the economic stimulus in the aforementioned speech, Obama said:
I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years.
These are dubious claims. Setting aside my libertarian principles for the sake of the argument, it is possible that certain actions made by the government could have helped the situation. But to insist that any action whatsoever was preferable to doing nothing is absurd. This is when a thoughtful and principled conservative would step in and insist that we first attempt to understand the problem. Then we can go about finding a solution. Simply acting wildly is neither sensible nor responsible.
Later, in the same speech, Obama stated:
I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.
I interrupt briefly to remind him that members of AIG took bonuses after this speech. And although it has not received as much attention, much of this money was used by the company to shore up debts to foreign banks. It's unclear how this benefits the American economy. On the other hand, it illustrates the point that acting before thinking is bound to produce unintended, and unpleasant, consequences.
Still, this plan will require significant resources from the federal government –- and yes, probably more than we’ve already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade.
Here we have another senseless defense of action over inaction, always and everywhere. I hesitate to bring up the next point, because it is liable to be misinterpreted as hyperbole. The tendency to see the State as an all encompassing entity and the cult of action are signs that Barack Obama is yet another American fascist president. Let me attempt to make my case.
First, Benito Mussolini's dictum of "nothing outside the state" is in full accordance with not only Obama's positions, but with most of those of the ruling elite. We take it for granted that Il Duce knew a thing or two about fascism. Even Republicans tend to conceive of very little outside of the state, whatever their rhetoric might say. For instance, support of "school choice" might seem like a good way to reform the broken educational system, but it still concedes the point that we should all pay money to the State with which it will then educate our children. Home-schooling is more drastic, and explicitly anti-Fascist, because it insists that some things should be done by entities without any relation to the State. On a similar note, social security reform would maintain the fiction that it is the role of the State to care for its subjects when they enter retirement.
Second, the tendency to act without a plan, merely in the hope that trying things is preferabble to leaving them alone is further evidence of fascism. As Jonah Goldberg puts it in Liberal Fascism:
Mussolini's main governing themes were expediency and opportunism... Mussolini zigzagged every which way, from free trade and low taxes to a totalitarian state apparatus. Even before he attained power, his stock response when asked to outline his program was to say he had none. "Our program is to govern" the fascists liked to say. (p.48,130)
Similarly, Obama has a vague end for which he has acted in his attempts to save the economy. But nowhere is there any evidence of a plan; in fact, no one even seems to know where all of the bailout money went. We should see further evidence of this when the bailouts fail, necessitating more action by President Obama. But we can perhaps see better evidence of American fascism in action by looking to President FDR, whose New Deal, after all, was the inspiration for the latest round of government expansion. Again, from Goldberg:
Today many liberals subscribe to the myth that the New Deal was a coherent, enlightened, unified endeavor encapsulated in the largely meaningless phrase “the Roosevelt legacy.” This is poppycock. “To look upon these programs as the result of a unified plan,” wrote Raymond Moley, FDR’s right-hand man during much of the New Deal, “was to believe that the accumulation of stuffed snakes, baseball pictures, school flags, old tennis shoes, carpenter’s tools, geometry books, and chemistry sets in a boy’s bedroom could have been put there by an interior decorator.” When Alvin Hansen, an influential economic adviser to the president, was asked — in 1940! — whether “the basic principle of the New Deal” was “economically sound,” he responded, “I really do not know what the basic principle of the New Deal is.” (p.130)
Given how little time Obama has had to govern, my conclusion may seem a bit forced. But I wanted to get it out here now because if I had to give a prediction, I would say that as things progress during this administration, we're more and more likely to descend toward totalitarianism--which is a term Mussolini used to describe, quite positively, his own system of government. Now, this doesn't mean that Obama is going to line up the right-wingers to be shot; nor will he necessarily begin to jail dissidents in large numbers--though his idealogical predecessors, Lincoln, Wilson and FDR all did this.
What it does mean is that government control will become pervasive. Price controls may be instituted; rationing may return. Behavior will be closely watched, and seemingly innocuous activitied will be curtailed. Freedom will fade even further. Look for Alexis de Tocqueville's portrait of a despotic democracy to become all too real:
It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd...
The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A good start to Marx
Before settling into a scathing indictment of the man and his work, in his book Intellectuals, historian Paul Johnson observes: "Karl Marx has had more impact on actual events, as well as on the minds of men and women, than any other intellectual in modern times." Although there is little in Marxism which holds a personal attraction for me, it is nonetheless true that some familiarity therewith is necessary for a man who lives in “modern times”. To this end, and based on the recommendations of those more congenial towards his system, I picked up Marx For Beginners by Rius.
Contrary to Johnson, Rius believes that the ideas of Karl Marx have been a tremendous boon for humanity. He attributes: "social security, pensions, paid holidays, unions, scholarships" to the influence of Comrade Marx. Notably absent from his list is the Stalinist show trial, but so too is Stalin himself from the "little dictionary of Marxist terms" which concludes the book. Keeping in mind the veracity of Johnson's statement quoted above, Rius overreaches when he claims that "all revolutions... have a Marxist origin." Forget the American and French Revolutions: someone awaken Thucydides and tell him to rewrite the revolution of Corcyra to include Marxist overtones!
A "short biography of the man" is given before Rius delves into some useful background. However alluring his philosophy, one problem, as Rius admits, is that "Marx is hard to digest!" Understanding Marx's intellectual background can aid the digestion process. In this case, it helps to know something of Hegel, who requires some knowledge of Kant, and so on and so forth. With this in mind, Rius spends about thirty pages touching upon the history of western philosophy.
This section of the book is marred by Rius's attempts to conflate everything he approves as preparing in some way for Marx, while deprecating all other influences on western thought. His tendency to assign the moniker of materialist or atheist to early Greek philosophers underscores his point about the intrinsic antipathy between religion and philosophy; but while this was largely true of the Greek world, and may appear to be true today, the early Christians did their noble best to unify philosophy and religion. Plato was saved while Poseiden was left to rot. Sometimes, as when he insists that St. Thomas Aquinas practiced "mental gymnastics", Rius is being honest in revealing this bias—though I would add that he would benefit from Thomas's defense of private property in Summa Theologica II-II, Q24 A1. But when he includes Dante—who was immensely influenced by Thomistic mental gymnastics—in his pantheon of Renaissance personalities, one can hardly help but chuckle at such historical illiteracy.
The rest of the book covers Marx's: philosophy, economic doctrine, and historical materialism. Rius makes good use of quotes from Marx, Engels, and a number of their followers—the majority of which comes from The Communist Manifesto, which is, disappointingly, the one bit of Marx I've actually read—and his interspersed rhetorical asides are quite charming. The three-pronged exposition works well, and gives a good grasp of Marx's thought. It draws me no nearer to belief in his system, but it makes a certain amount of sense why one who had lost his faith in God, yet realized that evil often triumphed in this world, would latch onto such a system. As Daniel Boorstin puts it in The Seekers: "So for his followers, Marx was able to avoid the emptiness of a valueless world ruled by impersonal forces by assuring them of the triumph of justice in the long run."
There are a variety of reasons one might study Marx. At the very least, one may better grasp the happenings of the twentieth century, from Lenin's Revolution in Russia to the adoption of quasi-socialist legislation in many parts of the west. But a spectre is again haunting Europe, and indeed the world. I think it a gross misrepresentation to conclude that unregulated capitalism is somehow to blame for the economic crisis; nonetheless, the perceived failure of capitalism has amplified the siren's song of Marx. Whatever the shortcomings of his thought, the man may very well influence the twenty-first century as profoundly as he did the twentieth. For that reason, and so that the application—or misapplication—of his ideas sheds less blood and brings more justice than it did at first attempt, we may profit from studying him. Rius provides an instructive and engaging beginning.
Contrary to Johnson, Rius believes that the ideas of Karl Marx have been a tremendous boon for humanity. He attributes: "social security, pensions, paid holidays, unions, scholarships" to the influence of Comrade Marx. Notably absent from his list is the Stalinist show trial, but so too is Stalin himself from the "little dictionary of Marxist terms" which concludes the book. Keeping in mind the veracity of Johnson's statement quoted above, Rius overreaches when he claims that "all revolutions... have a Marxist origin." Forget the American and French Revolutions: someone awaken Thucydides and tell him to rewrite the revolution of Corcyra to include Marxist overtones!
A "short biography of the man" is given before Rius delves into some useful background. However alluring his philosophy, one problem, as Rius admits, is that "Marx is hard to digest!" Understanding Marx's intellectual background can aid the digestion process. In this case, it helps to know something of Hegel, who requires some knowledge of Kant, and so on and so forth. With this in mind, Rius spends about thirty pages touching upon the history of western philosophy.
This section of the book is marred by Rius's attempts to conflate everything he approves as preparing in some way for Marx, while deprecating all other influences on western thought. His tendency to assign the moniker of materialist or atheist to early Greek philosophers underscores his point about the intrinsic antipathy between religion and philosophy; but while this was largely true of the Greek world, and may appear to be true today, the early Christians did their noble best to unify philosophy and religion. Plato was saved while Poseiden was left to rot. Sometimes, as when he insists that St. Thomas Aquinas practiced "mental gymnastics", Rius is being honest in revealing this bias—though I would add that he would benefit from Thomas's defense of private property in Summa Theologica II-II, Q24 A1. But when he includes Dante—who was immensely influenced by Thomistic mental gymnastics—in his pantheon of Renaissance personalities, one can hardly help but chuckle at such historical illiteracy.
The rest of the book covers Marx's: philosophy, economic doctrine, and historical materialism. Rius makes good use of quotes from Marx, Engels, and a number of their followers—the majority of which comes from The Communist Manifesto, which is, disappointingly, the one bit of Marx I've actually read—and his interspersed rhetorical asides are quite charming. The three-pronged exposition works well, and gives a good grasp of Marx's thought. It draws me no nearer to belief in his system, but it makes a certain amount of sense why one who had lost his faith in God, yet realized that evil often triumphed in this world, would latch onto such a system. As Daniel Boorstin puts it in The Seekers: "So for his followers, Marx was able to avoid the emptiness of a valueless world ruled by impersonal forces by assuring them of the triumph of justice in the long run."
There are a variety of reasons one might study Marx. At the very least, one may better grasp the happenings of the twentieth century, from Lenin's Revolution in Russia to the adoption of quasi-socialist legislation in many parts of the west. But a spectre is again haunting Europe, and indeed the world. I think it a gross misrepresentation to conclude that unregulated capitalism is somehow to blame for the economic crisis; nonetheless, the perceived failure of capitalism has amplified the siren's song of Marx. Whatever the shortcomings of his thought, the man may very well influence the twenty-first century as profoundly as he did the twentieth. For that reason, and so that the application—or misapplication—of his ideas sheds less blood and brings more justice than it did at first attempt, we may profit from studying him. Rius provides an instructive and engaging beginning.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Unnecessary nukes
I'm no fan of our president, but when he takes undeserved flak I think it's important to come to his defense. In a post over at National Review's Corner, Brian T. Kennedy writes:
[W]e must thank the North Koreans for at least reminding the American people that the world is a serious place where life and death matters. This is more than our elected representatives are giving us these days. Newt Gingrich, no longer elected, struck just the right tone on Fox News Sunday in taking the threat as seriously as it is warranted. It was in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons — an idea so ridiculous that it begs the question, “Why not a world without weapons of any kind?”
I will answer Mr. Kennedy's question in a bit, but first I'd like to quote from one of Rich Lowry's readers, who is again discussing some of the statements made by the president during his visits to Europe:
There is of course a serious scholarly debate to be had on the NECESSITY of using the Bomb (though the preponderance of thought is, yes, it was necessary). But to say that we bear a “moral responsibility” to prevent the use of nuclear weapons because we are the only ones who used them? Wow.
Take it a step further and this seems to mean that the use of nukes is never permissible. If it wasn’t justified against Japan (after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, kamikazes, no surrender in the islands, 400K US deaths at the hands of Japan and her allies, an estimated 500K to 1,000,000 US casualties if we invaded), then it’s never justified. Follow that logic: those who dropped the bombs are bad guys, as are the scientists who developed the Bomb. Did they have a moral obligation to refuse orders and not develop or drop the bombs? What should the US military do TODAY if President Obama orders the use of nuclear weapons? Are they morally obligated to refuse orders? Which brings up a final question: if the use of nuclear weapons against Japan leaves us with a “moral responsibility” to prohibit their use today, is President Obama saying he would never order the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances? Someone (Jake Tapper?) should ask him that.
The reason I quote from this anonymous reader is that he articulates the reasons we were justified for dropping the bomb on Japan--the corollary of which is that if similar circumstances should ever arise again, we would be justified in dropping another bomb. The defense is simply this: the bomb saved lives in a war with a nation which would have fought us to the death; therefore, nuking Japan was a moral good. Considerations for individual lives doesn't enter in because they are squeezed out in the plainly utilitarian balancing of numbers. I might be opening myself up to a charge of Obama like naivete; nonetheless, it needs to be said that this is an extremely cynical way of justifying an atrocity, one which speaks badly of our ability to reason morally.
Whether or not the bombs saved lives is ultimately not the issue; it can not be proven with any certainty since the bombs ended the war, though I am inclined to believe that the Japanese would have surrendered without an invasion. The question is whether the destruction of more than one hundred thousand human beings, many of them civilians, was morally acceptable. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it in discussing the doctrine of just war: "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes." (2314)
Thinking as a philosopher, if only for a moment, self-defense is morally justifiable because such cases involve acting to preserve one's own life, which is a moral good. It follows that any defense of innocents against aggressors is likewise justifiable. Applied to war, this means that the non-aggressors--the United States in WWII--are justified in preserving their lives against the aggressors--Axis powers. But this does not mean that everyone identified with those powers is to be treated as an aggressor; on the contrary, the rules of war--at least in the realm of ethics--ensure that only combatants are liable to attacks by the defenders.
It could be argued that non-combatants are also aggressors since they are supporting a hostile regime, perhaps by aiding in the production of weapons. We can safely assert that varying degrees of culpability exist. For instance, contractors who are providing equipment for armed forces are essentially part of the forces themselves, and may be treated as such. Those who grow grain, which is then sold at market, possibly to the military, have very little if any culpability. After all, most of us pay taxes which go to provide bombs which then rain down upon Afghanistan weddings. While we would be acting nobly to serve jail time in defiance, like Thoreau or Mohamed Ali, I don't think such drastic actions can be expected of everyone who finds fault with a war which they are forced to support indirectly. Lastly, culpability is lessened severely in the case of a totalitarian regime.
Returning to task, it is clear that targeting non-combatants is morally unacceptable. Such targeting may help bring about the end of the war--although, as Allied fire bombing will attest, it may increase casualties without effective the enemy's ability to wage war--but it is impossible to act thus and claim the higher moral ground. Such actions are, to put the matter bluntly, acts of terrorism. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski attest that it is not only weak powers which resort to such tactics, nor is it true that terrorists never win. Often, they do.
The existence of a situation in which the use of nuclear weapons would be deemed morally permissible strikes me as dubious--to say the least. This is why a world in which there were no nuclear weapons would be preferable to one in which products which can only be used for evil sit idly by until mankind succumbs to employ them again. This moral examination also calls into question many of the techniques used by a modern military. If it isn't possible to ensure that non-combatants aren't going to be hurt by the bombs dropped by planes thousands and thousands and feet above the ground, it would be difficult to justify such moral recklessness, however effective we may believe such techniques to be.
This allows me to finally answer Mr. Kennedy's question. Most weapons can be used in morally justifiable--as well as morally neutral--ways. If a robber enters my house, brandishing a gun, and I shoot him to subdue him, I am using a gun in a morally acceptable manner. I can think of no parallel in which nuclear weapons could be used similarly.
The question we need to ask ourselves is if we could conceive a situation in which using nuclear weapons would be morally permissible. Those who believe we acted justly during WWII would do well to reconsider the issue, setting aside practical concerns and treating the ethical dilemma for what it is. The logical outcome for the rest of us is that the Unites States should disarm. Whether or not such a move would invite attack is beside the point; if we would never be justified in retaliating with nuclear weapons, then we should act now to remove the temptation. It would be truly shameful if the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons were to do so again.
[W]e must thank the North Koreans for at least reminding the American people that the world is a serious place where life and death matters. This is more than our elected representatives are giving us these days. Newt Gingrich, no longer elected, struck just the right tone on Fox News Sunday in taking the threat as seriously as it is warranted. It was in stark contrast to Mr. Obama’s pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons — an idea so ridiculous that it begs the question, “Why not a world without weapons of any kind?”
I will answer Mr. Kennedy's question in a bit, but first I'd like to quote from one of Rich Lowry's readers, who is again discussing some of the statements made by the president during his visits to Europe:
There is of course a serious scholarly debate to be had on the NECESSITY of using the Bomb (though the preponderance of thought is, yes, it was necessary). But to say that we bear a “moral responsibility” to prevent the use of nuclear weapons because we are the only ones who used them? Wow.
Take it a step further and this seems to mean that the use of nukes is never permissible. If it wasn’t justified against Japan (after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, kamikazes, no surrender in the islands, 400K US deaths at the hands of Japan and her allies, an estimated 500K to 1,000,000 US casualties if we invaded), then it’s never justified. Follow that logic: those who dropped the bombs are bad guys, as are the scientists who developed the Bomb. Did they have a moral obligation to refuse orders and not develop or drop the bombs? What should the US military do TODAY if President Obama orders the use of nuclear weapons? Are they morally obligated to refuse orders? Which brings up a final question: if the use of nuclear weapons against Japan leaves us with a “moral responsibility” to prohibit their use today, is President Obama saying he would never order the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances? Someone (Jake Tapper?) should ask him that.
The reason I quote from this anonymous reader is that he articulates the reasons we were justified for dropping the bomb on Japan--the corollary of which is that if similar circumstances should ever arise again, we would be justified in dropping another bomb. The defense is simply this: the bomb saved lives in a war with a nation which would have fought us to the death; therefore, nuking Japan was a moral good. Considerations for individual lives doesn't enter in because they are squeezed out in the plainly utilitarian balancing of numbers. I might be opening myself up to a charge of Obama like naivete; nonetheless, it needs to be said that this is an extremely cynical way of justifying an atrocity, one which speaks badly of our ability to reason morally.
Whether or not the bombs saved lives is ultimately not the issue; it can not be proven with any certainty since the bombs ended the war, though I am inclined to believe that the Japanese would have surrendered without an invasion. The question is whether the destruction of more than one hundred thousand human beings, many of them civilians, was morally acceptable. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it in discussing the doctrine of just war: "Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons - to commit such crimes." (2314)
Thinking as a philosopher, if only for a moment, self-defense is morally justifiable because such cases involve acting to preserve one's own life, which is a moral good. It follows that any defense of innocents against aggressors is likewise justifiable. Applied to war, this means that the non-aggressors--the United States in WWII--are justified in preserving their lives against the aggressors--Axis powers. But this does not mean that everyone identified with those powers is to be treated as an aggressor; on the contrary, the rules of war--at least in the realm of ethics--ensure that only combatants are liable to attacks by the defenders.
It could be argued that non-combatants are also aggressors since they are supporting a hostile regime, perhaps by aiding in the production of weapons. We can safely assert that varying degrees of culpability exist. For instance, contractors who are providing equipment for armed forces are essentially part of the forces themselves, and may be treated as such. Those who grow grain, which is then sold at market, possibly to the military, have very little if any culpability. After all, most of us pay taxes which go to provide bombs which then rain down upon Afghanistan weddings. While we would be acting nobly to serve jail time in defiance, like Thoreau or Mohamed Ali, I don't think such drastic actions can be expected of everyone who finds fault with a war which they are forced to support indirectly. Lastly, culpability is lessened severely in the case of a totalitarian regime.
Returning to task, it is clear that targeting non-combatants is morally unacceptable. Such targeting may help bring about the end of the war--although, as Allied fire bombing will attest, it may increase casualties without effective the enemy's ability to wage war--but it is impossible to act thus and claim the higher moral ground. Such actions are, to put the matter bluntly, acts of terrorism. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski attest that it is not only weak powers which resort to such tactics, nor is it true that terrorists never win. Often, they do.
The existence of a situation in which the use of nuclear weapons would be deemed morally permissible strikes me as dubious--to say the least. This is why a world in which there were no nuclear weapons would be preferable to one in which products which can only be used for evil sit idly by until mankind succumbs to employ them again. This moral examination also calls into question many of the techniques used by a modern military. If it isn't possible to ensure that non-combatants aren't going to be hurt by the bombs dropped by planes thousands and thousands and feet above the ground, it would be difficult to justify such moral recklessness, however effective we may believe such techniques to be.
This allows me to finally answer Mr. Kennedy's question. Most weapons can be used in morally justifiable--as well as morally neutral--ways. If a robber enters my house, brandishing a gun, and I shoot him to subdue him, I am using a gun in a morally acceptable manner. I can think of no parallel in which nuclear weapons could be used similarly.
The question we need to ask ourselves is if we could conceive a situation in which using nuclear weapons would be morally permissible. Those who believe we acted justly during WWII would do well to reconsider the issue, setting aside practical concerns and treating the ethical dilemma for what it is. The logical outcome for the rest of us is that the Unites States should disarm. Whether or not such a move would invite attack is beside the point; if we would never be justified in retaliating with nuclear weapons, then we should act now to remove the temptation. It would be truly shameful if the only country which has ever used nuclear weapons were to do so again.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Not by reason alone
I wish to comment upon a piece written by George Williamson, which is a response to a far better one written by Julian Baggini. Most of my words will be devoted to the former, but to give the reader some idea of what Williamson writes about, it helps to quote briefly from the latter. After confessing that he has not read any of the books written by the four horsemen--Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens--Baggini remarks:
This is not a function of what exactly these books say, but of how they are perceived, and the kind of comments the four horsemen make in newspaper articles and interviews. All this, I think, has been unhelpful in many ways. In short, the new atheism gets atheism wrong, gets religion wrong, and is counterproductive.
While admitting that I have only read Dawkins's book, I find myself in agreement with Baggini, at least on this point. Even those who agree with Dawkins may come away from The God Delusion admitting that he is a bit of an ass. Tone is very important in apologetics; while it is utterly unreasonable to expect anyone to be all things to all people and avoid offending entirely, one's audience will be less receptive to one's message if it is delivered with scurrilous condescension. One reason I like Chesterton is that his admonitions are offered with charity, which can only help his apologetics. Perhaps vehemence aids in the selling of books, but it seems less suited to change hearts and minds.
Enough background. Williamson writes:
Perhaps the answer lies in Mr. Baggini’s complaints of the new atheists’ use of reason and evidence. The new atheists “claim reason as a decisive combatant on [their] side only”, and must “recognise the limits of reason” and “acknowledge that atheists have no monopoly on it”.
That they might claim reason for their own is implausible, considering the diligence and detail in which they have scrutinized the reasoning and evidence of their theist opponents, whose books they appear to have bothered to read, in spite of the likelihood that they have seen much of the same calibre. But the new atheists go on from this examination to assert, on the strength of reason and evidence, that their case is the better supported.
The only problem with the second paragraph is that it isn't even vaguely true. An amateur Thomist, I became quite excited as Dawkins moved to address the arguments of my favorite philosopher. But instead of dismantling the arguments of Aquinas, or even providing an engaging examination, Dawkins squirms away with a rhetorical flourish. As Vox Day points out in The Irrational Atheist:
Dawkins is not actually interested in genuinely considering the question of God’s existence, as evidenced by his cursory perusal of a few of the less complicated arguments for the existence of God. His dismissal of the 3,020 pages of the Summa Theologica in less than three pages is no demonstration of surpassingly brilliant logic; it’s merely waving a dead chicken over the keyboard in an attempt to deceive the ignorant into believing that the argument has been seriously considered and found wanting. This is particularly egregious given that part of those three pages is devoted to a tangent that is entirely unrelated to the quinquae viae. (p.133)
The problem, for Dawkins and others, is that the evidence in favor of a first cause is actually pretty strong. Nonetheless, the God of the philosophers does not appear to be the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob, much to Pascal's chagrin. As St. Thomas asserts, "It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason." Thus, while there is plenty of room for doubt, especially over the claims of specific religions, merely skipping over the arguments in favor of God's existence is intellectually dishonest.
It's also quite disappointing. Dawkins knows a good deal about science, which makes those sections of his book to be fascinating. But if he is representative of the best that can be thrown at the greatest religious thinkers, then atheism, or at least the Dawkins variant, needs to return to the drawing board. In order to write well about a subject, you need to take the time to study it. Contrary to Williamson, they haven't done their homework.
Alas, neither has he:
Believers may be unhappy to hear that religion is behind a lion’s share of the world’s wars, but this doesn’t make it less the truth. Further, not all of the quotes clearly support Mr. Baggini’s claims. He makes much of the ‘arrogance’ of Dawkins’ website slogan, “a clear thinking oasis”, which really seems a bland claim to provide careful, reasoned thought.
First, the minor critique. To insist that one's website is an oasis of clear thinking implies that most of one's surroundings are muddle headed desert. Certainly, both the Internet and the culture at large give ample evidence of muddle-headedness. But to insist that Dawkins can provide one of perhaps only a few realms in which weary travelers may parch their intellectual thirst is a bit much.
Second, although Webster in unable to aid in quantifying "a lion's share", Williamson is revealing his ignorance when he insists that religion has been the cause of so many wars. As Vox points out, religion can only be blamed for 6.92 percent of those chronicled in the Encyclopedia of Wars. (ibid. p.104) That's not a very hungry lion.
Debunking the "religion is the cause of war" canard is important for a number of reasons. To start with the most apparent: if a large majority of wars are caused for other reasons, apostasy isn't likely to prove very beneficial at reducing the body bags produced by aggressive leaders of men. But this erroneous assertion also calls into question a good deal of the thought of Dawkins and company. To be so spectacularly wrong about the causes of war one needs to be fairly ignorant of history, which is regrettably resplendent with bloodshed; to attribute the cause of war to religion one must know very little of what the latter entails. But if an atheist doesn't know very much about religion, any criticism he offers on the topic is bound to miss its aim.
It is perhaps too much to indict atheists for making this mistake. On the other hand, if reason is to be one's god, one should serve her well and faithfully. For this is the crux of the argument Dawkins makes. He writes a good deal about the disutility of religion, but if religion, or at least one of them--however malevolent--was backed up by the evidence, we would be obligated to adhere to it. For the philosopher, the utility of religion may hold academic interest, but it holds no sway over his mind, which must be moved by reason alone. In short, Richard Dawkins is an atheist for the simple and sensible readon that he believes that God does not exist. It follows that the religions of the world are based on deceptions and lies; worse, by insisting that man believe in things which are clearly nonsensical, they prevent his higher faculties from guiding him rightly.
Yet as Baggini points out:
You cannot, on the one hand, put forward a view that says great intelligence is easily over-ridden by psychological delusions and, on the other, claim that one unique group of people can see clearly what reason demands and free themselves from such grips. Either many religious people are not as irrational as they seem, or atheists are not entitled to assume they are as rational as they seem to themselves.
The discussion of religion and war suggests some validity to Baggini's second option. Atheists too can be blinded by "psychological delusion". This observation is instructive, but it is also damaging. If man is not wholly reasonable and rational, attempting to construct a system built wholly on reason is bound to fail. Religion, in its better moments, has traditionally served to aid reason by offering man a good at which to aim, as well as motive for the attempt. There may be something which will provide the same--perhaps better--support which religion offered, but leaving a void in its place is most unreasonable.
This is a lesson humanity should have learned, and one which me might yet learn if we study history closely. After all, the philosophes of the enlightenment voiced many of the same arguments as the four horsemen--and with more wit and erudition. In some respects, Jean Meslier wrote The God Delusion almost three hundred years before Dawkins; even the tone is similar. Writing in 1965, and thus after Bertrand Russell penned Why I Am Not a Christian, Will and Ariel Durant call Meslier's Testament, "the most complete antireligious declaration that even this age would ever know." (The Age of Voltaire, p.617)
Proponents of unaided reason would do well to study the lessons of their intellectual predecessors, laid out in the next two volumes of the masterful study conducted by the Durants. The bloody revolution in France was but one possible outcome of a society attempting to divorce itself from religion; the gulags of the Soviets and the gas chambers of the National Socialists were but others. Since no such attempts have yet proven worthy of our approbation, we should be cautious about expecting a departure from the past in our future experiments sans religion.
I'll allow the Durants, nonbelievers, the the last word. Hear Pope Benedict XIV speaking--not really of course--to Voltaire:
We are convinced -- and the world is returning to us because it is learning -- that no moral code of confessedly human origin will be sufficiently impressive to control the unsocial impulses of the natural man. Our people are held up in their moral life -- though this is uncongenial to the flesh -- by a moral code taught them in their formative childhood as part of their religion, and as the word not of man but of God. You wish to keep the morality and discard the theology; but it is the theology that makes the morality sink into the soul. We must make the moral code an inseparable part of that religious belief, which is man’s most precious possession; for only through such belief does life acquire a meaning and a dignity that can support and ennoble our existence. (ibid. p. 791)
This is not a function of what exactly these books say, but of how they are perceived, and the kind of comments the four horsemen make in newspaper articles and interviews. All this, I think, has been unhelpful in many ways. In short, the new atheism gets atheism wrong, gets religion wrong, and is counterproductive.
While admitting that I have only read Dawkins's book, I find myself in agreement with Baggini, at least on this point. Even those who agree with Dawkins may come away from The God Delusion admitting that he is a bit of an ass. Tone is very important in apologetics; while it is utterly unreasonable to expect anyone to be all things to all people and avoid offending entirely, one's audience will be less receptive to one's message if it is delivered with scurrilous condescension. One reason I like Chesterton is that his admonitions are offered with charity, which can only help his apologetics. Perhaps vehemence aids in the selling of books, but it seems less suited to change hearts and minds.
Enough background. Williamson writes:
Perhaps the answer lies in Mr. Baggini’s complaints of the new atheists’ use of reason and evidence. The new atheists “claim reason as a decisive combatant on [their] side only”, and must “recognise the limits of reason” and “acknowledge that atheists have no monopoly on it”.
That they might claim reason for their own is implausible, considering the diligence and detail in which they have scrutinized the reasoning and evidence of their theist opponents, whose books they appear to have bothered to read, in spite of the likelihood that they have seen much of the same calibre. But the new atheists go on from this examination to assert, on the strength of reason and evidence, that their case is the better supported.
The only problem with the second paragraph is that it isn't even vaguely true. An amateur Thomist, I became quite excited as Dawkins moved to address the arguments of my favorite philosopher. But instead of dismantling the arguments of Aquinas, or even providing an engaging examination, Dawkins squirms away with a rhetorical flourish. As Vox Day points out in The Irrational Atheist:
Dawkins is not actually interested in genuinely considering the question of God’s existence, as evidenced by his cursory perusal of a few of the less complicated arguments for the existence of God. His dismissal of the 3,020 pages of the Summa Theologica in less than three pages is no demonstration of surpassingly brilliant logic; it’s merely waving a dead chicken over the keyboard in an attempt to deceive the ignorant into believing that the argument has been seriously considered and found wanting. This is particularly egregious given that part of those three pages is devoted to a tangent that is entirely unrelated to the quinquae viae. (p.133)
The problem, for Dawkins and others, is that the evidence in favor of a first cause is actually pretty strong. Nonetheless, the God of the philosophers does not appear to be the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob, much to Pascal's chagrin. As St. Thomas asserts, "It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason." Thus, while there is plenty of room for doubt, especially over the claims of specific religions, merely skipping over the arguments in favor of God's existence is intellectually dishonest.
It's also quite disappointing. Dawkins knows a good deal about science, which makes those sections of his book to be fascinating. But if he is representative of the best that can be thrown at the greatest religious thinkers, then atheism, or at least the Dawkins variant, needs to return to the drawing board. In order to write well about a subject, you need to take the time to study it. Contrary to Williamson, they haven't done their homework.
Alas, neither has he:
Believers may be unhappy to hear that religion is behind a lion’s share of the world’s wars, but this doesn’t make it less the truth. Further, not all of the quotes clearly support Mr. Baggini’s claims. He makes much of the ‘arrogance’ of Dawkins’ website slogan, “a clear thinking oasis”, which really seems a bland claim to provide careful, reasoned thought.
First, the minor critique. To insist that one's website is an oasis of clear thinking implies that most of one's surroundings are muddle headed desert. Certainly, both the Internet and the culture at large give ample evidence of muddle-headedness. But to insist that Dawkins can provide one of perhaps only a few realms in which weary travelers may parch their intellectual thirst is a bit much.
Second, although Webster in unable to aid in quantifying "a lion's share", Williamson is revealing his ignorance when he insists that religion has been the cause of so many wars. As Vox points out, religion can only be blamed for 6.92 percent of those chronicled in the Encyclopedia of Wars. (ibid. p.104) That's not a very hungry lion.
Debunking the "religion is the cause of war" canard is important for a number of reasons. To start with the most apparent: if a large majority of wars are caused for other reasons, apostasy isn't likely to prove very beneficial at reducing the body bags produced by aggressive leaders of men. But this erroneous assertion also calls into question a good deal of the thought of Dawkins and company. To be so spectacularly wrong about the causes of war one needs to be fairly ignorant of history, which is regrettably resplendent with bloodshed; to attribute the cause of war to religion one must know very little of what the latter entails. But if an atheist doesn't know very much about religion, any criticism he offers on the topic is bound to miss its aim.
It is perhaps too much to indict atheists for making this mistake. On the other hand, if reason is to be one's god, one should serve her well and faithfully. For this is the crux of the argument Dawkins makes. He writes a good deal about the disutility of religion, but if religion, or at least one of them--however malevolent--was backed up by the evidence, we would be obligated to adhere to it. For the philosopher, the utility of religion may hold academic interest, but it holds no sway over his mind, which must be moved by reason alone. In short, Richard Dawkins is an atheist for the simple and sensible readon that he believes that God does not exist. It follows that the religions of the world are based on deceptions and lies; worse, by insisting that man believe in things which are clearly nonsensical, they prevent his higher faculties from guiding him rightly.
Yet as Baggini points out:
You cannot, on the one hand, put forward a view that says great intelligence is easily over-ridden by psychological delusions and, on the other, claim that one unique group of people can see clearly what reason demands and free themselves from such grips. Either many religious people are not as irrational as they seem, or atheists are not entitled to assume they are as rational as they seem to themselves.
The discussion of religion and war suggests some validity to Baggini's second option. Atheists too can be blinded by "psychological delusion". This observation is instructive, but it is also damaging. If man is not wholly reasonable and rational, attempting to construct a system built wholly on reason is bound to fail. Religion, in its better moments, has traditionally served to aid reason by offering man a good at which to aim, as well as motive for the attempt. There may be something which will provide the same--perhaps better--support which religion offered, but leaving a void in its place is most unreasonable.
This is a lesson humanity should have learned, and one which me might yet learn if we study history closely. After all, the philosophes of the enlightenment voiced many of the same arguments as the four horsemen--and with more wit and erudition. In some respects, Jean Meslier wrote The God Delusion almost three hundred years before Dawkins; even the tone is similar. Writing in 1965, and thus after Bertrand Russell penned Why I Am Not a Christian, Will and Ariel Durant call Meslier's Testament, "the most complete antireligious declaration that even this age would ever know." (The Age of Voltaire, p.617)
Proponents of unaided reason would do well to study the lessons of their intellectual predecessors, laid out in the next two volumes of the masterful study conducted by the Durants. The bloody revolution in France was but one possible outcome of a society attempting to divorce itself from religion; the gulags of the Soviets and the gas chambers of the National Socialists were but others. Since no such attempts have yet proven worthy of our approbation, we should be cautious about expecting a departure from the past in our future experiments sans religion.
I'll allow the Durants, nonbelievers, the the last word. Hear Pope Benedict XIV speaking--not really of course--to Voltaire:
We are convinced -- and the world is returning to us because it is learning -- that no moral code of confessedly human origin will be sufficiently impressive to control the unsocial impulses of the natural man. Our people are held up in their moral life -- though this is uncongenial to the flesh -- by a moral code taught them in their formative childhood as part of their religion, and as the word not of man but of God. You wish to keep the morality and discard the theology; but it is the theology that makes the morality sink into the soul. We must make the moral code an inseparable part of that religious belief, which is man’s most precious possession; for only through such belief does life acquire a meaning and a dignity that can support and ennoble our existence. (ibid. p. 791)
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
On civilization and children
After over five hundred pages chronicling the vicissitudes of The Renaissance in Italy, Will Durant recounts "The Moral Relapse":
The Church and Scriptures bade men increase and multiply, but comfort counseled infertility. Even in the countryside, where children were economic assets, families of six children were rare; in the city, where children were liabilities, families were small--the richer the smaller--and many homes had no children at all. (p.586)
It is important for a society to have children, not only because, without them it quite literally disappears, but because children represent society's hope for a better future. However impoverished, if a civilization is resplendent with children, it stands some chance at succeeding. Contrarily, as Renaissance Italy demonstrates, no matter how prosperous a nation, if it has lost faith in its future, it will begin to recede, until perhaps--but not always--that faith is rekindled.
A point could be made that the tendency of our leaders to pay for the excesses of today with the money of tomorrow is good evidence about how we feel about the future. On the one hand, it could be argued that optimism is the impetus of letting tomorrow's problems be ignored. The salient point, however, is that such intense focus on living well in the here and now at the expense of the future is irresponsible, and no mark of a balanced and healthy civilization.
But there is no need to reach for such a point when the more obvious one presents itself:
After recounting an individual case, Erbe continues:
Yes, it's sad that this unwed, pregnant mother of three had no money for bus fare. It's terrible that her boyfriend lost his job. It is heart-wrenching that she fell to tears in the doctor's office. But in the long run, can we agree that this unwed couple's decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It's actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well.
The economic argument for an abortion is not only weak, it's precisely that to which the lazy Italians of yore would have resorted. Now, there are circumstances in which a family can no longer provide for another child; but this doesn't mean that it becomes morally acceptable to abort her. Abstinence is still possible, even in marriage, for extreme circumstances, and adoption is always a valid recourse.
The other problem with this argument is that it's not at all clear when a family can't afford another child. In many if not most cases, an additional child will be cost prohibitive. That it will also be the source of innumerable blessing shouldn't be forgotten. Throughout history, families have lovingly welcomed these blessings into their lives, under situations of such dire poverty which few if any Americans will ever experience, and which most of us can hardly even fathom.
Without declaring myself competent to judge individual circumstances, it seems fair to suggest that children should be valued, and that parents should only avoid having them under especially dire circumstances.
The true test of a society comes under crisis. The tendency is for politicians to manufacture them, but sometimes they appear in actuality. The endless series of hobgoblins could be ignored, but economic collapse must be confronted. We may continue to insist that luxury is the status quo, a right to which all Americans may lay claim. Or, we may put away childish things and clean the mess we see all about us. However long the recession lasts, no matter how far America relapses, civilization marches on. It always does--with children carrying its glorious banner.
The Church and Scriptures bade men increase and multiply, but comfort counseled infertility. Even in the countryside, where children were economic assets, families of six children were rare; in the city, where children were liabilities, families were small--the richer the smaller--and many homes had no children at all. (p.586)
It is important for a society to have children, not only because, without them it quite literally disappears, but because children represent society's hope for a better future. However impoverished, if a civilization is resplendent with children, it stands some chance at succeeding. Contrarily, as Renaissance Italy demonstrates, no matter how prosperous a nation, if it has lost faith in its future, it will begin to recede, until perhaps--but not always--that faith is rekindled.
A point could be made that the tendency of our leaders to pay for the excesses of today with the money of tomorrow is good evidence about how we feel about the future. On the one hand, it could be argued that optimism is the impetus of letting tomorrow's problems be ignored. The salient point, however, is that such intense focus on living well in the here and now at the expense of the future is irresponsible, and no mark of a balanced and healthy civilization.
But there is no need to reach for such a point when the more obvious one presents itself:
The recession is driving American demand for contraception and for abortions. The media have been riven this past week with stories about the rising number of couples and single mothers doing the math and deciding this is no time to bring a child into the world --- not when the economy is depressed, jobs are scarce and family incomes are dropping.
The media have also been rife with stories portraying this trend as something of a tragedy. Let me propose a counter view: it is not.
I don't know what media the author, Bonnie Erbe, has been reading, but if she's right about their stories, I can't help but consider this a good thing. My faith in the rationality of mankind is such that I cannot expect people to always recognize violations of the natural law; at the same time, abortion is so obviously a moral wrong that when it is finally recognized as such, our progeny will look back at our protestations to the contrary as a dark period of human history.After recounting an individual case, Erbe continues:
Yes, it's sad that this unwed, pregnant mother of three had no money for bus fare. It's terrible that her boyfriend lost his job. It is heart-wrenching that she fell to tears in the doctor's office. But in the long run, can we agree that this unwed couple's decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy? It's actually a fact-based, rational decision that in the end benefits the three children they already have and society as well.
The economic argument for an abortion is not only weak, it's precisely that to which the lazy Italians of yore would have resorted. Now, there are circumstances in which a family can no longer provide for another child; but this doesn't mean that it becomes morally acceptable to abort her. Abstinence is still possible, even in marriage, for extreme circumstances, and adoption is always a valid recourse.
The other problem with this argument is that it's not at all clear when a family can't afford another child. In many if not most cases, an additional child will be cost prohibitive. That it will also be the source of innumerable blessing shouldn't be forgotten. Throughout history, families have lovingly welcomed these blessings into their lives, under situations of such dire poverty which few if any Americans will ever experience, and which most of us can hardly even fathom.
Without declaring myself competent to judge individual circumstances, it seems fair to suggest that children should be valued, and that parents should only avoid having them under especially dire circumstances.
The true test of a society comes under crisis. The tendency is for politicians to manufacture them, but sometimes they appear in actuality. The endless series of hobgoblins could be ignored, but economic collapse must be confronted. We may continue to insist that luxury is the status quo, a right to which all Americans may lay claim. Or, we may put away childish things and clean the mess we see all about us. However long the recession lasts, no matter how far America relapses, civilization marches on. It always does--with children carrying its glorious banner.
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