Author Archives: davidsmith4002

Visiting the Valley

October 18, 2013 – 12:38 am

Recently I have spent some time volunteering at our hospital’s cancer treatment center, where folks come as out-patients  to receive their regular chemo-therapy.  The patients and nurses are grateful, and we seem to make things a little easier. We help with ordering and serving lunch, fetching drinks, blankets, pillows, and things like that; what would be orderly work in the wards.

Most of the volunteers are themselves cancer survivors.  I am not.  And I got to thinking about the significance of that reality.

My wife is a cancer survivor – a very successful one.  Twenty-eight years since her cancer, with no recurrence!  But I know the fear of it never entirely leaves her.  Her annual screening is always a time of some anxiety, for me as well as for her (though she hides hers well).

While working at the center, I had a thought: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” The 23rd Psalm. And I understood it, in a way I never had before.  Every patient in there was walking through the valley of the shadow of death.  And the fortunate ones, the survivors like my wife, never entirely leave the valley.  They just make it to the brighter side of the valley.  But they never entirely leave the shadow behind them.

Of course, the rest of us are just as mortal; we all live with the daily possibility of death being around the next corner.  Car accidents, heart attacks, whatever – the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.  But we don’t think about it.  The shadow of our mortality does not block our sun.

But cancer is different.  No doctor will ever tell you that they got all the cancer cells.  You know there may be some in there, lying in wait for you.  You know their name.

I suppose heart attack and stroke survivors may be in a similar situation.  The chance of recurrence of those seems never to go away either.  Maybe they dwell in the valley too.

What is remarkable to me is how well most cancer survivors deal with the shadow.  Judging by the ones I know, they may be the least depressed people around. This is courage, no doubt, but also something else.

The awareness of the near presence of death has often been regarded as a morally salutary thing.  “Memento mori” (“remember death”), the Romans were told in their moments of greatest triumph.  Yet I think no one really does that except those dwelling in the valley of its shadow.  I know my wife cherishes every birthday as a gift, a gift of time, of life.   I try to emulate her attitude.  She is a constant example to me, of the courage to live life to its fullest.

When I volunteer at the center, I am visiting the valley. I find the valley-dwellers to be for the most part surprisingly cheerful, yet never frivolous.  They are serious about life, but never somber.

And when I sit at a bedside vigil for a dying patient, I watch them exiting the far end of the valley. I bid them farewell.

This volunteering is an invaluable gift to me, a memento mori as well as a memento vivere: “remember to live”.

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Roger Kimball, Modern Art, and Flabby Elites

May 20, 2013 – 4:36 pm

Roger Kimball of New Criterion has an excellent essay up at PJ Media, entitled “Annals of the art world: everything old is new again“.  He portrays the sad emptiness, the hollow pretensions, the “mere flabbiness” of modern “transgressive art.”

It reminded me of something I wrote a while back, in 2011, about something else written even further back,by classicist Gilbert Murray in 1940 (that’s how these things go, some time).   Murray pithily sums up the art world, and much the rest of culture, from around 1900 or so.

“First come inspiration and the exaltation of breaking false barriers: at the end comes the mere flabbiness of having no barriers left to break and no talent except for breaking them. ”

Here is “The Mere Flabbiness of the Elites”.

________________________________________________

I came across a passage which seems to describe in remarkably succinct terms the process of the “avant garde” elite’s degradation of our culture.  It is in a 1940 book on Aeschylus by the classical scholar Gilbert Murray.  He is contrasting his subject with the turmoil raised by the Sophists of Athens.

“The development is one which has often been repeated in ages of great intellectual activity.  Vigorous minds begin to question the convention in which they have been brought up and which they have now outgrown.  They reject first the elements in them which are morally repulsive, then the parts that are obviously incredible; they try to reject the husk and preserve the kernel, and for a time reach a far higher moral and intellectual standard than the generations before them or the duller people of their own time.

“Then, it seems, something is apt to go wrong.  Perhaps a cynic would say – and it would be hard to confute him – the element of reason in man is so feeble a thing that he cannot stand successfully except when propped in the stiff harness of convention. At any rate there is always apt to come a later generation which has carried doubt and skepticism much farther and finds the kernel to consist only of inner layers of husk and then more husk, as the place of George IV’s heart, according to Thackeray, was supplied by waistcoats and then more waistcoats.

“First come inspiration and the exaltation of breaking false barriers: at the end comes the mere flabbiness of having no barriers left to break and no talent except for breaking them. “

(Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus pp. 79-80)

I must confess that, not being a classical scholar myself, I found this only by reference in Eric Voegelin’s Plato and Aristotle, the third volume of his Order and History.  EV’s analysis of Plato’s exposes of the Sophists has made it clear to me that these clever, clever men were the true models of much of modern Western society. ”Plato saw Athenian society as the Sophist writ large”, says EV somewhere, and it seems to be true again in our own day. The inter-connectedness of the Advocate, the Social Scientist, and the Community Organizer seem to me to be most meaningfully placed under the umbrella of the Sophists, all in more or less open, contemptuous rejection of the search for truth of the philosopher and the religious believer.

At any rate, Kimball’s book sounds like it will be worth the pain of reading it.

A tip of my hat of the hat (or at least a touch to the brim or knuckle to the forehead) to Jay Nordlinger at NRO’s Corner for pointing me to all this.

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An Unbeliever’s Prayer Journal

April 30, 2013 – 4:33 pm

PART 1

A PRAYER FOR SOPHIA

I write this after spending the morning at the bedside of a dying lady. Sophia (not her real name) is in a nursing home, and the hospice assessment is of “imminent death.” Family, friends and volunteers maintain a vigil so she will not die alone. But she will die.

We give her soothing words and strokes, which she may or may not hear or feel. They are given anyway.  Prayers are offered by others, and I want to pray, for her sake. But prayer is a problem for me.

I am not a believer. I am at most a seeker, trying to find faith in God, but not succeeding. I am as consumed with doubt and uncertainty as I am with a desire to believe.

So how do I pray? And to whom?

“God, if you are there, please…” That sounds as heartfelt as a letter addressed “To Whom It May Concern.” Or even worse, a message in a bottle tossed into the sea: “If anyone finds this, please…”

Can such a prayer, so conditioned upon doubt, be sincere or meaningful? If I were God, would I answer such a prayer? Not if I was having a busy day.

Can I address the Lord as “God, if you exist,” or “God, IYE…”, the way devout Muslims refer to “the Prophet, peace be upon him…”, abbreviated as PBUH?

So there’s that problem. To whom do I pray?   The other problem is “For what do I pray”?

A priest once explained that there are three types of prayer: to praise God, to thank God, and to ask God for something.  In Sophia’s room, the third seemed most in order.

What do I ask for Sophia? Recovery? A quick, easy death? Rest? To hang on a little longer? What exactly is it she needs most, what is best for her? God only knows.

And that’s the problem. Whatever is best, whatever she needs, God knows it better than I do. And because He loves her, he will give Her what is best, with or without my advice. Any specific request seems terribly presumptuous: “I’ve given this a lot of thought, Lord (IYE), and I think you ought to…”

Finally, and simply, I find myself saying, “God, be with Sophia.” I don’t know if He is anywhere, or even IS, but I sure want him to be with Sophia. I know my wanting and my asking are of no account. But it is what I want. So I said it, over and over, as the hours passed.

I realize it is not really coherent. If God exists, He is there with Sophia; if not, then not. My request cuts no ice either way. Even if, as Martin Buber said, we can only talk TO God, and not about Him, it seems silly.

Still, I repeated my silent prayer. And to Sophia, I spoke aloud when she was restless. “Rest, Sophia. God is with you.” How fraudulent, even cynical! As if I know that to be the case! But I knew it was what she, as a believer, wanted and needed to hear. And it is what I wanted for her. So I said it. I don’t know if she heard it, or if He heard it.

A PRAYER FOR VIVIAN

Which brings me to my little friend, Vivian. A wonderful, bright, beautiful 5-year old daughter of our wonderful loving neighbors, and big sister of a wonderful, rambunctious 3-year-old brother.

Her family is the best missionary project I have ever seen. They are a living billboard for Christianity’s ability to generate and support the very best kind of people and families. I am blessed to live next door to them and to play with the kids whenever I have the energy. It is a joy to bask in the glow of this loving family.

Well, Vivian has been diagnosed with cancer. She is being treated at a top hospital, and her type of tumor is a rare form of childhood kidney cancer with a very good survival rate. She is getting chemotherapy. The odds are in her favor. But she is suffering, and her parents are suffering.

Like all of their friends, I have offered any help I can give. Her family asks only for prayers.  And I face the same problems described above regarding Sophia. To whom, and how?

So I prayed “God, be with Vivian”

But I could not stop there. My prayer for Sophia was vague because I don’t know how to be more specific. A certain humility stops me from giving God my impertinent list of demands.

Not so with Vivian. I know what I want God to do. I want him to heal her tumors, to make them go away. And I want her restored to health, and her family restored to peace.

And I want it NOW!

I realize how presumptuous this is.  God, with whom I am not even on speaking terms, knows what is best for Vivian and her family. And He loves her far more than even I do.

So I should just pray “Thy will be done,” and leave it in His hands. But I cannot.

I pray my very specific prayer, hoping He will forgive the impertinence.

“God, please heal my Vivian.”

PART 2

Sophia clings to life. My visits to her bedside continue to be lessons in prayer.

Since she is Catholic, I brought along an old Missal (Saint Andrew, 1949) I had found at a thrift store (99 cents: see below, “The Forgotten Books of Witness”).   In the back, I found a section of “Votive Collects”: short prayers for various needs.

“For the sick”? No, “restoration to health” was not the point.  “For a dying person”? “Refresh the soul” seemed a good request, but as for “all her sins being washed away”, I did not feel it my place to ask. I don’t know her well enough to know anything about her sins, if any. Asking forgiveness seemed presumptuous for me. Likewise the prayer “For a happy death”.

I found one I really liked: “For Pilgrims and Travelers”. “Hear, O Lord, our humble prayers and set Thy servant Sophia in the path of Thy salvation; that amidst all the changes and chances of this life, she may ever be sheltered by Thy help.”

The “Secret” part of this prayer (a Catholic thing, I guess) asks that God “send Thy grace before her to guide her steps, and sending it with her be pleased to accompany her on her way; both in her progress and in her safety.”

I liked the image of Sophia on her journey.  I remember once, driving along the east coast of Florida near Cape Canaveral, we quite accidentally got to see a rare night launch of the Shuttle.  It lit up the sky as if we were passing a brightly-lit city. As we watched, it became a single bright spot, which rose straight up.  Then, it did something I had not expected: it made a sharp, almost 90 degree turn to the southeast. And only then did it look like what it actually was; a ship of explorers sailing away from us, into uncharted territory.  I always thought of rockets as unique space things that went straight up.  Only when I saw that shuttle turn and sail away (rather than up) did I realize that the people in it were pilgrims and travelers.

Another prayer caught my attention at just the right moment. Nursing homes, especially in the dementia wards where dying patients are often placed, are all too often filled with the cries and screams (sometimes articulate, sometimes not) of suffering patients. It is rarely physical suffering: pain management usually handles that these days. It is rather the anguished cries of confusion and loneliness: “Get me out of here”, or “Help me”. Others wail or shriek like Banshees.

It is not neglect. The overstretched staff cope as best they can, trying everything to soothe and quiet the sufferers, but to little avail; as soon as the staffer moves on to other duties, the screamer continues. Dementia can be an implacable demon.

One particularly strong-voiced Banshee has her meals near Sophia’s door. While listening to her, I found the prayer “In any Tribulation”: “Despise not, O almighty God, Thy people who cry out in their affliction…” I didn’t quite understand how a loving God could despise these sufferers, but that was beside the point. I certainly knew how irritated those shrieks could make me, and the others around her.

I didn’t try to pray that one, as I am sure God (IHE) must love the suffering Banshee, without any advice from me. But I found myself repeating it silently every time she cried out in her affliction. I needed the reminder, not God.

I thought of my favorite parable from the Gospels (Luke 18:9-14), about the pious Pharisee who prays “God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are.” I think of this prayer whenever I find myself feeling smug.

I still have discomfort with the idea of praying a very specific prayer for a specific outcome for someone. Yet I admire the trusting relation they must have with God who pray so. They let their pain and their need flow from their hearts, straight to their loving parent, in personal conversation.

They seem unconstrained by doubt and rationalization about God. Prayer, without IYE qualifiers, is a loving and personal conversation with the God of all Creation.

How I envy them.  There can be no greater blessing than faith in a loving God.  I want that faith and that blessing; but wanting does not seem to be enough.

Yet, despite the impertinence and the hypocrisy, I keep praying: “God, please heal my Vivian! She has so much traveling yet to do.”

[UPDATE:  Sophia died a few days later, peaceful and surrounded by her family.  Her journey is at an end.]

PART 3

I wrote earlier about my young neighbor and friend Vivian, who is battling a rare kidney cancer (I hope for your sake that you are not familiar with Wilms’ tumors, or any of the other diseases that prey on children.) She has been through hell: surgery, chemotherapy,  nausea, feeding tube, hair loss.  Tough stuff for an almost-six year old.  The Valley of the Shadow of Death is a tough enough place for adults.  But for six-year olds?

She and her brave family are still fighting, and the prognosis is very hopeful.  But the road is a hard one: More chemotherapy, then surgery, then radiation, then more chemotherapy.  And always prayer and more prayer.

Throughout her pain, Vivian remains brave and hopeful and trusting and loving.  And her parents maintain their lonely vigils, all the while continuing to keep life as normal as possible for their 3-year old son (100% boy!).

This family is one of the most beautiful examples of loving faith I have ever seen.

You who can pray, pray for my Vivian and her family.

[UPDATE: Vivian’s seven-month-long chemotherapy is done, and her prognosis is very good.  She and her family are back home, next door to us, and Vivian and her brother stop over to visit us regularly.     So now, prayers of Thanksgiving must be added to the ongoing supplications for her (and her family’s) continued good health.]

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Note on DANTE

April 12, 2013 – 2:12 pm

My name, Ben Finiti, is borrowed from Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto III, Line 73.  The excellent new translation by W. S. Merwin reads it as “you who ended well”, and is addressed to the souls in Purgatory.  They had lived sinful lives, but were able to turn it around and be forgiven at some point before they died.

For anyone living, it is therefore an aspiration rather than a fact.  It is my aspiration.  If I die today, I will have failed.  But I am not giving up. (And so far I’m feeling well; thanks for asking.)

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I cannot read or speak Italian; I don’t even like Italian food.  But Merwin’s version, with original and translation on facing pages, makes it easy, and lets me make an attempt at enjoying the music of Dante’s beautiful poetry.]

The rest of the verse, in Italian, is:

“O ben finiti, o gia spiriti eletti,”

Virgilio incomincio, “per quella pace

ch’i’ credo che per voi tutti s’aspetti,

 

ditene dove la montagna giace

si che possibil sia l’andare in suso,

che perder tempo a chi piu sa piu spiace.”

[In Merwin’s English:]

“O you who ended well,” Virgil began,

“o spirits already chosen, by that peace

which I believe awaits you every one,

 

tell us in what place the mountain slopes

so that it would be possible to climb,

for who knows most grieves most at the loss of time.”

[I love that last line.   I can certainly appreciate Merwin/Virgil/Dante’s sense of urgency.]

Here are some other examples of Dante’s lyricism (from Merwin’s beautiful translation of  Purgatorio) 

“fatti sicur, che noi semo a buon punto”   (“Take heart, it is good to be where we are now.) IX 47

“ch’or si or no s’intendon le parole” (“now the words are heard and now are not.”) IX 145

“e piu e men che re era in quell caso.”  (“and at that moment he was less and more than a king.”) X 66, of David dancing before the Ark.

“pensa che questo di mai non raggiorna.” (“Think that this day will never dawn again.”) XII 84

“di vera luce tenebre dispicchi.” (“you gather darkness out of light itself.”) XV 66

“d’amaro sente il sapor de la pietade acerba.” (“the flavor of raw pity when tasted is bitter.”) XXX 80-1

“di pentimento che lagrime spanda.” (“penitence that is poured out in tears.”) XXX 145

Merwin’s translation is in many libraries, and online at Amazon’s used book section.

Dante wrote in iambic pentameter, so it should flow like Shakespeare:

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? 

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

A quick guide to Italian pronunciation is here.

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Morality without God

February 2, 2013 – 12:05 pm

I have often heard the adage that “Morality is what you do when no one is watching.” I now think that is more a definition of immorality.

What got me thinking about all this is that recently I saw Mel Gibson’s movie What Women Want. The plot involves an advertising executive who experiences an electrical accident that somehow leaves him with the ability to hear the internal thoughts – of women. Unsurprisingly, he uses this ability to seduce, steal ideas from, and finally understand women.

My first afterthought was: what would it be like to have this “superhero” power? But then I wondered: what would it be like to know that MY thoughts were being heard?

Morality – moral behavior – has its basis in the sense that someone is always watching my actions and hearing my thoughts. Not just any random person, not a government agency with spy cameras; those breed fear, not morality. Societies that try to enforce all morality with fear end up in totalitarianism or (if they lose their nerve) in anarchic chaos.

No, the watcher/listener must be a loving person, and one who knows us well. It must be God.

Those of us who have lived in both small towns and big cities have noticed the difference in (among other things) drivers’ behavior. The bigger the population, i.e. the more drivers, the ruder their behavior. The reason seems plain. Driving in a big city, you are surrounded by strangers you are unlikely to see again. In a small town, the driver in the next car may be a neighbor, or friend, or even relative. Honking and fingering to show disapproval of their driving may boomerang into a real embarrassment.

We all tend to censor our actions and speech to some extent when dealing with others, but not our thoughts, since they remain private. But what if our thoughts were heard, and by someone who knew us and loved us? Would we not try to learn as a habit not to pursue thoughts that we are ashamed of? Anger, greed, lust, envy…all the Deadly Seven?

If Big Brother were listening, we would be self-censoring out of fear. But if a truly loved and loving one were listening, it would not be fear we would feel, but sadness at causing hurt.  Abraham Heschel, in The Prophets, explains the importance of the Jewish vision that God suffers from our sins.

That is why a loving God, rather than a punishing God, is what wise parents teach and children respond to best.

Atheists reply that they, too, can behave morally, despite the loneliness of existing without watchers/listeners. They rely on an inner conscience which they cannot explain, and on a well-run and affluent society they inherit. They argue that society evolved morality for evolutionary reasons, despite the fact that Darwinian Survival of the Fittest has no place for The Good of the Species.

Morality is the atheists’ stumbling stone.  They know that human society cannot survive without it, and they know that morality not based on a higher authority (religion) seems unattainable for most common folk.  So they are forced to the uneasy conclusion that society must be based on a lie unrecognized by the masses but encouraged by the rulers.   Or, to avoid this ugly conclusion, they take refuge in a theoretical evolution of society in complete contradiction to real evolutionary science.

But the question remains: Can there be morality without God?  Or was Dostoevsky correct, that “if God is dead, everything is permitted?”

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What About the Guns?

January 24, 2013 – 2:18 pm

In my last post, I commented on the president’s recent use of children as cynical props in the effort to restrict gun ownership.  From this, some have made the assumption that I am an opponent of gun control.  The presumption seems to be that anyone who favors a political cause these days must be willing to applaud any tactic that is used to further that cause.  The resultant attitude is that “Hey, we are busy saving the world here, so we can use any tactics that will help”.

This is the problem with what Eric Voegelin calls “gnostic political movements.”   When you and your partisans know how to save the world, it is easy to persuade yourself that you have both the right and duty to do so “by any means necessary” (as the radical violence-justification slogan has always had it).

Well, I don’t agree.  When a political movement cheerfully embraces such cynical manipulation, I cry foul.

As for Gun Control as an issue, I am fairly agnostic.  If I knew how to get guns out of the hands of crooks and crazies, I’d want to do it.  But I don’t, and neither do the Gun Control advocates.

The Second Amendment?  I don’t think it is much of an issue until we can agree what that “militia” clause means.

Hunting is a legitimate sport, and also the way many of my friends in Montana and New Hampshire feed their families.  Rifles and shotguns, including limited-magazine semi-automatics, are perfectly legit.

Target shooting?  An OK sport, I guess, although I always thought they used .22 caliber bolt action rifles.

Assault rifles?  You got me.  I am not sure what that category includes.  If it is automatic weapons (like machine guns or sub-machine guns), then it ought to be banned.  (I thought it already was.)

Large capacity magazines?  Who the hell needs them?  Soldiers and cops.

Background checks?  A good idea, I guess.  Apparently a lot of applications get turned down, so they must work at least somewhat on crooks.  But not on crazies, I suspect.

Hand Guns are another matter, and here we come to the real nub of the issue.  The handgun is the best weapon for most crime – and also for personal self-defense.

If crooks did not have such easy supplies of guns, there would be a lot less crime and a lot less fear.  But that is not the real world.  In our world, cops and courts are overwhelmed and underpowered.  The result is that many citizens fear for their lives and property all over America.

And there is a natural law that stands far above the Second Amendment: it is the individual’s right of self-defense.   It must be recognized and protected.

And many who are concerned about their self-defense suspect that Gun Control Advocates are inclined to treat all guns the same, and to regard legitimate gun possession and use as a privilege.

They fear that the most vocal such advocates don’t understand self-defense concerns because they reside in upper-class gated communities with private guards.

And lastly, there is the question of the effectiveness of gun bans.  Do they work?  When you look at Chicago gun-crime rates and gun-crime laws, you have to wonder.

So there is plenty of room for debate on these questions.  But the best way to avoid debate and still advance your cause is the time-tested one we are seeing in Washington.

Just have a cute 5-year old lisping sweetly into the camera:

“Pleathe, Mithter Prethident, make my thchool thafe!”

I say it is child abuse and I am sick of it.

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What About the CHILDREN?

January 22, 2013 – 10:07 am

The Obama administration’s latest use of children as political props has, as usual, called forth much praise and very little outrage. We have become accustomed to such things. We hardly notice. And this latest is by no means the worst.

The irony is that while children are moved to the fore when useful as window dressing on issues to which they are peripheral, they are so often shoved off the stage when they are central to the issue.

EXAMPLE ONE: DIVORCE, also called dissolution of marriage. Marriage is an act of union between two adults, and so is its dissolution. As things now stand in America, children, if any, are collateral issues, like joint property. Their interests are to be addressed in working out the details, not in the basic decision to permit the dissolution.

Divorce involving only two married adults, at least one of whom is unhappy with the marriage, is one thing. It is hard to think of any reason why law or society should stand in their way.

But what about the other kind of divorce? What if it means the breakup of a family with children, often because one of the adult partners (usually the husband) is tired of the responsibilities and limitations imposed upon him by his role in the family.

The results of such “divorce” is all around us. Poverty in the US is largely caused by fathers abandoning (or being thrust from) families and leaving behind single mothers with children.  It is the result of easy divorce.

Of course, it is also the result of easy breakups of unwed cohabitation “families”, where no formal divorce is required because no formal marriage was thought necessary. And it is increasingly the result of single women making a choice to bear children without a resident father at all. But all these phenomena may be regarded as facets of a generalized downgrading of the importance of the “traditional family”, and especially of the role of the father, as a general concern of society.

We have taken the sexual and libertarian mantra that society should not interfere in the “private affairs of consenting adults,” put the children out of our minds, and gotten to our present state of affairs.

Yet no legislature, as far as I know, has ever seriously debated treating adult divorce as one thing (tolerable as being of no concern to society), and family destruction/abandonment as the terrible destructive act that it is.
Such is the confusion caused when our language is used to facilitate this child vanishing act.

EXAMPLE TWO: GAY MARRRIAGE.

In the cause of ending the cruel persecution of gay people, “civil union” laws were proposed. While they were being adopted or considered in many states, it was proclaimed that only full “marriage rights” were acceptable.

The debate proceeded like this:

“Children are the real point of marriage,” the traditionalists said.

“What about childless couples? Aren’t they married?” the advocates countered. “Marriage, like sex, is about consenting adults. Besides, science shows that children only need caring adult parents, not mothers and fathers.”

And so, a few shoddy social-science “studies” supporting their position are cited. Contrary studies (and common sense) are ignored or brushed aside.

The courts have led the way in airbrushing children out of the picture of marriage. In a typical example, when the Iowa Supreme Court decided that marriage is not an institution between man and woman and that society has no interest in the traditional family, it cited:

 “an abundance of evidence and research, confirmed by our independent research, supporting the proposition that the interests of children are served equally by same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents. On the other hand, we acknowledge the existence of reasoned opinions that dual-gender parenting is the optimal environment for children. These opinions, while thoughtful and sincere, were largely unsupported by reliable scientific studies. The research appears to strongly support the conclusion that same-sex couples foster the same wholesome environment as opposite-sex couples and suggests that the traditional notion that children need a mother and a father to be raised into healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else.” (April 3, 2009, p.54; my emphasis. No information regarding the court’s “independent research” is provided.)

And, by a remarkable bit of circular sophistry, each debate victory reinforces the other. Because marriage isn’t about children, gay couples can marry. And because gay couples can marry, they must be free to adopt children (like any other married couple). Gay adoption is OK because children don’t need mothers and fathers. And because gay adoption is OK, gay marriage must be OK too, so that the children will have families. Not that there is anything wrong with single parents…

And so on.

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The College Cost Bubble

January 12, 2013 – 6:01 pm

Consider this, when pondering the complaints of college-loan debtors, and the rising demands that the government funnel more money into college funding.

Since 1981, the total cost of living has risen by 153%.  5% a year. That’s a lot.

In that same thirty years, the cost of medical care has risen by 244% MORE than the overall cost of living.  Over 8% more annually.

Meanwhile, the cost of college tuition at public 4-year institutions has risen by 368% MORE than the cost of living.  Over 12% more per year.  17% per year, in all.   124% MORE even than medical care.

But, of course, we have a lot to show for the increase in medical care costs.  New drugs, vaccines, transplants, non-invasive surgery, and an ever-lengthening longevity.  Diseases that were once a death sentence (AIDS, leukemia, etc.) are now controllable or curable.

Now, ask yourself: What are the comparable improvements in the quality and effectiveness of higher education in the last 30 years?  What has that 368% bought us?

Of course, it is rightly pointed out that cash-strapped state governments have over time reduced their financial contributions to public colleges.  Indeed they have, and that has helped pushed tuitions up.  But how much of the problem are these tightwad legislatures and governors?

About 13%, that’s how much.  State subsidies of in-state tuition have declined by about 13% in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1981 (from about $8000 to about $7000 per student).  So about $1000 of the annual cost of public college tuition is the result of state aid reductions.  The rest went to pay for all the improvements (?) in the quality of higher education.

When prices escalate faster than everything else, without improvement in quality, it constitutes a bubble.

How big a bubble is the cost of college?  Compare it to the recent housing bubble.  From 1981 to 2006 (the bubble’s high point), new home prices (including land) rose 254%, which is 101% more than the overall inflation rate.  Of course, much of the increase occurred in its last 5 years.  And, in fact housing tended to improve over that time, arguably in quality but definitely in size.

So, public college costs are rising faster than the cost of living, faster than the cost of health care, and faster than new housing (even before that bubble burst).

Politicians are asking what to do about it.  But the first question is:  WHY?  Until we answer that, there will be no solutions.

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Burke, PABGoo-ism, and Sophistry

April 5, 2012 – 2:14 pm

Front Porch Republic has an excellent essay by Mark A. Signorelli entitled “A Burke For Our Times.”   It is worth a read.   Edmund Burke’s politics were based on an unblinking understanding of the reality of human nature, an understanding now sadly in decline.

It is generally assumed that a recognition of the dark side of human nature gives to conservatives a sour, gloomy, negative view of human society.   Even the briefest reading of Burke makes it clear that the truth is the opposite.  As Reinhold Niebuhr put it: “Both the majesty and the tragedy of human life exceed the dimensions within which modern culture seeks to comprehend human existence.”  Rawls is certainly a case in point.

In contrasting the Rawlsian concept of human nature as unimportant on the one hand, and multiculturalism on the other, Signorelli fails to note the shallowly-thought but deeply-ingrained underpinning of multiculti thought.

This is, of course, the cheery world view which believes that “People Are Basically Good” (hence “PABGoo”; see below). PABGoos believe that all our problems are caused by bad political or economic systems, or not enough social science grants or psychotherapy or public education or whatever. The fact that it is publicly refuted countless times a day in every city on the globe has not stopped PABGoo-ism from becoming the default feel-good philosophy of our age.

Niebuhr:  “No accumulation of contrary evidence seems to disturb modern man’s good opinion of himself...The question therefore arises how modern man arrived at, and by what means he maintains, an estimate of his virtue in such pathetic contradiction with the obvious facts of his history.  One possible and plausible answer is that the great achievement of modern culture, the understanding of nature, is also the cause of the great confusion of modern man: the misunderstanding of human nature.”

In other words, our respect for the accomplishments of science has led us into the false worship of the sophistry that goes by the name of “social science”.

Signorelli skillfully posits the difference between a “principle-based” philosopher like Rawls and a reality-based philosopical citizen like Burke.  Rawls’ belief in the eventual promise of science explaining man to himself is an unacknowledged act of charming, childlike faith.  But the effects on society are not so charming.

“Social science” is in fact a uniquely modern form of sophistry.  It takes the forms, language, and prestige of science, and puts it to use in the service of any political, economic, or social movement willing to pay the “research” bill.  Plato’s Republic describes the Athenian sophists in terms that make clear their kinship with the modern social-scientific advocate.

The role of “social science” in overthrowing all the accumulated understanding of human nature is clearest in our modern judicial lawmaking.   When a social element wishes to overthrow an institution firmly established throughout human history, it does so on the basis of “social science.”  When the Iowa Supreme Court decided that marriage is not an institution between man and woman and that society has no interest in the traditional family, it cited

“”an abundance of evidence and research, confirmed by our independent research, supporting the proposition that the interests of children are served equally by same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents.  On the other hand, we acknowledge the existence of reasoned opinions that dual-gender parenting is the optimal environment for children.  These opinions, while thoughtful and sincere, were largely unsupported by reliable scientific studies.  The research appears to strongly support the conclusion that same-sex couples foster the same wholesome environment as opposite-sex couples and suggests that the traditional notion that children need a mother and a father to be raised into healthy, well-adjusted adults is based more on stereotype than anything else.”   (April 3, 2009, p.54; my emphasis)

Burke would have known what to say about such social-scientific nonsense put forth by sophistic advocates whose major goal is the destruction of all natural law and inherited wisdom.  In fact, he did say it.  Reflections on the Revolution in France is a truly great work.

UPDATE:

As if to drive home the point about the convenience of “social science” and its ability to prove whatever you need it to prove, read this from yesterday’s Science Daily.

College professors and students are in an arms race over cheating. Students find new sources for pre-written term papers; professors find new ways to check the texts they get for plagiarized material. But why are all these young people cheating? A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests one reason: income inequality, which decreases the general trust people have toward each other.

Got it?  Schoolkids cheat because of rich people!  A new study proves it! Thanks, social scientists.

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The Forgotten Books of Witness

December 26, 2011 – 9:10 pm

Over the recent years, I have developed an interesting hobby. (Well, I find it interesting.)  I prowl through thrift stores in search of forgotten books by forgotten authors.  And then I liberate them (usually for a dollar or less) and read them.

I pass quickly over certain types of books.  For instance, I almost never buy a 20th or 21st century work of fiction. In my humble opinion as an accomplished literary snob, the last great writer of fiction was Anthony Trollope.  (I do not classify Orwell, Huxley, or Koestler’s works as quite fiction.)

I do pick up curious books on subjects in which I have neither interest nor background.  For instance, I just finished a book called Let’s Talk About Port, by J.C. Valente-Perfeito, published in Portugal in 1948.  The author explains the varieties of port, sings (gushes, actually) its praises, and complains of how little his fellow citizens drink of it.   He offers eloquent warnings about the modern scourge of cocktail-drinking, and effectively rebuts those medical cranks who claim that alcoholism is a bad thing.  I had great fun reading it, and I may even try some of the stuff one of these days.

[UPDATE:  Tried it.  Never mind.]

But the real goal of my pursuit is a category of books which was invented and flourished in the dreadful 20th century:  the survivor’s tale of witness to the inhuman atrocities that reached such a peak (so far) in the recent past.

Some books of witness were instant hits and remained so, despite their crushing intensity.  Elie Wiesel’s Night describes Auschwitz and his father’s death there.  The Diary of Anne Frank is rightly famous, though I myself have never been able to read more than a few opening pages before dissolving in tears.  (I think this is because I have a daughter, and the words always come into my head in my daughter’s voice.)

In One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Alexander Solzhenitsyn used a thin veil of fiction to recount a part of his experience in the prison camps of history’s most earnest experiment in “building a better world.”   His later massive Gulag Archipelago removed the veil and included more detail that most readers can stand.

In the mid-range stand works which once were read and discussed, and now dot the dustbins.  Whittaker Chambers’ aptly named Witness tells  of a man whose soul was driven by his embrace of communism into the vicious underworld of espionage against his country.  It becomes a story of redemption, as he rejects his past infatuation and attempts, at enormous personal cost, to warn his countrymen of the ugly reality facing them.

Many a bookshelf could be filled with tales from heroic survivors from the dark side of the soul.  And most of them would be unknown, unread, unstudied, and out-of-print, available only through Amazon’s used-book network, or (for the lucky treasure hunter) the bins of a Goodwill store.

Who now reads Victor Kravchenko?  Peter Deriabin?  Jan Valtin?  Earl Weinstock?

Viktor Kravchenko’s is an interesting story. He was a Soviet engineer and factory manager, a coddled member of Stalin’s New Class.  His book is filled with the chilling details that lay bare the soul-destroying communist system.  During WW2 he defected to the US from a trade mission and wrote his story.  When it was finally published (I Chose Freedom, 1946) he was blasted by Communists worldwide as a liar and defamer of the Soviet Union.  Kravchenko responded by suing a prominent French communist leader for libel.  He won, and wrote a second book, I Chose Truth (1950) about the case.

With unimpeachable credibility, Kravchenko exposed the nightmare that it was to live under the Chekists’ never-blinking eye, even for top managers who were never arrested or imprisoned.  This book should be the primary text for any serious study of the reality of Soviet life under Stalin.In his second book he unmasked the puppetry whereby supposedly indigenous communist parties existed primarily to serve the demands of one man in the Kremlin.

Peter Deriabin was a KGB bureaucrat, agent, and finally a spy in Austria.  He, too, enjoyed the material luxuries the Soviets lavished on the New Class.  And he, too, ran for the US at the first opportunity.  His book, The Secret World (1959), unveils the State Security apparatus from the agent’s side, and it dovetails with Solzhenitsyn’s victim-view.   He gives fascinating insights into the power struggle after Stalin’s death, and dashes the naive hope that the system would then change.

An intriguing tale from another perspective is Jan Valtin’s Out of the Night (1940).  He was a German communist organizer and spy; like Chambers, he was a true believer who thought he was empowering the working class and eradicating poverty, only to discover that he was just eradicating the Leader’s enemies and empowering a new class of party functionaries.  His description of the tactics used to eliminate non-communist labor leaders is a unique eye-opener by itself.

Earl Weinstock’s case is perhaps saddest of all.  A young Rumanian Jew, Weinstock only dreamed of escaping Rumania’s poverty and anti-Semitism by getting out, going anywhere.  While he looked to France or Palestine, his mother had one unchanging dream: America.   In 1942 Weinstock, his mother and two brothers were sent to German concentration camps, where he survived after seeing his older brother shot, and being forced to shovel in dirt on the open mass grave where he fell.  After the war, Rumania went through another hell, this time under their Soviet “liberators.”  Weinstock contemplated the difference between the two tyrannies.

“In Transnistria [the German camp] I was a prisoner.  I was clothed in rags.  I slept on the dirt and potato peels in a barrack of filth and stink.  I was given little to eat and I stole food from garbage cans, for which I could have been shot. I saw and heard of murders and atrocities.  But my life and my captors made it plain to me that I was a prisoner. Nobody tried to convince me in the middle of all this that I was really free. That made a difference that I could not know then but that I knew now in Iasi [his hometown in Rumania]. I had made up my mind in Transnistria that I could outlast them if they did not shoot me.  It wasn’t easy, but filth and hunger and confinement were environments I could adapt to.   For those who shared my lot in my barracks would share everything. Our minds were free.  We could confide in each other, trust each other…But in Iasi, in 1947…what could I hope for?  To whom could I talk and feel safe in so doing? …What and who was I to be?  And I was not in a prison and I could not point to anyone who was my captor, but they talked to me of freedom and I was a prisoner.”

He and his aged mother escaped to America in 1949.  She died within a year, and he tried to forget the past, but too many ghosts pushed him to tell his story.  So he wrote a book, The Seven Years (his life from 1942 to 1949). E.P Dutton published it.  It was never re-printed.  Amazon lists a single used copy.

I found mine in a Goodwill bin.

Do these books matter?  True, many of them had considerable success in opening Western eyes and forcing them to recognize the truth.  But many people were able to dismiss all these eye witnesses and their stories as mere propaganda.

After reading Kravchenko no one could seriously doubt the real hell that was life in the Soviet Union, or the truly criminal nature of the worldwide movement that supported it.  Yet millions in the West continued to believe that this hell was heaven.

Deriabin demonstrated the intense hyperparanoid terror that was essential to the system’s survival.  Yet millions continued to believe that the police state was an aberration of the system, caused by one man’s suspicious nature.

Valtin makes it clear that the Nazis and Communists were history’s ugliest fraternal twins; differing mainly in the effectiveness of the former and the puppet-leadership of the latter.  Yet millions continue to believe that while the Nazis were uniquely evil, the communists were well-intentioned reformers who made unfortunate “mistakes”.

And the fashionable deniers of “American exceptionalism” have to figure out a way to debunk the iron determination of Earl Weinstock’s mother, pursuing a lifelong vision of freedom under the Statue of Liberty.

The truth is always worth telling, even if it never finds an audience.  And there is value in seeking out these lost truths.  Otherwise, too many lives, too much heroism ends up down the Memory Hole.

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If you want to read any of these books, your best bet is a university or big-city library, but keep your handkerchief ready for the layer of dust that will cover it.  Another source is the Inter-Library Loan system.  And, of course, Amazon.  And Goodwill.

Let me know what you think of any of these writers, or any other witnesses you come across.  Click the “Post a comment” button below.

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