Making Good Appealing

I read a piece the other day, “The Taste of Strawberries,” by Jeffrey Bilbro for The Imaginative Conservative, about Tolkien, pointing out that his writing does something not easy to do:

One of the reasons that Tolkien’s stories continue to inspire us is that he does something few authors are able to do: he makes goodness compelling and desirable.

Bilbro (I’m delighted that his name sounds like he could be from the Shire) reminds us of the good places Tolkien created:

The Shire, in New Zealand
image from here

We long for the rich life experienced by the hobbits in the Shire, the elves in Rivendell, the dwarves in Moria and their kingdom under the Lonely Mountain, and the men in Rohan and Gondor. These places are not perfect, but their vibrant communities offer rich visions of shalom, of beautiful, harmonious ways of life.

I think he’s right. We don’t often come across imaginary creations that are truly good, yet are beautiful and interesting—never boring. More often we get depictions of good that are less than artistic, and often boring, even contrived.

We have a set of animated videos for children, intended for our grandchildren’s entertainment and learning, particularly on Sundays when we’re separating ourselves out from the world. I think they’re well done. They include music that is often worthwhile beyond the video. These videos depict scripture stories or historical characters. But my granddaughter, in a pique one day, refused to have those boring videos forced upon her. Sigh!

But I kind of understand. So much of literature—including movies—is about conflict, or other things more exciting than the good.

As Tolstoy points out in the beginning of Anna Karenina,

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

I’ve always bristled against that. I don’t believe it deep down. Unhappy families come from people doing uncivilized things—lying, cheating, being unfaithful and disloyal, jealousy, coveting, stealing, selfishness, abuse. There’s not really that much variety.

But inventing bad things does seem to be easier. As Bilbro points out,

In many of our movies and stories, the good characters are rather insipid, while the evil ones are much more fascinating. Think about the character of the Joker in The Dark Knight, Walter White in Breaking Bad, or Darth Vader in the Star Wars series. These characters are complex and compelling—they draw us into their struggle.

Even the bad places are fascinating, though often morbidly so. Think The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and plenty of other dystopian series. And in historical literature, we’re drawn to the extremities of war and oppression—hopefully with the uplift that comes from overcoming the evil, but still that’s where we dwell: the German holocaust in Schindler’s List and others, the Armenian Genocide in the recent movie The Promise, the Japanese prisoner of war camps in Unbroken, the story of the survival of Louis Zamperini, or the martyrdom of Bonhoeffer.

It’s not that these aren’t stories worth telling. It’s that there must be stories of good that also ought to be told, and told well. But we’re not good at finding them—or telling them.

Even the way we talk about heaven isn’t appealing—floating about on clouds, playing a harp, singing praises. Most of us (including me) would say that sounds boring if that’s all there is for the rest of eternity. It’s not how I picture heaven.

So how do we picture heaven—or as close as we can get to it here on earth?

There’s a story from the Book of Mormon that uses the image of a tree of life. I’ve met people from other religious traditions that have a tree of life too. In ours, it appears in First Nephi, near the beginning of the Book of Mormon. The prophet and patriarch of the people, Lehi, has a dream. In it there are paths, obscured by a dark mist, on a narrow path alongside a gulf of filthy water. But there’s a rod of iron alongside the path. Those who hold onto the rod and stay on the path get to a beautiful tree, with fruit that is sweet above all that is sweet:

a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy./ And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen./ And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit. [1 Nephi 8:10-12]

Lehi's Dream
painting by Steven Lloyd Neal

In this vision, many people seek the happiness of the tree. Many get lost along the way. But those who taste it—you’d think that would be the finale. For some it is, but others, even after they taste the sweetness, fall away from the tree after they notice ridicule coming at them from people pointing and mocking from a large and spacious building. There’s a lot to this dream we could apply as allegory to our lives.

Even if we find the best way to encourage people to seek and taste the good, that’s not the end. But at least we’d better start there.

In Bilbro’s piece, he says (and quotes C. S. Lewis as saying) that portraying an evil character is easy, because we can imagine an exaggeration of the evil already in us. But it’s harder to depict an extraordinarily good character, which we’ve never been. What Tolkien does that succeeds is putting decent but ordinary characters who are drawn to exceptional good and beautiful places.

In the words of Lehi’s Dream, they are people who seek that tree and taste the fruit—and then they remember the taste so clearly that, even when they might be placed in far distant circumstances, they will live for the day they can return and taste that fruit again. As Sam Gangee says to Frodo,

Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It’ll be spring soon, and the orchards will be in blossom; and the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket; and they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields; and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

So if I had to describe good in a way that would draw everyone to it, I’d say those sweetened-on-the-vine best spring strawberries.

In the Spherical Model, we use this description for good, or civilization. There are happy families, economic prosperity, living in peace, creativity and innovation in the arts and every other area of endeavor. We could use Bilbro’s words and say civilization is “vibrant communities [that] offer rich visions of shalom, of beautiful, harmonious ways of life.”

It’s just a description, not an enticement, really. There’s beauty in civilization. If you can picture it, it’s hard not to want it. But it’s not dramatic. If people are going to visualize it—and, better yet, want it and seek it—they’ll probably need both real-life and literary examples.

I recently spent a week watching a Netflix series based on Anne of Green Gables—a series I’ve read multiple times, and also enjoyed the 30-year-old PBS series. There’s a lot for the new version, Anne with an E, to live up to. But going to that beautiful world (which I’ve been to in person) was worth giving it a chance. The casting was excellent. The scenery, of course, was beautiful. And the parts of the story that actually came from the original were nicely done.

That's us at the Lucy Maud Montgomery home
on Prince Edward Island, in 1985

But then the people who created this new version decided what they needed was drama. So they added things: Anne getting sent back to the orphanage after a brooch goes missing and is assumed stolen (the brooch incident is in the book; getting sent back is not); quitting school because others don’t accept her; saving someone from a fire so that her bravery wins acceptance; willing to go back to school because of feminism (I’m rolling my eyes); a mortgage on the farm; a heart attack for Matthew so he can no longer work the farm (he does have heart problems in the books, but doesn’t get incapacitated in her first year, nor is the farm ever in jeopardy); going to the big city to sell all the household goods, and the horse—and the farm helper who goes along to sell the horse gets beat up and the money stolen; they decide to take on a boarder—who happens to be the thief of the horse money; add in a possible love interest for Matthew, and a near suicide, plus a lot of parenting angst and self-doubt for Marilla.

So, maybe in some other story the drama might add something. But what we love about Anne Shirley is just watching her be herself in that beautiful Prince Edward Island setting that she appreciates so thoroughly. The books are episodic, rather than dramatic. But we don’t mind. Episodes like dying her red hair accidentally green, and floating in a sinking boat to enact “The Lady of Shalott,” which are practically iconic parts of the book, were left out of the new version. What a loss!

We need portrayals of good, or, as Bilbro calls it, shalom, that are enticing enough that adding drama for the sake of drama is unnecessary. Stories still need drama, and contrast, and layers of rich meaning. But we have plenty of depictions of evil.

I think, if we’re looking for stories of the good, we’ll find stories about happy families, with lots of humor, along with facing the challenges that happen just because we’re experiencing earth life. Sometimes dads and moms are the heroes who ought to be “put into songs and tales,” as Sam Gangee would say.

So, I’m on a search—I hope you’ll join me—for the good that will be as memorable and enticing as strawberries in the Shire.

Truth, Beauty, Goodness

Welcome to a new year! If you’re still breathing, you got here. It doesn’t seem like that much of an accomplishment, just surviving. But if you got here healthy and happy, with abundant joy in your life—now that’s an accomplishment. And it’s something that isn’t likely to have happened if all you do is breathe and survive. You need to live life a certain way to bring about that kind of happy result.

Sometimes we use the beginning of a new year to reflect, and to plan. To see how we’ve been doing and resolve to do something even better. We live, at least while we’re thinking about it, with more purpose.

Aristotle, image found here

So, in order to get more goodness in our lives, we need to focus on some pure, basic principles of goodness. These are the principles we try to identify in separating civilization from savagery, in Spherical Model terms. It’s simply better to face inevitable adversities while living in the abundant, fulfilling, loving and happy civilized society, rather than in the mean, dark, bitter, unfair, and chaotic misery of a savage society. We might be trying to identify what Aristotle referred to as “eudaimonia,” or “human flourishing.” You get to that state, hexis, or disposition to act excellently, by learning and adopting virtues.

I listened this past weekend to an interview between Bill Whittle, at PJTV, and Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College. I’ve quoted Dr. Arnn a number of times [here and here], and I think I’m seeing a theme. He often talks about the basic idea of nature: the goodness of a thing residing it its “being” the thing it is meant to be. The “cupness” of a cup is what determines whether it is good. And similarly, the “humanness” of a human being is what determines goodness. So, from that comes the question: what is a good human? Or, put more directly (and more religiously), what does it mean to be a good person? What should we do, think, and be to live a good life?

Here's the whole interview, which I recommend. But I have taken just a segment to talk about below.

 

Dr. Arnn says they teach the classics at Hillsdale College, and also at the charter schools developed by Hillsdale. The reason for studying classics is that these very questions about how to live have been asked, with attempted answers, for a very long time. Hillsdale is a liberal arts college, so this exchange is in response to a question about the value of such an education in today’s world. But, again, it’s the answer to that “how to be” question.

[at 11:50 in] Bill Whittle: You said earlier that a liberal arts education prepares people basically on how to live. Basically, a student who’s completed a liberal arts education at a college like yours that really understands the meaning of the term, is somebody that not only has a storehouse of information, but they also come out with some kind of a value system, some sort of  a moral code—some sort of an intellectual and moral ability to look at changing circumstances in the world, make sense out of them, put them together in a way that’s reasonable, and then proceed down the pathway of history. What do you say to people who claim that a liberal arts education doesn’t prepare students for a specific career?

[at 12:20 in] Larry Arnn: Well, the first thing to know is, what are you? We all love to say now that students are trying to find their identity. Well, their identity would be located in what kind of thing they are.

Around here I teach Aristotle’s Ethics every other year or so, and it’s a glorious thing. It’s one of the greatest books ever written; it’s a very beautiful book. And that word beauty is a very important word. The Greek word is “kalos” in Aristotle. And he thinks that everything tends toward the good and the beautiful. And the good is really the thing in inside each thing that makes it what it is. So, we are humans, and we’re full of contradictions and potentials. Contradictions, because, for example, we depend on our families a lot. All you’ve got to do is come to college on opening day in September, and you’ll see lots of weeping mothers and fathers leaving off their beloved children, who are 18 years old. And if they were some other kind of creature, the parents wouldn’t even know who the children are.

That word nature—that comes from the Latin word for birth. And the idea is that family, like human rights, is a natural phenomenon. And you can see that played out all the time.

Well, that’s one part of human nature, but another part is, we have discretion over stuff like that. We don’t really have to get married. We can abandon our children, if we want to. Whereas other animals obey instinct.

So the first thing is, Aristotle’s question in the Ethics is, What makes a human being happy? And his answer is, in short, being good. That is, learning how to be a good one of this kind of thing. And he lists the virtues. And they start with courage, which is the right disposition toward pain and danger. And then the second one is moderation, which is the right disposition toward pleasure.

And when you study that book, you become acquainted, in one of the greatest books ever written, with the obstacles with which we are confronted in our attempt to be good human beings. And there’s just nothing but nobility, in learning what that book says. And there are profound questions in the book that you will end up thinking about the rest of your life, if you think seriously. And it will make you a more serious person. And, in response to your direct question, better equipped to be a working and functioning citizen and worker and member of society.

You could say that learning to live a virtuous life makes you a better contributor to civilization than learning computer programming or civil engineering. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn those other things and contribute in those ways so you can earn your keep; it means that learning to make a living, absent learning how to live a good life, is not enough. In a full life, do both. But start with learning how to live; then add learning how to do something useful. Because once you learn how to live a good life, you will be capable of learning any number of contributing skills.

There’s an object lesson I’ve seen many times. You have a pile of rocks and a pile of sand that must fit in a jar. If you put the sand in first, the rocks don’t fit. But if you place the rocks in first, then the sand sifts into all the open places and fits in the jar as well. First things first, is the principle. Live a good life, whatever you do. The rest of living will find room.

I pray this is a year in which more of us find a way to live a beautiful life, in harmony with the our true nature, as God intended for us, with the happiness God is ready to grant if we will live in obedience to the principles of civilization.



John Keats, quote from "Ode on a Grecian Urn,"
image found here

 

Good Parenting Yields Civilization

Over the weekend I found this article, which fills out my economic point from Friday with a lot more detail and clarity. It's called "A Primer on the Never-Ending Bust" by Robert P. Murphy. Here is the link from the Ludwig von Mises site.

Now for today’s post. One of the results of my spending uncounted hours on a computer class lately is that my regular reading has slowed. I’ve been reading just about 10 pages a day, while I eat a bedtime snack, from Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide, the 3^rd in the Ender series. But maybe an advantage to that is that I can talk about it yet again.

This isn’t a book that I recommend for its story. Storyline is more an excuse for talking philosophy from various points of view. But occasionally in these discussions there are nuggets that I want to take out and keep. In this first one, a young Chinese servant girl named Wang Mu, on the world of Path, is thinking through the eternal question of how to tell who is good and what is right to do. On her world the religion is, I think, a derivative of Buddhism, 3000+ years in the future. The religious leaders, however, are people who have been genetically engineered to be extremely intelligent but also to have an untreatable form of OCD, which they interpret as the gods speaking to them to direct them when they are going in a right or wrong direction. Wang Mu doesn’t understand why gods would humiliate people so cruelly, and she has taken what could be viewed as a rebellious position against the gods, so she is working through this decision.

She remembered Wiggin [Andrew Wiggin, or Ender, whom she has met only by computer connection] telling her what the gods would be like. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them. Why would he say such a thing? How could he know what a god would be?

Somebody who wants to teach you how to know everything that they know and do everything that they do—what he was really describing was parents, not gods….

He was describing good parents. He wasn’t telling her what the gods were, he was telling her what goodness was. To want other people to grow. To want other people to have all the good things that you have. And to spare them the bad things if you can. That was goodness.

What were the gods, then? They would want everyone else to know and have and be all good things. They would teach and share and train, but never force….

That was it. That’s what the gods would be, if there were gods. They would want everyone else to have all that was good in life, just like good parents. But unlike parents or any other people, the gods would actually know what was good and have the power to cause good things to happen, even when nobody else understood that they were good. As Wiggin said, real gods would be smarter and stronger than anybody else. They would have all the intelligence and power that it was possible to have. (pp. 432-434)

 A dozen pages later, Valentine, Ender’s sister, has a conversation with Olhado [pronounced Ohl-yah-doo], one of Ender’s grown stepsons. Ender joined a very dysfunctional family in the previous book, and now 25 years have passed. The others all went into science fields, but Olhado is a brickyard foreman. When he was young, he had many philosophical ideas that no one listened to, so Valentine is coming now to get his opinions. He tells her what happened when Andrew [Ender] joined the family, and how it affected his life.

“I saw what Andrew did in our family. I saw that he came in and listened and watched us. He tried to discover our need and then supply it. He took responsibility for other people and it didn’t seem to matter to him how much it cost him. And in the end, while he could never make the Ribeira family normal, he gave us peace and pride and identity. Stability. He married Mother and was kind to her. He loved us all. He was always there when we wanted him, and seemed unhurt by it when we didn’t. He was firm with us about expecting civilized behavior, but never indulged his whims at our expense. And I thought: This is so much more important than science. Or politics, either. Or any particular profession or accomplishment or thing you can make. I thought: If I could just make a good family, if I could just learn to be to other children, their whole lives, what Andrew was, coming so late into ours, then that would mean more in the long run, it would be a finer accomplishment than anything I could ever do with my mind or my hands”

 “So you’re a career father,” said Valentine.

 “Who works at a brick factory to feed and clothe the family. Not a brickmaker who also has kids….

“Jacqueline. My wife. She followed her own road to the same place. We do what we must to earn our place in the community, but we live for the hours at home. For each other, for the children. It will never get me written up in the history books…. It’s a boring life, to read about,” said Olhado. “Not to live, though.” (pp. 448-449)

What is goodness? It is what a good parent does for a child. What is a worthwhile life? It is enjoying the peace, beauty, and love of being a good parent to children, to give them all the good you can, the way the real God gives us, His children that He loves.

If this were the perspective of a critical mass of the people, then economic problems practically disappear, and social problems are shrunken to levels manageable by these good people. When families do well what they do best, civilization happens.