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

 

Music of the Season

The news of the day has been about Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson being suspended from his own family’s reality show on A&E, because he answered a direct question about his opinion on the definition of marriage, in an interview to be published in GQ Magazine. There is a firestorm of response about that. A couple of my favorites are Shawn Rogers’ commentary (available on Not on This Watch Facebook page 12-19-2013 ) and PJ Media’s Bryan Preston. If you’ve read my Defense of Marriage collection, you probably know where I stand. Which doesn’t make me a hater either—just a civilized thinker.

So, rather than spend more time on that just before Christmas, I’m going to spend time sharing something much more pleasant: Christmas Music.

Music is a pretty big part of my life. I play piano and organ well enough for church purposes. I lead the church choir. I play mountain dulcimer, and taught that instrument in an adult education class through the community college this fall. The little jam group I attend weekly, which includes dulcimers as well as guitars, mandolins, a string bass, banjo, and flutes, has performed as a service several times this month. I also occasionally play guitar and recorder (wooden flute, soprano and alto). And I sing. To paraphrase Buddy the Elf, “Singing is my favorite!” Or lines from “The Holly and the Ivy”: “…The playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir.” It’s what I do. I sing at home and in the car. Sometimes in public.

Christmas is a music season. So I thought I’d put together a little online concert here—some of my current favorite Christmas pieces, for no other purpose that to feel what it is to feel the Spirit of Christ while we’re spending time celebrating His very special life.

This first one, is a capella, written by Aaron Edson. I first heard it in two places, in late 2005. Edson wrote it for a scripture video series called Liken the Scriptures (very fun series, with kids imagining how things must have been, with lots of music). This one is sung by the shepherds in The First Christmas. It was also included on BYU’s Vocal Point 2004 album, “Standing Room Only.” Vocal Point is BYU’s national award-winning men’s a capella ensemble. So I’ve been a fan since years before they became famous on the TV show The Sing Off.

In 2006 I contacted Aaron Edson to see if I could get the music for a concert I was conducting. He was at that time working to get it into print and sent me, at no cost, a pdf of the music along with permission to use it for our church concert. What a great guy! We had a group of eight or so perform the ensemble piece for our 2006 concert. This video is excerpted from The First Christmas.

 

Since we can’t get enough of men’s a capella, here’s a bonus of Vocal Point doing the perfect version of “12 Days of Christmas.” (Harvard and Indiana University men’s ensembles have done this as well.)

 

Do you know about The Piano Guys? Hurray for the internet making performances possible and sharable in ways they never were before! The Piano Guys is a combination of pianist Jon Schmidt and cellist Steven Sharp Nelson and some other musicians who happen to also be extraordinarily skilled at video production. So these guys do videos of their music in various places. Once they airlifted a grand piano onto a dangerously high mesa in southern Utah, where they’re from. Recently they performed on the Great Wall of China. I’m a big fan—got to see them in concert last summer when they stopped in Houston on tour.

Their newest Christmas video is “Angels We Have Heard on High,” using the piano in ways you might never have seen—unless you’ve seen these guys before. I encourage you to go to the link. Watch everything they’ve done! But the video I’m including is from a year ago, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” a Mormon Channel video including them and their music in a beautiful depiction of the nativity and Christ’s life. (It looks like it was filmed on location in the Holy Land, but is actually a beautifully done media studio set.) I watched this every day for a month last year—well into January.

 

The year that Vocal Point was on The Sing Off, that year’s winner was Pentatonix. I was disappointed my heroes didn’t win, but I’ve come to really like this group. This year their version of “Little Drummer Boy” is my new favorite of that song. It’s no longer the same song I sang in elementary school.

 

Lindsey Sterling is another internet video star. She’s a violinist who dances (dubstep) while she plays. She’s a delightful elfin/pixie-looking young woman, and makes use of that, totally decked out as an elf in “Celtic Carol.” But the piece I'm sharing is her heart-wrenchingly beautiful version of “What Child Is This.”

 

Lindsey has done videos with both The Piano Guys (a very fun "Mission Impossible" spoof) and Pentatonix  (a post-apocalyptic looking "Radioactive.”) She grew up in Arizona, it turns out in the same neighborhood where Mr. Spherical Model’s brother lives. Her dad is a close family friend. I mentioned this to my son Political Sphere, who used to live there too, and he said, “Oh, yeah. I know who that is.” I was a fan well before I learned she was a regular person just down the street, except for when she’s touring the world.

There are others I’d like to share, but are less easily linked. So I’ll end with a new favorite I discovered this year. My dulcimer group introduced me to this one, and we’ve already performed it several times. I’ve gotten ahead for next year and ordered it for my church choir to sing. The link is for audio only, but it’s a heavenly three minutes, called “Shines the Light.”

May your Christmas be full of beautiful music! 

 

Knowledge, Power, Economy--and Civilization

I listened to another Uncommon Knowledge episode the other night; yet again it becomes clear how interrelated the economic, political, and civilization spheres are.

The interview was with George Gilder, most recently the author of Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World. He makes the assertion that wealth is essentially knowledge. Every trade is an exchange of knowledge.

George Gilder (right) being interviewed on Uncommon Knowledge

Gilder studies information theory. There are a lot of specific definitions, all worth hearing. One is that entrepreneurship and information are essentially surprise—in other words, contrary to expectation. In a radio transmission, for example, you have static, or white noise, which is the expected chaos, or what he refers to as entropy. Then there’s the message—something clear that comes through, unexpected among the white noise. That’s what we pay attention to; that is what surprises us by being different from the background noise. In a carrier, such as a radio transmission, there may be a certain amount of noise. Fiber optics might have less noise, or lower entropy. The lower entropy, the more clarity.

And he applies this noise vs. clarity idea to economics. Quite literally, socialist economic systems introduce noise into the market—and interference in the market muddies up the clarity. Here’s a portion of the conversation, starting at about 15 minutes in:

Peter Robinson: So in an economy you want a set of circumstances, government circumstances, tax policy, regulation, legal regime, property rights, which somehow or other permits the greatest possible pure information?

George Gilder: That’s right.

PR: So why does socialism impinge on pure information?

GG: What you want is a predictable carrier. Remember, the electromagnetic spectrum, all guaranteed by the speed of light. What you want in economy is predictable laws, predictable political leadership, a spirit of trust, which means contracts can be predictable. Property rights—which means that property rights don’t change from time to time. That entrepreneurs can launch their creations through a world that’s governed by predictable rules of law—the rules of the road, as Hayek said.

And where I diverge to some extent from pure libertarian views is that I don’t believe that these rules of the road, the Constitution, the, uh, trustworthy political leadership, contracts, courts that are reliable—that all these low-entropy carriers can emerge spontaneously. I think it takes heroic—it took George Washington and Jefferson and Madison and all these great men to achieve the low-entropy carriers that allowed the efflorescence of the American economy.

And it still requires both restrained and inspired political leadership, and sacrificial national defense, and reliable police, and the whole structure of the constitutional order is necessary in order to bear the unexpected, surprising creations of entrepreneurs—new goods and services, bearing new knowledge through the economy.

Right after this exchange, Peter Robinson puts up a quote from the book, which crystalizes the point:

In capitalism, the low-entropy carriers are the rule of law, the maintenance of order, the defense of property rights, the stability of money, the discipline of futurity of family life, and a modest and predictable role of government. These low-entropy carriers do not emerge spontaneously. They originated historically in a religious faith in the transcendent order of the universe.

Then, going on:

PR: George, there are moments when there’s a kind of cultural whiplash form reading this book, because here and here and here you’re talking about cutting-edge information theory. You even go into the mathematics of it. You talk about how the physics that I struggled with in high school transcend… You sound cool, and so cutting edge, and so high tech! And then you talk about sacrifice and thrift, and a “religious belief in the transcendent order of the universe.” And suddenly we’re not in Silicon Valley; we’re in small town Kansas or Iowa. How do these go together?

This is where I get really interested. It’s culture—the rules of civilization—that makes all the difference in economics, in entrepreneurial success, in real progress.

The culture discussion continues. This section is about 26 minutes in:

PR: [You talk about the ] “futurity and stability of the family,” which sounds pretty retrograde, if I may so in this year of our Lord 2013—but of course it’s not “our Lord”; that’s also retrograde. But, George, it even gets worse. I went back to the opening page of [Gilder’s book] Men and Marriage. Get ready; I’m going to quote this, and what I’m about to quote is so politically incorrect there will be a paddy wagon ready to take you away after this shoot. “The prime fact of life is the sexual superiority of women. Women transform male lust into love; channel male wanderlust into jobs, homes, and families; change hunters into fathers; divert male will to power into a drive to create.” Oh, George, you go from being cool to being unspeakable.

GG: Well, crucial to economic growth is a sense of the future. You have to be engaged in long-term activities, because knowledge is hard to achieve, and it takes determination and resolution, and sacrifice and persistence, and perseverance and imagination to pursue. And when families break—the way most of this society gains a stake in the long-term future is through children, who biologically extend our lives into the future, and give us a sense of a stake in the future. And when the family breaks down, just as when a stable money fails and the courts become capricious and unpredictable, when politicians gouge for power and money of their own—what happens is the horizons of the economy close in, and the whole society becomes increasingly engaged in short-term transactions. … Everything resolves to small little—seconds minutes and hours, rather than the long-term commitments that yield a great and growing economy.

How do we get a better, more prosperous economy? Live better, more civilized lives. Simple, but not easy.

I always like something hopeful, and Gilder had some positive, hopeful things to say about getting things turned around. Robinson quotes him again from the book: “An economy is not a process that is changeable only over generations. It can revive as quickly as minds and policies can change.”

The economy, Gilder believes, can turn practically on a dime—as soon as the policies change. I think he’s right. We saw that turnaround (over about two years, to get new budgets in place) when Reagan put in free-market policies following the malaise Jimmy Carter tried to convince us was a permanent new normal. So, as soon as we get rid of Obamacare, confiscatory taxes, income distribution from producers to able-bodied non-producers, and skyrocketing public debt—as soon as the policies change, recovery begins. Creative, hard workers are bound to succeed when roadblocks are moved out of the way.

However, the way to get the policy change is to get the people to believe and act differently than they have been doing. Gilder said,

In Men and Marriage I predicted that if the family collapsed the way it seemed to be doing, in the case of the inner city, that it would take a welfare state to care for the women and children and a police state to take care of the boys…. This society depends on a man and a woman taking care of children. And now we have a third of black young men either in jail or on probation or on the lam. This is the harvest of liberalism.

The culture problems are serious, and slower to respond to change, because, unlike economics, generations are set on a path that’s hard to correct. But policies are to blame, so change to appropriate policies can lead to positive changes in society.

I think, because the political, economic, and civilization worlds interrelate, you can’t really get anywhere without the right kind of living. But Gilder is hopeful that, because economics is easier to affect, mainly by changing political policy, that is a starting point. Make those changes. They require honesty, thrift, rule of law, consistency, family strength, and other things required of us in the Ten Commandments. So put those policies in place, and we're on the path to a recovery of civilization as well.

I say we give it a try.

It's That Time of Year

I’m sure you’re aware, this time of year is…just a couple of months before the primary election. That’s why this past Saturday, a week and a half before Christmas, a crowded roomful of people met at our local tea party meeting to hear from candidates.

In addition to local candidates, we heard from two more candidates for Texas governor: Republican Lisa Fritsch and Libertarian Kathie Glass.  A few months ago we heard from Tom Pauken, a long-time grassroots Republican activist. I’m not sure what the full slate of candidates will be. We may not get a personal visit from Greg Abbott in this statewide race, although I’m still leaning his direction. But I enjoy hearing the conservative message—the only message that is viable among the interested grassroots conservatives of Texas. It’s kind of like Texas barbecue—everyone’s entitled to their own favorite flavor of sauce, but it’s still the long-time roasted meat that people line up for.

However the vote goes down eventually, it’s worth noting a few things we heard from the candidates.

Lisa Fritsch had an interesting story. I’m including her photo, because, if you listen to the media, people like her don’t exist—and certainly wouldn’t show up at a tea party meeting. Yet we find that stereotypes don’t match reality. She fits in with us just fine. Her mother taught her some basic ideas that have stuck, and they're our ideas too.

Lisa Fritsch, GOP candidate for TX Governor
at Cypress Texas Tea Party

Fritsch says she became a Republican in second grade, although she didn’t know it for a while. She grew up with a hardworking single mom in a low income area—in “a sea of Democrats.”  But they never went on public assistance. Her mother said she would rather starve. At one point the young Lisa suggested her mother could give up her third job, which was paying for tap lessons she was willing to give up, but her mother refused.

In high school (if I’m getting the details right), she did less than stellar work in a class, and gave the complaint going around that the particular teacher graded blacks lower. Her mother called around, found another smart girl in the neighborhood in that class, and learned from her mother that the girl had gotten a 95% on the same test. And she told Lisa that being black would never be a good excuse for not succeeding.

In college at University of Texas, she tried to think of herself as a liberal, getting in arguments with her conservative roommate. The trouble was, sometimes her roommate’s line of reasoning seemed to make sense. So she got this idea that, if she could get a clearer idea of the opposition’s reasoning, she’d better be able to refute it. So she found the campus meetings for the Young Republicans, and sneaked in the back to listen, “as well as a six-foot-tall black woman can sneak in the back.” And the more she heard, the more it made sense. She has been an active Republican for the past fifteen years. She has been a radio show host, a writer and commentator. She occasionally appears on Fox News. Her opinions can be found on YouTube speeches and her candidate website Lisa4Texas.com.

When asked about her ideas for Texas, her priorities were to secure the border before reforming immigration. She probably didn’t win over a lot of people even talking about the next step—finding a path to citizenship, especially for those here as no fault of their own (children of illegal immigrants). She wants to eliminate the underground economy, get them to pay taxes, play by the rules, stop them from getting benefits. All of this she insisted was completely separate from dealing with the drug and human trafficking elements of illegals, which should be shut down. It’s a difficult conversation to have, because both sides make negative assumptions about what the other side really means.

Kathie Glass is about opposite in looks—a short, blond, middle-aged woman. She’s fiery, with a down home Texas accent. She’s about taking back power to the state—power that’s there in the US Constitution and should never be ceded just because of unwillingness to stand firm. Sometimes with a bully all you have to do is say no. Sometimes you have to get more aggressive, but you don’t know that if you don’t even try to say no.

Kathie Glass, Libertarian candidate for TX Governor
at Cypress Texas Tea Party

She used the scary “N” word: nullification. The last candidate I brought that up with said he thought that was a settled issue back in the 1800s. I disagree. Kathie Glass doesn’t think it was settled either. And, while she’s not afraid to use the word, she actually refers to things we’re already doing. The states (including Texas) that refused to set up health care exchanges just because the federal government told them to—that is nullification. Whenever and wherever the federal government oversteps its constitutional limits, just say no. Don’t put all your eggs in the basket of the courts, risking that they might not agree with you; better to just act according to the way you read state vs. federal rights without asking permission.

Glass also talked about the border. She proposes using the Texas Guard on the border, which is already part of the state budget. I asked her, since protecting international borders is actually one of the few appropriate roles of the federal government, but they’re not doing it, what do we do about the money they’re taking and not using for that purpose when we have to spend it ourselves. She said to just consider sunk costs sunk. Referring to money already spent, in practicality I agree; we won’t get that money back. I’m looking for a pre-tax mechanism to divert federal tax money from ever getting to Washington, if we have to use it to protect our own border, or for any other misuse of Texas money. I thought that was something a libertarian might take on, but she didn’t go there.

Glass talked about public education being corrupt. We might not be able to fix it by tweaking it here and there; we might have to knock down the whole thing and start from scratch. I cheer along with that. But it would take more time from her to hear practical steps to accomplish something that drastic without depriving students of options during a year—or a few years—of total disarray. But in the meantime, we at least need to get everything locally controlled.

Both candidates subtly (maybe not so subtly) jabbed Attorney General Greg Abbott for fighting the federal government through lawsuit after lawsuit. While I agree that there are plenty of ways to stand up against the federal government, when your job is to advise the state on legal issues and represent the state in courts, you don’t say, “No, let’s not bother with the judiciary.” Abbott has been doing his job, and doing it well. Abbott describes his job as, “I go into the office in the morning, I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home.” It makes me smile.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
photo from Wikipedia

They also jabbed him as a “career politician,” which I didn’t think was fair. Abbott was a private practice attorney from 1984-1992. He then served as a trial judge in Houston for three years before being appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by then-Governor George W. Bush. Judges are appointed in Texas only to fill openings, and then they are elected. But it’s not typical to refer to a judge as a career politician. He became Texas Attorney General in 2002—only the second Republican since Reconstruction to have that position—when John Cornyn went on to the Senate.

Abbott is probably best known for successfully arguing the case for displaying the Ten Commandments on the State Capitol grounds. The main argument in that case, as I recall, was about the culturally historic (rather than religious) tradition of the Ten Commandments monument, showing that the display did not “establish” a religion, nor a specific religious preference. It was an argument that worked, even though I personally didn’t believe it was the right argument—which is that we the people have a right to display whatever we want, religious or otherwise, on our own state property, without any interference from the federal government—so get out of our faces and leave us alone! Nevertheless, Abbott knew the practical argument that would win the day in the particular court where he was arguing. I don’t know of another time I’ve disagreed with him.

I’ve heard him speak a number of times—first time at the state GOP convention in 2004. He’s one of my favorites. From what I’ve seen, he’s a man of exceptional integrity. I want to hear more from him as a candidate for governor, but knocking him as a “career politician” because he’s the most prominent law advocate for Texas looks to me like there’s nothing else to knock him with.

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate other candidates stepping up and giving it a good try, and taking the opportunity to spread the conservative message in the meantime. Let’s all keep doing that.

Pretty Little Civilized World

For book club this week we took a break from young adult post-apocalyptic tyrannies to spend some time in the lovely, civilized world of late 1800s Prince Edward Island (eastern Canada).

a postcard from our 1985 visit

Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery, is the story of an exuberant little red-haired orphan. She is eleven when she comes to live with older, never-married brother and sister Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, at their home called Green Gables. They were expecting a boy, someone who could be of use to Matthew on the farm. Matthew was 60 and had occasional heart problems, so it seemed like a good solution. Anne Shirley was sent as a result of miscommunications. She was left on the railroad platform, and Matthew couldn’t think what to do except take her home for the time being. On the way, she chattered in a way that should have overwhelmed the taciturn female-fearing man. But he was charmed by her.

Marilla was stern and disgruntled about the mistake, and made plans to return Anne, and drove the next day to take her to the neighbors who had been the go-between. On the drive she learned a little of Anne’s history. She was the daughter of two poor school teachers. Her mother had died of a fever, shortly after Anne’s birth; her father succumbed to the same fever a few days later. There was no extended family.

She was taken in by various willing persons over the years, but not adopted. It wasn’t easy. She got very little schooling, although she read well enough to discover poetry to memorize and had a dramatic vocabulary. She had served as nursemaid to a woman with multiple sets of twins. When the father of that household died, she ended up in the asylum (orphanage), which wasn’t Dickensian grim, but it was pretty hopeless. As Anne would say, “No scope for the imagination,” which was an essential of life.

When they got to the neighbor’s house, they learned Anne could be sent on as a household helper to a family Marilla didn’t approve of. She had thought it was reasonable to send her back to the asylum (although Matthew was in favor of keeping her from the start), where she might have another opportunity for adoption. But to knowingly place her with a family where Marilla knew Anne would be ill used was beyond what conscience would allow.

So Anne goes back to Green Gables, on trial, but really with no chance of ever being sent away. She tries in amusing fashion to be a good child, but she’s not very good at it. Her troubles and trials are the subject of the amusing book. She always means to be obedient, but she’s heedless, headstrong, and often lost in a world of dreams.

What I love about this book (series of books, actually) is the beauty of the civilized world. It’s something we see so seldom in literature, I’m concerned a generation will grow up without exposure to what ought to be normal.

Even though the Cuthbert/Shirley trio is not a traditional family—married mother and father raising their own children—it is essentially a healthy family story. We see Marilla working through the challenges of balancing discipline and guidance with understanding and forgiveness. She becomes less stern as her love for Anne grows, along with her confidence in Anne and in her own decisions. Matthew always just adores Anne, but he lets Marilla do the raising. We see Anne being taught from scratch about God and prayer and church-going. We see her learn to love learning in school. We see her chattering and hyperactivity temper as she grows. Without squelching her spirit in any way, Anne becomes more civilized. It’s a very satisfying outcome—the kind of satisfaction parents hope for.

The neighbors are integrated into Anne’s world, with complaints that turn to eventual approval—because Anne is just irresistible. She’s less annoying that Pippi Longstocking. She’s less sickly sweet than Pollyana. She’s not as unreal as Little Orphan Annie. She’s just a lovable, vibrant little girl. And the story, while more episodic than dramatic, is totally believable.

There are no villains in this world. Not even in her past. She may have been overworked and unloved, but she was never beaten or otherwise physically abused. Because her world is made up of civilized people; some people are less kind or more selfish than they should be, but mostly these are people just going through life in a way they see as right. In just about every way that matters, this out-of-time-and-place story is much more real than the gritty “real world” stories we see so much today.

The setting is idyllic. Near the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but mostly semi-rural farmland, with tree-lined lanes, forests, flowery fields. Lots of green hills dotted with little white churches.

Here we are at the Green Gables House as tourists in 1985
Cavendish, PEI, Canada

We’ve been there. Mr. Spherical Model spent two years as a missionary in eastern Canada, with the first half year or so on Prince Edward Island. We took a trip there, when son Political Sphere was just about learning to crawl, and visited the families he had known there during his mission. We spent a day at Cavendish, where the Green Gables house is. The house itself was the home of relatives of author Lucy Maud Montgomery. So the meadows, forests, fields, and the house itself, are taken from this real place.

It’s cold generally. The tourist season for the beach is about a month. We got there in late August, and it was too cold to go in the water. There’s plenty of snow and cold and discomfort. But the book, nevertheless, is deliciously full of warmth and comfort.

It’s Christmastime, and cold—even here in Texas right now. Yet when you think of Christmas, you think of warmth and comfort despite the outer cold. That is what civilization can do—living in a way that values caring for others, strengthening families, and honoring God. It’s a kind of beauty and warmth we need to spread.

Southern Hemisphere Hero

Human beings can be a complex combination of good and bad. With that in mind, I want to take a brief look at the life of Nelson Mandela, following his death December , 2013.

He is known as the father of post-apartheid South Africa. This must mean that he was a great influence for good.

My real time memories of him are sketchy.  The 27 years he spent in prison ended when I was an adult, and his time as president of South Africa was something I certainly remember; that election was 1994. But I didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to what was happening on the other side of the world. I was aware that many people refused to do business with South Africa during the last years of Apartheid, in an effort to pressure for change, which eventually worked.

Mandela’s tribal Xhosa name was “Madiba,” which he was often called with affection. He was born in 1918, about a month after my own father, so that gives me a view of his lifespan. Some of what I know of him is through media. I especially liked the movie Invictus, a rugby movie that was really about bringing people together. Morgan Freeman played President Mandela, and the photo on the cover of Friday’s Houston Chronicle looked surprisingly like the actor. I love the smile. It’s understandable why many people would have affectionate memories for that face and the apartheid-ending legacy.

I do recall bad media of his second wife, Winnie Mandela, during the latter years of his imprisonment, I think. She was known to beat and berate her personal servants. Looking at media now, I’m uncertain what to believe. But there are some other details about Mandela that are historic and worth considering. (The Wikipedia article, already updated since his death, is useful.)

He spent many years working as a lawyer, speaking for rights for black South Africans, as a leader in the ANC (African National Congress, an anti-imperialist pro-independence movement). He grew up Christian, was baptized a Methodist, and attended throughout his childhood, even though this was mixed with tribal practices; his mother was the third of four polygamist wives, in the royal tribal family. Mandela was among the royal family of his tribe, yet the first of his family to attend school.

While he was interested in Soviet support for wars of independence, he didn’t trust the idea of communism. And through WWII he supported British rule. So he was a skeptical communist. He seemed to favor the non-communist idea of freedom to vote for all citizens as paramount, but willingly accepted socialism as a way to rule.

Early on he was a follower of Ghandi’s nonviolent resistance, more for pragmatic than ideological reasons. Later he came to believe the ANC had “no alternative to armed and violent resistance.” At trial he pleaded guilty to 156 counts of public violence and terrorism. I don’t know how specifically guilty he was personally for murders that took place, but there are claims that he, as ANC leader, was behind multiple bombing plots in which women and children were killed.

He could be compared to Yasser Arafat of Hamas, a terrorist leader of a terrorist organization, who later became a “respectable” leader of a people. But I was aware enough of Arafat to never see him as other than a terrorist. I don’t know how much of Mandela’s reputation is media created, but he wasn’t—as was Ghandi—a political prisoner; he was imprisoned for crimes he admitted committing, which was why Amnesty International refused to advocate for him.

The outcome of overcoming the suppression of a people based on race is an important positive outcome.  There is no overstating that. I have no patience for tearing down a person because of disagreement over race. But that is not the only issue of his life, so I’m trying to see the full picture.

Pro-Communist/Socialist Mandela
photo from here

His other efforts, using socialist means to “fight poverty,” are all statist tyranny tactics. He worked for income redistribution, using the typical socialist approaches, apparently unaware that these tactics never create wealth but only prevent wealth creation by the “haves.” Granted, there was a lack of basic needs, like water and electricity, suffered by the black poor but not the white wealthy. So, without the thinking of American freedom, it’s unfortunate but not unlikely for socialism to appear persuasive. Socially, he was pro-abortion. He codified pro-sexual promiscuity into the constitution—in a country suffering from the devastation of AIDS (one f his sons died of AIDS).

Personally, he was known to be friendly, relaxed in the company of everyone, and humble—even making his own bed while president. Promiscuity, combined with the strain of political strife, ended his first two of three marriages. Still, he is reported to have enjoyed his private family time.

South Africa is much better off today than during apartheid. But think how much better off the people would be if their great leader had used his influence to lead the people to guarantees of God-given rights, free market economics, and the pro-religion and pro-family principles necessary for thriving civilization.

The title “southern hemisphere hero” does not refer to the location on the globe of South Africa; it refers to the southern hemisphere on the Spherical Model. North is freedom; south is tyranny. So much of world history has taken place in the southern hemisphere, where people believe the choices are between anarchic tyranny and statist tyranny. But there is an entire northern hemisphere of freedom they’re missing.

The decision to allow all people a vote was a movement northward. It might be that Mandela accomplished all he could, as a single individual, in a difficult time and place, without the right beliefs. And not every “hero” has as much moral integrity as Ghandi or George Washington. But I believe the struggles his country still suffers could be solved by significant movement northward on the sphere.

So this remarkable man is to be honored, but with limits.

Corporate Religious Freedom

In light of our last post, on heroically standing up to tyranny, I would like to recognize the heroes at Hobby Lobby who are standing up against the HHS mandate infringing on their religious beliefs.

The Hobby Lobby case is one of two 2014 Supreme Court cases relating to the mandate for providing insurance to employees that includes contraception—including abortifacients. (The other is Conestoga Wood Specialties, Mennonite cabinetmakers in Pennsylvania.) The misnamed Affordable Care Act details what must be included in various health insurance policies, and birth control is among the requirements—for everyone, of every gender, age, and circumstance. Under pressure, exceptions were carved out for religious institutions, dithering over a fair amount of minutia deciding things like whether a parochial school run by a church could be exempted, or if only employees of the actual church could be exempted.

A Hobby Lobby store front
photo from here

The government’s knee-jerk response is based on its perceived interests first and foremost, regardless of the effect on individuals and their beliefs. The first attempt at appeasement to church employment was, “You don’t have to pay for contraceptives, if that is against your beliefs; you simply have to pay for policies that will offer it.” Um. That’s still paying for it.

We think the decision is more or less settled for churches, which have a declared religious purpose. But religious institutions aren’t the only places you find religious people. And where you find religious people, you may encounter those opposed to paying for someone else’s pregnancy avoidance. And you’re especially going to find opposition if the pregnancy “avoidance” products include after-fertilization-of-the-egg types, which can be considered abortion.

Such people are among the founders and leadership of Hobby Lobby, the large, national craft store chain out of Oklahoma. They are self-declared religious people. Their stores are always closed on Sundays, in honor of their belief in keeping the Sabbath day holy. (The Hobby Lobby story is recounted in founder David Green’s book More than a Hobby.)

So the question arises: Do persons lose their right to religious freedom when they enter into commerce? Since pretty much everyone does enter into commerce, we probably need to narrow that down to those who do business as an entity, rather than as they themselves individually—which is still pretty wide reaching: DBAs, limited partnerships, nonprofit organizations, companies, firms, privately held corporations, and publicly traded (stock selling) corporations. Plus probably other business structures I’m not thinking of.

The opposition chooses to word this question a little differently: How can a corporation have religious beliefs? It’s not a person. They’re just trying to dodge their responsibility to pay for full health care coverage. (And LA Times editorial titled it “The Hobby Lobby Dodge.”)

So I’m looking at my personal experience, which is very small scale, to see if it translates. Several decades ago I had a writing and editing business that, for various reasons, worked better if I incorporated, had clients pay the corporation, then had the corporation pay me as a contractor. The corporation required three principals: that was me, my husband, and my dad. We met the requirements of the law to be a corporation, but in every respect that was important, I was the corporation: I was the one doing the work, making the decisions, and earning the money that passed through the corporation to me as a contractor. Was the corporation something other than me? On paper, but not in reality. If the corporation had been required to write things I wasn’t willing to write, like porno scripts for example, the corporation would have turned down such work, because I was unwilling to do it.

Suppose there were a government requirement to take on work I found morally objectionable. There isn’t; it seems ridiculous to contemplate—but then having government tell any business what it must buy for its employees seemed ludicrous just a few years ago. So, let’s suppose there were such a requirement of my little corporation. Would I have to do it? My religious beliefs and personal moral code prohibit me from doing so. Under government coercion, I still couldn’t do it. Having government say, “You don’t have to do the work that goes against your beliefs; it’s only required of the corporation, which doesn’t have religious views,” doesn’t help me.

Hiring some other contract writer to do the work wouldn’t even solve the issue for me; I couldn’t have such work produced by the corporation that I control.

When government coerces a commercial entity, the people with controlling interest in that commercial entity have two options: comply, or shut down. Hobby Lobby has already said that, if there is no other recourse, they will shut down rather than comply.

First, of course, comes the question of whether the government can coerce. It (which is supposed to be “We the People,” but sure seems to have become some other monstrous entity) can and does coerce—unless prevented. Government is power. Our Constitution places limits on the federal government, delineating the specifically allowed powers—but those limits have been stretched beyond the point of elasticity. We are left to rely on a hope that unelected judges will say, “No, you can’t do that.”

The Supreme Court is the last resort for Hobby Lobby. They already won in federal appeals court, but the Obama administration isn’t satisfied with the result, so Hobby Lobby must fight on. I appreciate their heroic willingness to do so. Personally, I see Hobby Lobby as my favorite “toy” store; I adore using the 40% off coupon I can make appear on my phone every time I shop there. Having them shut down would be tragic for me, but more so for the thousands of employees, and the additional thousands making products sold there.

In the case of Conestoga Wood, they lost in appeals court on grounds very similar to Hobby Lobby. So the Supreme Court was looking at split decisions, as well as additional dozens of similar challenges to the mandate, when they decided to take on the role of final arbiter.

Back in January 2012 the SCOTUS ruled unanimously in favor of religious freedom in the Hosanna-Tabor case.  But the ruling included recognition that it was a church making its hiring decisions. It’s less certain this time. There is the question of whether a commercial enterprise is comprised of people with religious and other guaranteed rights.

Remember back during the last presidential campaign, in 2011, when media had a jolly time laughing at Romney for stating that a corporation was its people? The Supreme Court had already agreed with him concerning political donations in the Citizens United case, in 2010, which has left the tyrannists gnashing their teeth ever since.

So the Supreme Court has found that businesses have political speech rights. If they find that businesses also have religious rights, then the government can only supersede those rights with a compelling reason. (An example of a compelling reason might be that, if a religion believed in punishing rape victims with death for allowing themselves to be made “unclean,” the government would see that as a violation of murder laws and punish accordingly, regardless of the religion’s beliefs.) That seems to me a high burden in this case. They must convince, not only that there is a compelling interest in the government’s protecting all rights to the use of all contraceptives, including abortifacients; they must convince that there is a right to have such products paid for by whomever the government burdens with the assignment. If we didn’t find ourselves in this parallel Obama-verse, we would shrug off such arguments as piffle.

The Court will hear arguments in spring 2014 and make their ruling probably in June. Let us all pray that the justices have the wisdom to recognize that entering into commerce is not a forfeiture of our God-given right to make moral choices.