Lift Up Your Hearts!

I concluded Volume 4 by decrying modern society's "increasing belief that we are entitled to pursue our pleasures without hindrance."   The segue into Volume 5's two articles may not be as clear to you as it is to me, but here they are.

In this essay Deneen speaks of "rational controls," by which he means, "the replacement of virtue by automated controls that act on our behalf in ways that would be virtuous if we were to have effected those same outcomes voluntarily."  Quoting Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield,

What is rational control? In the brand new building where I work at Harvard, the lights go on and off, the shades go up and down, and the toilets flush automatically. Rational control has replaced individual virtue, which is subject to vagaries and may not be active or awake. As instruments of rational control, the seatbelts in your car are inferior to airbags because the former you have to buckle on your own and the latter save you without your having to lift a finger. These examples are small matters of convenience, but they add up. As intrusions into your privacy, your own control over your life, and your virtue, they also add up. In their very minuteness, they reveal the comprehensiveness of rational control.

Pardon the following extensive quotations, but Deneen says it better than I could abstract.  The emphasis is my own, however.

[O]n this question of individual responsibility for virtuous action, vs. forms of automatic "rational control," lies one of the true and decisive dividing lines between conservatives and liberals.  Conservatives as a general rule hold that individuals can and should be responsible for their own actions—whether virtuous acts of generosity (hence their preference for philanthropy rather than taxation) or individual culpability (why they are tougher on criminals)—while liberals emphasize the social dimension of obligations and responsibilities.  In a recent book entitled Unjust Deserts, its authors Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly argue that the accumulated wealth and accomplishments of our society are the consequence of the collective accomplishment of generations of humans, and that all contemporary enrichment of society rests on the shoulders of a common inheritance.  Thus, no individual "deserves" what he or she earns—since they have not really achieved anything on their own at all—and all living humans should benefit from this common inheritance through widespread income redistribution.

While I’m not prepared to sign aboard the redistibutionist bandwagon...I find myself thinking that there is something deeply conservative to the liberal side of the argument.  Whatever conservatism is—and it is many things these days—to my mind it is a defense of the idea of an organic social fabric that needs conserving and defending against the depredations of modern liberal anthropology, politics, and economics.  Such conservatism—Burke’s conservatism—takes a dim view toward individualism.  It has a high regard for the idea of generational inheritance and obligations.  Such conservatism understands that an individualistic form of liberalism threatens the viability of community—its educative features, including and especially those that teach us forms of obligation and common care, as well as the limits upon our individual will, our greed and ambition.  Liberalism was premised most fundamentally upon the liberation of individuals from the confines...of such communities, and conservatism was born of the effort to thwart this undermining of the res publica.

Yet, our contemporary conservatives are the most ardent defenders of individualism and our liberals are the proponents of a more social and even socialized understanding.  This reversal is not only because of the intervention of Communism—of course that’s of central importance—but, I would argue, because of liberalism’s introduction of "rational control" as the means of achieving some of the very social ends that might once have been similar to those pursued by a Burkean conservative.  Liberalism seeks to put acts of social justice on "auto-pilot," above all because the form of society that [has] helped make liberalism ascendent relies upon a profound weakening of any sense of social solidarity or understanding of generational gratitude and responsibility.  In liberating us from the confines of community, the immediate, instinctive and palpable sense of a community was replaced by a generalized, abstract and generally theoretical vision of Society.  Having liberated us from the confines of community, now we are freed to care for the universal "community" of humankind—except that there is no such community.  Any such care cannot be cultivated, but must be achieved by forms of "rational control."  Indeed, in making their case for the generational inheritance of social forms of knowledge, Alperovitz and Daly cite innumerable academic studies proving the inherited sources of collective human knowledge, whereas in a Burkean community, our inheritance would be obvious in the lessons we learn at the feet of our grandfathers and father, in the kitchen beside our grandmothers and mother.  In such a community, you don’t need a book to understand the inherited nature of knowledge...but the doing of a thing learned and taught from one generation to the next. 

What liberals seek are the effects of virtue without its causes or the conditions that make it possible.  Liberalism was born of a deep and pervasive mistrust of paternalism...but it ends with a grotesque version of paternalism without fathers.  We inhabit a society in which lights are turned off, in which shades are lowered and toilets are flushed, but in which we effect none of these actions, and in which we are not required to even think why we would take such actions.  We act socially without socialization; responsible actions are effected albeit without responsibility.

Modern conservatives should understand that their defense of individual responsibility is ultimately a defense of the communal, the source of a cultivation in virtue.  Virtue is never the accomplishment of any one individual—I will agree with Alperovitz and Daly to this extent—but it is enacted and fostered by individuals, in concert with a healthy community of continuity, memory, and gratitude.  Conservatives should properly understand the nature of their own commitments to the role and place of the individual...as humans between the beasts and the gods, formed by and in communities and responsible ultimately for passing along the goods of those lessons learned to a new generation.

As long as this post is already, I can't resist adding Broken Window Theory Validated? from Tim at Random Observations, because  in my mind it is linked with both Deneen's article and the mindset that leads to the destructive pursuit of pleasure.  Even if the link seems tenuous to you, the article he quotes is instructive, and the comments that follow are interesting as well.

In as series of studies, researchers found that in the presence of disorder or minor illegal acts (graffiti, littering, illegal fireworks, supermarket carts not returned to their proper places), people were much more likely to commit, not only similar offensive acts, but also more serious crimes, such as theft, than when such evidence of disorder was not present.

The final experiments involved leaving an envelope hanging out of a mailbox with a €5 note visible in the window where the address normally appears. When the mailbox was clean, 13 per cent of passers-by stole the envelope. When graffiti was applied to the box, this proportion went up to 27 per cent. When the graffiti was removed and litter placed around the box, the proportion of thefts was 25 per cent.

The researchers conclude: "The most likely interpretation of these results is, as before, that one disorder (graffiti or littering) actually fostered a new disorder (stealing) by weakening the goal of acting appropriately."

And from the comments:

I wonder how that applies to low speed limits. Does seeing a lot of people breaking the speed limit tell people that breaking the law is okay?

For me, yes. If I'm in a zone labeled "55" (thus implying you should really be driving about 52 to be on the safe side) and everyone is driving 60-65, I drive at the prevailing speed. Outliers (far faster, far slower) are, I've been led to believe, a major cause of accidents. So I believe it's better to choose safety over legality.

I actually have wrestled with this at times.

You leave one dirty dish on the kitchen counter on Monday, and by Tuesday, it's been joined by 10 of its friends. By Wednesday, the adjoining room has been infected with old newspapers and homework. Thursday rolls around and you'd be ashamed for company to come over. Friday...well...you'd be worried OSHA might stop by.

Casting the Net is where I post various items I find interesting but about which I choose to limit my commentary—because otherwise my  backlog would be even more unendurable than it is, and you'd never see them.

Jennifer at Conversion Diary alerted me to the article she wrote for Inside Catholic, entitled Eight Responses to the Pro-Choice Mindset.   Some of her arguments simply won't fly with ardent supporters of the right to abortion, because they come down to recognizing the unborn baby as a person, which of course is the core issue.

I once said that I'd die to keep abortion legal and easily accessible, and I meant it. I was vehemently pro-choice, as were most of the women in my social circles. We believed abortion was a critical right for women and could not imagine how anyone could be pro-life. We were products of a culture in which human sexuality had been severed from its inherent connection to the creation of human life. Our generation had been taught in our public school sex-ed classes not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. We were assured that the creation of new human life was tangential to sexual activity, something that was not only optional but completely controllable. In fact, babies were considered downright antithetical to sex.

"Sex is primarily for pleasure."  This deep misunderstanding about the nature of human sexuality is one of the key driving forces behind the modern abortion movement. When women accept the "truth" that sex only has as much meaning as they want it to, that it is not inherently a sacred and tremendously powerful act, they are set up for disaster. This is like saying that loaded guns can be used as toys so long as you put blanks in the chamber: To misunderstand such a significant act on such a fundamental level is a recipe for catastrophe.

As long as people believe that it is perfectly acceptable to engage in sexual activity even when they think a baby would ruin their lives, the temptation to dehumanize and disregard new life will win out. In order to foster a pro-life culture we must help women see that it is not the new life that traps them, but the lie that sex can be severed from its life-giving potential in the first place.

If our society is ever to respect the unborn, we must first respect and fully understand the nature of the act that creates those unborn lives in the first place. As long as the connection between sexual activity and its life-giving potential is severed, the temptation to devalue human life will win out.

Reading this brought to mind a seemingly unrelated post (hat tip to Jon):   Grace for Gays at Following Judah's Lion.  The author, a Baptist minister, meditates on the nature of a truly Christian response to homosexual people.

I completely admit that the Scriptures and the obvious physiological distinctions make it clear that God’s design was between a man and a woman. But what is not so clear to me is how we as the recipients and sharers of God’s grace should interact and reach out to those who cannot deny what they feel.

Have we no compassion, and can we show no sympathy for their situation or are our theological positions enough to insulate us from experiencing their pain? And exactly what requirements are necessary before one can believe on Christ for redemption? How many sins do we have to forsake before we can approach Him, and must we be aware of how God views the entire catalogue of our sins before we can become a legitimate believer?

[A]re grace, mercy, and love incongruent to our Biblical beliefs about sin? I do not mean just informing a gay person about his sin, but exhibiting those spiritual fruits to someone in spite of their lifestyle.

No one should practice sin as a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. But I have come to this conclusion, only practicing sinners will enter eternity under the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. My heart grieves to watch a 20 year old young man leap to his death because he has been rejected by almost everyone he loves and within that experience he has come to violently hate himself.

That surely cannot be New Testament Christianity.

I quote extensively from the article because I believe it is worthwhile, and I know a number of my readers lack time, inclination, or both to read the original.  But what triggered the connection with Jennifer's article was this paragraph:

I have no idea why [the homosexual] lifestyle seems to have become more prevalent in today’s world. Perhaps it is because most had to suppress it in former generations, or maybe it is because the continuing revelations of Adam’s sin are becoming more pronounced in these last days. I do not know, and neither does anyone else.

I do not know, either, but I have a strong suspicion that a major factor might be Jennifer's point about the change in our understanding of the nature and purposes of sexual behavior. coupled with the sex-saturated nature of modern culture and an increasing belief that we are entitled to pursue our pleasures without hindrance.  To renounce one good—be it sex, food, wine, television, or any other pleasant thing—for a greater good is difficult, a discipline rarely taught and almost never expected.

George Friedman's The Next 100 Years:  A Forecast for the 21st Century is not yet available, but there's a long and fascinating excerpt at InvestorsInsight.  If some of Friedman's predictions seem nonsensical, the same cannot be said about his conclusion that the least reliable predictor of the future is our expectations.  In the immortal words of investment prospectuses, "past performance is no guarantee of future return."

Here are some of his unreasonable predictions—but consider his reasoning before rejecting them altogether:

American power and influence is not on the wane, but rather ascending.

The war between the United States and the radical Islamists is virtually over and will be little remembered in 100 years.

America's next challenge will be Russia, which will rise, bring on another Cold War, then collapse once again.

Despite appearances, China will be a threat only to itself.

Japan, Turkey, and Poland will become major world powers along with the United States

Increasing tensions will result in a mid-century global war.  This war will be science fiction-like in its execution, and will lead to dramatic technical advances, including space-based solar power, which will jump-start a massive economic boom.

The most important dynamic of the 21st century will be falling birthrates leading to world population decline.  Countries hungry for laborers will openly compete for immigrants rather than turning them away.

Thanks in large measure to the immigration-induced population and power shift, the final crisis of the 21st century will be a major conflict between the United States and an increasingly influential and aggressive Mexico.

Friedman may be 'way off base in his conclusions, or he may be prescient.  Where I am certain he is correct is in his assertion that we must expect the unexpected.  To that end I'm beginning what I hope will be several posts on ways we might prepare to meet whatever is coming our way.

To conclude the beginning, here are a couple of Friedman's thoughts that I found both frightening and comforting:

It is the delight of all societies to belittle their political leaders, and leaders surely do make mistakes. But the mistakes they make, when carefully examined, are rarely stupid. More likely, mistakes are forced on them by circumstance. We would all like to believe that we—or our favorite candidate—would never have acted so stupidly. It is rarely true. Geopolitics therefore does not take the individual leader very seriously, any more than economics takes the individual businessman too seriously.

The twenty-first century will be like all other centuries. There will be wars, there will be poverty, there will be triumphs and defeats. There will be tragedy and good luck. People will go to work, make money, have children, fall in love, and come to hate. That is the one thing that is not cyclical. It is the permanent human condition.

From this you might begin to guess the tenor of my upcoming posts.  Some things never change, and therefore there are ways to face the uncertain future, ways that involve work but not worry, preparation but not panic.  I take as the theme of my approach this admonition given by God to the Israelites, who had been conquered and dragged away into exile in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:5-7):

Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.  Increase in number there; do not decrease.  Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

There's a reason the Oxford University Press had to include "common sense" in its new Junior Dictionary.  In 2003, a construction worker, egged on by his boss and co-workers, dived into a shallow river.  The not unsurprising result?  He broke his neck.  Now he is paralyzed, his mother cares for him full time, and the company he worked for is bankrupt.  A tragedy all around.

Another, less heart-rending but no less serious tragedy is the further erosion of the notion of personal responsibility for our actions.  In 2007 a judge ruled that the company was negligent, and this week a jury decided that the man

should receive $1.5 million for past medical expenses, $89,000 for lost earnings, $21.7 million for future medical expenses, $583,000 for loss of future earnings, and a whopping $52.8 million for pain and suffering.

Rather than hijacking Heather's post, I'll ask my question here.

The pay toilet has long since disappeared from American public life, but is still common on Europe, a fact which often strikes visiting Americans as barbarous.  I feel similarly about paying high prices to drink water in European restaurants.  Other surprises I have found in my travels—for these are first-world, modern, and wealthy countries—is home refrigerators the size of those in U. S. college dorms (and no separate freezers), severely restricted laundry hours in apartments (sometimes as infrequently as once every two weeks), and the scarcity of clothes dryers.

There are, of course, many more things I've found delightful in all the countries we've visited, but the question of this post is:  What do visitors to the United States find barbarous or bizarre here, that we accept without a second thought?  To some friends visiting from Brazil it was being required to stop at red traffic lights even when there was no visible cross traffic.  To others I'm sure it's the lack of clean and convenient public transportation.  The Swiss must be shocked at the unreliability of schedules here.

For the amusement of our friends and family, particularly those who were in New Hampshire last week, we are under a hard freeze warning.

All persons in east central Florida venturing outdoors this morning... should dress in layers and wear a hat.

What do you expect to find in a public library?  I would like—though no longer expect—to find a large selection of old, unusual, and out-of-print books, music, and videos, the kind I am unable to buy from Amazon or borrow from Netflix.  Shouldn't that be a basic purpose of libraries:  to be a treasure store of valuable materials outside of whatever happens to be popular at the moment, especially those not otherwise easily obtainable?  Unfortunately, most libraries seem to be divesting themselves of these materials in order to make more room for the the latest favorites.  To be sure, this is also a function of libraries, and I appreciate being able to borrow a book when all I want to do is read it; I prefer stocking our own bookshelves with materials I already know are worthwhile.  (One casualty of the libraries' jettisoning old books is that our shelves are overflowing; I can no longer prune our collection of lesser books on the grounds that I can always borrow them from the library if needed.)  Most libraries, I believe, are out of balance in the way they address both functions, and our culture is suffering for it.

The battle over which words to include and which to exclude is not new for dictionary makers.  With language constantly changing and growing, keeping a dictionary to a reasonable size requires excising some words when others are added. This is especially difficult with a children's dictionary, which must be extremely limited.  That said, I believe the Oxford University Press has fallen into the libraries' error, depriving children of important information in favor of what's new and popular.

Words taken out:

Carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe

Dwarf, elf, goblin

Abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin, devil, vicar

Coronation, duchess, duke, emperor, empire, monarch, decade

adder, ass, beaver, boar, budgerigar, bullock, cheetah, colt, corgi, cygnet, doe, drake, ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, lobster, magpie, minnow, mussel, newt, otter, ox, oyster, panther, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle, porcupine, porpoise, raven, spaniel, starling, stoat, stork, terrapin, thrush, weasel, wren.

Acorn, allotment, almond, apricot, ash, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, buttercup, canary, canter, carnation, catkin, cauliflower, chestnut, clover, conker, county, cowslip, crocus, dandelion, diesel, fern, fungus, gooseberry, gorse, hazel, hazelnut, heather, holly, horse chestnut, ivy, lavender, leek, liquorice, manger, marzipan, melon, minnow, mint, nectar, nectarine, oats, pansy, parsnip, pasture, poppy, porridge, poultry, primrose, prune, radish, rhubarb, sheaf, spinach, sycamore, tulip, turnip, vine, violet, walnut, willow

Words put in:

Blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom, bullet point, cut and paste, analogue

Celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense, debate, EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro

Apparatus, food chain, incisor, square number, trapezium, alliteration, colloquial, idiom, curriculum, classify, chronological, block graph

Removing spinach to make room for chatroom?  Replacing devil with MP3 player?  Poultry with trapezium?  And what about block graph?  I'd love to know the new dictionary's definition, as all my dictionaries and Wikipedia failed me.  I suspect they mean a simple, graphical way of presenting data, and not the higher-level math of graph theory, or this definition I found via Google:  "a block graph...consists of a plurality of logic blocks interconnected by nets which carry logic signals between the logic blocks."  In any case, its inclusion at the expense of emperor seems bizarre.

Heather and Jon gave us a gift certificate for the El Bodegon restaurant, because they know we've been mouring the demise of our favorite tapas restaurant.  We thought we'd celebrate our anniversary again tonight (the first celebration having been in Switzerland) and try it out.

Pimientos del Piquillo Rellenos (Roasted Piquillo peppers stuffed with crab meat in romesco sauce)

Gambas al Ajillo (Spanish Style Shrimp in a garlic and sherry wine sauce)

Patatas Bravas (Wedge potatoes with a Spanish spicy tomato sauce)

Champiñones al Ajillo (Mushrooms sautéed in garlic and Sherry wine)

The meal was accompanied by slices of toasted bread, which served the noble end of soaking up the delicious leftover sauces, making it some of the best garlic bread ever.

We finished the meal by splitting a dessert:

Tarta San Marcos (Homemade Vanilla Cake made with Orange Liqueur) 

It doesn't really matter that Barack Obama was not my candidate of choice (see my election series, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for some of the reasons why); as a friend said, "I didn't vote for him, but I hope he's the best president ever."  What boggles my mind is the adulation, ethusiasm, and outright joy that Inauguration Day 2009 brings—it's not all media hype.  I can't imagine any presidential inauguration inspiring that kind of joy in me.  At best I usually manage feelings of relief that the worst candidate did not win.  But perhaps that's just a character flaw:  I find it hard to get that enthusiastic about anything.  We recently returned from our daughter's fabulous wedding to a wonderful man, and though I am pleased and enthusiastic and joyful, even for that event I can't imagine participating in the kind of jubliant demonstration associated with Obama's inauguration.  Be that as it may, I truly wish our new president the best, and pray for him, because he will need it.

And yet my primary commentary on this Inauguration Day is a thank you to outgoing President Bush.  History alone will tell,  but as far as I can see the evidence so far pronounces George W. Bush a good man but an unfortunate and often unwise president, the same judgment I gave to Jimmy Carter.  Nonetheless, he had his successes, and a very important one was highlighted by yesterday's Mallard Fillmore.

I've noticed a disturbing trend in recent writings condemning individualism and independence, from the oft-quoted "It takes a village to raise a child" (best response to date: "I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children") to several of the essays on Patrick Deneen's excellent blog, What I Saw in America, to the many Christian writers who are taking pains to distance their religion from currently unpopular, Western—and particularly American—ideas.  Collectivism is in.

Nonetheless, it's worth noting the risk of tumbling into the opposite fault.  Some recent conversations with people about their experiences with some African countries alerted me to a cultural problem that I did not, until now, connect with collectivism.  I've removed the country-specific references in the excerpt below, because it is representative of a more wide-spread mindset.

One of the most striking things about [this country] compared to many other developing countries is that there seems to be no spirit of entrepreneurship.   When we were standing along the main street, one of the missionaries pointed to the stores across the street:  "that one is owned by a Lebanese, the next one by an Indian, then a Nigerian", etc.  None by [the locals].  It's obviously not impossible to start a business, given the number of small businesses, but [they] wait for someone else to do it and then hire them to do the grunt work.

It was a remarkable essay by Matthew Parris (hat tip to John Stackhouse) that connected these points for me. In As an Atheist, I Truly Believe Africa Needs God, he muses on a return to his boyhood home of Malawi (then Nyasaland) and his reluctant conclusion that the heart of Africa's problems is spiritual.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world—a directness in their dealings with others—that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: “theirs” and therefore best for “them”; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the “big man” and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety—fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things—strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

From Conversion Diary:

Want to get to get things done like never before? Try writing a book.

I guarantee you, every time you sit down and see the blank screen with the blinking cursor, you will suddenly feel an urgent need to clean the baseboards, get those crumbs off the kitchen floor, de-lint the couch, Windex the skylight, clean the gutters, do your taxes and mop the garage. If you can swing a contract that puts even more pressure on you to write something good and thus brings out writer's block in its worst form, you can count on having your to-do list cleared off in about a week.

A couple more quick takes, as I dig through the backlog.

It doesn't matter if my son (or my daughter, in a few years) is officially deemed "gifted."  All that matters is that my kids get the best education we can provide for them.  Based on his experience in kindergarten and first grade, I'm certain my son will do better in the G/T classes, and that is really the only reason that matters for my wife and me to push hard to get him into the program.

Whether or not your kids get fitted with the label "gifted" doesn't matter.  All that matters is that you do what you need to do to get your kids the very best education possible for your kids and for their specific needs.  That may or may not be the same education all the other kids are getting, or your next-door neighbor's kids are getting, and that's all right.  If you do what needs to be done to get your kids the best education possible, you've done your job well.

Easier said than done, especially when "best education" must cover social, spiritual, emotional, and physical issues as well as intellectual ones.  Although I have an obvious prejudice in favor of home education on all fronts, what really matters is awareness, flexibility, and freedom.  What is best now might not be best in three years.  Above all, make sure that the person making (and evaluating) educational decisions for your children is you (that is, you, your spouse, and your children together).  Not the state, not your friends, not habit and custom, and not even your well-meaning mother-in-law.  :)

And speaking of the genius of babies, here are three worthwhile discussions of young children and mathematics.  The initial question was "My two-year-old can verbalize the answer to almost any other factual question, and and clearly knows the answers to arithmetic problems I must check with a calculator.  But he can't verbalize the math answers.  Why not?"  From Doman Inspired Parenting: Math (Dots) and the follow-up, Math Dots; and from Life with a Preschooler: The Math Mystery.

"If you ask a fluent reader to explain how they read they would simple state that they can. It is possible that the mental manipulation of quantity develops to the stage where the entire process takes place at a subconscious level."

If math was simply about memorizing a set of facts—What is the capital of France? Who was the fifth President? What sound does the letter A make?—it would simply be a matter of recalling the correct answer, the corresponding fact. But math, in the way that babies can do it, is not about memorizing facts: it is a way of thinking and reasoning.

Diplomacy.  It was Henry Kissinger's favorite game.  It was also a significant part of our lives in the early 1980s, back when Porter thought he had time to spend on interminable strategy board games.  He played in person; he played by mail.  He designed and implemented a multi-tiered rope-and-pulley game board system for our basement, so he could keep track of several games at once.  By far his favorite—no doubt because it is all skill, no luck—was Diplomacy.

I doubt the number of games Porter persuaded me to play exceeded two, but that didn't stop the whole family from being sucked into the vortex.  Somewhere in the process of all the conventions, fanzine activity, and of course, game playing, we made some lifelong friends, including two for whom Porter would subsequently be best man at their weddings.  Heather gave Porter his less sinister nickname, Dippy Daddy.  (The other, bestowed by one of his favorite opponents, was Porter the Knife.)  Two of our close friends published their own "Dipzines"—small publications with a few articles that primarly served the purpose of managing play-by-mail games—to which I occasionally submitted an article.  In one of them I even had a short-lived cartoon, which I called Dip City.

  Bill Highfield and Janet

Time, life, and a move brought an end to that era of our lives, but the Internet recently brought it back to mind.  Someone is collecting and posting old Dipzines, which I found through a Google search while looking for something else that I no longer recall.  Lo and behold, there were a few samples of Bill Highfield's The Modern Patriot (scroll down the page to find it) and a good collection of Don Sigwalt's Hoof and Mouth.  Of most interest to me, however, was the inclusion of Hoof and Mouth Issue #27x.

A minor side of the hobby that appealed to me was the creation of fake issues.  That is, someone would publish a Dipzine issue that had the appearance of one of the regular zines, but was not; usually it was a spoof containing clues to its deceptive nature.  As a puzzle-lover, I enjoyed reading the fakes.

I enjoyed even more creating my own.  When Don's typewriter broke down and he came to our house to use ours, I had the final piece for my own puzzle:  access to his mailing list.  I was already familiar with his zine, his style, and his life, not to mention his regular contributors.  Putting together #27x was great fun, and I eagerly awaited the response I was sure it would generate.

That's when I discovered there's such a thing as being too good.  Despite all the clues, to my knowledge no one ever guessed that the issue was a fake.  Even the principals had no idea I was behind it.  We gradually faded away from the hobby and 27x into the mists of time.  Until now.  Because I'm still proud of it.  It won't mean much to anyone not familiar with the real Hoof and Mouth, but if you want you can see it here.  I also can't resist reproducing my favorite part of the issue:

Feeling the relief of the immediate pressure of travel/Christmas/wedding, I decided to make some long-overdue blog modifications.  Some were easy, and some...well, let's just say that—as with much system maintenance—it started by breaking more than it fixed.  Specifically, links.  And because this particular change was system-wide, it messed up Janet's links as well as mine.  Not all of them, but some, and finding out which ones is part of the fun.  :)  So please be patient as I continue to work on this, all the while trying not to let it consume too much of the time that should be spent on laundry, etc.

To contact Lift Up Your Hearts!, please e-mail us at the graphically-rendered address below.

This was going to be another set of Casting the Net quick takes, but it got a bit long.

[Austrian economist F. A. von Hayek, writing in 1944] thought he had observed an important change in the character of the British people, as a result both of their collectivist aspirations and of such collectivist measures as had already been legislated. He noted, for example, a shift in the locus of people’s moral concern. Increasingly, it was the state of society or the world as a whole that engaged their moral passion, not their own conduct. “It is, however, more than doubtful whether a fifty years’ approach towards collectivism has raised our moral standards, or whether the change has not rather been in the opposite direction,” he wrote. “Though we are in the habit of priding ourselves on our more sensitive social conscience, it is by no means clear that this is justified by the practice of our individual conduct.” In fact, “It may even be . . . that the passion for collective action is a way in which we now without compunction collectively indulge in that selfishness which as individuals we had learnt a little to restrain.”

The British tolerance of eccentricity has also evaporated; uniformity is what they want now, and are prepared informally to impose. They tolerate no deviation in taste or appearance from themselves: and certainly in the lower reaches of society, people who are markedly different, either in appearance because of the vagaries of nature, or in behavior because of an unusual taste they may have, especially for cultivation, meet with merciless ridicule, bullying, and even physical attack. It is as if people believed that uniformity of appearance, taste, and behavior were a justification of their own lives, and any deviation an implied reproach or even a declaration of hostility.... The pressure to conform to the canons of popular taste ... has never been stronger. Those without interest in soccer hardly dare mention it in public, for fear of being considered enemies of the people. A dispiriting uniformity of character, deeply shallow, has settled over a land once richer in eccentrics than any other. No more Edward Lears for us: we prefer notoriety to oddity now.

 [For this final quote I have copied the excellent edited version at Random Observations.]

Hilaire Belloc, in his book The Servile State, predicted just such a form of collectivism as early as 1912.... In his view, “The future of industrial society, and in particular of English society ... is a future in which subsistence and security shall be guaranteed for the Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed ... by the establishment of that Proletariat in a status really, though not nominally, servile.” The people lose “that tradition of ... freedom, and are most powerfully inclined to [the] acceptance of [their servile status] by the positive benefits it confers.”

And this is precisely what has happened to the large proportion of the British population that has been made dependent on the welfare state.

The state action [the sweeping institution of socialist "reforms"] that was supposed to lead to the elimination of Beveridge’s five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness has left many people in contemporary Britain with very little of importance to decide for themselves, even in their own private spheres. They are educated by the state (at least nominally), as are their children in turn; the state provides for them in old age and has made saving unnecessary or, in some cases, actually uneconomic; they are treated and cured by the state when they are ill; they are housed by the state, if they cannot otherwise afford decent housing. Their choices concern only sex and shopping.

No wonder that the British have changed in character, their sturdy independence replaced with passivity, querulousness, or even, at the lower reaches of society, a sullen resentment that not enough has been or is being done for them. For those at the bottom, such money as they receive is, in effect, pocket money, like the money children get from their parents, reserved for the satisfaction of whims. As a result, they are infantilized. If they behave irresponsibly—for example, by abandoning their own children wherever they father them—it is because both the rewards for behaving responsibly and the penalties for behaving irresponsibly have vanished. Such people come to live in a limbo, in which there is nothing much to hope or strive for and nothing much to fear or lose. Private property and consumerism coexist with collectivism, and freedom for many people now means little more than choice among goods.

Anyone who was active in the earlier days of homeschooling will recognize the name of Gregg Harris, and for many it will not be a positive memory.  One should not visit the sins of the father on the sons, but my experiences left me cautious and suspicious when I heard about Do Hard Things, a book written by his twin sons, Brett and Alex, and The Rebelution, their challenge to other teens to rise above society's low expectations.  However, since I've long preached that we cripple our children by our low expectations, not just of teens but all the way back to birth, it seemed prudent to grit my teeth and read the book.

It was all I could to to keep from buying a copy for every one of our nephews.  (No sexism here, just a regrettable lack of nieces.)  What can I say?  Some of the political and religious views expressed set my teeth on edge, and I suspect most of the families I would give the book to would react still more strongly.  But it's well worth the effort to get past that reaction, because Brett and Alex write well, and what they are saying is incredibly important, not just for teens who share their beliefs, but for everyone, of any age.

The next challenge came when I learned of Angels in the Architecture, by Douglas Jones and Douglas Wilson.  About Douglas Jones I knew nothing, but for reasons both personal and philosophical the name of Doug Wilson ties my stomach in knots.  I believe both private and home educators owe Wilson a great debt for popularizing Dorothy Sayers' great essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, and for inspiring the tremendous quantity of high-quality materials that have erupted out of the Classical Christian education movement.

That doesn't mean I like the man.  The only other of his books that I have read, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, I found to be arrogant, condescending, and rude—and hearing him speak in person was an even worse experience.  So my initial attitude toward Angels in the Architecture was as suspicious as that toward Do Hard Things.  However, Amazon's description of the book was too compelling to ignore, especially when accompanied by this comment from one of the reviewers:  "The book avoids much of the sarchasim [sic] for which the authors have become quite famous."

Christianity presents a glorious vision for culture, a vision overflowing with truth, beauty, and goodness. It's a vision that stands in stark conflict with the anemic modern (and postmodern) perspectives that dominate contemporary life. Medieval Christianity began telling a beautiful story about the good life, but it was silenced in mid-sentence. The Reformation rescued truth, but its modern grandchildren have often ignored the importance of a medieval grasp of the good life. This book sketches a vision of "Medieval Protestantism," a personal and cultural vision that embraces the fullness of Christian truth, beauty, and goodness.

Having experienced too much of contemporary Protestantism's denegration of art, beauty, and culture, I was anticipating a keen, fresh wind to cut through those prejudices.  It wasn't there.  Not even close.  Part of the fault probably lies in having read it very quickly, since I bought it as a gift and had time only to down it in great gulps before turning it over to its rightful owner. I'm sure he will read more thoughtfully, and perhaps find the gems that eluded me.  I'm certain that Jones and Wilson have discovered something of vital importance, but for me it was lost amidst a great deal of chaff.

My final lesson (for now) in learning from those with whom I disagree is personal, and ongoing.  I have sung under half a dozen or so church choir directors in my adult years, in different denominations and in different parts of the country.  With all of them I got along well, and some became good friends.  The new music minister at our church, however, has been a challenge for me.  My reaction, when I first learned he had been hired, was "Here is someone I can learn something new from, for he is vastly different from me and from any other choir director I have experienced."  I still believe that, as I also believe that there's a good chance he is exactly what our struggling church needs at this moment.

A Little Encouragement for Baby Boomers from The Occasional CEO.  Our productive life need not end at 49, or even 66.  Our best years may yet be ahead of us.

The Gridlock Economy, thanks to Peter V.  I haven't had a chance to read this book yet, but the website is fascinating.  I would love to know what Steve Landsburg (my brilliant fellow math student at the University of Rochester, now a professor of economics there, a man full of quirky and counter-intuitive takes on the subject) thinks about it, and Andy F.'s comments on what the author has to say about radio spectrum use.  It's not often that Porter (economics major, also at the UR) hears what appears to be an economic idea that is new to him.

A Conversation with Peter Kreeft, thanks to Conversion Diary.  I knew at a gut level that the way we use language is vitally important; Kreeft helps me understand why:

As a philosopher the thing that strikes me most is the brilliant strategy of the gay marriage movement. Like Orwell in 1984 it sees that the main battlefield is language. If they can redefine a key term like "marriage" they win. Control language and you control thought; control thought and you control action; control action and you control the world. Mussolini knew that too. He made it illegal for Italians to say "hi" in the traditional way. The Italian for "how are you?" is "Come sta lei?" "Lei" is the feminine inclusive pronoun. Fascist ideology held that this was emasculating and weak, so you had to say "Come sta lui?" from now on. "Lui" is the masculine pronoun. So no one could say "hi" in Italy without identifying themselves as pro or anti-fascist.

In America, the feminists have succeeded in exactly the same way. They've labeled the traditional inclusive language, the language of every single one of the great books of Western civilization written in English, as exclusive because it uses "he" and "man" to include women; and they've labeled their new artificial ideological invention, which insists, contrary to historical fact, that "he" and "man" exclude women -- they've labeled this "inclusive" language.  And amazingly, nearly everyone follows like sheep!

Greed inspires me. Greed for truth, for one thing: I want to learn, and I learn best by teaching, and writing is a form of teaching. Greed to share the truths I find exciting and joyful with others, too. Greed to create, for another thing. What the artist wants to build with color or the musician with sound, the writer wants to build with words.

The Domestic Monastery, also from Conversion Diary.  Especially for young mothers who feel isolated and without the ability to string two thoughts together without interruption.

Li'l Writer Guy has return from his monastic retreat (we picked him up on our return from The Wedding), but is still experiencing re-entry, so you'll still mostly be getting quick takes and pointers to what others have written.  Probably lots of both, however, as the number of comment-worthy events and posts has multiplied almost out of control.  The most efficient way to deal with them is probably to present them with a simple "here, you might find this interesting."

I'm also working on a restructuring of this blog, so please bear with me as I play around.  For the first time in months I haven't had the immediate pressure of travel/new grandchild/wedding/holidays driving my life, and I'm looking forward to some signficant housecleaning in many areas of my life.  This feeling of reduced pressure is probably a fool's paradise, as there are still major wedding plans to work out (for the U.S. ceremony in the summer), other travel coming up, and the backlog of important work that was set aside for the more urgent (but also important)—but let me enjoy the moment.

With a fair amount of admitted prejudice, I have said that Heather and Jon's wedding was the most perfect, beautiful, and appropriate wedding ever.  Now I must expand that statement:  Janet and Stephan's wedding was totally different, yet equally perfect, beautiful and appropriate.  (I can say this because I had little to do with the planning and execution of either wedding.)

The all-day festivities deserve a much longer post, but the day is very nearly over, so details will have to wait.  But to all you who were praying for and/or thinking of us today, rejoice that from the ceremony in the ancient church to the dinner in the Medieval castle, from the radiant bride to the adorable ring bearer, from the live Medieval music to the lively Renaissance dancing, all crafted and infused with the great love of family and friends, the wedding was a magnificent success.