MPG brag

I did a little quick math after I filled up my car yesterday. 42MPG. Not bad for a 13-year-old car!
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Song so not great!

This one goes out to the one I love, so to speak:

Or, as Alex says, "1980's, how we miss thee not..."
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Real threats of socialism - UPDATED

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with government running a health care program; it's a practical matter of whether this is the best way to provide health care to all.

On the other hand, there is a very real problem with government preventing parents from educating their children. The right to an education means that government must guarantee access to education for all, not that government has the right to indoctrinate kids against the will of competent and caring parents.

UPDATE: Amy points out that, since this case involves a divorced couple in dispute, it probably is not the best example. However, I stand by the principle that education is first and foremost the right and responsibility of parents, not government.
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My other excuse...

... for not blogging is that I've been busy with other things, including my babysitting gig. The following is a fairly accurate representation of my godson's activities:

There's one exception: they must have done some neat editing to take out the feedings and diaper changes. Neither of my charges could go four hours without food going in or going out.
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Clarifying Chesterton

So, I have many excuses for not posting much in the last week or so. But the one I'll use is this: it's not easy to speak more clearly than G.K. Chesterton!

Anyway, here's my attempt to describe what I think Chesterton means when he says the first principle of democracy, i.e., the common good, is: "that the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men."

Let me take a few examples, and see if that helps clarify things. How about 1) air, 2) a pair of glasses, and 3) the English language.

Air. We all breathe. This is not an option for us. Part of being human is breathing, and when we cease to breathe we also cease to live a human life. So air is good for us, and is good for all of us, and is good for each of us. This need for air is something that we all have in common, and therefore that none of us can own or claim exclusively. The atmosphere is a resource for all humanity.

Now, imagine a scuba diver. There is a sense in which the air in (flipping a coin for gender: male) his tank is "his own". But let's say he comes across another diver whose tank has sprung a leak, while our diver's tank is quite full. It would be inhumane for our diver to deny "his" air to the drowning diver. The air is not "his" in the sense that he can, in time of need, claim it exclusively or bargain with it economically. It is a good that belongs to the human nature we all share in common, and so it is far more important than, say, the flippers that the divers are wearing, or the color of their wetsuits.

Glasses. I have worn glasses since about fourth grade, if my memory is correct. I've worn them so long that I think my face looks funny without them, and so do most of my friends. (Some friends think my face looks funny with them, too, but that's another issue.) But these glasses really are mine, not just because I own them, but because they are made particularly for me and won't work properly for anybody else. And this is an amazing thing.

However, far more amazing than my glasses is the miracle of sight itself. That we are able to receive light and interpret it into an accurate portrayal of the world around us is something to be wondered at. It is something to be delighted in. So the whole human race seeks out visions of art or nature that delight the eyes ... and the other senses as well. This is something so basically human that we recognized blindness as a tragedy and deficiencies in vision as a medical problem requiring correction. In short, vision is something common and basic to human life and human society, while my glasses are a particular accommodation that really doesn't belong to anyone else, and, for that matter, that I wouldn't desire for anyone else.

English. I've spoken and read and written English for as long as I can remember. I literally cannot recall learning to read; the ability is part of my earliest memories. For several of my friends, English is a second (or third, or fourth) language. I expect this is true for some readers of this blog. However, for those living in Great Britain or any of the former colonies of the British Empire, English is not only a means of communication but a means of cultural connection. Certain words stir up associations -- humorous or patriotic or vulgar -- and we guess at where each other is from by our accents.

(Can you guess where I'm from?)

This is true of other languages, too, of course. Language itself is, again, something common to all humanity. And, while there is no single "human language" that is common to every one of us, we all would consider it a crime deny anyone the ability to use language. More than that, we would consider it insane to deny anyone the language that others around them use, that is, to deny them the means to communicate with their fellow human beings. So language is common to all people, but it is never something that we can hold abstractly: in fact, it is only by holding some particular language (be it English or Arabic or Chinese) in common with others, with a community, that we can have language at all.

In other words, the only way for some things to be good for me is for them to first be good for everybody, for the whole community. And that, I think, is what is meant by the "common good".

Do let me know if I've only muddied the waters further.

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Lies, damned lies, and the Seven Deadly Sins

This is great fun: statistical maps of the Seven Deadly Sins!

Before you take this too seriously, ask yourself......why the entire west coast and most of the northeast is "statistically" lust-neutral?

Hollywood? Really? San Francisco? Really? Seattle? Really? New York City? Really?

I mean, Vermont I understand, but come on!

(hat tip: AmP)
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Because I read too much...

Amy accuses me of having read too much philosophy, and therefore of quoting unclear passages. I, after graciously setting aside the incalculable personal offense I take at such an indictment, and refraining from unleashing my armies of ultra-violent yet super-secret agents to erase all memory of her existence from the face of the earth, hereby deign to reply:

I do not read too much philosophy! Darn it!

However, not everybody has the unique combination of perspicacity and perspicuity that I have, so I acknowledge that some of those I cite (such as the eternally obfuscating G.K. Chesterton) write with less than perfect lucidity.

That said, I pledge to add my own expoundation on Mr. Chesterton's notions in the near future. Until then, I assure you that I understand him perfectly, which should be sufficient for you to place absolute faith in the veracity of his statements.
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Democracy and the common good

The "common good" is one of those concepts that is so plain and obvious that it outwits our attempts to define it -- or at least, outwits my attempts. But I have stumbled upon a particularly clear definition from G.K. Chesterton, in his 1909 book Orthodoxy (Ch. IV):

The first [principle of democracy] is this: that the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things are more valuable than extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. Man is something more awful than men; something more strange. The sense of the miracle of humanity itself should be always more vivid to us than any marvels of power, intellect, art, or civilization. The mere man on two legs, as such, should be felt as something more heartbreaking than any music and more startling than any caricature. Death is more tragic even than death by starvation. Having a nose is more comic even than having a Norman nose.

This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves--the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed.

[Crossposted at The Good, the True, the Just.]
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Thinking about evangelization

I'm reading a book that's sort of a "how to" on sharing the Gospel in a postmodern cultural setting. Something was bugging me about it, but I couldn't put my finger on it till I talked with my dad about it over some ice cream. (He had chocolate, I had rainbow sherbet.)

Now, my dad has been a salesman for most of his life. He sees everything through the lens of sales. And, as we were talking, he pointed out that the book was describing sales techniques for selling Jesus.

"That's it! You nailed it!" I said. See, people are not objects of sales. Relationships are not commodities that can be exchanged. So, the attitude of sales is just plain wrong for drawing people to a deeper relationship with God.

But then, what exactly is evangelization about? What does Christ mean when he commands his followers to "make disciples of all nations"?

My current thought, well open to revision, is that a "matchmaker" analogy is much more appropriate than a "salesman" analogy. Our task as Christians is to bear witness to Jesus Christ, both who he was historically and who he is now in our individual lives, and to introduce people to him.

This analogy fits very well with our individual-freedom-oriented culture today, but it seems passive compared to the command to "make disciples." Unless it is like saying that a matchmaker has a mandate to "make spouses of all peoples." Still thinking thoughts about it.
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Hot town

I'm camping out here in Jersey City, New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan, helping some friends prepare for their wedding. And I am growing in my already abundant appreciation of the clear, not-so-humid atmosphere of my home in the Pacific Northwest.

So as I was walking to my friends' apartment this morning, I saw a truck driver honk and call out to a young woman who was wearing too-tight jeans and a low-cut tank top. She didn't react at all. I was stunned, not because I'm a prude (which perhaps I am), but because I'd never actually seen a man behave that way toward a woman. So I guess I'm just sheltered. Neither the truck driver nor the pedestrian woman nor anyone else around seemed to find this behavior either unusual or unacceptable.

And it got me thinking: how do we, as a society, actually show respect toward other people -- particularly members of the opposite sex? Are there ways to encourage people to treat each other respectfully? Are there ways to demonstrate the value and dignity of the people we meet, whether briefly or over the course of our lives?

Then I remembered a newscast I saw this morning, a town hall meeting with some politician, and how frequently I heard the words "my" and "me", and how rarely the words "ours" and "we" came up. And it occurred to me that our cultural tendency seems to assume that each individual is isolated from every other, and only has relationships of choice. But what if we recognized every other person as a member of our common family? What if each of us saw every other person as connected to him-/herself, a member of one's own body?

True, I'm an idealist, and I don't know if such a worldview could ever become common. But isn't this an ideal worth striving for?

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Weird and Wonderful

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In case you wanted to know...

I'm pretty sure that this is the text of the much-talked-about "Obama health care plan." The official title is H.R. 3200. In case you wanted to know what it actually, you know, said.

It's also available in .pdf format.
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The logic of gifts

Way back in 1980, before I was even fully aware of my surroundings, Pope John Paul II published an encyclical titled Dives in misericordia, or Rich in Mercy. Some time in the mid- to late-nineties, I finally read it, and discovered something that confused me greatly: JP2 said that justice was incomplete, insufficient, and inhumane without mercy.

This was confusing to me because I thought, as many of my friends did, that mercy was something that overrode and (in a way) contradicted justice.

It's now many years later, and I've just finished reading Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical, Caritas in veritate, or Love in Truth. Pope Benedict says something very similar, that justice and charity are intimately connected, and that justice is false without charitable love. In fact, he implies that charity is actually the foundation for justice.

He explains this by focusing on one central aspect of charity, of love: giving a gift. It seems that justice, which is a relationship in which someone owes something to someone else, is always a result of a gift, a free act which establishes or alters a relationship.

That's kind of abstract. Let me give a few examples.

Let's look at babys. It's hard to deny that parents owe their children the sustenance and support needed to grow to adulthood. Children have a right to such things as food, clothing, shelter, education, and so on. Parents who do not adequately provide such things for their children are called "child abusers" and are subject to legal coercion. And yet, what has the baby done to "deserve" these rights, to essentially put his/her parents in debt to him/her? Nothing -- except to receive the gift of life which those parents freely gave to him/her.

Okay, so some might object that parents are not perfectly free in bringing a child into the world, for a variety of reasons. I will not argue that point just now. But what about a couple who marry each other? Surely there is no constraint or obligation on either toward the other. No one can make me marry anyone in particular, nor force me to marry at all. However, once the spouses do marry, they discover that they are obliged to one another. Infidelity, to take the most obvious example, is (among other things) unjust to the spouse. It's a matter of justice: a wife has a right to demand faithfulness from her husband; and vice versa. Even though the law continues to distance itself from spousal obligations, we still recognize that an unfaithful husband does wrong to his wife.

Well, maybe some kinds of justice are based on a gift, but are all forms of justice? Well, let's take the example of a worker who is offered a job. Here is an exchange of gifts with different kinds of freedom on each side. Sure, the employer needs workers to do business, and the worker needs income to support him-/herself; but neither is under any constraint or obligation to arrange for this particular person to be given this particular job under these particular arrangements. There is a sense in which a worker's agreement to do the work and the employer's agreement to compensate the worker is an exchange of gifts, because each is free in offering something to the other. But based on this exchange of gifts, real issues of justice arise: a worker who does not fulfill his/her obligations, or an employer who does not properly compensate his/her workers, wrongs them.

What about criminal justice? Is there a gift involved at the foundation of rights to property or safety? Isn't the city, or the state, or the nation, obliged to provide protection for these things? This may be a bit more subtle, but here is where B16 provides an insightful perspective: gifts not only require the freedom of the giver, they also require, perhaps even more so, the incapacity of the receiver to make, or take, or require the gift. So, my capacity for health or safety or ownership of things is not something I can acquire for myself. It is not something I can earn or "deserve". I cannot give myself life; all I can do is take care of the life I have, and protect it. I cannot give myself intelligence or freedom or the other faculties needed to own property or interact socially; all I can do is use the abilities -- often explicitly called "gifts" -- I have to live in society. We do not make property or health or safety; we only use and take care of what we receive as given to us.

As St. Paul asks, "What do you have that you did not receive?" The answer, literally, is: nothing.

It is only after we have received what we have not made and have not earned that we can speak of justice, of what is due or owed, of rights and responsibilities. Of all the many profound insights of this encyclical, the logic of gifts is what has struck me most deeply.
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