On the topic of social welfare: the left emphasise the ‘rights’ of the . . . → Read More: rights and responsibilities]]> Three recent events, a complaint about a sermon, a movie about Margaret Thatcher and a FB conversation about gun laws, have me reflecting on the tendencies of ‘left-wingers’ and ‘right-wingers’.  Both left and right folk will express concern for both ‘rights’ and ‘responsibilities’, but at different times.

On the topic of social welfare:
the left emphasise the ‘rights’ of the poor/unemployed
the right emphasise the ‘responsibilities’ of the poor/unemployed

On the topic of gun laws:
the right emphasise the ‘rights’ of gun owners
the left emphasise the ‘responsibilities’ of gun ownership/use

On the topic of war:
the left emphasise the ‘rights’ of all humans to have peace
the right emphasise the ‘responsibilities’ of defending peace

On the topic of abortion:
the left emphasise the ‘rights’ of the woman
the right emphasise the ‘responsibilities’ of the man and woman

On the topic of ‘the environment’:
the right emphasise the ‘rights’ of individuals and businesses
the left emphasise the ‘responsibilities’ of individuals and businesses

In all of these scenarios, I am interested in embracing the tension between BOTH rights AND responsibilities.  I’m interested in BOTH short-term practicalities, AND long-term wisdom.

I’m interested in social policy that is both generous and sustainable – that avoids the extremes of too much or too little assistance, which (ironically) both end up cementing the poor in their poverty.

I’m interested in gun laws that are both practical and wise – that avoid the foolish extremes of taking guns away or assuming that no regulation is needed at all – both of which will end up causing harm.

I’m interested in a military policy that is both prepared to use force, and seeks to be accountable to human rights – avoiding the extremes of an idealistic and passive pacifism on one hand, and a short-sighted/arrogant agression on the other.

I’m interested in an abortion policy that is committed to the quality and quantity of life for both the pre-born human and the mother (and father, family…) – avoiding the extremes of an idealistic, legislate-heaven-to-earth, fantasy on one hand, and a careless, inhumane, abortion-as-contraception nightmare on the other.

I’m interested in environmental policy that uses both legislation and education to motivate people and businesses to care for creation – avoiding the extremes of avoidance and assumptions that all is OK on one hand, and aggressive, undemocratic pushing through of eco-laws on the other.

I just had lunch with a friend, and we talked about how much fun it was learning the 5 different fretboard patterns of pentatonic (five-tone) scales on the guitar.  When his practice was less developed, music theory had seemed boring and irrelevant to him, but now it was exciting and directly relevant.

It’s like . . . → Read More: theory & practice]]> They’re meant to reinforce one another.

I just had lunch with a friend, and we talked about how much fun it was learning the 5 different fretboard patterns of pentatonic (five-tone) scales on the guitar.  When his practice was less developed, music theory had seemed boring and irrelevant to him, but now it was exciting and directly relevant.

It’s like this with just about anything you do, isn’t it?  There is a theoretical side to just about everything you can do.  Advanced mathematical formulae will help you do all kinds of science, but can seem irrelevant for the amateur lover of the natural world.  The study of history will aid healthy analysis of political swings and round-a-bouts, but can seem tedious to the armchair politician.  Etymology will help one choose the choicest words in your literary endeavors, but sound high-browed and lofty.  Analytic philosophy will help one to interact with ideas more efficiently, but sound like a pedantic waste of time.  Systematic theology will shape and enrich a life of worshipful obedience, but seem like detached speculation.

Noooooo!!!!!

Hat tip Halden.

It’s worth noting (as I have before) that one cannot speak of anything . . . → Read More: teleology & ethics]]> The word ‘teleology’ (from Greek τελος ‘telos’ – meaning ‘goal’, ‘end’, ‘purpose’ or ‘that toward which things tend’) is not a street-level term.  However, the concept of a purpose, goal, function or ‘end’ to things most certainly is.  It’s a common as anything.  Teleology is blindingly relevant.

It’s worth noting (as I have before) that one cannot speak of anything being truly good or bad, well or poorly functioning without some kind of teleological concept.  From complaints (or amazement) about how poorly (or well) ‘designed’ the universe is (if designed at all – see this rebuttal), to the largest complaint of all – the ‘problem of evil’ (which has an often forgotten twin, the ‘problem’ of good); every kind of value-judgment we make assumes some kind of teleological concept.

Teleology, then, underlies the whole prospect of moral and ethical enquiry.  If things merely ‘function’, but do not function toward a certain end, goal or purpose, then there can be no such thing as a truly or ultimately immoral action.  Nothing can be said to ultimately or truly right or wrong with either the universe or human behaviour.

One can give an account of the ‘functioning’ of an event/thing in purely numerical, metrical or otherwise descriptive terms: human ‘a’ swings their right arm with tightly-closed digits in such a way that the digits impact the face of human ‘b’ with ‘x’ amount of force, resulting in human ‘b’ losing the state of balance and falling to the ground… etc.  This is a statistical, and purely ‘objective’ account of an event.  No ethical comment here.

The moment someone begins to say that one person should not have hit someone (or should have in the case, for example, of self-defense or protecting a helpless person being raped or otherwise harmed), they are imposing a teleological assumption onto the set of events.  They are no longer giving a merely descriptive account of the event, they are giving a prescriptive account.

As a Christian, my ethical thought (and hopefully my action too!) is shaped by my belief that creation has a telos.  Things are being brought from a state of chaos (Genesis 1 creation poem says ‘tohu vo vohu’ – wild and waste – formless and void) to a state of more and more orderedness.  Things are going somewhere – toward an ‘end’.  Things are meant to behave in a certain way and not another way.  This, in a basic sense, is what the notion of God’s “will” (desire) means.

The most tightly compacted summary of the desire of God is one word – Love.  Jesus summarised the entire ‘Law’ and ‘Prophets’ in two commands: Love God. Love Others as Self.

A summary that I’ve found helpful is the desire of God for humans to be in right relationship 1) with God, 2) with other humans, 3) with ourselves, and 4) with creation.

Christianity views humans as having a unique status (and therefore responsibility) within Creation.  This anthropocentricism is not, however, to devalue the rest of creation.  All of creation is seen to ‘reflect’ God’s beauty and creativity.  But humans as the ‘crown’ of creation, the ones with the capacity to bear God’s ‘image’ in a unique way, have a special role.  Humans are put ‘in charge’ of creation, commissioned to take care of it, and use it wisely – working to bring it to the fullest expression according to God’s will/desire.

Interestingly, no matter what one believes about God or whether or not humans reflect a God, it is manifestly obvious that humans have the greatest power to either utterly wreck things or to behave in a way which helps creation, humanity included, to flourish.  (And we note, again, in passing, that things being ‘wrecked’ or things ‘flourishing’ are meaningless concepts with no teleology.)

Christian ethics, then, are based on a Christian understanding of God’s purposes for His creation; namely to bring it to full and rich orderedness.  An orderedness characterised by not control but freedom to be all that it was made for.  And an orderedness characterised by Love.

Here are a few (quite random) examples of my out-working of this:

• Education: Knowledge is to serve relationships.  Humans are to celebrate any/all kinds of knowledge which enrich their relationship to/with creation, each other and the creator (i.e. medical knowledge, social knowledge, scientific knowledge, relational knowledge, etc.), while not letting knowledge –or the pursuit of it– become an idol or an enslaving thing.
• Sexuality: Sex is to be used in such a way as to bring an orderedness characterised by freedom, and not slavery.  Many forms/expressions of sexuality are characterised by human slavery to sexual desire.  Sex is for humans, not humans for sex.  Also, sex is to bring relational fullness, not relational pain.  Sex should thus be respected as the powerful thing it is, and used in ways that reflect freedom and full relationships.
• Poultry production (one of my favourite examples): God’s desire is not for chickens to live the life of a chicken in a cage covered with it’s own feces, and to be injected with steroids and killed in a mechanical and abusive fashion, etc.  God’s desire is also not for chickens to be deified to the point where they are forbidden to be eaten.  Chickens are a part of God’s good creation, and are to be farmed, ‘egged’ (hens) and processed/eaten in a way that is characterised by order and freedom (the ‘free range’ movement is brilliant here).
• Eating (while on the topic!): Humans (like other animals) need to eat to survive, but eating should not be treated as a merely biologically sustaining thing, but rather in a way that brings dignity to both what is eaten and who eats it.  One of the most degrading and undignified forms of eating is (we all do it) fast food.  Where speed and efficiency of production is the telos of eating.  The food is mass-produced, the food preparers have little/no relationship to the eaters, and the eating experience is rushed and shabby.  Contrast this with a community that grows and harvests their own crops, and where the cooks sit at the same table with everyone, serving each other and sharing in the creativity of food preparation and the joy of sharing the eating experiene (the culmination fo the whole process) together.
• Work: Work is to bring freedom not slavery and enable us to bless, rather than participate in being a curse.  Laziness and greed are equally destructive things.  Slacking on the job or working 60+ hour work weeks are ways of cheating and enslaving (or being enslaved).  Industry and production should serve to bring about the flourishing of creation – including humans.  Work in fields such as education, social-work, government, police-work, food industry, transport/travel, clothing, entertainment, etc. can all be done in either a dehumanising way or a humanising way.
• Music/Art: Art (including poetry) is a deeply human thing, and should reflect the creativity of the creator.  Art can deeply reflect reality in a way that other things cannot.  Art can be characterised by chaos and confusion with no hint of redemption or freedom, or it can speak of healing, order, justice and transformation (even while acknowleding brokenness and pain).  Sadly, much ‘Christian’ art is often cheap copies of what has been done before, and has no staying power (it is quickly forgotten).
• Technology: All technology (from eating utensils to wireless broadband) should serve to bring order, freedom and to deepen relationships.  Sadly, we often end up being enslaved to our conveniences.  Technology allows us to have higher frequency and quantity of contact with other people – bringing the sad reality of ever-increasing numbers of ‘contacts’ and ever-shallowing depth of relationship with family and friends.  Transportation technology takes us further and faster away from home than ever before, giving us more options than we know what to do with.  Add to this, the constant reminders that our basic normal life is boring, and that we ‘deserve’ another trip to this or that resort place to ‘escape’, and we find ourselves often on a treadmill-ish pursuit of ‘happiness’, being less and less satisfied with ‘normal life’ and seeking more and more after the elusive reality we see in the advertisements.
• Medical Activity: Medical knowledge and activity should serve to bring order to the chaos of disease and injury and freedom from blindness and pain.  It should always be used in the service of rich human life, not to destroy it.  Surgery should be about healing (even if it temporarily makes you bleeed), not about making a womans breasts look like this or that super-model or about doing away with an inconvenient developing pre-born child.
• Violence: Violence is only justified when in the service of bringing freedom and preserving relationships – for example protecting those who cannot protect themselves from rapists, thiefs, abusers, torturers and (actual) terrorists.  The power to inflict violence (and control people by doing so) comes with great responsibility.
• Community: Obviously, community is a place where relationships are central.  True community is characterised by freedom and whole and holistic relationships.  Community that leaves people enslaved to things, experiences or addictions, etc. is not a community characterised by love.  Also, community that controls and micro-manages people is to treat people as cogs in a system and is therefore dehumanising rather than humanising and thus not characterised by freedom.  True human-ness if found not in isolation from all others, nor in being forced into conformity with them, but in a community which values true genuine human flourishing and which is characterised by loving, patient and consistent transformation to it.
• Money/Possessions: All possessions are to be held with gratitude, and to be not merely ‘used’ or ‘consumed’ with our comfort/survival/convenience as the telos, but rather to be shared with and passed on to others.  Life’s telos is not acquisition or status, but transformation and wholeness; and our handling of money and possessions should reflect this.
• Clothing: Clothing is a wonderfully rich and creative human thing.  It can be used (both by wearers and producers) to enrich our freedom and relationship to others, or to enslave us.  Fashion, for example, can often serve to alienate and degrade those who are not able (for either financial or body-style reasons) to keep up with things.  This divides and dehumanises, and is not God’s desire.  Although modest dress will look differently from place to place and time to time, for each culture/place, there will be uses of clothing that either serve to enhance a person’s personality and humanness or which will serve to rob them of their person-hood, and make them into an object.  Clothing design and production can and should be a creative and body-honouring thing which encourages human relationships.

Compare that with a comment I randomly saw on this post:

10% of 10 million US millionaires’ funds = a trillion US dollars.

American millionaires investing in the American economy?  A novel concept indeed.

Full comment quote:

1 trillion is taking 10% of the net worth of ten million millionaires . . . → Read More: american millionaire stimulus?]]> Recent US stimulus package = nearly a trillion US dollars.

Compare that with a comment I randomly saw on this post:

10% of 10 million US millionaires’ funds = a trillion US dollars.

American millionaires investing in the American economy?  A novel concept indeed.

Full comment quote:

1 trillion is taking 10% of the net worth of ten million millionaires and yes 10 million millionaire households is about what we have in the United States as of 2009.

Oh my gosh, have we accidentally through the magic of math discovered how to stimulate the entire economy without increasing the debt to the tax payer? A one time flat tax, ooops I mean millionaire stimulus to invest in America, the wealthiest are known to spend the least hence lets re-allocate that money where it matters…

lol – now that is a joke, American millionaires investing in America.

((note: the comment below this one links to an article saying there are only 3 million millionaires in the US – but it’s still an interesting thought!))

That said, I just don’t like the thought (much less the passing) of the new stimulus package (and I’m not at all anti-Obama – to be crystal clear).  $US838 . . . → Read More: stinking stimulus]]> Anyone who has a knee jerk (i.e. less than critical) reaction to political events in general and the recent U.S. stimulus package in particular, should shut up and think before ranting.

That said, I just don’t like the thought (much less the passing) of the new stimulus package (and I’m not at all anti-Obama – to be crystal clear).  $US838 BILLION – on what I can’t help but see as a kind of massively over-sized whallop to a horse that is eventually going to die.  Yes, I’m aware of the complexity to all this, and No, I don’t think there are any quick fixes.  But I still cannot understand or begin to support spending nearly a trillion dollars on trying to preserve the “American Way of Life” ™.

What kind of precedent are we setting for future generations?  What are we saying to the rest of the world – much of which is living in some mild or severe form of poverty; a different kind of poverty indeed to the ‘poverty’ some are facing in ‘developed’ nations around the world.

Some may think, “Oh, but financial prosperity for the ‘rich west’ will enable them to be generous to the ‘poor rest’…”  That kind of capitalistic mentality (a.k.a. ‘the rising tide will lift many small boats’) is utter Bull.  Greed does not engender generosity.

Instead of our bank account levels needing to go ‘up’, we need our standard of living to go ‘down’ to a realistic and sustainable place.  And as long as ‘going out and spending money to stimulate the economy’ is part of doing your ‘patriotic duty’, then I think I want to be unpatriotic.

Obama says everyone needs to work to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.

Before sharing my (hopefully wise) perspective on . . . → Read More: wisdom for a divisive issue]]> Obama’s recent statements on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, remind us all (like it or not) of the immensely divisive issue of abortion.  The article says…

Obama says everyone needs to work to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make.

Before sharing my (hopefully wise) perspective on the issue, I’ll just say that I agree and disagree with the above quote.  Indeed, the need to work together to prevent (or at least reduce) unintended (perhaps a better term than ‘un-wanted’?) pregnancies is most certainly at least some ground that all can stand on together.  But the statement that we should ‘support women and families in the choices they make’ is too vague.  Not all choices are good, therefore not all choices should be ‘supported’.  For example, many did not ‘support’ the decision to go into Iraq (and whatever position you hold on that matter, the point still stands – uncritical ‘support’ for just any decision would be advised by no one).

As for a brief – and I think wise – perspective on the issue, consider this:

What is needed most urgently with this issue is respect and self-government.

Respect in that…

• Men who are raping or using women or simply leaving them alone and scared need a new-found respect for women.  Women are not sex objects.
• Men need to respect the potential life they could be causing.  Sex, while fun, should not be reduced to recreation only.
• Women who casually have unprotected sex (obviously rape does not apply here) need a new-found respect for their own bodies.  Stop letting men use you.
• Women and men both need a healthy respect for the life-creating power of sex.  It’s not a game to play with, nor a drug to be controlled by.

…and self-government (or ‘self control’) in that…

• Men and women need to self-govern their own body in general and their sexual desires in particular.  Laws and more government will not (nor could they) help people do this.

To any readers who potentially may have gone through an unwanted pregnancy and/or an abortion, the purpose here is not to condemn you or label you a killer.  Nobody plans to have an abortion or an unintended pregnancy, and your experience would be no different.

I don’t think we need a bunch of laws to change things.  I think we need wisdom.  Wisdom is simply to learn from our past, not to repeat it – to read life’s patterns well.  However, to learn from our past mistakes (and I continue to seek to learn from mine), we must at least acknowledge that there were actual mistakes made .

And by the way, all abortions happen because of a mistake – and most certainly not only the woman or only the man, but often (or always?) both.  The rapist makes the dehumanising mistake of failing to value the dignity of a human being – while (in at least some cases) some raped women have made the utterly tragic mistake of getting drunk at a party.  Those not emotionally or financially ‘ready’ make the unthinking mistake of having sex (‘protected’ or not) knowing what could – at least possibly – happen.   As a culture, we can also be to blame – making the devastating mistake of valuing so-called ‘sexual freedom’ (which often turns out to be not freedom of sexual expression, but slavery to sexual desire) above any notion whatsoever of – shock, horror – personal responsibility or – gasp – self control.

In summary, I don’t think laws (or much less Obama) can ‘fix’ this issue.  This issue will be fixed – person by person, family by family, community by community – by the learning and loving of wisdom (philosophy: philo[love] + sophia[wisdom]).  This wisdom – however hard for some to hear – will help infinitely more than passing some laws.

Will it continue to be a mass-consuming empire of greed?

Only time will tell.

Here is a thoughtful, timely and read-worthy critique by Brian Walsh entitled:

Barack Obama: A Post-Imperial Presidency?

And yes, the same question could’ve/should’ve been asked had McCain won the election…