August 31, 2012

  • Why I can't buy into Ayn Rand (Part II)

    Yesterday I began a discussion of the recent uptick in interest in Ayn Rand's economic ideas among conservatives.  With half of my friends reading Rand's novels and discussing how awesome her ideas of individualism are and how well that fits into their libertarian or highly-conservative political views, I felt like it was time for me to do a little more thinking on the topic. 

    Honestly, I'm rather bothered by the numbers of Christians who are racing to embrace Rand's economics while supposedly bypassing her philosophy.  I don't think we can really separate the two. 
    Let me tackle just a few of her ideas that I find unbiblical..... or at least "sketchy": 
    Ardent Individualism
    America was built on individualistic pioneers who said "Piss off!" to the British (or Irish or Germans or French or whatever) and came to these shores to build a new life for themselves and -- especially -- to be left alone.  The Puritans touted a work ethic to make oneself holy; the Scots-Irish fled into the Appalachian hills to find solitude; the wagon trains took hearty adventurers and those hungry for ownership into the West where land was nearly free.
    No wonder Ayn Rand found America a balm after she watched communism and socialism eat up her family's wealth in Russia.  Her Objectivism, steeped in Enlightenment rationalism and ideals, fits here perfectly alongside our Declaration of Independence, social-contract theory of government, and Deistic perspective on man's "natural" rights. 
    I'm proud of my American heritage ....  of my Italian grandfather who came through Ellis Island as a boy in the early 1900s to suffer in poverty until he scraped enough to get by .... of my childhood in the Pennsylvania mountains surrounded by people whose ancestors came to the hills in the 1780s and still shot anyone who tried to worm their way into those closed communities.  Well, I'm not "proud of" the mountain people; they were weird. lol  But my point isn't to be un-American. 
    However, Americanism =/= biblical morality.  We Americans think the individual is king. 
    Biblically speaking, that's just crap. 
    The Church, the family, the government -- these institutions founded by God in the early days of the human race are entirely build on community.  I'm nothing in isolation.  As a Christian, my place in the Body is what helps give my life direction.  As an image-bearer, my humanity is unpacked and expanded only when I am in community with other image-bearers.  A solitary human being is a sad soul. Don't believe me? Read Into the Wild (or watch the film).  
    Americans lose so much because we throw our old people into homes to die alone; we move billions of miles away from anyone who matters to us; we live in disconnected little boxes in subdivisions where nobody knows their neighbors anymore.  I remember hearing some Germans describe how sad they were that no one in their Greenville neighborhood would make friends with them.  All we could say was, "Well, that's America. Everybody drives home from work, straight into the garage, shuts the door, and cuts off the world." 
    Make It On Your Own
    Self-success is the natural corollary of individualism.  If I'm selfishly looking out for myself above all (as Rand suggests), then I'm going to be able to put all of my resources into making myself successful. Self-development becomes THE goal. 
    People who latch on to individualism as a core economic principle want to use it for some pretty nasty ends when it comes to economic theory: They beat down those who do not succeed by blaming them for that failure ("If you'd worked harder, you would have made it!"). They condemn those who are poor for being moral failures ("Poverty is the result of indigence, laziness, or maybe bad luck....but mostly laziness.")  
    And they violently oppose anyone who tries to make a claim on their economic success.  Some will be generous, but few are willing to have generosity thrust upon them. 
    Looking at Christ's intensification of the Law in the Gospels and Paul's expansion of that theme in his Epistles, generosity should be a hallmark of Christian living. Where God demanded 10% of the Israelite's harvests in order to support the Old Testament temple system, He now seems to expect that we use all of our wealth and talents for Kingdom living!  Shocking.  
    Because we are blinded by American values rather than biblical ones, we compartmentalize "ministry" into a little box that fits into Sunday morning (when we work a nursery room) and Thursday afternoons (when we take food to a local charity).  The rest of our lives are "ours"; as long as God gets His tithe check on Sundays we're home free. 
    The dust-up about Obama's "You didn't build that" speech reveals the bitter truth about our hearts.  If I truly see my wealth and my job and my paycheck and even my ability to earn money in this capitalistic system as gifts from God to be used entirely for making this planet a better place to live in, why would I so violently spit out curses when someone suggests that I didn't do this on my own? 
    This is what King David prayed to the Lord after the people opened their hearts (and proverbial wallets) to bring offerings for use in the building of the Temple: 
    But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. I Chron 27:14
    The whole passage is powerful. NOTHING I own is mine. I can't give away a single thing (or pay taxes on it, or invest it, or waste it on hamburgers) that God hasn't already given to me first.  
    The idea that I build my own wealth by the sweat of my brow is true to the extent that this sin-cursed world yields profit only by the sweat of my brow. But that's not the whole story.  
    Any attitude toward my personal wealth which resembles a toddler hoarding candy and throwing a tantrum on the floor "It's mine! I don't have to share!" is an ugly and debased view of economics.  Sharing, charity, and economic aid for those who are in need must be components of any biblical economic system -- which directly contradicts Ayn Rand's worship of the self as highest good. 
    No-Rules Capitalism is a Good Thing!
    I keep saying "no-rules-capitalism" because I can't spell liaissaiz-faire. lol
    Anyway....
    We are greedy people at heart.  I can feel the selfishness rising up in my throat anytime someone starts cutting cake and I start watching the size of the slices. 
    Unbridled capitalism in the 1800s and poorly-regulated in the 1900s gave us environmental disasters, needless destruction of usable land or beautiful places, extinct species, chemical and other byproducts polluting water and air, oppressive labor conditions, no sympathy for people injured at work, virtual enslavement of women and children in Northern factories, actual enslavement of blacks to work Southern plantations followed by a horrific sharecropping system of similar effect, violent clashes between poor and underpaid workers and rich bosses/company owners.  Those abuses were correctly only through anti-trust laws, government agencies like the FDA and EPA, unions, and consumer watchdog groups.  Some of those reactions have now outlived their own usefulness and become problematic too, but the point remains. 
    I grew up near Pittsburgh; I saw the photos of the smoky city with its black atmosphere in the 60s. I've had my lungs burned by breathing polluted air around Moscow, Russia. My dad remembered the union strikes at the Pittsburgh steel mills in the 30s and 50s when workers couldn't stand the wage differences between the guys doing the work and the managers at the top. He lost his job when he went blind in one eye in 1981 and overnight my family was plunged into economic hardship that never really let up. My parents were born into abject poverty during the Depression and they died only a little better off.  
    People with power (whether economic, political, military) do not just "give up" that power. It must be taken from them -- usually through legislation or policy changes.  Obamacare isn't just "socialized medicine"; it's an attempt to staunch the bleeding of billions of dollars of unpaid medical care dumped into insurance premium hikes because people can't afford to buy insurance.  
    Right now a tiny fraction of people control the overwhelming portion of wealth and investments. I'm not a fan of wealth redistribution. But historically speaking, things don't turn out well once the scales get too imbalanced.  Rich people have no incentive to make the poor better off, as this article suggests:  
    *****
    Rand suggests that humans live to please themselves, work to stuff themselves, and become prosperous for their own enjoyment. 
    Christ said, "If any man would follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."  That doesn't mean I am not allowed to own anything.  But it sure does mean that loving God with my money and loving others with my wealth is the hallmark of a biblical economic system. 
    ...and I'm not hearing that in Ayn Rand.  
    Combine her selfish economics with basic social Darwinism and you get the same attitude that many have toward the poor, needy, or immigrant:  "It's your own damn fault. Sucks to be you." 

August 30, 2012

  • Why I can't buy into Ayn Rand (Part I)

    Is it just me, or is everyone I know reading Ayn Rand and nodding soberly, picking up pearls of wisdom to weave into a conservative economics of wealth production?

    I first heard of Rand many years ago when I ran across her commencement speech "Who Needs Philosophy?"  which is actually a really good piece. She expounds a solid reason for studying philosophy as part of any course of study because philosophical thinking matters.  Cool.  I dig that. 
    Otherwise, my brushes with Ayn Rand consisted of staring at the huge copies of Atlas Shrugged on people's bookshelves or in the bookstore and wondering if those thousand pages were worth my time.  I've decided they aren't.  
    So I trotted off to learn something about her philosophical system, Objectivism. If you need a refresher, here is a boiled-down version from Wikipedia's article on Ayn Rand:
    • Objectivism's central tenets are that reality exists independent of consciousness, 
    • that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, 
    • that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process ofconcept formation and inductive logic, 
    • that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness (orrational self-interest), 
    • that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism, 
    • and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans' metaphysical ideas by selective reproduction of reality into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.
    Rand herself denies that you can take her economics apart from her philosophy:
     I am confident enough to think that if you accept the importance of philosophy and the task of examining it critically, it is my philosophy that you will come to accept. Formally, I call it Objectivism, but informally I call it a philosophy for living on earth. You will find an explicit presentation of it in my books, particularly in Atlas Shrugged. (from the latter half of "Philosophy: Who Needs It?")
    I have a meaningful memory of politics since the time of Reagan. It seems that Rand's cheerleading for individualism and no-restrictions-capitalism has colored Republican politics more and more over the past three decades. (Maybe it was a strong theme in the 60s and 70s too; I don't know.)
    *****
    I don't usually watch the Colbert Report, but a friend of mine commented that Wednesday's show was very good so I caught it on Hulu.  Colbert dug into the topic of Rand's influence on the Republican party. Yes, I know Colbert is a comedian not a political analyst (though I think his analyses are often very perceptive) and obviously he is partisan. But still -- take a look:
    After beating on Paul Ryan for a bit, Colbert turned to a Stanford University professor who's recently written a book about Rand's influence on the neo-conservative movement. Again, watch:  
    *****
    Tomorrow:  I'd like to dig into why Rand's ideas bug me so much. 

August 29, 2012

  • What to do with worthless PCs

    One of the many reasons my school was better than yours: proactive treatment of failed PCs.

    Blast from the past.... pretty sure this was recorded in February 2007 or something like that, and featuring several boys from New Covenant School

    And the followup interviews:

    Just part of what made NCS so special from 2002-2012.  

August 2, 2012

  • Bono: On Christianity and Art

    man, I love Bono....

    "There's a fear of duality [in Christian art]....There's this part of us that says ....I want this music to do something positive in a very negative world but on the other hand you want to be honest and own up to your earthly desires and the confusion that everybody has."
    "'Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven' .... A lot of [Christians] are happy with 'pie in the sky when we die' but I don't think that's our purpose.  Our purpose is to bring heaven to earth in the micro as well as the macro, and in every detail in our lives we should be trying to bring heaven to earth. Have the peace that passes understanding in ourselves, but do not be at peace with this world....because the world is not a happy place for most people who are living in it, and the world is more malleable than we think. We can wrestle it from fools."

July 30, 2012

  • James K A Smith on Culture, Worldview, and Liturgy

    About a year ago, I raved to everyone about the great book from James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom. He suggests that a Christian anthropology which sees humans as "knowers" or "believers" (which is often implicit in many Reformed circles/studies on worldview) misses the deeper aspect of humans-as-lovers. What we desire drives what we are.

    It's not really earth-shattering; more like a recovery and clarification of a truth that should have never dropped from view.
    Today I ran across this video of Smith giving a lecture which covers the seminal arguments of his first few chapters.  If you have 50 minutes, this will get you thinking about the "meat" of Smith's book.  (Video below)
    Also, I posted a few pithy quotes from the book when I was reading it.... you can find those posts on my Xanga as well.

    Gospel & Culture Lectures: James K.A. Smith from Redeemer Video on Vimeo.

July 28, 2012

  • Friend of mine said this in a stream of FB comments, and I thought it was excellent:


    The psychotic philosophy of Ayn Rand has so infected mainstream right-wing ideology that reasonable ideas like this one [referring to Obama's "You didn't build that" speech to the entrepreneur, and resulting controversy] appear outrageous to them. Of course, Americans have long made an unrealistic mythology of individualism, and by adding the strain of Rand poison, this moves from being benignly inaccurate to toxically dangerous.

    Yes. 

    His jumping off point was this quote:
    "Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally. Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich…” Thomas Paine – Agrarian Justice (1795) 

    In other words “You didn’t build that."

July 26, 2012

  • Wading into the fray, though I'm sure this is a terrible idea

    I have made my vow to avoid political discourse this year till the day before the November election, but I'm not gonna make it (and I wasn't *really* serious.... I mean, not entirely....though I hate the vacuous and strident tones of American political discourse more than I hate middle-school bickering....which I hate very much).

    But here I am, sucked in and posting. *sighs*
    I'm referencing this article on Obama's speech in Virginia about small business owners and the "self-made man." You can read the article here.  
    First off, I'm not endorsing the blog at all. I think the article is snide and too biased to be a good discussion piece. But it's where I found myself dropping into the conversation, so here it is.
    The article quoted Obama's comments about the myth of the self-made man, which have touched off a tornado of conservative ire.  Here are the Obama selections from the article:

          If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be ’cause I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something: There are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
          If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

    And here are my comments that I posted in a Facebook discussion about it, because they are relatively succinct:

         Straight up: I think the attack on Obama's speech is hearing something he isn't saying. To insist that a single person can on their own create success is foolish and IMHO contra-biblical. American individualism is not necessarily a virtue. 
         I'm not here to defend Obama but I'm really tired of conservatives idolizing Ayn Rand. I think her ideas are dangerous and, above all, against the tenor of Gospel thinking.
         I don't really care whether Obama is referring to religious help or social or whatever. I just have to scratch my head and wonder exactly what people are angry about. I read the speech. I agree with him. My success as [anything] rests on the shoulders of many people who individually invested in my life PLUS the work of countless others who built the systems, institutions, and infrastructure which enable "success" for the average American.
         Does that negate the requirement that I work to improve my skills, to get a job, to get an education? Of course not. But admitting -- in fact, embracing -- the reality that American individualism is a myth, and often a harmful one doesn't deny individual responsibility.
         As a Christian, I have to balance being a good citizen of this country with being a good citizen of the Kingdom. So I reject Rand's philosophy as contra-biblical on most counts, especially its self-centered individualism because I cannot reconcile that with Kingdom ethics. And that leads me to question whether America's obsession with being self-made men is healthy at all.

    What's happening here is a fascinating shift in my own perceptions of biblical ethics and economic policy.  Capitalism =/= godliness. How did I not see this before someone pointed it out to me (at Covenant)?
    I'm also struck by the absolute FEAR oozing out of this article.   
    I am *all for* private citizens being generous, for NGOs to take over programs caring for the poor and needy, for the Church to step up and do its part in communities, for government to shrink because people take responsibility. That is awesome.
    But can someone explain to me why people are AFRAID to admit that they are not self-made men?
    Are we so ...racist? classist? selfish? individualist? ....that we cannot brook even the thought of someone getting something WE think they don't "deserve" .... when really and honestly, I don't "deserve" any of the help that people gave me? 
    Do we not see the huge disconnect between salvation by grace apart from anything I can do and a system of conservative ethics which refuses to offer aid to people who "need" it unless they can prove they've worked hard enough to earn it?
    My friends, you need to stop talking about the Gospel....your actions are shouting too hard for me to hear what you're saying.
    PS. Maybe in a future post I'll write about how terrified I am to find so many Christians quoting Ayn Rand as if she gave good ideas. I realize the antithesis runs through and not around all thinkers, and that people who are very wrong can sometimes be right. But I think it's time we throw down the gauntlet and demand that people defend individualism as biblical (which I think will be very difficult apart from proof-texting or American-bias) OR, failing that, stop acting like it is.  

July 2, 2012

  • Busy. Not all it's cracked up to be (re: Tim Kreider, NYT)

    ...and sometimes you just run across an article that beats you over the head with truth...

    A few choice morsels....go read the whole thing. It's short, but man, it packs a wallop.
    The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it. 

    It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school — it’s something we collectively force one another to do.

    Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.

     I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

    Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.


June 20, 2012

  • On Gender & Christianity: Michael Horton

    Great article (post?) by Michael Horton about the warping we're seeing these days in Christian definitions of gender roles.

    Muscular Christianity

    So enough with the beards (if it's making a spiritual statement). Enough with the "federal husband" syndrome that goes beyond the legitimate spiritual leadership of the heads of households found in Scripture. Enough of the bravado that actually misunderstands—sometimes rather deeply—what real sanctification looks like in the lives of men as well as women. And why does every famous pastor today have to write a book about his marriage and family? Beyond Scripture, there is godly wisdom and Christian liberty. Biblical principles focus on what it means to live in Christ by his Word and Spirit, and even in those few passages that speak directly to men and women, there will be legitimate diversity in application.

    My point is that the larger goal here shouldn't be to trot out more gender stereotypes from our culture, whether feminist or neo-Victorian, but rather to rediscover the ministry that Christ has ordained for making disciples of all nations, all generations, and both genders. We need less niche marketing and more meat-and-potatoes service to the whole body of Christ. There, men and women, the young and the old and the middle aged, black, white, Latino, Asian, rich and poor hear God's Word together, pray and sing God's Word together, and are made one body by receiving Christ's body and blood together: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." In that place, at least, there are no women's Bible studies and men's Bible studies, distracted youth groups and child-free golden oldies clubs, but brothers and sisters on pilgrimage to a better homeland than those that have been fashioned for us by this passing evil age.

June 9, 2012