Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Below the belt television. The Glenn Beck program.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m a big Glenn Beck fan. It’s just that last night I want to report that his show was a dud. I stayed up till one in the morning to see the Massa/Beck main event, and it ended up being no Ali, Frazier Thriller in Manila. It was more like two dopes groping for their last cogent thoughts. By the third round, I almost expected the local police to come in and rope off the area as a crime scene. For it was criminal to ask people to spend time at such a boorish event. While Eric the Irascible did get off a few wild rights about the wrongs of fund raising requirements and the criminality (in mind only) of accusatory letters from disenchanted former supporters, Beck didn’t connect with anything.
If I leave my metaphorical allusions behind, I’m left with what appears to be a very sordid, sorrowful, troubled, fast talking Eric Massa, owning up to his mistakes (tickling sessions with aids that appear to have gotten out of hand), without admitting any real or legal wrongdoing. Massa, another in a long line of New York government big shots who lost their way big time, just decided to resign from Congress because he didn’t live up to his own “elevated standards”, while leaving America high and dry with ObamaCare, which could very likely turn out to be the most distasteful example of governmental backwash since Roe v Wade. Get this. Massa says he’s the vote that gives Obama the one needed to pass the sick fraud on the American people known as ObamaCare. So instead of staying and staving off a legislative train wreck, Massa resigns and lets the Obama Shower stalkers, in the deviate tradition of Psycho’s Tony Perkins, get their way. I swear, Eric strikes me as one of those guys who, to get back on a even keel, would literally have to spend years in the world’s best mental health facility in Austria where a team of eminent psychotherapists devote all their time and energy working with and thinking about just him. In my professional opinion, Eric’s one acetylcholine reaction away from a George Bailey moonlit swim.
Of course, what’s a good fight summary without a sexy sidebar story. And I’m not talking about the homosexuality sub-theme that Beck and Eric lap danced around. I’m referring to Glenn Beck’s petulant inability to nudge Eric in the direction of telling us something we don’t know about the inner workings of an Obama team that makes the mafia look like a bunch of Long Island school boys from Friend’s Academy. I would have liked the justice department (only if the other Eric {Holder} was away in Munich reviewing the progress of the witless protection program) to wire Massa up for some good corrupt overheard dishing among Rahm, Barack and Eric both in and out of the shower. I wanted to overhear the dirt, the lowdown on our Masta’s role in the NYC trial of the 9/11 boys, Barack’s role in freeing the Black Panther voter intimidation clan, Barack’s admission that he agreed chapter and verse with Jeremy the hateful. Furthermore, the President admitting to lying about earmarks, about CNN coverage, about Obama’s intention to shred the Constitution, to legislatively repeal the second amendment, to redistribute wealth, to destroy the free enterprise system. Just for starters.
As I see it, the least that my friend, Glenn Beck, could have done to liven up the show was to connect Eric up to a lie detector before it began. Then, tonight we could have heard the results. At the least, it might have proved to be useful fodder to suggest the ObamaBoys are the miscreants that there’s no doubt in my mind they truly are. In mind, body and spirit.
Unfortunately, nothing of this nature happened. It turned out to be mind numbing TV. A featherweight event. For this kind of light sparring, from albeit a girl’s point of view, you didn’t even have to wear a cup.
E-Book Review: Asulon
Asulon, by William McGrath
A Christian / martial arts / high fantasy quest novel. Wow.
Asulon is the first volume in a (probable) three-volume high fantasy by law-enforcement consultant and martial-arts instructor William McGrath. I surmise that McGrath is also a believing Catholic; Asulon is pervaded with Catholic sensibility and belief, practically from the first page to the last. However, that doesn't get in the way of a slam-bang swords-and-sorcery-fest to gladden the bloodiest heart. When McGrath summarizes the book by saying "The book of Revelation set in a fantasy environment with political conspiracies, military adventure, and martial arts action thrown in. If Tom Clancy, C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien collaborated on a novel, the result might look something like this," he's not kidding. Well, except for the matter of style, but we'll get to that.
The central plot thread concerns the succession to the throne of Asulon, a constitutional monarchy, and its implications for a mercantile plot already in operation outside its borders. Its king, Argeus, who has only recently ascended to the throne, has taken a bold step by which to limit the power of his Senate, much to the dismay of certain forces inside and outside his realm. In consequence, Argeus is assassinated early on in the tale by a complex and clever technique. His twenty-year-old son Daniel, the principal protagonist, is unprepared for the position and its duties.
Every male in Asulon's line of succession is expected to prepare for the duties of his potential position by studying for a term in Caer-Albion: the fastness of Anak, last of the Grigori angels, who rules Logres, an island kingdom to the west. More, every heir is expected to wed one of Anak's daughters, a tradition unbroken for a thousand years. But Daniel's journey will not be unobstructed: the same forces that contrived Argeus's death are determined to slay Daniel as well.
Most of the story concerns that journey and the opposition Daniel and his mentor Moor must defeat. The pace seldom slackens. Also interwoven is a romantic thread: Daniel is drawn to Rachel, a Seer who accompanies him, despite the marital tradition that pertains to his position and his House. More, Daniel's party encounters tragic events at Caer-Albion that threaten to shake the world (and not coincidentally provide the cliffhanger that impels the reader to buy the next book).
Asulon's flaws are twofold. The first is its derivative nature: McGrath has borrowed heavily from Christian Scripture, including Genesis and Revelation, for the material from which to forge his plot. That's not fatal; indeed, it's been done before, to good effect. But the reader is too frequently reminded of those sources, which weakens Asulon as an independent creation.
Second, McGrath's style is closer to modern-colloquial fictional style than to the more formal cadences to which high-fantasy aficionadi are accustomed. That impedes the "buy-in" critical to a story dependent on magical and supernatural themes. That effect isn't fatal either, but Asulon's setting and premises would be easier to accept if the style had been more in the high-fantasy tradition.
Still, it was an entertaining read, especially for one who agrees with its Christian theses and premises, and who delights in finding them at work in a fantasy adventure. C. S. Lewis would have clucked over some of the technical and stylistic missteps, but I think he, too, would have read to the last page, looked up at the end, and said, "So when's Book Two coming out?"
Theme: Duty is the hardest of all masters. I concur: A
Plot: B
Characterization: B+
Style: B-
Recommended.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A night at the Oscars has taken me aback.
I can’t remember precisely the last time I talked to John Hughes. It was before he left for California to make a name for himself amongst the glamour and glitter of Hollowwood. Was “Hollywood or bust” his last quip? For sure, I don’t know. I do know that I’m still unsettled by life and death. Here one day. Not here another. In the office, one of my writer bosses (not John) dropped to the floor directly in front of me. When my face fell on his, I fought to bring his pulseless body back to life. I can still feel the death lip lock. Pumped his chest just as I was taught. I remember thinking the first responders would do a better job than I. And was wrong. Guilt and grief fueled tears for years. That was a long time ago.
Sunday night, I saw the Oscars and watched the tribute to John. Here’s something few knew. When John set out to make his first Hollywood movie, unknown to the producers, he had three completed scripts in his pocket. John received a couple of hundred thousand for the first one. And after the movie’s success, they asked him to write a couple more, and for a lot more money. Writing them was as easy as spending thirty minutes at the Xerox machine. Today, I spent an hour and a few dollars having my taxes done. In between deductions, I thought about headlines for Eternity Road, reducing to writing two that I thought had promise. Which in a sense would put me two headlines ahead of the game. This evening, instead of watching American Idol, I would have started the body copy. But something stopped me. Not so much the fact that I’m kind of disgusted with the Rahm/Massa feud, (I feel dirty just thinking about it) and politics in general. Not so much because of that. More so, the culprit was my reaction to our Curmudgeon’s mania; the inexcusable grammar in everyday use that passes for English; the pointedly pathetic piggish English spoken by everyone from downscale to upscale America. It’s more than a pet peeve. I virtually despise it. It’s one of the few hates embedded in my DNA.
My father was a writer; my mother an unmitigated grammarian. Being St. Louis Catholic liberals was probably their only major flaws. I can vouch for the fact with zero possibility of error than my mom would have voted for Obama. Even with all of Obama’s overwhelming concupiscence to run this country into a ditch, she would have voted for him, again and again. Ugh. How I miss her. If the DNA starts the pattern, the people you meet along the way are a girl’s finishing school.
His name was Mr. Matthews, which isn’t a name changed, as they say, to protect the innocent. A very, very tough Marine officer was he before we met. But defending our shores wasn’t to be this wonderful man’s life’s work. Teaching was. He was your consummate high school Latin teacher. A dear classmate of mine will take us the rest of the way as we share with you a bittersweet all expenses paid trip back in time. Then I’ll get back to politics.
“Ready on the right; ready on the left; ready on the firing line. Ain, Anderson, Bell, Bellmar,…the call rolled on.” Thus did our Latin classes with Mr. Matthews begin, year after year. We weren’t Marines and we weren’t fighting in the Pacific, but in Mr. Matthews’ class you knew there was discipline and purpose: learning, knowledge and growth. He did not lecture, threaten or cajole: by his very presence and command he inspired a desire for knowledge and achievement. He set the bar and expected we would meet it. We tried very hard. But we learned far more in his classroom than a dead language. We learned English syntax and grammar; more precisely because we were translating from Latin to our own language which required him to teach us real fluency in English. We learned history, both ancient and recent. He led us to realize important values that history teaches. And we learned respect for this scholar and guide. Most of all, we learned to love learning.” (George Reid, 2004)
If my friend, the dear Curmudgeon, had ever met him, he and Mr. Matthews would have had much to discuss. For they would have had much, much more in common than the Island.
Ave, Magister Optimus, nos qui dedicimus, te salutamus.
American media—truck stop whores for the left.
The modern left has its roots in the political phenomenon of the 1930s when progressivism, communism, fascism, socialism, and Nazism coalesced under the common flag of centralized governments and an ideology of collectivism. This worldwide movement went largely unchallenged ideologically until the reassertion of classical liberalism through the American conservative movement in the 1950s. . . .
* * * *
Any shred of leftist intellectual honesty and journalistic curiosity was obliterated once Senator Obama threw his hat into the ring as a presidential candidate. The “mainstream” media whored out its last shred of credibility in a non-stop sycophantic obsession with this man of mystery. Having no desire to investigate clear connections to domestic terrorist William Ayers or Obama’s twenty-year relationship with black nationalist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the media concentrated on defending the idea of “hope and change” personified.
When faced with some aspect of the behavior of our media (or leftist in general), I often reflect on how every American soldier killed in battle between 1945 and the present was killed by a weapon fired by, manufactured by, designed by, controlled by, purchased by, transported by, or financed by communists. Billions and billions of dollars have been expended to fight communism. Our domestic politics have been polluted by communist money and subversion.
But this has no significance to our media. They have no sense of “us.” There is nothing of “ours” that can be violated by any hostile actor or creed.
How else to explain the legacy media’s complete, utter indifference to Obama’s mentor Davis being a communist; his father being a communist; his buddy Ayers being a communist and a terrorist; his mother, grandfather and grandmother being leftists; and Obama’s referring to himself as a “progressive”?
Answer: You can’t. The legacy media couldn’t care less if a candidate for one of the highest political offices in the land grew up and lived large portions of his life with communists and radical leftists. They are simply indifferent to the fact that candidates for high office are fundamentally at odds with the political heritage of this country. Because they too are indifferent to it, if not at odds with it.
”American Media, Blaming the ‘Right’: From Duranty and the KGB to Reuters.” By Andie Brownlow, Pajamas Media, 3/8/10.
H/t: Dissecting Leftism.
Public Enemy # 1.
Mr. Mosab Hassan Yousef—the son of an imam who was one of the founders of Hamas—was tortured and imprisoned by the Israelis. He later worked for Israeli security against Hamas, converted to Christianity, left Israeli service, and wrote a book, Son of Hamas.
Here are some of Yousef’s thoughts on what obedience to Allah means to even a moderate and logical Muslim:
It’s ironic that every scholar, sheikh, mufti, imam, qadi, ayatollah, mullah, or caliph who can recite the Koran backwards and prove the earth is flat will go ballistic in their efforts to root out apostasy, heresy, polytheism, and all manner of disloyalty to Allah but the ultimate disloyalty is that of Allah to the Muslim faithful. He sentenced them to 1,400 years of backwardness and subjection to the very worst aspects of human nature. 1,400 years!Do you consider your father a fanatic? “He’s not a fanatic,” says Mr. Yousef. “He’s a very moderate, logical person. What matters is not whether my father is a fanatic or not, he’s doing the will of a fanatic God. It doesn’t matter if he’s a terrorist or a traditional Muslim. At the end of the day a traditional Muslim is doing the will of a fanatic, fundamentalist, terrorist God. I know this is harsh to say. Most governments avoid this subject. They don’t want to admit this is an ideological war.
“The problem is not in Muslims,” he continues. “The problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy.
And counting.
”‘They Need to Be Liberated From Their God.’ The ‘Son of Hamas’ author on his conversion to Christianity, spying for Israel, and shaming his family.” By Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal, 3/5/10 (emphasis added).
Safire’s Ghost: English Yesterday, Today, And Tomorrow
[in a deep, Hitchcockian drawl] Good evening. Among your Curmudgeon's manias is the destruction we of the English-speaking world have experienced through the abuse of the English language. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that a typical English-speaker of a century ago would have difficulty making himself understood by the typical English-speaker of our time. The reasons are many and fascinating, which is why your Curmudgeon has decided to inaugurate this new series of essays. (Besides, his Co-Conspirators are holding down the political end of things rather well, so why get in their way?)
Long, long ago, on a Website gone but not forgotten (see the Screeds section), your Curmudgeon argued for strict prescription in the teaching of the English language. His contention, which remains as it was, is that strict rules that are never violated make it easier both to learn a language and to use it effectively. When all the language's speakers hew to the same set of strict rules, there's little or no possibility of misunderstanding among them: a far cry from our current milieu.
That opinion drew quite a bit of controversy. You might have thought that your Curmudgeon had advocated bastinado for any teenager who says "y'know, like." (Yes, he's taken that position in the past, but only among close friends.) The notion that strict prescription might somehow impede the acquisition of language skills is apparently widespread among Americans today, but it's one he's never understood.
English is reputed to be the hardest of all contemporary languages to learn. There are a number of reasons for this:
- English has a huge vocabulary: well over two million words and growing rapidly.
- English is rich in "synonyms:" words that mean almost the same thing, but not quite.
- English has a complex syntactical structure that incorporates elements from many older languages.
- English possesses a large number of idioms: word combinations whose meaning is difficult to deduce from the individual words.
- English has a propensity to import words from other languages, but not always in the strict sense they have in those languages.
- Because of all the above, and because of its geographical dispersion, English suffers from regionalization -- that is, the creation of regional dialects distinguished from one another by regional usages, regionally popular idioms, and pronunciations -- far more than most other languages.
Yet, despite all that, English is the international language of our time. The dominance of the most important communications-intensive enterprises -- aviation, finance, and data processing -- by English speakers has compelled the world to accept it as the international lingua franca. The most difficult language in the world to learn is thus the language everyone is expected to speak!
And most persons whose mother tongue is English barbarize it routinely.
The process starts in our schools. They're called grammar schools, but the term is ironic rather than descriptive. Grammar of the prescriptive sort is no longer taught in them. Rules of structure and usage might inhibit the little tykes from expressing themselves, with God-knows-what deleterious effects on their self-esteem. We can't have that!
High school and college students are seldom "graded down" for poor grammar or syntax. After all, there are more important things to discuss, such as whether the poor have a right to federally funded abortions, the brassiere is a tool by which the evil capitalist patriarchy oppresses womyn, or the war to depose Saddam Hussein was a CIA-Halliburton plot. On many campuses, twitting a young woman for saying "Mary and me want to get married" is a prosecutable offense.
The accelerating specialization of our commercial culture adds to the problem. It's become impossible to gain expertise in any of a huge number of fields without first learning its "jargon:" its private language of terms, references, and conventions an outsider would find impenetrable. While this might be an unavoidable consequence of our ever-ramifying division of labor, it also creates "communities of communication" whose members can understand one another, but who can be understood by no one else. Inevitably, such jargons penetrate the "common" tongue, at least deeply enough to support the marketing, sale, and support of the associated products, which complicates the language still further.
Given all that, the proliferation of GruntSpeak and the unending repetition of "like" and "y'know" and (worst of all) "y'know like" to fill conversational lacunae is understandable. It's the persistence of a Remnant to whom the distinction between a participle and a gerund really matters that's the miracle.
The late William Safire was one of your Curmudgeon's heroes. Safire was a master of the language, more advanced in his comprehension of its rules and norms than any other writer of his time, not excepting the much loved and mourned William F. Buckley. He bent great effort to conveying the rules of good, grammatical English to his readership, and strove to exemplify those rules in everything he wrote. His loss is a great loss to the English-speaking world.
As much as anything else, this series of essays will be a tribute to Safire's ghost, and the great work his passing has left unattended.
Watch this space.
Monday, March 8, 2010
His doctor asked President Obama to cut down on his drinking. My question, what’s he been smoking.
While a reefer or two doesn’t put you on the road to madness, by the same token, Obama’s inability to stop drinking and smoking shouldn’t compel Presidential cabinet members to make a mad dash for the Constitution’s 25th amendment.
However, considering President Obama’s growing propensity to exhibit obsessive, bizarre behavior, not to mention, a lackluster job performance, should not someone seriously question his (how shall I put it?) smokey thinking? Mental fitness for the job, if you will. Moreover, since it appears that the members of Congress seem to have difficulty taking action without being offered a carrot the size of the Louisiana purchase or the 100 million dollar Cornhusker kickback, the people appear to be faced with a national conundrum; what to do if we agree that the Presidential Marlboro Man, (aka Mr. roll em’ if you got em’) is smack dab in the center of the swirling question: Is President Obama delusionally disordered?.
At the same time, I can hear people saying that everything he does, he does with undeniable, clear-minded intention, the single minded determination of a lion stalking his prey. They would say about Obama that having a deep unshakable belief in the Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals” playbook accounts for every untruth uttered; every promise broken; every anti-American-valueless move made. Maybe that’s true. Matter of fact, lil’ ol’ blond haired blued Rachel has been a party to that line of thinking for the past two or so years. Heavens to Betsey, I knew he was the most left voting member of the Senate. I knew he palled around with Rashid Khalidi, an Israeli-hating former member of the PLO. I knew he palled around with Bill Ayers who, at a point in time, would have bombed America into oblivion if he could have. I’m aware, like everyone else, that Obama pewed with Mr. Hate Speak, himself, the Rev. Jeremy (9/11 was a glorious day) for more than twenty hate-filled years. I knew all that and still thought Obama didn’t markedly deviate from the standard deviation of normal mental Chicagoian chicanery.
As of a week ago, though, I think we were wrong. I look at Obama differently. I fear he’s gone off the deep end. Jumped the shark. Lost his grip on reality. To my way of thinking, the guy who since being elected President has done the opposite of what he should have done; plus the opposite of someone who took an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” is now borderline certifiable. He’s turned out, in just 13 plus months to be the worst President in United States history. Not arguably to be. To be. But I’m seriously thinking a big part of the problem is that President Obama is disordered and delusional. Sick.
A quick look at the rise before the pall. Were there tell tail signs that we all missed?
During the Presidential campaign against McCain, Obama made some statements that, while many believed, some suspected came under the category of campaign rhetoric. End earmarks. Put healthcare negotiations on CNN. Do away with America’s nuclear arsenal. Be the post-racial President. Fundamentally transform America. Be transparent. Listen to the American people. Those were the ingredients with which Barack Obama made speeches. Women fainted in his very presence. Anchor men got tingles up their legs. Then Obama was elected and elected to go back on his word, time after time. Not just his supporters became increasingly unsettled. His opponents were amazed that a brown eyed handsome man with sky high approval ratings could fall so far so fast. Obama started losing trust with the suddenness that some men start losing their hair. But not the concern. People like Nancy Pelosi tried to white wash the whole thing. For example, when asked why the President signed bills with thousands of earmarks, she’d say, “during a campaign, a lot of things are said.” Okay, so Obama’s end to earmarks statement was campaign rhetoric. Were we to assume that the same was true of, say, the statements about broadcasting healthcare negotiations on CNN? Was he just making things up willy nilly? If so, why? Barack knew that George senior’s “read my lips” sunk George. Why would Barack set a trap for himself? It doesn’t make sense.
In particular, though, the statements about Obama’s desire for nuclear disarmament, once sounding a tad naive, in retrospect, are the breadcrumbs leading to an inescapable conclusion: that Obama is daft. What good is a socialist America in the image and likeness of Obama/Alinsky if half its people are vaporized in a first strike? Surely, Obama wouldn’t unilaterally dismantle our nuclear capability. “Like, man, he’s not crazy,” I can hear any discerning California Democratic surfer guy or girl say.
Obama may be a little extreme left, but his elevator still stops at all the floors, or so I used to think. In hindsight, should I have detected a bit of unsoundness of mind when Obama unilaterally threw Turkey and the Czech Republic under the Russian bus, surrendering to blowhard, bully boy demands and reneging on the promise to install, for them, missile defense systems? While hindsight is 20/20, maybe I should have caught wind of the coming mental storm clouds.
Now, though, I’m giving our President’s sanity a bit more thought. For the other crazy shoe just dropped. Obama pipes up with a nutty statement about meeting with Robert Gates to discuss destroying half our nuclear arsenal. On its face maybe it doesn’t sound too threatening, (how many times can you kill your enemy?), but the psychological effect on Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and assorted nut job terrorists around the world shouldn’t be underestimated. What weak loons they must think we are to unilaterally ash can half our nuclear weapons? Plus, consider how close our potential enemies are from their own missile defense shield. I have a feeling secret-guarding isn’t high on Obama’s list of priorities.
Look, I could recite chapter and verse Barack’s list of intolerable acts. But in the interest of time, I won’t. Suffice to say, it grows longer as Obama, once again, blithely, goes against the wishes of the American people to keep our country Army Strong. Instead of maintaining a full arsenal of military deterrents, Obama apparently wants to transform the United States into a nuclear free zone. Which is not to be confused with a nuclear safe zone. To Rachel, this is almost like touching the third rail of a second avenue New York subway train. On purpose. Is he touched? Better question, what’s going on in ObamaHead? Sheer lunacy? Has President Barack Obama lost his marrididdles, cat’s eyes, and taws?
In wartime, there was never a sounder mind than General George Patton. Here’s what General Patton believed (not a direct quote). “Disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. The desire for disarmament springs eternal in the eternally naive. From wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen much like disarmament is promulgated by men who are in the mentally sense, mad. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready.”
My one final question echoes Patton’s call for readiness. But it is about you and me. Are we ready to admit that there is something very wrong with Obama?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Chinese Family Values and the Division of Labor, part II
Many a starry-eyed American conservative has expressed envy at the “strong” extended families of other cultures, such as the Chinese, but I do not think they really comprehend all the effects that such an arrangement has, nor necessarily the motivations that lead to it. In the first place, when these American conservatives think of “grandparents,” they are likely imagining something along the lines of America’s “Greatest Generation,” the generation that grew up in the Great Depression and fought WWII. In reality, in the case of the Chinese, these days they would be referring to the generation that formed the youth movement and lived out the Cultural Revolution. They are not the doped-out hippies of America’s 60’s, but in large part they are not exactly the repositories of ancient value systems and timeless wisdom that they are imagined, either. They are a generation that grew up adrift in a sea of value conflict, and in many cases were the actual agitators that challenged the old value systems.
Secondly, as Ms. Yi points out, most of the motivation for choosing this family structure is economic in nature – the pragmatism to which I refer. Ms. Yi’s essay is quite illuminating in this respect; however, I think more commentary is in order from this economic point of view. I think most people can understand the economics behind leaving children with their grandparents so that both parents can work at high-paying jobs. What most people probably don’t understand is the nature of the economic system and the division of labor that most Chinese are dealing with, and that Chinese immigrants grew up with, influencing their decision making even once they have left that system.
The Division of Labor and the Extended Family
Most Americans simply cannot comprehend the types of challenges many non-Westerners face as they manage their daily affairs. The familiarity of our own division of labor (and by this I refer to the economy at large and am not limiting myself to the family) is so ingrained in us that we cannot imagine the types of decisions that, truth be told, most of the rest of the world throughout time have faced. That is not to say that we do not face any challenges at all, or even challenges of a vastly smaller magnitude, only that they are of a very, very different type.
For example, most of us really cannot imagine what it is like to wash clothes by hand, and what a convenience it is not to have to. Yet until very recently, this was the case for almost everyone living in China. An American stay-at-home mom can easily have a weeks worth of baby’s clean clothes ready at a minimum of effort. Not so for a huge swath of the Chinese population, even today. And, for those who object that a washing machine and dryer do not constitute a division of labor but are merely objects of material wealth, I ask, first, who built the machines, and second, how were they paid for? Home appliances are capital goods, and as such are integral parts of the division of labor. Further, all material wealth above and beyond bare subsistence are products of the division of labor. A Robinson Crusoe can never be a Bill Gates, irrespective of his talents or virtues.
When she goes out to buy formula for her baby, an American mom probably doesn’t think much about the risk of her baby being poisoned. Yet food contamination and outright product tampering is a far greater threat overseas than it is here. The division of labor creates dependencies on others, and human nature being what it is, fraud, violence, jealousy and the like will raise their ugly heads as soon as two humans get together to try to accomplish anything. I can assure you that Chinese are no more fond of the thought of lead in their food than Americans are, or of getting taken advantage of in the marketplace, yet this is simply a quality of the division of labor that differs between our two circumstances and a fact of life that one simply has to deal with.
What is a mother to do? Hopefully, the answer is obvious: seek out those that one can trust when one must interact with, and therefore depend on, other people, especially on such sensitive issues as care for babies. It is best to choose to interact with close family members whose interests are aligned with our own if at all possible.
Large, close-knit family structures in developing economies are likely as much an effective response to the economic challenges they face as they are “tradition." Far from being an indictment of Western civilization, I believe that our own more “atomized” family structures centered on the “nuclear family” is a testament to our own cultural ability to attain a fantastic degree of specialization and productivity, thanks to our historically unique ability to extend the division of labor far beyond what any other civilization has ever managed. In this regard, we must understand that it is not the foreigners that are strange – it is us. The vast majority of people in recorded history have lived in low division of labor economies and used the extended family structure to help improve their material well-being. Even in well developed economies this still occurs, though usually on a smaller scale, such as with family owned businesses and the like. I’m sure you can think of your own examples. It helps reduce the risk of more complex economic structures.
(Of course, I’m also of the opinion that our own division of labor has been stretched far beyond what was ever intended or even remotely healthy by the dual effects of central banking and the centralized state. More’s the pity that the benevolent force appears to be dying out, while the latter duo appears to be successfully doing us in, but that is another topic.)
The vastly lower division of labor (again, broad terms) in China both increases the individual workload for a desired given output, and is an indication that illicit behaviors are prevalent. If one must seek childcare, who better to turn to than grandma and grandpa? Grandparents taking care of their grandchildren is an important part of the division of labor for Chinese families, and serves them well in this regard, at least to first appearances. However, that is not to say that it is without effect in other areas.
Materialism
Ms. Yi takes a harsh view of the pervasiveness of materialism and envy (literally translated “greed” and “competition”) impinging on Chinese family affairs. Being a capitalist pig myself, I will be the first to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with desiring material well-being for one’s self and one’s family, and I will defend the profit motive and the desire for riches to the bitter end. However, this comes with the proviso that the pursuit of wealth should never come at the expense of violating principles of ethical conduct.
I think this is what draws Ms. Yi’s ire: she never explicitly states it, but I suspect she senses that these children are not just growing up in different circumstances, but being wronged. This is probably where the average American reader started in his thought process, rather than with a bunch of esoteric musings about the division of labor. For most Western readers, it is not merely shocking, but painful to read of families being broken apart for the sake of material gain. Likely, there is a little bit of anger in one’s reaction as well. Sacrificing one’s family obligations for the sake of marginal material gain certainly is throwing away the watermelon to collect sesame seeds.
I can vouch for Ms. Yi’s “materialist” conclusions on the basis of another observation. In addition to Chinese couples sending their children to be raised by their own parents, I have known a great number of Chinese couples that also spent literally years apart, pursing one career goal or another. Usually, it was graduate school, which can be a 7 to 10 year or more commitment. This is not entirely unheard of among American couples, but from what I can tell it is pretty common among the Chinese. There seems to be a fairly causal attitude about leaving one’s spouse for great lengths of time, or conversely, a great deal of emphasis on material and career pursuits. Or both.
Most Americans view their jobs as a way of supporting their families, or “lifestyle,” if one is still single. While I don’t know many people who would tell you that a job’s pay does not matter at all, I would say that most would turn down a high salary in exchange for a job they find personally enjoyable or meaningful, or which gives them the benefit of time off with their families. From most American’s point of view, there would be no point in pursuing a high-paying job that forced him to break up his family in this way. It would defeat the purpose – to support his “way of life”, which is now broken. I think Ms. Yi is correct to say that, culturally speaking, material pursuits aren’t quite as important to Americans as they are among the Chinese, although this is of course a broad generalization and one would find a great number of exceptions. But broadly speaking, in the West employment is usually viewed as a way to support one’s life’s goals, which are generally considered separate from work. Work is the sacrifice; family life and personal goals are the purpose of the sacrifice. Among the Chinese, the view seems to be more the other way around: one must make family sacrifices for the sake of career.
But it is easy to criticize when one is able to make a comfortable living at a lesser paying job. For most Chinese, and especially those living in China, that is not the case. And while we are on the subject of family interfering with the relentless pursuit of materialism, one hasn’t properly addressed the topic without looking at the role of the public school system. Namely, is it really the case that the overwhelming majority of parents send their children to public school because they honestly feel that this is what is best for their children, or is it because through the public school mechanism, for every one public school teacher twenty or so mothers are freed from family duties to pursue a paying job? The reality is that the public school system extends the division of labor in pretty much the same way that babysitting by extended family does, and I find it hard to believe that people feel that education by government is the best option for their children. I wonder what fraction of the population uses public education versus public housing, public health facilities, and public transportation. I do not wonder about the quality of these services.
Is it really so much worse to hand children over to their grandparents for a few years vs. the state for most of their childhood? Perhaps it is not so much that the two cultures lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, but that the Chinese have simply taken our own line of thinking to its logical conclusion.
Family Discipline
Ms. Yi hypothesizes that Chinese children suffer from a feeling of isolation and being unloved as a result of being separated from their parents at a young age. This seems plausible. Certainly a number of very different family dynamics are set into play by altering family structure which can have very substantial effects on a person’s development.
From what I have seen, the biggest problem created by the dynamic of having grandparents cohabit with their children’s families or even raise the grandchildren themselves is in the realm of discipline. It is a well known and widespread phenomenon that grandparents have a tendency to spoil their grandchildren. I don’t think this phenomenon needs any lengthy discussion, but I also think the issue goes much deeper than that. Having grandparents in this role more or less permanently creates a serious conflict of authority. Most people accept a parent’s innate authority to discipline his own children, however, the policy immediately becomes confused when the child you are dealing with isn’t “yours." What is the caretakers place? It is easy to say that there should be no difference. It is a harder thing to do.
The effect is further compounded by cohabitation. The younger generation will naturally tend to defer to the older generation, which will feel out of place and defer back to the parents. Nobody wants to rock the boat and everyone winds up intimidated out of the role of disciplinarian. If there happens to be a tyrant or a softie among the four, forget about having any kind of coherent disciplinary regime. Every decent parent knows how important it is that parents present a coherent, united front towards their children concerning what behavior is appropriate and what is not, and further what a tremendous challenge it is to do so in a world where people each have their own ideas and often disagree. It doesn’t help that children are intelligent and crafty little beings in their own right and quickly learn to play their parents off against one another to get what they want.
With four adults around acting as authority figures, especially four adults who have grown up in the cultural turmoil described earlier, and aren’t sure themselves exactly what value system they subscribe to, the situation becomes impossible to manage. The net result of all of these dynamics is an environment in which a clever child can run wild because nobody is able to effectively say “no." Strange as it sounds, I think it is probably easier for a single adult to effectively discipline four children than four adults a single child.
There are exceptions, of course. Most Chinese children I have met have gotten the message to “study hard” loud and clear, and once again, pragmatism rules the day as far as bad behavior is concerned. The prevailing ethic of pragmatism is that as long as nobody is mad, or at least nobody is mad that can hurt you, what you are doing is probably okay. But make enough people mad, or the wrong people mad, and there will be consequences. Rocking the boat too badly is therefore usually understood to be a circumscribed behavior.
The important thing here is that, as far as I can tell, there is very little inward direction where right and wrong is concerned. It is more a matter of a consensus, or what others think, and being in harmony with those one cares about or whose opinion is valued. It reminds me of a subdued version of the public shaming aspect of Islamic societies, where morality is more an external issue than internal. I will admit that I could be reading it incorrectly, but whatever the overarching principle, it is very different from the West.
There is a certain well-known paradox about liberty. Those who are unable to restrain themselves will inevitably find themselves subject to a tyranny of one form or another. It might be a tyranny of addiction, or the long arm of the law, or simple ignorance or laziness. It can take many forms, and is not something a loving parent should want for his child. Discipline is far too important to neglect or leave to the whims of chance.
Complexity and the Importance of Tradition
This disciplinary problem is, I believe, merely one example of a much larger phenomenon. I have often remarked that what may be the single greatest fault of modern philosophy is the tendency to regard every problem as a mechanical problem. The attitude discussed by Ms. Yi that “if the baby is changed and fed everything is taken care of” is a perfect example—childcare reduced to mechanics.
The fact is that humans are organic beings, not computers, and the human brain is less like a predictable system of gears turning than an intricate and overwhelmingly complex assemblage of poorly understood goo. Systems such as, well, us, may be composed of particles with mechanical properties at the molecular scale, yes, but taken together they are far too complex to submit to any mechanical understanding that we are capable of, at least at this time. The many-body problem sees to that very quickly. Biology likely has more in common with meteorology than with chemistry in this regard.
The oozings and squishings of life as a being of flesh rather than as mechanical automatons has real and profound consequences in the real world, inconvenient as that may be for our mechanically inclined way of understanding things. Our thinking organ is as much a hormone spouting gland as a computational device.
To top it off, we are but limited beings with limited capacities for understanding forced to deal with a universe outside of ourselves that is also hopelessly complex. The fact of the matter is that one will never be able to understand much more than a tiny fraction of what there is to know, even if all the knowledge of the universe were placed at one’s fingertips. It is too overwhelming. As a result, for a great deal of the situations we face, there is simply no way to know exactly what all of the consequences of any particular action will be. Thinking that one can really understand situations outside a narrow area of expertise is the height of arrogance, and attempting to derive solutions to every problem on the basis of one’s own understanding is a hopeless folly.
And there lies the rub, as the saying goes. By making drastic or sometimes even simple changes to basic ways of life like family structure, one is tempting fate on issues with very high stakes. The issues are far more complex than simple income calculations and one can’t really be sure of the consequences, which could be very negative and far reaching. Better to experiment at the edges on subjects with which you have some expertise, while adhering to proven wisdom on the bigger issues. Better that one’s actions be guided by ancient principles of right and wrong than by creature cunning.
Familiarity with history also helps.
“I’m Lost”
Unfortunately, too many Chinese find themselves stripped of these important tools in dealing with a complex world. They feel trapped by a world that is changing far too quickly for them to handle, with little in the way of religious or other comfort to turn to when the going gets tough. Especially with the recent economic contraction, a lot of people are feeling a little overwhelmed and spiritually lost.
First, the revolution and following Cultural Revolution smashed the ancient ways and filled the vacuum with an authoritarian apparatus that left decision making up to a state bureaucracy. One was told what to study, where to work, where to live, whom one could marry, etc., all the way from cradle to grave. State power replaced cultural tradition in dealing with the complexity problem. Average folks may not have known just what they should believe, but there wasn’t a lot of uncertainty in life to deal with, either.
Nowadays, with the liberalization of the economy, one faces an enormous array of choices without a lot of guidance. The problem of complexity has been placed squarely on the shoulders of the average man and woman, who has been deprived of all tools to deal with it.
A lot of folks are finding the experience very unsettling. A soap opera dealing with the difficulties and dissatisfaction of modern life, especially with respect to material pursuits and the difficulty in attaining the Chinese equivalent of the American dream, became fantastically popular there recently called Narrow Dwellings. It dealt with a young couple with romantic dreams of a life in Shanghai who moves to the city only to find that they must work extremely hard to afford just the tiniest of apartments, and what sparing creature comforts they are able to afford bring them far less happiness than they had been led to believe. Basically, the message is that life is not all its cracked up to be, a typical theme for a Chinese production, but applied to the modern materialist mindset and the pursuit of its idealized life, which is something new. I’m not sure if the title of the show has the same multiple meanings in Chinese that it does in English, but it certainly does express the basic idea of the show well in our language.
It is a pretty boring show for anyone with more than a few picograms of testosterone floating in his bloodstream. However, it developed a cult-like following in China, I’m presuming among women, and wound up getting canceled. I suppose that it struck a chord with people’s feelings about modern life and its lack of fulfillment, material or otherwise, and the government decided it was too dangerous. One isn’t supposed to question the transformation going on.
I would also note how similar this show’s message is to China’s division of labor problem I discussed the first time I took up the topic. If there is any accuracy to its portrayal of modern life, the situation seems to be playing itself out just as one would expect.
Christianity and the West
I once had a friend from Cameroon tell me that he hated all American movies. All of them. He never watched them anymore, because he said they only made him fall asleep. When asked what he found to be wrong with them, he said they were all Christian and didn’t make any sense to him because he didn’t think that way. Nobody is that way in real life, he said. Thinking this a bit strange, I asked about what specific movies he had seen. The only specific title I could get out of him was Titanic, but he insisted that they were all the same.
Now, I must confess to not having cared much for Titanic, either, but I also did not remember it as having much in the way of content that might be regarded as Christian. I doubt most Americans see much “Christianity” in Hollywood’s productions; more likely the opposite. But not to foreign eyes.
The reason is that, believe it or not, our Western lives and perspectives are so thoroughly saturated with the Christian outlook that these ideas are mostly taken for granted. They no longer register as anything to take notice of, just as we do not take notice of the air we breathe, despite informing our most basic assumptions and understanding of the world in a way that looks preposterous to non-Westerners. Note that I do not say unbelievers, because if one is a non-believing Westerner, one is almost certainly carrying around these attitudes as well. Western media, upbringing, day-to-day interactions, much as the particulars might often offend the conscious sensibilities, nevertheless are saturated with the Christian perspective and its base of assumptions, at least to our particular culture’s understanding of it. What looks to a Westerner as mundane and religiously innocuous looks to outsiders as drenched with Christian beliefs and attitudes, whether the Westerner would necessarily identify them as such or not.
I really do not think we can comprehend just how profoundly our lives and civilization are influenced by Christianity, whether one is a believer or not, and I can tell you from firsthand account that to the rest of the world Westerners appear absurd. And the funny thing is that it is not the specific beliefs per se, as the West’s own atheists might have you believe, but the attitudes we share even with Western atheists that draws the most head scratching. Westerners are widely perceived as naïve little children for their hope and optimism and their childish way of adhering to rules. For most of the rest of the world, these are alien concepts. After all, grown-ups know how the world really works, and what it really takes to achieve success in this life.
For some reason, Christians will readily acknowledge that the Christian faith has a transforming power over individuals, yet it strikes most as peculiar, or perhaps does not occur to them at all, to think that it would also have a transforming effect on an entire culture that has embraced it for well more than a millennium. In fact, stating such a belief has almost become anathema, and may get you labeled anything from a bigot to a racist these days. Isn’t everybody just a human being? Why shouldn’t a person from a completely alien background be able to integrate himself seamlessly into Western, Christian society with minimal effort? The reality is that language is one of the more insignificant roadblocks to integration.
I wish I could say that this naïveté merely reflected a welcome and open attitude towards others. That may be part of it, but it more likely reflects the presupposition that “everybody is basically the same” and the West’s Christian heritage hasn’t really created much distinction between it and the rest of the world. Believe me, the foreigners know better, and this ignorance tends to confirm their suspicion of Western mental capacities.
Aside from all of that, given the problem of complexity, one should really expect that a culture as radically different as the West is from the historical norm would look radically different from others from top to bottom, including the family, the division of labor, and the economy. It really shouldn’t surprise anybody to learn that this is actually the case; unfortunately, it does. Too few really know what is going on in other places to appreciate the difference and what causes it.
Thanks to the complexity problem, it is a hard thing to guess just how family life plays into the whole picture. Does the West’s atomized family structure better prepare children to deal with uncertainty in life and enter the division of labor in a way that is productive and furthers its extension? Does the Chinese extended family structure ultimately hinder the pursuit of economic growth by providing a coping mechanism for certain cultural shortcomings, allowing problems to persist without being addressed? It is certainly plausible, but difficult to say for certain.
What is certain is that the West’s Christian background has had profound effects on virtually every aspect of life, and it seems to me that the reality is that most of what we consider good and decent about the West, as well as its blessings, material and otherwise, each springs independently from this single source. It does not have a good economy because it is “free,” and “free” because it practices democracy. It mostly owes liberty, democracy, and an exceptional economy all to a Christian background, in my opinion, with considerably less interplay between these several effects than most would suspect.
For whatever reason, I was thinking the other day about modern farming and what it must have looked like five hundred years ago. Most people do not farm today, but likely everybody has at least driven by a farm or two and had a peek at all the amazing gadgets modern farmers use to increase their productivity. Nowadays, a properly equipped farmer can probably handle 500+ acres without much difficulty. One farmer on a tractor in a field has replaced hundreds of workers with hand tools.
But it is a mistake to think that he is doing it “alone.” Think of the thousands of workers it took to produce that one tractor, the engineers and scientists who designed it, the countless other businesses that supplied parts and materials, and all of their workers as well. There probably was a fair bit of monkey business along that tractor’s circuitous production route, yes, but still, a great number of people were actually able to come together and accomplish this task at a material profit for everyone involved. This is a staggering feat, a fantastic historical aberration, and yet we treat it as mundane.
As I ruminated on all of this, as I do far too much for my own good, a peculiar thought struck me. “Look at what Christ has done,” I thought to myself. Maybe that is a bit cheesy or melodramatic, but I do not think it is inaccurate. But we should never, ever take it for granted that humans naturally act this way if we would like to continue to reap the benefits of our way of life.
On the other hand, as I drive by so many foreclosed houses, vacant shopping centers and strip malls on the way to work, I think… well… never mind…
First Things First
When I posted my thoughts on the future of the Chinese economy some while ago, I pointed out what I thought would determine its future direction. Either there would be sweeping cultural changes that allowed an extension of the division of labor as never before, or the economy would face long-term stagnation. Either way, in the short term China almost certainly has a dramatic crash in store. That is unavoidable – but a bleak long-term picture doesn’t have to be.
I must say that I was absolutely delighted to encounter Ms. Yi’s essay, which gets straight to the heart of the matter in a way that I never would have expected. It gives me great hope that thinkers like her are so clearly articulating exactly the kinds of ideas that in my opinion address problems where they must be addressed and would lead to a better future. C. S. Lewis, that source of seemingly endless wisdom and inspiring quotes, expresses best what I think is the right attitude in his thoughts on putting first things first. “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither,” he says. “When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.”
One of the most amazing things about our universe is how often doing the right thing leads not only to good outcomes, but also creates all sorts of other benefits, “second things,” one never would have expected. Yet pursuing those second things directly often leads to ruin, again in ways that would not have occurred to the most brilliant mind. The complexity problem pretty well ensures that we will never know just exactly how everything works, but if a person simply puts first things first, odds are good that he will wind up living a decent life. Maybe not the one he expected, or even one that he would have imagined, but better than he could have ever gotten by his own wits alone.
I hope to see more essayists like Ms. Yi setting things right.
Infantilizations: A Screed-Rumination “Twofer”
It's all but impossible for one my age to look at "student protests" in our day and feel anything but contempt. Consider the one Don Douglas reports on here, and see if you can disagree.
"Student power" and "student protests" have always been ludicrous affairs. Adolescents with neither experience of social or economic reality, nor any responsibility for their own well-being, claim to have something significant to say to those who labor to cushion them against those realities and that responsibility. Such a combination of arrogance and ignorance deserves nothing but a dismissive laugh.
But one cannot remain dismissive when "student protests" become disruptive or violent:
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Anger over increasing tuition and school budget cuts boiled over as students across the country staged rowdy demonstrations that led to clashes with police and the rush-hour shutdown of a major freeway in California.Students, teachers, parents and school employees rallied and marched Thursday at college campuses, public parks and government buildings in many U.S. cities in what was called the March 4 Day of Action to Defend Public Education.
In California, protesters evaded police and walked onto Interstate 880 near downtown Oakland just before 5 p.m., forcing the closure of the freeway in both directions for more than an hour and causing traffic to back up for miles....
Elsewhere, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police arrested at least 15 people protesting tuition hikes after demonstrators tried to enter an administrative building to deliver petitions to the chancellor.
Some protesters threw punches and ice chunks when police turned them away, university spokesman Tom Luljak said....
At the University of California, Davis, about 75 police officers responded after nearly 300 students tried to block a freeway onramp near campus, university spokeswoman Claudia Morain said....
Protesters at the University of California, Santa Cruz blocked campus gates and smashed the windows of a car while its uninjured driver was inside. University officials urged students and employees to avoid the campus because of safety concerns.
At the University of California, Berkeley, a small group of protesters formed a human chain blocking a main gate to the campus. Later, hundreds rallied in a busy intersection before marching to downtown Oakland....
In Olympia, Wash., a group of about 75 protesters arrived at the Capitol bearing a faux coffin emblazoned with the slogan "R.I.P. Education." They were ejected from the state Senate gallery after interrupting a debate with a protest song that followed the tune of "Amazing Grace."
A great deal of this "student protest" is backed, overtly or covertly, by powerful, well-funded "educators' unions" -- one of the principal forces that has bankrupted school districts and states across the continent. The adolescents in their charge are hardly aware of how callously they're being used.
Yes, I call them adolescents regardless of their ages. Anyone who dares to demand that others provide him, gratis, with what he wants is both emotionally immature and morally deficient. He does not deserve to be called an adult, be he 18 or 80.
But then, our educational system is designed to turn adolescent high-school graduates into whining, screaming toddlers, albeit with many times the destructive capacity. It's inherent in the structure of the thing. Consider: the typical university student:
- Doesn't pay his own tuition or any part thereof;
- Relies on his parents or sweetheart loans to cover his expenses;
- Is housed among thousands of other students receiving the same benefits;
- Inhabits an essentially unpoliced environment within which many offenses that would be punishable by law outside the university's walls are tolerated open-eyed;
- Is told daily, by tenured lecturers, how special he is and how much his opinions matter.
Given all that, the protests mentioned above should come as no surprise to a thinking person. Indeed, the surprise, if any, is why we haven't seen more of them. Yet when these selfsame "educated" young persons stream out of the ivory towers that have coddled them for four, five, six, seven, or eight years, they routinely find that no one will hire them. Then they whine about that, as if a bachelor's degree in Deconstructionism or Art Theory constitutes a guarantee of remunerative employment. It is to laugh.
But we cannot laugh about having built a system designed to infantilize our youth, nor about shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars per year into its insatiable maw. Nor do Americans appear appropriately angry about the products that flow from it.
We sin against our children when we fail to prepare them for adulthood and its responsibilities.
Yes, governments at all levels are complicit in the offense. That doesn't relieve us of our share of the odium. Indeed, it ramifies our parental duties: to the extent possible, we must prevent the State from working its infantilizing ways upon our kids.
The duty begins on the day the youngster learns to read. It compounds when he heads off to school, be it kindergarten or college. From that instant forward, it's a parent's job to see to it that Junior is kept on a righteous course: neither too soft nor too hard. In particular, any influence that would tend to divorce him from full responsibility for the consequences of his decisions and actions must be repelled with extreme prejudice.
Whether his kids are boys or girls, prodigies or dullards, fit or unfit, the parent's responsibility is the same. It's grounded in an unalterable law of nature: You're the only force in his life on whose love and support he can confidently rely, and you won't be around forever.
There are other parental obligations apart from supplying intellectual nourishment and assuring its purity. A father's duty is to raise his sons to be men. A mother's duty is to raise her daughters to be ladies: that is, upholders of sound standards of conduct fit to bear and raise children in their turns.
What does it say about the Boomer generation, and those that have come after us, that we've largely abdicated all those responsibilities to the not-so-loving hands of the State?
The homeschooling movement has been accelerating steadily, which suggests that all is not yet lost. Homeschooling parents take full charge of their kids' intellectual and moral development. It's no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of such parents are devout Christians. We're taught early on about our duty to protect our children from corruption. The importance of that lesson is reinforced by news articles in every day's papers.
Needless to say, the State and the unions that batten on us through it are implacably hostile toward homeschooling. The relentlessly leftist and religion-hostile government-run schools justify their immense rake-offs on the grounds that their "educators" are the sole force qualified to "socialize" our kids, to mold them into "good citizens" ready for "civic participation." Granted, they get a last shot at our progeny through the universities, but they know that their influence is far more likely to have full and permanent effects if it starts before the age of eight. Worse, homeschooled children, particularly those from religious homes, routinely beat the products of government-run schools hollow in contests of intellect and knowledge.
Monopolists hate competition. Governments and their union clientele are the most ardent monopolists of all. They've never ceased to seek for a way to make homeschooling either illegal or impractical, and they never will.
The three legs of a free society are weapons, communication, and education. Though there are arguments for the primacy of each of these, none of them can be done without. Like a house divided against itself, a stool with only two legs cannot stand.
No matter how long it's been sloughed, a parent's duty to undertake the proper rearing of his children never ends. This has particular force with regard to the "student protests" covered in the first section of this tirade. The proper response to these outrages is a complete financial boycott of the affected institutions. Not one more parental penny should go to any of them; their enrollees should be cast onto their own resources entirely, regardless of the foreseeable consequences.
There is no alternative. To permit such an exercise in arrogance without punishing it will inevitably result in more of it, for these clamors have innate pleasures, even when not materially rewarded. Worse, the forces that stand to gain materially from any response -- the "educators' unions" and "administrators' associations" -- have an even stronger interest in keeping the thing going; the longer it persists, the more likely the relevant government agency will intervene in their favor. The only counteragent is absolute parental negation.
This is more than just a rebuff to overweening government and its parasites; it's a parental obligation. No one who permits his child to be molded into an immature, whining parasite, an infant in a full-grown body who holds that his desires constitute enforceable rights, has fulfilled his Christian duty to that child.
Forgive me, Gentle Reader. I know this has been an uncharacteristically angry screed for a Sunday Rumination, but I felt it had to be said.
May God bless and keep you all.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
E-Book Review: Orange Car With Stripes / Missy Tonight
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Orange Car With Stripes, by Tom Lichtenberg
Missy Tonight, by Tom Lichtenberg
I don't have quite the right words with which to describe these two novellas. (Missy Tonight is a sequel to Orange Car With Stripes.) Madcap? That almost fits. Black humor? More in the indigo range, but what the hell.
Tom Lichtenberg is an atheist, but he's fairly easygoing about it:
I'm not a big fan of the so-called "militant" atheists and tend to agree with your assessment of their obsession with religion, but at the same time I enjoy them and I'm glad they're out there ruffling feathers and making noise. It's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned, for atheists to be seen and heard.There is still a long way to go before atheism is truly accepted at large around the world - a long long way - and we who merely claim to not believe in any god are still at risk of our very lives in many places - how crazy is that?
Still, we need to have a sense of humor about it, and this seems sorely lacking to me. I've done my little part with the publication of my two "atheist comic pulp fictions."
...which are the novellas I'm reviewing here.
These linked stories concern a fictional Pink City, built by eccentric millionaire Ronald Humm as a haven for atheists. It's fully equipped with atheist institutions: a college, a broadcasting service, and whatnot. The plots concern one Gian Carlo Spallanzini, almost literally a professional atheist -- in point of fact, he's a Professor of Defunct Sciences at New Harbinger College -- and his blindsiding by events he's spent his adult life ridiculing.
Professor Spallanzini is also a regular guest on Missy Tonight, a production of the Atheist Broadcasting Service. Its hostess, Missy D'Angelo, is a vicious battleaxe who delights in tearing believers to shreds, which she does nightly on her show. Believers in what, you ask? Name something!
The novellas aren't really about atheism, but about intellectual vanity and obsession. Spallanzini, protagonist of Orange Car With Stripes, is compelled by an offhand challenge from a theist friend to confront realities he'd been pooh-poohing since he was toilet trained, which unmakes the man he was and provides the seed of the man he becomes. In brief, his friend challenges him to select a random stranger and unearth his deepest secret, opining that it will be something stranger and darker than Spallanzini has ever imagined. That puts the professor on a collision course with aliens more remarkable than any of the conceptions he's derided...and also with the Orange Car With Stripes, though not in a literal sense.
Alan Musted, forty-three-year-old antihero of Missy Tonight, resolves to become Spallanzini's replacement on the show. Musted has no qualifications for the position. Indeed, he has no qualifications for anything, being a complete loser who ekes out a subsistence living in a glorified broom closet in nearby Spring Hill Lake. But he's an atheist -- hard core, from toddlerhood -- and he fancies himself the perfect replacement for the ruined professor. Reality disagrees, but in a funny and often touching series of encounters, many of which parallel Spallanzini's batterings in Orange Car With Stripes.
Alien parrots, talking redwoods, really slow interstellar travel, an orange Camaro with white racing stripes, adultery, nasty young and old women with more attitude than Carter has Little Liver Pills, a janitor who owns a city, militant atheists, a preacher who'll forgive anything at all, and an amateur videographer who calls himself "Beauregard and Scooter" and never says die....You could say these novellas "have it all."
Theme: Be none too sure of your premises. I concur: A
Plot: B+
Characterization: A
Style: A-
Recommended!
