The Benedict Option

 Link to The Benedict Option, "A strategy for Christians in a post-christian nation".

About 1/3 of the way through the book I realized that I had read another book by Rod Dreher, "How Dante Saved My Life". I enjoyed that book, and my wife actually enjoyed and made it through it as well, which is RARE for "Moose Books". I hope to blog on that book in the future as well, however this one is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for anyone who believes that they are a Christian to read.

Rod agrees with me, and I think millions of Christians in the US that we are officially and totally in a post-Christian nation, as well as post Western civilization. This is a new "Dark Age", and as St Benedict, born in 480 decided sometime around 500 as he journeyed to the shadow of once great Rome, now ruled by barbarians, it was time to found a "remnant" to keep the core of the faith, which he did at Norica, and in his "Rule of St Benedict".

As Dreher says; "Professing orthodox biblical Christianity on sexual matters is now thought to be evidence of intolerable bogotry, Conservative Christians have been routed. We are living in a new country" ... one which I label as "BOistan", but the label makes no difference, it is a barbarian nation.

On page 154, Rod quotes from Phillip Reiff: "Barbarians are people without historical memory. Barbarism is the real meaning of contemporaneity. Released from all authoritative pasts, we progress towards barbarism, not away from it.".  I've covered this fact a number of times ... "Closing of the American Mind", "Ideas Have Consequences", and others. Technology is not "advancement", it is just giving monkeys nuclear weapons without theology, philosophy and history. The beginning of wisdom is humility ... and barbarians have none of that!

One of the topics that is explained very well in this book is nominalism, as opposd  to metaphysical realism (see pages 26-29). Metaphysical realism tells us that EVERYTHING that is created has MEANING -- as Charles Taylor would say "It is Enchanted" ... or in philosphical terms "teleological".

This ought not be so hard for us to understand today ... one by one, from phones, to watches, to locks on doors, to thermostats, to labels on products (RFID), more and more of our "objects" have built in "smarts", and are often even "connected". Does it REALLY seem so "magical" that an all powerful God can and does imbdue his creation with sacred meaning ?

Well, everyone thought that was reality up until William of Occam in the 1300s. Strangely, Occam thought he was "letting God off the hook" because being linked with his meaningful universe of laws "limited him" ... so Bill (William) decided that the Christian God was to be like the Muslim "god" ... able to call evil good and good evil at his whim -- an issue covered really well (and a bit ironically) in a great book based on a speech by Pope Benedict, "The Regensburg Lecture".

Occam convinced the west that "matter is just matter" -- it has no meaning except that imposed from outside it, so "parts is parts" ... matter (including life) only means whatever we decide -- and as we became atomized individuals, each supposedly "the measure of all things", we arrived at; "my view is just as good as yours" and of course I think BETTER, so I'll call it whatever I want -- cells, tissue, a baby, etc ... it's ALL UP TO ME!

This book is WAY too rich for me to cover the MANY great points that are well made, so a couple key points ...

• We are in a post-Christian, post-virtue post-civilization age. A "dark age", likely to be FAR worse than the previous one. The World Wars and the Holocaust are likely just "warm ups" -- the ONLY thing our "culture" worships is gratification of the self!, and that has never ended well.
• "To live "after virtue", then is to dwell in a society that not only can no longer agree on what constitutes virtuous belief and conduct, but also doubts that virtue exists. In a post-virtue society, individuals hold maximal freedom of thought and action, and society itself becomes a collection of strangers each pursuing his own interests under minimal constraints". (p16)
• People feel they MUST "do things" ... have an affair, have a same sex relationship, etc because they would not be "true to themselves" if they did not. "It is in carnal desire that the modern individual believes that he affirms his individuality. The body must be the true 'subject' of desire because the individual must be the author of his own desire". (p43) 

In the end, this book also gives us at least the start on a "blueprint" to save Western civilization. We don't need to worry about saving Christianity ... God will do that. It just may well not be in "the west' -- as I increasingly believe from books like "The Divine Conspiracy". 

God REALLY means that we have free will! He is NOT going to be giving this or any other generation any huge "signs" to save us -- he gave us Christ and the Bible, as well as his divine and teleological creation pregnant with meaning. If we seek him, we WILL find him -- because as long as we are not actively turning our back on him as our current civilization is, it is absolutely not his will that ANY should perish -- UNLESS THEY ABSOLUTELY WANT TO! ... and it seems abundantly clear that the bulk of the people in the west DEARLY want to perish on their own terms, and in many cases, as rapidly as possible! 

I'll reluctantly close with this from page 234 ... 

"The mind of technological man cannot resist his heart's desires, because he has been trained by his culture not to question them. .... The Christian must rebel against this. The only impregnable fortress is metaphysical, the conviction that meaning transcends ourselves and is grounded in God. There are boundaries beyond which we cannot go if we want to live." 

We Christians need to build a lot of small communities following something like the Rule of St Benedict. Please read this book, contact me, and let's try to be the leaven ... Dreher gives us many ideas on on existing heroes of God already doing this work. 

Anantomy Of An Explosion (SEMINEX)

 In an attempt to understand more about the split between the ELCA and the LCMS, I was directed to the subject book. To some degree, even though I made it through the book, there was a bit of the "asking the time and being told how to build a watch" effect. I'm not saying I "understood" the book, which would require multiple readings and reading other referenced works. It was an "exercise" which I would not recommend to anyone but a Lutheran theological scholar. 

SEMINEX -- "Concordia Seminary in Exile". It existed from 1974 to 1987 because of issues on inerrancy of scripture, represented by the begun to utilize the Historical Critical method to understand the Bible vs the traditional Historical Grammatical method hat considered scripture to be the "inerrant Word of God". (assuming the translations, attention to what the authors were able to write at the time they wrote it, etc) 

There seems to me to be a bit of correlation between an "originalist" interpretation of the US Constitution, vs a "living" interpretation, however there is difficulty with that analogy. Biblical texts are FAR older, writing in ancient languages, and derived from oral traditions. As a Christian, I believe that the KJV translation is "good", however, "good" is still problematic. An example that I beat to death because I am far from a Biblical scholar is "thou shalt not kill". The following from Google's AI;

The Hebrew phrase for "Thou shalt not kill" is "lo tirṣaḥ" (לֹא תִּרְצָח). The phrase translates to "You shall not murder". In biblical Hebrew, "harag" means "killing" and "ratzah" means "murder". The two words have different moral connotations.

In the US, some religions demand their members be conscientious objectors from military service, or even pacifists because of this apparently "clear" text in the KJV, which is less clear than it seems. 

To quote from Wikipedia on SEMINEX: 

After attempts at compromise failed, the LCMS president, Jacob Preus, moved to suspend the seminary president John Tietjen, leading to a walkout of most faculty and students, and the formation of Seminex. Seminex existed as an institution until its last graduating class of 1983 and was formally dissolved and merged with Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 1987. Concordia Seminary quickly rebuilt and by the late 1970s had regained its place as one of the largest Lutheran seminaries in the United States.

 My title for the book would be "Anatomy of a Slippery Slope".  I find humans to be Manichean by nature (black and white). Even though a computer scientist sees the utility of a binary world. (there are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't), binary like decimal is just a numbering system ... a way to represent numbers. 

The more I read the Bible, the more convinced I am that God is not a Manichean. He converses with Satan and allows him to test one of his favorite servants, Job. Moses talks him out of destroying the Israelites three times. Abraham bargains with him over Sodom ... the list goes on. I like to believe that my prayers, and the prayers of 3 or more gathered together can have an effect on God. Perhaps not the effect we want, but sometimes, maybe even frequently, yes. I can't find historical evidence for this, yet I believe it. 

Witing is a way to represent language, which is a way to communicate. Meaning is another kettle of fish (maybe 153 of them?).  This is ALL a misleading simplification, only partially because there is a whole branch of philosophy, " Epistemology" about what can we know and how can we know it.

Our "reality" is perceived through a brain that we have nearly no understanding of. It may well be more like a TV than a computer. 

Secularly, Socrates was the wisest man because he knew that he knew nothing. Solomon is declared so in the Bible. "All is vanity, chasing after the wind" seems to give that assertion support. 

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The view of "fundamentalists", "pure text" is that once you "question" any verse in the Bible, you are never going to consider it definitive on anything. Once you take a step on a "slippery slope", it's over ... you are going to the bottom. Probably atheism. 

Speech is a tool. Language is a tool. Writing is a tool. Theology, methods of textual analysis, science, etc are all tools. 

Just because you have a gun does not mean you are going to kill someone. Just because you go into a skid on ice doesn't, mean you can't recover. (although watching drivers in Texas, there seem to be cases where that is not true), Respect for "slippery slopes" is warranted, however there is such a thing as an inordinate fear. I like to go out a do a few practice skids in a parking lot when the snow comes. 

The book goes into great detail on historical schisms, power struggles. politics, etc 

Page 51 seemed to approach a little theological humility. Even Luther did not consider all books in the Bible to have the same authority ... specifically Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. 

I often say "there are always two ditches", with the highway as a metaphor. Because humans tend toward the Manichean, we tend to be ditch drivers. The road analogy fails for a lot of reasons, one of which is because almost always there are MANY ditches. It could be that the ELCA, the LCMS, the Evangelicals, and the Catholics are all either in a ditch, or riding a shoulder. 

The ELCA seems to have gone deep into the way of Nietzsche - "all things are permissible" ditch. We may all be ditch drivers, but that looks like a fatal crash to me. If you lose the divinity of Christ, Virgin Birth, Body and Blood, etc, it seems you are lost. God will be the judge. 

I believe in the Creeds, so I definitely believe God created everything, including man. The Bible says very little about "how" in a scientific sense, it doesn't claim to be a scientific work, nor should it. All humans ever "understand" is a "story", we live by narrative embedded in a worldview. God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Paraclete ... all being one. I believe this. How is this possible? I don't know, I only believe. 

We may want to have some sort of 2+2=4 kind of airtight "proof" of all in the Bible, but even Thomas desired and needed to physically put his hand in the wound, after walking around with Jesus for a couple years. JESUS is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Mark 16:16 "All who believe and are baptized will be saved". We often love to be "right" more than we love. Yes, theology is important, faith in Christ is essential. 

The history of big theological controversy, sometimes including a lot of blood like the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the 30 years war, etc are not helpful for leading souls to Christ. Like the Fall, they don't seem like Gods will, OTOH, he did allow them ...  

Our understanding of reality is murky at best. Our understanding of God's ways are only through a really dark lense at great distance. 

Isaiah 55:8-9

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.

9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We have much to be humble about! 

Hubble Deep Field. 10,000 galaxies in portion of sky 1/100th of the moon. 

 

The Toxic War On Masculinity (How Christianity Reconciles The Sexes)

 https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/07/14/a-review-of-the-toxic-war-on-masculinity-by-nancy-pearcey/

I learned about this book on an Issues Etc podcast. If you are not a reader, that is a good option. 
https://issuesetc.org/2023/06/30/1814-a-christian-response-to-toxic-masculinity-dr-nancy-pearcey-6-30-23/

The review leaves out what I consider to be a key insight of the book. Page 15:  "Compared to secular men, devout Christian family men who attend church regularly are more loving husbands and more engaged fathers. They have the lowest rate of domestic violence of any major group in America."

On the same page, "Surprisingly, research has found that nominal Christian men have the highest rates of divorce and domestic violence -- even higher than secular men". 

I don't find this "surprising" and believe that "nominal Christians" who are CINOs (Christians In Name Only) are a greater threat to the church than the secular culture because they their bad behaviour allows the secular culture to (correctly) based on statistics, say that Christian homes are "on average" the same as non-Christian homes.  The CINO men pick and choose what parts of doctrine they like (man as ruler of home and wife, whatever he does wrong ... drinking, womanizing, staying out late, etc is "the wife's fault" because she is not "meeting his needs". He ignores the need to be willing to sacrifice his life for his wife and family if required, and to treat her gently as the "weaker vessel". 

Page 19 gives us the modern world model of a "real man". "To be a real man, means to be tough, strong, never show weakness, win at all costs, suck it up, play through pain, be competitive, get rich, get laid". 

Significant contrast. 

While she does discuss some of the contributing reasons for this ... women's rights, women in the workforce, feminism, the secular message to woman after the pill and abortion that women have a right to all the sexual freedom that men had, etc, she lays most of the responsibility on men. Since God calls men to be leaders, there is certainly truth there. 

She leaves out what I see as another major contributing factor, the many supposedly "Christian" denominations (ELCA) that are CINOs ... even if they are "regular attenders", they likely have the same numbers as secular, since they really are. 

Not emphasized much however, is that when modern "liberated" women set themselves up as the "stronger vessel", and take on traditional male characteristics as not communicating, taking charge of how children are raised, etc, the story is not quite so simple, and may put the "not so real men" -- more sensitive, more emotional, less willing to fight, needy of strong communication, etc in positions similar to the traditional woman dealing with a CINO man. 

On balance, a worthy book.

Darwin's Cathedral

 http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-Society/dp/0226901351/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457489612&sr=1-1&keywords=darwin%27s+cathedral

After seeing the subject book by David Sloan Wilson referenced in a number of other books I've read, I finally got around to reading it. Certainly not a "page turner" -- lots of evolutionary terminology. "Group Selection" is the biggie -- the idea that when groups have characteristics that are more "adaptive", they will be "selected" -- meaning more babies, more babies that live, conversion of other groups, etc.

"Since Darwin's theory relies entirely on differences in survival and reproduction, it seems unable to explain groups as adaptive units. This can be called the fundamental problem of social life. Groups function best when their members provide benefits for each other, but it is difficult to convert this type of social organization into the currency of biological fitness". 

The author is attempting to resurrect "group selection" by putting it on a continuum called "multi-level selection theory" ... genes, cells, organisms, groups -- selection happens across any and all, but what is most interesting to the author is clearly groups, and how religion is a core mechanism of that selection.

 "Moral communities in larger than a few hundred individuals are "unnatural" as far as genetic evolution is concerned, because to the best of our knowledge they never existed prior to the advent of agriculture. This means that culturally evolved mechanisms are absolutely required for human society to hang together above the level of face to face groups. 

At least if you reject any potential for "divine revelation" -- just where DID Newton or Einstein come up with their initial hypothesis? ... just kidding, mostly. The point is, for a pure atheist scientist, there had BETTER be SOME explanation why "unnatural things" are happening with human groups!

The other big evolutionary discussion is the "argument from design" and "functionalism". Naturally, an atheist scientist assumes that the "design" is "random", relative to some function that is adaptive (as opposed to there being a "designer")  He uses the example of a can opener relative to functional design. "The design features that identify an object as a can opener provide such a strong argument that we don't even call it an argument, we call it self evident".  He then points out that a specific religion "Calvinism" is DESIGNED to provide the function of allowing a group larger than "natural" to function -- interestingly, "designed" by Calvin.

On page 228 he really gets down to brass tacks.

" It is true that many religious beliefs are false as literal descriptions of the real world, but this merely forces us to recognize two forms of realism; a factual realism based on literal correspondence, and a practical realism based on behavioral adaptiveness."  

"Rationality is not the gold standard on which all other forms of thought are to be judged. Adaptation is the gold standard against which rationality must be judged, along with all other forms of thought."  

and then ... "... factual realists detached from practical reality were not among our ancestors. It is the person who elevates factual truth above practical truth who must be accused of mental weakness from an evolutionary perspective". 

I could do a MUCH longer review, but I think this is the core. For those that assume there is no God, the fact that humans are able to function in groups larger than a couple hundred people at most is a HUGE problem. It clearly happened, but HOW did it happen?

The answer is just what I harp on -- religion. In the West, Judaism and Christianity -- which CLEARLY were the  "most adaptive", or "divinely inspired" if you are a believer. If you are an evolutionist, they realize that they had damned well better figure out that "practical realism" is FAR superior to "factual realism" (or at least what the consciousness that we have no clue as to what it is THINKS is "factual") from an ADAPTIVE POV!

 Having the "facts" right, but turning up dead (as in "our culture")  -- meaning that you are NOT "among the ancestors" of the future doesn't fit well with having a "superior" brain -- even if you DO feel really great about gay "marriage"! "Superior" means staying in the gene pool in the evolutionary world!No matter how "good" something may be for your own identarian reasoning, if you drop out of the gene pool, your reasoning fails the test of survival.

Is it even POSSIBLE to have civilization as we know it without a huge majority of the people in that civilization fervently believing that the basis for their civilization is divine and sacred, or at the very least "exceptional"?  From what we have seen to date, not without massive coercive force as in National Socialist Germany, USSR, China, North Korea, etc. It remains to be seen in a couple cases if brutal force can be a substitute for belief. Even if it CAN, is that REALLY what our "factual realist" scientists find to be a "good idea"?

All in all, a good book -- most could read the first 20 pages and the last 20 and get 80% of the value out of it. It is worth at least that effort.

Samuel Johnson, "The Struggle"

 For a more complete review, see. 

I reviewed a book on Johnson by David Nokes here. For "the basics" looking back at it, it does a decent job of understanding just a bit about a very complex and intellectually famous man ... this book is more detailed. It suffers from some inaccuracy and unwarranted assumptions about possible sexual issues, possibly to increase sales. Johnson indeed very much enjoyed women, but being as unattractive and besieged with physical and mental deficiencies, he was often denied close relationships. 

What he is best known for his his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755. Given our current cultural inattention to history, he is largely unknown to the general, or even educated public. 

Wikipedia states: 

Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 173 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary. According to Walter Jackson Bate, the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time".[4]

Boswell declares: 

His mind resembled the vast amphitheatre, the Colisæum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgement, which like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the Arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drives them back into their dens; but not killing them, they were still assailing him.

From Clairmont: 

Johnson was born in Lichfield, in England’s West Midlands, in 1709, and grew up to be the dominant literary figure of his day—maybe even the most famous man alive. He did it against tremendous odds. He suffered from a list of physical and psychological maladies straight out of the Book of Job, including tuberculosis of the lymph nodes, asthma, gout, near blindness, strange twitches and spasms, overwhelming depression, and probably Tourette’s Syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder to boot. Physicians didn’t think he’d survive infancy.

For me, Johnson is not only interesting historically but personally.  My psychological problems pale in significance next to Johnson, as so do any contribution my life or writings do. Much as the proverbial man throwing a few starfish back into the sea being admonished by a passerby; "You can't help all of them", with the response being "I helped that one". Perhaps something I write will help a person, or maybe even two. 

Depression, procrastination, sloth, concerns about eternity, being too prone to moving an argument to a fight, but loving the chance to discuss especially those with opposing views are traits I share to a lesser extent. 

He is fascinating for his persistence against his many struggles, and the majesty of what he was able to accomplish in the face of those. Today, given the largesse of government for those with his type of conditions, and available drugs and counselling, he may well have been a largely isolated figure watching various media and doing essentially nothing. 

How much somewhat tortured genius have we forgone through well intentioned, but possibly disabling "kindness"? 

Administrative Power, A Nice Summary

 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/07/is-administrative-law-unlawful.php

Readers of this blog know that I consider the Administrative State to be by far the greatest danger to the liberty we have remaining. A little encouragement to read at least the linked post: 

The first step is simply to understand administrative power–to recognize that it is extralegal and absolute power. Once this is understood, the rest will follow. This is why I wrote my book and why I close with a plea for more accurate language about administrative power.

I review the book here if you are a glutton for a bit more punishment.  

A Purpose Driven Life

 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7008

As an LCMS "Reformed Catholic", which I somewhat tongue in cheek define as "Catholic with no pope, no worship of Mary or saints, no purgatory, no works righteousness. Yes, that is an oversimplification. 

Being "saved" as a too young child praying the "sinner's prayer" that Warren has distilled to "Jesus, I believe in you, and I receive you". Mine was a little longer because I had been traumatized by chalkboard visions of hell at multiple "Special Meetings", and I was in terror of Hell ... so it involved a lot of crying, pleading for Christ to save me me from Hell, admitting that I was a really bad boy, etc, etc. So I definitely feared God! 

Then I was Baptized as a "too old" teen, to "follow Christ" with no idea of the saving power of Baptism. 

1 Peter 3;20 "to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[e] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ"

Thankfully, I was Baptized "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". Baptism is God's work, not ours, so even though neither I or the pastor understood the sacramental power of Baptism, I became a child of God. 

Being genetically prone to anxiety and depression, I often doubted if I was REALLY sincere when *I* gave my life to Christ. So through multiple "re-dedications", massive guilt over a lot of lusting after beautiful girls in short skirts in the '70s,  I "got smart" in college being at best an agnostic, at worst an atheist. Naturally, given my psychological makeup, Hell kept cropping up in the dark of night very frequently, so at least the Holy Spirit was working on me. 

LOTS of reading, study, prayer, conversations with various Christian believers in largely Lutheran, Evangelical (often Baptist), Catholic, etc,  I arrived at Lutheran ... ELCA, moving to LCMS when celebration of gay "marriage" became an important part of "faith". 

While Warren proclaims the book to NOT be a "self help" book, it is. Yes, certainly it is Bible based, and other than the difficult problem of "decision theology" which casts the "God needs you", "worship makes God happy" sort of thinking throughout, the focus is on what you decide/do vs Grace and God's gifts. As with any attempt to create a "process" for Christian life outside of a confessional liturgical church, most everything is "in there",  it just doesn't have 2000 years of interaction between Christ and his Bride, the Church. 

For anyone reading this that is secular but questioning, I recommend "The Reason For God". 

For someone who is struggling to meet some standard of "a Christian life" without the Sacraments, I would suggest "Has American Christianity Failed". 

On page 101 Warren tellingly says "you are a spirit that resides in a body".  The old Cartesian duality. 

Jesus always was and is fully God. In the Incarnation he became fully man as well. When we are Baptized we receive the Holy Spirit. We are flesh and spirit united, which is why we need the physical sacraments, confession/absolution, and holy preaching to grow in Christ. Exactly how our body and spirit are separated at death and reunited at the Resurrection is a mystery, like the "how" of the Trinity. We know through the gift of faith. 

John 14:26 "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

Can sinful man without the Holy Spirit "decide" to "believe"? That is the foundational belief of Anabaptists, of which Rick Warren is one. 

Given that many in my family share that belief, as well as many I consider as fellow Christians, I sincerely hope so.  One of my many failings is "worship of knowledge". As I have matured I realize there is grave peril there, especially the thought that given what I see as "correct knowledge", I can judge. 

I can't! I believe that Christ is merciful, and although he declares the gate is narrow, he does not say HOW narrow. All earthly churches are flawed, and Warren is clear on that truth. 

A lot of the book is really about "building numbers" which he clearly has in his Saddleback church, recently thrown out of the Southern Baptist denomination for ordaining women. (I'm with the Baptists on that).

Our world is sorely in need of a "second Reformation" where THE CHURCH can have a third millennium "Council of Nicea".  Although America deserves to be treated as Sodom and Gomorrah,  or worse, I pray: 

Lord, Have Mercy

Christ, Have Mercy

Lord, Have Mercy

Bob And Ray, Keener Than Most Persons

 A book lent to me by a friend who I would guess was quite familiar with the duo. Me on the other hand, had "probably heard of them", but was totally unfamiliar. 

Since my family didn't have TV until '68 or '69 ( I know we had it in '69, because I watched the moon landing) my media awareness was minimal. Relatives had TV. and since I lived in the country, times spent with kids in town were minimal. The folks left us at grandma's house on Sunday nights as they went to evening church services, so Bonanza was a show that I was familiar with. 

B&R began in radio on the East coast. Since pretty much the only radio I heard was in the cow barn as we were milking, if it wasn't on WCCO at milking times, I didn't hear it. 

I was surprised that they were on Carson multiple times, but just realized that I didn't see all that many "Tonight Shows". On reflection, I probably watched more with Jay Leno than with Carson, and zero since. 

Thanks to YouTube, I watched a couple of their appearances. From that small sampling, and how the the book portrayed them, I would guess that fans of Seinfeld would generally like them,. It seemed that the key to their humor was their deadpan style and light hearted parodies about essentially nothing.  

As far as the book goes, the audience that would appreciate it these days would mostly be my age or older. Without significant knowledge of the golden age of radio giving way to television with all the stars of that age, the name dropping connections were often unclear to me. 

I remember that the Tonight Show was once hosted by Steve Allen, but again, I'd have to go to YouTube to see that. Tons of names that I sort of recollect in different contexts  ... Harry Morgan being familiar from MASH, and a little bit from Dragnet, but no contact with previous work. Most of the names I had a vague recollection of, probably from Carson, or picked up from infrequent snippets from shows like "The Hollywood Squares". Paul Lynde for one. 

Lots of name dropping, probably interesting to those much more familiar with media from that era.

That Ray could keep performing by precise scheduling for dialysis for a decade after kidney failure in the late '70s is quite amazing. 

The Cafe des Artistes in Manhattan (now closed) was mentioned as one of their old haunts. My wife and I dined there on and extravagant trip awarded by IBM in the early '90s. Odd connections are always fun.

The book made me think about how the progression of entertainment from Radio, to TV, to the Internet made our lives more and more shallow and isolated. Technology is a tool ... how it is used can have profound effects on our lives. In her later years my moms schedule was wedded to being able to see "Wheel of Fortune". As a child we were on a telephone party line and two neighbor ladies (that lived a mile apart) would spend about and hour discussing that days episode of "Days of Our Lives".  

We have only a short time on this earth, and eternity is forever. The "stars" of media, unlike Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, will not be long remembered. I'm reading "Samuel Johnson, The Struggle" about the author of the first dictionary of the English language,  living from 1709 to 1784. He was friends with Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon and many others that I wish I was more familiar with. 

How should we spend our short time on this earth? A topic that many historical figures have pondered. I'm suspicious that few of us will comment on our deathbeds; "I wish I had watched more TV". 

The Age Of Reagan: The fall of the old liberal order, Steven Hayward

 https://www.amazon.com/Age-Reagan-Liberal-Order-1964-1980/dp/0307453693

I'm an unabashed Power Line blog, and especially Steven Hayward fan. Steve has written a number of books, this one, "The Age Of Reagan" covers the period from 1964 to 1980. 

Being born in '56, this covers my childhood since I entered Kindergarten in the fall of 1960 at the age of 4 (turning 5 in October). I've been behind my age cohort ever since. 

The book is 717 pages long, but Hayward is an interesting writer. While Reagan is often the focus, the book is really the tale of how LBJ and Jimmy Carter crippled both the country and the Democrat "liberal" order, thus creating the Reagan presidency and significant change in US foreign and domestic policy that consigned the USSR to "the ash heap of history", and ignited a US and world economic boom that lasted until Obama in 2008. Trump was able to create a bit of a "boomlet" from 2017-Covid, and then Biden in a "It's deja vu all over again" trip back to '70s stagflation, sinking stocks, global military peril, and "leadership" you can cry over. 

On page 52, there is discussion about how Johnson used the CIA, FBI, etc to spy on the Goldwater campaign. E Howard Hunt of the CIA would reprise the role in the '72 Nixon campaign. Then, as we see now with the Russia Hoax, Hunter Biden Laptop, etc the use of the "justice" department for political purposes is a very old strategy for the Democrat party, as in Watergate. Republicans have attempted to engage in it as well, but the Deep State is an enemy of Republicans, because no matter how ineffective they are at reigning in the Administrative State, they have tried, which makes them "dangerous to democracy",  which from the POV of Democrats and their allies in the Administrative State, is "dangerous to single party rule" (their version of "democracy") 

Nixon's 2nd term, and the election of Trump to a 2nd term were "existential threats" to the Deep/Administrative State, so all means were of attack were justified. If the ironclad hold of the Deep/Administrative State was loosened a bit, their powers might not be total anymore, and Americans might see some actual truth about what has been happening for a long time. That MUST be prevented!

on page 123, there is a great "adventures in irony" tale. Ernesto Miranda, the defendant in the famous case was stabbed to death in an Arizona bar. The police detained a solid suspect, who stating his "Miranda Rights" refused questioning and was released. The case was never solved. 

Johnson never really cared about Vietnam, and he assiduously avoided calling it a "war", to not offend China or the USSR. You can LOSE a war, but "Peacekeeping" and  Nation Building" are just nice moral actions which may kill 10's of thousands of American troops, and many times that number of "allies" and "enemies", but at least you didn't start a "war" or "lose". Afghanistan is another great example, and our panicked exit was a duplicate of our embarrassment in Vietnam. 

What he cared about was his massive spending to "finish FDR's work"  by a massive Administrative State welfare program called "The Great Society". The government engaged in "The War On Poverty". As with many leftist ideas, it's promises were grand, it's results were disaster. Both the poor and the American taxpayer lost, and continue to lose that war as well. 

On page 293,  a statistic that explains a lot of things is revealed. The total cost of the decade long moon landing project was less than three months of federal social program spending in 1969! Mondale especially hated the "waste" of money in the Apollo program, but loved the "Great Society". 

The sad joke of the Carter presidency is sadly documented. One of the items that presages where we are now was Carter's appointment of Andrew Young to be Ambassador to the UN. Young was on record saying that the destruction of Western civilization was required for the world to emerge as a "free. and brotherly society". He would ramble on about all the racist US leaders. When asked if that would include Abraham Lincoln, he responded "especially Lincoln". 

Page 572 brought back memories of some of the frigid weather of the 1970's. In '75, the NAS made an almost unanimous report that we were headed quickly for an ice age! Anyone that did not believe the science was of course beyond stupid. I was in my 2nd year of college, and given the glacial effects in N Wisconsin, Lake Superior, and the observed tens of thousands of years cycles of ice ages  ... it DID seem quite likely, and frankly still does. Just not in the next few hundred years. 

Being in college and joining IBM during the "Great Malaise" of the Carter years made me a Republican after a youth where everyone I knew was a Democrat because "Republicans were the party of the rich" ... we certainly were not rich, so the choice was obvious. Carter was the last Democrat I voted for ... I was "mugged by reality", and Reagan cemented my choice of becoming reality vs narrative based.  

The combination of the "War on Poverty" and "The War In Vietnam", was essentially a "War on the United States" which many of the left then, and still today thought to be very good idea. On page 193, 

"...what happens when the financial system is backed by a central bank promising redeem deposits in gold? If a crisis of confidence occurs, then you have run on the banks, but a run on the whole countries currency and gold reserves. This is what happened in 1968. The episode brought to an abrupt halt to the lofty promise of "growth liberalism" or "the new economics", and set the stage for rising inflation and economic instability that took 20 years to remedy." 

Carter, Obama and Biden prove that ideologues never learn. When you believe that more government and more spending are the answer to whatever seems to be the problem, that is what you do. Democrat spending is like bloodletting, a standard practice for 3000 years. It was a major tool in the medical box, and if it failed,  doctors were suspicious it was not administered soon enough or extensively enough. Democrats look at spending, especially the deficit brand, the same way. 

I loved both books because they brought back a lot of memories of my life from kindergarten to kids. If you have either and open or moderately conservative mind (or both) and are not afraid of thick books, highly recommended. If you are a confirmed leftist, this is history you want to erase so you can smugly keep on repeating it! 

 

Two Cents To Save America, Perry Johnson

 Perry Johnson (politician) - Wikipedia

"Quixotic", as in "exceedingly idealistic, unrealistic, and impractical" are the thoughts that I had as I looked at Mr Johnson's presidential aspirations. 

My not politically involved brother in law, and my equally not politically involved son both a got free hardcover copies of the book. Strange. My wife is co-chair of our county Republican party, and Johnson is running as a Republican

As I looked around a bit to see who this guy is/was, I came across his involvement with ISO 9000 as well as his failed attempt to get the Republican nomination to run against Gretchen Whitmer for governor of Michigan in 2022 because he failed to get the required number of signatures to be on the ballot. 

Failing to get on the ballot is not that impressive. 

As to ISO 9000, my wife and I have had some experience with this in our IBM careers. Basically, ISO requires that you have a documented process for software development, and that you follow it. You pay fairly significant amount of money to have an ISO auditor come into your company and verify that you are doing what you say you are doing. There is no evaluation of your process as to if it makes any sort of rational sense, or actually improves quality, only that you are doing what you say you do. 

"Standards" are an issue that can have a long discussion. "UL" or "Underwriters Laboratories" is one of the best known and widely used. It MAY mean that the product you are buying is "independently tested", however, like ISO, the specifics of that testing vary widely, and there is always the distinct possibility of some form or corruption ... kickbacks, bribes, etc. 

Essentially we are talking about "Non Government Organization" (NGO)  certification, or to put it in my words "NGO equivalent of a countries Administrative State". Are such things needed? Certainly .. the FAA, and the international equivalents certainly help insure aircraft, pilot, navigation and airport safety and ability to interact effectively. (like all international air communication being in English). However, as in the Boeing 737 Max crashes of an internationally certified aircraft, there will be failures. 

We live in a world of trade-offs. How much testing?, how much regulation?, who does the testing?, who "regulates the regulators" to prevent them from creating massive ineffective bureaucracies that end up doing little but lining the pockets of various bureaucratic organizations. It is necessary, but when does it become a necessary evil, and how much "evil" (increased costs, corruption, ineffectiveness, etc) are acceptable? 

Such things are not to be answered in a blog post. 

A lot of the things Johnson's "Two Cents" book suggests ... reducing size of government in general and especially the Administrative State. energy independence, reduced taxes, reduced regulation, secure borders, free trade, "reigniting the American Spirit", incentivizing work and innovation, etc are obvious to all but hardcore Democrats of the Carter, Obama, Biden ilk. 

Reagan tried and was significantly successful and changed the game enough so that the economy, markets, and real income growth, and with the election of a Republican congress for the first time in 50 years combined with a compliant president (Clinton), and the Internet Bubble, even balanced the budget for a couple years! 

The Reagan Recovery, (although far from perfect) lasted until Obama ... a lot of the principles Johnson espouses are essentially Reagan all over again. Trump largely revived a number of those principles with positive results until Covid. Biden has taken us back to at least Jimmy Carter, and I believe has established a new benchmark in dangerous government overreach, unfortunately including further reducing the integrity of elections, weaponizing the government against any opposition, and of course tanking the economy, returning us to "Stagflation", pulling us ever closer to a shooting war with nuclear weapons, and much else. The hope of "Peace Through Wokeness" is believable as "no environment impact energy", or "Military Intelligence". 

In short, Johnson is tilting at the right windmills, so if you need a short refresher on reality relative to government means, it is useful. However like Don Quixote, the effectiveness of someone with a background in international bureaucracy actually practicing what he now preaches is vanishingly small.  

If long shots appeal to you, I would recommend Vivek Ramaswamy. 

DeSantis is my current pick. 

It is a long way to go, but I'll be voting for whoever is the most likely to beat Biden, even if that is a third party candidate with conservative leanings. My guess is that would be Trump, and if he looks to have the best chance of beating Biden because DeSantis is the nominee, but looks to lose in a three party race, I won't have to hold my nose at all for Trump. I believe that 2020 was clearly stolen by a LOT of measures (see "Rigged"), but Trump ought to have let it go after Pence caved. 

The 2016 election and the Trump administration were "rigged" by Hillary, the FBI, and the compliant media, as the Durham Report exposes (way too late). Having a Constitutional/National crisis on how horrible our election system is might of been the best alternative available, but that water is well past the dam.

After 2020 and 2022,  I suspect that it will take bloodshed to prevent us from either "electing", to be run by or like the PRC,  or forced to do so. 

Walking Through the Fire, Steve King

 Having only heard the mainstream, swamp, and RINO side of the Steve King story, all I was concerned about was what candidate was most likely to win the 4th district of Iowa for Republicans. Given that the powers that be, media, Democrat, and RINO had successfully slimed him, I voted for Feenstra. Having become fairly active in Republican politics in NW Iowa, I've met and listened to Feenstra on a number of occasions. He seems like a decent guy, more a follower than a leader, but a reliable Republican vote. In today's hyper partisan politics, that is all  that matters, certainly at the federal level. "Bipartisanship" in a war is a fantasy. 

King's book is a surprisingly interesting read. The story of the "Miracle Children" from Tanzania would convince most people that King is anything but a "racist". 

All that was needed was securing of passports, visas, and some way to get the critically injured children from Tanzania all the way to Sioux City, Iowa. That inspired a 60-hour ordeal of phone calls, prayerful pleading, governmental lobbying and faith beyond reason. Dr. Meyer’s first call to trusted friend, Congressman Steve King ultimately proved to be the difference-maker.

Despite being on a tour of the Balkan countries, Steve King pledged his complete support. Impassioned phone calls were made to Senators, Congressmen, friends of legislators, State and Defense departments, the embassy and anyone who had any potential connection. By Tuesday night Dr. Meyer was told to expect a phone call from Steve Bannon who was to bring the case to Vice President Pence, but that call never came.

King's biography is the classic "Horatio Alger" rise from humble beginnings to the halls of power. 

It is also a classic roadmap of how today's Washington Swamp, in concert with media and operatives from both parties decide who can have power. A few misquotes hammered home from NY Times, WaPo and their surrogates in your own district, plus the decisions from your supposed allies in your party ... Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Liz Cheney, Kim Reynolds, etc, and you are dead. Kevin McCarthy and the Iowa Republicans arranged to have King primaried in 2020. The bullet to the brain was McCarthy removing King from all his committee assignments, thus making him a walking deadman. 

King was actually not a Trump guy at the start, he was the regional co-chair for Ted Cruz in 2016, and aided in the Cruz victory in the Iowa Caucuses. I was also a Cruz guy, but when it came down to a vote between Trump and the Clinton Crime family, I happily voted for Trump. I was worried that he would not be effective, but I found my worries were totally unfounded. Even with being attacked at every turn, including having the entire "justice" department weaponized against him, he was remarkable. He received 10.1 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. It is highly unusual for a candidate for president to receive more votes for his second term.

In 2008, Obama got 70 million votes, in 2012 he got 66 million (what typically happens to an incumbent president) Trump received 74 million votes in 2020, exceeding Obama's previous record. Of course, Sleepy Joe, campaigning from his basement,  drawing "crowds" of 100's when he rarely poked his head out of his basement received 81 million "votes".   46% of "voters" either voted absentee or mail in. 

If I'm ever going to believe in election results again, all voting will be in person on election day, or absentee filled out at a county/precinct office. ALL voting needs to be monitored by representatives of the top two parties. including absentee. 

What happened to King, what happened (and is happening) to Trump, what happened to Kavanaugh. what happened (and continues to happen to Thomas) ... I could go on forever. We live in an Administrative State, Democrat, Big Media, Big Business Oligarchy. We were a Democratic Republic, we are now an Oligarchy with a small elite ruling over our largely indoctrinated and distracted populace. 

It is a surprisingly good book. If you are interested in some "inside the Swamp" reporting, this is a good pick. 

Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story - Biography Of David Foster Wallace

 The obligatory other review that goes into much more detail. 

Being  a "mostly out" person blessed with depression and anxiety, this book hits somewhat close to home on a personal level. I say "blessed" because anxiety and depression force you to stop and smell the "excrement" (bad stuff) of our existence, rather than skating on by.

On Wallace; 

He was familiar with his anxiety and may even have associated it with depression, but this was a more intense version of whatever he had routinely dealt with in high school; it was as if some switch in him had been flipped. He felt despair and thought of killing himself. He held on for a few weeks, trying to white-knuckle his way back to being himself.

Up to a "serendipitous" observation of a TV show that talked about panic attacks when I was 22, I just thought I was "crazy", and it was just getting worse as I increasingly isolated myself "just in case" an attack would happen ... and then of course, they started happening when I was alone. "Fearing fear" is a bad hole to fall into. 

We are all different, so my experience is not the same as David's or anyone else's. Similarities? Sure. If you have it, see someone ... a pastor, a therapist, a psychiatrist, even just a family doctor. The medications work, at least they did for me to some extent, as they did for Wallace. As much as to are compelled to, don't isolate, and don't self medicate. 

 A bit like having brain surgery, seizures, and lots of meds to try to prevent more seizures. (1.5 years since my last seizure, a new record! The previous record was 1 year). 

The famous quote goes something like "No man ever steps into the same river twice, since it is not the same river, and he is not the same man". (life, and rivers are flows, not static "things")  Prayer Works. Mindfulness works. DBT works. Exercise works. Forced exposure to fears works. Some combination of all of them works best. "Results will vary, Past Results are no Guarantee of Future Results". 

If it wasn't for fear of Hell, suicide quite likely have happened in my case in my early 20's. I believe suicide is a sin, what I'm not so sure about is if it is a case where we really "make a choice" ... if we believe in Christ, it seems likely that he will understand and forgive even taking "our" life (which is really his)

One thing clear about Wallace is that he was not a Christian: 

Faith was something he could admire in others but never quite countenance for himself. He liked to paraphrase Bertrand Russell that there were certain philosophical issues he could bear to think about only for a few minutes a year and once told his old Arizona sponsor Rich C. that he couldn’t go to church because “I always get the giggles.”

Like many "geniuses" he was too smart for God. I put genius in quotes because I firmly believe that as humans, we can know nothing about everything, or everything about nothing. Those that get the "genius" moniker are very. exceptionally deep in a specific area (literature/writing for Wallace), or so exceptionally wide that they are very shallow in most areas. 

The American generation born after, say, 1955 is the first for whom television is something to be lived with, not just looked at. Our parents regard the set rather as the Flapper did the automobile: a curiosity turned treat turned seduction. For us, their children, TV’s as much a part of reality as Toyotas and gridlock. We quite literally cannot “imagine” life without it.

That is my generation (born in 1956). For a lot of reasons, mass media, especially TV, movies, internet, video games, sports, etc never really grabbed me. I'm just not drawn to mindless entertainment for some strange reason.  

Wallace saw that shallowness of consumerist, entertainment addicted, and addicted in general America and thought that writing a really hard book on purpose ("Infinite Jest") was his mission. As very much an addict himself, he knew of what he spoke.  His alcohol and marijuana addictions nearly killed him. AA was a huge help to him and he became a faithful attendee of recovery meetings, and pushed the envelope of the "anonymous" part in his writing. 

He did however maintain a lifelong addiction to nicotine, smoked and chewed, and strangely, TV ... often 10-13 hours a day. He was also at least a borderline sex addict with a long stream of shallow sexual affairs.

As the culture collapsed into the anecdote and sound bite, Infinite Jest was one of the few books that seemed to anticipate the change and even prepare the reader for it. It suggested that literary sense might emerge from the coming cultural shifts, possibly even meanings too diffused to see before.

Jest was published in 1996, the cultural collapse has went from sound bites to Twitter, FB, YouTube, binge watching NetFlix, and Tik Tok. 

Wallace and Jest may be the poster child for why "The Matter With Things" is critical to understanding our time.  Wallace was the prophet of shallow fragmentation, hopefully McGilcrest is the prophet of deep unification. 

The Coddling Of the American Mind

 https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/09/universities-and-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/

I linked to a review rather than the book this time. I L O V E D the book! I consider it the 2nd important book of the year after "Suicide of the West" both are critical ... if you are more left / academic, read this one, otherwise Suicide if you can only do one, BUT, you kinda owe it to yourself to read them both!

They coin the term "safetyism" and they use the well known peanut allergy example. To oversimplify, it young kids get peanut exposure when infants, SOME (a small number) will have a reaction that is concerning but not life threatening. HOWEVER, by being "safe", we have RADICALLY increased the number of children with very serious peanut allergies , so a LARGER number is exposed to severe reactions up to and including death. By "trying to be safe" we create a larger problem.

This is one of the problems of mans greater ability to "take action" -- preventing forest fires is similar. We prevent them for a long time, and then when one breaks out, it is catastophic. Many of the plants in certain ecosystems REQUIRE regular fire in order for their seeds to germinate!

There is quite a long list of these sorts of issues ... the book "The Black Swan" and "Unfragile" are referenced in "coddling", and cover these issues in more detail.

For the really politically ideological, on page 216 the authors find it necessary to testify that "neither of us has ever voted for a Republican for congress or the presidency"! Essentially, one author is an avowed centrist, the other identifies as "left" -- a "centrist" in current woke America  academia is a rare thing all on its own! What they want to have is NOT a "political book" -- their purpose is the save the university along with a few young lives from depression, anxiety, addiction and suicide.

I STRONGLY recommend this book! In summary, it's points that resonated with me are:

1. We are greatly harming our young by preventing them from learning through normal youthful errors and social development through "free play". We don't know if this is even "recoverable" -- we strongly need to get kids out playing with each other and away from the screens! 
2. The universities are teaching three great untruths ... 
1. That which does not kill you makes you weaker 
2. trust your feelings. 
3. Life is a battle between good people and evil people. The picture below shows a nice chart from page 263 with these untruths and the proper ancient wisdom to answer them. 
3. Chapter 2 is devoted to how the great untruths lead to living life via "emotional reasoning" -- I feel anxious, therefore something must be happening "out there" that justifies my anxiety! (Always trust your feelings). This is what is known in psychology as a "cognitive distortion", and the very successful treatment approach of "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy" has been devoted to rooting out these thinking errors 
4. If we are to have a prayer of recovery, nearly ALL of our universities need to sign up for something like "The Chicago Statement"  the FOUNDATION of a university is free expression, civil dialogue, ability to air ALL points of view, ESPECAILLY those that are not popular and even abhorrent to groups of people. Words ARE NOT violence! We need to get over that great untruth! 

There is no doing a book like this justice in a short blog post. READ IT! If you really can’t, this Atlantic article gives the jist. The following picture is a great summary of a core of the book.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Religion and Politics

 The Righteous Mind, highly recommended!

Read and blogged on in 2012, but some recent reading caused me to move it forward to this blog. 

For people with a conservative bent, a lot of this book will be "didn't everyone know this already"? But for folks of the liberal bent -- like Haidt, although his research for this book migrated him to what he sees as "moderate", it will be something of a struggle.

Sadly, I'm sure that Haidt is due to discover that his observations about human nature may be hyper proven as the liberal establishment punishes him for his heresy of using actual science to point out some fairly obvious things about human nature that would seem to indicate that conservatives are not exclusively just "stupid and evil".

First, we are not rational beings, we are RATIONALIZING beings. The book carries on  the excellent rider/elephant analogy from "The Happiness Hypothesis" and builds off it. The Rider is best seen as the Press Secretary for the elephant -- the elephant does something or "leans" in some direction and the rider dutifully develops a case for the elephant. Humans developed into "hive creatures" (like bees) that could specialize labor and cooperate without all having to be related. Morality is the "wetware" that we use to create and enforce the rules to do that -- our "rider" (consciousness) was created so that our "elephants" (subconscious) could operate this way.

The Six Moral Senses:

1. Care/Harm
2. Liberty/Oppression
3. Fairness/Cheating
4. Loyalty/Betrayal
5. Authority/Subversion
6. Sanctity/Degradation

Liberals tend to be very heavily focused on #1 ... although interestingly, conservatives seem to "care" almost as much, they just don't "care" to the exclusion of all other moral senses. On #2, liberals and libertarians are somewhat close -- although liberals see corporate power as much worse and "oppressive" than government power, which they have a hard time even equating with oppression.

On #3, liberals think of "equality" and completely forget about proportionality -- or Karma. One of the huge problems in cooperation is the "free rider problem". Haidt covers this and why it is impossible to have cooperation without "punishment" (sanctions) against free riders.

Liberals are nearly blind (or claim to be) on 4,5 and 6. It turns out that when tested, the "moral modules" for even Sanctity are there and working in the liberal brain just fine -- they just don't want to admit it because in their view it seems "less enlightened" to admit that degrading things are degrading.

I believe that this book is an EXCELLENT base to at least attempt to open some lines of communication between liberals and conservatives, but I suspect that Haidt is in for a shock -- maybe somewhat equivalent to the shock that Edward O Wilson wrote "Sociobiology" back in the '70s.

The "divine faith" of liberals is that there is no God and man is an infinitely malleable blank slate. While proving that there is no god (or that there is) is not going to happen, it is scientifically known that man is NOT a blank slate, and at least in the "next few millennia" not likely to be improved upon much. Wilson was trashed for stating the basic outline of what a "human nature" was likely to be, now here comes Haidt with some fairly solid research showing what it actually is.

As Wilson outlined in "Consilience", the more science moves forward, the more we begin to see the fact of an intricate and complex human that is no less difficult to mold to our desires than ecologists are realizing the ecology of the planet is. We are each little ecosystems honed by selection (or created by God) to interact within the the planetary and social constructs that we are born with and into.

Reality has never been very much of interest to the Progressive Project -- now about 100 years in, with all of the progressive nations facing economic demise, even the social sciences start to point out that reality is not in line with the progressive vision. My guess is that the response is not likely to be very reasoned, but rather very emotional.

The Matter With Things Volume 2

 To quote an Oxford professor from the dust jacket, "This is one of the most important books ever published, and yes, I do mean ever".

I'll be following Iain McGilchrist as I do Jordan Peterson ... which means I'll be reading a couple more of his books and attempting to keep of with as much of his thinking as I can. 

Why? 

A quote from the heading of his channel (which can be found from the link with his name above): 

I believe that we are engaged in committing suicide: intellectual suicide, moral suicide and physical suicide. If there is anything as important as stopping us poisoning our seas and destroying our forests, it is stopping us poisoning our minds and destroying our souls.

Our dominant value – sometimes I fear our only value – has, very clearly, become that of power. This aligns us with a brain system, that of the left hemisphere, the raison d’être of which is to control and manipulate the world. But not to understand it: that, for evolutionary reasons that I explain, has come to be more the raison d’être of our – more intelligent, in every sense – right hemisphere. Unfortunately the left hemisphere, knowing less, thinks it knows more. It is a good servant, but a ruinous – a peremptory – master. And the predictable outcome of assuming the role of master is the devastation of all that is important to us – or should be important, if we really know what we are about.

Even if we could, by some miracle, reverse the course on which we are set, unless we change our way of thinking, of being in the world – the way that is destroying us as we speak – it would all be in vain. This is why I have written the last long book I will ever write: The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World.

In it I search out what it is we have lost sight of, all that is there for us to see, if only we were not blinded to it: an inexhaustibly, truly wondrous, creative, living universe, not a meaningless, moribund mechanism. By bringing to bear up-to-the-minute neuropsychology, physics and philosophy, I show not only that these are in no way in conflict with one another, but that they all lead us, time and again, to the same insights. And that this is not in opposition to, but rather corroborates, the wisdom of the great spiritual traditions across the world.

All this converges on a vision that is necessary if we are to survive; and, even more importantly, if we are to deserve to survive. What I hope for my readers is that, if they are willing to accompany me on this adventure, they will never see the world in quite the same way again.

I am largely in agreement with his analysis, and those that have followed my blogs know this to be the case. His ability to present two key models of thought is invaluable. 

• The clear difference between the left  and right brain views of the world.
  
  
• The increasingly observed physics and philosophical view that what we perceive as matter is actually a series of quantum fields. Quantum Field Theory (QFT), possibly described a bit in the book "Helgoland".

The analogy of our brains being more like a TV set receiving fields from some universal underlying field or set of fields, finally gives me a model that makes sense to me of "God, the universe, and everything". It is a way to explain consciousness that I had never considered. Being stuck in the Cartesian body/mind dualism model of our consciousness/spirit being a "ghost in the machine", with the brain being a sort of wetware computer that somehow generated consciousness, I just didn't have a model that I really believed to be reasonable.

A mind bending assertion is that we need to give up our conception of matter: 

Page 1053, "If you believe matter is the only reality, and you then learn that matter as you think of it is illusion, you will conclude that reality is illusory. But it is not. It is matter as we think of it, that is an illusion. And there is more to reality than matter. It was your thinking that misled you. 

No, I haven't become a believer in Climate Change, and man "destroying the planet", but rather view that narrative as merely another play for power. Since I'm at least somewhat a right brained guy, I could be wrong.  

Chapter 28 gets into "The Sense of the Sacred". On 1194, 

"How does it come about that there is a process. or motion, or a point in time at all - now or ever" The answer to this question cannot be answered in terms of a physical entity or process, because that already presupposes what we are questioning -- why there are physical processes and entities. The proper object of of this question is that which underlies timelessly and eternally, whatever is: in other words, the ground of Being." 

Humans all have some concept of this, covered in "The Elementary Forms Of Religious Life". 

Page 1295 is tragic. 

"It is in dealing with death that that one is most forcibly we have yielded hands down to the forgetting of Being." 

Even though McGilchrist can't practice religion for some reason, when his parents died, he and his brother wanted words from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer to be repeated as written,  but the priest was unable to comply. "Too gloomy". 

Appendix 8: "Incompatibility" of Science and Religion points out that the religion of our times is Scientism, and it is arid in the extreme. 

"That the religious, both communally and individually are happier, and dramatically healthier both mentally and physically, as well as better adjusted, more resilient and more prosocial in their habits, also does not prove that religion is true. But it suggests that we and our societies function poorly when we neglect it, and that human thriving and fulfillment depend on it to a considerable extent." 

 I want to help reconcile the critical need for religion in the lives of individuals, families, communities, countries, and the world. This book is the best I've seen to date as a way to help move our western culture from the materialist path to destruction we are on.

Based on my life, and what I observe today, a quote from page 1333 seems critical to moving to unified truth. "... it is dogma we must avoid at all costs. Dogma is the besetting sin of the age; and if one wanted one, it would be be hard to find a better expression of left hemisphere's take on the world than dogma. 

Matt 23 11-15 

11 The greatest among you will be your servant. [ the left brain is to be the servant of the right ]

12 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

13  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 

15  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

The left brain is the Pharisee brain, and since our society post the Enlightenment is left brain biased, we are biased toward dogma in everything ... religion, philosophy, science, politics, interpersonal relationships ... we are living on half a brain, and it is killing us, temportally and eternally. 

This does NOT (as is covered many times in the book) mean "there is no such thing as truth", or "anything goes" ... it is the opposite. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. Humility. 

Pray without ceasing. 

Matter and Consciousness

 I continue to somewhat struggle and significantly enjoy the 1375 pages of "The Matter With Things" -- I'm on page 1225, so God willing, I'm going to make it. 

It is undeniable that there is significant hard work in reading, meditating on, noting, attempting to understand,  a work like this. I regularly reflect that real life was never intended to happy, easy, distracting, entertaining, etc. Only in the very latest of modernity has it been possible to very nearly do nothing at all. Our water, food, sanitary systems, electrical power, transportation, shelter, communication, entertainment, etc are increasingly effortless. This is all courtesy of our left brain that sees the world as a problem to be "solved" either by physical means or an equation, a project to be completed, a challenge to be defeated, an enemy to be conquered, or an unmeasurable "thing" to be ignored. 

The left brain has been a servant that has provided us much, however, as McGilchrist laments it is increasingly our master, converting our enchanted universe to a DISenchanted one. Well described by Charles Taylor in a nearly as massive book, "The Secular Age", probably best approached via a an attempted summary. 

So what are "we"? 

Conscious beings with no clue what consciousness is. Our left brain helpfully finds a simple solution based in the material world to get this supposed problem out of the way as rapidly as possible. Perhaps consciousness is an illusion that doesn't really "exist", since it can't be measured, and in a materialist universe, things that can't be measured do not exist by definition (according to the left brain)? No problem to even solve! 

Perhaps it "somehow emerges" when you get enough neural stuff together ? 

On page 1037, McGilchrist provides a simple model that blew my mind. 

"But do we know that matter can give rise to consciousness? This is merely an assumption. When a TV set malfunctions, it can distort the image or sound it relays in a large number of ways, depending where the system malfunction lies. To an engineer, the nature of the distortion may be a clue to the location of the problem, as the nature of brain pathology is to the neurologist. To an observer from another planet, it might prove impossible to tell if the TV set did not generate, but merely transmitted it's output. Pull the plug and the show ceases to exist. 

The intimacy of the relationship between two parties has in itself nothing to say about its nature. In the history of the cosmos, matter might give rise to mind, or mind to matter; or each might equally give rise to the other interdependently; or might run in parallel, because they are different aspects of some ultimately unified phenomenon. When it comes to the brain, the intimate relation between brain activity and states of mind cannot in itself help distinguish between theories of emission, transmission, and permission as its basis. In other words, the same findings are equally compatible with the brain emitting, transmitting, or permitting consciousness. (the last two are similar, excerpt that permitting substitutes the the idea of a constraint that is creative, fashioning what it allows come into being, for the merely passive idea of transmission)." 

McGilchrist goes for the latter explanation as most likely. The commonly accepted first option is based on the left brain idea that while we don't understand consciousness, we do understand matter, ergo ... It must all be matter! 

This is akin to the drunk looking for his keys under a streetlamp because the light is better there. The sad part here is that there is no "streetlamp" which the left brain assumed! Quantum Field Theory (QFT) has now assured us that we DON'T understand matter, and the left brain has again thrown up "helpful" models like the "many worlds", which postulates 10 to the 400th<400> universes. More comforting for modern man to believe than "God" (or another "thing" we don't understand,) although explaining nothing. What caused all those universes to happen? 

<400>

<400>The BIG model shift is to one where mind PRECEDES matter! It turns out that many of our famous physicists; Einstein, Pauli, Bohr, Feynman, etc either hinted at, grasped faintly, or decided that "it's all fields".  No particles, thus no "matter" in the sense we think of it. 

Consciousness seems to be a field rather than a "thing" (matter). If the base of the universe is a field rather than stuff, what do we refer to it as? "The Force"? 

It seems that every civilization has an "un-word" that is sacred and if spoken, spoken in awe ... Logos, Tao, li, Brahman, ri, Allah, YHWH -- and "God". "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name".  “And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am". I found that Harold Bloom gave some insight into some of the "naming issue" in "Jesus and Yahweh. The Names Divine". 

The title "The Matter With Things" shines out as increasingly appropriate. We have been duped by our left brains into believing a hopelessly meaningless materialist view of life, the universe and everything, while our right brains scream "Is this ALL there is???". We think all is matter, and therefore, a "thing". Our materialist model is so deep it affects everyTHING (I'm not going to keep doing that, but you get the point -- our very language is materialist) even increasingly, our religion. 

We are drawn to a materialist view of God as some sort of old guy in the sky, and the Bible as a history book of THINGS and literal events.  If someone can cast doubt on the material "fact" of anything in the Bible it isn't "true". We confuse "truth" with a materialist chain of actual material events, even though the Bible itself really tries to dissuade us.

One small example ... John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. ...". First he says "I AM" (hint, hint), then "the way", clearly not a material path, then "the truth" ... he is at that point a "fully man" physical person (but what is physical?), that is also the conceptual truth, and "the life" -- which gives us another good hint that we are beyond words here. Materialistically today, we don't know what "life" is, only that we can't create "it". It certainly isn't an "it" (thing"/matter). 

No, there seems to be WAY more. Our "seemingly physical" bodies, and our much more real consciousness may be much better represented as "eddies" in the universal conscious field, that is "God".  

Tragically, the important "sense" does not translate into words hardly at all. Music, art, awe, poetry ... all much better, and unfortunately all of which I am grossly untutored and therefore insufficiently appreciative of.  I'm hoping the last few hundred pages move me along, but in all probability, it may be something like attempting to describe "blue" to a man blind from birth.. 

To a writer, the fact that text is a left brain, dangerous abstraction from the wonder, mystery, awe, and deep meaning of the much better right brained "whole" is disconcerting. Is it too late for me to become a poet? Perhaps writing with appropriate warnings that what I'm struggling to express is ultimately beyond textual representation.

Church History In Plain Language, Bruce Shelley

 I believe I read this book in the early to mid 1980's. It was before I marked up my books, and it was pre-Internet, blogs and such ... I was too lazy to take notes. 

I was in my questioning everything phase at that time. Being raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church ... no dancing, no drinking, no movies, no smoking, etc, I started to look at Christianity as "the religion of don'ts". Possibly, "You shall know them by what they DON'T do!" would have been a good creed for that particular sect. They were certainly not "creedal" ... we didn't even learn the Lord's Prayer. That was something the supposedly  Satanic Catholics learned! If the Catholics did it, we DIDN'T! 

I loved my parents and I loved a lot of people in that church ... this was fortunately not the age of "cancelling", although my first "love" relationship was cancelled by a Catholic dad. We were not THAT serious, but he wasn't taking any chances! 

 Thinking of this time made me think of a favorite Professor, Richard DeGrood who I took a philosophy class from. He worked fairly hard for me to change my major to philosophy. I sometimes wonder what might have been, rather than me being focused on climbing the corporate ladder and suppressing/denying my anxiety and depression. 

I found this review, that at least gives some pointers and a very top level summary of the book.

It is a very popular book, probably mostly because it is "relatively short" (495 pages) for a book of this scope, and written in a style that is easy to follow and as entertaining as this sort of book can be. 

On page 100, he talks of a subject near and dear to my heart ... "What does it MEAN!", a concern shared by Origen (one of the church fathers) ..."He held that there are three levels of meaning in the Bible: the literal sense, the moral application to the soul; and the allegorical or spiritual sense, which refers to the mysteries of the Christian faith". 

I suspect that there are a LOT more than "three levels" ... for one, there is the fact that it was written at the first level from either inspiration, eye witness, or second/third/?? hand. For those of us living today, it was translated, (maybe multiple times), it is "contextualized" both in terms of the culture at the time it was written/translated as well as in the context of how we think today. While we believe in "God with us" through the Holy Spirit, believers need a lot of grace to connect with Christ through the Bible and church. All of the authors, copyists, translators, etc, also needed a lot of help from the Holy Spirit. 

We don't tend to think about our thinking (epistemology). Often there are many levels between what is "seen" or "inspired" and what is written, translated, interpreted, etc. As humans, we deeply want to put our hand into the side of the risen savior like Thomas, but in John 20:29 "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." We are commanded to believe without anything close to direct sight or touch ... in fact, other than the Holy Spirit (which must be our guide), we are asked to believe through writings that are thousands of years old and have been translated a number of times. 

We clearly NEED the Holy Spirit, and it would be nice if our pastors/teachers in the here and now, understood that it ISN'T "as plain as the nose on your face". We protestants don't take Matthew 16:18 literally. "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." We choose to take what was said in verse 16 "Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”" ... Peter's confession, as the real foundation of the church. (while Catholics take the literal text) 

As a lapsed Baptist and a student of history, I hungered for as much historical connection to the truth of the Christian doctrine as I could find ... which I assumed meant Catholicism, because that is what it was sold as, AND because it had withstood the test of time. Without the Catholic Church (and no doubt God's protection of it), we would not be discussing this today.  It is a bit amazing that I never joined the Catholic Church, or actually read this book with a bit more rigor. On page 380, it covers the doctrine of papal infallibility ... which became a dogma in 1870 because the church was no longer superior to the state -- the church was in dire need of authority. Infallibility met that need. On December 8, 1854, Pious IX declared the dogma of the immaculate conception ... that MARY was conceived without sin. 

Once you are "infallible", you can declare a lot of things. As a Christian, I dearly hope that the Pope will never declare gay "marriage" as a proper sacrament. It would not change my belief, but looking at Vatican II, I have to assume a lot of Catholics would follow that teaching. 

As a person who really thinks that the 18 year old Scotch is better than the stuff that just dribbled out of the still, tradition matters to me. "New and improved" sounds more like marketing than theology. Tradition matters, but it isn't all that matters. 

While we are at it, how about praying to Mary? The earliest reference is the "Sub tuum praesidium" 259 AD, so not exactly "new". In the catholic. (universal) church, the saints are with us at least as we take Holy Communion ... so Mary and the other saints are more "alive" than we are. We often ask other Christians to pray for us, and since Mary is certainly alive in Heaven, and revered among all women, it doesn't seem "wrong" to ask her to pray for us. The danger is that while it isn't likely that we will be tempted to worship any Tom, Dick, or Harry that we ask to pray for us, the same is not true of Mary. Be not drunk as to wine, nor of Mary. 

On page 456, Shelly declares relative to the 18th amendment; "This was probably the last successful evangelical crusade for a moral America". Given Christ's first miracle at Cana, I'm not sure that the 18th had murch to do with actual morality, but "whatever". 

On 460, he gets into a discussion about how some claimed that more "born again" Christians would improve the morality of America. Arthur Schlesinger jr had declared of Jimmy Carter that he thought Carter ought not have brought up his "born again" religion in the campaign, stating "If you feel that, then bully for you, but it is totally irrelevant". Looking around today, it seems pretty obvious that being short on Christians is a bad thing for a culture. 

I would argue that Dobbs is a good example of a cultural victory involving Christians of both Catholic and Evangelical types, with the credit, as always, being God's. 

It isn't at all clear that Christ much improved the general public morality of the Jews, nor the Roman Empire until maybe Constantine (got rid of burning Christians for light and gladiators) if ever. Christ declared that his kingdom was NOT of this world. The Middle Ages, when the Church largely WAS the State, are not seen as particularly moral by Biblical standards. 

The end of the book drifts off into the "social gospel" and the idea that unity is more important than theology, or truth for that matter. On page 468 we see; "Through all these years, the most persistent critics of conciliar ecumenism were the conservative Evangelicals. Holding staunchly to the authority of the Bible, Evangelicals know that Jesus prayed that his disciples would be one, but they question the federation form of Christian unity". 

UNLESS there is at least significant agreement on the authority of the Bible for more than just a couple quotes taken out of context, any idea of "Christian unity" is foolishness. If everyone would just agree with ME, we could be unified! It reminds me of Biden claiming he came to "heal" when what he really meant was HEEL! If you deplorable ultra MAGA, racist, fascist, uneducated scum would just HEEL, the divisions would end. Heil Biden!

The imagined "unity" in the middle ages was achieved through the power of the state and the church being combined. Thousands were slaughtered, burned, tortured, etc so that "unity" could be achieved. The price of that sort of "unity" seems too high to me if it is achieved via either the church, the state, or a partnership.

I dearly desire much more unity among Christians. Certainly we have doctrinal differences, but it seems that at least those of us who attempt to accept the Bible as the word of God, believe in Christ born of the Virgin Mary, crucified for our sins, and saving us through that sacrifice, could be unified in at least as much love as we are commanded to have for even our enemies! 

Tearing Us Apart, How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing

 Here is a review of the Book From National Review. 

As the review says, this book is an invaluable reference for anyone who is pro-life, pro-woman, pro-family, pro-equality and ACTUAL choice (as in, not being pressured by "baby dads", employers, etc), pro-doctor, pro-Constitution, pro-democracy, and pro-culture. 

The chapters of who is harmed by abortion are" 

• The Unborn Child
• Women and the Family
• Equality and Choice
• Medicine
• Rule of Law
• Politics and the Democratic Process
• Media and Popular Culture

Effectively countering the drumbeat of "choice" and "Constitutional right" is a tall order,  but they do it well. 

It's a book that can be used as a reference to explain why abortion is a main root of the division in our nation. A nation that condones the death of its most vulnerable is not a nation "under God", and as Reagan so correctly said, "If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, we will be a nation gone under". 

We were founded as a nation endowed by our Creator with unalienable Rights, which means the rights come from the Creator(God) and not from Government. Unalienable rights are endowed, self-evident and not to be taken by Government, but secured by Government.

The document that secured those unalienable rights was the Constitution, and Roe declared that new "rights" could be created from"penumbras and emanations" conjured by the SCOTUS, whose oath was to defend the written Constitution. 

As Justice Kennedy stated in Casey: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." 

For a longer explanation of why we are where we are beyond "we forgot God", "The Rise and Triumph Of The Modern Self" does a good job. 

If you believe that life is sacred, buy it!