Squibs -- political and economic (2011)

Fiscal clarity in light of the U.S. Constitution
"Defense spending is unlike other spending, because protecting the nation is government's first job. It's in the Constitution, as ... school lunches and Social Security are not. We should spend as much as needed...." ~Robert Samuelson

President Bush's response to 9/11 and the War in Iraq -- a Reassessment
See the Wall Street Journal forum here.

Obama's challenge
"Every re-election race — from city council to president — ultimately comes down to a simple question: Are you better off than you were (fill-in-the-blank) years ago? To win, the incumbent has to convince a majority of voters that the answer to that question is 'yes' (or that it will be 'yes' in the not-too-distant future). As of today [9/6/2011], according to new polling conducted by the Washington Post/ABC News, nearly nine in 10 adults say they are either 'about the same' (50 percent) or worse off (35 percent) financially than they were four years ago. Just 15 percent describe themselves as 'better off.' And that is a major problem for President Obama heading into his re-election race next fall.

"The president has argued — and will continue to make the case — that he inherited an economy on the verge of collapse and took a number of actions to simply keep the country’s finances afloat. Obama has acknowledged that the economic doldrums have lasted longer than anyone expected while also trying to convince the public that better times lie ahead.... But the Post/ABC poll suggests that Obama has his work cut out for him. Among electorally critical independents, more than one in three (36 percent) said they were in worse financial shape than four years ago — double the percentage who said they felt that they were in better shape. Even among his base of self-identified Democrats, the 'are you better off' numbers are far from encouraging for Obama; 17 percent said they were better off than four years ago while 18 percent said they were worse off and 65 percent said they were roughly in the same place financially. And, while Obama continues not to bear the brunt of the blame for the current state of the economy, the new Post/ABC poll suggests that people don’t believe his solutions are helping matters. Just 17 percent of adults said his economic programs were making things better, while double that amount — 34 percent — said he was making things worse. Another 46 percent said Obama’s policies had so far had little effect on the nation’s economy. ~Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake

Critique of President Obama's stimulus in the Wall Street Journal here.

Downgrades?
Although the federal government's credit rating was downgraded, it's really DC politicians who should be downgraded.

Higher Education Bubble?
Michael Barone writes about the possible reckoning that is coming.
Gregory A. Petsko writes about the wrong way to cut university budgets.

Education Reform
John Stuart Mill's education reform, in On Liberty, would get results -- but no politician today has the guts to pursue it. Since students who neglect their studies are more likely to become a burden to the state than students who succeed, their families should make a down payment on the burden they will be to the community. To get underachieving students to shape up, we should tax the parents. Then the parents will crack the whip at home because they won't want to pay the extra taxes for their underachieving sons and daughters.

Party of Innovation, Party of Conservation
Ironically, both the left wing of the party of innovation and the right wing of the party of conservation are animated by perfection -- though in different ways. Both keenly feel the human condition's limitations. Nothing on this earth is perfect or permanent; all is changing, fluid, imperfect, and impermanent. In spite of imperfection, or perhaps because of it, both parties want their communities to find and refine lifeways that bring us nearer to perfection.

Innovators keenly feel how we fall short of the goal. Looking to the future, they seek betterment by challenging the community to progress. The mantra is, "We can do better." Wilson's domestic reforms, FDR's New Deal, Truman's Square Deal, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, Obama's Hope and Change -- each of these reform movements was energized by the desire for large-scale, social betterment. Their constant challenge, however, is to remember (1) that defense spending is required by the Constitution in a way that welfare spending is not, (2) that their programs often hurt the people they were meant to help, as for example when welfare or unemployment payments are stretched out too long, and (3) that progressivism has undercut the achievement of the American founding by emphasizing the natural rights tradition -- what the community owes us -- at the expense of the civic republican tradition -- what we owe to the community.

Conservators keenly feel that we are losing something of value from our past. Looking to history, they seek betterment by retaining a remnant, or restoring something from our heritage that they regard as superior. It is no accident that the conservation movement (etymologically related to the "conservative" movement) arose during the Industrial Revolution to preserve America's splendid wilderness. Since World War II, conservatives have looked back on the American founding as a benchmark -- a time when the new republic was populated by a happier people because early Americans' pursuit of happiness effectively balanced duties and rights: the duties of civic republicanism (engendering an existentially meaningful life because of the emphasis on what the individual could contribute to the community) and natural rights (a politically secure life because of the emphasis on what the community owed the individual). Their constant challenge, however, is to remember (1) that the price mechanism of the free market does not always confer the value it should, (2) that corporate welfare has corrupted both government and business, and (3) that it is a scandal to have an underclass in this country.

The Political Necessity: Balancing Rights and Duties
A healthy polity achieves a good balance between rights and duties. Too much emphasis on duties, and citizens feel as if they are living in a totalitarian state. Too much emphasis on rights, and citizens may become indolent and self-indulgent. America's founders got it right.

Three Generations of Rights
Classical republics stressed duties over rights. Modern republics stress rights over duties. Today our notions of duty come from the civic republican tradition that originated in antiquity, while our notions of rights come from the natural rights tradition that originated in the Middle Ages. The genius of America's founding generation was to merge the civic republican tradition (duties) with the natural rights tradition (rights) and urge posterity to keep the two traditions in balance. Since World War II, our citizens have tended to quit reading our founding documents through the lens of the civic republican tradition (duties) and instead emphasize the natural rights tradition (rights).

Nowhere is the modern preoccupation with rights better exemplified than in the concept of "three generations of rights," elaborated by Czech jurist Karel Vasak. He used the French Revolution's motto, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," as the organizing principle for three generations of rights. The pursuit of happiness is a red thread that ties these rights together.

The first generation of rights, characterized by liberty in Vasak's scheme, is political in nature. Such rights were powerfully articulated by English jurists since the time of Magna Carta and especially by American revolutionaries, Federalists, and Anti-federalists in the 18th century. Political rights include the citizen's right to vote, due process, habeas corpus, a fair trial, free speech, peaceably assemble, petition government, and practice the religion of his or her choosing. Magna Carta, Virginia Declaration of Rights, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and its first Ten Amendments called the Bill of Rights, the UN Declaration of Human Rights -- these are the landmark documents that flesh out this first generation of rights.

The second generation of rights, characterized by equality in Vasak's scheme, is economic in nature. These rights were expressed by more radical factions of the French Revolution and then famously by President Franklin Roosevelt, who in his 1944 State of the Union address proposed a "Second Bill of Rights." Roosevelt believed that the political rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights were inadequate to assure Americans "equality in the pursuit of happiness." FDR's remedy was to declare an economic bill of rights that would insure jobs that paid a living wage, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, adequate housing, medical care, education, and social security.

The third generation of rights, characterized by fraternity in Vasak's scheme, is much more diffuse and difficult to characterize. They include such desireable goods as the right to participate in one's cultural heritage, inherit a clean environment, and practice intergenerational sustainability.

The notion of second and third generation rights is controversial. While second generation rights garner the support of most citizens, serious critiques have thrown their practicality into question. British political philosopher Maurice Cranston reminded us of a history lesson: political rights are not limited by the scarcity of resources. The decline in the supply of wheat does not limit your right to habeas corpus or free speech. Government can still protect your political rights when economic scarcity makes life difficult. But so-called economic rights are another matter. They must contend with the reality of limits. If a person has an economic right to, say, "decent housing" (FDR's words), and if government by definition is obligated to respect, protect, and fulfill that right when it is not fulfilled in the marketplace or in civil society, what happens if government cannot pay for it? What if health care is considered more primary than housing and it is all that a nation can afford? How is a right recognized much less protected when it cannot be fulfilled? In a world of scarcity, governments, like the rest of us, must prioritize. Lacking the resources necessary to fulfill all putative economic rights, government looks impotent. Something so well intentioned as human rights is made a mockery when there is no hope of attaining them. The reality is that such rights become negotiable -- and therefore arbitrary. If arbitrary, they are not "rights" at all.

Another critic is the American political philosopher Charles Kesler. He argues that second and third generation rights are not just noble statements; they also provide cover for a progressive political agenda. The majority of citizens may well agree that second and third generation rights are good things, but because every right invokes a duty, should other citizens be coerced by the government to provide them? Kesler also observes that, in the U.S., the promulgation of new rights creates a nationalization of political decision making that violates the spirit of federalism.

Also see Paul Rahe, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, which argues that pursuing equality-based rights can lead to the subordination of freedom-based rights. An ever-expanding government would violate justice since the goals of freedom are sometimes at odds with the goals of equality.

Some historians, like my mentor Stephen Tonsor, opine that the French Revolution was doomed to frustration from the start. Pursuing liberty often runs counter to pursuing equality, with the result that fraternity is certain to suffer.


Before he was guillotined in the French Revolution, Robespierre declared, "Terror is only justice prompt, severe, and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue ... a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country.... The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny."


National debt 
I cannot verify the source of an apocryphal quotation attributed to Alexander Hamilton -- it's not in the Federalist Papers. The accumulation of debt, he supposedly wrote, is "the NATURAL DISEASE of all governments." In February 1790, when Hamilton was serving as our first Treasury secretary, the U.S. took out its first loan for $20,000. Hamilton and other founding fathers had no problem with the government occasionally borrowing money to pay for defense, justice, infrastructure, public education, and other commonly held goods. Some public debt, some of the time, is the price of liberty. Nor did they have a problem with taxes and bonds because some burdens had to be equitably shared (free rider problem). So the issue is not taxes or national debt, per se. The issue is the scale of our structural (as opposed to situational) debt. Today the national government is increasing its debt by $20,000 every 3/10 of a second. It now stands at $14.3 trillion -- almost on a par with the productive capacity of our entire economy.

At its best, the Arab Spring has been inspired by secular, non-violent elements in the Middle East, leaving al Qaida out of the mix since these militant jihadists advocate the violent overthrow of regimes that are not Muslim enough.

Arab Spring and al Qaida
Al-Qaida got its start opposing regimes in Islamic lands that made too many compromises of the first order with infidel foreign powers. They especially objected to the presence of foreign infidel troops on Islamic soil. This is why al-Qaida was anti-American and anti-Western from the get-go. To achieve their goal of establishing Islamic regimes that rebuffed the presence of infidel influence and troops on their soil, al Qaida called for violence and religious zealotry to overthrow the sell-outs. The Arab Spring, ironically, has left them out in the cold. Much of the energy heating up the Arab Spring is from indiginous, non-violent, secular movements in the Middle East.


112th Congress -- should counter the imperial presidency

"Congress must reassert itself and ... read Burnham, Kendall, Taft, and all ... who wrote against the cult of executives and executive power. Long live a slow, deliberative, and representative legislature in America. Long live Cato, down with Caesar." ~Gary Gregg, on Gleaves Whitney's Facebook page, January 16, 2011

The Old Right's champion, Sen. Robert A. Taft

George Will: "Unlike most of the 111 that preceded it, the 112th Congress must begin the process of restoring the national regime and civic culture the Founders bequeathed. This will require reviving the rule of law, reasserting the relevance of the Constitution, and affirming the reality of American exceptionalism.

"Many congressional Republicans, and surely some Democrats with institutional pride, think Congress is being derogated and marginalized by two developments. One is the apotheosis of the presidency as the mainspring of the government and the custodian of the nation's soul. The second is the growing autonomy of the regulatory state, an apparatus responsive to presidents.

"The eclipse of Congress by the executive branch and other agencies is Congress's fault. It is the result of lazy legislating and lax oversight. Too many 'laws' actually are little more than pious sentiments endorsing social goals - environmental, educational, etc. -- the meanings of which are later defined by executive-branch rule-making. In creating faux laws, the national legislature often creates legislators in the executive branch, making a mockery of the separation of powers. And Congress makes a mockery of itself when the Federal Register, a compilation of the regulatory state's activities, is a more important guide to governance than the Congressional Record.

"Unfortunately, courts long ago made clear that they will not seriously inhibit Congress's scandalous delegation of its lawmaking function to others. So Congress should stop whining about the actions of the EPA (emissions controls), the FCC ('net neutrality'), the Interior Department (reclassifications of public lands) and other agencies and should start rereading Shakespeare: 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.'

"Conservative senators passing through the Capitol reception room should ponder the portrait of Ohio's Robert Taft (d. 1953), who was conservatism when it stressed congressional supremacy." ~George F. Will, "A Congress that Reasserts Its Power," Washington Post, January 16, 2011 [at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011404663.html]

Conservatism

George Will avers that conservatism is true because it is grounded in reality -- historic, empirical reality. It avoids abstractions and theories to the extent that they are not in accord with the accumulated experience and wisdom of the species. The so-called democratic peace theory, tracable to Kant, is an example of a theory that is not backed by reality.

Fareed Zakaria: "Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism, [conservatism] started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve."

American conservatism has other important roots. Take an earlier conception of our form of government, noted by George Will. "... [P]onder the portrait of Ohio's Robert Taft (d. 1953), who was conservatism when it stressed congressional supremacy. America was born in recoil against an overbearing executive's 'repeated injuries and usurpations' (the Declaration of Independence); modern conservatism was born in reaction against executive aggrandizement, first by Franklin Roosevelt, then by his acolyte Lyndon Johnson.

"But beginning in 1968, Republicans won five of six and then seven of 10 presidential elections, and experienced rapture with Ronald Reagan. Then they lost their wholesome wariness of executive power. Today, conservatives should curl up with a good book by a founding editor of National Review - James Burnham's Congress and the American Tradition."


Conservatives and Republicans ... have a friend in Boulder, Colorado?
Celestial Seasoning's box of green tea has the logo of an elephant with the accompanying text: "Wisdom: Universally respected for his keep intelligence and remarkable memory, the elephant reminds us that experience is the foundation of wisdom."


Diversity
So many groups nowadays are "diverse" to the exclusion of all others, and they don't see the irony. Here is David Horowitz's way to test any group that claims to be diverse. If everybody in the group voted for one presidential candidate, then the group is not diverse.


Liberal ad hominems against conservatives
It is a truism that has lost none of its truth: When people do not deal with the content of an argument and use name calling and ad hominems against their opponents, it's a sign that they are losing the argument. When your attack against the ideas fails, then attack the people.


The United States of America -- a Democratic Empire
Reckless internationalism should not lead to the backlash of reckless isolationism. ~E. J. Dionne

David Hendrickson's wise words:
"Fifty years of struggle against totalitarian powers have given American foreign policy an outlook and set of maxims profoundly at odds with those that animated the founders of this nation. We have assumed traits against which they consciously rebelled; our distinctive raison d’état has been lost. To recover an appreciation of that original reason of state and to apply it creatively to the challenges of the present are the great tasks confronting contemporary American policymakers.

"It is obvious that such a foreign policy renovation must take account of the nation’s vastly changed circumstances; contemporary policy must address risks and opportunities unknown to the founders of the American state. But it is a great mistake to believe that their vision is irrelevant or that they failed to anticipate many of the dilemmas we face today. Even if ultimately rejected, their outlook reflected a certain belief about the significance of America in world history that became deeply embedded in the nation’s consciousness for 150 years. It reflected an understanding of when and why the nation might make war that was highly sophisticated in the way in which it accommodated the sometimes conflicting claims of American security and national purpose. It was based on an appreciation of the factors governing the rise and fall of republics and empires that is, in fact, quite relevant today. If we are now to abandon that outlook, we ought at least understand that we are doing so, and that we thereby risk a betrayal of the distinction America once coveted among the nations.

"The United States was established in conscious flight from European precedents. For the Founding Fathers, as well as for the generations that followed, the workings of the European state system gave rise to a predicament.... The founders recognized the sequence by which republics caught in the maelstrom of that system succumbed to war, debt and standing armies, and whose participation in the system thereby became the primordial cause of their corruption. With the breakdown of the Articles of Confederation and the impending division of the continent into rival regional confederacies, they feared that America would suffer that same fate."

In the above passage, David Hendrickson writes wisely of the rise of statism. Our statism grew out of a bankrupting 24/7 national security state and the imperial presidency that's evolved to administer it. But another, related catalyst of far-reaching change occurred after the Founding: the Industrial Revolution, which ushered in the greatest transformation of the human condition since the Agricultural Revolution of Neolithic times. In the U.S. industrialization (and the accompanying urbanization) were the great historic divides in our history that led to the progressive movement. The fact that the U.S. became the world's greatest industrial power by the turn of the last century helps us understand the 20th-century presidencies of TR, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. In the perceived Hobbesian world of the free market -- a Darwinian jungle where only the fittest survive -- the national government was increasingly enlarged by skillful politicians as a protector of the democratic masses against Big Business and foreign threats of other industrializing powers. It was also a vote-getter. Who can make a dent in entitlements anymore, or the military-industrial establishment? The U.S. is ensconsed in its democratic empire.

Literature -- don't arrogantly bowdlerize
Should we ever arrogate to ourselves the power to cheat future generations of a great book's original power? "Literature that stands the test of time tends to be work that challenges and provokes and speaks in a distinctive voice. Part of that challenge and distinctiveness emerges out of contact with ideas and beliefs that are often strange and sometimes repugnant to us. The danger is that trying to make aspects of a particular work less strange and repugnant to us might imperil, and not enhance, its prospects for survival [and thus its ability to challenge and benefit future generations]." ~Charles Pazdernik, Grand Valley Lanthorn, January 24, 2011

"war on terror" -- legitimacy of the term when referring to militant jihadists 

While attending the Colin Powell-Madeleine Albright event Monday evening (June 13, 2011), the Madame Secretary reiterated that it was a mistake for President George W. Bush to have defined America's conflict with militant jihadists as a "war on terror." She prefers to call militant jihadist attacks on U.S. servicemen and American citizens as "crimes." 

Let's review some of the history to see if the past suggests whether we are at war or are merely fighting foreign criminals: Islamic radicals held U.S. embassy personnel in Tehran hostage for 444-days (1979-1981); Shiite suicide bombers killed 241 Marines at the U.S. military barracks at Beiruit airport (1983); Ramzi Yousef, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and other militant jihadists killed 6 and injured 1,040 in the first World Trade Center attack (1993); Hezbollah killed 19 U.S. servicemen at the Khobar Towers (1996); al Qaida killed 224 and injured some 4,500 people in the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (1998); al Qaida killed 17 American sailors in Yemeni waters on the U.S.S. Cole (2000); al Qaida bombed the U.S. consulate in Karachi (2002); and 19 members of al Qaida coordinated three attacks on 9/11 that resulted in the loss of almost 3,000 lives, including at the nerve center of our military capability, the Pentagon (2001). There have also been numerous thwarted attacks, like the Qaida-trained "underwear bomber" from Nigeria on the flight into Detroit on Christmas Day (2009). If it's not war, then my historical training and common sense fail me entirely, and I have no idea what war is. It is important to name things rightly.

Trivia

woodcut of a scholar teaching the Trivium

Did you know?

Our words "trivia" and "trivial" come from the Latin Trivium -- the three artes liberales that were the foundation of classical Greek, Roman, and European education. The Trivium included grammar (learning stories about the human condition, about our culture, and about the words and figures of speech used to tell them), logic (the analysis of those stories, unpacking their structure and meaning), and rhetoric (our informed, creative response to the stories, often taking the narrative to concerns of the present). Originally, then, something that was "trivial" was actually quite meaningful -- the basis of a liberal arts education. The notion of trivia being small bits of knowledge is of recent vintage, from the pop culture of the 1960s; the parlor game Trivial Pursuit came out in 1982.




milled edges helped stop cheats

Ever wonder why the edge of many of our coins are milled? In times past, when gold coins circulated, people made a nice living shaving the edges of coins and selling the gold shavings in the marketplace. It was a way to cheat the commonwealth (literally).

Executive Order 6102

Ever wonder why kings and governments occasionally confiscate privately held gold? Since ancient times, it's been a sly way to pay for public works, to get out of debt, or to enrich the ruler at the expense of the nation. Pure gold would be melted down and recast into coins with an alloy that was, say, 90 percent gold, thereby giving the ruler a 10 percent profit.

The last time the U.S. national government confiscated privately held gold occurred in response to the bank panic that swept the nation during the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 on April 5, 1933, to prevent citizens from hoarding gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates. The order exempted dentists, artists, and manufacturers who used gold professionally, and it allowed citizens to hold special collectors' items as well as up the $100 worth of gold coins. Many wealthy Americans sidestepped the law by shipping their privately held gold to Switzerland.

Antarctica, Dry Valley -- the most barren desert on earth

You think the Sahara is the largest desert in the world? The largest desert in the world, measured by low annual precipitation, is the continent of Antarctica.

Thailand is our oldest ally in Asia. The king offered to send Lincoln elephants to help the North fight the Civil War.

A Report on the Banality of Evil

Hannah Arendt wrote perhaps the only book that is better known by its subtitle than its title: The Banality of Evil (tagged to Eichmann in Jerusalem). This, related by Emory University's Deborah Lipstadt.


The oldest enduring hatred in the world: anti-Semitism.

Words

All I have is a voice/ To undo the folded lie. ~W. H. Auden, 1 September 1939

The desert is a seductive place. You can feel the silence on your skin. ~Brigadier Rupert Newman

... and I would wish this scar to have been given with all the love that never occurred between us. ~Michael Ondaatje, "The Time around Scars"

A long and grueling process is an exercise in "haggard frustration."

anhedonia ... now that is an interesting word.

Questions

First question, as a way of introducing this page: When did the brain of Homo sapiens sapiens produce the mind with the capacity for deep questioning and reflection? We shall always have more questions than answers. A few answers are offered elsewhere on this site and also at www.gleaveswhitney.blogspot.com.

Corinthian helmet

Of the three hypotheses of war's origins, which should be most weighted: (1) Is our DNA our destiny? Is it genetically encoded in human beings to organize communities for violence against one another for food, boundaries, resources, and wounded pride? If this option is the case, then war is inevitable, so we had better stay strong and have the best weapons, strategies, and generals in the world. (2) Or is war a genetic proclivity that can be avoided? If this is the case, then nations and rulers must still be strong but avoid the conditions that provoke war, build good international alliances, and encourage outlets (like football as ersatz war) to release the aggressive energy of young males. (3) Or is war cultural, freely chosen when a community wants to express its collective libido dominandi (as the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom regularly did), or perceives that it is being provoked or threatened? If this is the case, then there must be a greater emphasis on moral education, good leadership, and tough international sanctions. [See Fagan 2 and Brier 4]


To what extent are the Appalachian Mountains related to the British highlands? Did plate tectonics force a once-single mountain system apart (just as British imperial policy and resistance to it forced the peoples apart)?


Who was the pharaoh at the time of the Exodus? Ramses II, who began his reign with great conquests, many wives, many children, and much great architecture; but then experienced "midlife crises" that brought him low?


As if volcanoes were not terrifying enough. As if lightning were not wondrous enough. Nature sometimes outdoes herself by combining the two. What causes volcanic lightning?


The Roman Governor Julius Caesar subdued the people of Gaul over 6 bloody years. He outmatched Vercingetorix despite the latter's vastly superior numbers. By contrast, the Roman Governor Varus was humiliated in battle by Arminius (Hermann the German) in the Teutoburg Forest. The historic consequences were profound: Rome never subdued the Germans and, indeed, would later be subdued by them. The Limes Germanicus -- the dividing line between the Romanized French and Tuetonic Germans who successfully resisted Roman rule -- became scenes of violence again and again -- at Waterloo, Sedan, World War I, and World War II. What if, instead of Varus, Julius Caesar had tried to subdue the Teutons? Would he have succeeded, and would European history unfolded differently?


Julius Caesar was considered one of the three greatest pagans of all time to emulate -- included among the Nine Worthies during the Middle Ages because of his chivalric qualities -- yet was vilified by American revolutionaries who, to the surprise of many today, viewed Brutus as a greater patriot than the man he helped assassinate. Why the change in Julius Caesar's status?


Were Antony and Cleopatra really buried together? Where in Egypt are they? Shakespeare, following Plutarch, has Octavian say upon discovering the bodies: "She shall be buried by her Antony. / No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous...."


What happened to the great library that Ptolemy I had built in Alexandria -- the world's first think tank with up to 700,000 papyri scrolls, card catalog, and dorm for scholars?


Why are people such suckers? Given 100 percent evidence to the contrary -- namely, the fact that the world still exists, despite countless previous predictions of the Rapture -- why do people still follow doomsdayers announcing the end of the world?


Where did the army of the King Cambyses II perish? According to Herodotus (3:26), on their way to Siwa Oasis, 50,000 Persian soldiers disappeared in the Egyptian desert, swallowed up by the sands, and there has been no trace of them for more than 2,500 years. Several famous explorers have tried to find the remains, among them Count Laszlo Almasy, on whom Michael Ondaatje's novel, The English Patient, is based. I have read that explorers have "heard the dry crack of bones beneath their truck tires -- bleached skeletons of all the slaves and camels that, for centuries, had perished from thirst."

Know the answer before you ask the question. Did Alexander the Great know what the oracle's answer would be before he undertook the dangerous journey to the oracle of the temple at Siwa Oasis? To fulfill his aspiration to be crowned pharaoh of Egypt, he needed it known that his father was the sun god, and only the oracle at the temple at Siwa Oasis could tell him the answer. Would he have even begun such a trek on the risk that the answer would not have been the sun god?

Where is Alexander the Great's catafalque? Ptolomy hijacked the golden burial structure on its journey from Baghdad to Macedonia. He took it from Syria to Memphis, where Alexander's body lay in state, and then to the great crossroads of Alexandria, where it was viewed long afterward. Cleopatra took visitors to Egypt to the catafalque. But the golden-templed catafalque that entombed the body eventually disappeared.

What did Shakespeare really think of the Roman Catholic Church, and how did his view of the Church reveal itself in the plays? Henry VIII has been interpreted as pro-Protestant, but this is controversial. Was the Bard a closet Catholic, as some Catholic scholars suggest -- often in the spirit of nailing tribal trophies to the wall? Did it matter?

In addition to the false chin beard and starched kilt, pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore a crown. For more than 3,000 years it was the traditional symbol of their authority -- but no one has ever found a crown. (Pharaohs from the south wore a white crown, and pharaohs of the north wore a red crown with a feather.) Where did the crowns go?

What exactly did the Mecklenburg Declaration say? Do proud North Carolinians go overboard when they suggest Thomas Jefferson and the drafting committee were guilty of plagiarism? (In other words, how much, if any, of the later Declaration of Independence was a reiteration of the apocryphal Mecklenburg Declaration, supposedly written almost 14 months before the Declaration?)

How did Pikes Peak acquire its beautiful symmetry?

Pikes Peak from the Mesa, near Garden of the Gods

What does the third oracle at Delphi mean? "Make a pledge and mischief is nigh" [or: "ruin will shortly follow"].

What does the E over the entrance at the temple of Delphi mean?

Was the American founding mostly the result of a revolution -- or was it a revolution prevented?

To what extent is there merit in Malthus's brutal view, that human beings are a liability in poor societies?

The next two questions are related.

• Between 1150-1100 B.C. a catastrophe hit the Mediterranean and Middle East. Troy was defeated. Myceaenean civilization collapsed. Mesopotamia fell on hard times. Egyptian civilization faltered as the Hebrews escaped to Canaan. Sea Peoples went desperately in search of a better life. A dark age began for most of the peoples in the region. What caused all of these dramatic events to happen?
• When civilizations did recover, the Axial Age began. Had humankind learned something from the physical catastrophe and resulting dark age ... perhaps that one should not put trust in physical empires but in spiritual quests?

What caused the decline of the Roman republic? Who got it best, Sallust or Livy?

What caused the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire?

To what degree did Nietzsche get it right already by the 1880s, that the West had killed its God?

What happened in that "upper room" in Jerusalem during the Last Supper, Easter Sunday evening, and the next Sunday when Doubting Thomas was present?

Can one be happy in Heaven if one's mother, the woman who brought him into this world, is barred from Heaven and thus mother and child are eternally separated? (The Catholic Church traditionally taught that suicides go to Hell. Does this make a mockery of teaching the children of mothers who commit suicide that they should seek happiness in Heaven?)

If God loves human beings created in His image, why didn't all people from all times have access to the divine love, mercy, revelation, and consolation of Jesus?

Why did God's public revelations stop 2,000 years ago (if you are Christian)? Or 1,400 years ago (if you are Muslim)? Or 150 years ago (if you are Mormon)?

What was the first word that Adam spoke to God?

What commandments did God give to Adam and Eve before the Fall? Were they binding after the Fall?

How did David Crockett die?

Can you lead after you are dead?

Who is the best man who has ever lived?

Ohio State University head football coach Jim Tressel

It's not just a national question; it's an ancient question: Why do men who are on their way to the top, or at the top, abandon good judgment and fall into self-destructive behavior? (There are perceptive answers from Lord Acton, who stressed how power corrupts; Dr. Drew, whose research into the power hungry shows that they are often working out childhood issues, or are sex addicts, love addicts, or narcissists who lack empathy; Laura Berman, who reports on how high levels of testosterone make sexual impulses harder to control; etc.) Read the litany of tragedies, going all the way back to King David and Mark Antony. They include Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Pres. Warren Harding, King Edward VIII, Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, Pres. John F. Kennedy, Pres. Richard Nixon, Rep. Gary Studds, Rep. Barney Frank, Pres. Bill Clinton, Sen. David Vitter (and numerous others who visited the D.C. madame), the Luv Gov. Mark Sanford, the Luv Gov. Eliot Spitzer (Client No. 9), Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Larry Craig, Luv Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Coach Jim Tressel, Rep. Chris Lee, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, Sen. Gary Hart, Silvio Berlusconi, and (possibly, likely) Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. These self-inflicted tragedies are no respecter of party, class, or ethnicity. What is it about high-testosterone males? And why do so many of them seem straight-laced in public?

The woman who claims she had an affair with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower

Maybe the previous question is answered, in part, by searching out the next question: What did the most intriguing women of the ancient world look like? What presence did they have? Why did men find many of them irresistible?
- Eve
- Helen
- Penelope
- Hatshepsut
- Nefertiti
- Cleopatra
- Candaules' wife -- the queen of Lydia
- Livia, wife of Caesar Augustus
- Julia, daughter of Livia
- Bathsheba
- Mary, the mother of Jesus
- Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas
- Mary Magdeline
- Veronica
- Monica


Looking at the problems high-testosterone males cause in positions of leadership is not to default to the notion that women are necessarily better leaders. There would be problems; they'd just be different. What characteristic problems would arise if women were 90 percent of the world's leaders?


Isn't the ideal a good mix of women and men?


When Candaules forced Gyges into the royal bedchamber, what did Gyges behold?


Who described the human condition best -- Nietzsche, Voltaire, St. Augustine of Hippo, Jesus, Buddha, or...?

Who described the spiritual quest best during the Axial Age -- Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, or the Hebrew prophets?

What is evil? Is evil a deficiency (like a shirt with a hole in it) or is evil embodied in a supernatural being like Lucifer, Satan, the devil, etc.? Or is it both?

Our founders discussed the happiness of nations. They sought to establish a political economy that would lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of citizens. Who have been the happiest people ever? Why?

What will make you happiest in this life? What will make me happiest in this life? Ultimately, are we all searching for the same thing?

Is there life after death? What is it like?

What is God like?

How can we best know God and His will?

The following nine questions are fundamental questions of the liberal arts:

- Who am I?

- Where did I come from?

- Where am I going?

- Why am I going there?

- How do I get there?

- What is it to be human?

  ... western?

  ... American?

  ... modern?

The West created the cultural conditions for brilliant men and women to ask fundamental questions. Ultimately, will the brilliance of the West's intellectual giants -- Copernicus, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud -- lead, ironically, to the decline of the West? (I ask because the consequence of the thought of these four men led to serious alienation, disturbing psychological doubts, ennui, and sometimes even social upheaval. Copernicus alienated us from the comforting security of a geocentric universe. Darwin alienated us from the Great Chain of Being created and guided by God. Nietzsche alienated us from a living God. And Freud alienated us from ourselves. They were persuasive to large numbers of people.)

Did God talk with Moses -- or was Moses delusional?

*     *     *

Often it is the best questions that cannot be answered. Nevertheless, the human condition requires us to live "in the question." Good questions are predicated on the belief that if you are educated, you should be able thoughtfully to address -- if not definitively answer -- some of the perennial questions that arise from the human condition.

Aperçus

Explorer: the person who is lost. (We need people who are comfortable with the idea of being lost.)


"Oh, wow! Oh, wow! Oh, wow!" What exactly did Steve Job experience at his end?
He had written: "Death is very likely the single best invention of life.... Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life ... because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important." ~Steve Jobs, October 5, 2011


Death, Happiness, and Leadership  The death of Steve Jobs has brought to light his Socratic side, the conviction that a good life is about preparing for a good death. (See The Apology, Crito, and Phaedo.)

From Socrates to Steve Jobs, the art of living comes down to this: living as though you will soon die. With the urgency to get things right, you will simplify. You will have increasingly peaceful, positive relations with fellow human beings. You will be a better listener and friend. (You will finally succeed in living the Golden Rule.) You will quit trying to control people and situations you cannot. (You will finally succeed in living the Serenity Prayer.) You will not take another's foul mood so personally. (You will finally be more adept at letting go of perceived injuries.) Since you want to leave a positive legacy, you will challenge yourself to make people feel that their life is better because of their encounters with you. No backbiting, no negativity, no whining, no complaining: just good words about people, about our stories, about the work we do, about the opportunities to grow amid struggle, and about our vision for -- and actions consistent with -- a better life for all whose lives we are privileged to touch. Ironically, the approach of death can focus us and make us happier.

Considering how death focuses the mind, I want you to undertake a little thought experiment. Try to imagine how this notion of the art of living impinges on the art of leadership. If you were to ask leaders what they'd do if told they had only five months to live, they no doubt would focus on their relationships -- with children, spouse, family, and close friends -- exactly what Steve Jobs did. Now, if you were to ask leaders what they would do if told they had only five years to live, they would still tend to the primary relationships in their life, but they would also try to contribute something that they would be proud to leave behind -- some expression of the best of their gifts. This larger horizon would concentrate their efforts on legacy, on how they'd want to be remembered, and they no doubt would do something great.

Since none of us knows when we'll die, what's stopping you from giving the best of your gifts to humankind now? You just may become a happier human being and leader if you live with more urgency to get your relationships and work right. ~Gleaves, October 6, 2011

The soul and the afterlife. How can the idea of the soul make any sense when the surgeon and mortician cannot locate it? For an answer I rely on C. S. Lewis. Somewhere he wrote that every need we have as an organism can be satisfied by a corresponding object that exists to fulfill the need -- or else that need would not make any sense. So: when we are hungry, there is food; when we are thirsty, there is drink; when we want sex, there is a person with whom to have sex. Even the Darwinian rationalist must admit that the idea that needs would evolve without objects to fulfill them is nonsensical.

What about the need human beings have for moral perfection and perfect communion with other human beings. We know that we cannot fulfill the need in this life. No normal person achieves moral perfection to his or her satisfaction. We remain hungry and thirst for betterment. Why would such a need have evolved in Homo sapiens if there were not some thing to satisfy it -- if not in this life, then in an afterlife? Our personal experience and the wisdom of the sages suggest that our desire for moral perfection can only be achieved outside of time as we know it. This understanding provides a reasonable basis for belief in (1) the afterlife that is needed for us to achieve the moral perfection for which we hunger; (2) a moral order that is before us and above us since it existed before we did; (3) the existence of a divine being who created and orchestrates the entire ensemble; and (4) the reality of the soul -- that spiritual, non-material part of our person that yearns for moral perfection and perfect communion with other human beings.



Owning one's past -- the good and the bad. A good attitude that I heard a young woman express: "Terrible things happened to me. It's past and there is nothing anyone can do about it now. The tragedies are a part of my life and experience. They made me who I am. I wouldn't be who I am without those experiences. I would not have learned what I have learned and become a better person. So I accept them. They give me a unique perspective."

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” ~John Wesley



"The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity." ~Jacob Burckhardt

Here is a good way to evaluate your organization's diversity. It's the David Horowitz test: If in each presidential election everyone votes for the same president, then your organization is not diverse. 

The meaning and handling of nostalgia. If you think about it, nostalgia is usually a vagabond. The object of our pining at any given stage in life is rarely a permanent resident in our mind. A week ago I felt a touch of sadness when looking at photographs of my early married life with young children. But then I realized that the young man in the photographs, in turn, pined for things that are now long since put away. At the age of 56, I am not nostalgic about the same things I was when I was 26. So rather than feel sad about something we possessed in the past that is now lost, we should try to train our minds to be quieter: We should turn the sadness to gratefulness ... feel grateful that we have lived a life in which we had such a good experience in the past that we can cherish it later.... It also occurs to me that God has designed our life in the river of time so as to make it impossible to nail down the things that give us wonderful feelings. Otherwise, we would "settle" in a (probably flawed) memory. God does not want us to make an idol of our memories. He does not want us to make an idol of fleeting good times in the present. He wants us to settle in nothing less than Him. (July 30, 2011)

Why the cult is the basis of culture. "[John Senior] understood that Christian culture is the seedbed of the Faith. Though the Faith can (and does) endure amidst a culture antithetical to it, it cannot flourish under such conditions. Archbishop Lefebvre, in a statement Dr. Senior loved to recall, told him, La messe est l’Eglise [The Mass is the Church]. In The Restoration of Christian Culture, Dr. Senior elaborated on this most important truth preserved by the courageous archbishop:

"'Whatever we do in the political or social order, the indispensable foundation is prayer, the heart of which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the perfect prayer of Christ Himself, Priest and Victim, recreating in an unbloody manner the bloody, selfsame Sacrifice of Calvary. What is Christian culture? It is essentially the Mass. That is not my or anyone’s opinion or theory or wish but the central fact of 2,000 years of history. Christendom, what secularists call Western Civilization, is the Mass and the paraphernalia which protect and facilitate it. All architecture, art, political and social forms, economics, the way people live and feel and think, music, literature ―all these things when they are right are ways of fostering and protecting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. To enact a sacrifice, there must be an altar; an altar has to have a roof over it in case it rains; to reserve the Blessed Sacrament, we build a little House of Gold and over it a Tower of Ivory with a bell and a garden round it with the roses and lilies of purity, emblems of the Virgin Mary ―Rosa Mystica, Turris Davidica, Turris Eburnea, Domus Aurea, who carried His Body and His Blood in her womb, Body of her body, Blood of her blood. And around the church and garden, where we bury the faithful dead, the caretakers live, the priests and religious whose work is prayer, who keep the Mystery of Faith in its tabernacle of music and words in the Office of the Church; and around them, the faithful who gather to worship and divide the other work that must be done in order to make the perpetuation of the Sacrifice possible–to raise the food and make the clothes and build and keep the peace so that generations to come may live for Him, so that the Sacrifice goes on even until the consummation of the world.'

"Elsewhere, Senior explained that not all of these elements of civilized human life have to preach the Faith explicitly, but they should echo it in their order and beauty, and even (especially!) in their simple elegance. John Senior was not an advocate of luxurious living or empty aestheticism; he was a troubadour of simplicity, a virtue reflected in his subtle austerity. Though his boyhood dreams were of cowboys and poets (and both were realized), Dr. Senior found his vocation as a teacher. To his tribute, he became a latter-day Socrates to countless young men and women...." ~from Robert Wyer,"Magister Johannes: A Tribute to Dr. John Senior" (July 30, 2011)

The good emotions are like our muscles -- you want to train them rigorously to be strong, flexible, and capable of endurance. The bad emotions are like our waste -- processed briefly, then expelled from the body. So training the emotions is a good thing, but it is not enough for the good life. To switch metaphors, emotions are like ocean waves nearing the shore. Waves never cease. You are either up and happy in the sun, or down and slammed into the rocks. Since emotions are always in motion, they are not a stable source in which to ground our being. To cultivate true, lasting, well-being, one must go to a source deeper than the emotions. Our true consciousness is in the depths beneath the emotions. We have intimations of this deeper consciousness when we are detached from anger, overreaching desire, envy, resentment, gossip, worry, anxiety, fear, guilt, and shame; when we are in the presence of the sublimity of nature; when in prayer or meditation we sense the holy presence of God. This deeper state has been described by Socrates (in his last days), Old Testament patriarchs (think of Moses and the Burning Bush), Jesus (in the Gospel of John), the Buddha, and Christian mystics (what Basil Pennington has called centering prayer). (July 24, 2011)


Wisdom and freedom. Human evolution requires the free will to make mistakes. It is mistakes that can -- and should -- lead to wisdom. "That idea is thrashed out better than anywhere else, I think, in Dostoyevsky's parable of the Grand Inquisitor, which is told in Chapter Five of his great novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In the parable, Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. He performs several miracles but is arrested by Inquisition leaders and sentenced to be burned at the stake. The Grand Inquisitor visits Him in his cell to tell Him that the Church no longer needs Him. The main portion of the text is the Inquisitor explaining why. The Inquisitor says that Jesus rejected the three temptations of Satan in the desert in favor of freedom, but he believes that Jesus has misjudged human nature. The Inquisitor says that the vast majority of humanity cannot handle freedom. In giving humans the freedom to choose, Christ has doomed humanity to a life of suffering." And yet, it is the suffering that leads to wise thoughts, words, and actions. ~Gregory A. Petsko


Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every possible moment with love, grace, and gratitude. ~Denis Waitley 


The pursuit of happiness. What is happiness (individual vs. civic emphasis)? How is it achieved? At the end of Sophocles' play, Antigone, the chorus instructs us in the happiness we seek. Happiness is (my paraphrase) not power, profit, prestige, pleasure, or pride in getting our way. The main ingredients of happiness are virtue and wisdom. How do we become virtuous and wise? For most of us, punishment and suffering pound the foolishness out of us. Suffering schools us until we learn the lessons we need to live the good life. Experience teaches that wisdom mostly comes from keeping a clear conscience, worshipping God rightly, and learning from mistakes, our own and others'. If we are mindful of these things, we have a shot at being happy. We are smart about "the pursuit of happiness." 


A classic ... is timeless and timely. A classic is a classic not just because of the great respect posterity accords to it, but because its great themes and language continue to speak to us today. It gives us more sustenance than journalistic efforts.


Whether confronting something new or revisiting something old, go through a little litany:
(1) As a student of reality, ask if it is true -- but then ask, What is truth? How you can defend truth to the relativists and skeptics of the postmodern age who reject traditional, authoritative, or privileged assertions; the best one can make nowadays is a "truth claim."
(2) As a student of morality, ask if it is good -- but then ask, What is good? How you can defend virtue as such when most of the old norms have been seriously chipped away or blown up.
(3) As a student of art and music, ask if it is beautiful -- but then ask, What is beautiful? How you can defend it as such when postmodern art tries not to be balanced or symmetrical but to shock and jar us into new awareness.
~prompted by Howard Gardner, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed.


To hold a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. (For a way to get over resentment and restore peace, read this essay.)


Friendship increases our happiness by doubling our joy, and decreases our sadness by dividing our grief. ~Cicero, De Officiis 

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)

Freud's disarming answer to the question of how to be happy: Lieben und arbeiten (love and work).


Y Gwir yn Erbyn y Byd (Welsh for "The Truth against the world" -- Frank Lloyd Wright's motto)


"Harassment" and "sexual harassment": It is today's Mann Act -- too often invoked on the flimsiest pretexts to go after people who do not conform to the crushing orthodoxies of ideologues.


Hank Meijer: "People usually remember America First as an isolationist, anti-Semitic movement. Actually it was a bunch of elite college students who wanted to avoid being drafted in a European war."

American Cemetery in Colleville, France

A woman returned from her much older brother's grave near Omaha Beach (the American Cemetery in Colleville), telling her family how moving the experience was. "Now that you know the loss, you have grieved like the rest of us," said their mother.


Try not to self-destruct. Sometimes, I swear, we do more harm to ourselves by our bad attitude, destructive words, and stupid actions than anybody could do to us.

Delphi

It is wise to understand the relationship between the inscription at Delphi, "Know thyself," and Greek tragedy. Greek tragedy is about outwardly great men and women -- "heroes" -- who do not know themselves. They do not know either their personal limits ... or their culture's limits ... or their creaturely boundaries before the gods. As a result of thinking that they are more than others, and deserve more than others, they fall into narcissism ... or hubris ... or impiety. They then stumble into a crisis that reveals their self-ignorance; that cuts them down to size; and that generates suffering. Only after a stern ordeal does the tragic hero understand what "Know thyself" means, and possibly become truly heroic.


Why are so many modern-day accounts of God like photographs of Big Foot -- grainy, blurry, and indistinct, with an air of incredulity about them?

flying buttresses of Amiens Cathedral

Regarding the secularization of the West since the Enlightenment, I think many men and women are happy to be flying buttresses -- supportive of the church but okay outside of it.


A different view of politics: "If the polis is the association whose purpose is the complete human life, then politics includes all the activities whose end is the complete human life. In reflecting upon these activities, politics becomes philosophic. Indeed, it is only political philosophy, whose founder was Socrates, which takes seriously the possibility of the best regime as the standard whereby every other polity is to be judged. Political philosophy, according to Aristotle, is an inquiry into the soul. For it is ultimately the proper order of the human soul which determines the proper order of constitutions. The modern difficulty is that we no longer think of politics as concerned with all human things. The state has replaced the polis, and that means that we now understand politics as concerned only with the external conditions of human existence." ~University of Dallas, PhD program in politics, statement of purpose


Pura vida! [This is living! What a life!]  Live each day in such a way that you can exclaim it.


Because I am alive, because I exist, I can make a difference in others' lives. What an opportunity!


The brain -- even of older people -- is much more adaptable than previously realized. There is "accumulating evidence that our brains aren't just stamped by the past. They are constantly being shaped by the future." Hope can shape our brains for the better. So be hopeful.


There is a difference between "the public interest and the public are interested." ~Sir Malcolm Rifkin


An exchange between President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger in 1972 about the next strategic move in Vietnam:
Nixon: I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?
Kissinger: That will drown about 200,000 people.
Nixon: Well, no, no, no, no, no. I'd rather use a nuclear bomb. Have you got that ready?
Kissinger: That I think will just be too much, uh...
Nixon: A nuclear bomb, does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes!


There are many ways to worship God -- you in your way, and I in His.


In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. ~George Orwell, 1984 (a futuristic inferno)


Benign neglect ... or malign neglect?

Wisdom in Plato and Aristotle

Maxims for the good life. When our children encounter problems, it is usually more important to instruct them in the principles that apply rather than dictate the specific course of action. Our children, hopefully, will remember the principles. The following principles have helped a lot of people:
- Don't be a victim: Are you going to let someone else determine your life, or are you going to decide who and what you will be? [Said to a child whose materialistic spouse was holding him back.]
- Regarding a career: Find your passion and you'll never toil a day in your life. Love you job and you'll never work a day in your life.
- Regarding things over which you have no control: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Regarding conflict: Learn to overlook the little injuries that disturb our peace. They're not worth the energy. Patience with others -- the ability to overlook the molehills on the road -- will make for a more peaceful coexistence.
- Regarding how to treat difficult people especially, but all people in general: the Golden Rule: Treat others as you wish to be treated.
- Regarding a borderline ethical decision at work: the Headline Rule: How would my action look if it were the headline of the newspaper?
- Regarding people of whom you feel critical: Lead by example. Be the person you want them to be (instead of putting all your energy into criticizing them).
- Love the sinner; hate the sin.
- Regarding any quandary, especially if things have been a mess: Do the next right thing.
- You make scores of decisions a day to be a better person or a worse person, to say the thoughtful thing or the petty thing. Which wolf will you feed?
- Do good; develop good habits: Watch your thoughts; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character because it becomes your destiny.
- Do not be in debt to any friend. Pay cash for as much as you can (your mortgage on a house is an acceptable exception). Treat credit cards strictly as 30-day bank loans.
- Work really hard to be on consistent good terms with others. They will remember one injury more than a thousand kindnesses.
- Get along with the people who will bury you.
- God gave you two ears and one mouth. Listen more than you speak.
- Know thyself.


Education at its best engenders understanding and compassion. We see what happens where education is lacking. In the absence of understanding and compassion, frustrated people resort to extremism, force, violence, terror, and war. ~Dr. Jonathan White, press conference following the killing of Osama bin Laden, May 2, 2011

Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776, by George Mason

... no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; [and] by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. ~Constitution of Virginia, Article I (Bill of Rights), Section 15


Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire. ~St. Catherine of Sienna


Do not live in the past, consumed by guilt and shame. Do not live in the future, preoccupied with anxiety and fear. Live in the present, aware of your breathing, the sublimity of nature, the good in the people around you, and the positive effect you can have by doing the next right thing. 5/1/11


A wise man talks because he has something to say. A fool talks because he has to say something. ~Plato


Know thyself. ~Temple at Delphi

Nothing in excess. ~Temple at Delphi

Make a pledge and mischief is nigh. ~Temple at Delphi

E [the Greek epsilon]: Thou art one. ~Greeting inscribed at the temple at Delphi


In the international order, when a great nation is in decline, it must learn to lead rather than to rule.


Good Friday, 2011: This April a robin keeps crashing into my window. Nothing I do thwarts his self-destructive behavior. An ethologist explained that the bird is seeing a reflection of himself in the window and, thinking it's a rival, attacks to preserve his territory. What the robin sees is "real" to him, of course, but in fact is no rival. What he sees is his own image that he mistakes for a threat. The metaphor for how we human beings conjure up false threats is irresistible. How often do we manufacture a threat that looks really real, and that makes us anxious and afraid, only to turn out to be a distortion of our own image and thus no threat at all? Dear God, please save me from the self-destructive behavior that comes from worrying about mistaken "threats" that come from myself.


Our habits exact an unforgiving justice from our body. How we eat, how much we exercise, how we handle stress, how prone we are to succumb to addictions -- we get what we deserve. ~Bill Brennan to GW, 4/26/11


God grant me
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen. ~Reinhold Niebuhr


It used to be that colleges served in loco parentis to their charges. These days, they are more and more just loco. ~The New Criterion


In sports, records are broken. Victories never are.


New word for April 15th, Tax Day: "intaxication" -- the feeling of euphoria that washes over you when you think you'll get a tax refund, lasting until the realization that it was your money in the first place. ~Urban Dictionary


What motivates us to give to others? Do we act out of justice, love, fear, or pride?
- Justice is the duty to give others their due -- it's what we owe them morally, contractually, or legally.
- Love manifests itself in the desire to give something that is mine to you.
- Fear sometimes looks like justice or love, but it actually gets me to violate my own conscience to give you what you probably shouldn't have.
- Pride sometimes looks like justice or love, but I want to look better than others, so I give.


I get into lots of trouble all the time. I try to determine the truth of a question and am not deterred by the damage that will be done to me by moving out of the herd. ~Mark Helprin


Fires take a lot of labor. As a method of heating, it is inefficient. But it’s worth it. Fire engages the senses. The light is richer than artificial light, and heating systems don’t crackle or give off the scent of wood smoke. Tending a fire enforces a sense of patience and tranquility. In that way it is like sailing a boat. You’re engaged by it and trapped by it; fire is captivating. Your time is captured so you have enforced idleness. Like music, it somehow coordinates the rhythms in your brain, or in your soul. It clears the air. Enforced idleness is the way I want to live. I want to be a prisoner of things that make me stop still. ~Mark Helprin


Do not despair over the failure of repeated attempts to live more virtuously. Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future. ~Mgsr. Michael Murphy


Anybody who is surprised by occasional flashes of virtue in our leaders, or is outraged by their sins, just hasn't read enough history. ~John Willson


If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. ~Derek Bok


Children may be only 25 percent of our population, but they are 100 percent of our future.


When everybody is thinking the same thing, nobody is really thinking. ~Krista Noble (prompted by the crushing orthodoxy on a college campus).


For an arresting look at the seven deadly sins, see the heptagon created by Jessica Hagy.


There are 7,500 bookstores in America. Want to write a bestseller? For one year write 500 words a day about something that will sell two copies in each store. There's your bestseller.


William Barrett Travis, paraphrasing Sir Walter Scott in the Romantic Age: "One crowded hour of glory is worth more than an age without a name."


Hey, gals, we guys aren't stupid: there is dressing to be attractive -- and dressing to attract.


Sophocles observed that we only learn when we suffer. Every addiction deadens our pain and thus diverts us from the healing we need. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, work, sex, shopping -- whatever your flavor, every addiction masks pain, hurts, and mistakes. Addictions drain our psychological energy and keep us from learning and growing through whatever challenges life is requiring us to confront and overcome.


Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him. (On a church sign in Florida)


Martha (sister of Mary and Lazarus) is unusual among the disciples of Jesus: she is constantly engaging and questioning and challenging the great rabbi. No complacent believer, she. Should we do or be anything less?


Love your job and you'll never work a day in your life. ~Confucius, often quoted by Ralph Hauenstein


Irritated by someone? Disappointed and frustrated? Since you can't change others, stay focused on what you can change -- you. Lead by example. Be the person you want others to be.


"The truth will set you free" -- so have the courage to follow the truth wherever it may lead, even (especially) if it makes the status quo uncomfortable.


The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. Let a man lose everything else in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success. ~H. W. Arnold



You cannot do a kindness too soon, because you never know how soon it will be too late. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson 


Build up the truth, goodness, and beauty of the world today. 


Being content makes poor men rich; being discontent makes rich men poor. ~Benjamin Franklin 


The world is not black and white; it is black and gray. ~Reinhold Niebuhr 


Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.... The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world. ~Reinhold Niebuhr 


Democracy is the search for temporary solutions to unsolvable problems. ~Reinhold Niebuhr


It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more 'manhood' to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles or an immature mind ~Alex Karras. 


The more one worries, the older one gets; the more one laughs, the younger one feels. ~Chinese proverb



"If you want to get along with others, it is necessary to curb your own will in many things." ~Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 17

It's easy to live with your little flaws when I've had so much practice living with my big ones. This paraphrase of a pearl -- a deft move of passive-aggressive jujitsu -- set me on the search for the quotation I had encountered but could not remember where, until I stumbled across it while reading Thomas a Kempis:


"There ill always be defects in ourselves or others that we cannot correct. These we must simply tolerate until God in His goodness sees fit to change things. After all, this may be the best possible way to prove our patience, without which our good qualities are not worth much. Nevertheless, you must pray earnestly that God in His mercy will help you bear these impediments with patience....
"Learn how to be patient in enduring the faults of others, remembering that you yourself have many that others have to put up with. If you cannot make yourself be what you would like, how can you expect another to be what you would like? We wish to see perfection in others, but do not correct our own faults.
We want to have others strictly reprimanded for their offenses, but we will not be reprimanded ourselves. We are inclined to think the other person has too much liberty, but we ourselves will not put up with any restraint. There must be rules for everyone else, but we must be given free rein. It is seldom that we consider our neighbor equally with ourselves. If everyone were perfect, what would we have to endure for the love of God?
"God wills us to learn to bear one another's burdens. No one is without faults, no one without a cross, no one self-sufficient, and no one wise enough all alone. Therefore, we must support, comfort, and assist one another, instructing and admonishing one another in all charity.
"Adversity is the best test of virtue. The occasions of sin do not weaken anyone; on the contrary, they show that person's true worth." ~Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter 16.


In life, the little things are the big things. You never know how far a gesture of kindness will go ... or how that angry little outburst (that seemed so satisfying at the moment) will forever keep someone at a distance. 


The center must hold. Our leaders must know how to inspire from the center. Don't let others define the center as roadkill or the lack of convictions. Look at the center as the most strategic place -- whether on the chessboard or in the arena. The center is where maximum vision and action are possible. 


Better half a loaf than no loaf at all (motto of the politics of the possible).


Sometimes in error, never in doubt. ~Lucille Taylor 


Good conversation is like a ship heading into deeper waters where no anchor can take hold and where no port is in sight. ~paraphrasing Michael Oakeshott 


The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live by ideas just as much as professional thinkers do, but they can’t afford the luxury of entertaining ideas that are merely interesting. They have to work with the small number of ideas that happen to be true and the even smaller number that happen to be applicable to real life. In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm. ~Michael Ignatieff, New York Times Magazine, August 5, 2007 


Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~Will Rogers 


By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad wife, you'll become a philosopher. ~attributed to Socrates 


Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. ~Mark Twain 


Atheists like to claim they behave no worse than believers, and often better. I don't deny it. It would be easy for almost anyone to have lived a more virtuous life than mine. ~Peter Hitchens 


First law of holes: If you're in one, stop digging. ~Denis Healy



If you have nothing intelligent to say, you have the moral obligation to remain quiet. ~Richard Weaver



It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. ~Theodore Roosevelt 



Three levels of relating to another after being injured...
Forgiveness: I "give up" my anger, hurt, disappointment, envy, and resentment toward another, whether the other person asks for forgiveness or not. To forgive is to let go. It does not mean forgetting or necessarily trusting again. Yet to let go of my injury helps me win back my peace of mind and opens up the possibility of a relationship, again, with the person who injured me.
Reconciliation is restoration. Because the injurer offers a sincere apology, I am willing to meet them half way and say that the person who hurt me and I can go back to the status quo ante -- to the way the relationship was before the injury.
Renewal: the person who injured me and has apologized is willing to work with me and leverage the hurt to take the relationship to a new and better level.


In whatever difficult situation you find yourself, do the next right thing, because ... Virtus tentamine gaudet. (Strength rejoices in the challenge.) 


An Aristotelian thought on the importance of the good habits of your "second nature" supplanting the bad habits that arose either from the disposition with which you were born or that came about as a younger person:
Watch your emotions; they become thoughts.
Watch your thoughts; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they form character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.


No one is obligated to love you. So: your obligation is to find the person who chooses to love you. You are responsible for finding the person with whom you can be emotionally safe; someone who wants to shower you with love, affection, presence, and constancy; someone about whom you feel the same way and who can receive the love you have to give. 


People only change when they realize what treasure they'll lose if they don't. (Even then, they often don't change, though it might mean losing the love of their life, their family, their job, their career, and their dignity.) 


The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. 


Words are cheap: Love is as love does. 


No excuses: Be the person you know you should be.