A short essay by Hilaire Belloc

Ok, so this essay isn’t so full of wisdom. But it is cutting satire, and I’m sure it strikes quite close to home to many of us, especially myself. Enjoy.

If someone would like to show me how to add a “continue reading” link to this post, the essay should probably be underneath one…

There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame as the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly everything there is to be known. Is it not wonderful, then, that we should be so sensitive upon the discovery of a fault which must of necessity be common to all, and that in its highest degree? The conviction of ignorance would not shame us thus if it were not for the public appreciation of our failure.

If a man proves us ignorant of German or the complicated order of English titles, or the rules of Bridge, or any other matter, we do not care for his proofs, so that we are alone with him: first because we can easily deny them all, and continue to wallow in our ignorance without fear, and secondly, because we can always counter with something we know, and that he knows nothing of, such as the Creed, or the history of Little Bukleton, or some favourite book. Then, again, if one is alone with one’s opponent, it is quite easy to pretend that the subject on which one has shown ignorance is unimportant, peculiar, pedantic, hole in the corner, and this can be brazened out even about Greek or Latin. Or, again, one can turn the laugh against him, saying that he has just been cramming up the matter, and that he is airing his knowledge; or one can begin making jokes about him till he grows angry, and so forth. There is no necessity to be ashamed.

But if there be others present? Ah! _Hoc est aliud rem_, that is another matter, for then the biting shame of ignorance suddenly displayed conquers and bewilders us. We have no defence left. We are at the mercy of the discoverer, we own and confess, and become insignificant: we slink away.

Note that all this depends upon what the audience conceive ignorance to be. It is very certain that if a man should betray in some cheap club that he did not know how to ride a horse, he would be broken down and lost, and similarly, if you are in a country house among the rich you are shipwrecked unless you can show acquaintance with the Press, and among the poor you must be very careful, not only to wear good cloth and to talk gently as though you owned them, but also to know all about the rich. [...]

Hoping you may be following along:

But this still leaves open the question of the relation of the Church to other religions. I would not now speak as I did of an “absolute” religion or an “absolute” Way. There is only one absolute religion and that is the religion of the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Love, present in some measure in every religion and in every man, and drawing all men into that unity for which man was created. There is only one absolute Way, which is the Word of God, that Word which is God himself, communicating himself to man and making himself known “in many and various ways” to different peoples.

That Word was “made flesh” in Jesus of Nazareth, but he does not cease to make himself known to other people in other ways. So also the Holy Spirit, which descended on the disciples at Pentecost and continues to dwell in the Church, does not cease to work in other people and to dwell among them in other ways. All religions are historically conditioned and though the absolute may be found making itself known and communicating itself in a religion, the religion itself can never be “absolute” in the sense of being free from historical and cultural conditions.

We have to recognize the presence of the Word of God and the Spirit of God in all religions and indeed outside all religions, while we acknowledge the unique revelation of the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ and the unique manner of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Here is a nice video that I thought some would be interested in. It is about 30 minutes long. I think she brings up some very interesting points for people wanting to start a community.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlMDckgqU30

Sorry, but I could not figure out how to make it play in wordpress.  May Trevor can show me how.

Nico Muhly, minimalist composer, has a fantastic post about the concept of “full” and how that corresponds to a life, check it out here.

To continue:

A Catholic may see the growth of the Papacy, like that of Episcopacy, as the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, but he will see it as something conditioned throughout by historical circumstances. The structure of the Papacy inherited from the Middle Ages is already passing away, and we may expect to see a development of the Church which will take it nearer to the church of the fifth century, when there were Syrian, Egyptian and Greek churches representing Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, each with their own liturgy, theology and canon law, united with the Latin Church of the West and recognizing a certain primacy in the Church of Rome as the See of Peter.

If this conception is extended today to embrace the different cultures of Asia and Africa as well as those of Europe and America, one can concieve of a Catholic Church which would be really “catholic,” that is, universal, uniting the different churches of East and West with their diverse cultural forms and structures in one body, and engaged in dialogue with other religious traditions.

What would be the basis of unity in such a church?  Could it not be the simple formula of St. Paul: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all”?  The latter forms of doctrine and discipline in the different churches were “developments” of Christian faith, and there is little hope of uniting the different churches on the basis of such developments. The essence of Christian faith is expressed in the simple formula of the early Church — “Jesus is the Lord,” of which St. Paul wrote that “no one can say Jesus is the Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”

It is, then, the faith in God as Father, in Jesus as the Lord, in the Holy Spirit as the witness to the Lordship of Christ, which would be the common faith of all Christians, and the sacrament of Baptism in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit which would be the visible sign of their unity. The sharing in a common Eucharist would be the sign of the love which unites the disciples of Christ in their common faith and hope.

There are two strains of our argument that often get intertwined and mixed.

One part is the discussion about the idea of owning land in the abstract: Is land fundamentally different from other forms of property and capital? Can you own land the way you own other things? This is a very difficult arena because we are very close to a dogmatic dispute about our first principles. I feel like I understand the other side’s view, but I remain unconvinced. I need to work on finding a way to approach this disagreement from a common ground that we can agree on.

The second part is the discussion about whether instituting the land tax would be a net gain or loss for society. Apart from the question of rights, would a land tax make us poorer or richer? What if it would make some people better off and others less well off? I think the internal dynamics of a land tax can be analyzed by treating it as if the government owned all land and rented the land to the citizens, according to certain customs. In those terms the normal perspectives and tools of economics can give us a fairly good picture of what to expect. This is the easier side of the discussion, no matter how convoluted it gets.

But maybe we’re missing the point. How relevant is that second argument? If I was convinced that the georgist land tax was a net gain for all members of society, I might still oppose it on the principles of private property and limited government. Maybe not, I’m not sure because I haven’t given it enough thought. And suppose I spend the next three years convincing Trevor that the land tax system will make us all slightly poorer. If he still thinks the georgist system is more just, I might have been wasting my time.

Is justice all that really matters?

So a friend sent me this article that was quite interesting. Figured I’d see what everyone’s opinion on it was. It’s how some couples are dealing with both parents wanting a career outside of the home but not wanting to give up  kids. So it’s how they’ve worked out trying to split keeping house and rearing children as evenly as possible. It definitely makes some good points in the article and is an interesting one to ponder and mull over. I would also love to have the thoughts of my sister-in-laws and the other women on this board with kids. Seeing as it’s a bit harder for me to imagine things from their perspective. After all us guys are so much easier to understand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html?ex=1214020800&en=20c1b7ba0515c327&ei=5070&emc=eta1

My first choice for a post under the category “Wisdom from Authors We Love” will be the 1980 foreword to Bede Griffiths’ The Golden String, originally written in 1954. Although a short piece, it would be rather lengthy in this forum, so I will simply quote a series of excerpts periodically. As you already know, my study of Griffiths is partly responsible for my current thought on interreligious dialogue from a Catholic point of view. He was a student and lifelong friend of C.S. Lewis, as I’ve said many times, who went to India to build a Christian monastery in the Hindu ashram style and is the founder of the Wisdom Christianity movement. This series is not so much meant to inflame more controversy as it is to spark a depth of thought and hopefully provide some insight as to where I’m coming from. I hope you enjoy.                                                  

It is now twenty-five years since The Golden String was written and nearly fifty years since the experiences which I have recorded took place. During this time a great many changes have taken place in my own life, in the Church and in the world. In my own life the most important event has been my coming to India, which has changed my outlook both on the monastic life and on the Church and on the world. When I wrote The Golden String the boundaries both of the Church and of the monastic life and their relation to the world seemed to be fairly fixed, but since the Second Vatican Council the whole perspective has changed. The Roman Church has opened itself to the other Christian Churches, to other religions and to the secular world in a way which has created a new situation and established a new relationship. In a sense these changes had been prepared in my case by the Biblical, the Liturgical and the Ecumenical movements, which had shaped my thought when I was writing The Golden String.

But Vatican Two has carried these movements further than I would ever have expected. Biblical criticism, Catholic and Protestant alike, has advanced to a point where we have to see the whole Biblical revelation in a new light. The Liturgical movement, by the introduction of the venacular instead of the traditional Latin, has opened the Roman Church to other cultural traditions in a way which must gradually change the very structure of the Church. The Ecumenical movement, by opening to other religions, has brought the Church into contact with other religious traditions in a way which is producing a radical change in the relation of Christianity to other religions.                                                                                                        

The most radical change which has taken place has been in the understanding of the temporal and historical character of the Bible and the Church. The Bible, instead of being regarded as a fixed and final revelation of God to man, is seen as a historic process in which the Word of God is being revealed under changing historical conditions, shaped by the historical, psychological and cultural circumstances of a particular people, and Jesus himself has to be seen as the Word of God “made flesh” under the conditions of a particular historical situation. In the same way the dogmas of the Christian faith can no longer be regarded as fixed and final statements of Christian faith, but as expressions of Christian faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, but always conditioned by historical circumstances and capable of ever new expression.

Christian theology has developed so far under the influence of Greek and Roman thought and in terms of European culture. It is only now that we are beginning to see the possibility of a Christian faith interpreted in the light of Asian and African experience, leading to a new understanding of the Church in the light of other religious traditions. It is obvious that the place of the Roman Church, which has been the guardian of Greco-Roman tradition, will be modified. The old system of Roman Catholicism with its uniform liturgy, theology and canon law has already passed away and a new understanding of the Church as a communion of churches, united in faith and charity but with a diversity of liturgies and theologies, is now accepted.

Saturday night I had the joy of staying out way past my bed time. I was hanging with Jeremiah’s family and friends, Sage, and our mutual friend Daniel. And our other mutual friend, the Hookah. I took the opportunity to declare my intent of writing a serious of posts on libertarian inconsistencies. You see, I would very much like to call myself a libertarian (I sometimes still do) but I hesitate because the world, it seems, is filled with libertarians of a type I find troubling. I often hear these odd fellows speak of personal freedoms, small (or no) government, a hands off foreign policy, free markets, the value of personal property, and the evils of socialism. But just as often I read in their writings a defense of Wal-mart, support for Suburban sprawl, compassion for big business, hatred for mass transit, and disgust with any environmental regulation that might adversely affect some business.

Although I agree with so much of the base philosophy of libertarians I often find that the libertarian “on the street” is at odds with his own philosophy. This odd right leaning yuppie ideology we find on the street (and can be seen on Mises, Acton, and to a certain degree at Cato) is, I think, what most people have in mind when they hear the word “libertarian”. So I hesitate to connect myself with this vocal majority.

But, alas, the good often outweighs the bad so I persist with the group. I supported Ron Paul. But I must make clear exactly why I think he and other libertarians are often, I believe, quite inconsistent and, to steal an adjective from Kevin Carson, quite vulgar in their libertarianism. So in step with Kevin I hope to flesh out my thoughts through a serious of posts under the heading “Vulgar Libertarianism.”

I’ll start with a short essay by a libertarian I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with for some time now, Dan Sullivan. I’m certain you will find this essay thought provoking and to the point. I believe it will lay down a solid foundation for future discussion.

Are you a Real Libertarian or a ROYAL Libertarian?
- By Dan Sullivan

We call ourselves the “party of principle,” and we base property rights on the principle that everyone is entitled to the fruits of his labor. [...]

for more info see this link.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You have probably already seen the news from last week: an uncontacted tribe in South America is “found” by a low-flying government aircraft. A routine flight low over the Amazon jungle allowed officials to “discover” a remote tribe believed to never have had contact with us, the civilized. Later in the day, the plane returned with cameras and took pictures to prove that such peoples do exist, because the locals in Peru and Brazil have come to think of such tribes how we think of Bigfoot — some claim to see him, there are dozens of stories, but the mainstream doesn’t take it seriously.

Well, now that the skeptics are believers, what is the future of these so-called “primitive” folks? Officials say there are approximately 100 such tribes worldwide with most of them existing in South America. At first, I think, Wow, that’s cool there is a hundred. Then my soul casts itself downward as I consider, There is only a hundred.  

Oh, and I forgot to mention something: when the government guys returned with their cameras, they noticed the women and children had fled into the forest, and all the men were now painted head-to-toe in war paint and pointing their bows and arrows at the plane, preparing to defend their thatched communal homes. From what, a terrible dragon? A giant vulturous bird? 

But the point is, I suspect there are people who are excited to get in contact with them. Anthropologists. Missionaries. Fortunately, as it turns out, most anthropologists are typically more sensitive to issues of indigenous cultures. Missionaries, on the other hand, have another set of priorities. Spreading the gospel. Upsetting the traditional way of life of these people, one that has worked for them for centuries, possibly millenia.

And sure enough — and this ought to be interesting to those of us from the Lake area — New Tribes Missions in the past has attempted to contact such tribes in this area. Initiation was hard. They flew over and dropped them gifts, and the pagans eventually warmed up. Then they became dependent upon the white man’s modern technology. And their immune systems weren’t use to what they had to bring: like the flu. They died. A lot of them. The Peruvian government forced the missionaries out in 1991. Thank God.

So now maybe they won’t be allowed back in, but there are always others, those who are willing to destroy these folks’ stories, myths, manners, habits, traditions, and, uh hum, religion. But there are a couple organizations (again let us bless the Lord) fighting to protect these natives. Read about it here: http://www.survival-international.org/news/3340.

We’ll be moving in to this house in two weeks.

1. I’ve really been enjoying the act of listening to vinyl records on a vintage equipment. The sounds are warm and comforting. The records and equipment are beautiful and substantial. But best of all, there is no “shuffle” option or “skip” button and every 20min or so you have to get up and turn the record over or put a new one it. Listening to music in this way is a much more intentional experience. Something I now look forward to far more than a run with my iPod or an internet MuxTape playing through my monitor speakers.

2. Speaking of MuxTapes, this one is very good: http://wordcore.muxtape.com/

3. Mid-Century modern furniture can be very beautiful. It can also be very ugly but I’ll ignore that for now. We recently purchased a coffee table built circa 1960 that is really great. Found it for a song on Craigslist and picked it from this really cool couple that lives 15min down the road. It’s amazing the people you meet through Craigslist.

4. I started my MBA classes yesterday. “Effective Communication for Leaders” is my first course. It’s a Jesuit school and I am already surprised at how much morality is taught from the get go. Yes, even in a communication class.

5. Henry now gives High Fives.

Alright kids, nominations are in.  Obama or McCain, and why?