Selecting our History

I was listening to a panel about using history in fiction. There was a discussion of  different views of history and when the gentleman raised in England was asked what he had been taught in school about George Washington, he jokingly answered “Washington Who?”  He went on to talk about the fact that for British school children the American revolution was not a big focus and that other events in British political history were emphasized instead.

        There seemed to be a feeling on the panel  that this was indicative of some sort of flaw. That is was somehow not quite ideal that in different countries basic education in history should be radically different in what parts of history were emphasized or even covered. I do agree that contradictory facts being taught do indicated that there is a problem somewhere. But I don’t think this is what is being referenced in regards to the difference between American and British education.

         Teaching children history does not only have one goal. It’s not only to provide an abstract sampling of how humans and human societies have reacted in the past. It is also to show the child where he or she fits into the world in a broads sense. History should illuminate to context the child is going to have to function in by explaining it’s roots and development.  

         In America, as in many countries, the state takes a role in providing children with education. This connects in my mind to an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates called The Case for Reparations. The article is fairly long so here are a few quotes that relate to the point I want to make:

“ The last slaveholder has been dead for a very long time. The last soldier to endure Valley Forge has been dead much longer. To proudly claim the veteran and disown the slaveholder is patriotism à la carte. A nation outlives its generations. ... If Thomas Jefferson’s genius matters, then so does his taking of Sally Hemings’s body. If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.”

“And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans.”

“What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.”

          Sometimes in history a state has been defined by the rule of a royal family, regardless of whether there was any other relationship between various territories they controlled, or by a certain land area regardless of who was living on it or governing over it. But America aspires to be a Nation-State, defied be a national identity that is more than the sum of its parts.

from US army photo Essay

 

          Individuals, laws, government bureaucracy, land areas, these are all things out there in the world that have in various ways a substance independent of anyone’s beliefs. But what ties these disparate things together is a nation. A nation is something that functions because  we all make-believe really hard that it is actually real. It’s true that in some cases a nation mostly overlaps with a sort of meta-tribe, where shared ancestry, shared food, shared language, shared social expectations create a sort of kinship, the feeling that other members are distant relatives, of one extended family, leavened by only a few outsiders who have identified with the family and been adopted. But America is too large and too diverse for a sense of blood relation to serve as an anchor for national identity. Our nationhood can only have and much power as our shared commitment to pretending can give it.

          That’s what national identity is really about. A shared set of beliefs about what it means to be an American. A set of values and historical presidents that we claim as defining. The act of taking parts of history and saying this is our story makes us one people who can then act in continuation of the themes of that story

An alcoholic is bound by the facts of physical and biological reality to the events of his past. If some of those facts are negative or disreputable, that doesn’t threaten his self identification. Steps he takes to acknowledge and repair past mistakes can only strengthen his integrity.

National identity is something different. There are going to be bad things and things no longer approved of in every nation’s past. And these should not’ be denied as facts of history nor their consequences ignored. But if the bad things are primarily the stories we choose to tell ourselves about who we are, if the mistakes are not relegated to dark corners but put on center stage and emphasized, if past crimes and failure are what we choose as defining moments for our nation, there can be only two results.

First individuals can cease to identify as part of a nation. They can lose all enthusiasm for exercising, and working and fighting to make America stronger and better. Inhibitions against damaging the nation and depriving future generations can be lowered. In this case government taxes and other requirements come to be seen not as contribution to a common community but as an imposition to an evil organization foreign to this individual. Government benefits cease to be seen as a gesture of solidarity that ties us together but instead seen as an appropriation of the Other that deserves to be taken for a sucker.

The other option is even worse. Individuals can choose to identify with the nation but re-interpret those stories as good. They can take stories meant to be cautionary tales and instead use them as models of praiseworthy behavior. We could end up with people who shout ‘patriotism’ and  waive symbols of racism all the more fervently  on the basis of this logic: I’m proud t be an American, Americans are racist, therefore I’m proud to be racist.

We need to avoid both these outcomes. We need a national self image that is truly positive and that can inspire individuals to good acts. We need to bind ourselves together as a community of good moral character with momentum towards accomplishing good ends. And this brings me back to how we select which parts of history to teach in our schools.

While it is good to include a few cautionary tales of weaknesses we can fall into, the overwhelming majority of teach to the very young and proclaim most loudly to the world, should be positive tales. We should be putting the emphasis on times we showed the character we want to continue to embody. We should select from history, to tell first and repeat most often, those incidents that reflect what we aspire to be. When we are forming coming generations, we should be focusing the majority of our teaching on those parts of the past that we want to form the pattern of our future.

good or no, these things must be built

         Men’s souls are crooked and unsound things, not good materials out of which to build friendships, families, households, cities, civilizations. But good or no, these things must be built, and we must craft them with the materials at hand, and make as strong and stubborn redoubt as we make, lest the horrors of the Night should triumph over us, not in some distant age to come, but now.”    

                   -John C. Wright    in Awake in the Night

 

 

The Importance of Impossible Standards

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

    - Matthew 5:48(HCSB)

           Why is Jesus saying this? Surely He knows that no natural human is ever going to perfect? Yes, He does:

           If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We don’t have any sin,” we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.       -1 John 1:8-10 (HCSB)

            Yes, Jesus knows that to be perfect as God is perfect is an impossible standard. And I think that is why He set it as a standard.

            It’s human nature to want to meet the standard of essential goodness, and that’s a good thing. Where it can become a problem is when we are tempted to turn from amending our attitudes and action to amending the standard. And if we think the standard ought to be meetable we will naturally be temped. First we’ll care off anything which is “obviously impossible” and then “Impossible for all practical purposes” then “impossible while living a normal life” by which we will actually mean significantly inconvenient to us.

            We’ll end up with a self created standard of righteousness that fits just fine into the life we were already living and are able to pat ourselves on the back at how well we’re doing. We can bask in the warm glow of our own moral accomplishments. And we get to look down on those lives that don’t match our carefully trimmed version of righteousness as well the the exact life it was trimmed for.

           We’ll make a pro forma statement that of course we’re not perfect. But implicitly we reject perfection as inhuman and undesirable. We position ourselves as like the littlest bear’s bowl of porridge, not too cold and too hot, but just right. We slip into the feeling that we’re perfect by the standard that should really apply.

           When I hear people railing against impossible standards, it makes me suspicious that they want to boast in their own works. I’ve found that the frustration of an impossible standard is because I want to check that box, put the trophy on the shelf, and get on with the fun stuff I really want to do.

But that’s going to take my focus away from a perfect God and direct my effort to lesser things. And as much as my sinful nature want to strive for something easier, seeking after God is really the best thing I can do with my life. So I accept the call to be perfect, I embrace the impossible standard. I accept that I’m not going to meet that standard but that’s my problem, a fault in my character, not a problem with the standard.

Review: Throne of Bones

                On his blog Vox Day has a very black and white combative style. He’s very logical and interested in facts, but there is no graciously presenting his opponents’ argument in the best light or giving the benefit of the doubt when someone says something incoherent. If you make a misstep in an argument with Day he’ll nail for it mercilessly. I don’t always agree with him but I enjoy reading the blog. It has the same sort of high energy, no holds barred, feel that watching WWF does.

                I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the same style translated to a novel so I didn’t pick up Summa Elvectica until it went on sale. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that in fiction Day is one of
the best authors I’ve ever read at showing different sides of a question. I was also very amused to find that while most authors, many theoretically enamored of a pacifistic ideal, need an epic battle to create an epic fantasy novel, here was an author who embraced confrontation and managed to magnificently pull off an epic fantasy where there was no battle but instead the plot revolved around scholarly debate of philosophical issues. And he managed to make that thrilling, intriguing and believable.
            Throne ofBones if set in the same world and includes some of the same characters. But the story also widens its scope to include many more characters and countries. The basic plot is more the standard Epic fantasy dark-forces-threaten-the-world. One of the things that first struck me was how standardized and predictable most fantasy is as this book shattered expectation after expectation. Throne of Bones has the grand sweep, the magical feel, and the sense of walking with legends that I look for in fantasy novels. It is also intricately and complexly three dimensional in a way that I didn’t realize I was missing in other works.
            Instead of just a “this is the way this world works” world building, each culture, and sometimes each character has a slightly different vision of how the world of Selenoth works. You can see them interlocking is areas of shared experience and sometimes conflicting in areas where one or both cultures lack concrete experiences. There are intriguing nooks that invite speculation on which way the world will actually work in practice. We get to share in the adrenaline as characters get their mental world expanded as they learn new bits of lore.

            Throne of Bones uses clearly identifiable historical patterns. But there isn’t the sense that a chunk of plot has been lifted out and is playing on autopilot against a different background. The historical presidents set the stage and then the interactions with different challenges are allowed to play out to their own end. For example Amorr is clearly inspired by ancient Rome, however it isn’t the Rome of and particular sequence of events. The impulses of later Christian Rome and the impulses of earlier republican Rome are allowed to blend and integrate with each other. The questions of whether citizenship should be expanded and whether preserving the republic and the real power of the senate is worth any cost, are one again lie issues and there isn’t a clear answer because the history hasn’t been written yet.
            The exact threat to Selenoth and its root cause are also complex and continue to surprise. Exactly how the protagonists should respond to the various subsidiary threats is presented as grounds for legitimate differences of opinion. My own evaluations of some of the characters often when through several revisions (even as the characters stayed consistent) as I saw them against the backgrounds of different issues and problems. I changed my mind several times on the goal the characters should be pursuing as they dug more deeply and discovered more of the problem they were facing. There were conflicting goals among the characters that changed and compromised so that which characters were truly irreconcilable and which allies was not set in stone.
            But what I most admired was that with all the things that were shone as relative and changeable the book still maintained a sense of right and wrong. None of the characters was perfect. All of them had at least some fault, not just of skill and knowledge but of moral fiber. I had to think about the moral dilemmas that came up, not just automatically agree with the “good” characters. The characters struggled with questions of the right thing to do very realistically but the book still managed to project very strongly that there was a morally right thing to do. It showed that choosing that was satisfying and good in itself, even as there were times when the results of doing the right thing didn’t seem fully satisfactory.
            This wasn’t a quick, easy read for me. There were passages where I felt a little battered by the reverse and alarms the characters were going through. I was challenged to think beyond what I’m used to in a fantasy novel. But I feel I’ve been stimulated to new understanding and new ideas. The story arch didn’t reach a complete conclusion in this book, and I’m not entirely certain where it will end up going. I’m looking forward, with trepidation as well as excitement, to reading the next book when it comes out.

Fruits of Postmodernism

Take a look at this blog post I just saw on facebook. It’s a professor who has served on a jury and seen a poor black couple who don’t have a mental framework that allows them to interact successfully with the court system.

This is what post modernism does to it’s weakest. It degrades and humiliates those who can’t defend themselves against it.

This is the attitude I see demonstrated in this article:

    I have this system of civilization that uses knowable truth, and the justice of equality before the law, and respect for authority. I don’t believe in truth, or blind justice, or authority. Or at least I don’t think they are worth defending as true virtues. But the system works well enough, and we don’t have anything that might be better. So by pragmatism we keep using this system.

    I keep pushing buttons and pulling levers in this system even though they don’t have any real meaning for me. This works for me because my cultural programming tells me what buttons to push and what levers to pull, but I don’t believe in any overriding principle that distinguishes moves with an abstract value from the ones that are purely cultural. In fact it makes me feel uncomfortable and like I have to defend myself against a charge of insensitivity to even glancing mention the pattern behind which behaviors that are practically useful.

    So I’ll retreat from that uncomfortable feeling. I’ll keep promoting nihilistic epistemology and moral relativism in the name social justice and multiculturalism. I’ll let it flow down hill until it arrives, striped edifying allusions and cushioning academic detachment, among the poor and the socially disconnected.

    bounty from your champions on high: the process of taking the identity “helpless victim” labeled as empowerment; substituting faceless and undefeatable enemies for practical problems labeled as constructive action. pounding on the table without reference to either facts or law labeled as meaningful communication.

And when I see the poisoned lives and blighted hopes. I’ll recognize that all post modernism has to say is tut-tut, so sad, not my job. And I’ll recognize the inadequacy, but I won't have anything else to offer.

Pounding on the table from Hucksters

I don’t know if the professor that wrote this particular blog post is personally postmodernist or just subconsciously infected by its meme floating around academia. And yes, I’ve pounded on that table a little myself here. But I do think there is a real fact at issue here. A philosophy that denies any legitimate judgment between different “ways of knowing” or different “ways of experiencing reality” is helpless to explain, and therefore can teach, why some stories must be both internally consistent and externally congruent with reality. When someone is caught by a fact check in a legal or professional situation, all postmodernists can do is shudder as the social solecism and turn their backs on the unfortunate faux pas. They can’t put up warning signs ahead of time. So to the extent postmodernism has infected our education system under the guise of cultural sensitivity, it is making social mobility very hard and causing the currently excluded a lot of pain.     

A can’t do much by myself but I can tell friends the truth rather than the common lies that make that make them feel good so that we can all feel good about each other. And I can recommend other to do the same, because a little honesty now could save a friend a lot of pain later.

Warm Fuzzies

When I was a girl I remember a Pioneer Girl lesson. First there was a  craft where we  were given some yarn. Some we turned into little pom-pom puffs called “warm fuzzies” and some we wrapped around sweetgum seed pods to make “cold pricklies” We all agreed that “warm fuzzies” were nicer to feel than “cold pricklies.” and were were told this was a demonstration of why it was better to love than hate.

Cold Pricklies

    I think I remember this because something always struck me as slightly off about this lesson, even beyond, whether human touch preference proves anything. It’s certainly not that I disagree that it is better to love than to hate. Nor do I quarrel with the need to teach little kids to be nice to each other. It’s that I don’t think you can equate the two lessons.

    The two types of balls are good examples of positive and negative social interactions. A social interaction where you feel accepted and connected, where you experience care you are looking for or the possibility of such care in the future, feels emotionally like a warm fuzzie feels to your fingers. And an interaction where you feel rejected, held apart, or have your ideas and identity poked at does have the same affect as a cold prickly.

    Love does often manifest in the type of affection warm fuzzies indicate, softness and comfort and making the other person feel good. We all want and need that manifestation of love. But we can get in trouble if we mistake that for all of love or even the central essence of love. Even a loving critique can feel more like a cold prickly if it pops a bubble of unjustified self-satisfaction. A child may experience being taken to the doctor’s for a shot as painful even as it is in fact very loving.

    You have an emotional need to be loved. The care you get from loved ones meets physical needs. But love is much more than the emotional high you get from cuddling. It is the knowledge of the intrinsic value of the beloved in the intellect of the lover. It is the settled expectation of abstractly good results in and from the beloved. It is a committed attitude by the lover to pursue the best interest of the beloved.  When you think of love as just the warm fuzzies not only are you missing the depth and richness of love but it can lead you to pursuing love in the wrong places and by the wrong means.

Warm Fuzzies

    It gets even more problematic when we get to the idea of unconditional love. This is often held up not just a theoretical ideal but as a real expectation in a family, a church or a community. It is often unacknowledged that unconditional love is a perfection and therefore no natural human is going to practice it completely or all the time. This issue is magnified when you start equating the subjective experience of warm fuzzies with receiving love. When I have a toothache or even when I’m just having a very bad day  the nicest expressions of care can irritate me and feel like poking. In times uncertainty and doubt we’re going to want a warm fuzzy and want one “now!” to prove that we’re loved. And we usually won’t get that feeling of soft emotional glow we think means love. And that in itself will be an additional hurt and disappointment.

    If we’re thinking of love as a good feeling available on demand we won’t ever know a permanent and reliable “love.” Love is such basic need in our lives, that we are cheating ourselves of something vital if we are only chasing warm fuzzies.

Review:Noah

    Last weekend I went to see Noah, the movie, and I enjoyed it. But I’m the type of person who enjoys something that invites analysis and critique more than I would something that actually drew me in and made me care about the characters. So I wouldn’t exactly call this good entertainment but there was a lot of fun to be had in dissecting it.

    I also wouldn’t call it a biblical movie. The most biblical theology is stated by a psychotically evil character as blood drips out of his mouth because he has just bitten the head off a live lizard. The movie is more of a narrative argument against the biblical idea that  humans and humanity have a purpose and that indeed the earth was created as a place for humanity.

    If you haven't seen the movie yet, here are a few good plot summaries.

 

    What I really liked that most was that the ways the movie showed the opposite of the biblical story highlighted the wonder of God’s story and the bleakness of a world with it.

*Aloneness vs. community.

In the movie, Instead of Noah being a man who has remained righteous despite being embedded in the comminuted of Adam's descendants that have becomes decadent and sinful, Noah’s family is isolated and seems totally disconnected from the wider society who seem to be all descendants of Cain. After traveling a great distance to see his grandfather, Methuselah, and settling near him, Noah then doesn’t seem to have talked to him for years. Methuselah lives entirely alone in his old age, Ila is found alone among the dead. The characters all seem to be alone with their thoughts as they make most of the decisions.

This makes me cherish the way the bible is always showing community, designing us for community, calling for us to follow him as a community rather than as individuals. Sometimes it can feel like an imposition when you need to work with other flawed humans it worshiping God and this movie helped remind me how gracious God was in setting it up this way.

*Taboos and fetishes about creation vs. enjoying creation

In the movie, apparently it’s sinful to express appreciation for the beauty of God’s creation by picking flowers. Nature is only shown as vibrate and prospering where it is untouched by man. The earth is seen unable to sustain man.

In the bible even the fact that we have to work so hard to have the earth sustain us is talked about as a curse and a departure from the original plan. It makes me cherish all the beauty, joy, and sustenance I get from God’s creation to remember that God created us to be gardeners of his garden.

*purposeless humanity vs. cherished humanity.

In the move, instead of God’s first communication being a clear command to build an ark Noah first has a dream that the effect of men is evil and God is going to destroy the world with a flood. Only after a harrowing journey to his grandfather, Methuselah, is Noah shown the possibility of an ark. There is a sense that saving Noah’s family is more a result of special pleading and Methuselah’s magic then a central part of God’s plan.

But in the Bible it shows God’s first thought in destroying sin was to save a righteous remnant. It creates a beautiful reminder of the picture of baptism and how God wants to save us by the blood of his son.

*confusion vs. covenant

    In the movie God communicates in vague dreams and Noah is never quite sure what God wants. At the end of the movie there is a spectacular rainbow shown so soring music. It has an emotional feeling of magic, but there is no actual content conveyed at all.

    In the Bible Noah understand what God is saying, and the story ends with God giving a specific covenant, affirming God’s ongoing relationship and promising never to destroy the world with water again.And this reminds me how precious the Bible itself is. We may wish the communication was in a form that took less study or that the promises were more extensive, but we when God does make a covenant He keeps it and it’s remarkable that He chooses to at all.

*nihilism vs. vision

    There are other contrasts I could make, violence vs. life, condemnation vs. salvation, but overall this is a film about nihilism. Noah is a failed nihilist. He sees humans as having no purpose and being a drain on the world. The only reason he doesn’t end the race is that he wimps out at the very end. At least one sign seems to indicate that God approves of Noah’s resolution to end humanity. And it’s not clear at the end whether God really wanted humanity to continue or if He has just relented temporarily.

All this is of course very different from the picture in the the Bible where God has a plan for mankind.God has a vision for mankind’s future, where they can be sons and daughters of God. And he knows how He will redeem them, not by sacrificing humanity’s daughters but His own So, who will go to the cross willingly that we all might live.