Category Archives: rant

Christianity, Politics, rant

The War on the Individual

Leave a comment

What would you do if you were reading a book and came across this  in it:

bowing at the altar of individualism, including individualist spirituality 

I encountered it in a book I recently read. I won’t say what the book is, nor why I was reading it.

Let’s just say that I’ve run across this concept time and time again recently. Individualism is bad. Rugged individualism is a sin. We need to expunge individualism from society and the church. You can’t do discipleship solo. I don’t understand this concept. But perhaps we need to take a moment and define what individualism is. A modern dictionary definition is:

1. the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant.

2. a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.

Wikipedia has the following “executive summary” for their article on individualism:

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one’s goals and desires and to  value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group while opposing external interference upon one’s own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism is often defined in contrast to totalitarianism, collectivism and more corporate social forms.

Individualism makes the individual its focus and so starts “with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation”.  Anarchism, existentialism, liberalism and libertarianism are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis. Individualism involves “the right of the individual to freedom and self-realization”.

Individualism has been used as a term denoting “[t]he quality of being an individual; individuality”, related to possessing “[a]n individual characteristic; a quirk”. Individualism is also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a tendency towards self-creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors such as with humanist philosophical positions and ethics.

I’m really having trouble finding anything wrong with individualism, based on these definitions. I don’t find the necessity of such extreme manifestations of individualism as anarchism or bohemianism.  For all conditions in society, you will find extreme examples, be that for individualism or the opposite. And, what is the opposite of individualism? Is it collectivism? Is it tribalism? Is it state-ism? Enquiring minds want to know.

The concept of self-reliance seems good to me. Don’t burden family or society any more than you have to. Can someone explain to me what’s wrong with doing for yourself to the greatest extent possible rather than burdening society?

Sometimes I think the war on people wanting to be unique individuals is an extrovert vs. introvert thing. Neither one fully understands the other, but I think extroverts tend to be more aggressive in trying to make the introvert be more extroverted than the other way around. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but as one who leans more to the introverted end of the spectrum, that’s what it seems to me. Sometimes people just want to be left alone, to do for themselves—to be an individual rather than one of the herd.

When I encountered “bowing to the altar of individualism” in that book, a clear case of over-the-top rhetoric in my not so humble opinion, I came close to throwing it in the trash. But I never throw any book in the trash, not even those I disagree strongly with. I have thrown out a couple that were cheaply made and had fallen apart, but not for disagreement.

Complete self-reliance is, or course, impossible unless one can live in a remote cabin somewhere and have the skills necessary to live alone. If someone can do that and maintain their Christian faith, God bless them, let them do that. But the world’s population is too large to allow many people to do that. Mankind has to mix in society nowadays and has had to for a long time. But why not live as self-reliantly as possible? Why not, when encountered with a task that needs to be done, say “How can I accomplish this on my own?” rather than to say “Who can I get to do this with me?” Why burden society if I can do it myself?

I’m no hermit. I’m not fully self-sufficient, nor do I want to be. But I don’t bow at any altar of individualism and I resent that statement. I see the moral worth of the individual. I believe each individual needs to do his best to take care of himself first before seeking help from society. And I don’t see that changing.

One more book like the last one coming being suggested for me and…I won’t be buying any more from it.

C.S. Lewis, rant, Wesley, Writing

It’s Time To Modernize Citations

4 Comments
This is how I would like to see citations done. Kudos to the author and publisher. Pay no attention to the curving text. That’s a photographer’s error (meaning mine).

A couple of days ago, a Facebook friend I seldom interact with posted a C.S. Lewis quote. I’ve seen this quote before. It seems to be politically conservative, would seem to support certain memes you see on social media. The quote was not attributed except to say it was by C.S. Lewis. Having seen it so posted at least three times, I decided to not let it go this time. I asked the poster what the source was, where Lewis wrote this. She came back with a fuller quote and said it was from “God In The Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (1948).

Fine, I thought, I have a copy of God In The Dock. I’ll just go there and see if I can find the place. Alas, as I looked through it, I re-discovered (having seen some time ago but forgotten) that GITD is collection of essays. As I looked further, I discovered that not only was GITD the title of a book, it was also the title of an essay. “God In The Dock” was an essay from 1948. God In The Dock was a book, a collection of Lewis’s essays published posthumously in 1970. Which did she mean? Since she said 1948 in the source, I figured it was the essay. So I went to it in the book and…the quote wasn’t in the essay.

A little bit of searching—something I’m getting good at these days—revealed “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, an essay that appeared first in an Australian periodical in 1949 and republished in an Australian legal journal in 1953. So her source as presented was technically incorrect.

All of which got me to thinking about sources, which in turn got me to thinking about footnotes and citations. I do a lot of reading and research in the older writers, those who are long out of copyright. You can find lots of their works on line at no cost, though not the more modern reprints. a book I’m reading right now has a lot of quotes and citations in footnotes. In quotes from the writings of John Wesley, they refer to a specific set of collected works. Here’s an example.

4. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, vol. 12 (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1978)

If I wanted to find this particular quote, perhaps to read it in context and see if the author had used Wesley’s words correctly, I would have to go somewhere and get that specific set of his collected works and find the specific volume, the specific page—oops, he didn’t give the page. Shame on the author and the publisher. Let’s try a different citation in a footnote.

16. Wesley, Works, vol VI, 512

A footnote immediately prior to this one identifies which of Wesley’s collected works is meant. That’s a little more helpful, but, again, only if I have that specific volume. But, all of Wesley’s works are out of copyright. They are all available in a great on-line library called the Internet, both pictures of them from the 18th and 19th centuries and electronic versions newer than that. Why not just say where it’s found? Why not say, for example:

John Wesley, “Sermon No. 17”

or whatever of Wesley’s writing you need. How easy it would be to find the original document and do the research you want to do.

So I am making the proposal that we start modernizing citations and footnotes to recognize how data is accessed these days.

Back to the C.S, Lewis quote in question. Here are two ways to do that citation, first the old way, then my proposed new way.

  • C.S. Lewis, The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis, 2003 (New York, NY, Inspirational Press), 499
  • C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, 1949, paragraph 10

I ask you, which would be easier to find? You can go to whatever Lewis collection you have, find the essay, thumb to the paragraph, and read the quote. You can read the whole essay to get the context, and make up your mind if those posting the quote are using Lewis correctly. Or, if you don’t have it, you know what to look for in a library or a book store. Want a little more information? You could expand it as follows.

  • C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”, paragraph 10. Anthologized in God In The Dock,

Since God In The Dock, the book, has been published several times in several formats, you don’t even need to give the year of publication of who the publisher is. The name of the book is sufficient for any reader or researcher of reasonable intelligence to find the work, verify the quote, and go on with whatever project had caused him to look the information up.

I followed this system, at least somewhat, in my two family history/genealogy books. I referenced works without getting into specific printed matter, publishers, and dates of publication. I like the way it turned out.

And, while I’m at it about citations/footnotes, how about we once and for all bury Latin references and abbreviations? Sure, I can look up what op cit and ibid mean and learn them. But with the cost of printing as cheap as it is nowadays, why not just repeat the work, perhaps in a slightly shorter form, and change the page number? Give complete references in a Bibliography at the end. This I also did in my two genealogy books.

Well, that’s my proposal. I don’t expect it to catch on in my lifetime, but I made it and put it out there for public scrutiny. I’d like to hear what everyone things of it.

Oh, to be fair, the book I’m reading for church does include some footnotes as I suggest. For example:

12. Wesley, “Sermon 85, On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” III.2

So maybe my proposal isn’t so far out.

miscellaneous, rant

Racism Must Be Wiped Out By Many Means

Leave a comment

Dateline 2 June 2020, for posting Friday 5 June 2020

I may write this post over several days, as I’m starting it on Tuesday and it’s scheduled to go live on Friday. Events are moving quickly.

My post on Monday addressed how the U.S.A. has been a lawful country because of voluntary compliance with the law. We have been, for the most part, a moral people. The average person has voluntarily complied with the law. No police force was necessary to make this happen. That seems to be changing around us.

The rage being expressed is due to racism in America. Are we a racist nation? Do whites hate blacks? Are whites trying to “keep the blacks down”? Is the socio-economic-political-judicial system we live in skewed to favor whites over other races? By the way, I use the term black rather than African-American because a person’s black skin can come from ancestries other than from Africa.

That many white people in our nation are racists is true. I can think of instances in my life where I have encountered racists. Two of those times I remained silent in the face of what others were saying. Two other times—the last two—I spoke out against what they were saying. One of those times was one-on-one with the person. The other time was with another family member present. Looking back, my failure to speak out at the one incident in 1984 and the other around 2010 were just that: failures on my part. I should have spoken out.

I say all this because I believe many methods are needed to combat racism. Back in the 1960s, laws were needed to curb racist acts. These were passed once the protests led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others moved the nation to see the wrongs that were being done. From time to time those laws have had to be renewed and strengthened. Pressure was kept on government for that purpose, though I don’t think a lot of pressure was needed. Once the nation woke up to how local and state laws were used to suppress people because of the color of their skin, few people in government saw a reason to go backwards.

Are the laws protecting people against racism perfect? Probably not, but I think they are close to exactly what is necessary. We should keep them, extend them, and strengthen them where needed.

So if the laws are right, or close to right, where is there racism in America? Where does it show up in our society?

It is in the sinful hearts of our people. It shows up in anything and everything people do. For a police officer it’s when he’s enforcing the law. For an engineer it’s as he deals with coworkers and clients. For a shopper it’s as you’re dealing with other shoppers, stockers, and check-out clerks in the store. For pastors it’s as they counsel and admonish parishioners and cooperate with community leaders. For nurses it’s how they provide health care. For patients it’s as they respond to the very people who are providing that care.

How do we combat that? Because no law will change a person’s heart.

How do we change the hearts of people so that they are no longer racists? Or, perhaps I should ask can you change the heart of a person so he/she is no longer a racist? I believe you can. I’m not saying it will be easy, but it is possible. A meme you frequently see posted on social media is “No one is born a racist.” That is true.

Racism is learned. How is it learned? From example, education, and persuasion. Children learn from the example of their parents, grandparents, and others in their lives. If those adults are racists, the child will learn to be a racist. The child may not even realize it. They may become latent racists (my phrase for unrealized racism; perhaps there’s a better term others use, but that’s my term for it). I’ve met some of those.

How does a person un-learn being a racist? I believe it happens the same way: through education, example, and persuasion.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from throwing stones off overpasses onto oncoming cars below near Fall River Massachusetts. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from a handful of agitators stirring up a peaceful protest in Bentonville Arkansas by yelling “f*** cops”. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from looting jewelry stores in the Buena Park neighborhood of Chicago.

So, if racism won’t be stamped out by these means—because they don’t address the sinful, evil heart—what’s to be done? Unfortunately, I’ve run this post on a bit long. I’ll have to cover my proposal in my next post.

miscellaneous, Racism, rant

NFL Player Protests

Leave a comment

I wrote a post some time ago about Colin Kaepernick’s protest during the playing of the national anthem at the start of NFL games. Since then, many other players have joined the protest. They won’t stand for the anthem, looking at the flag with their hand over their heart. Instead, they stand, kneel, sit, or raise a fist. What Kaepernick started has grown significantly. No end is in sight.

The protest is mostly by black players. It concerns unfair treatment of black Americans by police forces throughout the nation. They say that police are harsher in their dealings with Blacks, and are more likely to shoot and shoot to kill, whereas with Whites the police try more extensively to work it out with verbal commands. I hope I’ve stated this position correctly.

The protest is very visible, as they intend for it to be. It has also produced considerable response from NFL fans, a response that is, perhaps, exactly opposite of what the protesters want. Fans are tuning out in anger. Attendance at NFL games is down this year. Television ratings are down. Both of these drops seem to be more than statistical anomalies, and rather reflect that something’s going on. The NFL has suggested it’s due to over-saturation, and that they’ve gone too far in pushing the NFL out to the public. Most people, however, believe the drop in attendance and viewership is fan backlash against the protests.

You could say that the fans are making their own protest, a private protest against the protesting players and against the league, which is allowing them to do this. But is a silent protest any good? Shouldn’t protests be visible? Otherwise, how to you bring about the change in the situation you’re protesting? To not do a thing is passive. To do a thing is active. Players are actively protesting, and fans are passively protesting the active protest of the players.

I haven’t heard any fans who say the players have no case, or are protesting a problem that doesn’t exist. Fans are simply saying the protests are at the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong way. Or, perhaps another way of interpreting this, is fans truly aren’t sympathetic to the protest, i.e. they don’t see the same problem as the players see, and thus don’t want to hear about it. They don’t say this, but they believe this. Who knows which is correct.

Into this mix, throw in the concept of free speech. The players have a right to protest, a God-given right of free speech protected from government interference by the Constitution. Yes, this is true. Also true is that everyone who works for a living gives up some of their rights when they enter their employer’s place of business. Some even give up some of this right outside of the place of business. A public school teacher who posts nude photos of themself online, outside of normal working hours, will almost certainly be fired. Long ago I realized that I shouldn’t put political bumper stickers on my vehicle, since my employer seeks to win public projects and any political display by me might hurt those prospects. My employer never said don’t display political leanings in a way that would harm us. It wasn’t necessary to mention it; I was smart enough to know not to. But, had my employer said that, my rights would not have been restricted. It was an employer saying that, not the government.

So where am I going with this? I look at the protesting NFL players. Their employer—either the teams or the league—could restrict their free speech as a condition of employment. But the teams haven’t, and the league hasn’t. What’s going on, however, is they are losing their audience. Their protests are backfiring. Because the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees you a right to free speech (i.e. no government infringement on free speech) but it does not guarantee you an audience. You have to earn an audience, earn it by the way you protest and the words you say. Earn it by making plain what it is you are protesting, not just grandstand the problem. Earn it by trying to actually make a change, not just call attention to it.

Someone might say, “Some are in a position to make changes; others are in a position to call attention to the changes needed but not necessarily to bring about the changes.” That’s a valid argument. However, everyone needs to consider the effectiveness of their work (in this case their protest), and decide if the audience is getting the message, which would suggest that change is coming. If the audience isn’t getting the message, or if the audience is rejecting the message, it’s time to reconsider the protest methods and perhaps do something else.

This is where we are right now, it seems to me. The NFL players who are protesting are losing their audience. Meaning they aren’t bringing about the change they desire. It might be time to change tactics.

I assume the NFL players are trying to make me see the need for a change: that I’m part of their target audience. I don’t know for sure if that’s what they want, but I think that’s the case. I’m just a part of who they want to reach. They want to reach the whole country. I’m part of that demographic.

I would say to the players: Look around you. See how your protests are being received. Is your message getting through? If not, change what you’re doing. Protest in another manner. Or, better yet, rather than just calling attention to a problem, DO SOMETHING to solve the problem. Your platform is huge; your influence is great. If you would work to solve the problem, rather than just call attention to it, maybe, just maybe, you will change the world.

rant

The End is Still Not Yet

Leave a comment
    • Spent the last hour working on income taxes: the beginning.

 

    • Spent the day working on warranty items for CEI, plus a little bit of my own projects: ongoing.

 

    • Spent a half hour this evening proof-reading/editing Documenting America: on chapter 9 of 30.

 

    • Have three other prospective members for my church’s writers group: a pre-beginning.

 

    • Will now go and work on stocks a little: never-ending.

 

    • Have two bills to pay tonight: also never-ending.

 

    • The tunnel: no light in sight.

 

    • A writing career: not on the near horizon.

 

  • Must go.
rant

Way Too Busy

Leave a comment

Well, the erosion control conference in Bentonville is over. I delivered my paper today to rave reviews. Well, one rave review, which I heard about later from the guy’s girlfriend, both former employees of our firm. I gave my site visit talk yesterday, to rave reviews. Well, two or three people complimented me on it. That’s all behind me.

Now I just have the church parking lot rehab project to fill my time. I’ve made at least one trip a day to view the work (2.7 miles each way from my office), even with a full time, volunteer inspector to assist me. Still lots of things I need to make decisions on. And the work has really just begun. The next two days they will be putting a temporary gravel finish to the part they have repaired so that on Easter Sunday the lot will be reasonably serviceable.

Then there’s the parking situation. I decided to arrive at church an half hour early last Sunday, to make sure parking attendants were present and knowing what to do. Only one was there (we need five to do it right) and he really wasn’t able to figure it out. So I stayed out there all the first service and a short time into Life Group hour, working the lot mostly by myself. Tonight it turned out we had the same thing. Two guys had responded to the call for volunteers, but they just stood together at the drive we didn’t want people to come in and chatted, occasionally waving people down to the alley entrance, while I worked the whole parking lot alone.

And I don’t mind helping in this way. But couldn’t those guys understand that their ministry was to help people park their cars, given that the construction has caused us to use unfamiliar entrances and traffic patterns? We didn’t need two guys standing together. We needed them spread out, helping people. It seems no one knows how to serve, no one knows how to use their common sense.

Oh, well, I shouldn’t write when I’m frustrated, nor when I’m emotionally and physically tired. I think I’ll go upstairs and read. If I can concentrate. I guess I’ll get to Easter Sunday services an hour early, cause the two things I can be sure of is a) the volunteer attendants won’t get there early enough, and b) once they do show up they won’t have the common sense to spread out, work together, and minister to those who only want to park and enjoy Easter services.