The Concentrated Life

I've been asked to comment on the question of whether the Catholic Church teaches (and if so whether it is correct to do so) "that only the celibate can devote himself completely to God while this is not possible for marrieds because they have other responsibilities."

Consecrated virginity has always had a place in Christian spirituality. The most obvious discussion of it in the New Testament is probably 1 Corinthians chapter 7, where Paul discussions a number of concerns surrounding marriage and said famously:

I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.(1 Cor 7:32-34)

Paul's discussion makes it clear that some, including himself, remained single during Apostolic times in order to concentrate more fully on the Lord's work. In the coming centuries, the great traditions of Eastern and Western monasticism would spring up, many examples of which survive down to this very day.

Paul assures his readers several times that it is not sinful to marry, and advises any who don't feel up to celibacy to get married so that they won't find themselves tempted to more freewheeling solutions to their desires. But if people are serious about holiness, their question is not "is it sinful to marry" (and really, who could imagine that it was, given that the Church constantly uses the image of husband and wife for the love between Christ and the Church) but "is it less holy to be married than to be celibate" or perhaps more indignantly, "are you saying that I'm not holy just because I'm married?"

As with any good question, the correct answer is not necessarily pat. Obviously, being celibate does not itself make someone holy, though I don't deny that at certain times and places some people may have imagined such.

Still, family life, for all its blessings and channels to holiness, can make certain approaches to spirituality difficult. Case in point: a few months back I helped get a group off the ground in our parish that says Vespers four nights a week (M-Th) at a timeslot that's basically right after work. It's a very peaceful cap to what's often a rather crazy 10 hours of my day, so I've really been enjoying going down there, and feel like it's added a much needed spiritual pause in my schedule.

However, much though I love the Divine Office (and really admire the way it structure the whole day of monastic communities) things keep happening to underline the fact that is an element of spirituality which is not always a 100% fit with family life. For instance, at first, MrsDarwin and I were trying to go together. However, this meant taking the girls (ages 5, 4 and 1.5) and this proved such an abject failure that our associate pastor (fairly tactfully) requested that we avoid it in future. It's easy to take a kid out or hush her in the middle of mass. However, when half a dozen people are reciting psalms antiphonally in an otherwise silent chapel, you can't step away, and you can't hush the kids. Much though it annoys me when people act like children don't belong in church, I had to admit to myself after those first couple tries that you just can't take kids this young to Vespers. They don't understand it, and hushing them isn't practical.

As for the sort of schedule of all eight hours of the Office, daily mass, spiritual reading, etc. that monastics do: not only would it not fit well with family life, it would be an active abandonment of your vocation as a parent to try to live like a monk or nun. As parents, we participate in God's creative power by bringing new souls into the world, but accepting that vocation means accepting an active, not a contemplative, life.

Traditionally, the contemplative life has been seen as the highest form of Christian spirituality, on the theory that it is the most like heaven: the life to come. In the last fifty years, many people have come to frown on that view, seeing both active lives (whether parenting and working or ministries devoted to active service of others) and contemplative lives as "separate but equal" means of holiness.

Personally: I'm a fairly traditional kind of guy in a lot of ways. It does seem to me that the contemplative life is more similar to the life to come, and thus a powerful road toward holiness. However, I think that understanding needs to be balanced with an understanding that we are not currently in the world to come. We currently live in an earthly realm, and as such most of us need to spend most of our time focused on basic things like food, shelter and reproduction. We're meant to do that. That's why we have bodies.

So while I think that the contemplative life lived out by celibate monastics is more a window into heaven than my own, I'm not worried about it. All of us, in our different vocations, are living out parts of the Christian journey, and I don't think it's important to worry about "higher" and "better" paths so much as to live out the path you're on as well as possible.

Once upon a time, back in college, my roommate when to a Catholic "vocations fair" where numerous orders had come to get recruits. He saw a poster that said "Are you called to marriage, the priesthood, or the consecrated life" but misread the last as "concentrated life". Seeing this, he thought, "Well, you really can concentrate on things more if you're single. Maybe 'concentrated life' is a good phrase for being single." (The mis-reading, when discovered, was less interesting. But he eventually found a "pasty white blond" to marry and didn't have to worry about the issue anymore.)

A while back when MrsDarwin and the girls went off to visit relatives for two days, I got a taste of the "concentrated life". Wow. There is a lot of time if there's no one else in your house. It could be very peaceful. You could become very, very dedicated to and good at some hobby or duty in all that time. (Personally, I wasted it all on watching anime on the computer and drinking beer.)

I think this is why the use of consecrated virginity shows a lot of wisdom. You do have a lot more time to devote to God if you aren't dealing with a career and a family. However, you also have a lot of time to fall prey to laziness or gluttony or envy or whatever other collection of vices you're prone to. Celibacy gives you a rope, but it doesn't guarantee that you'll pull a wagon with it rather than just hanging yourself. And as with all things, the more you have, the more is expected of you.

Law or Theory

Razib takes advantage of some (rather silly) comments by political candidates that "evolution is only a theory" to discuss what the difference between "scientific laws" and "scientific theories" actually is.

Resolutions for the New Year

I suppose it's rather late in the year, already, for publishing resolutions. Most people have already moved on to breaking their resolutions, now that we're a full nine days into the near year.

Actually, I've never been much of a one for new year's resolutions. However, with the new year beginning, and two and a half years of blogging stretching out behind me, I a few minor changes needed in order to make sure that blogging remains something sustainable in the time to come.

I've been contemplating giving up blogging, from time to time over the last few months. However, I think I've definitely decided to keep it up. (Feel free to express your displeasure with this and reasons why I should quit in the comments!) But as other projects call, it seems that a little bit of moderation and prioritizing may be necessary.

I've tried over the last couple years to assure that something-or-other is posted on DarwinCatholic every weekday -- mostly because I myself prefer to read blogs which provide new content most days. At this point, however, I think I may be backing of that commitment just a little bit. I think I can promise at least 2-3 posts per week, and I'll make sure they're solid, substantive ones. But writing at least one solid post every day has the tendency to use up all my writing time for the day, and so I think a little backing off may be necessary.

In tandem with slightly reduced blogging volume on DarwinCatholic, I'll be getting back to regular writing at the Humanities Program. Expect fairly regular links to new content over there in coming months.

Watching all sorts of people put up lists of the books they read during 2007 has made me realize that I never keep any sort of track of this, so I think I'll add a block to the sidebar to track books for the year.

Also, finally, I'm starting to think dark thoughts of trying to write fiction again after about ten years. To that end, a fiction blog (with very occasional postings) will be making its appearance in the next month or two.

And now for a word from you: Is there any interest in a continuation of the Dante series this coming Lent? (Feel free to say "no" if that's the answer.)

Helping the Middle Class & A Question of Gratitude

Quin Hillyer wrote in the American Spectator blog in reference to the Iowa victories of Huckabee and Obama:

One other thing: It also shows that the American people have no idea how good their lives are. The strong response to economic grievance-mongering shows that people who are incredibly wealthy by every historical standard are somehow convinced they are barely making ends meet -- barely making ends meet while their families have two cars, three TVs, four cell phones, and untold numbers of other gadgets in homes they themselves own. There is a word for this: spoiled. Huckabee and Obama are smart enough to appeal to the spoiled Americans who have no idea what real hardship is.

Now, when I ran into this quote here, I was a bit surprised that it was met with universal derision. You'd think that Hillyer had just called for the surplus population to be reduced. It's true, if you go and read Hillyer's whole piece, he comes off as cranky. But his base point is something that's struck me increasingly for a while.

In every election, it seems, each party redoubles its commitment to "do something" for the middle class. Democrats don't make much noise any more about new programs to help the poorest in the nation, instead there's huge focus on issues that hit the broad span of the 30th to 75th percentile in incomes: people who rally and vote and donate and generally are good to have in your political coalition. Democrats have even joined Republicans in proposing "middle class tax cuts", arguing that the broad-based tax cuts of recent Republican administrations have disproportionately helped the rich.

But here's the catch: taxes have change since Reagan promised to improve things back in 1980. For all the rhetoric about "tax cuts for the rich" the tax cuts served up over the last 30 years by Republican administrations have got things to the point where the lower and even the mid-middle class pay virtually no income taxes. If you have three kids, a mortgage, tithe and make under 60k per year, you will get all your withholding back at the end of the year. At this point, the middle and lower classes pretty much only pay the two true sacred cows: social security and medicare. Goodness knows, I have no desire to see more of my hard-earned income swallowed by the every-hungry maw of Uncle Sam, but I'll admit it seems a little worrisome when the upper and upper-middle class constitute the entire tax base. Generally, if you pay for something, you own it...

I don't blame anyone for looking out for themselves to a reasonable extent. It's our job as informed voters to support fair taxation, policies that protect jobs, etc. So perhaps many would feel that I'm over-reacting.

But as I listen to political rhetoric, primarily on the "we're here to help" left but also on the "compassionate" right, it seems that a lot of what we're hearing is: "Life shouldn't be so hard."

On it's own, there's nothing wrong with that. Making people's lives easier is a worthy goal. But in trying to sell a plan to make people's lives easier, we all to often find pundits and politicians making it sound as if we have things incredibly hard. And yet we don't. Though some people in some places may have it somewhat harder now than 50 years ago, on the whole our modern American society has it so good compared to most of the world now and throughout history it's almost unimaginable.

A while back I was reading Wild Blue by Stephen Ambrose, which tells the story of the B-24 crews of World War II mainly through the eyes of the crew George McGovern commanded, earning himself a Distinguished Flying Cross during the course of 35 combat missions. (I'm not a fan of McGovern politically, but the book is very, very good, I recommend it.) As he's talking about the backgrounds of all the members of the crew, Ambrose talks about one of the airmen being amazed at the food available to men in the Army Air Corps. Growing up on a small family farm in the midwest, he'd grown up on a diet of corn meal, dairy, vegetables from the garden, and only the most occasional meat: Cornmeal mush for breakfast; cornbread for lunch, and cornbread as a staple of dinner as well, along with meat and vegetables when available.

That kind of minimal requirement monotony is almost unimaginable in modern America, yet for a Depression-era farm boys who made up McGovern's crew, it seems to have been fairly un-remarkable. (It reminded my of my own grandfather, who joined the Navy in 1945 out of a small New Mexico mining town. When asked what had been the biggest change for him going into the Navy he replied: "The food. You could go back and get seconds as many times as you wanted.")

Today, obesity is a major problem in the lower class. The massive food producing operations which put nearly all family farms out of business over the last fifty year mean that you can get food in the US for unimaginably low prices. You can make a filling meal for a family of five for the cost of 30 minutes work at minimum wage. Our housing prices are up, but out that's in part because our homes are now often 2000-3000 square feet, rather than the 1200-1500 of fifty years ago. The cost of college is spiralling up, but at the same time in two generations we have gone from a situation where only the economically and intellectually elite go to college, to a point where nearly everyone does. I could go on, but you get the idea.

In the end, it's a tone that's annoying me here. No, the middle class in our country is not sitting around eating bon bons. We work hard, we worry, we hope not to hit some piece of adversity that swamps us. But that's not something that sets us apart from the rest of humanity. That's one of the things that unites us with Chinese farmers and medieval peasants and paleolithic hunter-gatherers. We've always lived by the sweat of our brows, and found meaning and pride in our ability to do so. In almost every way, it's easier and more comfortable to do so in the modern US than at any other time or place in history. We should, I think, be conscious of that, and grateful for it. We don't live in a perfectly equitable society, and gratitude does not necessitate believing that, but if we fail to be grateful for what we have and where we are, we make ourselves profoundly disconnected from the rest of history and humanity.

Lickona is Back

For those wanting their Godsbody fix, Lickona is finally back, with more hair than ever, at the original Godsbody blog site.

Iowa: Economic Conservatives Feel the Pain

I headed over to the National Review blog last week for the first time in a couple months. I'd been sticking with the dead-tree edition of National Review for the last while, but I wanted to see what the reaction was to the Huckabee win in Iowa.

Total free fall.

I don't think I'd seen that National Review writers so mad since Bush nominated Miers to the Supreme Court.

Did we want the GOP to morph into a clone of the European Christian Democrat parties? Did no one care about economic and small government conservatism anymore? Was this a strictly sectarian vote of Evangelicals for a Baptist minister? WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON?

As things settled out, the basic conclusion seemed to be: Iowa is an unusual state, and the caucus system emphasizes that yet further. No need to worry, we'll get Romney or McCain -- or maybe Rudy at a long shot -- in the end.

That analysis may be basically right, but in what I could read about the sentiments being expressed in Iowa, I think there are two more things that people should take away from this:

1) All of us Christian conservatives who have been threatening to stay home or vote third party if Rudy is the nominee really are serious. After being told for months that Giuliani's pro-choice history didn't matter, Iowans turned out and voted for the most religiously vocal candidate available, and they did so pretty overwhelmingly. So for those who are now shouting, "Anyone but Huck," and wondering how to quiet the storm, the answer is: Throw Rudy overboard. There are much more conservative candidates out there than Rudy, and religious conservatives will be much more pliable once they're not being threatened with a pro-choice, anti-gun, cross-dressing New Yorker.

2) Even among registered Republicans, true intellectual conservatives are probably in the minority. We have a lot of tempermental conservatives: people who are pretty sure that most changes won't turn out for the good. We also have plenty of religious conservatives, who may not actually be all that conservative on size-of-government and economics, though those views are gradually rubbing off on them. But movement, intellectual conservatives are and probably always will be, a minority. So we shouldn't be shocked when it turns out that a lot of Republicans are actually quite open to a populist message combined with social conservatism and a proposal for a Fair Tax.

At the end of the day, I'm not crazy about Huckabee, though I'd vote for him in the unlikely event that he's actually the nominee. But the message I hope is getting through somewhere over in party headquarters is: If you totally ignore pro-life Republicans, things you don't like will start happening.

My Life Under the Dome

One of my most powerful memories from childhood is of sitting back in a large, old theater chair and looking up into the dome above as a planetarium projector (looking for all the world like a mutant ant on steroids) made the stars and planets wheel overhead.

My father was a planetarium lecturer. Not a very common trade: there are perhaps a hundred or two in the country, a thousand around the world. Dad ran the planetarium at Santa Monica College, and lectured part time at the Griffith Observatory for over twenty-five years.

A planetarium, for those unfamiliar with them, consists of a dome and a projector designed to be able to project up onto the dome the stars as they would appear at any given night within the last few thousand years -- or the next few thousand. You can see the stars as they would appear at any time, at any point on the world. A good, old fashioned star projector is a wonder of mechanical engineering. Star balls at each end contain a light source and thousands of carefully placed pin-pricks, focused by lenses, to project the stars in their correct place and brightness. Separate geared projectors show the planets as they follow their procession along the ecliptic, against the background stars.

The old lecturer's console up at Griffith (shown to the left, with the projector looming in the background) was a wonder of switches and dials encased in massive thirties-era woodwork. The lecturer, armed with a script, a dim reading light, and a laser pointer brought the lights down and summoned up the stars. There was always a brief "star talk" in which the lecturer pointed out the night constellations currently visible in the early evening, which planets were currently visible, and any upcoming astronomical events. Then the "feature" part of the show followed, which might cover anything from the anniversary of the moon landings, to the martian lander, to the set of conjunctions which may have been the "Star of Bethlehem."

These days, most planetariums used "canned shows". The movements of the projector and automated, and a pre-recorded voice gives exactly the same lecture every time. No wonder they're not very popular. As recorded entertainment goes, planetarium shows don't compete. But back then at least, Griffith shows were always life, with each lecturer giving the standard script his own flavor.

I wish I could claim that I'd retained more from those many afternoons and evenings under artificial skies. I can still identify a half dozen constellations and find Arcturus and generally know what planet I'm looking at in the early evening, but that's about it. Mostly, I have memories of bouncing in theater seats, looking at the ranks of dials, certain pieces of music that sound like stars coming out to me, and the tones of my father's voice as he walked the audience through the universe.

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine. Et lux perpétua luceat eis.

Do We Need Morality?

My team at work tends to generate a lot of interesting lunchtime conversation (we go out for team lunch once a week) in part due to our Indian/US cultural split. We have two Hindus and one Jain on the Indian side and a Baptist, a Methodist, a "sort of spiritual" ex-Catholic and me on the American side, which certainly provides a variety of opinion. (The day our boss, the Baptist, was out, it turned out that all our Indians doubted reincarnation, while our Methodist and ex-Catholic both believed in it.)

One day our Jain team-member (he keeps all of Jainism's dietary requirements, but he says his beliefs are untraditional enough in regards to the gods that he upsets his mother) threw out a question that generated it's due share of controversy: Why do we have morality?

He contented that morality essentially set up a second and parallel set of laws, enacted by those without the political authority to control the legal system. Why have both religiously determined morality and legality? Why not just have a single authority with a single set of rules?

This struck me as an interesting question, because for the life of me I cannot imagine people not having ideas of morality that deviate (or may deviate) from whatever legal/societal restrictions they find themselves under.

Imagine for a moment a situation in which a priest/aristocrat class sets all laws and there is no religious our moral structure separate from that single set of leaders. It is announced, one day, that having a beard is a moral abomination and all men must shave daily or have their heads cut off. Everyone follows this lead but one man, as he lifts his razor in the morning, thinks to himself: "This is not right. I should be able to grow a beard if I want to. Cutting a man's head off because of his hair is wrong."

That man has just invented a personal moral system. So long as we are capable of receiving instruction from some other source and thinking, "No, that's not how it is. Things are actually this other way," we will have systems of morality which are separate from the law.

Now I should say, this line of argument did not win over my colleague. He argued that when someone looks at an precept that is given to him and thinks, "That is not right," he is simply wishing that he were in charge instead.

That really, is what leaves me most confused about the line of argument. I am frankly rather flummoxed as to how one could not see the holding of such a conviction as morality.

A Military Pacifist

A career military man writes about peace in a post well worth read. Check the comments as well. While I don't necessarily share in the author's disillusion with the purposes of the Iraq War, I think he strikes the perfect Christian balance on understanding war and peace, and the place of the individual Christian with respect to them.

My Youth as a Santa Skeptic

When the Darwin children tore the wrapping off their Christmas presents last week, they bore tags like "From Mom and Dad" and "From Grandma" but not "From Santa". Santa has never made an appearance in Darwin family mythology, primarily because I was one of those aggressively skeptical children who refused to suspend disbelief in Santa starting around the age of 3 or 4.

I pestered by parents with questions: How does Santa get into houses without chimneys? How does Santa really know if people are good or not? How does Santa visit all houses in one night? Why does Santa seem to give the same sorts or presents that Mom and Dad would?

My parents didn't want to set a precedent of lying to their children, so I quickly sensed that the answers they gave me were highly qualified. "Maybe if Santa can't reach all the houses, he lets parents know what he would give and so the parents deliver the presents for him."

I smelled a rat and zeroed in for the kill: "There isn't really a Santa, is there? It's just a story that parents tell children."

Why go to all the work to spin stories for a child who insists on cold reality? Santa died: not with a bang, but with a whimper. Feeling in my youthful heart that I had now overturned one of the great frauds in history, I worked to spread the word. Other children, however, seemed less interested. Other adults were also not necessarily as free thinking as my parents when it came to unmasking the Santa game. In third grade I was ordered to the principle's office for blowing the whistle on our teacher, who had skipped over a few pages in the book she was reading aloud after lunch -- in which the main character's older sibling informed him that Santa was just Mom and Dad. Our teacher must have thought we still needed to be spared this harsh reality, and the rest of the class wasn't bothering to read along and didn't notice the skipped pages.

"Now why did you do that?" the principle, our one remaining nun -- and not a very severe one -- asked. "You teacher says one of the girls in your class was crying."

"It's true," I responded, dogmatically.

Sister sighed and told me to sit in the chair outside her office for half an hour and then go back to my classroom.

Now, in our family, there were three gift holidays in the lineup. On St. Nicholas Day cookies and chocolate coins and such showed up in our shoes, placed there by St. Nicholas. On Christmas there were presents and stockings, and on Epiphany there were one or two small presents in celebration of the Three Wise Men.

I'd quickly driven Santa from Christmas, such that my younger siblings never even heard of him, except as a pop-myth which other families believed in. However, I was much more hesitant to question whether St. Nicholas really had anything to do with the little presents that showed up in our shoes. I think it's mostly that I was worried it would be disrespectful to publicly question a saint.

Eventually, at around age six, I performed an attempt at a double blind test which for the longest time suppressed my willingness to dig further in that regard. The Jewish kids in the next apartment over had, of course, never heard of St. Nicholas day. When I realized this, I started talking it up to them (get candy before Hanukkah!) and encouraged them to put out their shoes and see if candy appeared. I figured that if it really was St. Nicholas, then he would know the shoes were there in the next apartment over, and the candy would duly be delivered.

Sure enough, candy appeared, though theirs was marked with pictures of Menorahs and the Star of David. Years later, my mom recounted to me that the kids had talked it up so much to their parents that they had figured they'd better provide candy lest the kids be disappointed, so the Hanukkah candy was dipped into early. (Another experiment foiled by the inability to control for all factors.) However, it was several years more before I dared directly question whether the saint was directly involved in delivering St. Nicholas Day treats.

Tolstoy, Happiness and the Holy Family

Tolstoy opens Anna Karennina by observing, "Happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Perhaps its a sign that Tolstoy is indeed a very good writer that despite the fact this quote strikes me as both wrong and annoying, the line is sufficiently descriptive and well turned that one can't escape the idea that somehow it's saying something important.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I spent the gospel for the Feast of the Holy Family standing in the vestibule with a squirming, squealing 21-month-old. The facts of the Holy Family's history to not necessarily point to the uniform ease which Tolstoy seems to attribute to happy families: inexplicable pregnancy, birth under difficult conditions (and with strange visitors), fleeing death at the hands of the political authorities, Joseph's death before Jesus turned 30, etc. I hadn't thought about this before, since if anything the Holy Family often seems too distant to be much of a practical exemplar. I mean, you've got one person who's sinless, one person who's God, and even the weakest link, Joseph, always seems able to do God's will without question. And yet, most of us, if we'd gone through half the difficulties the Holy Family did would feel ourselves rather ill used.

No family, I suspect, if put under sufficient scrutiny can claim to have experience universally happy events. What makes all happy families the same is, instead, one's choice to view them happily. Similarly, what makes all unhappy families the same is one's choice to feel miserable about them. Often, the same family, with the same history and characters, is seen as happy and unhappy by different people, not necessarily just because some "came out ahead" but rather because some people choose to focus on the happy, and others on the unhappy.

One area in which this is particularly evident is in how people view their childhoods, and periods within living memory. It's a commonplace among many people right now that it was much easier for a family to make a living in the 1950s-1970s than it is now. Perhaps in some objective sense (if you were white and middle class) it was, but I suspect that most of this is that that period is currently seen through the filter of people's childhood experiences, or even their parents' childhood experiences.

My own memories of how our family situation seemed to me when I was a child clearly clash with my adult knowledge of how it took my parents ten years longer to afford a (smaller) house, my father's fears fears about his job, a city college salary that tended to grow slower than inflation, and various other forms of adversity. Parents try hard to make their children feel secure, and children have an amazing capacity to feel stable and secure, even in very difficult circumstances. Most adults lack this capacity, and so our adult experience of the world can seldom compete with our childhood experiences when it comes to a feeling of security.

Tolstoy's heroine has a family no more individual in its circumstances than most, but she has the gift of being able to be unhappy in any situation, and longing for what she does not (and arguably should not) have.

All happy families, I think, are alike in that they possess people able to be happy in them, and all unhappy families are alike in that they contain those of the opposite disposition.

Quick post so our readers don't give us up for dead

Sorry to be incommunicado lately -- as Darwin said, we've been enjoying our Christmas vacation. Darwin put in a burst of work and finished the playhouse for the small fry (pix later) and we picked out a fine kitten who is loved by all and who patiently submits to being carried around by the toddler.

Lucy the Christmas cat

We've also been busy rounding up stockings and fancy shoes and dresses and getting hair trimmed for the wedding of some dear friends this afternoon. Please remember in your prayers as they start their new life together.

A Merry Christmas to All

A merry and blessed Christmas to all, and if this greeting is a little late, at least there are still ten more days of it to enjoy!


Things will probably continue fairly quiet on the blog through the 1st, as the corporate holidays are giving me a chance to catch up on a number of projects, though I can promise at least a couple posts by the end of the week.

The Nutcracker in Ten Minutes

For those of you with little girls who love ballet but don't have the attention span to sit through an entire production of the Nutcracker (and have parents who are in shock at the financial impact of such holiday fare), we present The Nutcracker in Ten Minutes. Kid tested, mother approved.



h/t Teeny Manolo

Materialism Requires Material Comfort?

John Farrell has a brief review of Brother Guy consolmango's new book, God's Mechanics, from which I loved the following line:

Atheism is a luxury of the well-to-do; it goes hand in hand with flush toilets.

And Now For Some Serious Political/Moral Commentary

Science fiction author John C. Wright helps us examine the really important questions, like truth and beauty.

So there you have it! The beauty contest method of choosing sides works roughly half the time without error! Considering how often folk are led astray by more complicated and profound processes of cognition, this shallowest of methods, judging the merits of the case by the surface appearances, cannot be dismissed out of hand.

This one's for you, Rick.

Faith in an Orderly Universe

It's not only Catholic cardinals who manage to create a firestorm when they write NY Times op-eds about science and philosophy. Physicist Paul Davies landed quite a bit of attention last month with an editorial titled Taking Science on Faith. His point is one that has always struck me as deeply compelling: that science as a discipline relies on an implicit faith that the universe acts according to knowable laws.

Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships.

This view ruffled quite a few feathers. A follow up article (the one that actually caught my eye the other day) by Dennis Overbye describes some of the flack that Davies has caught from other scientists, science enthusiasts, and anyone else who felt like writing to the Time letters column:

His argument provoked an avalanche of blog commentary, articles on Edge.org and letters to The Times, pointing out that the order we perceive in nature has been explored and tested for more than 2,000 years by observation and experimentation. That order is precisely the hypothesis that the scientific enterprise is engaged in testing.

David J. Gross, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, told me in an e-mail message, “I have more confidence in the methods of science, based on the amazing record of science and its ability over the centuries to answer unanswerable questions, than I do in the methods of faith (what are they?).”

However, the attempts that Overbye quotes to explain science's reliance on an orderly universe without recourse to a leap of faith sound suspiciously like an attempt to do the same thing in different words:

Pressed, these scientists will describe the laws more pragmatically as a kind of shorthand for nature’s regularity. Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology, put it this way: “A law of physics is a pattern that nature obeys without exception.”

That sounds very observational and pragmatic... except for the "without exception" part at the end there. True, we don't have to tune in every morning to the daily gravity report to see how fast things are falling that day, but saying that the laws of physics describe how the world behaves "without exception" based on a few hundred years of modern science (during most of which we interpreted our observations as pointing to laws other than our current understanding of physics) strikes me as taking something very like a leap of faith.

The issue, I think, is that some people who spend a lot of time and attention on science (I think this is actually more of an issue with science enthusiasts and low level science teachers as opposed to serious high level research scientists -- though one finds it at times there as well) have rather too much invested in the idea that scientific methodologies are The One Reliable Way of Finding Out How the Universe Really Works.

And yet, taken on their own, scientific methodologies are generally formulated to determine how things appear to work in a given set of situations and times. It's our faith that the universe works in a knowable, orderly, fairly universal fashion that allows us to turn five hundred years of modern science (or 2500 if you want to date science from the Greeks) into knowledge of how things work "without exception."

What's ironic, in a sense, is that Davies is not trying to advocate more respect for faith via his editorial. Rather, his last two paragraphs issue a call to seek a new, less universal way of understandings the "laws" of science:

It seems to me there is no hope of ever explaining why the physical universe is as it is so long as we are fixated on immutable laws or meta-laws that exist reasonlessly or are imposed by divine providence. The alternative is to regard the laws of physics and the universe they govern as part and parcel of a unitary system, and to be incorporated together within a common explanatory scheme.

In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.

If science were to be a totally self-contained discipline, I see the importance of what he's advocating. Though at the same time, I'm not entirely clear what these explanations internal to the universe would look like. The strong nuclear force works because... why?

That's the funny thing about "laws" in physics. Contrary to how my third grade science book tried to explain it, a law is not simply a hypothesis that has been tested many times. A law is something which seems to be universally the case, and yet has to be taken just "as is". There's not necessarily a "why" involved.

This is just fine if you simply consider science a methodology for explaining how material systems behave. It's rather more problematic if you have hopes of science being the one true method of knowing things for sure. Which is what leaves those interested in science who are comfortable with having a metaphysics in a better spot than those who imagine that one is better off without one.

My Life as a Sanctuary Rat

In case the relative silence on my part hasn't been a give-away, things have been a bit on the busy side around here. The team is gradually shrinking at work as people decide to "work from home" until the break, and since I price consumer electronics, the work has remained fairly heavy. We also seem to find ourselves at the church, at least briefly, just about every day.

The fault for this is pretty well split between MrsDarwin and myself. I got a Liturgy of the Hours group off the ground about two months ago, saying Vespers on Monday and Wednesday nights. Now we're up to four nights, Monday through Thursday, and although we're starting to build a decent and loyal attendance, it's not solid enough I feel like I can skip. Plus, I've been typing up sheets for each night for those who haven't bought books yet. This would involve four weeks of work to get the cycle done, except that as soon as we got through a four week cycle, Advent started, with all sorts of Advent-specific stuff, so there's usually some change or other I have to make and reprint for each evening's Vespers.

Meanwhile, the chant schola which MrsDarwin helped start has taken over the 7:30 mass (once a month to start with), and did a Lessons and Carols last week, and has to sing for the penance service this week, and has the 10:30 on Christmas. So she's at practice 2-3 nights a week.

So as you can imagine, Advent has been quite penitential indeed and we're very much looking forward to some quiet sailing during the Christmas season.

This is somewhat familiar ground for MrsDarwin, whose family was always deeply involved in church related activities, but the sanctuary rat routine has been quite new to me, as my family was never involved in "parish stuff".

Thus goes life around here. One way or another things should be calming down soon.

Upcoming priorities:

• Finish getting Christmas presents before they all become Epiphany presents.
• Get walls up on the playhouse.
• Finish reading Duffy's Stripping of the Altars and Waugh's Decline and Fall. (There's a good contrast for you.)
• Buy a kitten. (We've decided that the cat needs a hobby.)
• Finish my bottle of Macallan 12-Year.
• Conduct the annual viewing of George C. Scott's A Christmas Carol (because there's only one that good).
• Oh, and write some substantive posts...
  

Bonfire of the Disney Princesses

I could care less for the Disney Princesses phenomenon, but at least my distaste hasn't crossed the line into conspiracy madness. Barbara Ehrenreich, writing in The Nation, examines the Princesses and concludes that they're just a tool of the man to force little girls into skewed gender roles.

Contrary to the rumors I have been trying to spread for some time, Disney Princess products are not contaminated with lead. More careful analysis shows that the entire product line--books, DVDs, ball gowns, necklaces, toy cell phones, toothbrush holders, T-shirts, lunch boxes, backpacks, wallpaper, sheets, stickers etc.--is saturated with a particularly potent time-release form of the date rape drug.

We cannot blame China this time, because the drug is in the concept, which was spawned in the Disney studios. Before 2000, the Princesses were just the separate, disunited, heroines of Disney animated films-- Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Aurora, Pocahontas, Jasmine, Belle, and Mulan. Then Disney's Andy Mooney got the idea of bringing the gals together in a team. With a wave of the wand ($10.99 at Target, tiara included) they were all elevated to royal status and set loose on the world as an imperial cabal, and have since have busied themselves achieving global domination. Today, there is no little girl in the wired, industrial world who does not seek to display her allegiance to the pink- and-purple clad Disney dynasty.

Disney likes to think of the Princesses as role models, but what a sorry bunch of wusses they are. Typically, they spend much of their time in captivity or a coma, waking up only when a Prince comes along and kisses them. The most striking exception is Mulan, who dresses as a boy to fight in the army, but--like the other Princess of color, Pocahontas--she lacks full Princess status and does not warrant a line of tiaras and gowns. Otherwise the Princesses have no ambitions and no marketable skills, although both Snow White and Cinderella are good at housecleaning.

And what could they aspire to, beyond landing a Prince? In Princessland, the only career ladder leads from baby-faced adolescence to a position as an evil enchantress, stepmother or witch. Snow White's wicked stepmother is consumed with envy for her stepdaughter's beauty; the sea witch Ursula covets Ariel's lovely voice; Cinderella's stepmother exploits the girl's cheap, uncomplaining, labor. No need for complicated witch-hunting techniques--pin-prickings and dunkings--in Princessland. All you have to look for is wrinkles.

Feminist parents gnash their teeth. For this their little girls gave up Dora, who bounds through the jungle saving baby jaguars, whose mother is an archeologist and whose adventures don't involve smoochy rescues by Diego? There was drama in Dora's life too, and the occasional bad actor like Swiper the fox. Even Barbie looks like a suffragette compared to Disney's Belle. So what's the appeal of the pink tulle Princess cult?

Seen from the witchy end of the female life cycle, the Princesses exert their pull through a dark and undeniable eroticism. They're sexy little wenches, for one thing. Snow White has gotten slimmer and bustier over the years; Ariel wears nothing but a bikini top (though, admittedly, she is half fish.) In faithful imitation, the 3-year-old in my life flounces around with her tiara askew and her Princess gown sliding off her shoulder, looking for all the world like a London socialite after a hard night of cocaine and booze. Then she demands a poison apple and falls to the floor in a beautiful swoon. Pass the Rohypnol-laced margarita, please.

It may be old-fashioned to say so, but sex--and especially some middle-aged man's twisted version thereof--doesn't belong in the pre-K playroom. Children are going to discover it soon enough, but they're got to do so on their own.

There's a reason, after all, why we're generally more disgusted by sexual abusers than adults who inflict mere violence on children: we sense that sexual abuse more deeply messes with a child's mind. One's sexual inclinations--straightforward or kinky, active or passive, heterosexual or homosexual--should be free to develop without adult intervention or manipulation. Hence our harshness toward the kind of sexual predators who leer at kids and offer candy. But Disney, which also owns ABC, Lifetime, ESPN, A&E and Miramax, is rewarded with $4 billion a year for marketing the masochistic Princess cult and its endlessly proliferating paraphernalia.

Let's face it, no parent can stand up against this alone. Try to ban the Princesses from your home, and you might as well turn yourself in to Child Protective Services before the little girls get on their Princess cell phones. No, the only way to topple royalty is through a mass uprising of the long-suffering serfs. Assemble with your neighbors and make a holiday bonfire out of all that plastic and tulle! March on Disney World with pitchforks held high!

There are certainly things to object to about the Disney Princesses. The blatant attempt to make brand-conscious consumers out of three-year-olds? The bastardization of the original tales by Grimm and Perrault? The sheer amount of junk turned out under the Princess line? These are valid concerns. I can't really get upset about girls wanting to wear pink frilly stuff, though. Ms. Ehrenreich's shrill attempt at humor falls about as flat as the three-year-old after the "poison apple".

Ms. Ehrenreich fusses about the hyper-sexualization of young girls, but she's upset that there's no Pocahontas dress? Hello! But perhaps she'd rather have us stick it to the man at Disney by supporting the competition. Bratz dolls, anyone? Now there's some wholesome goodness unaffected by "some middle-aged man's twisted version" of what's hot on tots.

Her protestations aside, I have to believe that Ms. Ehrenreich is unencumbered by acquaintance with young girls, or she'd know that all their dress-up clothes fall off their shoulders, because they like to dress up in clothes that are too big for them. And then they fight like cats and dogs and throw high heels and climb trees. Frankly, I'd find it disturbing to have my children around someone whose proclaimed philosophy is that "one's sexual inclinations--straightforward or kinky, active or passive, heterosexual or homosexual--should be free to develop without adult intervention or manipulation." No wonder the three-year-old plays dead.

Death of a Fruitcake

This is for my brother, who told me he once was bested in a battle-rapping contest:



h/t Teeny Manolo

Lyrics in the combox.