Mutuality

 

Reflections on a Trip to Mexico

            I spent eight days on a service trip to Door of Faith Orphanage in Mexico over spring break.  In just three days since returning, I’ve been asked repeatedly about my experience.  If for no other reason than to respond to friends’ questions, I need to think about it.

            Superficially, not much happened.  It took a day and a half to drive to La Mision and equally long to return.  Our service to the orphanage consisted mostly in cleaning kitchens, trash removal, painting rooms in the older boys’ dorm, and small repairs.  In the afternoons, some of our group (children and young adults) played soccer or basketball with children from Door of Faith.  One afternoon I gave chess lessons to Humberto, an eight-year-old boy who knew how the pieces move but little more.  Next year I plan to take a chess set with me, to invite kids to play each day of the visit.

            On a deeper level, I learned about mutuality.  That is, I learned a little, not everything.  I suspect I have much more to learn.

            When American Christians go to foreign countries on short term mission trips, they face not-so-subtle temptations to think of themselves as superior in some way to the people they serve.  It’s easy to think we know the right way to do things (build buildings, pave roads, fix plumbing, etc.); in some cases, we actually do know how.  Feelings of spiritual superiority can infect us as well.  In our minds, they are victims of poverty (often they are poor), ignorance (the children attend school every day), and lack of proper planning.  We think: they should listen to us.  They should do it the way we do it.

            But teaching and learning is a two-way street.  We have much to learn about how things work in Mexico.  (I’m sure the same is true of other countries.)  Our team’s leader, John Laney, lent me a book written, in part, by one of the directors of Door of Faith, Reciprocal Missions.  The title captures much of the thrust of the book.  The spiritual benefit of short-term mission experiences flow both ways.  We serve and are served.  We teach and we learn. 

            Back at GFU this week, my honors students discussed Whose Religion is Christianity, by Lamin Sanneh and The Next Christendom, by Philip Jenkins.  These authors confront their readers with facts on the ground that upset the expectations of many people.  The Christian movement grew rapidly in the second half of the 20^th century, and it grow not through the imposition of European structures (the colonial era died in the early 20^th century) but through indigenous discovery of the gospel.  (Sanneh identifies translation of the Bible into local vernacular languages as a crucial factor.)  In the 21^st century, world Christianity is not mostly white or European or North American or rich.  Most Christians are brown or black and poor.

            Our mission trip to La Mision exposed me, for just a week, to the majority church.  Of course, one instance of Christian ministry in just one country gives only a tiny window into the world church.  But it’s better than ignorance.

            Sanneh argues that we must be open to the possibility that God is doing something in the world.  We should not try to explain away the explosive growth of the majority church with the tools of 19^th century sociology and philosophy (according to which the global church resulted from colonial impositions and will fade away through the power of modernism).  The majority church is not the “global” church (European churches multiplied everywhere) but a truly “world” church, rising as people encounter God revealed in Jesus.

           

Policies, Prayers, and the President

 

Praying for the President

 

            In 2016, I quit the Republican Party because it nominated Donald Trump for president, and I’ve never voted for him.  I make this first point to establish my “never Trump” bona fides.  I thought then, and think now, that Donald Trump is morally unfit for the office.  Nevertheless, now that he is president, it is my duty as a follower of Jesus to pray for Mr. Trump.  How do I do that?

            It’s possible, of course, to offer “generic” prayers for political leaders.  I can ask God to give some office holder—mayor, congressperson, governor, president, etc.—wisdom and courage to seek justice and shalom.  I can ask that the eyes of the powerful and rich be opened to the needs of the weak and poor.  And so on.

            But what about specific policies pursued by a political leader?  How should I pray for a legislator who wants to make “death with dignity” easier?  (I recently learned of an effort in Oregon to greatly weaken legal safeguards around assisted suicide, which would increase deaths from depression and, I think, move Oregon significantly closer to involuntary euthanasia.)  Do I pray for God’s guidance and blessing for the leader while also praying that her policy be defeated?  It seems I should.

            I pray, then, for God to guide President Trump into the ways of justice and shalom.  I rejoice that Mr. Trump has publicly said he aims to broker peace in places of conflict, including Gaza and Ukraine.  Naturally, I pray that God give the president success in peacemaking.

            But how does Mr. Trump aim to resolve these conflicts?  In the Gaza case, he publicly proposed that the Gazans (about 2 million people) move to Egypt and/or Jordan, so that the US could take possession of Gaza and turn it into a Rivera-like resort.  Regarding Ukraine, he invited Zelenskyy to the White House, where he berated and insulted him on live television.  Before and after the infamous meeting, Trump adopted Putin-like language about the conflict, calling Zelenskyy a dictator and assigning responsibility for the war to Ukraine.  Apparently, Trump thinks it’s their fault the Russians invaded.

            If Trump had offered to move 2 million Gazans to the US (we have lots of land in Nevada and Utah that looks superficially like Gaza) so the US could develop an Eastern Mediterranean resort, then we might have taken his proposal seriously.  Two million immigrants would be a much smaller proportional burden on us than on Egypt and Jordan.  But Trump doesn’t want immigrants to the US if they might be a burden.  Trump’s Gaza proposal strikes me as fantasy thinking.

            The Ukraine case may be even worse.  The news services today report that Russian government spokespersons have happily endorsed Trump’s rejection of Zelenskyy.  It seems to them, and more and more it seems to me, that Trump has simply adopted the Russian analysis of the Ukraine conflict.  To wit: Ukraine is not a real country; historically, it was and should be a part of greater Russia; therefore, any move by NATO to include Ukraine or support its continued independence amounts to an attack on Russia.  The real cause of the war was Ukrainian refusal to submit to Russian rule.  Thus, the way to peace is for Ukraine to sell minerals to the US and trust that Russia will abide by a ceasefire.  (Trump’s friend Putin would not interfere with US economic interests in Ukraine—right?)

            As a follower of Jesus, I must pray for peace between Israel and Gaza and between Russia and Ukraine.  I must pray for Donald Trump.  Should I pray that God give success to Trump’s policies that seem hopelessly inadequate to the task?  Should I pray that foolish policies be defeated?  (The policies seem foolish to me, but perhaps I am wrong.)  Should I pray that Trump’s thinking change, that he and his advisors find new policies to pursue?

           

Some Amost-Platonic Reflections

 

Beauty in Community

 

            Sarah and I attended a concert by the Oregon Symphony last night.  It’s an annual event in Newberg, made possible by a foundation grant from A-DEC (Austin Dental Equipment Company, one of the biggest employers in Newberg), Ken and Joan Austin.  The concert came at the end of a long day; I was tired and prone to distraction.  Gradually, though, the music concentrated my mind.

            Music displays beauty.  That’s an interesting fact, since we also find beauty in what seem to be very different modes.  Nature gives us visual beauty in trees, flowers, a star-strewn sky, and many other images.  We see other examples of visual beauty in paintings and photographs and yet another in human bodies.  And there are abstract beauties: a mathematical proof, a move in chess (a move that, more than merely solving the problem, solves the problem elegantly), a scientific hypothesis, or a philosophical vision.  Somehow in all these ways—and others—we find beauty.

            According to Diotima, the wise woman who explained eros to Socrates (in Plato’s Symposium), we start our exploration of beauty by noticing individual beauties, the beauty of bodies.  We become aware that all the particular beauties share in the form of beauty, and then we recognize Beauty in abstract things like laws and institutions.  If we climb higher on the ladder of love, we realize we desire not just this or that beautiful thing but Beauty itself, the form of the Beautiful.  Then, in good Platonic style, we move to love of the highest form, the Good.

            There’s another feature of a live concert.  I suppose—though I am not well-enough trained to have noticed—that the sounds I heard last night were not perfect.  That is, the musicians, move than sixty of them, did not play the notes exactly as written by Rachmaninoff.  It’s easy to imagine one of them chastising himself for an error in timing, tone, or volume.  We might imagine an edited recording, in which a technically brilliant and musically adept team of recording experts “fix” all the errors.  And it’s easy for us to imagine a supercomputer programmed to translate Rachmaninoff’s score into an error-free rendition of the piece.

            As a matter of fact, much of the music we hear on television, radio, and through our iphones partakes of this “manufactured” quality.  It’s music as background.  We hardly notice.  (The advertisers and algorithms pay attention to it, even if we don’t.)  Is it beautiful?

            Listening to the Symphony I became intensely aware: this is a live performance.  All those people, more than sixty of them, are collaborating to produce this experience of beauty for me.  That is, for us, all of us here in the auditorium.  The performers practiced, of course; in combination, in total, for hundreds of hours on this piece of music.  And before that, they trained themselves for thousands of hours (each of them) to attain a symphony level of excellence.

            As I listen, all that preparation is past.  Right now, here, they are collectively giving me/us this experience of beauty.  Consider how amazing this gift is.  In the listening I enter beauty.  According to Plato, I enter Beauty itself and through it into the Good, if only temporarily.

            (Do we experience Beauty and the Good via manufactured music?  Plato didn’t have to defend his philosophy in an age of computers or synthesizers.  What would he have said?)

            Much of this meditation would apply equally to a solo performer.  The musical soloist also gives the listener an open door to Beauty.  The Symphony is a collaboration, a community, which adds another layer to the beauty of the music.  As I listened, I could watch the players as they concentrated on the score before them (while also watching the conductor’s movements) and translated the musical notation into sounds.  Visual details added to the sense of collaborative beauty.

            When walking my dog, I am often grateful for visual beauties in the world I see.  Today I am grateful for the aural beauty of the symphony.

           

 

Reflections on Dependency

 

Philosophical Bits #5:

Vulnerability and Rationality

            Alasdair MacIntyre influenced late 20^th century analytic philosophy, especially moral philosophy, with three notable books: first, After Virtue; second, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? and finally, Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry.  He was a leading voice in what is often called the revival of virtue theory.  MacIntyre’s historically informed analysis of moral philosophy in the modern period—his persuasive argument that what he called “the enlightenment project” could not succeed—greatly shaped my thinking and lecturing from the time I first read his books in the 1990s.

            In 2004 I read another book by MacIntyre: Dependent Rational Animals.  I’ve been thinking about themes and implications of that book for twenty years.  MacIntyre invited philosophers to take seriously our nature as human beings.

            We are all born dependent.  Every human baby must receive care and nurture from adult human beings to live.  Near the end of life, many or most of us will need nursing care from others.  Between birth and death, we are never more than an accident or injury from needing emergency care from others.  All this just to maintain bare physical life. 

Our psychological well-being depends on receiving touch and attention from adults.  We need other people to teach us how to dress ourselves, how to speak, and how to interact with family members, strangers, and persons of authority.  We need other people to teach us how to read, to use tools and machines, and to calculate.  Every vision of the good life for human beings requires other people to provide the individual with materials, ideas, skills, and training.  Notice that even in fantasies like Robinson Crusoe and Castaway the isolated person takes with him, in his mind and memory, the benefits of his upbringing.  As social creatures we are dependent creatures.  If an isolated person can maintain his life, it is only because he holds within himself gifts of learning and training for which he was dependent on others.

Philosophers, even more than other people, ought to recognize our indebtedness and dependence on other people.  I did not invent logic, or the clever systems of symbols philosophers use to analyze arguments.  (In logic alone, consider concepts such as proposition, negation, implication, contraries, contradictories, validity, etc.)  I did not investigate the history of thought, nor did I create the thousands of arguments and counter arguments by which philosophers provoke one another to pursue truth, beauty, and the good.  Philosophy begins in wonder, said Plato, but wonder alone brings one only to the edge of the ocean of thought; swimming in that ocean is made possible only by engaging with the thinking of others.  If philosophers today are able to advance our discipline or create any genuine wisdom, we do so as minds shaped by the conceptual gifts of others.

Dependency implies and creates vulnerability.  We need other people, but other people have the power to threaten the good lives we want to live.  Sometimes threats are near and obvious, as when others steal our possessions, assault us physically, or kill our loved ones.   Other times the treat can be large scale, as when an authoritarian government stifles inquiry by enshrining some theological or ideological doctrine as “the truth” and compelling everyone to assent to it.  At still other times, the threat comes not from criminals or a government, but from the latest social or philosophical fad.  Group think can happen on a large scale.

Thus, even a little reflection on our dependent and vulnerable nature introduces questions of political philosophy.  How can a society encourage adults to care for children?  How can a polis discourage theft, fraud, violence, and threats of violence?  How can society encourage open discussion and criticism of even popular ideas?  How can a polis discourage such acts between citizens without endorsing/establishing some comprehensive account of the good life for human beings?  Note: this last question owes its form to John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.

Rawls says we can understand our pursuit of justice—the first virtue of political philosophy—through social contract analysis.  We do not have to agree on some comprehensive theory of the good life (Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Platonic, Marxist, Christian, etc.) in order to agree on basic rules of justice.  Instead of a complete vision of the good life, we adopt those rules that everybody (from behind the “veil of ignorance”) would agree to for his or her mutual benefit.  Rawls endorses religious freedom and a liberal political order: limited government, rule of law, and civil rights.

Will Rawls’ vision of a just society work?  Maybe.  In Whose Justice? Which Rationality? MacIntyre introduces the concept of competing traditions of rationality.  It is not enough to say that such and such a theory or argument is “rational,” because different traditions of rationality will endorse competing definitions of the terms, problems and decision procedures that make up rationality.  But, MacIntyre says, this does not mean we are left with epistemic relativism.  Every tradition of rationality has its own internal problems.  (A tradition with no problem, a tradition that has an answer for every question, is a dead tradition.)  If, in the competition between two traditions, one can show that it has the resources to solve the problems of the other tradition—as understood by that other tradition—it thereby demonstrates its superiority to the second tradition.  In philosophy of science courses, I have pointed out the parallel between MacIntyre’s argument and Thomas Kuhn’s argument in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  MacIntyre’s rationality of traditions parallels the rationality of a scientific revolution.

How can/should we persuade each other in social and political debates?  Is it possible to rationally persuade?  Yes.

First, we must identify and describe the problem in a way that our interlocutor endorses.  The other side needs to know that you understand the problem the way they do.  Second, we must show that our “solution” (including the reasons we give and the implications we draw from them) will solve the problem as understood by the other side.  The basic invitation is this: If we look at it this way, we can solve the problem; let’s do it together.

 

 

 

 

Incivility 2024

 

Presidential Politics, Two Months Out

            My last blog post, dated July 4, noted President Biden’s very poor performance in a late June debate with Donald Trump.  I speculated that Biden might repair his position in the race if this or that or something else happened.  None of those possibilities materialized.  As everyone knows, something else happened: Biden dropped out and endorsed Kamala Harris.  Mrs. Harris quickly took control of the Democratic National Convention.  Many polls show the race to be breathtakingly close.

            Again: not in Oregon or most states.  Oregon is safely blue; its electoral votes will go to Mrs. Harris.  In Oregon, I can safely vote for a protest candidate or write in a name (a way of saying I don’t like either major party candidate) without worrying my vote might affect the outcome.  At least four of our six Representatives in Congress will be Democrats.  A large majority of seats in the House—at least 250 and perhaps as many as 350—are “safe” seats for one party or the other.  Many Representatives face greater electoral challenges in their party primaries than in the general election.  In primaries, when it’s an intra-party fight, candidates tend to kowtow to extremists, the highly motivated single-issue voters on the edges of their party.  In the general election campaign, the candidate then moderates her views to appeal to voters in the middle.  But in a “safe” seat, the candidate needn’t moderate much.

            That paragraph wandered away from presidential to congressional politics.  Perhaps this little essay isn’t really about the presidential race, but about a larger topic.

            Politics, as I wrote in The Virtue of Civility in the Practice of Politics, is the art and science of making group decisions.  Electoral politics, and government in general, makes certain kinds of decisions for large groups of people.  Family politics, church politics, office politics, union politics—there are many other groups that must make decisions, and in each case those decisions can be made well or poorly.  Most of us can think of poorly made decisions in businesses, families, or schools.  The goal of politics at every level is better decisions; at least that’s what I wrote in 2002, and I still believe it.

            Superficially, people often agree that politics ought to aim at better decisions, but they treat their political opponents as mere obstacles.  We often act as if the goal of politics is winning, perhaps believing that we already know which policy ought to be adopted, which direction we should go.  I still believe that the goal of politics is not winning, but better decisions.

            Too often, candidates describe their opponents as thoroughly wrong, as selfish, as stupid, or as willfully evil.  Sadly, this kind of campaigning may “work,” in the sense that it leads to electoral victory.  But what happens when the slanderer takes office and turns to the actual work of government?  If we have made the political opponent into an enemy, how do we cooperate across party lines?

            Mr. Trump has not pledged to accept the outcome of the election if he loses.  Instead, he repeatedly warns that Democrats will promote voter fraud, and the election will not be fair.  The only possible “fair” outcome, in his mind, results in his victory.  If Mrs. Harris wins, we will almost certainly see multiple legal challenges to results in several states.  I worry that we will also see violence and threats of violence from Mr. Trump’s most extreme supporters.  But my main worry is the underlying polarization and incivility, not Mr. Trump himself.  Age will soon remove Mr. Trump from the political scene, but “trumpy” campaigning may continue.

           

After the Biden/Trump Debate

 

Presidential Politics, Four Months Out

 

            A week ago, June 27, Joe Biden and Donald Trump engaged in their first debate of the 2024 campaign.  President Biden performed poorly, strongly reinforcing the widespread belief that he is no longer mentally sharp enough to serve effectively as president.  If he were to win reelection and serve four years, Biden would be 86 before the end of his presidency.  Post-debate polls say that large majorities (more that 60%) of those who watched the debate do not think Biden is up to the job.  Few debate observers, perhaps less than 25%, believe Biden would be an effective president four years from now.

            Eleven months ago, I summarized my reflections on the race thusly: (1) There is a significant chance (35-40%) that Trump will be elected in 2024.  And: (2) There is a greater chance (60-65%) that Biden will be elected in 2024.  Obviously, such prognostications are subject to change, as events—events of many kinds, from Supreme Court decisions to foreign wars—change the political landscape.  My estimate of Trump-Biden 2024 has changed greatly.

            Before the debate, the polling consensus pointed to an extremely close election, with Trump leading Biden in most of the “swing” states by tiny margins.  It seems that Trump’s chances of winning the election had risen from the 35-40% range to a 50-53% range.  Why?  Events: the Hamas/Israel war (which pulled some progressives away from Biden’s strong and traditional Democratic support for Israel), lingering inflation worries, and continued anxiety about undocumented immigrants.  (Significantly, Trump pushed congressional Republicans to scuttle a bi-partisan reform of immigration law.  Trump would rather use “the border crisis” as a campaign bludgeon than allow Biden to sign a reform law.)

            So: even before the debate, the tide was moving in Trump’s direction.

Post-debate polls give Trump a bigger margin in the swing states, somewhere between 3% and 6%.  If the election were held today, Biden might win the popular vote, but it would be extremely close.  Republicans have a built-in advantage when it comes to the Electoral College; if the election were held today, Trump’s odds of winning are probably around 75%.  Remember, the U.S. is deeply polarized.  At least 40 states are safely “red” or “blue.”  Apart from a genuine landslide, the outcome of the election will rest on a handful of swing states, such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada.

Democratic party leaders know all this.  In the week since the debate, three Democratic congressmen have called for Biden to step aside from the campaign.  The New York Times and many other publications have editorialized the same.  There is a storm of controversy going on among Democrat donors, organizers, and politicians.  The decision, of course, can only be made by President Biden.

Theoretically, Biden could repair the damage of his debate performance.  He could meet repeatedly with the press in unscripted settings.  If, in such “live” settings, he showed himself able to think incisively and speak clearly—not just once or twice, but a dozen times before the election—he could reverse the popular picture of a “well-meaning man with a poor memory” (the words of the special prosecutor who chose not to indict Biden for his handling of government secret documents).  I say “theoretically” because I do not believe Biden could do it.  He is not “senile,” as right-wing pundits are saying, but he is not as mentally able as he was 25 years ago.  The stumbling, rambling Biden of the debate is just as much the real Biden as the man we often see reading from a teleprompter.

If Biden did withdraw, we would be in historically uncharted waters.  It would be difficult, though not impossible, for the Democrats to nominate and unite behind some other candidate.  But the newcomer would enter the race with many handicaps.  With or without Biden, the Democratic candidate will be an underdog for the fall.

Trump did not win the debate; Biden lost it.  The practical result is the same in either case.  Trump’s chances of winning the election are high. and the Democrats can’t do anything about it.  Trump, of course, could throw away his advantage.  For now, though, it seems the election is his to lose.

What should we expect from Trump’s return to the White House?  That’s the question Americans should be considering.

The Political Opponent is a Resource

 

Philosophical Bits #4:

Epistemology for Social Creatures

 

            Aristotle famously observed that “man is by nature a social animal.”  Human beings need each other to live; we certainly need each other to live well.  Aristotle said the solitary person who somehow believes he doesn’t need other people is more like a beast (below us) or a god (far above us).  Our social nature has implications for almost every aspect of human life, from economics to psychology and religion.

            Nowhere is this more obvious than in science.  Despite the stereotypical image of the lone mad scientist uncovering some heretofore unknown natural law—an image that shows up in literature since Frankenstein—modern science is most definitely a cooperative social endeavor.  Not only do scientists work in teams (often very large and well-funded teams), they publish their findings in scientific journals open to anyone.  Everyone’s work is checked and confirmed (or disconfirmed) by others.  The current generation of researchers build on the theories and discoveries of past scientists, so the social nature of science extends over time, not just geography.

            What is true of science is true of epistemology in general.  The “knowledge business,” in almost all its forms, is a cooperative social activity.  A philosopher may think alone, and he may write an essay in solitude (as I am doing now).  But then he exposes his work to others’ criticisms and corrections.  Both humility and realism teach us to take the criticisms of others seriously.  Most of the time, we learn together.

            A skeptic might object: We don’t learn, because “learning” implies objective truth.  In philosophy there are always arguments for and against, so we should never say we “know.”  But extreme skepticism refutes itself, in that it says we know that we cannot know.  It’s better to take skepticism as a warning.  Yes, the pursuit of knowledge is a slow business, filled with almost as many missteps as progress.  But we do learn.

            Now, someone might agree that natural science has progressed in the last six hundred years, greatly increasing our knowledge of biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, ecology, and so on.  But what about the so-called “soft” sciences?  Have we gained knowledge in economics, sociology, and psychology?  What about the arts and philosophy?  Do we understand beauty or truth or justice any better than our distant ancestors?  It seems that the further we get from the hard sciences, the less confident we are that we are making progress.

            Let’s face it, the critic may say: Philosophical “fads” come and go.  Marxism was an all-encompassing philosophical theory with drastic implications for economics, politics, and morality—but true believers are few.  Positivism dominated philosophy for thirty or forty years, but now it’s dead.  Deconstructionism was all the rage in the 90s, but its influence wanes.  So, maybe there is no progress in philosophy.  Maybe we just recycle old ideas in new guises. 

            Maybe.  But if not, we need each other in moral philosophy as much as we do in natural science.

            I’m a moral realist.  That is, I believe there is such a thing as moral truth, which means a person can sincerely believe in some moral proposition and be wrong.  Examples.  Within the last 100 years, well-educated persons in this country have pressed for eugenics laws, believing that modern science (evolutionary theory) supported the conclusion that some people are mentally and/or physically defective.  Others advocated for a socialist revolution, believing that only radical redistribution of ownership of the means of production could lead to economic justice.  Others defended racial segregation in law and custom, believing in the inherent superiority of white people over black people.

            These were all sincere beliefs held by educated people in this country in the recent past.  As a moral realist, I think they were wrong, which means there must be some other view which is right or at least closer to the truth.  Moral truth, if we can get it, is a very great good.  We should pursue it.

            (Notice the self-referential folding of that last paragraph.  The proposition, “We should pursue moral truth,” is itself a moral truth.)

            If philosophical fads come and go, and if well-educated people can sincerely believe moral falsehoods, our pursuit of moral truth will be fraught.  We almost certainly will make mistakes.  But since we are social beings, we have a great resource: other people, especially those who disagree with us.

            Scientists publish their findings, which opens the door to criticism and/or confirmation.  The search for knowledge in moral philosophy should be equally open to criticism.  We need each other.  Those who disagree with us on moral questions, including political questions, are precisely the people we need to hear.  As my friend Ron Mock likes to say, the political opponent is a resource for better decisions.