Written in 1932, Moore's poem is based on two news clippings. One is about the water at Versailles from 1931, and the other about a candelabra that had belonged to someone named Lord Balfour, who had been the Prime Minister of England, and had urged the League of Nations to provide a homeland for the Jewish people.
NO SWAN SO FINE
"No water so still as the
dead fountains of Versailles." No swan,
with swart blind look askance
and gondoliering legs, so fine
as the chinz china one with fawn-
brown eyes and toothed gold
collar on to show whose bird it was.
Lodged in the Louis Fifteenth
candelabrum-tree of cockscomb-
tinted buttons, dahlias,
sea-urchins, and everlastings,
it perches on the branching foam
of polished sculptured
flowers--at ease and tall. The king is dead.
One way to read the poem may be to go historical and to drag in the Versailles Treaty which imposed fantastic reparations on Germany.
Who is the king that is dead in the last line. Was it Louis XV? Or was it a more newly dead king? George VI? Edward VIII?
Is it possible she's just saying that the monarchies are now dead? And with them, the glory of their candelabras, to be replaced by democracies?
Th aristocracies stole from the peasants to make a very fine life for a few, and are thus morally bankrupt, and no longer legitimate? In their place would come the new kleptocracies of the communist rabble, which would kill the kings, and replace them with their vehement parties that redistributed what there was to go around, largely to themselves and their close henchmen (see N. Korean palaces owned by Kim Jong-Il).
The left still complains about the kleptocracies of the rich. But the kleptocracies of the poor are equally repugnant, stealing the beautiful things of those who had worked hard for them, and redistributing them.
Meanwhile, the waters (life?) of Versailles are dead. Versailles's a museum piece.
Were the modernists against museum pieces? Were they against fine art? Certainly Moore wasn't. But she must have had some kind of ambivalence toward such extravagance. The poem appeared in what was going to be the last number of Poetry Magazine. So it may have been a "swan song" for the journal -- several critics suggest.
The swan was owned by royalty. Art was owned by the wealthy. As a Protestant, she might have had problems with that. She might not! As a Calvinist, she isn't even supposed to be making art. Perhaps she thinks of it as an extravagance, but then there is the woman who poured costly perfume on Christ's feet, and he didn't seem to mind.
The new communist art had to illustrate social problems and was owned by the state.
The older art was meant to brag about the pleasures of ownership, and the fantastic wealth of the royalty.
What on the third hand is this art doing? I don't think anyone knows.
120 comments:
BOY
You sure know a lot! Non stop and so intelligent!
maybe you should take up teaching ... how to use a computer and blog..
Kirby:
Sorry, but to trade the products of papal, royal, and aristocratic patronage (mostly Roman Catholic) for that of the "people," (like the sway-dough "sophisticated" mural productions, e.g., of the communist Diego Rivera), that is, the "people's art" that is--dreadfully--found on so many post-office and railroad station walls, is too heavy a price to pay.
Kirby—
As always, you see only the theoretical extremes, rather than the middling state of reality. Our choice is not between unbridled, unregulated capitalism in which the rich eat the poor, nor a vicious, leveling communism in which the poor eat the rich. But rather it is in determining the right mixture of self-reliance and care-for-others within our community.
I'll turn to some quotes from the Bible. The moral of these quotes is not that there is anything wrong with being rich, but there is everything wrong seeing ourselves as individuals apart from a community. The rich cannot simply wash their hands of the poor.
Jeremiah 8:22.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?
O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
for the slain of my poor people!
Ezekiel 16:48–51. As I live, says the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins; you have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed.
Amos 5:11.
Therefore because you trample on the poor
and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.
Matthew 19:16–22. Then someone came to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "I have kept all these; what do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
James 2:5–6. Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court?
Revelation 3:17–18. For you say, 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.' You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
Indeed, I leave you to comtemplate the following:
Romans 14:7-8. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
These are not minor passages, but part of a consistent core message of the Bible as to how living with God means living in community.
Kirby—
Oh, and as regards the poem. Isn't this just an updated version of Ozymandias?
Haven't been to France or Versailles, but did spend an afternoon touring Sanssouci, the German version in Potsdam where the art is in the landscape itself and not the representation of it. The East Germans kept it pretty well preserved and you walk away feeling like you've actually met Frederick the Great. The whole palace district is really a monument to the Seven Years War and the last monarch to actually take the field in battle. Carlyle's Frederick the Great was a closed book to me until 2002 when I saw the park where Frederick is buried. Carlyle was crazy as a loon when he wrote that book, but brilliantly so.
As Mother Teresa pointed out after her visit to the States, there seems to be more spiritual poverty here than material poverty in India.
The sonnet "Ozymandias" is one of the few worthy productions of the wildly overrated and mostly pseudo-poetic Shelley. In this poem Shelley uses substitutions to good effect; however, the irony on Shelley and his poem is that the more famous and well-known the poem, the more it ironizes itself by erecting a kind of immortal poetic monument to Ozymandias, though not in stone or metal, as in Horace's well-known "exigi monumentum aere perennius" ("I have erected a monument longer lasting than in bronze") or "non omnis moriar" ("I shall not wholly die"--which is the subscript to Emmy's lovely raven-taking-flight tattoo).
Vive la Bastille et vive la monarchie!
The problem with the Ozymandias idea is that with Moore you never know if she's ironic or not. Usually, not.
She's straightforward in her affirmations, generally. She LIKES the candelabra, and is amazed by it.
I think.
She may also be amazed by Versailles.
I do think the wealthy have to have some relationship with the poor, and the community as a whole must be taken into account for the happiness of any one to be considered.
(Buddhists argue that misery will never leave us except if we drop all attachment to the world -- in effect, giving up, and the result is India, or Myanmar.)
Hindus divide the world into castes and say, that's what the untouchables deserve.
Christianity does ask us to think about the poor.
But Christ also says that the poor will always be with us. What exactly did he mean by that? I think it means that we are not to try to have a war on poverty.
Poverty is within. But I don't know what you're supposed to do about it. Dropping money on the poor just means that more of it will go up their noses in powder form.
Avenues to wealth have been paved via universal schooling, and WIC programs, and the like, but people also have to stay on the road that leads to life. To some extent, there is a personal responsibility in this.
People have to discipline themselves, and the main problem with the poor is that they have poor personal organization.
Instead of community organizers, we need people who can go into the poorer communities and show people how to organise their appointment calendar, and set an alarm clock, get their bills paid on time, and how to develop a workable budget, and how to stay out of dumb pleasures like drugs and adulterous sex.
One of the things I worry about with the left is that they can ENABLE poor personal organization through bailing out the poor, which in effect seals them into a life of poor personal organization.
This is what has happened with many of LBJ's war on poverty notions. It has sealed the poor into the projects, and said to them, government will take care of you, and your misbegotten babies for whom there is no identifiable father.
Bad for the society, and bad for America. Business is the business of America, as Calvinist Coolidge put it.
We have to get everybody to think of their life as a business, and to try to prosper within it using good sound business ideas.
And not just look to the government for a bailout.
I wonder if the last line, The king is dead, is meant to create the usual follow-up line:
Long live the king!
Then you have to wonder, who was Moore's king (Lord)? Certainly it wasn't Lord Balfour.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 is amusingly brief, considering that it went on to make such a huge impact on world history over the last fifty years. Here's the whole bit, apparently designed to solicit Jewish support for England in WWI.
KO
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild:
I have much pleasure in conveying to you. on behalf of His Majesty's
Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge
of the Zionist Federation.
Yours,
Arthur James Balfour
Here is a bit more wrt the poem at hand, from Charles Molesworth's biography of Moore:
"The swan poem, incidentally, was sparked by reading about the estate of Lord Balfour being auctioned off, with two swans part of the sale. Lord Balfour was one of Saintsbury's friends, and this connection may have been what attracted her to the auction notice. The poem is an extremely subtle interweaving of the realms of nature and culture, as the 'real' swans are aestheticized by having 'gondoliering legs' while the china swan is energized by perching on 'branching foam.' The ending sees the china swan as alive and its original owner as not: the swan is '-- at ease and tall. The king is dead.' The two four-syllable phrases rhyme structurally, suggesting a cmopletely congruent, albeit ironic, transposition between the orders of art and life" (259).
If it's true that Louis VIX's Versailles could be said to be "neo-classical" in its aesthetics, to what extent would Moore's work respond to or challenge those aesthetics?
She ended up translating La Fontaine, who was living at the time of Louis XIV, the only poet I think that she translated in total.
I will perhaps look at this later. Molesworth is quite good on establishing links between the biography and the poet's poems.
That's generally regarded these days as a bad idea, because the voice of the poet is not necessarily the same thing as the narrator of the poems (insight from Roland Barthes), but I think in Moore's case, there is a close connection between the speaker in the poems, and the actual poet.
Barthes was a communist jerk.
Kirby—
Christianity does ask us to think about the poor.
Not good enough. Christianity asks us to do something for the poor,
not merely to think about them.
James 2:15–16. If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?
But you are certainly right in arguing that excessive help can enable incapacity. And you can find passages in the Bible that argue for the value of work. There was a particular problem in the Thessalonian community, which expected the second coming to be very soon. Some people did not work, and indeed said that those who did were foolish. St. Paul wrote:
1 Thessalonians 5:12–22. But we appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.
I think this is excellent advice. Note, though, that it is work, not wealth that Paul argues that we should honor here. Paul would not have had any use for the idle rich. Here, again, what is being honored are those who are contributing to community, what is condemned is those who detract from it.
But Christ also says that the poor will always be with us. What exactly did he mean by that? I think it means that we are not to try to have a war on poverty.
Context, Kirby, context. What was the context of this saying? It was in a dispute that arose after Jesus was anointed with oil. Some of the disciples felt that the oil would better have been sold, and the proceeds given to the poor. The emphasis here was less on "the poor will always be with you," and more, much, much more, on "I will not."
Avenues to wealth have been paved via universal schooling, and WIC programs, and the like, but people also have to stay on the road that leads to life. To some extent, there is a personal responsibility in this.
Right! Here's the distinction I'd make. There will be people who through improvidence, bad luck, or whatever, become poor. This is a given. But we should structure society so that people who contribute to it, and who are prudent, do not become indigent. We should avoid setting traps, and we should not permit wealth to concentrate through exploitation. Moreover, we should provide ladders when and where we can, so that people who are poor have opportunities to work out of poverty.
You're right in pointing out that poverty is within, but even more so, I'd say that poverty is really a matter of a person's relationship with their community. If you are in a productive relationship with your community, this might not make you rich, but you shouldn't be poor. And if you're in an unproductive relationship with your community, then you're poor, no matter how much money you have.
Kirby—
Following up on the poem, let me again suggest Ozymandias, but without the implied condemnation of hubris; a message more along the lines of Ecclesiasties. We do not carry our wealth beyond this life, "You'll never see a hearse towing a trailer."
Stu, I like the Ecclesiastes bit.
I think where we can possibly agree on poverty is
a. lazy people suck whether they are rich or poor
b. you have to try to find a productive relationship with your community and not be either a parasite of wealth, or a poverty parasite (demanding reparations for work you didn't do).
selling drugs, for instance, or being a prostitute, is not productive, as you are destroying the community even if you get rich by doing it. You shouldn't be shaking the community down by charging too much for your services.
If you're a CEO and are getting paid tens of millions and you don't share it, then you're a pig.
If you're very poor because you don't want to work, or are too proud to work, and are constantly shaking down your neighbors for money to get drunk, you are also a pig.
Paul is pretty good here.
Jesus did imply over and over he'd be right back. It's been 2000 years now which is about 100 generations.
We seem to need the two kingdoms philosophy of functionality over the long haul.
This is why I think that moderate socialism works in a place like Lutheran Finland in which the work ethic is intact.
However, there are also 6000 Somalis there who got in on a loophole (they came from Russia, and by law the finns had to give them sanctuary -- so they got in and they refuse to work -- they laze about in coffee shops expecting the finns to support them).
It isn't right.
Some critics think the poet is referring to Lord Balfour in the closing lines when she writes, "The king is dead." But Balfour was not a king.
She must be referring to Edward VII. Here's a bit from Wikipedia about his funeral:
"The Funeral of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom occurred on Friday, 20 May 1910. It was one of the largest gatherings of European royalty ever to take place, and one of the last before World War I ended the era of European royalty."
I think she's writing about the end of Edwardian opulence.
Edwardian: characteristic of Edward VII or his age: characterized by opulence and a material sense of security.
WWI represented the wrecking of the royalties all over Europe. After that a few royal dynasties survived, but they were never quite as secure in their power again. Their greed for it all destroyed them.
In russia the Czar and his family were destroyed by the mob rule of the Bolsheviks under Lenin.
Elsewhere, they almost all vanished, or had their wealth and power trimmed down.
She contrasts the swart (can mean black, but also malevolent) look of the real swan, with the super-elegance of the one that had belonged to Balfour.
Balfour had been a bigwig under Edward VII.
Kirby—
I think we are close to a shared sense of poverty, but there are a few places where I think you're rushing to judgment...
...being a prostitute, is not productive, as you are destroying the community even if you get rich by doing it.
I don't have the sense that being a prostitute is usually voluntary. Sex work rarely enriches sex workers—it enriches those who exploit them. The problem is that there is no "DNA test" that identifies pimps, and it's hard to get beyond "he-said, she-said."
Jesus did imply over and over he'd be right back. It's been 2000 years now which is about 100 generations.
Jesus also said, (Mark 13:32–33) "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come."
However, there are also 6000 Somalis there who got in on a loophole (they came from Russia, and by law the finns had to give them sanctuary -- so they got in and they refuse to work -- they laze about in coffee shops expecting the finns to support them).
It isn't right.
Granted.
But I'm trying to think this through from the Somali's perspective. You've described Finland as xenophobic. The Somali's are going to stand out. What skills do they have? If they came from the country, they were probably involved in small livestock. If they came from the city (more likely), they're an urban mix: shopkeepers, teachers, minor government functionaries under the Barre regime, etc. What work is available to them, given that no one but the Finns can speak Finnish? Sweeping streets? If you check out the most recent National Geographic, you'll see that this is women's work in Somalia. Does anyone in Finland realize this, or understand the implications?
It sounds to me as though you need a small committee, consisting of a few ethnologists who knows Somalia, and can interview the Somali's, and a few Finns who really understand the Finnish economy, and can matchmake individuals with jobs. Even so, it's going to take time. If you figure one placement per matchmaker per week, you're still looking at about 100 man-years to get the job done. This is a significant investment.
The Somalis from what I understood were functionaries in a Marxist regime that was toppled, and they thought the Russians would take them in. This happened in about 1985. The Finns had a standing policy of granting amnesty to those who fled the Soviet Union.
These people arrived in Russia, and then the Russians wouldn't take them, so left them on airplanes for several days.
Finally they went to Finland where the loophole regarding Soviet refugees was activated.
So 6000 Somalis arrive.
Today they largely live in Helsinki.
Most Finns are rather cosmopolitan and accepting, and speak several languages. English is usually one, and Swedish another.
Some speak German, a very few can speak French, many can speak some Russian.
There's an underclass that can be brutal toward foreigners, and Somali women have been known to get a beating while standing alone in Helsinki.
It's rare, but it happens.
The Somalis do indeed have a structure of who can do what work, and the women are supposed to do most of it.
The men among the upper classes are supposed to drink coffee.
It drives the Finns out of their minds. Or did, when I was there.
But you're correct that it is a question of trying to find some accommodation.
Still, from my viewpoint, however the Somalis arrive at their notion that they don't have to work, it's wrong.
It's as wrong as the slaveowners of the south thinking their slaves should do their work. Or Aristotle thinking that slaves should do his work, while he thought about things.
If 10,000 Episcopalian Southern elite landed in Finland after the Civil War, and expected accommodations, they would have been hooted at and beaten, too.
It's not a race thing, I don't think, any more than Obama's falling ratings are a race thing.
Obama had a 75% favorable rating when he was elected. Now he's down in the forties. This doesn't have to do with race.
It has to do with his forcing people who work to pay for health care for those who won't or don't, or can't, because they are ineligible to work legally..
It's also the growing perception that he's a socialist at best and a Marxist at worst.
He's also a liar, and the lies keep coming out. He pretends he wasn't friends with Ayres, when of course he was friends with him for decades. The new book Michelle and Barack goes into detail on this, apparently.
I really think people object to other people's characters when they think they are liars or lazy or trying to force through changes that they mis-characterize, or mis-represent.
I don't think the Finns should have to change their whole society to accommodate the Marxist overlords of Somalia. But they are trying their best to honor their laws.
At any rate, the Somalis are something I never managed to get the details on. I couldn't read Finnish when I was there, and it's probably not a problem that has had extensive reporting outside of Finland.
Even in Finland the race card prevents normal and polite people from discussing it with anything like what they really feel inside.
Googled and found this tiny article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_community_in_Finland
and I found this just out:
http://poetrywriting.org/Sketchbook4-4JulyAug09/Sketchbook_4-4_JulyAugust_2009_Ed_Baker_15_full_moon_poems.htm
here is a just done new one:
full moon
coming and going
going and coming
ho hum! ho hum!
Kirby—
Obama had a 75% favorable rating when he was elected. Now he's down in the forties.
Let me start here.
Pollster.com: Obama Job Approval
At writing, the composite is 50.5% approve, 44.3% disapprove. I'll pass over the filters that sensible people put on the data (which pull Obama up to 52.5% vs. 41.3%).
You should look at approval by party. Democrats are 83.4% vs. 12.7%, and there has been very little movement post-election. Independents are nearly split, Obama has clearly lost ground here, and he's at 46.2% vs. 50.9%. It is worth understanding that the ranks of the independents were swelled by R's who were disgusted by the Bush years, so the I pool has a distinct "red cast" to it. The big story, of course, is in the R's: Obama was basically tied 45/45 at election, and now is 16.2% approve, 80% disapprove.
Here's the moral: Obama has lost pretty much all of the R support he can, and the I curve is flattening. He's pretty close to bottom, unless D support starts to wane too, or there's a big change in party identifications, and I don't see either happening. [Yes, they'll be some movement from I to R, but this will come from I's that are already dissatisfied with Obama.]
If the economy continues to improve, his numbers will go up, as they always do for incumbents. I'm betting on the economy, so I think you're in for some disappointment.
It's also the growing perception that he's a socialist at best and a Marxist at worst.
He's also a liar, and the lies keep coming out.
I'll grant that the lies keep coming out. We disagree for now from whom. In my opinion, Beck has played demagogue to the economically distressed. When they find out the master he actually serves, he's a dead man.
I don't think the Finns should have to change their whole society to accommodate the Marxist overlords of Somalia. But they are trying their best to honor their laws.
As regards the Somali's, your history jives with my educated guesses. The people who are creating problems are the former functionaries of the (nominally Marxist) Barre regime. So they have essentially no marketable skills in a free market economy, and they expect a life of privilege. Suffice it to say that I don't have any sympathy for them, but I'll also note that the Finns screwed themselves by their enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend law. It would appear from your remarks that they understand this, accept it, and are trying to deal with it.
The difference between France and England is that England found a way to retain it's monarchy in a limited or constitutional form; France didn't. Quite a few European countries followed England's example with some modification and the commoners in these places often have a nostalgic fondness for a former ruling class that allows for official duties that are mostly symbolic yet something more than dead stillness.
Lord Balfour was not royal family or an heir to the throne, but he was a noble and he served as prime minister because his family had influence, especially among his fellow aristocrats. His declaration, coming as it did from an ex-prime minister, would be familiar to us as something like letting Jimmy Carter work on the Oslo Accords. I think the impetus for the declaration came from American Jews in Chicago and might more accurately be described as the Brandeis Declaration because that's who drafted it. Balfour just signed it. Palestine was Britain's colony so the letter needed to come from someone British with lots of influence, a reputation for level headedness and experience in foreign affairs. Balfour fit the bill. The letter itself had no legal status, but it did take a position and it had a pronounced ripple effect.
Moore is simply describing a candelabra that features a swan. The connection to Louis XV and its possession by Lord Balfour is already there in the object and a large part of what she sees in it.
I see more of Keats and his Grecian Urn than I see of Shelley and Ozymandias. She shows us the motion in stillness. I think it is ironic. Sure, the king is dead, but look at what she's done with this swan. Eat your heart out, Yeats.
Flying to the Great Barrier Reef a few hours from now and may have limited access to the internet for the next two weeks.
"If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me..."
Hmm, sounds an awful lot like "works" to me.
Stu
Don't discount Jesus,
he was also making an astute comment about the nature of humanity.
Emmy—
Hmm, sounds an awful lot like "works" to me.
Let me respectfully disagree. The issue here for the young man isn't what his gift will do for the poor, but rather, how will he be provided for after he has given away all that he has? Is he willing to set aside all of his advantages, and believe that God will provide for him?
The works aspect here is essentially irrelevant to the challenge. Would the young man's dilemma have been any different if Jesus had asked him to gather all that he had, and to burn it as a sacrifice to the Lord?
Oh, here's why Locke was wrong:
Does international law assure you of this right, or that right, or the other right, at sea? No doubt Martian law also assures you of many fine privileges. Carlyle tells us: there is no right that is not also a might. Should your rights be violated, to whom will you appeal? If the judge of appeal is also the violator, or there is no judge, there is no law and no rights. More phantoms.
Stu -- REALLY?
Why do you keep looking at only half of what Jesus says?
Do you think he picked "give it to the poor" instead of "burn it all" just to be fashionable?
You accuse Kirby of half-reading and picking the extremes -- you're doing the same.
GM—
You've misunderstood what I've written. My point is this: what makes this hard for the young man isn't the "works" part of giving to the poor. My guess is that the young man would have seen this as a worthy thing. It's the what comes after that makes it tough. My thought experiment was no more than that — a way of isolating the issue that made it difficult for the young man to go forward.
Do you think he picked "give it to the poor" instead of "burn it all" just to be fashionable?
No. He is saying that if the young man wants to be perfect, he must commit his entire life to God, and this means to take on God's purposes as his purposes. God is the ultimate champion of poor. This requires both a commitment to repurposing his life (which is hard), but also faith that God will provide (which I argue is harder, and is the fundamental challenge here).
If we return to scripture, [Matt 19:21, Mark 10:22, Luke 18:23], you'll see that the issue for the young man is that he "had many possessions", or "was very rich." What grieves him isn't what he will have to do, but what he will lose. And I argue that what he will lose, ultimately, is the sense that he does not need to fully trust God, as he can rely on his weath to provide for his needs.
You accuse Kirby of half-reading and picking the extremes -- you're doing the same.
I don't think so. I'm looking at the whole story, and trying to figure out what it means in full context. The stories themselves have more important and less important parts. If Matthew had read, "the young man turned away in sorrow, because to he felt that that the poor were beneath him, and not worthy of his gifts or service," then the issue would have been that of an unwillingness to perform works, and my analysis would have been different.
But you are picking and choosing.
The issue would have been fundamentally different if Jesus had told him to burn his money -- Jesus is asking him to do something useful with his money (help others) and he is unwilling to do this.
He is unwilling to have faith AND do works.
It's not or, it's and.
GM—
Now I think you're reading things into the story that aren't there. The "young man" [Mark, Matt] or "young ruler" [Luke] is presented as someone who is living under the law. The story says that he follows the commandments, and it also portrays him as someone who is actively seeking eternal life. I think it is reasonable to extrapolate, and understand him as someone who is following the dictates of the law broadly. At that time and place, this included tithing and giving of alms. And what does Jesus suggest, but the giving of alms writ large?
So as I imagine this young man, I see him as someone who has advantages, and as someone for whom they are both a blessing (he doesn't need worry about next year's meals, let alone tomorrow's) and a curse (scripture often takes the side of the poor against the rich). So he gives alms, hoping to avoid the curse while retaining the blessing (as he sees it). So I see him as someone who is doing works already, in accordance with the law.
And I don't believe the issue is that there is something qualitatively different (in terms of service to the poor) between tithing and alms giving on his wealth for the rest of his life vs. giving over all his wealth as alms. The issue that is qualitatively different is that in one scenario, he's still wealthy tomorrow (as we on earth judge wealth), and in the other he's not. In one scenario, he does not have to rely wholly on God, in the other, he does.
I'm not saying that works are unimportant, for clearly they are. What I am saying, though, is that Emmy is mistaken in seeing this as a story that is primarily about works. It is primarily about faith, a radical trust in God, and how difficult it is for those (like us), who buy into a materialist culture.
GM—
Oh, and I should add a bit...
... So I see him as someone who is doing works already, in accordance with the law. As someone who seeks salvation under the law.
I think that giving money to the poor is wrong, as it makes them beholden to you. We should instead give them information, and try to instill a work ethic, and a sense of decency in them. Money is a very cheap thing to give to the poor. It's much better to give them the means by which to make money: an education and a work ethic.
Teach a man to fish...
I think however that in Christ's day there were no institutions for the madmen, and for those who are retarded, or diseased. There is no way to educate such people.
So to them, I do think you should give them something.
For the rest, giving them money only enables them to go on with their scurrilous and unproductive existences.
For the Somalis of Finland, I think it's wrong to provide them with housing and food if they won't work.
The candelabra in Moore's poem is in a sense a work, as is her poem. I think the poem is somewhat against the extravagant luxury that doesn't look the hard world of nature in the eye, and see it for what it is. The candelabra is a kind of euphemism that avoids reality, or replaces reality.
Jesus can be like that, when people think about the rewards of heaven, and think all they have to do is drop money on some leper, and that that's good enough.
Like Exxon paying for some opera, while they poison an eco-system.
I don't think you have to help non-Christians, or people who are just a-holes: either busy being drunk and disorderly, considering manual labor beneath themselves, or simply unwilling to get out of bed. Let them starve.
In 2nd Thessalonians, Paul writes, "Now we command you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if ANY WOULD NOT WORK, NEITHER SHOULD HE EAT. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their OWN BREAD" 2nd Thessalonians 6-12.
Therefore, Obama's redistribution schemes are not only wrong, but send the wrong message. You don't help out the poor if it enables them to do nothing but take drugs and have irresponsible sex, while forcing other people to take up their burden.
People who HAVE a work ethic, and believe in God, you can help. But you can't help jerks. That won't get anyone into heaven, and will just wreck the society you're living in by encouraing laziness, illegal behavior, and drug users, and shirkers.
Kirby,
Jesus hung out with whores and thugs, one of whom ultimately sold him out for money.
Pretty sure it's a lock that we're supposed to help assholes and non-believers.
Stu,
He follows the material part of the law but not the spiritual part. Again, AND. Jesus tells him he needs to ignore the material and work on the spiritual (the young man only references half of the commandments). Jesus is saying that's not enough -- it gots to be all.
No lock but Locke.
Jesus tried to redeem the thugs, and in many cases was successful.
Even the woman caught in adultery was asked to go forth and sni no more.
But any ways, that's Jesus. He can do things like that.
If you can change the heart of a hardened thug who's on the cross next to yours, sure, go ahead, but Paul's got a point, too.
Is there any case in which Jesus tried to turn someone, and they didn't turn? What then did he do?
He didn't enable the money changers, did he?
He doesn't enable people to go on in sinful behaviors.
But giving them money via federal handouts to ACORN and such, only wrecks the society, GM.
I know you don't believe in government, but let's just say it's business. You are for business, and for good business practices.
It's bad business to throw good money at bad people, because it enables them to do bad things, like help people set up brothels with children as sex-slaves.
Surely we can't just be dummies about this, and indiscriminately help people who will do such awful things.
Jesus never asks us to enable criminals in their criminal endeavors.
It's criminal to be lazy, in Paul's eyes. And in my eyes, he's right. Asking someone else to care for your children is criminally lazy.
You yourself have castigated one of your relatives for that.
It's wrong. Paul's right.
As for "perfect," Jesus is joking.
No human being can be perfect. He's joking!
Jesus was quite the little funster. To even want to be perfect is amazing hubris.
One of the things I worry about with the left is that they can ENABLE poor personal organization through bailing out the poor, which in effect seals them into a life of poor personal organization. Bad for the society, and bad for America. Business is the business of America, as Calvinist Coolidge put it. We have to get everybody to think of their life as a business, and to try to prosper within it using good sound business ideas. And not just look to the government for a bailout.
Yeah, see the S&L bailout and the latest TARP bailouts for examples of enabling poor personal organization for corporations and financial institutions, after all they are a legal person. You seem mysteriously quiet about these issues.
If you're a CEO and are getting paid tens of millions and you don't share it, then you're a pig.
Kirby I’m excited by this! Now I want you to take this logic and apply it to the political parties! Think of major candidates as generating tens of millions to run their campaign. If they win, they then owe “favors” to the pigs you are referring to. Nowadays, corporations buy both candidates and the sad thing is that everyone has their price: no one is above the fray. This information, contributions, is public by the way; it’s no conspiracy theory. The one difficult item to interpret when looking at contributions is bundling.
Oh and by the way, not true about the networks omitting conservatives on their shows. I swear I’ve seen Richard Perle on every Sunday morning talk show! No they’re not going to bring Beck on as he’s simply another television personality.
“I think that giving money to the poor is wrong, as it makes them beholden to you. We should instead give them information, and try to instill a work ethic, and a sense of decency in them. Money is a very cheap thing to give to the poor. It's much better to give them the means by which to make money: an education and a work ethic.”
You’re a conservative aren’t you? This sounds like a big bloated government solution involving a trillion dollars. No liberally would argue with a strong program like this! It would encounter so much conservative opposition that it would never pass.
“For the Somalis of Finland, I think it's wrong to provide them with housing and food if they won't work.”
I’m not sure if it’s the same in Finland as in Germany, but immigrants aren’t legally allowed to work for 2 years.
“Therefore, Obama's redistribution schemes are not only wrong, but send the wrong message. You don't help out the poor if it enables them to do nothing but take drugs and have irresponsible sex, while forcing other people to take up their burden. People who HAVE a work ethic, and believe in God, you can help. But you can't help jerks. That won't get anyone into heaven, and will just wreck the society you're living in by encouraing laziness, illegal behavior, and drug users, and shirkers”
How about Bush’s taxation schemes in which the wealthy receive wildly excessive refunds in a time of war? I can think of few people that do more drugs and engage in sexual excess than the filthy rich. How about Bush who was bailed out by daddy time and time again? And was a sloppy alcoholic that had everything given to him in life?
Kirby,
Why are we talking about governments and businesses?
Jesus didn't come to talk to governments and businesses. He came to talk to people.
Kirby—
I actually think we're close in fundamentals here regarding poverty, and mostly differ in emphasis.
Let me pick away at a few things, and we'll see.
Let me start by making some distinctions, because I think they matter. If someone is poor because they choose not to work, then giving them money, food, etc., enables and validates that choice. That's not good for them, and it's not good for us. The goal in this case is to remove the illusion that they have a choice not to be productive.
So what about the people who are poor, but not by choice? Again, I think it is reasonable to make distinctions.
Let's suppose that they're not productive because they lack something which, if they had it, would enable them to be productive. This might mean education/training for people who live in urban settings in a modern culture. It might mean a couple of goats for someone who lives in a rural area. The goal in this case is to get them what they need to be productive. And we may have to support them a bit along the way.
Unfortunately, this case can be a difficult one. Consider our current situation, where the rea" unemployment rate is at about 16%. What many of these people need is a job. But our economy is damaged right now, and there are not enough jobs to be had. We believe that our economy will recover, albeit in a few years time. What should our relationship as a society be to those who are out of work in the meantime, but not by choice?
Finally, there are those for whom their lack of productivity is irremediable. The desperately ill. The mentally incapacitated.
You write: I think however that in Christ's day there were no institutions for the madmen, and for those who are retarded, or diseased. There is no way to educate such people.
This is our day too. Those institutions were mostly closed in the 80's and 90's. Psychological studies of the long-term homeless show that a large fraction have psychological disease, and would have been in county mental facilities, if such facilities still existed. What do you think our goal should be for people who are irredeemably unproductive, yet not by choice?
Now, where there are some real differences...
Obama's redistribution schemes are not only wrong, but send the wrong message.
What redistribution schemes? Health care? That's not a redistribution scheme, it is a direct response to a structural issue within our economy that is making us uncompetitive in certain sectors (manufacturing comes screaming to mind, but it's not alone), endangering our future prosperity as a nation.
You're fighting shadows here, Kirby.
GM—
I don't know what we're arguing about any more. Your last note emphasizes that he needs to follow the spiritual part of the law, not just the material. Isn't that where I started?!
What redistribution schemes? Health care? That's not a redistribution scheme, it is a direct response to a structural issue within our economy that is making us uncompetitive in certain sectors (manufacturing comes screaming to mind, but it's not alone), endangering our future prosperity as a nation.
I think he is talking about tax cuts. There was some talk of people with no jobs receiving checks.
Tom—
I think he is talking about tax cuts. There was some talk of people with no jobs receiving checks.
Oy. The tax cuts are relatively ineffective as stimulus because they have a lower multiplier than outright expenditures (one fewer hop). They were only put in as a bone for the Republicans, who didn't vote for the stimulus anyway.
So you're telling me that the real issue here is that the Republicans are criticizing him for going along with their idea. Lovely.
Stu,
Nope. You said the works aspect is irrelevant. I say it is important, perhaps equally so.
GM—
I said "essentially irrelevant to the challenge." I.e., it's not what made it hard. He was already doing that, to a lesser degree.
GM—
And I should have said more. I did not mean to imply that works were unimportant (generally), just that they weren't the focus of this story. I guess we just disagree.
Giving 8 billion to ACORN was part of the Stimulus package.
Van Jones wanting to give jobs to people in the inner cities to create green jobs. That's what I meant by redistribution.
Take taxes and then give money away to your constituency in make-work schemes.
Obama said he would do reparations that wouldn't be called reparations. Forgiving student loans to African-americans, for instance. He said this in a sidebar in Ebony magazine two years ago.
The health insurance system is also somethng like 16% of the economy.
Plus the government now owns banks, car companies, and much else.
Through that, a whole new redistribution will begin to take effect.
He did mention to Joe the Plumber that he planned to "spread the wealth around," as I seem to recall.
Are you guys having Reaganesque selective memories?
It is said of the left that if news about ACORN comes on, they just switch the channel. And go on in their adoration of the Magus.
Kirby—
Giving 8 billion to ACORN was part of the Stimulus package.
The Stimulus Bill and ACORN | FactCheck.org
Van Jones wanting to give jobs to people in the inner cities to create green jobs.
How in the hell are jobs "redistribution?!" I take it that your objection is to Jones actually suggesting to target job creation in those locations where joblessness is higher.
Obama said he would do reparations that wouldn't be called reparations. Forgiving student loans to African-americans, for instance. He said this in a sidebar in Ebony magazine two years ago.
OK, show me the law, or the language in the stimulus package. I looked for this, and could only find an article on change.org that suggested that Obama should be encouraged to do this, not evidence that he had.
The health insurance system is also somethng like 16% of the economy.
Right. And the goal of the heathcare proposals is to keep it at something like 16% of the economy. Don't you understand that if we do nothing, it will be at 24% soon?! This isn't about redistribution, it's about access, and an honest accounting of costs.
Plus the government now owns banks, car companies, and much else.
Right. This is redistribution to the rich, protecting the value of their assests. The banks that the government owns are banks that failed to meet their capital reserve requirements under the FDIC. The car company was in failure, and government ownership is part of a strategy for getting them in and out of bankruptcy quickly.
He did mention to Joe the Plumber that he planned to "spread the wealth around," as I seem to recall.
Maybe you should recall the entire context of that comment, and see what you think: 'Spread the Wealth?' — ABC News
Are you guys having Reaganesque selective memories?
Tisk, tisk. Don't you know that now that you're an R, you're only allowed to mention St. Ronnie with worshipful respect?
But no, I'm not having selective memories. You've pointed out a lot of economic activity by the government, which actually started with the Bush-Paulson TARP program (talking about selective memories) in the face of the deepest recession since the great depression. Some economists think that if this recession had been handled the way Carnegie handled the beginning phases of the great depression (Liquidate, liquidate, liquidate!), we'd be in a depression now.
It is said of the left that if news about ACORN comes on, they just switch the channel.
ACORN is a big, heterogeneous umbrella group. It does some great things, but there are some bad apples too. Just like other big groups. They're getting reamed over the prostitution setup piece. The individuals involved deserve it, but it would not surprise me if it turns out that they were plants. I honestly believe Beck to be capable of it.
The thing about the healthcare bill is that the Democrats won't let us see the most recent bill. They've voted that it must be kept secret from the public.
Is that the norm?
There are also like 500 amendments coming.
Reagan had a lot of twisted moments.
I just hate Marxism or anything that smells remotely like Marxism.
I'm only a Republican by convenience. There are only two parties, and one of them went Marxist in its basic orientation.
the other is still Lockean, so I'm for them.
Kirby—
The thing about the healthcare bill is that the Democrats won't let us see the most recent bill. They've voted that it must be kept secret from the public.
Is that the norm?
There are also like 500 amendments coming.
A few comments. (1) There are several bills being worked on — a house bill, at least two senate bills. (2) This whole process has been a model of transparency compared to most recent legislation of similar scale. Obviously, you don't remember the passage of the AUMF for Iraq, or the Patriot Act. Note that amendments are being allowed for healthcare bills — they weren't for the AUMF or Patriot Act. Don't you think that allowing amendments is somehow more indicative of an intact legislative process?
In any event, the argument about "Democrats won't let us see" seems based on this:
Democrats Want to Keep the People in the Dark on Healthcare Reform
The factual basis (such as it is) to the notion that Democrats want the bill to be written in secrecy seems to be that the leadership of the Senate Finance Committee rejected a proposal by Jim Bunning (R-Ky) to have the full bill and CBO final estimates available 72 hours before the committee vote.
Let me point out that the news story that I've linked too is pretty clearly written in opposition to the healthcare proposals — no journalistic neutrality here!
Now, what the story doesn't say is that while Jim Bunning was a damn fine pitcher back in the day (he's in the Hall of Fame), but he's gone off the deep end, and now is loathed by both parties. Honestly, if he put out a resolution honoring motherhood and apple pie, it would go down by a 2-16 vote in the rules committee.
[The problem the R's have is that he won't withdraw from the race in '10, he's prone to saying loony things in front of the camera, and he hasn't done much fundraising. So they figure the seat is lost in the general election if he's their candidate, but they don't think they can knock him out in the primary in order to run a competitive candidate.]
Reagan had a lot of twisted moments.
:-)
I'm only a Republican by convenience. There are only two parties, and one of them went Marxist in its basic orientation.
You have a great theory here. Have you tried out the part about testing your theory against real-world observations? I don't think reality conforms to such a simple model.
I just listen to the rhetoric. If it's race, gender, and class rhetoric, it's Marxism. If it's about spreading representative democracy, it's Lockean liberalism (rather than fascism, to which it's so often compared).
Bush was the greatest Lockean liberal since Lincoln.
I'm not sure even now that even my close readers understand my Marx/Locke dichotomy, and how there is a kind of continental divide between the two philosophies.
Marx begins with polarized identities (bourgeois/proletarian) and argues that the proles have wisdom that the bourgeois do not, because they have suffered at the hands of the bourgeois, and have done their work for centuries.
Therefore, if you erase the bourgeois, and put in a dictatorship of the proles, you will have an enlightened society.
We saw how that worked out.
Well, most of us did.
But there are many people still in the Marxist pipelines. For instance, almost all feminists are Marxists. Almost all African Americanists are Marxists, or at least they follow the Marxist identity model.
So when Sotomayor says that she is wiser than all white men because she's a "wise Latina" the template for this is Marxist thought. Women and Latina women in particular have suffered at the hands of white men, so they are smarter and wiser than these men.
It's precisely the same logic.
Against this is the universalism of the Lockeans: that all men are created equal. That there is no one group that is wiser or better than another group. And that we all want basically the same things: life, liberty, health, and property.
That's the logic of W, and of Lincoln.
Listen to the way the two parties speak, and to what they appeal.
It's always the same way. There are almost never any variations on these two paradigms.
Listen to Fox, and you will hear Locke.
Listen to MSNBC, and you will hear Marx.
Try it, you'll like it.
GM wants to abandon all thought of government. Many Southern Christians did want to do that until about thirty years ago.
However, Christ said that his kingdom was of another kind, and in another world.
So this kingdom is ours to run.
There are two big competing models.
In one, we find Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand of God, and that's almost in Locke-step with Locke.
On the other hand, we hear Marx, Marx, Marx, Marx, Marx.
Marx sounds better, and appeals better to bleeding hearts.
However, in praxis, Locke actually works better.
So, I think we should stick with Locke, SMith & Wesson, and not let our hearts bleed too much for those who are poor because they won't, or are not eligible, to work.
Laws turn out to be a pretty good idea, as does a government of checks and balances, of the people, by the people, and for the people, by which we mean CITIZENS who are willing to WORK (2 Thessalonians is a new text that I'm going to start mixing in here with my usual jive).
Maybe we can enslave the poor in the spirit of Locke? It would probably help us pull out of the recession.
Kirby—
I'm no fan of identity politics either, although I am less inclined that you to rule them out altogether. I think I would characterize the difference this way: For people who use identity politics, they feel as though this identity constitutes some sort of trump card. For you, it's an absolute turn off (or so you claim, counterexample to follow in the next paragraph). For me, it is a claim to be evaluated along with other claims, and to be treated with skepticism, but not dismissed out of hand.
I'm not going to say that one position is right or wrong in this, but I think that your identification of identity politics with the left is extraordinarily naive. Let me point out that Sarah Palin's "Real Americans" constitute an explicit identity politics of the right. Likewise, Beck's teabag movement is built around a populist identity that goes back to the whiskey revolt, if not further, and he's playing to this identity through tribal language and symbols.
I'm also a fan of expanding democracy, and I believe that most people of my party are. I don't fault Bush for wanting to expand democracy, although I do fault his choice of states, and his means for doing so. For crying out loud, wasn't there a single neo-conn who read Thucydides? We're making very much the same mistakes that the Athenians made when they invaded Syracuse. You might remember that this didn't work out so well for them.
Let me turn your own rhetoric against you. You believe that people need to work; that if we just give things to them, they become indolent. Our freedoms, our democracy, required sacrifice and effort on the part of our people, and continues to require it today. Don't you see that by "giving the Iraqi's the gift of freedom," we're making the same mistake at the national level that so offends you at the individual level? They haven't earned it, they don't value it. They'll play the game while there, and go back to strongmen and warlords as soon as we leave. There's no foundation for democracy there, no tradition that the government exists to serve the people, and serves at their will. Their tradition, their values, are that the people serve the government. Bringing democracy to Iraq through military invasion is not only like telling them that we're going to build a house for the to live in, and they don't have to lift a finger, it's like trying to build that house from the attic down!
I think we'd have better spent our resources consolidating democratic gains in places like the Slovakia and Turkey, while pursuing economic development strategies in more receptive third-world nations. You've pointed out that there is a correlation between economically advanced countries and democracy. I believe that they are mutually supporting, and to a degree causative of one another. Our economic development strategies need to tie aid to openness, and increasingly democratic institutions. But instead we're trying to compress a century's worth of national economic and political development in Iraq into a decade.
As for the language of entitlement, both sides speak it. The Democrats say that the poor are entitled to justice. The Republicans say that the rich are entitled perpetual influence and advantage. The reality of the status quo is that social and economic mobility in the US is at an all-time low. The American Dream may not be dead, but it is acquiring an increasingly "mythic" quality, less and less grounded in the experiences of our people. Perhaps we need to spend a bit more effort consolidating the gains of democracy here.
P.S. I'll claim credit for pointing you at Thessalonians.
Kirby,
Correction, I would like to erase all notion of politics. Remember that although I like anarchism as an idea, I am not foolish enough to think we don't need an authority to appeal to (unless we're all heavily armed -- a prospect I tend to disfavor).
Government is an unfortunate necessity of the scarcity of resources.
If I have to live under a government, however, I would prefer not to live under one influenced by politics -- or at least on influenced as little as possible by politics.
This is, of course, impossible in a democracy -- which is just an ongoing, mostly violence-free civil war.
Which is why I'm a monarchist (with a reasonable succession policy of course).
Which is also why someone like Gates would do a fine job of running the country, contra Tom (or was it Brett -- sorry for not remembering, y'all -- my apologies). Gates would do a piss-poor job running the DOS-led, professorial-driven USG that we have now. It's impossible to fire the shit of the bureaucracy and Gates doesn't happen to carry the balls around to give USG the Augean treatment.
But if the sole job of the government were to be a final arbiter in disputes and a protector of the general peace, Gates would do fine.
The ideal government should be tiny, concentrated, and extremely powerful.
One guy with a death-ray would be ideal, if he were a nice guy.
Of course that's the problem.
But democrazy is a non-solution -- it gives everyone a smaller death-ray.
But, as Kirby says, we're all worthless fuckers -- the best plan is one death ray, not 300 million.
Kirby—
I think it's time to respectfully retire the KJV. It was a fine translation for its day, but its day was in 1611. From today's perspective, we can see that KJV was based on inferior Greek language texts, and that its target language is an English quite different from today's.
So here is an NRSV version of the text you cited:
2 Thessalonians 3:6–12. Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
If you want find cut-and-paste biblical quotations, let me direct you to
Biblegateway.com
which will allow you to do book/chapter/verse, keyword, and topic searches, and moreover supports several modern translations (in multiple languages). [Unfortunately, they don't have an RSV or NRSV, but they do have NIV, NASB, and ESV, which are all pretty reasonable. My guess, given your theological commitments, is that NIV would be a good choice for you. It can be entertaining to read the Message (which they have), but I'd avoid basing any serious exegesis on it.]
There are web sites that have the RSV online, but none that I'm aware of that have it in such a convenient form. Here's one:
RSV Bible — University of Michigan
As far as I know, there are no on-line sources for the NRSV. I use Accordance, which is a desktop Bible/Library program for the Macintosh, and recommend it strongly for anyone who is interested in serious computer support for Bible studies. Obviously, I have an Accordance version of NRSV (and a surprising number of other Bibles...).
GM—
Which Gates?
Please tell me it's not William Henry.
Are you saying he's a poor manager?
The other bible I like to keep handy is the concordant literal version mostly because they only translate one word one way. This severely interrupts the "flow" but does a bang-up job of clearing the air.
stu -- the concordant version puts into light what we were talking about re the rich young man:
17 And at His going out into the road, lo! one certain rich man, running toward Him and falling on his knees before Him, inquired of Him, "Good Teacher! What shall I be doing that I should be enjoying the allotment of life eonian?"
18 Now Jesus said to him, "Why are you terming Me good? No one is good except One, God.
19 With the precepts you are acquainted: You should not be murdering. You should not be committing adultery. You should not be stealing. You should not be testifying falsely. You should not be cheating. 'Be honoring your father and mother.'"
20 Now he averred to Him, "Teacher, all these I maintain from my youth."
21 Now Jesus, looking at him, loves him, and said to him, "Still one thing you are wanting. Go. Whatever you have, sell, and be giving to the poor, and you will be having treasure in heaven. And hither! Follow Me, picking up the cross."
22 Yet he, being somber at the word, came away sorrowing, for he was one who has many acquisitions.
23 And, looking about, Jesus is saying to His disciples, "How squeamishly shall those who have money be entering into the kingdom of God!"
24 Now the disciples were awe-struck at His words. Yet Jesus, again answering, is saying to them, "Children, how squeamish it is for those who have confidence in money to be entering into the kingdom of God!
25 Easier is it for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be entering into the kingdom of God."
"those who have confidence in money" -- faith in money as opposed to wealth --
that's a far finer point than we were getting at, I think.
So it's about faith in something that isn't God -- but that faith prevents you from doing what God wants you to do.
The problem with the doctrine of sola fide is that it removes the yang from the yin
which came first, the faith or the works?
I mean the doctrine should really be sola gratia (or whatever grace is and i'm too tired to google it -- Jim, help me) because it's only by God's grace we are saved anyway
but that's beside the point
when we value faith above works (or works above faith) we're either discounting or ignoring Jesus' time on earth. We're reliving the old heresies again.
But just like Jesus was human AND divine, our role as followers of Christ is both to believe in Christ and to behave like Christ.
It's not one or the other, it's both.
GM: I'm with you, that a tiny government with a clear channel of authority is easier to deal with when it comes to abuses than an endless bureaucratic gobbledy-gook like the former USSR, and the current USSA. At least the villains are more obvious.
Also, whoever said:
"I think it's time to respectfully retire the KJV."
One of the most beautiful works of literature in English. Lovely! Let's retire Hamlet while we're at it, too!
GM—
Regarding Bill Gates... My objection to him as czar is that he has poor taste, and his entire commercial enterprise is an exercise in brute force. MSFT's headcount is ~93K. Apple's is 32K, and the later includes about 10K in staff for all those stores. Clearly, if you want economical government, you're not going to get it from him. He would, however, get us into wars. I don't see much in this that would be admirable in a government. Then there is the issue of successor...
Regarding the rich man... I think you saw my point when you said, "So it's about faith in something that isn't God -- but that faith prevents you from doing what God wants you to do."
As for the rest of the discussion, I think you're trying to drag a larger fight (which isn't really with me) into the discussion of this verse. Yes, I'm a Lutheran, and yes, Lutherans put a lot of emphasis on faith, and sometimes seem to have an ambivalent attitude towards works. But I don't think that my analysis of the story is a knee-jerk Lutheran reaction, and I'm not trying to fit the whole faith vs. works discussion into the consideration of a single pericope. I'm trying to analyze that pericope, and I really do think that the obstacle that the young man faces isn't an aversion to doing good works, it is an unwillingness to let go of his advantages, and trust wholly in God.
Let me put this in somewhat different terms. The young man has a particular place in society. For him to give up all that he has, is to give up that place. What Jesus is proposing, and the young man finds so difficult, is a redefinition of his standing w.r.t. society, and what that means for the entirety of the rest of his life. Moreover, it means that he will go from being (or so it seems to him) independent to being wholly dependent on God for food, shelter, etc. This is a huge obstacle as compared to the one-time event of selling his possessions and giving away the proceeds.
We can often see our way through huge one-time events. The sun will rise on the morning after. But changing the entire direction of one's life, that's hard.
Kirby:
Yes--contra stu's rhetorical question--well, of course there are conservatives who've read Thucydides--and there are no small number of classicists in our camp, whose names I've given before, though for one who writes on national and international affairs for National Review, Victor Davis Hanson is a name worth repeating.
For one who's read at least healthy chunks of Thucydides' incisive work in Greek as well as translations in French, Italian, and English, one comment by the incisive Thucydides that reminds me of how libs and Demos euphemise statist make-work and redistribution schemes is his remark about how partisans of a certain faction changed the conventional meanings of words so as better to justify their actions.
On the importance of works as a practical aspect of faith, as some theologians and religious thinkers such as Newman have pointed out, for some faith can actually follow the habit of doing good works, just as great novelists have described in no few works how love sometimes follows marriage, although for myself I've no difficulty at all in following traditional Catholic theology and teaching on works and faith.
Kirby:
And on the idea that the King James Bible should be "retired," one has only to sample the works of biblical scholar and comparativist Robert Alter of UC Berkeley to put this absurd notion to rout.
Emmy—
Also, whoever said:
"I think it's time to respectfully retire the KJV."
One of the most beautiful works of literature in English. Lovely! Let's retire Hamlet while we're at it, too!
Hamlet is a primary work, the KJV is secondary.
Moreover, the most common uses of the KJV aren't exercises in use of the English language, they are attempts to understand and apply the word of God in today's life. As regards that latter, dominant role, the KJV has long been superseded.
Should the KJV continue to be read? Of course. Just as Beowulf, and Chaucer are still read. And most English translations have rules that prefer KJV language, so long as doing so does not distort meaning. That they so frequently depart from the "classic" language of the KJV is an indication of badly it serves those who would use it today as if it were the primary source of God's word.
Kirby:
For example, on the KJV, Robert Alter's abstract from his article 'beyond King James" ("Commentary," Sept 1996) reads:
"The old cliché that to translate is to betray [as "traduttore, traditore"--"the translator is a traitor"--JA] is sometimes unfair; but not in the case of modern English versions of the Hebrew Bible. On the face of it, this is a puzzling state of affairs. In purely quantitative terms, we live in a great age of Bible translation. Several complete English versions have appeared since mid-century, as have many individual books.1 In the same period, moreover, our understanding of ancient Hebrew has been considerably enhanced by a great deal of philological, archeological, and linguistic work. It would be natural to expect all this energetic scholarship to have helped produce a vivid and precise English translation as close to the spirit of the original as to its letter. But this is not so. Modern English versions repeatedly put readers at a grotesque distance from the Hebrew Bible. To this day, the Authorized Version of 1611 (the 'King James Bible'), for all its inaccuracies, archaisms, and insistently Jacobean rhythm and tone, remains the closest we have yet come to the distinctive experience of the original."
so MSFT has 2x the employees per revenue Apple does -- so?
I would bet Jobs would be a good sovereign as well.
Why would Gates get us into wars?
I mean more than Bush or Obama?
Thanks to JADL for the pointer to the Alter article.
The particular passages at issue in this discussion are all from the New Testament, and therefore outside of the scope of Alter's remarks (which concerned experiential fidelity to specifically Hebrew texts). I will admit to being New Testament centric, and the failings that Alter recognizes in the KJV (inaccuracies, archaisms, insistently Jacobean rhythm and tone) seem consistently more problematic there.
As for the Old Testament specifically, I think we approach it with a variety of goals. Perhaps the pre-eminent goal is to understand what the texts intend to convey about God and the relationship between God and his people. Alter does not claim that the KJV bests the competition in this regard. Indeed, I see his comments as a critique of modern translation, which he feels places too high a priority on translating meaning and too little on conveying poetic aspects of the text like cadence and alliteration, rather than as praise for the KJV.
GM—
so MSFT has 2x the employees per revenue Apple does -- so?
Microsoft as a company often shows signs of lack of focus, and of trying to do everything, and be everything, to everyone. Its gotten away with uncontrolled mission creep only because of its enormous revenues. Most folks would say that we have too much of this in government already.
I would bet Jobs would be a good sovereign as well.
I think that life would be a bit too intense with Jobs as autocrat.
Why would Gates get us into wars?
Because the one thing he did do well, and which MSFT has generally done well, is compete. Their goal has consistently been to utterly destroy their competition, by whatever tools are available.
Stu, I'm behind my ordinary duties today due to the extraordinary day of yesterday -- after teaching three classes and working again on the departmental program descriptions, I went to my kid's soccer game, but it got started late, then we were home after dark, and immediately went to bed, and I fell asleep while waiting for them to go to sleep, and only got up for about a half hour to finish a Sudoku puzzle.
I think you're probably right that the far left and far right have an exclusionary game going. When Palin talks about the "real Americans" which is how I think you put it, she's talking heartland, and to some extent I identify that.
But on the other hand, it creates a group of Americans who aren't American, and thus creates a kind of caste system, and reinforces the notion that there are pariahs and untouchables, right here in America.
Because her language presumably doesn't include me among her pariahs, I am not so offended, but I can understand how others who feel excluded from that definition would be.
But the language of castes that comes out of Marxism is one I'm more familiar with, and one that it seems to me has considerably more traction. Sotomayor's comment that she is a "wise Latina" is at once an attempt to probably reverse the pariah status of this group, but to assert superiority simultaneously.
I'm for equality of opportunity, but I deny any language of superiority that creates a de facto or especially a de jure caste system.
Under Locke, there may have been a de facto caste system, including in the southern US, actual slaves. But the Lockean logic which Lincoln referred to in the Gettysburg Address said that "we are dedicated to a PROPOSITION" of equality (Lincoln had been reading Euclid). And tht proposition can be found throughout Locke and gave an intellectual resource to the downtrodden and to the likes of John Brown who viscerally felt the assault on equality, and wished to attack it.
Brown's assault was of course illegal, but so should slavery have been. It's hard to decide those various illegalities.
Unfortunately, the new left that is now entrenched and tenured throughout academia is dedicated to a new proposition of inequality in which those who once were the "real Americans" are no longer permitted to speak. These real Americans are by and large Christian. Christians are increasingly denied permission to form into groups on campuses country-wide. FIRE is one of the few organizations to illuminate the dark new propositions of inequality that the Marxists are foisting on American kids, in which they turn white Christians into pariahs and untouchables forbidden to speak, and they assume an elite status for themselves similar to that of the Brahmins.
Obama's decades-long friend Ayres is an example of such. Ayres believes that he has the right to murder people he doesn't like without trial. This is a race of super-men and super-women who will willingly deny speech to anyone who doesn't agree with them.
It's the state of many campuses right now. Obama is riding the crest of that wave. It's an evil and inegalitarian wave that is riding on the resentment created by actual inequalities within the old Lockean system, but they are attempting to create enshrined caste systems that are actually upheld by law, as they were in India for centuries.
Also, Stu, you didn't guide me to Thessalonians any more than Curtis led me to Marianne Moore.
I do read the Bible although I usually read it in King James because I like the cadences.
I'm not sure what the crucial differences were between the versions you cited, and KJV were.
It seemed to me that laziness and piker-dom were the central points in each version, and how they were not to be tolerated, or enabled.
Paul elsewhere talks against promiscuity and unmarried sex.
He doesn't bring up the diseases these bring, but they are a big part of my being against universal health care. I don't want to pay for the diseases that are sweeping in with the new left.
A third of San Francisco is diseased.
The "real Americans" that Palin discusses at least are not spreading AIDS and herpes at least not at the catastrophic rates of the denizens of our new Sodoms.
As for the other Saddam, I didn't think we should topple him. Too big a task, and too little money.
But I do think that worldwide people should have the right to freedom.
True: they have to fight for it.
True enough.
And yet in places like Vietnam, N. Korea, Myanmar, and other places where the Marxist nightmare is enshrined (Tibet, Red China, some places in Africa), it's hard to get going without even so much as the freedom of speech, or the right to be educated.
We have limited capital nevertheless, and we do not have infinite capacity to change all these thuggeries into enlightened bastions of free thought along the lines of Luther's Wittenberg.
Alas.
Kirby:
Translating "meaning" or achieving semantical accuracy in translation is not a self-evident quality.
We've all-too-briefly treated the issue of the philological vs the inspirational theories of biblical translation associated with the views of Jerome and Augustine, respectively.
For Protestant biblical translation experts like Nida, the aim of the biblical translator in conveying "meaning" should be to convert potential believers to faith in Christ and His message, and this often may involve linguistic adaptation especially for many non-Western languages.
Of course there are also difficulties arising from the different Protestant and Catholic versions of the OT. Authorised Catholic versions of the whole Bible include the fine Douai-Rheims version with Bishop Challoner's 18th c. revisions, the 20th c. Confraternity version, the Revised Std Edition, and the New Std Revised Edition (both of course based on up-to-date original language texts), the Catholic versions of the New American Bible, and the Jereusalem Bible and its subsequent revisions, among others.
Difficulties abound in moving from the latest Protestant and Catholic biblical scholarship to producing translations from the original languages that scholars, readers, and believers that satisfy. And the temptations to promote doctrinal interpretations can be powerful for some partisans--however scholarly--of one or another communion.
i don't know man kirby you get these long involved streams going and it is interesting conversation but i'd have to dedicate hours to this contraption this screen were i to want to engage significantly in the ongoing dialectic
you know how to make
blah blah blah
sort of enjoyable
i've been picking apples
that;'s all i know
these streams don't interest me too much anymore
i've been reading and that takes a lot of time
just peering into books
for long hours
hard to re-adjust my eyes
to the screen
i must be getting old ah well
what the hell
maybe marianne moore was pointing to the decline of humanism
that arose in paris
or maybe she's just saying that
human liberty is freer now the kinngs of france are dead
anyway
obama is religion unto himself
they're singing love songs about the guy in schools all over the land i wouldn't be surprised if his name emerged in a military march as the great hero of well stated values and goals for the 21st century
all the blather from the bozos on TV just make it more obvious all the time
obama is smarter than all of them combined
he's a little fogdazzled by the world theatre but i think he'll be OK once he has the whining capitalists down on their knees touching their heads to the floor
what about a preventative care medical system a system that makes people want to be healthy and take care of themsleves
phuq the big corporate pharm companies and the megamillionaire doctors
nobody should get rich off of taking care of people
jenna bush as a today show commentator give me a break
the bottom of the abyss get's more mysterious all the time
go figure
i'm with ed
more and more on this one
if it's just about managing wealth then i think all the bigwigs should simply go phuq themselves
if it's about the common good and people getting the fair shake
well i think everyone is going to have to bow to the wisdom of moderation
blah blah blah never sounded so good
peace
j
3 quick notes
1. To GM, I'm concerned about the general negation of the political realm among the Anabaptists. There is a kind of this-world negation among them, that strikes me as neo-Gnostic, or Buddhist, perhaps.
I like the Renaissance, and Luther, because it affirms this world. Luther said if the world were to be blown up in one day, we should still plant an apple tree. Luther affirms this world.
When you say that we must be either anarchist or monarchist, you tend to turn the gardening of this world into a sort of piffle.
2. James -- I think you and Stu are the only ones who are competent to discuss Bible translation, and he's not talking to you, so I think it will be hard to get a conversation going on that topic.
My only real other language is French. I can get through German, but I'm by no means fluent. I can read some Finnish, but since no one else here can, I think that that language is moot.
I intend to learn Greek, but it may have to wait until retirement.
3. JH, thanks for bringing the conversation back to Marianne Moore via humanism, even if you only turn the whole thing into a paean for that strange fellow Obama, who is certainly clever, but I don't yet know if he is wise.
Time will tell.
Have fun reading, and planting trees! Affirm the world! It matters!
I think that's one place where Lutherans and Catholics probably coincide. We affirm the beauty of the world, and its arts.
The stranger iconoclastic strains of Christianity are somehow against this world, its politics, and its representations.
Still, I'm glad GM is among us.
James appears to have converted him to monarchism somehow.
I have yet to make any converts. Mostly because I do not really have a set of beliefs to which anybody can simply convert.
I just think Locke is better than Marx, Smith is better than Marx, and I wish we could get a Locke-Smith that would keep Marxists out of the White House.
JADLs comments on various translations, etc., are valuable. Let me add a few remarks.
For Bibles intended for study (as opposed to carrying around), I'd certainly advocate getting a Bible that includes the deuterocanonical books, i.e., the books from the Septuagint that form a part of the Catholic OT, but not the Jewish Tanakh or Protestant OT. Bibles published by Protestants will often refer to the deuterocanonicals as apocrypha, a usage that Catholics find imprecise, but it is still a reliable indicator that a given Bible contains these books.
In most Lutheran churches, the lectionary readings are taken from the RSV or NRSV. I believe that this is true in most mainstream Protestant churches as well, although you're more likely to find NIV (or even KJV) in evangelical churches. I was surprised to learn that the Catholics now accept the RSV/NRSV, and pleased too, because this increases our common ground. In terms of specific editions, I've long used the Oxford Study versions of the RSV and NRSV, but in the past year, I've heard a number of people recommend the HarperCollins Study Bible instead. Certainly, the HarperCollins Bible is easier to find. A minor note is that there are two distinct editions of the RSV, the first edition with a 1954 copyright (IIRC), and a second edition with a 1970 copyright (again, IIRC). There aren't many changes, but they do seem oddly concentrated in the texts that relate to recent discussions about homosexuality :-(. And Lutheran Churches seem to have stacks of old first edition RSVs, often held together with duct tape, for use in adult education.
The JB (and NJB) are Catholic translations, based on the same ancient texts as the RSV/NRSV. At least at the time the JB was done, Catholics did not approve of the RSV, but there was a desire to have the advantage of its scholarship. To my ear, the JB is a bit more distant from the KJV than the RSV/NRSV, but this is because it has a distinctive voice of its own, which the other two translations lack. Part of this is a decision to transliterate the personal name of God in the OT as Yahweh rather than to translate the traditional Jewish substitution of Adonai as LORD. One really nice thing about the JB (and I hope the NJB) is that it is available in some really beautiful editions that are a joy to use, whereas the NRSV/RSVs seem somehow more pedestrian in their binding, paper, and typography. I have never seen a blacker, more opaque ink, than what was used to print my copy of the JB. A final note is that J. R. R. Tolkien (of "Lord of the Rings" fame) was one of the JB translators, and certainly to my ear, there is an affinity between the English of Tolkien's fiction, and the JB.
All of these study bibles include useful notes. The notes in the Oxford bible generally focus on alternative readings, or brief explanations. The notes in the JB are usually citations to parallel or related passages.
The NIV is a translations produced by conservative Protestant scholars. I don't use it very often, but I don't have any particular animous against it.
One Bible that I use specifically for OT studies is JPS/Tanakh, a Jewish translation of the OT.
JADL is absolutely correct in pointing out that doctrinal commitments can be reflected in translations. In my opinion, there are only a few things that you can do about this. One is to learn the original languages. Another is to try to be aware of any translation's biases, and to regularly consult multiple translations, especially when dealing with doctrinal proof texts. A third is to make good use of commentaries, while realizing that they too many have doctrinal biases.
As an aside, Kirby comments that only JADL and I are competent to discuss Bible translations. He certainly flatters me to a degree that I have not earned. I'm just a dilettante who's willing to read, think, learn, and take chances. I figure GM is more qualified than me, if somewhat more restrained.
Thank you, Stu.
Kirby -- WTF? I'm glad that James is a monarchist, too, but he certainly didn't convert me. I've always been anti-dilution-of-suffrage, and since in the last 3 years it's become obvious that any republic will eventually devolve into democracy, I eschew all forms of republicanism/democracy.
And politics is destructive.
That doesn't mean I don't like this world. Quite the contrary. But I would rather use my time doing something productive rather than engaging in chimp politics and pretending I have more influence in the political realm than I am capable of possessing.
I think politics can be a good thing, and am still convinced that voting is a good idea, and should be a universal, even though it's frequently manipulated by cheap slogans like "Yes We Can," which take one's mind off of the matter at hand, substituting some sort of junkyard populism in its place.
The fellow in Honduras did win the vote there, though, so he belongs in the country's presidency.
As does Ang Suu Kyi, in the presidency of Myanmar.
GM is correct that we can't really control the country, but I think there is a universalism among people. We can collectively decide the best leader most of the time.
I think we also choose the best poets to read, and the best artists to enjoy, and the best American Idol.
And I think the fact that most Americans still want to sign on with Christianity instead of Buddhism is a good thing.
And that Christianity still continues to spread throughout the world reveals the universality of its message.
Given their druthers, most choose Christ!
Kirby—
Paul elsewhere talks against promiscuity and unmarried sex.
He doesn't bring up the diseases these bring, but they are a big part of my being against universal health care. I don't want to pay for the diseases that are sweeping in with the new left.
A third of San Francisco is diseased.
I am very curious about this statistic. I did a bit of Googling about STD incidence rates in the US. Here is an interesting page:
STD statistics for the USA
Note that this page does not deal with HIV, although there is a companion page that does.
Briefly, STD incidence was declining until 2001, and it has been increasing since. I've seen the recent increases attributed to two causes: increased effectiveness and utilization of STD diagnostics, and less effective sex education (a policy decision of the Bush years).
What I think is particularly interesting is table at the bottom of the page that lists the states with the highest rates of various supported STDs. They are not what you'd expect. E.g., the top 10 states for primary and secondary syphilis were, from worst down,
Louisana (12.4 per 100K)
Alabama (8.3)
Georgia (7.3)
Maryland (6.1)
Tennessee (6.1)
California (5.6)
Texas (4.7)
Florida (5) // no, I can't explain the inversion...
Texas (4.9) // no, I can't explain the duplication...
Arizona (4.8)
Admitting that there are problems with this (is Texas really so big that it has to be listed twice?!), what comes off the page is hardly an indictment of the blue states.
I think that the problem here is much more complex than your model. Living in an urban area is a risk factor, but low levels of education (especially when coupled with high levels of science-denial) are at least as significant. This creates something of a double-whammy for the urban poor, but the latte-drinking lefties don't come off so bad.
As for HIV:
United States HIV & AIDS statistics summary
The general story here is that HIV infection rates appear to have stabilized. There is also a significant bias in that only 34 states require confidential name-based reporting, so they've declined to do a state-by-state breakdown. The estimated number of HIV positive individuals in the US is 1.1M, which involves an extrapolation to a surprisingly large rate of nondiagnosis.
The cost of HIV treatment is substantial: $2K/month if caught early, $4K/month if caught late. This is essentially all drug cost. We can use this for a back of the envelope calculation. The HIV rate is roughly 0.3%. If we assume a mixed population of early and late diagnosis, spread the cost over the pool, and correct for months vs. years, we see that the annual premium associated with HIV infection would be $72/year.
About half of all HIV transmittal is due to male-on-male sexual contact, so your personal "homosexual subsidy" would be about $36/year, or $144/year to cover your whole family. Of course, they're going to be subsidizing your turned ankles, and my high cholesteral, so it's not as if all the transfers are one way.
It is worth noting here that there are two Indian pharamceutical companies that are outside of the US patent regime which are making standardized versions of US HIV treatment programs for about $350/patient/year. The difference ($23.6K/patient/year) is almost entirely drug-company profit, and that's where $142 of that $144 is going. This raises the question of exactly who is being subsidized.
Kirby—
I was wrong! The people who did the STD tables referred to in my previous comment have done city/state breakdowns, unfortunately, just of AIDS. This is an issue, becasue with modern treatment, HIV is not likely to progress to AIDS. Therefore, the city and state specific rates for full-blown AIDS conflate underlying HIV rates with treatment rates. Even so, the results are surprising.
First, here's the link:
AID & HIV statistics for the USA by state and city
The big "states" are
DC (148.1)
New York (24.9)
Maryland (24.8)
Florida (21.7)
Louisiana (20.5)
Delaware (19.8)
Georgia (19.7)
South Carolina (16.8)
Connecticut (15.1)
Pennsylvania (14.1)
California (13.5)
New Jersey (13.4)
Nevada (13.1)
Texas (12.4)
Mississippi (12.1)
North Carolina (11.3)
Tennessee (10.7)
Illinois (10.5)
This doesn't tell as one-sided a story as the other STDs, but it certainly doesn't support a "leftie-sex is bankrupting us model," either.
As for cities:
Miami, FL (33.1)
New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA (31.5)
Baton Rouge, LA (31.4)
Washington, DC-VA-MD-WV (30.5)
Baltimore-Towson, MD (29.6)
New York, NY-NJ-PA (27.1)
San Francisco, CA (26.0)
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA (23.0)
Bakersfield, CA (20.7)
Columbia, SC (25.3)
Jackson, MS (23.1)
Orlando, FL (22.7)
San Juan-Caguas-Cuaynabo, PR (22.7)
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD (21.9)
Again, an interesting mix, and probably not what you'd expect.
Kirby—
Mea culpa. I'd intended to do a mixed model (for computing the cost per person nationwide for HIV treatment), but I just noticed that I used the low ($2K/month) figure. So figure $100/person/year rather than $72, etc. This isn't a big error, but it is an error, and I didn't want it to go uncorrected.
Kirby—
Just to make the point...
The "real Americans" that Palin discusses at least are not spreading AIDS and herpes at least not at the catastrophic rates of the denizens of our new Sodoms.
The actual statistics show that they are. Not to be a prejudiced leftie urbanite, but sex has proven to be popular pretty much everywhere, and this includes meth-and-oxycontin land, a.k.a., "real America."
Stu, fair enough. I have to take this all in, along with all your other information.
Also, I assume that people who are really into multiple-partner sex are probably at least thin.
Maybe it's the others who binge on fatty foods, and will kill us with obesity.
By morning, there will probably be tables in the comments comparing obesity and sexual disease transfer rates, showing that again my presumptions do not correlate with the data.
I once read in a newspaper that 30% of SF youth between 15-30 had herpes.
That was in about 1995. It was a tiny article (the kind I like) in the edge of a Seattle newspaper.
Marianne Moore never even kissed anybody, so far as we know.
Her poems are great.
She lived to be 88.
This proves I think that you can write great poems without having to be a slobbering sex maniac like Ginsberg, spreading diseases coast to coast and around the world (he had Hepatitus C, which is another sexually transmitted disease).
It's odd that you're also checking out syphilis rates. That would also imply poor healthcare delivery systems, since it's something that can be cured.
I think better to check herpes rates, since it's permanent, and shows a good across-the-board transmission rate, since I think it's in all communities (unlike HIV which is more prevalent in drug and gay communities -- and requires transfer of BLOOD -- which doesn't happen AS OFTEN in heterosexual sex -- unless it's anal, when, of course, it's as likely to happen, but I think heterosexuals are less likely to engage in anal sex than homosexual men, for whom I believe it is still a preference?)
at any rate, I think herpes rates are more indicative of sexual activity than syphilis. Syphilis can easily be cured if the money's available.
Herpes can't, and I think is evenly spread, and is probably more likely to be in bluestate populations where people have educations.
Anybody with half a brain can get rid of syphilis with a penicillin shot. you'd have to be a dummy not to get rid of it.
So in effect you're checking on dumbness rather than promiscuity rates. Check the promiscuity rates by checking herpes rates.
Then I think you'll find bluestate cities toward the top.
Kirby—
Herpes... OK, that's a different story. I found a source that claims a 17% rate of genital herpes, down from 21% a decade ago. So a 1/3 rate in SF twenty years ago isn't insane. Depressing, but not insane.
I have not been able to find state-specific rates. I suspect that the probability of infection grows almost linearly with the number of partners, and therefore the rate in urban areas is significantly higher than the rate in rural areas, just because the number of potential partners is so much greater.
I do think that promiscuity is the key problem, but also that it is naive to think that promiscuity is either a new problem, or a problem that correlates very strongly with political orientation.
And you've got to count HPV which is up to 50% in many female black populations.
Sex. It's dangerous.
Kirby,
You like Paul.
How does Romans 12:1 square with 2 kingdoms?
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
But, Stu, if the cities are largely blue-state, and the rural areas are largely red-state, and the cities are where the rampant promiscuity with many partners is, then it would make sense that the bluestate areas are more herpes-bound than the redstate areas (which have proportionately more bluestockings, perhaps for lack of opportunities).
GM, what are Plath's morals like in her poems?
She kinda complains about men, but in a very simplistic way, no?
This is one of the things I object to in her poems. I don't think that feminist art can be moral art, because it's moralistic, and projects evil on to men.
That's psychologically too simplistic.
I didn't understand the Paul quote, or what you meant by it being somehow opposed to two kingdoms.
The BIG two kingdoms quote is when Christ is asked whether we should pay taxes. He says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to render unto God that which is God's.
That is the basis for Augustine of his notion that the state is not godly, and has another notion behind it than does the city of God, which is to come.
The Nude Jerusalem is on its way.
It's not here. If we try that here, we just end up with 50% herpes rates, and some imbecile who wants universal health insurance to pay for the profligates and disorderly among us.
Kirby,
You're always saying that two kingdoms means you don't have to behave like Christ or even try in this life because whenever anyone talks about behavior they're talking about the next kingdom.
Paul clearly is against this in calling for us to be living sacrifices.
About Plath -- she references men in her two most famous poems, "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus." I don't think she does this in any way a-morally or inconsistent with the canon (indeed, the diction of both poems owes a great deal to Eliot).
Most of Plath's work can be divided into two camps -- the "precious" -- like "You're" and the universal -- like "Wintering" (or "Blackberrying). Very few of her poems are of the Daddy/Lazarus type (in fact, I think those are about the only two -- maybe "Mad Girl's Love Song," too?).
The morality in Plath's poems is almost always an awe of the power of creation -- the inherent life in all things.
Kirby—
I found this:
Tracking the Hidden Epidemics — CDC
It's a bit dated (2000), but I think still useful. Remember that STD rates have tended to increase since 2001, reversing the trend of the 90's.
Regarding Herpes (pg. 20): Herpes is common in all regions of the country and in both urban and rural areas. There are no significant differences in prevalence by geographic location.
I'm surprised.
Regarding HPV (p. 18): An estimated 75 percent of the reproductive-age population has been infected with sexually transmitted hpv. An estimated 15 percent of Americans ages 15 to 49 are currently infected.
It's too much to expect that I can give a final summary of this discussion, but here's an attempt. I believe we have pretty good evidence for the following propositions:
1) Rates of STDs, especially those with low mortality/morbidity rates, are shockingly high. It is not clear whether or not this is a new thing. What is clear is that education is a good thing, and that promiscuity is a very, very bad thing.
2) Kirby's contention that a national healthcare system will represent a subsidy of blue states by red states (because of STDs) does not seem to be well founded. The really expensive STD currently is HIV, and contrary to expectations, this is well distributed geographically, and is not predominantly a blue-state phenomenon.
3) Rates of curable STDs are higher in the Bible-belt. Presumably denial rather than an increased incidence of risky behavior is causal.
I also believe the following
4) Changes in public social mores (the sexual revolution of the 60's, legalization of abortion in the 70's, increasing social acceptance of homosexuality in the 90's and 00's) have had a far greater impact on the visibility of these behaviors than on the actual rates.
5) Good sex education reduces risky behavior (including promiscuity), and results in earlier medical intervention when STDs are transmitted. A sound religious background also reduces risky behavior (although less so than education), but paradoxically, can result in dangerous delays in medical intervention for STDs, illegitimate pregnancies, etc. Combining good sexual education with sound religious instruction may be the soundest approach.
Thoughts?
5 is kind of correct if we go so far as to teach young women how their bodies actually work and show them how to understand fertility.
Responsibility would be a good thing also to teach.
And forced marriages. And shame for single mothers and "baby daddies."
I think you're simply wrong for #4. The destructive behaviors we've not only embraced but celebrated since the late 1960s are just that -- destructive.
GM—
Part of my thinking regarding #4 was a claim that I read recently that the illegitimate birth rate in the US peaked in the 50's. This suggests (but does not prove) that our social myths regarding the Eisenhower years are seriously out of whack with its historical realities.
Of course, subsequent declines can be explained in part through the increased prevalence of effective contraception and abortion, but substantial increases in sexuality outside of marriage would tend to cancel those factors.
My conclusion is that we don't really know. As I've often said, every generation believes that it was the first to discover sex, the reality of their own existence notwithstanding.
Of course, subsequent declines can be explained in part through the increased prevalence of effective contraception and abortion, but substantial increases in sexuality outside of marriage would tend to cancel those factors
With contraceptive rates over 90% and 1/4 to 1/2 (depending on who you talk to) of all pregnancies ending in abortion (the number I generally see is 1.x million per year), I think that the subsequent declines can entirely be explained by our reliance on pre-and post-conception birth control.
from the CDC (2008):
Number of live births to unmarried women: 1,641,946
Birth rate for unmarried women: 50.6 births per 1,000 unmarried women aged 15-44 years
Percent of all births to unmarried women: 38.5%
Now, add all the abortions (let's say 1.2 million -- I saw that number this evening) and the number of bastard pregnancies goes up to 2.8 million out of 6 or so million pregnancies -- so half? Take out the whole contraception thing and the numbers could easily double.
Oh yeah -- we're doing a great job.
Kirby & GM—
I had some quantitative thoughts about the interrelationship between promiscuity, STDs, and religion, which suffered from the twin disadvantages that
1) I suspect that you guys wouldn't understand them, and
2) They had consequences that I recoiled from.
So unless you're interested in some very strange thoughts indeed, I'll give you a simple and short version.
I'm wondering if STDs and promiscuity can be thought of as a predator-prey system. The idea is that larger promiscuous populations will support much higher STD rates, but that in the end, very high STD rates cause a catastrophic drop in the promiscuous population, which in turn results in a substantial drop in STD rates.
The mathematical evolution of such systems is well understood — it amounts to a sequence of waves in the prey population, as well as (phase shifted) waves in the predator population.
I wonder if what we're seeing now is the beginning of a crash of the promiscuous type.
Well, it would be delightful if true.
But most STDs are not life-threatening in the short-term (many of them are not life threatening at all, just gross and inconvenient).
And I do mean delightful -- just at it would be great if all drug pushers were to suddenly drop dead of parasitic asshole disease.
Is there a historical precedent for a predator-prey crash wrt diseased populations (other than plagues -- which are by definition more virulent)?
GM—
Is there a historical precedent for a predator-prey crash wrt diseased populations (other than plagues -- which are by definition more virulent)?
Myxomatosis in rabbits.
Good point.
What would the time window look like?
What would the time window look like?
I have no idea, and without historical data that seems unavailable, I don't think it's possible to explore this in anything by hypothetical/qualitative ways.
Part of my thinking here is influenced by Rodney Stark's Growth of Christianity. I believe I've mentioned this before. His math was wrong, but it was correctable, and the historical evidence permitted the inference of the critical parameter in his model. (A single growth rate parameter).
But he had much more data, and a much, much simpler model.
But a good starting point for quantitatively based historians would be to look for population crashes in the past. If they've been periodic in the past, they'll probably be periodic in the future.
most population crashes were due to weather (little ice-age) or new disease (plagues and native american die-off)
have there (besides the rabbit thing) been population crashes due to old diseases?
now it may be interesting in that hpv tends to cause infertility (i have a former student who had a total hysterectomy at the age of 19 due to cancer) and so we may see a relatively large rural and urban population crash due to that (leaving suburbia relatively unscathed).
interesting thoughts fer sure.
and doing the plath research totally wrecked my sermon-writing. oh well, got another day ;)
GM—
Actually, the plague is a pretty decent representative of this phenomenon. This was explored in "Plagues and Peoples," and more recently in "Germs, Guns, and Steel." The modeling of high-mortality diseases in poorly-mixed (i.e., low-mobility) populations is much more complicated, because you have to take space into account as well as time, so you have PDEs instead of ODEs. Been there, done that, written the code. What you end up with are waves in space as well as time.
New diseases are often the result of cross-species transfer (swine flu, HIV) or a change in the behavior/mutation of an existing disease (like the proposed evolution of syphilis from yaws). In either case, the probability of emergence of a new disease in the "prey" population is proportionate to its size. The resulting models are stochastic, but they do have predictable behavior qualitatively: they do go through boom-bust cycles, and they exhibit a "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" phenomenon, in which a later injection of the disease results in a harder crash, i.e., a steeper die-off (even in percentage space) and a lower subsequent minimum.
This effect is mitigated in populations where other factors (e.g., the availability of food) limit population size. If the time constants are such that the populations tend to rebound quickly relative to disease injections, the resulting behavior of the model is more Poisson-like, which is to say, it loses it's periodic feel, and instead satisfies a simple exponential model in terms of the time between crashes.
There is some evidence that HIV (in a generalized sense) fits this model, as there are HIV-like sequences carried within the human genome, presumably the relics of past epidemics.
stu
5this is an amazing thread and i've enjoyed reading
your line of thought in fact kirby has got things moderated now so it's mostly civil but not quite and i like the not quite but anyway
having read dr peter duesberg i am more and more convinced that his assessment is the key idea in dealing with all this HIV AIDS stuff
in fact the whole argument hinges on the observation that what we're looking at is not in fact a virus...but the research and the epidemiology folks have all said it is but it seems to continue to mystify none the less
the duesberg study shows that HIV is really a bacterial infection a sort of slow septic shock that happens to people...a sudden septic shock overloads the immune system and shuts it down a slow septic shock takes a while but once the immune system is shutdown it is pretty well shut down
if the basis for study of this disease is misguided from the get go then i think there are significant moral concerns
duesberg observes that most of the social effort to deal with the disease at the outset was the effort to have it not be shown in the public as a homosexual problem
(and it was in fact largely a homosexual problem)
i am at the point where i completely reject the scientific definition i do not use HIV AIDS in thinking about it rather i use a nature based judgement natural law....and it works
we shouldn't fuck around with nature too much
la la la
j
Stu, we're all interested in strange thoughts, especially ones that are not quite in control of the thinker. At least around here, that is, we are interested in such things!
Predator prey relations are always on National Geographic, so we're used to it.
It's harder to think of humans acting in this way, but of course they do, all the time.
We grew up playing cops and robbers, and are used to thinking about equilibriums between populations.
So go whole hog, dude!
I think in Moore's poem she's contrasting the way we doll up nature, versus the way nature really is.
The way nature really is has everything to do with predatory relationships.
But intraspecies predation is quite a fascinating facet to explore, esp. wrt humans.
It's a big part of the Balfour Declaration, and what took place in spite of the part that we weren't supposed to replace any indigenous Muslim populations when we set up the Jewish homeland.
Is there some part of the world where people don't live, that is still inhabitable?
I think we're pretty much at full saturation, world-wide.
I wouldn't mind if the Jews took over New Jersey as their homeland.
Better than the Italian mafia.
I don't know too much about setting up Israel, but when they did it, they seem to have plopped it right on top of Palestine.
As if the Palestinians weren't really people, and wouldn't mind living across the border in tents for the rest of eternity, since they liked to live in tents anyhoo, being a desert people.
But where else were they going to go?
New Jersey is about the same size as Israel. Could we have given it to the Jews, and said that only Jews could live there, and established it as a Jewish homeland, with an official religion?
The mafia might have gotten all upset about that. What would Tony Soprano do?
Meanwhile, the Jews had to get out of Alexandria where they had been for centuries.
I have a friend who's a Jew from Alexandria. They had two months to get out, after the war in 1967.
They had to leave all their goods, too.
I wish they had all gone to New Jersey.
Newark could have been the New Jerusalem.
instead of the Fresh Hell it is?
Kirby—
Part I.
we're all interested in strange thoughts, especially ones that are not quite in control of the thinker.
OK, you asked for it.
Let me propose as a thought experiment that we think of promiscuity and faithfulness as reproductive strategies, and in semi-quantitative ways.
In a healthy population that has variations in male fertility, promiscuity will increase the birth rate, and therefore is an adaptive strategy. Here, as always when you're looking at population dynamics, you have to consider this from perspective of a fertile woman. A faithful woman has only a single sexual partner, and therefore her effective fertility is limited both by her intrinsic fertility, and the intrinsic fertility of her partner. Sound bite: good eggs and bad sperm mean no babies. On the other hand, a promiscuous women has a number of potential partners who can fertilizer her, and so her effective fertility is limited only by her own intrinsic fertility. Sound bite: good eggs, lots of partners, plenty of babies.
So, what's the tradeoff? Why are many of us still faithful? STDs.
STDs will tend to become endemic in the promiscuous population, and simply cannot establish themselves in the faithful population. All STDs have a "metabolic tax," and some have a more direct impact on fertility (e.g., because of decreased lifetime, or reduced probability of carrying a child to term).
Let suppose for now that we try to model three populations -- a faithful population, a healthy promiscuous population, and a diseased promiscuous population, which we will call f, h, and d respectively. Here is a tentative model:
f' = (a_0 f + b_0 h) (1 - f - h - d) - c_0 f
h' = (a_1 f + b_1 h) (1 - f - h - d) - c_1 h - d_0 h d
d' = - c_2 h + d_0 h d
Here, f', h', and d' represent the derivatives of f, h, and d respectively, with respect to time.
Let's go through this. The first term in both f' and h' (this term is missing in d') is a population growth term. Basically, I'm assuming that the faithful part of the population will produce both faithful and (healthy) promiscuous children, likewise the healthy promiscuous population will produce both faithful and healthy faithful children, but at different rates. Moreover, both growth terms are limited (by multiplication with [1 - f - h - d]) so as to keep the aggregate population less than 1 (a normalizing value). I'm making the rather draconian hypothesis that the diseased population does not reproduce at all.
Presumably a_0 + a_1 < b_0 + b_1, this is the "promiscuous advantage." You'd also suspect a_0 > b_0, and a_1 < b_1 (faithful parents are more likely to have faithful children than promiscuous parents, and vice verse).
Next, the c_i terms reflect population mortality. Presumably c_0 = c_1 < c_2, i.e., diseased folk die off more quickly than healthy folk.
Finally, we have the population exchange term from healthy promiscuous to diseased promiscuous, which disease pressure follows a standard predator-prey (ideal gas) model.
Qualitatively, you'd expect the evolution of such a model run in waves, where each wave begins with a large faithful population, a small healthy promiscuous population, and a tiny diseased promiscuous population. The initial phenomenon is a growth in the healthy promiscuous population at the expense of the faithful population, due to the higher birthrate. But the diseased population functions as a predator on the healthy promiscuous population, and ultimately its growth results in a crash in first the healthy promiscuous population and then the diseased promiscuous population. This takes us back to the initial conditions, and the start of the next wave.
The soundbite is that promiscuity will result in more children, but faithfulness in more great-great-grandchildren.
Part II.
So is there any role at all for religion in this? Somewhat surprisingly, yes, and it's built into this. First off, as I was thinking about building the model, I was thinking about Israel in Canaan, where the Canaanite religion was based on fertility, and therefore involved cult prostitution, and ritualized sexual activity. Religion is modeled in that the f and h populations are viewed as separately reproducing [i.e., that faithful types pair bond with faithful types], and that each individual is either faithful for their entire lifetime, or promiscuous for their entire lifetime.
I must say that this has some uncomfortable moral consequences for me, in that it suggests that religion "works" (in the Darwinian adaptive sense) more because of who it excludes than because it saves the faithless. I'll take solace in the notion that this is a very sketchy model, and presumably omits something crucial. But not much solace.
It would be nice to build a simulation where it is easy to "turn the dials" on the various constants. This is going to have to wait a while. School is about to start for me, too.
Of course religion "works." Otherwise we'd all be atheists.
You forgot, however, that faithfulness (especially in non-matriarchic societies) increases the chance that a child will reach the age of majority because 1) the father has no reason to kill the baby and 2) every reason to keep the baby in necessities like shelter and food.
So a double-whammy for faithfulness.
You can, of course, see how non-faithfulness behavior creates societal collapse. It's called Detroit.
The promiscuous piece of the quantitative pie here that Stu sketches out is less likely for two reasons to have babies
1) disease (they can't)
2) abortion (they don't want to, and now can legally abort), which leads to yet another reason -- when a woman has had two or three abortions, it becomes harder to have one (I don't know the technical details on that, but it screws something up inside so that they can't have kids even if they want one).
Other interesting diseases to look up in terms of promiscuity:
Hepatitus C (it killed Allen Ginsberg, and more recently, the poet and rock star Jim Carroll).
Chlamydia (I don't think it can be cured, although it isn't lethal)
Many claim that there is a link between male promiscuity and prostate cancer. Many women have some kind of bacteria or virus that doesn't harm them, but does harm men if they sleep with the diseased women, and this in turn becomes prostate cancer.
I'm sure there are other diseases, too, associated with promiscuity.
The CDC currently spends over half its budget on curing sexual diseases.
If it didn't have to blow all its money on the creeps, it might have money to spend on children's diseases.
Currently, almost nothing is spent on Lyme's Disease, which affects about 1% of the population (far more than AIDS, for example), but while AIDS receives 20 billion dollars in funding, Lyme's only gets a few million dollars.
Lyme's isn't lethal, and because many of the people who get it are children, it doesn't have a very strong voting lobby (children find it hard to organize to get funding, and children with Lyme's are likely to only be awake a few hours a day since the disease basically wipes you out for fifteen years without however actually killing you -- it's like having the flu for fifteen years or so until the body can fight it off --).
Lyme's has an interesting lifecycle that goes through deer and mice ticks, and ends up hurting people who come in contact with the ticks.
I've argued elsewhere for helicopter gunships to destroy all the deer in the nation, which would have a side benefit of saving many small trees such as the ones in my backyard that deer like to nibble on.
but nobody listens.
Kirby,
Ending hunting restrictions would work a lot better.
And be more fun.
i don't know
this whole thing about deer
shows kirby's dark side
i mean picture that guy in a helicopter gunshipp
laying waste to whole herds of
innocent doe-eyes
you've seen that look
how could anyone want to eradicate that precious little look
of deer
the brown eyes
judging the world
as a deer longs for running streams
i'm so upset by this
i think i will invent kevlar
bullet proof vests for the deer
terrorism must be stopped
not that kirby is s terrorist
or anything
uh uh
good lutheran surrealist
yeah he plenty good
i suppose the next thing would be filming the mass extermination
close ups
replays everything
once goulishness like this starts
what will be next
mountain goats
take your darvon dude
j
But JH, it's in the service of a Lyme-free nation!
Don't the ends justify the means?
It's like we must have a state for the Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust!
So, we displace another whole population.
But, don't the ends justify the means?
Besides, the Jews finally got to return home after a 2000 year diaspora!
Isn't that beautiful?
Does beauty always create ugliness?
well you'd have to make sure that all the ticks are dead too and who is going to do that tell me that buster brown who is going after all the phuqqing ticks
not me
no way
i don't care how damn surreal things get i'm not going on any massive tick hunt
so maybe the means justify the ends
i mean they did for jesus didn't they the means of his passion justifies the endless end of our salvation
let's just give the jews wall street madison avenue hollywood
and most of florida
NO
wait
just a minute what am i saying
let them run the federal reserve and orchestrate our foreign policy when they have the time
NO
wait
just a minute
what am i saying
i think louis black speaks for all the chosen people
he's a modern living icon
a living paradigm
make him president
hey we have a jewish comedian as a senator here i don't know if he knows much about constitutional law
but he's pretty funny
maybe new jersey will be the place where italians and jews finally forge the union between catholics and israel
make it the garden state again
i don't know what to do about the palestininians & jews
maybe the mothers and grandmothers should be making all the rest of the decisions for both sides
how odd of god
j
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