Men Without Chests, Cowardice, and Virtues

Christopher Hitchens, in the first article of a series of three, rages against and castigates the very likes of God and religion. These articles are excerpts from his new book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I can't help it, I like the guy. He's an obnoxious iconoclast – but he THINKS. Can't say that I agree with him on any of a number of things, but there are several elements of this first installment that I do agree with. However, like one of the respondents, not only is there plenty to disagree with, there is much about religion that has produced some of the best in humanity. "When atheism becomes as intolerant as fanatical religion," perhaps it's time to take a step back and watch what spews out of one's mouth. I believe the respondent had the right of it:

…just because religion is conducive to intolerance and bloodlust, Hitchens the belligerent warmonger proves that atheism is no guarantee of benevolence. Certainly Stalin and Mao found other ideologies to justify their appetite for destruction.

Trotskyite that he is, I'm certain Hitchens will excuse atheism and blame the evil Stalin and his perversion of an ideology… mmm, what's that? Hitchens Is Not Great: How People Poison Ideologies.

Blech.

Why the commentary on Mr. Hitchens? Because he attempts to marginalize another, much more humble person I admire. C.S. Lewis wrote The Abolition of Man to address a subject that my friend over at The Coffeespy and a friend at work have knocked around. To use Lewis's phrase, we in the West are raising "Men Without Chests." This discussion might seem a little convoluted, but please, bear with me here – it will come right in the end.

Lewis performs a critical analysis of a school text book as launching off point for a defense of objective values, what he in shorthand, calls the Tao. Throughout the book he uses principles from the Tao, but as he makes clear, this is a word he is using to represent more than the Chinese concept:

The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and super cosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar.¹⁷ 'In ritual', say the Analects, 'it is harmony with Nature that is prized.'¹⁸ The ancient Jews likewise praise the Law as being 'true'.¹⁹

This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as 'the Tao' (Columbia's put the book online).

Where Lewis uses a text book on literature to demonstrate that modern man is losing the understanding that there is a real objective value system, I would quote a single passage from the actual Tao. However, before I do, one of his examples is straightforward; the notion that a particular vista is sublime. The literature textbook tries to inculcate in the student that this simply means one has sublime feelings about the scene in question. Lewis, rightly, identifies that as an absurdity. If a person were describing his feelings, then certainly the sentence might start "That makes me feel…"

"That vista makes me feel sublime." First, sublime means "so awe-inspiringly beautiful as to seem almost heavenly" (Encarta). It's an adjective not a feeling. Lewis rightly points out that the emotions one experiences are virtually opposite of the descriptor itself. If one says an ocean view is sublime, it is not because one feels awe-inspiringly beautiful – the emotional correlative is veneration or humility. The scene inspires AWE. More than that, one is saying that the scene is worthy of veneration. Through a long, but entertaining and educational argument, Lewis connects this codswollop to the death of courage as virtue, in fact, to the death of the civic and cardinal virtues.

Now then, the easy way is the way, in the Tao:

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.

When goodness is lost, there is morality.

When morality is lost, there is ritual.

Ritual is the husk of true faith,

The beginning of chaos (Tao te Ching, #38).

Our culture progresses into idiocy for lack of that central organ in man, the chest, which is atrophied by the very cowards who cut their own hearts out. Lewis reminds us that "the head rules the belly through the chest." The head representing our reason, the belly our appetites, and the chest – "The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal" (Lewis, 1943).

I love poetry, especially poetry that inspires awe, celebrates courage, fidelity, loyalty, and so many other virtues associated with the chivalric code. Most recognize Tennyson's noble 600 in the Charge of the Light Brigade, and sometimes people recognize at least a part of Ulysses. Each celebrates various virtues. Lewis finds the fact that these authors of the literature textbook are called intellectuals intolerable:

The operation of The Green Book [the literature textbook] and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her. Indeed it would be strange if they were: a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which Gaius and Titius [the authors] could debunk as easily as any other. It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful (Lewis, 1943).

I've spent too much time harping on a pet peeve. I've been reading books on the CIA, John and Robert Kennedy of late, and I think they were perhaps the last of the liberal Democrats I admired. RFK seemed to recognize the decay CS Lewis identified and set on our dinner tables. RFK's "philosophy, which he urged on others and truly tried to live by himself, was: we may be doomed, but each man must define himself anew each day by his own actions" (Thomas, 2000, p. 22). I think we'd find far fewer traitors in our midst should we define ourselves anew each day by our actions. I'm a retired sailor, so I'll sign off with a final note from Ulysses:

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Progressives Like Road Apples

Just for fun.

I don't think it's a secret that, well, I'm somewhat neo-conservative-libertarian-etc. It isn't that it's terribly important, but I wouldn't want anyone to think I was so incredibly naïve as to think law, order, & justice are somehow dispensed in a non-partisan fashion. Whether one wants to acknowledge it or not, law & order comes in distinctly republican, democrat(ic), and even libertarian flavors. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does… but c'mon, partisan math??

Remember the post concerning political correctness and Indoctrinate U? In the video trailer a young lady relates her surprise at discovering the political dimensions of say… biochemistry. I know, the point should be easy.

If we take a vote from a population of 9, and regardless of what we are voting on, a 5:4 vote is a simple majority. Now if it was 7:2 majority, one might be inclined to say it was decisive. OK… yes, I'm talking about the Supreme Court. It seems there are an awful lot of 5:4 decisions, and I would agree with CNN's characterization of the court as "sharply divided" concerning a recent decision on the so called "partial birth abortions," or as doctors like to call it "intact dilation and evacuation" (IDX). Five votes to four – yeah, I'd call that sharply divided.

In Farts and Greenhouse Gases I may have been a little snarky concerning some of the reporting, but I didn't mention much about the fact that several news outlets characterized the Supreme Court's decision in this case as being "a stinging defeat for the Bush administration," or as CNN stated, the court "left no doubt that it finds the Bush administration's response to global warming inadequate."

Hey, Yahoos! It's a sharply divided court again you learning impaired, three sandwich eating (no wait, I'm the three sandwich eater)… remember the 5:4 descriptor CNN? Houston Chronicle, and the rest…

ahhh, never mind, this is just a bunch of horse, ummm, pooh-pooh. Guess that might sound a little snarky (yet another new word this old fart learned online), and it was supposed to sound a little snarky… I was feeding the progressives ;-)

Childhood, Moderates, and PBS/Horse Manure

Rashid, Farid, and Tariq were a few of my best friends. We did the things, well, pretty much opposite the whole sugar and spice and everything nice mumbo-jumbo. I don't mention any girls names, like Malika, because my Anglo father was considering trading his blond haired, blue eyed little boy for one or two daughters… of course, he says he was only considering it to joke with me (mmm hmmm). One of the reasons I remember my friends' names is their insistence on me understanding the meaning of their names. Rashid, the oldest, was perhaps the brashest and biggest risk taker amongst our small band of brothers. Ironically, he was also the best source of advice available. He rightly predicted the times we would probably get in serious trouble for our antics should we be caught… of course, he was so wise, we were rarely caught. Rashid's name meant "excellent counselor."

Tariq, on the other hand, was remarkably handsome (inside and out), seemed to get in quite a bit of trouble apart from our band. Despite this, his use of sheer charisma got us out of plenty of jambs and even managed to get us fed at the market occasionally. Tariq was named after Al Tariq, the Night Star, that part of man given to him by Allah that shines in the darkness.

Farid was also appropriately named. Of our band, he was perhaps the most eloquent, and the most determined to speak English proficiently… myself included. Thanks to Farid, I was privileged to encounter the Quran in just the fashion it should be encountered… through the eyes of a child that was nearly a man. Other than my Grandfather, Farid is probably most responsible for me going to seminary. Farid was the only Muslim I'd met whom I believed knew God. Others were part of Islam as I was a part of Christianity, but Farid and my Grandfather knew God. Farid's name meant "unique."

I cannot forget these Moroccan boys. I was also privileged in other ways – our parents too were friends. One couple worked in Rabat at the palatial estate of King Hassan II, the son of the Sultan who, with the Berbers, won Morocco's independence from France. This couple strongly encouraged us to go to Ceuta with them, for a vacation… close in time to one of a couple of coup attempts (the late 60's and early 70's were very good years). Good people, people of courage, and their children were people of faith.

This isn't told to waste your time, it's told to establish some small measure of my bona fides. I'm familiar, from both education and experience, with moderate Muslims. Many years later, I wound up in various Middle Eastern countries worrying that I might be shooting at someone I knew. Remarkably unlikely, I know, but I was also having a hard time connecting some of these extreme lunatics with the kids I knew. The short of it is simple, these monsters were nothing like my friends (of course, I don't know that my friends didn't become radical Islamists, but I do doubt it). There is a huge difference between the two that is rarely, if ever, highlighted by mainstream media outlets. You guessed it – that is why I spent this time reminiscing. I'll spend minimal time telling you the meat of the story, since everything else was prelude.

Many sites shed more and more light on an appalling episode in PBS history, but Campus Watch: Monitoring Middle East Studies on Campus probably has the most informative and well rounded account. Moreover, they give a hat tip to all the sites they pulled from and put it together in a very interesting fashion!

In an example of Western academia trying to stifle the voices of reform from the Islamic world, it seems that Aminah Beverly McCloud, the director of the Islamic World Studies program at DePaul University, helped sabotage the airing of a documentary on moderate Muslims.

The documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, was to air on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) next week as part of a taxpayer-funded series called America at a Crossroads, but was canceled by managers at the PBS station WETA in Washington, D.C. for what the film's producer, Martyn Burke, believes were political reasons.

Check out the entire article – it really should make your blood boil. If it doesn't, try Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish at The Atlantic Online, it provides some excellent bullet points, one of which is:

WETA appointed an advisory board that includes Aminah Beverly McCloud, director of World Islamic Studies at DePaul University. In an "unparalleled breach of ethics," Burke says, McCloud took rough-cut segments of the film and showed them to Nation of Islam officials, who are a subject of the documentary. They threatened to sue. "This utterly undermines any journalistic independence," Burke wrote in an e-mail to WETA officials.

This is why I said something about my childhood friends. We in the United States pay taxes that support PBS, and personally, I love the entire notion of public broadcasting, but when the bureaucrats in charge of this ridiculously left leaning sacred cow undermine a piece for a purely left agenda…

Great, what do I do here? My writing about it doesn't do much in the way of changing things. OK, I don't normally throw around gutter language here, but let's call this what it is, horseshit. It's time to shovel it up and put out in the field because it doesn't belong where people congregate. On second thought, perhaps you guys could write your own little piece (figuratively shovel some of this horseshit) and deposit it on your favorite congressional desk. I will.

Anger? Not Even Close

Well, it seems Pelosi's visit to the Middle East has created quite a stir. Cries of violations of the Logan Act, the Constitution's separation of powers, etc., is mostly a loud buzz. The sheer number of pundits lampooning the congressional delegation – oh wait; it's just San Fran Nan they seem to be going after. The Washington Post's editorial was perhaps the most entertaining:

Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush's military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi's attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish.

What about the Republicans in the delegation? Is the Skald defending her visit?

No.

A simple search yields myriad results castigating Pelosi for this trip, but I think the most telling reason to find the trip appalling is what any reasonable person would expect the consequences to be:

One terror leader, Khaled Al-Batch, a militant and spokesman for Islamic Jihad, expressed hope Pelosi would continue winning elections, explaining the House speaker's Damascus visit demonstrated she understands the Middle East.

Al-Batch expressed hope Pelosi and the Democratic Party will pressure Bush to create dialogue with Syria and Middle East "resistance movements" and prompt an American withdrawal from Iraq.

Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip, said the willingness by some lawmakers to talk with Syria "is proof of the importance of the resistance against the U.S."

"The Americans know and understand they are losing in Iraq and the Middle East and that their only chance to survive is to reduce hostilities with Arab countries and with Islam. Islam is the new giant of the world."

All of those nice little blurbs demonstrating that the visit primarily served to encourage our enemies come courtesy of Right Wing News. This was utterly predictable, and though I don't have a clue if this was a topic of conversation when Bush more or less warned her off it is also utterly reprehensible. Predictable.

Predictable, and what could be more worrisome?

What's more worrisome -- at least to me -- than Pelosi's politics is her IQ. She's a twit. How did she think she'd possibly pull something like this off? Imagine Newt Gingrich trying to establish peace with Saddam Hussein in 1998, fresh off Clinton's aerial bombardment campaign of Iraq. Can you picture it clearly? How about the probable reaction of les bien-pensants? (From Jewcy)

<sigh> I think we're done here.

More Gas in the Wind

So I'm reading my standard fare this morning, and what does The Coffespy have?

In a puckish footnote in his dissent, Justice Scalia replies: "It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an 'air pollutant.' This reading of the statute defies common sense."

This wonderful bit came to Coffespy via Real Clear Politics. Before I get to this article, I've got to say I'm an even bigger fan of Justice Scalia since we both seem to be fond of fart jokes, though I confess I wasn't expecting to see it in a Supreme Court dissenting opinion! I'm only moderately embarrassed to admit that when I got home after work, I immediately opened up the Scalia opinion and began scouring the footnotes for some other jewels. <sigh> that was the sole fart joke. I'll be paying much closer attention to footnotes… at least in Scalia's opinions. Usually, it's a dreadful list of other cases that aren't worth the gas they produce <groan here>

Regardless of how one feels about global warming, one should at least be concerned about how and why this case was decided in this fashion. My previous post focused on the nonsensical notion that the plaintiffs had standing, and the absurdity of the court believing it had any business whatsoever inventing legislation because existing law did not suit their needs. However, the more serious implications of the case are highlighted in the Real Clear Politics article mentioned earlier.

Robert Tracinski titles his article "Guilty Until Proven Innocent," and that is an observation that I missed in this case. Moreover, Tracinski forces us to realize that:

This is one of the most sweeping and intrusive demands for government controls that I can recall. But the court is establishing a mechanism by which all of this can be imposed without legislation--sidestepping the need to convince the American people and secure their consent (emphasis added).

That, by itself is alarming, but the next few paragraphs hammer the important point home – that we are indeed guilty until proven innocent in some insane environmentalist nirvana – without representation, without a voice, and without the single most important protector of the people's voice and rights… the highest court in the land.

Tracinski's article is worth the read… talk it up, hash it out, make people angry.

Farts and Greenhouse Gases

There are several articles and a few blogs covering the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency. Hat tip to The Coffespy, Reuters via Yahoo!, and The Coffespy's Houston Chronicle article, as well as others discuss the court's decision. Up front, let me state that I disagree with the majority opinion, and agree with The Chief Justice's dissenting opinion, who is joined by Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. However, I do not believe that Justice Stevens' majority opinion anywhere requires a negative proof. More on that in a moment.

Like Scalia, I agree entirely with the Chief Justice's opinion, but more important, I think Scalia has the right of it:

I join The Chief Justice's opinion in full, and would hold that this Court has no jurisdiction to decide this case because petitioners lack standing. The Court having decided otherwise, it is appropriate for me to note my dissent on the merits.

The first two paragraphs of Scalia's dissenting opinion are convincing, and the Chief Justice's opinion nails the coffin shut. It is within the regulatory bounds of the EPA to choose NOT to initiate new regulatory requirements – and this is actually the crux of the case. The plaintiff's case is not without merit. Citizens are allowed to petition a regulatory agency to make rules aimed at protecting their welfare, which is precisely what petitioners did, and the EPA entered an order denying the rule making petition.

Then, my friends, the EPA screwed the pooch by giving entirely specious reasons for denying the rule making petition. EPA concluded that the four major greenhouse gases (including CO2) were not pollutants, and therefore fell outside their regulatory purview. MISTAKE! The Clean Air Act's definition of a pollutant is so wide the methane in my flatulence constitutes air pollution… ask my kids. Ok, maybe that was a little over the top, but I had to justify the title, and the point is made.

The majority opinion, since the petitioners had standing in the majority opinion, does not require a negative proof as implied by the Houston Chronicle's article. Scalia frames the opinion as a series of three questions for the Administrator to make a judgment:

(a) by concluding that the pollutant does cause, or contribute to, air pollution that endangers public welfare (in which case EPA is required to regulate);

(b) by concluding that the pollutant does not cause, or contribute to, air pollution that endangers public welfare (in which case EPA is not required to regulate); or

(c) by "provid[ing] some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether" greenhouse gases endanger public welfare…

According to the majority opinion, the questions boiled down to whether an excess of carbon dioxide would endanger public welfare. One of the more common problems with global warming issues is precisely as The Coffespy observes:

Personally, I don't know what to believe about global warming. There's science for and science against. And there's solid science on both sides from reputable sources, not just crackpots.

At its most basic, the majority opinion simply said, "If the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment as to whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, EPA must say so" (see Majority Decision). There is no reasonable proof of impossibility, but they don't have to offer negative proof; they must offer a reasonable explanation… according to the majority decision. While it might be a reasonable assertion to claim that the evidence does not lend itself to a firm conclusion, I doubt the loony left will accept anything other than believing in life on Jupiter…

Regardless of this "reasonable" decision, I still disagree with the majority opinion and agree with Scalia. I'll close this with his comments:

The question thus arises: Does anything require
the Administrator to make a "judgment" whenever a petition for rulemaking is filed? Without citation of the statute or any other authority, the Court says yes. Why is that so? When Congress wishes to make private action force an agency's hand, it knows how to do so. See, e.g., Brock v. Pierce County, 476 U. S. 253, 254.255 (1986) (discussing the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), 92 Stat. 1926, 29 U. S. C. §816(b) (1976 ed., Supp. V), which "provide[d] that the Secretary of Labor 'shall' issue a final determination as to the misuse of CETA funds by a grant recipient within 120 days after receiving a complaint alleging such misuse"). Where does the CAA say that the EPA Administrator is required to come to a decision on this question whenever a rulemaking petition is filed? The Court points to no such provision because none exists.

Politically Motivated?

A quickie…

I seem to run across quite a few oddities in my classes. I love learning, and I am often astonished at what passes for scholarship, and more often, I am flabbergasted that words are being used more for their connotative values than their denotative values. I wonder sometimes if definitions actually matter to some students.

"Why do people have such a hard time understanding what I am saying?" is a question that quite often strikes me as deliberately obtuse. I am frankly disdainful of the bewildered looks that accompany this question. Is it possible that these bewildered looks, this apparent confusion is a direct result of their own lack of clarity? I wonder at my own impatience… so, an example with the word politics.

The reason the shelter did not get funded was politics and people with power, (i.e., people with money) forcing officials to spend the budget on less worthy projects

It seems politics and rich people are to blame for shutting a shelter down. What follows is more an observation than a simple criticism, and it is an invitation to clarify my perspective. I'm not trying to draw fire here, not to be simply contentious, but I am incredibly curious about the use of the word politics – whether in my class, in everyday conversation, or on the job the word simply doesn't mean what dictionaries indicate it means. It seems it is a word typically used with strongly charged negative connotations, and yet the denotative term, as defined by Wikipedia is:

Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. It is the authoritative allocation of values. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.

The Wiki article is expansive, including the notion of "office politics" when referring to small group dynamics. By definition, when a minority group exercises its influence in order to gain ascendancy, better treatment, etc., it is politics. When we, as a group of concerned citizens, lobby to gain more funding for our policemen, our teachers, our prison workers, it is politics. Most of the dictionaries and encyclopedias I've perused define politics pretty much the same way. I understand the suspicion associated with "people that have power." However, while money definitely helps, it isn't an absolute necessity to get something accomplished.

If, by extension, we said that politics is the search for, the acquisition, maintenance, and distribution of power, then the million man march was a very obvious political event expressing black men's political will. When Hispanic legal and illegal immigrants took a day off, that was a display of political power.

I guess I'm just saying that politics is a value neutral word – it is a process. It is not of itself some evil thing. Of course, there is the use of "dirty" politics to achieve an end, but that's descriptive of how the process is used rather than whether the process is used. Like I said, I'm not trying to deliberately contentious, but I am trying to ascertain whether most people actually view politics, wealthy people, and powerful people as somehow the enemy of us common folk…