Anonymous - Longing Logos

March 26, 2020May 1, 2020

The Economic Consequences of the Vote

Should the politicians or the people who vote for them be held accountable for the economic consequences of the vote? Trickle-down economics is the greatest scam in economic history, yet many of the people who are negatively affected by it also vote for the politicians who support it. However, a snake oil salesman is deemed a perpetrator and the buyer a victim.

The degree to which the buyer of the product is accountable depends on the degree to which he or she understood or should have understood the risks associated with the purchase and chose to buy it anyway. This is the concept behind every financial disclosure and eligibility guideline. Disclose the risks of the product and/or restrict the purchase to buyers with the means to bear the risks and the sophistication to understand the product.

In a democracy, there cannot be such restrictions, as it would violate a citizen’s most essential right. This inherent feature of self-government complicates the process of accountability. The fourth estate, the much-maligned free press, is the mechanism by which a country’s populace can obtain unbiased information.

We are fortunate that in our country the established, well-reputed but not necessarily popular news media is committed to informing the public with truth and facts to the extent possible. Although there is inevitable bias in most forms of communication, the press does generally try to minimize it, if still prone to some sensationalism. Therefore, the culpability does not really lie with them either, as the people have access to generally reliable, objective information.

If there can be no restrictions and if the voting public is receiving accurate information, then the accountability must rest with the voters in the end. A politician shows the country who he or she really is not by rhetoric or gestures, but by his or her vote. Their votes must correspond to their professed positions, and when they do not, they are engaging in a scam.

If the voting public has been scammed, the politician should be subsequently voted out of or removed from office. However, if a politician’s vote aligns with his or her platform, and a citizen votes for the person anyway when those positions are not in his or her or the country’s best interests, then the onus is on the voter.

Based on their votes, many citizens seem convinced that what is holding back the country is not corporate greed but inadequate corporate greed. They seem to believe that there is too much help for the poor not too little. They seem to think that if we only threw out or kept out the immigrants who labor for inadequate pay in undesirable occupations, that would benefit the workers in other industries that have no relation to the immigrants’ industries, and so on. Again, if these are voters’ judgments and values, then the economic consequences of the vote are ultimately theirs to bear.

Therefore, do you know who your politician really is? Do you know how he or she votes? It is each citizen’s responsibility to read honest, well-sourced information to discern who the politician really is. Jesus said that those who follow him know his voice. The question is: can you discern a genuinely righteous voice from the devil’s imitation of it? Because the Christian doctrine is that unless you were truly ignorant or deceived, you and you alone will be held accountable for your vote.

Self-inflicted cruelty? The NYTimes Editorial Board (2020) – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-stimulus-senate.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

>>https://longinglogos.com/avarice-and-the-dying-of-the-american-experiment/<<

March 25, 2020April 30, 2020

The Tradition of the #Trending

Innovation without truth is, well, without truth. It is instead a mere gimmick and, as such, fails to register in history’s ruthless separation of the wheat from the chaff. At best, it might resurface in a lackluster version of its once equally misguided former self. Speaking of which, there is a new #trend as younger people try to satisfy their need to believe in something aside from themselves, as their parents have often taught them, or to cope with the inevitable anxieties that are part of life.

They grope in the religious marketplace for something not quite so “established” and “normative” as Christianity, something, well, cooler. As if they are searching for the perfect countercultural outfit or posture, they might decide that being a witch or perhaps just a pagan seems cool. As a young child dressing like its parent, it reprises the hippie dippie chic without whatever modicum of imagination it once held.

This is a free country, as it should be, and we are all free to exercise our right to practice the beliefs we would like. However, let us also be honest in saying that all belief systems are not made alike. Returning to a pre-Christian pagan era is not simply idolatrous from a Christian perspective, it is valueless from any perspective, as it literally has no associated definitive values.

Although it is true that Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, perhaps its appeal is because it is appealing. It is reasonably argued that it is successful because it was and will always be the most authentically countercultural set of beliefs in the world. After all, we worship a poor man from Galilee who was crucified on a cross for preaching about truth, love and compassion.

Christianity does now fall into the category of “organized religions,” but perhaps that is also a testament to its past success and a necessity for its future success. After all, it is pretty hard to manage the spiritual lives of and other services for over 2 billion people and growing without organization or structure.

So, maybe a confirmation picture complete with crooked teeth or a bike-grease stained first communion dress is not cool, even embarrassing, but then what is cool without a certain amount of conformity-induced humiliation. So, on second thought, maybe it is cool, but it is just not #trending.

Also see Douthat’s (2019) remarks on the (overstated) #trend – https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/opinion/american-christianity.html

>>https://longinglogos.com/necessity-for-christian-witness-secular-society/<<

March 25, 2020May 1, 2020

The Necessity for Christian Witness in Secular Society

As the western world became more secular, commencing with the Enlightenment, which has since developed into the perverse idolization of science, western society has also become more reliant on government to provide the basic needs that were once met by the church. Hospitals and education as we know it were inventions of the church. However, the weaknesses of a dependence on government to meet these needs have become exposed. First, let’s consider the differences in their inceptions.

Jesus renamed Simon, a poor, uneducated fisherman, as Peter (rock) and told him that on this rock he would build his church, one that has since grown from a small Jewish sect to over 2 billion people worldwide, the largest, most diverse body in the world. The foundation of the church is Jesus’s timeless, universal teachings.

The foundation of a secular society is neither timeless nor universal. The American Constitution although remarkably well-reasoned and advanced for its time was the product of elites, who indirectly referenced the Christian conception of the person, children of God with all of its inherent dignities, yet tempered this theological understanding with pragmatic worldly considerations of good governance, which they determined required a republic, in other words, similar to the classical conception of democracy, led by well-educated, well-heeled men.

Jesus had no such considerations. Jesus’s choice of Peter had nothing to do with education, power, money or pragmatism, but with his love for and devotion to him. Despite his failings, Peter seemed to intuitively, meaning by grace, understand Jesus and his message, and it was his understanding that earned him this privileged position. Men of this world are not trying to understand divine lessons, but the world they live in and see. Peter could understand a different world, not his one, but the one that could be, the heaven on earth that could be realized if only humans were to consistently and completely apply Jesus’s teachings.

This fundamental difference in origin continues to manifest in our secular world. The primary motivations for Christians who provide these services is still to live out Jesus’s calling, which is based on love and compassion. The state’s or the private sector’s provision of the same services is mainly motivated by money. Thus, its success is dependent not on one’s conscience or bearing honest Christian witness, i.e. laws written by God, but on laws written by men. Any failures in the law or in their administration could result in problems with the provision of these services, as we have seen time and again, for example, in our public education and health care systems.

Therefore, the sole dependence on the state for these services is as dangerous and precarious as the nation itself. If a corrupt, depraved person rises to power, the people will be at the mercy of a failed state with no corrective measures since the constitution and the laws would simply be changed to facilitate the exploitation or subjugation of the people.

Although both church and state are vulnerable to corruption, unlike the state, the corrective measure in the church is indelible and immutable since it is the foundation of the church itself, Jesus’s teachings. The enforcement of the church’s corrective measure is its believers who would force the church to return to the correct application of the teachings. The church’s role in society was incomparably important, and it needs to remain so, as it provides an irreplaceable source of stability and goodness for the world.

CT, Quick to Listen (2020): https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/march-web-only/contagious-diseases-compassion-public-health-hospitals-hist.html

>>https://longinglogos.com/the-tradition-of-the-trending/<<

March 24, 2020April 30, 2020

The Powerful and Mysterious Holy Spirit

It is a dangerous endeavor to try to describe an event or concept that is beyond our words but belongs to the Word. Although I was raised Catholic and come from a devout family, I was not particularly religious until fairly recently. I have made the sign of the cross, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, since I can remember, and yet, I never understood what the Holy Spirit was. As I was preparing for my confirmation, I sought clarity from others on exactly what the Holy Spirit was, even attending a seminar, since my lack of understanding seemed to me a glaring omission. However, even after these attempts, I still did not understand.

The Holy Spirit was integral to my conversion. The person of God is Jesus, and I felt visited by the Holy Spirit for the first time in my life when I realized that I actually love Jesus. This realization itself remains a mystery since it is hard to believe that I, someone of skeptical heart hardened by cynicism and who is far more comfortable in my head than in my heart, could actually love someone I had never met and who had existed until that point as a concept.

It was like standing before a threshold with the only thing preventing me from taking the necessary step to cross it being myself. Instead of fearfully or even consciously crossing it, I just found myself on the other side of it, profoundly altered, slightly disoriented and completely assured all at once. What greeted me on the other side was not God the Father or the Son but the Holy Spirit. Although I have since come to rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance and have a better understanding of it now, it remains, like God himself, powerful and mysterious.

If all of this sounds incomprehensible, that is likely because it is. It is not a relationship of this world. I do not even know how to address the Holy Spirit: he, she, it. It does not matter. What I know is that it will come to me when God deems it to be so. Until then, I hope that my will has been reconciled to his; I pray and wait. Perhaps one day, you and I will find ourselves on the other side of another threshold.

This piece by Bloom (2020) triggered my reflection on the Holy Spirit – https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/receive-the-holy-spirit.

>>https://longinglogos.com/annihilation-is-the-greatest-punishment/<<

March 23, 2020May 1, 2020

Avarice and the Dying of the American Experiment

Americans should rage against the dying of the light that once shone from our shores as a beacon of a free and self-governing society to the world. We once held the promise of opportunity and were a source of inspiration and hope to people around the world yearning for liberty, justice and equality. Presently, we inch ever closer to becoming a failed state. At our founding, the greatest threat was a foreign one. Now, as it was for many great empires, it is a domestic one. The primary source of this internal threat is a sin as old as time – greed, which then drives corruption.

We have all heard the statistics about the growing inequality and the crony capitalism that is choking meritocracy and entrepreneurialism. It suffocates our citizens in debt and crushes their quality of life, as they run faster and faster only to move backward. This latest trend began about a half century ago. As Mishel and Wolfe (2019) stated, “From 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,007.5% (940.3% under the options-realized measure), far outstripping S&P stock market growth (706.7%) and the wage growth of very high earners (339.2%). In contrast, wages for the typical worker grew by just 11.9%.” And Saez and Zucman (2014) wrote, “The share of wealth held by the top 0.1 percent of families is now almost as high as in the late 1920s, when ‘The Great Gatsby’ defined an era that rested on the inherited fortunes of the robber barons of the Gilded Age.”

Under the free market capitalism model, a company’s board of directors is supposed to act as a check on irresponsible executive behavior. Instead, the boards of many companies effectively abdicate their duties and allow the executives to lavish themselves at the expense of the long-term interests of their companies. In more recent years, this is particularly evident in the stock buybacks, which have driven share prices, enriching the executives and, as usual, leaving behind the workers, who are the lifeblood of the company. (See Useem, 2019)

The callousness of the rich is particularly apparent at this precarious moment when the nation is facing a pandemic on top of the long-standing and exacerbating structural problems. Instead of putting the country’s interests first, the corporate cronies have been lobbying the GOP for a slush fund. It is not enough to undercompensate the American people for their hard work or to deprive them of secure, well-paying jobs, these parasitic corporations are now trying to siphon the American taxpayers’ money into their own pockets. As these greedy individuals and corporations continue to put their interests above the American people’s and the country’s, the country drifts further and further to plutocracy. (Also see the film series “Plutocracy,” Noble, 2019.)

Mishel and Wolfe (2019) – https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
Noble (2019) – https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/plutocracy/
Saez and Zucman (2014) – https://equitablegrowth.org/exploding-wealth-inequality-united-states/
Useem (2019) – https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/the-stock-buyback-swindle/592774/

>>https://longinglogos.com/the-economic-consequences-of-the-vote/<<

March 23, 2020April 30, 2020

Anodynes for Anxiety

Feeling anxious is normal. It is an emotion like many others, and as with them, it deserves to be treated with respect, which is also a way of treating ourselves with respect. It is natural for anxiety to increase during uncertain times, such as these. Let us acknowledge these truths and take comfort in their universality. I share here the primary ways I have learned to deal with anxiety because I have found them quite effective, and I hope they help others.

The first thing is to reach out when you need help. This could be to friends or family, to a place of worship, another community to which you do or might want to belong, or to a counselor or a therapist. There is no shame at all in needing assistance. It is a sign of self-knowledge and strength to ask for it. This step involves building a support network and community to which you (will when ready) give and receive help.

The next step involves taking more control of what you can control. I have found that lists are quite helpful in this regard. Ask yourself: what can I do to ameliorate my situation? Make a daily list and work on it methodically, only doing what you can each day. If you do not get through the whole list, that is fine.

Start on it again tomorrow. The list will help you stay organized and focused, and the goal is that, regardless of the outcome, you can look back and feel reassured that you did what you could. That is really all one can do. This step is about being as productive and positive as you can and minimizing any potential for regret or self-recrimination.

This last step is not necessarily the easiest, but it is the best. It is about letting go. It is about prayer, trust and surrender. It is about delivering to God this gift that is who you are, as you are, where you are, and saying to him, this is everything I have to offer you and the world. This is my best, and the rest is in your hands.

Trust that God will take you to where you need to go next, and whatever his will might be for you, you can and will rise to the challenge. Our lives are journeys that we do not walk alone. We walk them with and for the people we love, mankind, the planet and God. This last step is about hope, love and faith. A life lived in hope, love and faith is guaranteed to be well-lived.

>>https://longinglogos.com/beauty-and-the-state-of-the-self/<<

March 21, 2020April 30, 2020

Our Self-Defeating Jealousy

God gave us everything. We have the most beautiful planet. It teems with unimaginably diverse life. It dances with the sun and the moon to a divine rhythm. From bold ocean waves to timid creeks, water traverses the planet, carving into rocks, sustaining life, with a music that is a reminder of our beginning. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we will return to the earth from whence we came. One would think that until then, we would bask in our great, unmerited gift, glorifying God at every opportunity.

Instead, we take it for granted or even seem to have no reverence for it. We think we can do better. We are men and women after all. We can create technology, buildings, cars, factories, and more, weapons. We can destroy each other. We can destroy our planet to the point that it is barely habitable. We think we can do better than God. We think we are more powerful than God. However, it is a false sense of power, buttressed by narcissism and self-delusion. After all, it is so much easier to destroy than to create.

We make a mockery of ourselves, and yet we persist in this self-defeating jealousy, forever repeating the original sin. Why? Evolution is a myth. There has been no real evolution. True evolution is understanding and accepting that God is God, and we will never be God no matter how hard we try, no matter what we create.

If we could genuinely humble ourselves, we could then love him as he deserves to be loved and appreciate the undeserved gift of abundant life that he gave us. We would then cherish it because we would understand that no matter how great we think we are, no matter what we think we can create, we cannot recreate our planet. Like our entire universe, it is God’s creation and God’s alone.

>>https://longinglogos.com/a-divine-constellation-of-ideas/<<

March 20, 2020April 30, 2020

A Divine Constellation of Ideas

Ideas are like stars in the sky of our ever-expanding universe. They seem to be born out of the darkness and to proliferate to infinity. However, similar to an unaided (or even aided) view of the night sky, where it is difficult to discriminate between each star or to see a pattern in their configuration, the quality of an idea is also hard to evaluate, as is its relation with other ideas.

People often resort to signals such as pedigree, accolades or some other external marker to help determine whether an idea is good or not. This default approach often leads people astray. Fundamentally, a great, new idea would be hard to measure since there would effectively be no precedent for it, and it would bear relatively little resemblance to whatever sources inspired or informed it, regardless of how they were originally received.

Contrarily, bad ideas, which should have long expired, can continue not just to live but to form the basis for other bad ideas, in other words, result in the proliferation of bad ideas, if they had been deemed by the powers that be, which can be more interested in maintaining the status quo than rewarding intellectual merit, to be good ideas.

Ultimately, from a theological perspective, only God would definitively know whether an idea is good or not. The rest of us have to evaluate them in some other considerably less omniscient way. What way should that be? How does one assess the merits of an idea?

I would argue that, to the extent that one can, it begins with purging the mind of bias and then comparing the new idea with existing similar ideas and objective analyses of their effectiveness, from positive and normative perspectives. There should also be a strict evaluation of the absolute merits of the idea itself; albeit, this is easier said than done.

Ultimately, there is no perfect method since there are no perfect people or perfect ideas; however, the goal should be to identify the star ideas and to create a constellation of the best ones, which should yield, by all objective measures, a better world.

>>https://longinglogos.com/our-self-defeating-jealousy/<<

March 19, 2020April 30, 2020

Beauty and the State of the Self

Particularly in these tech-oriented times, the arts, in their traditional definition, seem to have diminished in the general population’s pastimes, as they have been replaced with televisions, technology, sports, and other less “high-brow” leisure activities. More than just existing for their own sake, the arts create beauty, which, whether natural or manmade, can be both a balm for the stressed, anxious mind, and an intellectual and creative stimulant.

Humans have created magnificent expressions of beauty, such as architecture to include places of worship, fine arts, which were also often meant to glorify God, and luxury goods, but beauty can also be found in more common spaces and things. Inexpensive but well-designed living spaces, clothes or other common items are often captured by artists not because they have an intrinsically high value but for their unique qualities, which can transport the viewer into a distinct time and place.

These artists understand the qualities of art that can transform a relatively mundane subject into a (perhaps unconventionally) beautiful one. It is hard to enumerate these qualities, as they vary considerably. In general, they have to do with composition, light, and form.

Some might think that orienting oneself in this way to the beautiful is a distraction or a luxury. I would argue that it is a necessity. It is a way to infuse one’s daily life, which can often feel quotidian or routine, with an element of romance. It is the difference between existing and living. It is an important component of self-care, since it provides, at a minimum, a subconscious message to the heart, mind and soul that, indeed, the world’s ugliness has limits.

It stops at the self, and in oneself starts and continues the true, the good and the beautiful. Whether or not one can extend these elements to the world is secondary to what is gained by incorporating them into one’s own life. The simple act of intentionally seeking beauty can still anxiety and revive a wearily mind.

Look up. Look down. See the light beam fall upon old wood tables with a worn leather backpack draped across a slatted chair, turn your clothbound book, and wonder: why did man create all this? Because we could. Because it’s necessary. And because it’s beautiful.

>>https://longinglogos.com/anodynes-for-anxiety/<<

March 18, 2020June 9, 2021

Death in the Time of Spring

Aside from some weather anomalies, spring seemed to start normally. The snow began melting, and the days grew longer. Then, came the novel coronavirus. The specter of death now looms over the world as nature enters a period of rebirth. It might seem paradoxical, until one considers that it is also Lent, and life, death and rebirth have been married together in that context for approximately 2,000 years.

It is also a fitting topic as the first post on Longing Logos. It is heavy; it is deep, and it is a timeless, universal truth that death is a part of life. Whether one believes in God or not, this is a fact. In this time of panic, I have been calm and at peace. Whenever and wherever death comes, I hope to maintain that peace. I have seen the light, and I know that in death’s darkness, another light will shine.

I pray that peace be also with you.