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Avarice and the Dying of the American Experiment

American Experiment
Photo: Razvan Chisu on Unsplash

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.)

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

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Anodynes for Anxiety

Anxiety
Photo: Pedro Lima on Unsplash

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/<<

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Our Self-Defeating Jealousy

Jealousy
Photo: Adam Bixby on Unsplash

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/<<

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A Divine Constellation of Ideas

Ideas
Photo: Andres Alagon on Unsplash

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/<<  

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Beauty and the State of the Self

Beauty
Photo: Helen Ngoc on Unsplash

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/<<    

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Death in the Time of Spring

Death in the Time of Spring
Photo: Daniil Silantev on Unsplash

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.