Living Wittily

A Plea for Foolishness as a More Durable Wisdom?

This was published 50 years ago - tell me if it is now obsolete, dated, passe? I have broken up what is otherwise a sustained and relentless paragraph in critique of a fundamental assumption of contemporary Western existence. You may have to read it more than once - that may be because it seeks to expose what we would rather not see.

The whole modern world is one great campaign against risk and uncertainty; as a money dominated world, it is a world of life insurance. 'The modern world as a whole is a world which thinks only about its own old age. It is a monstrous old people's home, an institution for pensioners.

In economics, politics, and constitutional law, as in ethics, psychology and metaphysics, we should, if only we had better eyes, be able to see one thing and one thing only: how much this terrible need for peace and quiet is invariably a principle of enslavement. It is always freedom that has to pay the bill. It is always money that is the master. The glorious insecurity of the present is always sacrificed to the security of the moment immediately following.

That is the real psychology of the contemporary idea of progress: man would like to live his life in the future, to live in advance of the event, so making his present into his past. Taking thought for the morrow, saving for the morrow, actually means throwing away its freedom, castrating its potency and fertility, which are the supreme blessings for human beings.

Every financial transaction is an expense of spirit; the only genuine miser, storing up his treasures, is the lover. This is the most profound teaching of the the Gospel. And we are so much under the domination of money, the Antichrist, that even when we do not openly name it, we constantly take its name for granted. In this commercial world, everything is commercial, even metaphysics, and theology; they too fall into line and cease to have any true presence in their own right. Christianity, like everything else, is detemporalised and thereby deprived of its 'salt'.

Avarice in the form of anxiety about tomorrow is the lord of all the world. The drying up of the heart makes itself felt both temporally and spiritually. The person who rejects the fluiditiy of the living heart, preferring the rigidity of money and conceptual thought, has already chosen the other kind of fluidity, the liquefaction of the corpse.

The question is simply what in any given world is a commercial commodity and what is not. It is by this standard that every world will be judged.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord III A Theological Aesthetics. Studies in theological Style: Lay Styles, (San Francisco: Crossroads) 1986, pages 478-9

Now I guess you could say those are the words of a grumpy old theologian, and that may be so. And it does seem a wholesale condemnation of economic activity for its own sake. But is he wrong? Does he exaggerate to the point where he can be ignored?

Jesus said you cannot serve God and money - so how do we follow faithfully after Jesus in a money dominated culture? What would be the signs that our allegiances are at times tested to the point of capitulation? In the work of the Kingdom of God, how important are financial questions of profit and loss, assurance and risk, generosity and prudence - and should the Church learn again the counter intuitive practices of giving away, free gift, reckless compassion, unlocked resources - and those as acts of freedom and declarations of independence from a cash dominant culture. 

Or is that the idealism of the fool, the naivete of the enthusdiast, the behaviour of one devoid of any practical, viable and responsible strategy? But maybe the strategy is precisely this, the sacramental use of money and possessions to subvert the secular sacraments of compulsive consumption within the free market by deliberate decisions and intentional actions that demonstrate a Christian use of money.

If there is such a thing?

 

We shall not live by bread alone, but we shall not live without it either

 

Nicholas Berdyaev:

 

There are two symbols,

bread and money;

and there are two mysteries,

the eucharistic mystery of bread,

and the Satanic mystery of money.

We are faced with the great task;

to overthrow the rule of money,

and to establish in its place

the rule of bread.

The Questionable Validity of "You have to be cruel to be kind".

Having finished the Dickens biography I'm now well into the biography of Steve Jobs. Both men whose gifts, hard work, drivenness and early insecurity were harnessed by acute intelligence and a flair for entrepreneurial opportunism. Comparisons are hard to make though - the contrasting contexts of Victorian England and 21st Century Silicon Valley; the very different media through which they worked, one a novelist who pushed the genre in radically new directions, the other a technical geek for whom technology held the secrets of an accelerating can-do attitude.

I was struck by the recurrence of one word, describing a character disposition, and used by both biographers, to describe their subject. It's a word I'd hope was never applied to myself, or anyone I cared much about. Yet it seems to be a required term to describe how each of these great men went about their business, their relationships and influenced some of the key moral choices in their lives. And it has left me wondering if it is an essential component of the entrepreneurial and ambitious drive of those utterly committed to sustained innovation, product marketing and the can do no matter what mentality. They are both described as cruel.

I underlined the word in both books, and have reflected on the examples given, and the personal contexts that provoked the use of such a specific term of moral deficit. I've no intention of singling out either Dickens or Jobs  - I'm more interested in the use of the word, the aptness of the word, and the cultural context that enables such a word to be used. And I am asking a deeper question about our culture in which we are increasingly careful of our terminology lest we discriminate against, abuse or diminish the dignity of other human beings - I'm absolutely on the side of moral correctness in the way we use words, and address other people. 

But it does seem that we have come to tolerate cruelty in other forms - as ruthlessness replaces kindness, rudeness laughs at courtesy, resentment smirks at respect, slick cleverness pretends to be intelligence, being outrageous is better viewing than being compassionate, and selfishness replaces consideration of the other as a virtue. Is there something in a materialist, consumer driven, celebrity obsessed, virtual reality, globalised, ICT saturated, social networking culture that requires of us distance and disinterest, self-focus and self-promotion, and a redefined morality of self-survival at the expense of others?

Has our commitment to economic prosperity as the index of standards of living become so absolute that human existence and quality of life are reduced to economic indicators of growth and recession?

And in all the anxieties and uncertainties that now invades and pervades daily life, what are the safeguards in our systems and structures that prevent political decision making, commercial choices, industrial strategies from building in as a non-negotiable assumption, that you have to be cruel to be kind?

The word cruel now requires moral examination. From exploitation on reality shows to abuse of vulnerable people; from decisions made by corporations and governments about people's futures to thoise acts, words and attitudes that wound, intimidate and corrode people's sense of worth; from premeditated rejection and hurting of the other to those countless careless incidents that drain self confidence and make the world less safe for the vulnerable. By the way, the other word used of both Jobs and Dickens, is kind. The contradictions of our humanity - the capacity for cruelty and kindness, are not limited to these two people. They are integral to what we mean by moral growth, ethical maturity or sanctification.

The painting is one of the most powerful representations of human cruelty, human grief and compassion, and divine love. Rogier Van der Weyden's Triptych of The Deposition is a study in destructive cruelty and redemptive love, etched on each face, and enacted in the body language of bewildered sorrow.

How shall we defeat the enemy? (1)

 

How Shall We Defeat The Enemy?

How shall we defeat The Enemy?

We shall defeat The Enemy by making alliances.

Who shall we make alliances with?

With people in whose interests it is, to be enemies with The Enemy.

How shall we win an alliance with these people?

We shall win an alliance with these people by giving them money and arms.

And after that?

They will help us defeat The Enemy.

Has The Enemy got money and arms?

Yes.

How did The Enemy get money and arms?

He was once someone in whose interests it was, to be enemies with our enemy.

Which enemy was this?

Someone in whose interest it had once been, to be enemies with an enemy.

Michael Rosen, 2001

The Otherworldly World of Cabinet Ministers, Or Why Chris Huhne Has No Idea!

The Energy Minister, Chris Huhne thinks the consumer is significantly to blame for high energy prices. 

85% of consumers can't be bothered to shop around for a better deal, he says.

The average family could save up to £300 a year just by changing supplier.

In other words, let the market set the price, and the most savvy people will benefit.

So what about people who don't have online access;

many of the more elderly and vulnerable people in our communities;

low income families where even if they got a better deal, energy is still so expensive the choice is between heat and food;

Oh - and what about the fact that the big 6 have all put prices up more than 10% and they control 99% of the market.

I suggest Chris Huhne shops around and gets enrolled in one of the following courses:

"Get Real - Towards a Basic Understanding of Social Realities"

OR

"Laissez Faire - the History of a Bad Idea for the Poor."

OR

"Making the Right Choice - Principles for Getting the Balance Right Between Heat and Food"

OR

"Let Justice Flow - and Alternative View of Energy Flow."

 

Van Gogh, Thomas Merton and Rowan Williams - and the connection is?

Had a good day yesterday when important things have been done, said and enjoyed.  Journeyed to Glendoick to meet my friend Ken where we spent several hours at the garden centre. In the taciturn and occasionally nasty summer we're having the day was sunny, clear views for miles and the roads still quietish at the end of the school holidays. We don't get the chance to meet often so we tend to make a meal of it. This time we made two meals of it, a bacon and egg roll and a pot of tea, an hour's walk, then Carrot and orange soup with herb scones.

We've been friends more than half our lives and though we'd planned another bookshop crawl in Edinburgh, a civilised conversation over good food for three hours was much to be preferred.

Got home and listened to Albinoni's Oboe Concerto in D Minor while writing and reading, and gloating (no other word will do) over recently bought books. The slow movement of this concerto should be played quietly while reading one of the great narratives of divine and human tenderness in the gospels - for me the encounter of Mary Magdalene with Jesus in the garden.

Of the books being gloated over the one I read next will be The Yellow House, Martin Gayford, (Penguin) is the account of Van Gogh, Gaugin and nine turbulent weeks in Arles. Two geniuses with all their psychological complexities, artists at the zenith of their talent and the extremes of innovation, both eager for friendship but encountering in each other the greatest obstacle to mutual friendship! While working on the Sunflowers tapestry I'm keeping in touch with Vincent in different ways - not trying to understand him, which I think is neither possible nor necessary. But to know the whence of the chaos and the wherefore of the genius, to accept and respect the relationship between his illness and inner turmoil and the immense achievements of his art, and to have an emotional context out of which to work an impression of his favourite painting, and the focus of his desperate longing for sunlight, hope and inner rest.  

 

One of the traits of the bibliophile is gloating over a forthcoming book yet to be printed! This one brings together the Christian whose writing has shaped my own spirituality and thinking in ways decisive for my view of ministry, myself, human relationships, the nature of prayer and the paradoxical imperatives of community, silence and solitude as places and times where and when God is to be found. Ever since I read The Seven Storey Mountain, followed by Thoughts in Solitude I have never had a year when I haven't read Merton's writing. This forthcoming book is by Rowan Williams, and I can't think of someone I'd rather have exploring and reflecting on Merton's continuing relevance in a world where the things Merton made deep concerns remain deeply concerning - cultural conflicts, violence, consumer greed, cultural superficiality and human creativity turned against human interests and flourishing. Merton's great insight that the contemplative was a necessary presence in a world in desperate need of redemption, righteousness, peace and justice remains a major portion of his legacy that is of enduring value. He spoke into the cultural urgencies and reconfigurations of the 50's and 60's and much that he wrote remains valid half a century later. Is that because human nature, our profligacy and pretensions, our anger, angst and anxiety, our propensity for self-preservation and self-harm, remain humanity's greatest threat? And thus a great and fallible human being like Merton can bring together the contemplative and the active, the promise of divine grace enabling human goodness, the monk as holy person in whose prayers are gathered up the broken pieces of a God loved world?

Karine Polwart, Folk Singing and the Prophetic Imagination

It's becoming an enjoyable if unpredictable habit. Innocently driving down or up the road to Paisley listening to the radio and there's a moment of illumination, or a coincidence of mood and music, or the fusion of idle thought and good ideas, or the interruption of the complacent routine by the unsettlingly different. It was the last of these this morning. I was ambushed by a song that compels our consideration of an unsettlingly different view of ourselves, our world and our responses to life around us.

On Radio Scotland I heard the haunting voice of Karine Polwart singing Better Things, the lyrics deceptively gentle in their subversive questioning of the way things are. And that lyrical gentleness and acoustic melody pushes ideas through our road metal defences like patiently persistent green shoots whose life force won't be denied the life giving sun even by the tarmac surface of minds hardened by the endless traffic of excess experience, information overload and sensory saturation that is our post- modern networked, globalised, rapid-feed culture. And yes, that is a long sentence, and a few over-wrought metaphors - perhaps.

The truth is that some of our best folk singers fulfil the role of prophet, and speak truth to power. They do this by calling in question the assumptions of the powerful, they dare to interrogate the ethics of political decisions, they refuse to accept that the economic bottom line has some kind of absolute veto on human compassion, is the reality check for kindness, or makes an ethical generosity foolish, unrealistic, or even worse, unaffordable.

The song Better Things does several of these things in oblique poetry that is at the same time a profound questioning of the wisdom of the world. Here are the words, and Karine polwart's own reasons for writing them given at the end:

So is this the best that we can do?
Oh I can think of better things - can't you?
Yes I can think of better things
That hands can make and hearts can sing

For now we deal with those for whom
A life is but a carnal tomb
In which the darkness holds no power
And neither does the final hour

So is this the best that we can do?
Oh I can think of better things - can't you?
Yes I can think of better things
That hands can make and hearts can sing

We may lament the deadly art
Of tiny atoms torn apart
Of visions that we can't return
And future fires in which we fear we'll burn

So is this the best that we can do?
Oh I can think of better things - can't you?
Yes I can think of better things
That hands can make and hearts can sing

Yet this is the art of those before
Who found a cure within the core
The noble mind behind the ray
That eased our earthly cares away

So is this the best that we can do?
Oh I can think of better things - can't you?
Yes I can think of better things
That hands can make and hearts can sing

Words & Music: Karine Polwart (Bay Songs Ltd 2007)
I wrote this for the "Bin The Bomb" campaign in protest at the UK Government's decision to re-commission the Trident generation of nuclear weapons. I just think maybe there are a few imaginative and constructive ways to spend £30 billion or so that don't involve weapons of mass destruction.

Swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and technology turned towards the healing of the wounds of the world - I too can think of better things that hands can make, and hearts can sing.

The Disabled, The Minimum Wage, and Mr Davies' Preposterous Idea

There are times when the statements emanating from members of the current Government simply have to be named for the nonsense they are.

And sometimes named as the dangerous nonsense they are.

The latest is the suggestion by Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, that disabled people and people with mental ill health issues, should be allowed to / prepared to work for less than the minimum wage of £5.93 an hour.

The ostensible justification is that such a move would make disabled people and people with mental ill health more employable by offering a financial advantage to the employer.

That this creates an entire new pool of cheap labour, based on discrimination seems to have escaped Mr Davies.

That it sends a powerful social signal of devaluation likewise seems to surprise him.

Look at the article in the link, from the Daily Telegraph, which is hardly at the left wing of British political journalism See here

Now Shipley has a different tradition of both politics and theological viewpoint. P T Forsyth was once the Congregational minister there. He wrote a booklet on "Socialism, the Church and the Poor". Wonder what he would have written to Mr Davies as his local MP?

When all allowances are made for the MP's back-tracking and special pleading of good intentions towards those with disabilities and mental ill-health, it remains embarrassing, preposterous and outrageous that an MP should even think let alone articulate such a suggestion.

I'm not questioning his right to hold such views, or to state them. (Though the Equality and Diversity and Discrimination watchdogs are more than interested in a conversation about them).

I am however questioning whether his view has any ethical validity, discerning compassion, or social wisdom - his suggestion seems on the contrary to be ethically vacuous, cynically insensitive and socially reckless.

Downing St has distanced itself from the statement - but I await an outright apology and rebuke that a member of the Government has spoken such, well, such nonsense - I just spell checked this sentence and had originally written nosense, which is also true.

Should members of the BNP be allowed to teach in our schools? No!

The link at the end of this post is to the recent report by Maurice Smith (pictured) that says the prohibition on teachers being members of the BNP would be "a disproportionate response", a "very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut." Right.

The report also suggests there is no causal connection between being a member of a political party, holding certain political views, and the influence a teacher has in a classroom. Oh, and just to be clear, a teacher's politics has no place in the classroom. Right.

Now when I use the word right, I don't mean I agree; and it is not used as explicit (or implicit) moral approval. Actually just to be clear - I am using it with a full measure of West of Scotland irony reinforced by well informed scpeticism, as in the phrase, "Aye right"!

Let's not play silly word games by which we are meant to think that politics and political opinion, political conviction, political judgement, political values are all reducible to private ways of viewing the world. Or that such inner orientations of thought, moral judgement, political vision and social organisation never impinge on how we actually relate to the world and the people in it. Politics if taken half seriously, and a member of a political party should be assumed to take their party's policies and manifesto seriously, politics is the way we describe and work towards the way we would wish the world to be.

And if a person's politics are about a racially based approach to social structures, a narrow definition of nationalism, a resistance to multi-cultural presence, an insistence on Britishness (whatever that is) as critierion of welcome, then there is overwhelming likelihood that such political views will indeed influence the way those people relate to other people. A BNP member who is a teacher in a multi-ethnic school, in a multicultural society, with several asylum seeking children in the class, is not going to pretend, surely, that policies of exclusion which he or she upholds as conviction, somehow do not exist in the day to day dealings with a socially, culturally and racially diverse class. Sorry - I don't believe such convictional conjuring tricks are possible - and if they were they would be even more dangerous for their two faced janus-like deception.

Quite apart from all the above, education is not politically neutral, and teachers are not politically colourless. A teacher is entrusted with tasks of social education, humane learning, instilling values of civic responsibility, enabling and encouraging relationships of co-operative working, mutual respect and preparation for a life of responsible contribution to our society. I simply don't accept that such a vision of educational purpose is compatible with BNP policies and manifesto statements. And because I believe members of the BNP sincerely hold the convictions and values of their Party manifesto, there can be no congruence between political views and a social vision so wildly out of line with the values of an educational system whose underlying assumptions are inclusive, mutually respectful of cultural difference, and embedded in a civic code that does not diminish the humanity or value of other people on such dangerous grounds as race, ethnic origin, faith tradition, or that morally (and rationally) dubious benchmark of Britishness.

Lest I haven't made myself clear; as a follower of Jesus Christ, a lover of people in God's name, a citizen who recognises the rights and worth of others who come to live amongst us and who believes in a society that is just and compassionate, I think the report is wrong. Membership of the BNP should indeed disqualify someone from teaching in our schools. Maurice Smith the former Chief Inspector of Schools is simply wrong in his conclusions. Worse still, he has produced a report lacking in moral seriousness, for which he has substituted risibly strident rhetoric that makes little reference to the realities of teaching, the ethic of education, nor the responsibility that comes with living in a democracy, of discerning with care the fundamental obligations and human values that ensure real freedoms.

http://news.aol.co.uk/racism-report-backs-teacher-freedom/article/20100312012850152666193?icid=mai

When tears are the words of our prayers.

Sometimes the coincidence of incongruence can become a prophetic and moving glimpse into mystery.

I came across the photo below last night, while browsing the Archbishop of Canterbury's website. Two holy men, and I mean that word, stand together. They are recognised leaders of two traditions that flow from Abraham, a confluence of faiths.

Behind them the evil enigma of Auschwitz, the rail lines converging on the gate of death, and the remembered anguish of millions, beyond comprehension, but requiring to be remembered. Christian and Jew, standing together, dressed in black, their faces unable to tell the story, but etched with immense sadness.

All this I am thinking, while Johnny Cash beats out his theme song, and one of my most favourite tracks on any record, Man in Black. And just as I happen on this picture, he's singing:

"I wear it for the thousands who have died,

believing that the Lord was on their side,

I wear it for another hundred thousand who had died,

believing that we all were on their side."

And the incongruent coincidence of music, the photograph, the memories of books I've read written by these two spiritual guides of our age - too much, and I cried.

And thus prayed. Kyrie eleison.