The Book of Job offends some Christians and some Jews. This is because in it, the suffering of Job comes from a bet between God and Satan. Satan bets that the man Job loves God only because of Job’s great riches, and that if these are taken away, Job will hate God. God believes that Job’s love is deep, and that it will survive terrible suffering. God grants Satan authority to afflict Job. And Job suffers. At the end of the book, Job proves God right.
1. The Book of Job as the book of history.
There is wisdom in the Book of Job.
I think that much in the world can be explained as a contest, a bet, between these old adversaries.
Satan bets that strife over slavery will divide America, which will then further divide, until America is only a weak collection of hostile neighbor-states. God bets that the strife over slavery will lead to a war that purges slavery from America and leaves America, eventually, united and strong.
Satan bets that a vigorous young man suddenly crippled with polio will shuck away his life with frivolity and grief. God bets that that man will learn compassion, and that he will become a great American leader in a depression and a world war.
Satan bets that Hitler will rise and destroy the Jews. God bets that Hitler will rise and be stopped, and that the horror of the Holocaust will lead to the Jews’ return to Israel.
Satan bets that centuries of slavery and oppression will make a segment of America bitter, and that they will turn to evil. God bets that this testing will make these same people strong, and that from this testing will rise a wise and round and warm love of God. Sometimes God and Satan both claim victory.
Satan bets that time in a soviet dictatorship will crystalize a young man’s enmity toward America, leading to the assassination of a beloved president. God bets that that time will make the young man realize the beauty of his native land and its freedoms, like the freedom of religion. Sometimes Satan wins.
2. The biggest bet.
We must never forget the biggest bet of all. Satan bet that humankind would reject God’s son; that we would torture and murder him; and that God’s plan for the salvation of humankind would die with the son of God. God bet that his son’s death would permit his son to descend into Hell for three days; then he would rise triumphantly from the dead; that his death and resurrection would be the cornerstone and capstone of salvation; that his death and life would defeat death.
There is regrettable talk of who killed Jesus.
In one sense, you and I did, by our sins.
In another sense, both God and Satan killed Jesus. Satan did it; God permitted it. Both looked to that death for victory. One was right and one was wrong.
3. The Book of Job as the book of our lives.
If we examine our lives, I wonder if we each couldn’t see where the bets have been placed, and if we couldn’t see, as to these bets, who won and who lost.
So: Satan bets that if an ambitious young man’s career were shattered, he would be bitter and he would lose what ethics he formerly had. God bets that the ambitious young man would stop worshiping his career, and he would turn to the One True God, however imperfectly. To give one example known to me.
All bets are not behind us; some lie ahead.
Suffering will come. There is no explanation for suffering that can make that suffering not suffering. That suffering may be as inevitable and as unbearable as death, even as unbearable as the death of a child. It could be the suffering of Job.
In placid times – and perhaps for you now is a placid time – if you pray, you might pray that that time of testing not come; but if it comes, that you respond in a way that you give God victory in the bet that he places on your response to hard times. You might pray that for your loved ones, too.
Victory for God in these bets leads to salvation.
And that’s infinitely better than winning the lottery.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Homage to My Father
My father died a dozen years ago.
He was in good health until he got lymphoma cancer. Chemotherapy cured the cancer, but it disabled his mind. He started to hallucinate. He withdrew from the world. One day he fell and broke his hip. Surgeons replaced his hip, but the end followed quickly.
Those are not my favorite memories of my father.
He was a career Air Force officer. He joined the Army Air Corps in World War II, and he served in Europe. He was lucky: he didn’t draw high-fatality bomber duty. At one point, he was assigned to a night-fighter squadron, doing search and destroy missions behind enemy lines. His moniker was "Intruder Schlueter".
There are good pilots, and there are pilots for whom an aircraft is like a second skin. I‘ve heard that my father was one of the latter.
He could land his Bristol Beaufighter on the runway, touch the wheels to the tarmac, lift up, do a loop, and touch down again. I’m not a pilot, but even I know that there’s no room for error in such a maneuver.
Others in his squadron weren’t worried when he flew like that. They knew his abilities. But one day he did a touch-and-loop maneuver and a high officer happened to see it. That officer ordered Dad’s commander to write up Dad for recklessness. That was a career killer.
Dad’s commander did what he was ordered to do. Then he called Dad to his office. He told Dad that he had done the writeup, and that the only copy of it was in the satchel that he then handed to Dad. The commander ordered Dad to deliver it to where it was supposed to go.
Somehow, nothing came of that writeup.
Dad’s Air Force career led directly to his marriage. After the war, he was sent on a tour of European capitals – a victory lap, as it were. He attended a royal ball hosted by the king of Denmark. One of the young, unmarried women at that ball was the daughter of the Auditor General of Denmark. That was my mother.
Mother was vivacious and outgoing. Dad was the quiet type. They hit it off. After Dad flew out of Denmark, they kept in touch through letters. They were married in Wisconsin, at a ceremony presided over by my grandfather, a Lutheran minister.
When I was nine, Dad was flying four-engine jets. We were stationed in Oklahoma. In those times, the armed forces called "alerts". They put the military on war footing – and they didn’t necessarily tell their personnel whether the exercise was a drill or whether it was war. The Air Force wanted to know what its personnel would do in a crisis. In those times, everyone thought that a nuclear catastrophe might really happen.
We lived on-base, minutes from the runways. One night, Dad was called out: an alert. He left. But later he came back, dressed in his flight suit. He came into our house, solemn, and he looked at us, and then he left again. For his country, he was willing to die; but I don’t think he was ready for his children to die. I think he came back that night, briefly, because he thought that he might not see us again.
Dad retired while he was stationed at Norton. The Air Force had an up-or-out policy. You promoted within a set time, or you retired. Dad was forced to retire when he didn’t promote to full colonel. But he had stayed in long enough to have a decent pension, and he was young enough for a second career.
Dad chose to become a probation officer in San Bernardino. It was a job that he was unsuited to. He had no empathy toward his probationers, and he had no interest in them. Also, I think that he wasn’t savvy with them. So far as I can tell, he more-or-less did his job in an un-inspired way until the county offered him a financial incentive to retire early. He took the early retirement.
Of the things that he did in retirement, the best thing was his artwork. He was a genius with clay. He inspired into his pieces a liveliness and a character that ordinary artists cannot. Dad’s art left his children with artifacts of his talent. I wish he had made more art in his retirement, and watched less television.
His wife died before him. He loved her and depended on her, and he missed her when she was gone.
Toward the end, talking with Dad was hard. This was because of his hearing loss and his addled mind. But before his steep decline, we sometimes had good conversations. One day we were talking about the Book of Ezekiel. I said that, like Dad, Ezekiel grieved the death of his wife. I also said that Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones and the reassembly of those bones into flesh-and-blood living beings was usually interpreted as a prophecy of the resurrection of Israel. But I told Dad that when Ezekiel saw those dry bones become persons again, he must have thought of his wife, and he must have thought about the possibility of reunion with her. This idea made an impression on Dad. In my lifetime, he was not overtly religious.
Dad’s ashes are in Wisconsin, in a family plot, near his wife, near his mother. He was born in Wisconsin, and his remains repose there.
He was in good health until he got lymphoma cancer. Chemotherapy cured the cancer, but it disabled his mind. He started to hallucinate. He withdrew from the world. One day he fell and broke his hip. Surgeons replaced his hip, but the end followed quickly.
Those are not my favorite memories of my father.
He was a career Air Force officer. He joined the Army Air Corps in World War II, and he served in Europe. He was lucky: he didn’t draw high-fatality bomber duty. At one point, he was assigned to a night-fighter squadron, doing search and destroy missions behind enemy lines. His moniker was "Intruder Schlueter".
There are good pilots, and there are pilots for whom an aircraft is like a second skin. I‘ve heard that my father was one of the latter.
He could land his Bristol Beaufighter on the runway, touch the wheels to the tarmac, lift up, do a loop, and touch down again. I’m not a pilot, but even I know that there’s no room for error in such a maneuver.
Others in his squadron weren’t worried when he flew like that. They knew his abilities. But one day he did a touch-and-loop maneuver and a high officer happened to see it. That officer ordered Dad’s commander to write up Dad for recklessness. That was a career killer.
Dad’s commander did what he was ordered to do. Then he called Dad to his office. He told Dad that he had done the writeup, and that the only copy of it was in the satchel that he then handed to Dad. The commander ordered Dad to deliver it to where it was supposed to go.
Somehow, nothing came of that writeup.
Dad’s Air Force career led directly to his marriage. After the war, he was sent on a tour of European capitals – a victory lap, as it were. He attended a royal ball hosted by the king of Denmark. One of the young, unmarried women at that ball was the daughter of the Auditor General of Denmark. That was my mother.
Mother was vivacious and outgoing. Dad was the quiet type. They hit it off. After Dad flew out of Denmark, they kept in touch through letters. They were married in Wisconsin, at a ceremony presided over by my grandfather, a Lutheran minister.
When I was nine, Dad was flying four-engine jets. We were stationed in Oklahoma. In those times, the armed forces called "alerts". They put the military on war footing – and they didn’t necessarily tell their personnel whether the exercise was a drill or whether it was war. The Air Force wanted to know what its personnel would do in a crisis. In those times, everyone thought that a nuclear catastrophe might really happen.
We lived on-base, minutes from the runways. One night, Dad was called out: an alert. He left. But later he came back, dressed in his flight suit. He came into our house, solemn, and he looked at us, and then he left again. For his country, he was willing to die; but I don’t think he was ready for his children to die. I think he came back that night, briefly, because he thought that he might not see us again.
Dad retired while he was stationed at Norton. The Air Force had an up-or-out policy. You promoted within a set time, or you retired. Dad was forced to retire when he didn’t promote to full colonel. But he had stayed in long enough to have a decent pension, and he was young enough for a second career.
Dad chose to become a probation officer in San Bernardino. It was a job that he was unsuited to. He had no empathy toward his probationers, and he had no interest in them. Also, I think that he wasn’t savvy with them. So far as I can tell, he more-or-less did his job in an un-inspired way until the county offered him a financial incentive to retire early. He took the early retirement.
Of the things that he did in retirement, the best thing was his artwork. He was a genius with clay. He inspired into his pieces a liveliness and a character that ordinary artists cannot. Dad’s art left his children with artifacts of his talent. I wish he had made more art in his retirement, and watched less television.
His wife died before him. He loved her and depended on her, and he missed her when she was gone.
Toward the end, talking with Dad was hard. This was because of his hearing loss and his addled mind. But before his steep decline, we sometimes had good conversations. One day we were talking about the Book of Ezekiel. I said that, like Dad, Ezekiel grieved the death of his wife. I also said that Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones and the reassembly of those bones into flesh-and-blood living beings was usually interpreted as a prophecy of the resurrection of Israel. But I told Dad that when Ezekiel saw those dry bones become persons again, he must have thought of his wife, and he must have thought about the possibility of reunion with her. This idea made an impression on Dad. In my lifetime, he was not overtly religious.
Dad’s ashes are in Wisconsin, in a family plot, near his wife, near his mother. He was born in Wisconsin, and his remains repose there.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
"Epistemic Closure": A Strange Phrase and a Real Threat
1. Journey into a closed world.
After law school, after taking the bar examination, but before starting my career, I toured Europe. My tour included Berlin. At that time, Berlin was divided between East Berlin and West Berlin. West Berlin was free. East Berlin was under a communist dictatorship, like the rest of East Germany.
Berlin was relatively little visited by tourists. It sat in the middle of communist Germany. You could fly there from free Europe, but flying there was expensive for a new graduate of law school or others of the young hoards that beset Europe in Summer.
The alternative was to take the train. The train had a downside. I was awoken twice in my night journey into Berlin. The first time, the green-jacketed policeman inspected my travel documents. The second time, he searched my luggage.
But West Berlin - that is, free Berlin - was great. There was a liveliness there. People were exuberant. They welcomed strangers. I had a good time.
East Berlin, under dictatorship, was different. Just on the other side of the checkpoint into East Berlin, the communists had built a modern shopping structure. Architecturally, it was impressive. But I recall that visitors to it were few. Perhaps the locals were discouraged from visiting it. Maybe they could not afford to buy the goods on sale there.
And when you left the lofty architecture of the shopping structure, the city soon became drab and grim. Drunks lay unconscious in gutters.
Yet the people that I briefly encountered seemed content. I bought a glass of beer from a street vendor. It cost the equivalent of twenty-five cents. I was astonished at its cheapness. The vendor was pleased to see my surprise, and she commented on the cheapness of goods under communism. Later that day, I bought a filet-mignon steak dinner, with beer, for about a dollar and a half.
I bought the dinner in a basement restaurant. When I walked in with my friend, the hubbub of the restaurant turned to stone silence and everybody there turned to stare at us. I suppose that their fascination focused more on my friend than on me. She wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, with a glittery skull and snake. After we sat down, the sound of conversation again percolated though the dining area.
Of course my friend, with her garish T-shirt, would garner attention. She clearly was different from what the East Berliners were accustomed to see. In fact, there was a harsh sameness to everything in East Berlin.
Here’s an example of that sameness. Barber shops all had pictures in the windows. The pictures featured a young man with a trim beard and a trim mustache and combed-back hair. I don’t recall seeing any young man in East Berlin that did not have exactly that combination of beard, mustache, and hair.
The East Berliners that I spoke with claimed that they had freedom to voice their opinion, regardless of what it might be. But that freedom was largely irrelevant. This was true because the East Berliners had no access to opinions or facts that deviated from what they heard from government sources. None. So their political opinions were necessarily as uniform as their hair.
2. Journeys to other closed societies.
I have visited the Soviet Union, when it was still the Soviet Union. I have lived in China. I saw in those places the same limited access to opinions and news that existed in East Berlin. The Chinese government now is laboring to ensure that the internet does not deprive it of its monopoly on information and opinion. Brave Chinese men and women struggle against this information monopoly.
What I saw in East Berlin, the Soviet Union, and China was "epistemic closure". Basically, that means that the people there lived their lives in a mental bubble, with virtually no access to political opinions and political news that did not come from their communist governments.
3. Danger in America.
This concept of epistemic closure is relevant to America, too.
Conservative intellectuals have fretted about epistemic closure in modern American conservatism. They warn that talk radio and certain news outlets have become self-contained, closed circles of information. Talk radio and these news outlets even discourage curiosity about other sources by often and vehemently claiming that those sources are unfair and biased.
That is, these movement news sources seek to impose upon their target audience an embargo on ideas that don't come from them. They do this for the same reason that that communist regimes embargo non-communist points of view. It's a matter of power.
And this has conservative intellectuals worried. Without cross-pollination, without intellectual checks-and-balances, the intellectual vigor of the conservative movement will decline, and its ideas increasingly will become un-tethered to reality.
I have seen this closed-ness. Sometimes I communicate with conservative friends about current issues. In these friendly debates, my friends sometimes seem to think that all they have to do is work "ACORN" or "Solyndra" into a sentence, and then sit back and garner the glory of forensic victory. When I have a response, they sometimes seem surprised. And some of my conservative friends seem truly amazed that anyone might not despise President Obama.
This self-sequestering of information and ideas could lead to a widespread "paranoid style in American politics", to borrow a phrase made famous by Richard Hofstadter. (Google it if you’re interested. Or, there’s a link below.)
In short, epistemic closure exists under communism and in America. The difference between America and communist regimes is that communist regimes impose epistemic closure on their people; but in America, it is self-inflicted.
4. Democracy, heal thyself.
But democracy has the capacity to heal itself. People have natural curiosity that resists complete sequestration.
I saw this even in my China travels. One incident stands out. I was on a train with two American friends, and a small young man crossed the aisle and sat next to me. He explained in his so-so English that he was from North Korea. He vehemently expressed his loyalty to his "Dear Leader". But he needed or wanted confirmation or refutation of what he believed. That was clear in his questions and in his eyes.
For example, he asked our opinion about Kim Jong Il’s then-recent speech on the pillars of socialism. We told him that we had not heard of that speech. This appeared to stun him. But at least he knew. And the yearning for that knowledge had caused him to question us, whatever consequences he might suffer from reaching out to Americans in the presence of his Chinese hosts.
Any news sequestration in America is self-sequesteration. In times past, clubs and organizations prevented such self-sequestration. All variety of people would belong to such clubs and organizations, and there they would encounter a variety of ideas and opinions.
But the literal public square is little populated in our time. Some commentators have said that membership in organizations wanes in modern American society. Therefore, people are less likely to physically meet with people who can supply variety to one another’s diet of political opinion or political fact.
But even with the decline of such organizations, other forums arise. Chief among these are Facebook. I encounter on Facebook people with opinions far different than my own. And they encounter my opinions.
5. Conclusion.
Will Facebook save American political conversation? Will other vehicles of conversation arise? One would hope.
Otherwise, many of us are doomed to get our ideas from a closed loop of sources. That is to the life of the mind as inbreeding is to genes.
__________________________________________________
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html
After law school, after taking the bar examination, but before starting my career, I toured Europe. My tour included Berlin. At that time, Berlin was divided between East Berlin and West Berlin. West Berlin was free. East Berlin was under a communist dictatorship, like the rest of East Germany.
Berlin was relatively little visited by tourists. It sat in the middle of communist Germany. You could fly there from free Europe, but flying there was expensive for a new graduate of law school or others of the young hoards that beset Europe in Summer.
The alternative was to take the train. The train had a downside. I was awoken twice in my night journey into Berlin. The first time, the green-jacketed policeman inspected my travel documents. The second time, he searched my luggage.
But West Berlin - that is, free Berlin - was great. There was a liveliness there. People were exuberant. They welcomed strangers. I had a good time.
East Berlin, under dictatorship, was different. Just on the other side of the checkpoint into East Berlin, the communists had built a modern shopping structure. Architecturally, it was impressive. But I recall that visitors to it were few. Perhaps the locals were discouraged from visiting it. Maybe they could not afford to buy the goods on sale there.
And when you left the lofty architecture of the shopping structure, the city soon became drab and grim. Drunks lay unconscious in gutters.
Yet the people that I briefly encountered seemed content. I bought a glass of beer from a street vendor. It cost the equivalent of twenty-five cents. I was astonished at its cheapness. The vendor was pleased to see my surprise, and she commented on the cheapness of goods under communism. Later that day, I bought a filet-mignon steak dinner, with beer, for about a dollar and a half.
I bought the dinner in a basement restaurant. When I walked in with my friend, the hubbub of the restaurant turned to stone silence and everybody there turned to stare at us. I suppose that their fascination focused more on my friend than on me. She wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, with a glittery skull and snake. After we sat down, the sound of conversation again percolated though the dining area.
Of course my friend, with her garish T-shirt, would garner attention. She clearly was different from what the East Berliners were accustomed to see. In fact, there was a harsh sameness to everything in East Berlin.
Here’s an example of that sameness. Barber shops all had pictures in the windows. The pictures featured a young man with a trim beard and a trim mustache and combed-back hair. I don’t recall seeing any young man in East Berlin that did not have exactly that combination of beard, mustache, and hair.
The East Berliners that I spoke with claimed that they had freedom to voice their opinion, regardless of what it might be. But that freedom was largely irrelevant. This was true because the East Berliners had no access to opinions or facts that deviated from what they heard from government sources. None. So their political opinions were necessarily as uniform as their hair.
2. Journeys to other closed societies.
I have visited the Soviet Union, when it was still the Soviet Union. I have lived in China. I saw in those places the same limited access to opinions and news that existed in East Berlin. The Chinese government now is laboring to ensure that the internet does not deprive it of its monopoly on information and opinion. Brave Chinese men and women struggle against this information monopoly.
What I saw in East Berlin, the Soviet Union, and China was "epistemic closure". Basically, that means that the people there lived their lives in a mental bubble, with virtually no access to political opinions and political news that did not come from their communist governments.
3. Danger in America.
This concept of epistemic closure is relevant to America, too.
Conservative intellectuals have fretted about epistemic closure in modern American conservatism. They warn that talk radio and certain news outlets have become self-contained, closed circles of information. Talk radio and these news outlets even discourage curiosity about other sources by often and vehemently claiming that those sources are unfair and biased.
That is, these movement news sources seek to impose upon their target audience an embargo on ideas that don't come from them. They do this for the same reason that that communist regimes embargo non-communist points of view. It's a matter of power.
And this has conservative intellectuals worried. Without cross-pollination, without intellectual checks-and-balances, the intellectual vigor of the conservative movement will decline, and its ideas increasingly will become un-tethered to reality.
I have seen this closed-ness. Sometimes I communicate with conservative friends about current issues. In these friendly debates, my friends sometimes seem to think that all they have to do is work "ACORN" or "Solyndra" into a sentence, and then sit back and garner the glory of forensic victory. When I have a response, they sometimes seem surprised. And some of my conservative friends seem truly amazed that anyone might not despise President Obama.
This self-sequestering of information and ideas could lead to a widespread "paranoid style in American politics", to borrow a phrase made famous by Richard Hofstadter. (Google it if you’re interested. Or, there’s a link below.)
In short, epistemic closure exists under communism and in America. The difference between America and communist regimes is that communist regimes impose epistemic closure on their people; but in America, it is self-inflicted.
4. Democracy, heal thyself.
But democracy has the capacity to heal itself. People have natural curiosity that resists complete sequestration.
I saw this even in my China travels. One incident stands out. I was on a train with two American friends, and a small young man crossed the aisle and sat next to me. He explained in his so-so English that he was from North Korea. He vehemently expressed his loyalty to his "Dear Leader". But he needed or wanted confirmation or refutation of what he believed. That was clear in his questions and in his eyes.
For example, he asked our opinion about Kim Jong Il’s then-recent speech on the pillars of socialism. We told him that we had not heard of that speech. This appeared to stun him. But at least he knew. And the yearning for that knowledge had caused him to question us, whatever consequences he might suffer from reaching out to Americans in the presence of his Chinese hosts.
Any news sequestration in America is self-sequesteration. In times past, clubs and organizations prevented such self-sequestration. All variety of people would belong to such clubs and organizations, and there they would encounter a variety of ideas and opinions.
But the literal public square is little populated in our time. Some commentators have said that membership in organizations wanes in modern American society. Therefore, people are less likely to physically meet with people who can supply variety to one another’s diet of political opinion or political fact.
But even with the decline of such organizations, other forums arise. Chief among these are Facebook. I encounter on Facebook people with opinions far different than my own. And they encounter my opinions.
5. Conclusion.
Will Facebook save American political conversation? Will other vehicles of conversation arise? One would hope.
Otherwise, many of us are doomed to get our ideas from a closed loop of sources. That is to the life of the mind as inbreeding is to genes.
__________________________________________________
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html
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