| Wednesday, August 06, 2008 |
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Who Has The Wealth?
By Paul Hsieh @ 1:01 AM   
Megan McArdle has written an interesting analysis of the following map showing GDP per capita in various countries:
She writes:When you see the map, it becomes radically apparent just how firmly Britain was the root of the Industrial revolution. With the lone exception of Japan, the darkest places on the map are either next to Britain, or former British colonies. And aside from Saudi Arabia and Chile, all the growth seems to spread outward from those Anglosphere points of infection. Nowhere, not even Saudi Arabia, has the income density of Western Europe and North America. Of course, the interesting question is why is there this distribution?
Dr. William Bernstein (a neurologist turned financial analyst/historian) does a pretty good job of answering this question in his book, The Birth of Plenty : How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created. In particular, he analyzes history and economics over the past 400 years and makes a good case that there were four key factors that allowed men in some countries to prosper, whereas men in other countries couldn't. The four key factors he identifies are: "property rights, the scientific method, capital markets and communications". He argues that countries prospered to the extent that these factors were present. And in particular, when Great Britain embraced all four of these, it then led to the explosion of wealth known as the Industrial Revolution.
Although Bernstein's analysis is fairly good, it does not quite go far enough. His four factors can be further essentialized to two: reason and rights.
His first factor, "property rights", is self-explanatory. Property rights is the direct application of the concept of rights to humans living in a material world. It is a recognition that if men are to live, they must live under a government which respects and enforces certain principles with respect to how men should deal with physical objects, and with other men. In particular, it establishes objective principles of property ownership, and all of the corollaries (e.g., the right to use, sell, trade, dispose of, and exclude others from one's property.)
His second factor, "the scientific method", is the application of reason to the practical world -- namely, using man's mind to understand the nature of reality and the causal factors that allow men to shape the world for their purposes.
The third factor, "capital markets", is an extension of property rights into the realm of finance. When men have confidence that their property rights will be respected in the long term under an objective rule of law, they are able to devise increasingly complex contracts to suit their financial needs, with terms involving time intervals that could span months, if not years. Men could create financial instruments that permit them to engage in lending, insurance, futures and options. Similarly, the birth of the limited liability corporation and the associated rise of stock markets greatly facilitated the ability of investors to shift their capital to ventures that could yield the greatest return, allowing both investors and producers to create and execute long-range plans over a period of years, if not decades.
The fourth factor, "communications", is the practical outgrowth of both reason and property rights. Even the apparently simple task of guaranteeing the safety of roads for travel and commerce required a government able to protect individual rights from thieves and highwaymen. More sophisticated forms of communications and transport, such as the telegraph and railroads, became possible only as men's reasoning minds created the necessary technology in a context where they could be turned into viable businesses under the protection of a government that respected property rights.
All of these factors were mutually reinforcing, in that the respect for rights and reason created prosperity which allowed for more innovations in science, technology, capital markets and communications, which led to more prosperity, etc. But the roots of this prosperity were ultimately philosophical. Without a proper understanding of rights, grounded in a philosophy of reason, none of the prosperity of the Anglosphere would have been possible.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that the GDP map tracks closely with countries that still respect reason and rights, which tracks closely with the Anglosphere. The prosperity of modern-day Japan follows from the sweeping cultural and political changes imposed on that country during the American occupation following World War II, and some regard it as a part of the "Anglosphere" in that sense.
(Note: William Bernstein is pretty good when it comes to historical discussion, but he is definitely not an advocate of full laissez-faire capitalism. For a more consistent defense of free market capitalism on both philosophical and historical grounds, I'd recommend the book by Andrew Bernstein, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire. To the best of my knowledge, there is no relation between William Bernstein and Andrew Bernstein.)Labels: Economics, History
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| Tuesday, August 05, 2008 |
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Our Secular Constitution
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:54 AM
[Originally posted to Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government.]
The Christian theocrats are attempting to transform America into a thoroughly Christian nation in her laws, institutions, and mores. They demand that abortion be banned, solely based on their tenuous interpretation of scripture. They vigorously campaign against any attempt to allow loving homosexual couples to secure their bond by law. They demand that all television be prudishly "family-friendly," without a boob or butt in sight.
One of the most common arguments of these theocrats for their coveted religious transformation is based on an appeal to our Founding Fathers. The Founders, they say, were devout Christians seeking to establish a Christian nation. The Founders, they say, never envisioned anything like the secularism of today's society and government.
Most Americans feel some reverence for our Founding Fathers, yet they know little of the actual words and deeds of the men who shaped our country: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and others. (Thanks, government schools!) So too many American can be bamboozled by these claims of the theocrats. The snippets so often quoted by Christians to support their case are usually ripped from their proper context, then interpreted through Christian lenses. Any mention of God is read with an endorsement of Christianity and Christian government. The deism of many prominent Founders is ignored, as is their strident opposition to any kind of promotion of religion by the government.
However, the most clear evidence that the Founders intended their new government to be independent of any religion is found in three places in the Constitution:
First, the Preamble:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Notice what is missing from that basic statement of purpose: God. Moreover, the Constitution attempts to secure the very kind of this-worldly goods like peace, security, and justice that Jesus admonishes his followers to ignore. And it does not aim to promote the otherworldly goods like the salvation of one's soul that Jesus admonishes his followers to seek above all else.
Second, Article 6:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. So all government officials are required to uphold the Constitution, yet none can be subject to any kind of religious test. They cannot be required to espouse belief in Jesus, nor even belief in God, nor even in some vague Higher Power. Surely, if the Founders wished to create a Christian nation, they would have required that government officials be Christian.
Third, the First Amendment :
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment forbids the government from interfering in people's religious lives, whether by forbidding or promoting certain religious beliefs and practices. If a Christian nation was their aim, then the Founders should have required the government to promote Christianity -- not forbidden it from doing so.
In future blog posts [on Politics without God], I will say more on the relationship of the Founding Fathers to religion, as the half-truths and outright lies spread by the theocrats must be combated. Yet it's amazing that a clear look at just these few passages from the Constitution wholly undermine their basic claim that America was founded as a Christian nation.Labels: History, Politics, Religion
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 |
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Individualism, America, and Ayn Rand
By Paul Hsieh @ 1:00 AM
The following letter appeared in the online edition of the July 13, 2008 Denver Post, with negative reference to individualism and Ayn Rand. Since her name doesn't frequently appear in our local paper, I took this as an opportunity to set the record straight.
Here is the original letter:It wasn't individualism that settled the West
Re: "The Cowboy Myth," July 6 Perspective article.
There are two problems with Jeffrey Lockwood's support of the Cowboy Myth. First, we are constantly told that it was reality, that cowboys were the essential ingredient in the winning of the West. Truth is, the average cowboy was about as significant as today's parking lot attendant.
Perpetuating the Hollywood/dime fiction image of the cowboy propagates the false belief that Ayn Rand individualism was the historical way and will be the best future way to solve our nation’s problems. Truth is, the sodbusters were the key, the heroes: risking all, sticking determinedly in their forlorn shacks to raise their crops and banding together to raise their barns, build their schools and defend their homes.
The key to our nation's past successes was Americans joining together in common cause, not individualism. Working together will also be the key to our future.
Bill Belew
Boulder, CO My response was as follows:America was made by great individuals working under a system which (albeit imperfectly) protected their right to use their rational minds to create value and advance their lives. Where would we be without the likes of Thomas Edison, Westinghouse, and Henry Ford? This was a key insight of Ayn Rand and she deserves tremendous credit for promoting a philosophy that celebrates individual achievement -- the philosophy that underlies the positive and optimistic "can do" American sense of life.
Of course individuals can and should band together voluntarily when it suits their purposes. I have no problem with "working together" with others for mutual benefit as a voluntary arrangement, as many did in the Old West.
However, this notion is too-often corrupted into a vicious morality which preaches that the collective should take precedence over the individual, that individuals should be coerced to help one other, and that therefore we need massive government intrusions into the economy (such as “universal health care”) to automatically provide for everyone’s needs at taxpayer expense.
This approach will destroy the sorts of individuals who made America great, and will eventually destroy America. We need to celebrate and support the individuals who embody the American spirit and work-ethic, not punish them.
Paul Hsieh
Sedalia, CO Labels: History, Objectivism
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| Tuesday, July 22, 2008 |
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Niles on Property Rights and the Electrical Grid
By Paul Hsieh @ 11:33 AM
I just finished reading the featured article in the Summer 2008 issue of The Objective Standard, "Property Rights and the Crisis of the Electric Grid" by Raymond Niles, and I can whole-heartedly recommend it.
I had always wondered how the electrical utilities evolved into their current dysfunctional state as quasi-governmental entities, and never understood why utilities didn't function more like private providers of essential goods (like grocery stores or airlines). Niles traces the history of the electrical utilities from the 1880's to the present time, and shows how the current problems with the electrical industry are the result of government interference with basic property rights from the very inception.
I was particularly interested in his account of the California "deregulation" fiasco of 2000-2001. Diana and I lived in San Diego at that time, so we experienced this crisis of skyrocketing costs and rolling blackouts first-hand. However, I couldn't make sense of the newspaper accounts at the time, which generally blamed the "free market" for the problems. (For a typical portrayal of the events, this Wikipedia entry on the "California Electricity Crisis" is a good example of the conventional wisdom).
Fortunately, Niles is able to reduce this complex topic to its essentials, using property rights as the unifying theme. As an industry analyst, he has tremendous knowledge of the history, and is able to communicate it clearly to a lay audience. And besides offering a critique of the current system, he also articulates a positive alternative vision of a free market electrical system in which property rights are genuinely respected, and the benefits it could bring to producers and consumers alike.
Because his article is the featured free article, it is available to both subscribers and non-subscribers. So read the whole thing.
(On a personal note, I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Niles at the OCON 2008 conference a few weeks ago, and found him to be a thorougly intelligent, articulate, and pleasant dinner companion.)Labels: Business, History
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| Friday, July 04, 2008 |
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Jefferson's Last Letter
By Paul Hsieh @ 10:59 PM
Thomas Jefferson was invited to attend a celebration in Washington DC on July 4, 1826, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He had to decline due to reasons of health, but he did write the following in his last letter:I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made.
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.
That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. (Via Marginal Revolution.)Labels: History
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| Monday, May 26, 2008 |
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Memorial Day
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:34 PM
On this Memorial Day, I would like to honor the three men of the American Civil War who understood the terrible need for total war: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, and General William T. Sherman. Their vigorous prosecution of the war preserved the Union, the very first nation founded on the principles of individual rights -- and, at the time, the only such nation. In so doing, they ended the most loathsome violation of rights ever known to man: chattel slavery. Without them, without the brave Union soldiers who fought under them, America would not exist today.*
So thank you, Mssrs. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. We are forever in your debt.
* For the details, I strongly recommend reading James McPherson's stellar history of the Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom.Labels: History
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| Wednesday, May 07, 2008 |
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The Post-American World
By Paul Hsieh @ 12:05 AM
Recently, there have been a couple of high-profile articles featuring excerpts from the forthcoming book by Fareed Zakaria, international editor for Newsweek, entitled The Post-American World.
One article can be found here at the Newsweek site: "The Rise of the Rest".
The second article from Foreign Affairs is mirrored here: "The Future of American Power".
The New York Times has just reviewed the book here: "A Challenge for the U.S.: Sun Rising on the East".
These articles have already gotten a lot of attention on the blogosphere, and I anticipate the book will also be widely discussed. The basic premise is that the current era of American dominance in the world will soon come to an end, yielding to other powers such as China and India, much as the British dominance in the 19th century ended in the early 20th century (fortunately yielding to the United States.)
Zakaria does recognize important differences between the two situations, and he makes a number of correct observations with respect to specific issues and challenges facing the US. For instance, in the Newsweek article, he correctly points out that the US benefits greatly from energy of hard-working immigrants seeking to better their lives. In the Foreign Affairs article, he correctly notes that onerous government regulations threaten to harm the vitality of our capital markets, to the detriment of Americans in a global economy.
However, he also makes some serious errors. For instance, in the first article, he argues that the key in the international arena is to work on stabilizing the "global system" and ensuring that "China, India, Russia, Brazil all feel that they have a stake in the existing global order", to lessen the dangers of "war, depression, panics, and breakdowns". In the second article, he blames our "dysfunctional" political system, and argues that politicians of both major political parties must "compromise" in order to address major issues such as "health care, Social Security, tax reform".
Overall, he doesn't quite manage to tie all his points into a single unifying theme. Hence, I think this is an excellent opportunity for interested Objectivists to set forth their own arguments on the source of American greatness, what happened to erode it, and how we can recover it.
For example, here is the LTE I sent to Newsweek in response to their article:American decline is far from inevitable. America rose to greatness because it was founded on the principle of individual rights for all men (albeit imperfectly implemented). The resultant boom in American prosperity and power was the result of a capitalist system that allowed men and women to freely use their reason to better their lives. China and India are prospering because they are starting to allow partial capitalism into their economies as well.
If America wants to remain a vibrant, prosperous country, we need to abandon our current path towards European-style welfare statism and return to laissez-faire capitalism. The government should confine itself to protecting the individual's right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and barring the initiation of force between men. If we reaffirm that basic principle, America can continue to remain a shining example of freedom and prosperity for the rest of the world.
Paul Hsieh, MD
Sedalia, CO Obviously, much more could be written on this subject. And Objectivists have a number of important and unique ideas to contribute to this discussion.Labels: History, Politics
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| Sunday, April 20, 2008 |
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Nick and Abe
By Diana Hsieh @ 3:31 PM
Yesterday, Paul and I had the pleasure of lunching with Nick Provenzo of Rule of Reason, then walking and talking around DC with him for a few hours. The company was delightful and the weather was lovely, but the sights were a mixed bag.
I particularly wanted to visit the Lincoln Memorial, as I've grown to admire Lincoln intensely, despite some significant disagreements with his policies, in my study of the Civil War over the past few months. That was excellent, despite the throng of people. It's an absolutely fantastic statue of Lincoln.
We also visited the new World War Two Memorial. That was worse than I expected in its utter lack of meaning. Blech.
Happily, we also stopped by the statue of William Tecumseh Sherman near Lafayette Square. I'd also like to see the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, so that I can pay my respects to him. I should be able to do that tomorrow before I head home.Labels: History, Personal
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| Monday, April 07, 2008 |
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Economics Lessons From the First Thanksgiving
By Paul Hsieh @ 8:34 AM
Caroline Baum, the Bloomberg financial columnist who has written favorably about Ayn Rand, once wrote an interesting essay about economic incentives and the first Thanksgiving.
Here are some excerpts from Baum's essay. (The material in quotes is from William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Bay Colony for 30 years between 1621 and 1656):...The Pilgrims' first winters after they landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and established the Plymouth Bay Colony were harsh. The weather and crop yields were poor.
Half the Pilgrims died or returned to England in the first year. Those who remained went hungry. Despite their deep religious convictions, the Pilgrims took to stealing from one another.
...One of the traditions the Pilgrims had brought with them from England was a practice known as "farming in common." Everything they produced was put into a common pool; the harvest was rationed according to need.
They had thought "that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing," Bradford recounts.
They were wrong. "For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte," Bradford writes. Young, able-bodied men resented working for others without compensation. They thought it an "injuestice" to receive the same allotment of food and clothing as those who didn't pull their weight.
...After the Pilgrims had endured near-starvation for three winters, Bradford decided to experiment when it came time to plant in the spring of 1623. He set aside a plot of land for each family, that "they should set corne every man for his owne perticuler, and in that regard trust to themselves."
The results were nothing short of miraculous.
Bradford writes: "This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave far better content."
The women now went willingly into the field, carrying their young children on their backs. Those who previously claimed they were too old or ill to work embraced the idea of private property and enjoyed the fruits of their labor, eventually producing enough to trade their excess corn for furs and other desired commodities.
...With proper incentives in place, the Pilgrims produced and enjoyed a bountiful harvest in the fall of 1623 and set aside "a day of thanksgiving" to thank God for their good fortune.
"Any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day," Bradford writes in an entry from 1647, the last year covered by his history.
We now know the Pilgrims' good fortune had nothing to do with luck. In 1623, they were responding to the same incentives that, almost four centuries later, have come to be regarded as necessary for a free, productive and prosperous society. I don't know if Ayn Rand was familiar with the Pilgrims' story when she wrote her fictional history of the Twentieth Century Motor Company in Atlas Shrugged. (Of course, her direct personal experience growing up in the USSR undoubtedly provided her with ample evidence of the importance of property rights, without having to study the history of the Pilgrims!)
But the parallels are striking, because the principle is the same. Trying to live by the credo of "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need" leads only to misery and poverty, and turns decent people into criminals. On the other hand, respecting property rights results in happiness and prosperity.
If only more Americans had remembered the economic and moral lessons of 1623, then we might have avoided some of the painful mistakes of the 20th century.Labels: Economics, History
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| Friday, July 13, 2007 |
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On Ashland University
By Diana Hsieh @ 8:22 AM
Ashland University's insanely unjust treatment of John Lewis was recently detailed in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education: Tenure Shrugged. FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) has posted some further details (correcting some small inaccuracies in the CHE article, as far as I understand) here: Ashland University: No Objectivists Need Apply.
Notice that the source of Dr. Lewis's troubles were (1) neocons and (2) evangelical Christians. From what I understand, the run-of-the-mill liberal faculty were rightly shocked and outraged by his treatment by Ashland.
Also, I might as well mention that I was quoted in the Chronicle's introduction to its three articles on Objectivism in academia:
The articles in this special Chronicle report are about a different group of scholars: those who believe that Rand created a true and complete philosophical model, which must be widely spread or else civilization will perish. These scholars believe that the road to cultural renewal runs through the philosophy department: If the public adopts the correct metaphysical and epistemological beliefs, then peace, justice, and prosperity will naturally follow. (In this respect, the famously anti-religious Randians are oddly similar to Catholic philosophers in the Thomist tradition.)
"The serious study of Ayn Rand's work -- in and out of academia -- is only in its nascent stages," wrote Diana Mertz Hsieh, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, on her blog in 2005. "If stillborn, our culture is doomed. ... It's not just some academic game: It's literally life and death." In case you're wondering, I've not blogged because I've been at OCON in lovely Telluride. I've enjoyed myself well enough, although I'm eager to return to real work on my dissertation and to preparation for my fall "Intro Phil" class. I probably won't return to regular blogging for another week.Labels: Academia, History, Religion
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| Saturday, May 12, 2007 |
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Eric Daniels on Jamestown
By Diana Hsieh @ 6:15 AM
Particularly in light of the increasingly common claim that America was founded on Christian principles, I very much enjoyed this ARI op-ed by Eric Daniels on the meaning of Jamestown:
Jamestown: Birthplace of America's Distinctive, Secular Ideal
By Eric Daniels
On May 14, America will commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The occasion provides us with an opportunity to understand and celebrate the distinctive, secular ideal underlying America's freedom and prosperity.
Although many Americans recognize that Jamestown was the first permanent English colony in North America (predating the Pilgrims and Puritans of Massachusetts by over a decade), too many mistakenly view the religious ethos of the New England colonies as the impetus for America's flourishing. But the religious colonists, whose moral outlook stands opposed to our ideals of intellectual and political liberty, merely transplanted Old World ideas to new soil. The New World that promised opportunity and progress had begun in Jamestown, where the defining spirit of American individualism was born.
The Jamestown settlement project began, not as a Puritan escape to pursue and enforce a dogmatic faith, but with a group of profit-seeking investors in London pooling capital in a joint-stock company, a forerunner of our modern corporations. Members of the Virginia Company had organized with the goal of uncovering economic opportunity in North America by finding precious metals and possibly a water route to the Pacific.
The intrepid band of 104 adventurers who survived the Atlantic journey, braved a forbidding wilderness, established Jamestown, and faced extreme peril. In its first fragile decade, Jamestown lost hundreds of settlers to disease, starvation, and war, with casualty rates in one harsh winter reaching 80 percent of the colony. Eventually, under the deft leadership of Captain John Smith, the colony weathered these trials to emerge with renewed resolve. Smith himself had risen from modest circumstances in England to lead these adventurers, and he saw America as a land where his kind of self-reliance could flourish.
Though the Virginia Company found little gold and no sea route to Asia, they soon discovered something vastly more important--that economic opportunity lay wherever men were left free to work and create new wealth. In contrast to the rigid class structure and static economy of Jacobean England, America promised rewards based on individual merit. It was this spirit, and not the Puritan belief in cosmic predestination and unthinking duty to God, that attracted men to pursue their own earthly success in the New World.
"Here every man may be master and owner of his own labor and land," Smith noted in one of his many promotional books intended to attract new settlers to America. "If he have nothing but his hands," he boasted, "he may set up his trade, and by industry quickly grow rich." For Smith and the other early settlers of Jamestown, the profound significance of America lay in the possibility that a man could choose, pursue, and realize his own destiny--it lay in a new ideal of individual liberty.
By the late eighteenth century, under the growing influence of that ideal, the colonists began to resist and protest against British imperial controls on their economic and political freedom, which led to the American Revolution. In framing our constitutional government, the Founders put individualism into political practice by protecting individual rights against the claims of any cleric, monarch, or legislative majority. The new nation's founding ideals had emerged in opposition to the religious morality that entailed obedience to Biblical teachings and authority, conformity to the group, and condemnation of worldliness and material success.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the individualist spirit born in Jamestown brought countless millions to America, each looking to create a better life for himself. Through the years, that spirit has fostered untold prosperity by encouraging self-reliant innovators like Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, or James J. Hill. Its legacy lives on in America today, in anyone who believes that each individual owns his own life and has an inalienable right to pursue his own happiness.
In the centuries since Jamestown, America has thrived because of this distinctive ideal--an ideal in marked contrast not only to America's religious colonies but also to the rest of the world today, where duty to the group or to divine command still subjugates millions.
Americans should pause to celebrate the full significance of the Jamestown anniversary as an opportunity to appreciate and rededicate themselves to America's noble spirit of individualism. Doing so will help remind us of the need to defend this value from those who would compromise or attack it. Doing any less would be an act of injustice to those brave men who helped to shape our most important institutions.
Eric Daniels, PhD, is a Visiting Scholar at the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism at Clemson University, and a guest writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." Contact the writer at media@aynrand.org. Labels: History
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| Friday, April 06, 2007 |
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The Jewish War
By Diana Hsieh @ 11:22 AM
I'm currently listening to Flavius Josephus' classic work The Jewish War. It's a history of the Jewish-Roman war fought from 66 to 73 AD, with substantial background. Although I originally wanted to read it as historical context for the development of early Christianity, I'm finding it a very interesting and engaging work in its own right. (I'm in Book 2 right now; the war has yet to begin.)
The work vividly portrays the dangerous political instability of that time -- not just in the highest political offices of Rome, but also the regional and local powers. (That sheds light on the enormous challenge faced by the American Founding Fathers in their quest to create a stable system of republican government.) Moreover, even today's most experienced soap opera writers could learn a thing or two from the lengthy story of King Herod's treacherous family life. (Lies, murders, manipulations, treacheries, paranoia, and more!)
The work also offers much of interest regarding religious fanaticism. For example:
Now there followed after this another calamity, which arose from a tumult made by robbers; for at the public road at Beth-boron, one Stephen, a servant of Caesar, carried some furniture, which the robbers fell upon and seized. Upon this Cureanus sent men to go round about to the neighboring villages, and to bring their inhabitants to him bound, as laying it to their charge that they had not pursued after the thieves, and caught them. Now here it was that a certain soldier, finding the sacred book of the law, tore it to pieces, and threw it into the fire.
Hereupon the Jews were in great disorder, as if their whole country were in a flame, and assembled themselves so many of them by their zeal for their religion, as by an engine, and ran together with united clamor to Cesarea, to Cumanus, and made supplication to him that he would not overlook this man, who had offered such an affront to God, and to his law; but punish him for what he had done. Accordingly, he, perceiving that the multitude would not be quiet unless they had a comfortable answer from him, gave order that the soldier should be brought, and drawn through those that required to have him punished, to execution, which being done, the Jews went their ways. Sound familiar? It should: it's awfully similar to the "pissing on the Koran" story that dominated the news a few years back. These fanatical Jews, like today's Muslims, demand death for blasphemers. (That is the punishment required in the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 24
Josephus' lengthy description of the Essene sect in Book 2, Chapter 8 was also of great interest to me, particularly for the parallels between the doctrines of the Essenes and those of Christianity. To take a small example, Josephus describes the Essenes as follows:
They are eminent for fidelity, and are the ministers of peace; whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but swearing is avoided by them, and they esteem it worse than perjury for they say that he who cannot be believed without [swearing by] God is already condemned. Similarly, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus admonishes:
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, "Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord." But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your "Yes" be "Yes," and your "No," "No"; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. (Matthew 5) If Jesus actually taught this view of oaths, he might have gotten it from the Essenes. (It's less likely that it was a common Jewish teaching at the time, since Josephus is concerned to explain all the strange and unique practices of the Essenes in this chapter.) Alternately, early Christians might have imputed this view of oaths to Jesus based on some familiarity with Essene teachings. From all I've read, I'd have to say that tracing the historical lineage of that idea into Christianity would be impossible: our knowledge of what Jesus actually taught is too uncertain to judge such matters. In fact, I'd say that we really can't know that Jesus taught anything at all -- or even that he existed as anything like any of the various men portrayed in the Gospels. Still, it's interesting that the idea has some historical precedent in Judaism.
Of course, the full meaning of Jesus' command against oaths is widely ignored by Christians today. They routinely swear on this and that and the other thing. I'd like to know: How do Biblical literalists justify such selective obedience to Scripture? It's as if -- so long as you renounce reason to make room for faith in Jesus -- the commands of a truly merciful God become mere suggestions. Yet other commands, like the injunctions against homosexuality in the Law of Moses, are somehow still in full effect. So what do contemporary evangelical Christians say about that?Labels: History
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