Category: Political Matters
Tuesday, July 16, Open Source commentary
Did we make ourselves this way?
As someone who has fought overweight most of his life, I have mixed feelings about Wesley Smith’s facile suggestion that our kind (he includes himself) “made ourselves that way.”
Our moms were following dietary “wisdom” promulgated by a government that even then was unduly influenced by folks who stood to make money by our eating choices (e.g., X servings of dairly per day; protein, protein, protein!).
Moms responded rationally to what was dirt-cheap because it was subsidized. Why do you think there’s corn, corn everywhere today, including oceans of high-fructose corn syrup?
Today, mom works 9 to 5 because dad can no longer support the family alone. That, in turn, is because it’s government policy, influenced by business interests in having more workers seeking jobs so as to keep wages low, to “liberate” women from the “drudgery” of staying home. Self-employment’s daunting for dad because health care is somewhat correlated to health insurance which is strongly connected to working for some entity that can deduct the premiums – as a result, mirabile dictu, of government policy.
But consumption must be high – high as in the consumerist frenzy on which the Great Ponzi Scheme depends for a simulacrum of being coherent and successful. Frugality is a sin. The transvaluation of values marches on.
When mom gets home, she’s kinda beat and doesn’t want to be bothered with cooking whole foods before the kids rush off to the evening activities that are now de rigeur. How about some M&C with weenies and high-fructose ketchup? What could be more American?
Self-control is a nice theory, but our bodies responded almost slavishly to the swings of blood sugar wrought by eating over-processed (high glycemic index) foods.
I think I’ve found the answer personally, but it’s been a long series of trial-and-error, and I only was able to try and err repeatedly because I’m educated and well-off enough to move weight control up in the triage line of competing concerns. In other words, I’m eating counter-culturally. Not everyone can do that.
Government policy fed us; it will take some government policy changes to slim us again.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Open source potpourri
Isn’t that what friends are for?
From The Writer’s Almanac for July 6:
It was on this day in 1535 that Sir Thomas More was beheaded in the Tower of London for refusing to recognize his longtime friend King Henry VIII as the head of the Church. Thomas More was a barrister, a scholar, and a writer. He was the author of Utopia (1516), a controversial novel about an imaginary island, where society was based on equality for all people. It is from this novel that we get our word “utopia.”
Sir Thomas More was a champion of King Henry VIII and helped him write rebuttals to Martin Luther’s attacks on Henry. More presented sound theological arguments, and he also said things like, “Come, do not rage so violently, good father; but if you have raved wildly enough, listen now, you pimp.” And (also about Luther): “If he proceeds to play the buffoon in the manner in which he has begun, and to rave madly, if he proceeds to rage with calumny, to mouth trifling nonsense, to act like a raging madman, to make sport with buffoonery, and to carry nothing in his mouth but bilge-water, sewers, privies, filth and dung, then let others do what they will …”
Thomas More was a staunch Catholic, and so for a while, he and King Henry were both aligned against Protestantism, and Henry made More his Lord Chancellor. But then Henry decided to break with the Church and declare himself Supreme Head of the English Church, and More refused to sign an oath recognizing Henry above the rest of the Church. Finally, Henry had More beheaded.
Be it noted that this beheading was loosely motivated by “religion,” but rather more proximately by the King’s desire to keep the realm united after he apostatized in pursuit of a piece of tail successor to the throne.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
“Only on the social issues.”
Danton and Robespierre
Ross Douthat and Rod Dreher, both of whom disagree with Andrew Sullivan on same-sex marriage, nevertheless agree that he’s the most important political writer of his generation.
Dreher’s synopsis of Sullivan’s significance at this historic moment really grabbed me, and summarizes my forebodings: “I think he’s something of a Danton figure. Now, I fear, come the Robespierres.”
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
What Sunday IS this?
Today is variously Pulpit Freedom Sunday 2013 or, in relevant contrast, the 6th Sunday of Pascha, the “Sunday of the Blind Man.” Continue reading “What Sunday IS this?”
“God terms”
Having yesterday expressed my bafflement at a genre of article after an instantiation thereof appeared at First Things, let me commend R. R. Reno’s “God Terms in Public Life.” It’s not what I thought. It’s better than that.
Every culture thrills to its favored words or concepts. In The Ethics of Rhetoric, Richard Weaver dubbed them “god terms.” They’re the argument-ending, conclusive words that we find intrinsically persuasive because they express our deep prejudices about what’s good and true and beautiful.
Weaver wrote The Ethics of Rhetoric after World War II. The god terms in his day were “progressive,” “democratic,” “scientific,” and so forth. If a local school board was unsure about changes introduced by the recently hired district head, he could reassure them with these god terms. “Our goal with this new plan is to provide the children of Muscatine with a progressive, scientifically-designed curriculum that draws on the very best of our democratic traditions.”
Changed god terms signal changes in culture. For example, the value of “scientific” has declined. Today’s brand managers are far more likely to describe a new toothpaste or shaving cream as “organic” than “scientifically proven.” Agricultural scientists and developmental economists can make excellent arguments about the virtues of genetically modified seeds. They allow increase yields while reducing the use of fertilizers, pesticides, etc. But the god term sweeps all these considerations away. Organic is good; its opposite is bad. Therefore genetically modified foods must be prohibited. QED.
Among todays God terms are “equality,” as in:
If you find that offensive, blame me for the example, not Reno, and go enjoy a thought-provoking angle on a chronic human condition.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
