A Prayer for America

If lately you have been tempted to pray, "Lord, please make my 401k grow," or "Lord, please make sure those rascals in the other party lose in November," or "Lord, please keep America the greatest nation on earth," let me suggest a more excellent prayer, taken from the ninth chapter of Daniel.  If such a prayer was good enough for Daniel, a man "beloved" by God (9:23), and for God's chosen people, surely it ought to be good enough for us.


O Lord, great and awesome God,
you who keep your covenant and show mercy
toward those who love you and keep your commandments and your precepts!
We have sinned, been wicked and done evil;
we have rebelled and turned from your commandments and your laws.
We have not obeyed your servants the prophets,
who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our ancestors, and all the people of the land.
Justice, O Lord, is on your side;
we are shamefaced even to this day:
the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel,
near and far, in all the lands to which you have scattered them
because of their treachery toward you.
O LORD, we are ashamed, like our kings, our princes, and our ancestors,
for having sinned against you.
But to the Lord, our God, belong compassion and forgiveness,
though we rebelled against him
and did not hear the voice of the LORD, our God,
by walking in his laws given through his servants the prophets.
The curse and the oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God,
were poured out over us for our sins,
because all Israel transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to hear your voice.
He fulfilled the words he spoke against us and against those who ruled us,
by bringing upon us an evil;
no evil so great has happened under heaven as happened in Jerusalem.
As it is written in the law of Moses, this evil has come upon us.
We did not appease the LORD, our God,
by turning back from our wickedness and acting according to your truth,
so the LORD kept watch over the evil and brought it upon us.
The LORD, our God, is just in all that he has done:
we did not listen to his voice.

Now, Lord, our God,
who led your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand,
and made a name for yourself even to this day,
we have sinned, we are guilty.
Lord, in keeping with all your just deeds,
let your anger and your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain.
On account of our sins and the crimes of our ancestors,
Jerusalem and your people have become the reproach of all our neighbors.
Now, our God, hear the prayer and petition of your servant;
and for your own sake, Lord, let your face shine upon your desolate sanctuary.
Give ear, my God, and listen;
open your eyes and look upon our desolate city upon which your name is invoked.
When we present our petition before you,
we rely not on our just deeds, but on your great mercy.
Lord, hear! Lord, pardon! Lord, be attentive and act without delay,
for your own sake, my God,
because your name is invoked upon your city and your people!

The Public Research University Is Broken

Shortly before my graduation and departure from Texas A&M, I had coffee with President R. Bowen Loftin and a few professors.  Money is, of course, tight, so he gave a run-down of the budget and the university's operations.

Day to day spending on things like professors' salaries and the electric bills comes in roughly equal measure from tuition, the endowment, and the state legislature.  Annual tuition is currently $8,419.  If every student paid full tuition, the university would spend about $25,000 per student per year on its dual mission of teaching and research.

Since, however, 71% of students receive some form of financial aid, we have to adjust that number down.  For argument's sake, let's assume that one third of students receiving aid get it from non-university sources (meaning those monies still flow into the university's coffers like regular tuition), while the other two thirds of aid recipients pay half tuition.  This would pull down the tuition revenue figure to $6,427, and thus the total figure to something in the neighborhood of $19,000 per student per year.

Let us now turn our attention to another school I once attended, the University of Dallas.  Current tuition is $29,140 for a full year.  Since UD is a private school, it does not receive money from the state legislature.  Thus, it must rely on its meager endowment and tuition.  Still, assuming 20% from the endowment and 80% from tuition, that would come to $4,905 and $19,629 (adjusted down for the 98% of students receiving aid), respectively, or $24,500 per student per year.

These numbers are extremely rough - I know I have seen better ones for both schools, but I cannot find them now - but they suggest that UD spends 25-30% more per student than does A&M.  This is notable, but not staggering, and probably within the margin of error for this very crude study.

But if the two schools appear to be in the same ballpark, let me add one more piece of information.  UD has a single primary mission: to educate students.

UD's talented faculty do, in fact, publish in a variety of fields, but no one would claim UD is a research university.  Yet A&M, spending as much money or less, professes to have both excellent teaching and world-class research.  I submit to you that this is an impossibility.

Take note, moreover, that A&M is no fly-by-night, University of Phoenix-style operation.  A&M is a well-respected flagship university of Texas, well ranked in a variety of fields and broadly representative of public research universities across the country.  All of which embrace the dual mission of research and teaching.  I submit to you that they cannot fulfill both, and that teaching as been the loser in this fight.  One need only take a glance at a lecture hall of two or three hundred undergraduates to realize that this is not education; it is mass production.

One might quibble that the figures given by President Loftin over coffee some months ago were for day to day operations, and did not include the big ticket research equipment required by the sciences, or the far-flung travels required by many of the arts, which are funded out of different pots.  Even so, consider that professors at UD teach three or four courses per semester; professors at A&M typically teach two, with course releases common for many junior faculty.  Research requires time and time is paid out of salaries.

What, then, are we to conclude?

I am a supporter of research and I have conducted several archival research trips myself.  These things should continue and our society would do well to find ways to fund them.  Moreover, I believe research can have a positive impact on one's teaching.  However, the case that good research leads to good teaching has been overstated.  Bundling teaching and research together has simply confused the question of where resources are going, a confusion which has often been to teaching's disadvantage.

If you or your children are looking at undergraduate educational institutions, be very skeptical of any school claiming the dual mission of research and teaching.  Perhaps it has a staggering endowment - a few do - and is able to accomplish that dual mission.  But don't count on it.

Admittedly, private education is out of reach for many Americans.  Let me suggest, however, that community and junior colleges often offer education which is every bit as good as the large public institutions, and at a fraction the cost.  ("But what about the opportunity to study under leading scholars in their fields?" some might ask.  "Who taught more of your research school classes," I answer, "graduate students or Nobel laureates?"  A&M has both, but the former do more of the teaching.)

Pedagogical Eros

There is something unusual about a pedagogue's love for his pupil. St. John of the Cross, in the Spiritual Canticles states (albeit in a very different context) that "the property of love is to make equal him who loves with the thing he loves." But, toward what or whom is the pedagogue's love directed? The pedagogue is supposed to guide his pupil in a certain subject area--he is supposed to inflame his pupil's intellect with a love for that subject. But, so often the pedagogue turns his attention toward his pupil instead in ways that are not so innocent. Abelard and Heloise are the archetypes of this dynamic, which has been repeated so many times down through the centuries. How many college professors have had affairs with, or secretly lusted after, their students?

That is one typical problem with pedagogues: they re-direct their pupils' eros away from the subject of their studies toward themselves, and seek fulfillment of their relationship in sex. But, there is also another common problem, which though chaster is perhaps even more insidious: pedagogues who wish to make out of their pupils converts to their cause, disciples to follow them. These pedagogues are less inclined to sins of the flesh, but their sin may be worse: they make ideologues out of their pupils in order to satisfy their own egos.

In The Magic Mountain, for example, Thomas Mann gives two good examples of the second type of pedagogue. In the novel Hans Castorp is torn between two pedagogues vying for his attention: Ludovico Settembrini and Leo Naphta. Settembrini represents the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment, while Naphta is a bizarre Jewish, Jesuit proto-fascist. Both men live to debate each other (for hours at a time) and, after both become acquainted with Hans Castorp, they compete for his allegiance, forcing him to listen to their endless dialogues. Each man seeks to save Hans Castorp from the clutches of the other, and the competition is often unseemly, almost like two jealous women fighting over the man they both love. In the end, though, Settembrini turns out to be less selfish than Naphta when he displays a more selfless love for Hans Castorp; he is willing to let go of him, but does not stop loving him, when he finally understands that Hans Castorp will never think exactly like him. It is perfectly fitting, on the other hand, that Naphta shoots himself at his duel with Settembrini, since he has nothing left to live for now that his only pupil has turned away from him and refused to become his disciple. This act of suicide--and a very ostentatious, narcissistic suicide at that--is the act of a man who never really loved his pupil but only saw him as a potential follower or an extension of his ego.

The danger the pedagogue runs is that he will try to turn his pupils into lovers or disciples. Either way, he is not trying to turn his pupil into an equal, into a friend, but is re-directing his pupil's eros towards himself. The challenge the teacher faces is to cultivate common interests and to enjoy a certain intimacy while allowing for other attachments. How well the pedagogue can love without jealousy is one measure of his greatness as a man.

Weird Folk Music

Bob Dylan said in a 1965 interview about folk music: "It's weird, man, full of legend, myth, Bible and ghosts."

Sometimes, the legends can be traced to actual historical events. One example is the Appalachian murder ballad "Omie Wise," which tells the story of a pregnant girl who was drowned by her lover in North Carolina.

The legends, however, can also be less historical and more mythical. One song that is common to Scotland, Ireland, and the Appalachians, under various names, is "The House Carpenter." All the versions of the song tell of a man who comes back from nine months at sea to find his love married to a house carpenter and caring for a child. He then takes her out on his ship where he sinks the ship, killing the woman and her child.



This tale of jealousy, however, takes on more sinister overtones in the Scottish version of the song, which is called "The Demon Lover." In this variant, the woman does not discover until it is too late that her former lover has a cloven hoof. It is then that the demon lover decides to drown her. (The Irish version, as recorded by Dervish, is known as "The Banks of the Sweet Viledee.")



Even more disturbing than the murder ballads are those involving incest. One such song is "The Well below the Valley." The beginning of the song alludes to Christ's conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. However, instead of revealing the woman's multiple adulterous relationships, the stranger at the well reveals that she has murdered six babies she had through incest.

Finally, one reason for the weirdness of certain folk songs is the simple fact that certain words have been lost and the story line has become obscure. For instance, the following version of "Heathery Hills of Yarrow" (also known as the "The Dowie Dens o' Yarrow") was sung by Micheal O'Domhnaill in the 1970's, and later by his sister Triona Ni Dhomhnaill on the Bothy Band's Afterhours; it tells the story of the murder of a woman's lover, but the exact motive is not clear, as it appears to be missing some verses that explain the context.

I Do Have Favorite Novels

The other evening my wife and I were chatting with our pastor.  The topic of conversation turned to novels and he explained that although she has no sympathetic characters and no happy endings, Flannery O'Connor is his favorite novelist.  I have never read any of her works, but I had long intended to.  She may have a genius for writing, but without sympathetic characters or happy endings, count me out!

This set me off on a small crisis: Do I have a favorite novel?  Do I even like novels at all?  As I wracked my brain, I thought of great novels that I never managed to finish (A Tale of Two Cities, The Count of Monte Cristo, Kristin Lavransdatter, The Brothers Karamazov), novels I finished but wished I hadn't (Great Expectations, The Grapes of Wrath, As I Lay Dying), children's novels (The Chronicles of Narnia, The Chronicles of Prydain, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle), biographies (Guerilla, Pitt the Younger), novels I like for some part, most often the ending (The Scarlet Letter, Brighton Rock), and novels that were pretty good but perhaps not great  (Many Dimensions, Dune).  But adult novels that are hands-down, unambiguously, sit-up-and-pay-attention, great works?  Do I really have any favorites, or am I a literary ignoramus?

Have no fear: my doubts were assuaged and - as my poor wife was trying to go to sleep - I assembled a list of some favorite novels:

C. S. Lewis, The Space Trilogy.  Although Lewis considered this a sci-fi series, it is really more fantasy simply set in space.  But the result is still excellent.  Weaving together Christian theology, Roman mythology, and Arthurian legend, Lewis crafts a story which contains several particularly stunning scenes and brings the medieval world-view to the modern age.

Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz.  This novel, set in post-apocalyptic America, tells the story of an order of monks which seeks holiness and truth while trying to re-build civilization.  The novel addresses questions of faith and science, Church and state, and the dignity of human life, all in a way that hangs together and is moving without being cheesy.

Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire.  I read an advanced reading copy of Gates of Fire many years ago and re-read it a couple times thereafter.  Pressfield's novel of the Battle of Thermopylae is not for everyone - the very first word of the novel is not one for polite company - but he has drunk deeply of both ancient Greek literature and the memoirs of modern soldiers, creating an account of ancient warfare which is convincing on both counts, while also asking big questions about human nature.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen produces vivid and hilarious characters; her writing, though about a society more formal than our own, is deeply witty.  But her greatest genius is for understated insights into character and virtue.  Her prose flows along in such an enjoyable and almost obvious way that one might miss the keen observations of human nature, observations which might have been termed "common sense" in another age, but are largely lost on our own.

The Church's Teaching on Unions

In view of the recent attempt by organized labor to unseat Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, and the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Knox v. Service Employees International Union that unions need explicit permission to spend certain monies on political causes, I found the Church's teaching on organized labor a fruitful reflection. Below are two paragraphs from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, after which I'll hazard to offer a few comments:

306. The Church's social doctrine teaches that relations within the world of work must be marked by cooperation: hatred and attempts to eliminate the other are completely unacceptable. This is also the case because in every social system both “labour” and “capital” represent indispensable components of the process of production. In light of this understanding, the Church's social doctrine “does not hold that unions are no more than a reflection of the ‘class' structure of society and that they are a mouthpiece for a class struggle which inevitably governs social life”.[Laborem Exercens, 20] Properly speaking, unions are promoters of the struggle for social justice, for the rights of workers in their particular professions: “This struggle should be seen as a normal endeavour ‘for' the just good ... not a struggle ‘against' others”.[Ibid., 20] Being first of all instruments of solidarity and justice, unions may not misuse the tools of contention; because of what they are called to do, they must overcome the temptation of believing that all workers should be union-members, they must be capable of self-regulation and be able to evaluate the consequences that their decisions will have on the common good.[CCC, 670]

307. Beyond their function of defending and vindicating, unions have the duty of acting as representatives working for “the proper arrangement of economic life” and of educating the social consciences of workers so that they will feel that they have an active role, according to their proper capacities and aptitudes, in the whole task of economic and social development and in the attainment of the universal common good.[Gaudium et Spes, 68] Unions and other forms of labour associations are to work in cooperation with other social entities and are to take an interest in the management of public matters. Union organizations have the duty to exercise influence in the political arena, making it duly sensitive to labour problems and helping it to work so that workers' rights are respected. Unions do not, however, have the character of “political parties” struggling for power, and they should not be forced to submit to the decisions of political parties nor be too closely linked to them. “In such a situation they easily lose contact with their specific role, which is to secure the just rights of workers within the framework of the common good of the whole of society; instead they become an instrument used for other purposes”.[Laborem Exercens, 20]

Two things strike me as salient: First, the Church is extremely pro-union. That organization of workers is not only a right but also a means to promote justice and solidarity is quite clear. No meaningful discussion of unions can ignore this message. Second, however, it seems equally clear that the practice of American organized labor at present falls short of the Church's full vision.

One may argue whether unions or their opponents are responsible for the present bout of vitriol; in either case, labor relations are at present characterized by hatred rather than cooperation. Likewise, while it is reasonable for non-unionized workers who benefit from collective bargaining to share in its costs, the existence of closed shops which compel union membership suggest union leaders have not fully taken to heart the notion that not all workers need be unionized. The Supreme Court just ruled on the practice of using money collected from non-union workers for political purposes. SEIU argued that so long as workers were notified and given the chance to opt out, justice was served; the Court thought otherwise, insisting that non-union workers give their explicit permission before their non-voluntary contributions are used in this way. Even if one disagrees with the Court's ruling on the legality of the matter, it hardly seems like best practice, and suggests to me that SEIU is not properly "capable of self-regulation." The Church's teaching on the political role of unions is very finely balanced: organized labor has a duty to be active in the political sphere, but should not strive for political power nor become too closely linked with political parties, which are apt to use them for political ends. The opposition - even hatred - of many in the Republican party toward organized labor makes it unsurprising that unions are associated nigh exclusively with the Democrats. Still, one must wonder whether the cause of unions (or any other cause: the pro-life movement, environmental campaigns, etc...) is best served by exclusive association with a single party. I fear that when a party can count on the support of a given group, it tends to abandon the cause and milk the group for cash and votes.

Finally, there is the question of public sector unions, which sparked the Wisconsin recall election. The Church teaches that unions "must... be able to evaluate the consequences that their decisions will have on the common good." I would argue that this supports an idea I have considered for some time: public sector unions are a substantially different matter from those in the private sector. In the private sector, workers have an interest in ensuring their personal wages and well-being, but also the well-being of their corporation; if it loses profitability and goes bankrupt, they are likely to lose their jobs. This reality encourages prudence and discourages the temptation on the part of workers to make unreasonable demands. In the public sector, if workers demand too much and state agencies go bankrupt, such agencies either close - costing workers their jobs, but also the public their services - or turn to the taxpayers for additional money. Thus, public sector workers have far less reason to worry about demanding too much or otherwise "misus[ing] the tools of contention."

The Geometric Conception of Property

Two years ago, I wrote a post comparing Aristotle and Locke's views of property, the main idea of which was that the modern Lockean view of property created a view of property that was essentially acquisitive--the owner creates the property through his labor. Under the ancient Aristotelian view, on the other hand, the owner held his land in trust--he took care of what he already had so that he could then devote his free time to politics and pass on the land to his children. The modern view naturally tends to treat the land as a commodity for use in business, while the ancient view treats land as the source of leisure. As a result of this basic change in mentality, forms of land tenure changed so that it became more readily available in commerce. For instance, in America courts have long discouraged restraints on alienation and nearly all legislatures have abolished the fee tail. This not only has made the land easier to buy and sell, but also to mortgage, thus making large-scale borrowing possible for many people of relatively modest means. The longstanding tendency in modern America has been to make land as liquid an asset as possible.

Theoretical considerations, I argued, have radically changed our views of property, but the law of unintended consequences is always at work, as witness Thomas Jefferson's introduction of sections and ranges into land measurement (see Will Hoyt's article in Front Porch Republic). Jefferson hoped to encourage local liberty by distributing property as widely as possible among a class of yeoman farmers; the pre-modern nature of Jefferson's project becomes especially clear when one notices the archaic words he borrows from Anglo-Saxon law to describe his ideal republic. However, Jefferson tried to implement this goal with a thoroughly modern means, by parceling land in a huge grid using state-of-the-art surveying technology, which spread across the Midwest after passage of the Northwest Ordinance.

As Hoyt points out, partly as a result of Jefferson's efforts, land in America came to be viewed in abstract geometric terms, as a commodity, whose value could be easily calculated in dollars and cents for sale on the marketplace. Restraints on alienation disappeared as more and more settlers wanted to be able to move on at short notice, so that today the only forms of tenure that matter are the fee simple and the leasehold. Restrictive covenants and easements, while still allowed, are generally disfavored, except for utility and railroad easements which improve a parcel's access to the modern economy. Most importantly, legally there are strict limits on the kind of mutual obligations a land owner can impose on future generations, and if there is any doubt as to the donor's intent, courts will interpret a will or trust instrument in such a way as to impose as few obligations on the donor's descendants as possible.

A recent example of the disappearance of pre-modern land tenure appeared a few months ago in Ipswich, Massachusetts (see the March 2, 2012, Wall Street Journal). The original owner of the land dictated in his will that the land was never to be sold and that the rents were to be used for the maintenance of free schools. The donor's intent was clearly to enforce mutual obligations into perpetuity, in the hope of binding the community together in one of its most important institutions, the local public school. This arrangement continued for over 300 years until a controversy arose over the trustees' management of the rents from the property, and now a court has allowed a sale of the property despite the clear instructions in the will.

Given the development in American law, it is not much of a surprise that the property will be sold and converted to a fee simple. This is simply one of the most recent victories of the Lockean view of property over a corner of the world that had resisted long after the rest of America had changed.