Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Human Nature

In his "State Of The Church", address, Pope Benedict described the institution of family under dual attack. First, there is the zeitgeist which questions whether lifelong commitment corresponds to man’s nature or is antithetical to freedom? More deeply, there is also the particular philosophy which leads people to deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. He argues that if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. In asserting the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God

According to Strauss, in thinking about "man’s nature", the classics, not concerned with establishing utopia, asked "what is best for man?", while the moderns, who are so concerned, ask "what can be expected of man?" The Pope argues that it is primarily a false understanding of the nature of human freedom (the true understanding is: "only in self-giving does man find himself") that makes lifelong commitment an unreasonable expectation.

Within American politics the argument for marriage equality, embraces, rather than denies, nature: Homosexuality is asserted to be part of nature. Moreover, the Jewish tradition, at least, can be understood to teach that the freedom to create oneself, far from denying the Maker, is the very definition of being created in the image of God. Denying that freedom calls into question whether or not we have a distinctly human nature.

A stronger variation of the Pope's argument is that the demand for marriage equality stems from marriage being understood as it is experienced -- an "emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction" -- rather than as its social, or higher, purpose -- establishing the best context for rearing children. This way of understanding can be seen to reflect our increasing individual self-centeredness, which, following Strauss, is the natural result of the "Hobbes-ian" project that sought to cultivate a good society without appealing to our best nature.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Science and Politics

When asked by GQ, Marco Rubio stumbled around the age of the universe, saying that how to reconcile the "multiple theories" including "recorded history" and "the Bible" "on how the universe was created" is "one of the great mysteries." After being widely mocked, he clarified that he actually shares Obama's view. According to Krugman, this is an illustration of a general Republican attitude: "If evidence seems to contradict faith, suppress the evidence."

The reality is, of course, that no one has first hand knowledge the age of the universe. Any answer is, structurally, an appeal to authority. On one side is the empirical materialism -- science -- that has given us cell phones and moon landings. On the other, for some of us, is the (biblical) faith that gives our lives structure, meaning and purpose. The evidence of religious faith, denied by Krugman, is powerfully experienced by believers. As Strauss taught, the attempt to reconcile "Athens" and "Jerusalem" -- what Rubio appeared to be doing in mixing "theologians" and "theories" -- bastardizes one or the other. For most of us, no longer 17 or 18, it is enough to understand that human truth is, by nature, limited and unstable -- an understanding shared, in other contexts, with liberals.

It is easy to note that conservatives have no monopoly on bad science. Beyond the obvious: While conservatives may deny global warming, progressives demand costly and by any scientific measure ineffective "solutions". When it suits them politically, liberals deny that science is capable of progress (and conversely..). In the end, Science mixes poorly with politics for the same reason it mixes poorly with religion: Politics in practice, as religion, requires tribal loyalty and fidelity to dogma.

Its important not to lose sight of the political issue at the heart of this: Whether, or to what degree, public schools ought accommodate the beliefs of parents.