Purpose of Religious Ritual

Sorcery: The attempt to control the supernatural through words and ritual

Religion: The (normally collective) attempt to interact with the supernatural through words and ritual

I don't think the line is fine, but I do think there is danger in treading it carelessly. Sometimes in the practise of religion there is a worrying tendency to think of ourselves as in control, to think of God as accountable to us, to forget, as C.S. Lewis put it, 'He's not a tame lion'. Religion should help us recognise our dependence on God, not fool us into thinking He can be won over to do our bidding, if only we say the right words with the right rituals.

My Choice

After a very long break from blogging...

The dogmas of the past are quite inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

So said Abraham Lincoln in his Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862. Last year, Al Gore recalled these words to express the need for greater clarity in thinking and greater urgency in acting on climate change.

I admit that I am feeling the need to think anew on the issue of climate change. I am relatively ignorant and passive at the moment, partly because I feel the science is too far over my head, but I see that that is not a worthy excuse. I am in two minds over whether I will try and read Al Gore's latest book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis. I am sure it will be based on good scientific research and I like that it is analysing various solutions rather than just describing the problem. That said, I didn't like the last Al Gore book I read, The Assault on Reason. Although I thought it had some really important things to say, it was so infuriatingly political and intolerably biased. As a 'call to action,' Our Choice promises to be more of the same. Also, since I probably won't be able to see where the science is weak, I will basically have to choose to trust it. And, as a general rule, I don't trust politicians too much.

I was very interested to read that the book incorporates 'the spiritual dimension of climate change, the idea that God gave man stewardship over the earth, and that preserving it for future generations is a sacred obligation'. In an interview, Gore said that he had 'trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders' in a presentation 'filled with scriptural references'. He said, 'It's probably my favorite version [of the presentation], but I don't use it much because it can come off as proselytizing'. (Imagine that! A politician hesitant in proselytizing. I would have thought his whole career, including this book, would be based on converting others to his own beliefs - certainly that has been the case in every word I have ever heard come out of his mouth. I know, I know, he means specifically religious proselytizing, but it's still pretty ironic.) Anyways, even if the spiritual is referred to only as a point of connection with the religious, I am impressed that Gore is trying to look at the issue holistically.

At least if I do get around to reading the book I can do so in good faith knowing that it 'will feature 100% recycled paper, locally produced and sourced editions, low VOC inks, and will be carbon neutral' (which should save 1,513 trees and 126,000 pounds of carbon dioxide) and all profits go to Gore's initiative, The Alliance for Climate Protection. What is there to lose...except for $15.78?

Mike Paget on Abortion

I was listening to a sermon Mike Paget gave on abortion earlier this year at my old church in Sydney, St Barnabas, Broadway. I feel he had some really good comments to make. He went through why he thought abortion was not compatible with biblical Christianity, and why it was socially detrimental, citing many frightening stats. He then concluded with how he wanted to see his church responding to the issue of abortion:

It is my hope and prayer that we will see in this community more babies born to unmarried women than in the world around us, because it is my prayer that they will not choose to abort those children out of fear of shame. Because, friends, we will celebrate the birth of every one of these children, and we will celebrate the courage of every one of these women, because where there is repentance and forgiveness there is no longer any shame, and woe betide the person who imputes shame where God has paid with his blood to make it go away.

Christian communities tend to be pretty good at stigmatizing those who sin's are outwardly visible, rather than rejoicing what sin reveals the glory of grace, the continual opportunity for forgiveness. We can be so afraid that people will use grace as an excuse for sin, that we fail to practise grace.

Youth Decide

At uni and around this week, there has been a fair bit of promotion for an event called Youth Decide, organised by Australian Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision. The AYCC website explains:

Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change. It is our best chance to send the government a strong message that youth want a say in their future - before it's too late. This December, at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, Australia has the opportunity to lead the way in a global action plan on climate change. A united youth voice will help comple the Australian government to lead the way in securing a strong global agreement.

You can be part of this historic moment, when young people around the nation will vote on our future. We need YOU to hold a voting event in your school, uni, TAFE or community. Together we can solve climate change!

I decided to check out the Youth Decide website and was really frustrated by it. Here is why:

1. The vote asks you to choose between three possible worlds: the first is a completely devestated world (where emissions are reduced from 1990 levels by 4-24%), the second is another crappy world (emissions reduced by 25-40%), and a beautifully preserved world (emissions reduced by >40%). Statistic provided show that the more emission are reduced the more perfect the world would be.
   Naturally, everyone, including myself, would prefer a beautiful world, but there is a massive problem in what is present by the Youth Decide figures. It shows the costs of not acting, but only dismissively mentions the costs of acting ("the short term economic costs would be higher [for World 3] than form World 1 and 2, however, much of the economic costs associated with climate change will be avoided").
   Imagine you go shopping and find a beautiful dress you would like to buy. Would you like to pay (a) $10, (b) $50, or (c) $300 to buy the dress? Well, obviously, $10 is the best option, and you would be senseless to opt for anything else. But what you are not told is that if you choose to pay only $10 then the dress you buy will have been made from cotton produced by Pakistani farmers who were paid a pittance, manufactured by child labour in the Philippines, and sold to you by a Sudanese refugee getting paid far below the minimum wage. Does knowing these social costs influence your decision? Well, I certainly hope so!
   The Youth Decide vote it fails to show a balanced view by dismissing many negative externalities of drastically reducing emssions. There would be huge social costs to changing our economy and way of life, but the website makes them sound neglible.
   
   
2. The webiste claims, 'Each world is based on the target that Australia sets as part of a global limit on greenhouse gases,' but this causal link between Australian policies and global outcomes is almost entirely fictional. I am not a climate change denier, but I am a skeptic in that I don't understand it enough to fully agree or disagree with the claim that human activity is the primary cause of change in climate patterns. But, even if we do accept that theory as true, not even the most extreme voices on climate change would suggest that global climate patterns are as dependant upon Australian government policies as Youth Decide implies. Perhaps, when combined with all other developed nations there is an argument to be made, but Australia unilaterally changed its policies without similar action by other major polluters is no means to the third world presented by Youth Decide.
   
   
3. The vote shifts ALL responsibility onto the government without acknowledging that the choices of individuals are also important. The kind of transport we use, the food we eat, the way we heat our homes etc. is all affecting emission levels to small degrees. I desperately hope the Australian government does not consider basing its policies on the preferences of 12-year-olds - particularly those basing their decisions on the evidence presented by Youth Decide - but a positive difference that youth could be encouraged to make is in their own personal ethics.
   
   
4. The developing world is completely ignored, in a horrendously paternalistic manner. The poor developing world is excluded from any role in the process of combating climate change - apparently they are too poor and weak to do anything. If this is a global issue, then it should be a global effort, not purely the directives of the first. The developing world, particularly China, makes a massive contribution to emissions and there needs to be consideration fof the part they may play in the solution.
   
   
5. The Youth decide website claims to have referenced 'the most credible science available,' by which they seem to mean the Stern Review and the Garnaut Review (the two sources chiefly cited). Again, I don't know enough science to really make adequate comment, but there is a lot of literature out there that suggests they may not be the 'most credible science'. It may or may not be significant that neither Nicholas Stern nor Ross Garnaut are scientists either. But, as a brief aside, a saw one criticism which was fairly interesting, addressing the claim that higher carbon dioxide levels would reduce food supply and plant life. Apparently, higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere has been shown to lead to much higher crop yields and faster reforestation. Cutting carbon dioxide levels plant growth, pasture yields, and livestock productivity, contrary to the picture presented by Youth Decide. But I wouldn't trust myself as a critic of science, so you probably shouldn't either.

I am glad that the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and World Vision want young people to be thinking about the issue fo climate change, but Youth Decide is a disgrace to these organizations.

dub-ya

The other day I watched W., Oliver Stone’s biographical film on the rise and fall of President George W. Bush. It has some good acting, and great comedy, but I found it hard to get around the politics of the film. It is completely patronizing in its attitude towards Bush, and pretty unforgiving.

The film cuts between a young Bush, wild, alcoholic and aimless, and Bush during his presidency, with repeated suggestions that – even though he appears to have changed, sobering up and finding a drive – at his core he is the same weak, reckless boy looking for his father’s approval.

Stone’s Bush is very emotionally vulnerable – always searching for reassurance. And this is his motivation for the presidency – he needs to earn his father’s recognition, he needs to hear the crowds cheering him, he needs to be recognized as the boss. Other than problems with insecurity and his ego, Bush is also presented as pretty dim-witted, reckless, irresponsible and, worst of all, religious. I don’t know if it was intentional, but Josh Brolin’s depiction of Bush is also really annoying. His one redeeming feature is his sincerity.

Others in the Bush administration are equally repulsive in the film: Condoleezza Rice is a spineless suck-up, whose only role in the administration is to feed Bush’s ego; Dick Cheney is completely unethical and spiteful; Donald Rumsfeld is a blind idealist. The exception is the sympathy given to Colin Powell, who, though perceptive and honorable, eventually compromises his beliefs in supporting of the hapless Bush.

I wasn’t hoping for something even-handed, and I certainly didn't want a story of glory and triumph invented for Bush, but I do tire at what seem like cheap shots at the guy. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t cut out for presidency, but he did have his moments.

I don’t think he was as self-serving as Oliver Stone makes out – I think he really cared about freedom, justice, America, and God. Frankly, the guy could be inspiring in his vision. Like in his speech at Goree Island (a place infamously associated with the American slave trade):

In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters. Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence and asked the self-evident question, then why not me?

In the year of America's founding, a man named Olaudah Equiano was taken in bondage to the New World. He witnessed all of slavery's cruelties, the ruthless and the petty. He also saw beyond the slave-holding piety of the time to a higher standard of humanity. "God tells us," wrote Equiano, "that the oppressor and the oppressed are both in His hands. And if these are not the poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruised which our Savior speaks of, who are they?"

Down through the years, African Americans have upheld the ideals of America by exposing laws and habits contradicting those ideals. The rights of African Americans were not the gift of those in authority. Those rights were granted by the Author of Life, and regained by the persistence and courage of African Americans, themselves.

Now in Obama era, it seems Bush’s sole legacy is the failed Iraq War and all those old Bushisms, and as important it is to learn from the former and enjoy the latter, surely there is cause for balance.

For example, consider this:

Many people saw the 2004 presidential election as pitting Americans who are religious against those who are not. An article by Steven Waldman in the online magazine Slate provides some perspective on the divide:

"As you may already know, one of America's two political parties is extremely religious. Sixty-one percent of this party's voters say they pray daily or more often. An astounding 92 percent of them believe in life after death. And there's a hard-core subgroup in this party of super-religious Christian zealots. Very conservative on gay marriage, half of the members of this subgroup believe Bush uses too little religious rhetoric, and 51 percent of them believe God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfills the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus."

The group that Waldman is talking about is Democrats; the hard-core subgroup is African-American Democrats.

Bush wasn’t elected by political or religious extremists – post-9/11 he had an unprecedented approval rating of 90%. Obama has his work cut out patching up the holes Bush left behind, but let’s keep some perspective.

I wish I understood economics

Studying International Politics and Development Studies, I quite often have to interact with economics. Most of the time it’s very basic, so I quite enjoy it. But then I will be doing some reading, as I was just the other day, and I’ll come across something like this….…and I thank God I am an Arts student. In case you are interested, that equation is meant to show something about how the domestic policies of country i effect inflation over time period t.

But I really do wish I could understand economics, then, perhaps, I could grasp the true significance of the following:

• The estimated cost of the US War in Afghanistan: $225,502,000,000
• The estimated cost of the US War in Iraq: $677,805,000,000
• Total cost of US wars since 2001: $903,307,000,000 [1]
• The US budget for Iraq in the 2007 financial year: $4,988/Iraqi. This is triple Iraq's per-person GDP. [2]
  
  
• In 2009, the US government will:
  icrease spending by 22%
  spend $30,958 per household
  tax $17,576 per household
  borrow $13,392 per household
• More than 43 cents of every dollar Washington spends in 2009 will have been borrowed
• President Obama would permanently keep annual spending between $5,000 and $8,000 per household higher than it had been under President George W. Bush
• The Obama Administration has been predicted to accumulate more government debt than every President in American history from George Washington to George W. Bush combined.
• By 2019, the US government will spend almost $800 billion as net interest on debts [3]
  
  
• The US has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. [4]
  
  
• Total debts of the developing world in 2006: $2.7 trillion
• Total official development assistance in 2006: $106 billion [5]

[1]

http://costofwar.com/
[2] http://zfacts.com/p/447.html
[3] http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/wm2595.cfm
[4] http://web.archive.org/web/20020604053519/http:/www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,706484,00.html
[5] http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

Holiday Reading

Here are some mini-reviews of what I have been reading over my holidays.

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
At the end of semester I was reading masses of Dickens for an essay on his views on childhood, and I enjoyed him enough that I couldn’t put him aside altogether when the holidays came around. The Old Curiosity Shop is the tragic tale of Nell Trent, an orphan who lives in poverty with her foolish but loving grandfather. She is the victim both of a negligent guardian, an apathetic society and the sinister Quilp.

Nell, ultimately, is unconvincing as a character; she is simply too innocent and pure to have emerged from the corrupt world of the London slums. The novel is too long and the last third is predictable and fairly superfluous to the whole. That said, Dickens is always a pleasure, and the novel offers some wonderful characters.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
I really enjoy Crane’s poetry, so I had wanted to read his prose for some time. And he didn’t disappoint. The Red Badge of Courage follows the experiences of a youthful recruit to the American Civil War. In his first battle the boy takes flight and wanders aimlessly coming to terms with his own cowardice and the ugliness of war. When he returns to his regiment he lies about having bravely fought at the other end of the battle. The title refers to the war wounds that attest to the heroics of a man, and the young recruits lack of wounds reminds him of his failure. Over the course of the novel we see him both grow into manhood and fall beneath humanity in the horrors and glory of war.

This is a fantastic discussion of youth and war and probably the most worthwhile read of my holidays.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
I had never read Hemingway and I came to the novella with pretty high expectations (it did win both a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize). It wasn’t what I expected.

It is very simple, reading like a child’s story. It only has two real characters, Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, both honourable and skilful, but facing the realities of age, and Manolin, Santiago’s devoted protégé. Perhaps the third character would be the great marlin, with whom Santiago is determined to battle to the death. The old man has the highest respect for both the marlin and the sea, but these also serve as his fierce opponents throughout.
The story is essentially about Santiago – his relationship with the environment, his endurance, his triumph and his loss. The novella is endearing, but in the end I think I was hoping for a little bit more. Still, I would recommend it.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Green
Graham Greene is one of my favorite authors; his novels are beautifully written and always leave me thinking for weeks after I read them. Although I enjoyed it less then some of his other novels, The Power and the Glory was no exception in this regard. It is the story of a ‘whisky priest’ in Mexico at a time when Catholicism was outlawed. The priest travels around performing the Catholic rites and evading the government officials, who have placed a bounty on his head. Because of the bounty, he must also mistrust all others he comes into contact with.

I found that it took a long time for the novel to gain momentum as it jumps around a lot. The characters are, for the most part, very unpleasant. The ‘whisky priest’ is an alcoholic, who gambles, fornicates, lies, takes from the poor and lets the innocent die in his place. And he is fully aware of his own depravity, and someone he must reconcile this with his position of respect, which he refuses to surrender. The other main character is the lieutenant who pursues the ‘whisky priest’ and aims to eliminate Catholicism, which he perceives as a source of the poverty and ignorance of the populace. The lieutenant is devoted to his people, yet is willing to sacrifice individuals if it leads to the capture of the priest. His idealism, though admirable on one level, is dangerous in much the same way that the priest’s religion is considered to be dangerous – it acts as a justification for horrendous acts.

Power and the Glory is one of those novels where the author wants to feel to monotony of the characters’ lives. Often when this occurs you also start feeling that the book itself is monotonous. It was a worthwhile, if not a particularly gripping read.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Short but dramatic. I read it in one sitting on the train, and then sat back for an hour trying to absorb the shock.
Lennie and George are drifters. They go from ranch to ranch trying to work up a stake, but are repeatedly forced to move on when the lumbering, dim-witted Lennie falls into trouble. Yet, George remains with Lennie as an alternative to the abject loneliness of those around them.

Life for those in the novel is an essentially lonely and disappointing experience. Many hold hopes of a better life – a life of fame, or of independence, or of respect. But, reality inevitably crushes these hopes and the individual is forced to settle for the cards fate has dealt them.

Steinbeck’s writing is simple, raw, and real. Almost every character is initially despised for their obvious flaws, but as the readers learns of their experiences they understand that all are simply victims of a harsh and corrupting world. I loved it.

The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark
After a series of novels, I felt I really needed some good non-fiction holiday reading. I generally read fairly little non-fiction just because I get so much in my course and prefer to relax with fiction. But I can only go so long before I need both.

The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries is impressive in the clarity and with which it answers a complex question of history. Stark is a professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington and he masterfully applies contemporary historical research and modern sociological and psychological principles to and age-old mystery. He shows how religious development in the first century essentially operated in much the same ways as it does in the twenty-first, and how the culture of the time suited the growth of a religion like Christianity.
It worth reading just for what it shows about life in the Roman Empire, whilst also enabling one to critically look at religious movements as a universal phenomenon. Highly recommended.

The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark
Having enjoyed The Rise of Christianity so much, I was eager to hear Stark’s perspective on another of fascinating period of history – the Dark Ages. Starks sets out to prove that “Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success”, and he ruthless against suggestions that the religion did anything but. His writing is far more assertive, far less humble and, for me, less enjoyable.

Whereas The Rise of Christianity was structured around answering a few specific questions, The Victory of Reason sweeps through the centuries between the fall of Rome and the French Revolution showing how each and every development in industry, economics, technology and philosophy came from Christianity or the Catholic Church. He makes some huge claims without the evidence that he painstakingly put together in The Rise of Christianity. Yet, I do not question the validity of much of what he said, and it great learning experience for some so ill-versed in Medieval history as myself. A very worthwhile read, and inspiring enough that I may seek out another of Stark’s works in the future.

The novel ends with a quote from “one of China’s leading scholars”:

One of the things we [the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences] were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.

Gender and Twilight

I have had a number of conversations in recent months with girls who tell me they would not read the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series.[1] Not because it is trashy writing, but because they find the novels emotionally manipulating, likening them to pornography for girls.

The similarities with pornography are evident. Porn's attraction is that it baits a deeply embedded sexual impulse. It creates a fantasy world where these desires can be satisfied, free from the complications of a relationship. Time spent in this fantasy also affects the view of reality. So, acceptance of a fantasy world where women exist as nothing more than sexual objects, creates a real expectation that women will conform to this identity. Within a marriage, it also forces a women to compete with an impossible ideal, which can have a whole series of consequences.[2] The claim about Twilight is that it creates a fantasy world where a woman can assume the role of Bella and feel protected and loved by the adorable Edward Cullen. The more one feeds on this fantasy the more one's actual expectations of relationships change. Thus, readers of the novels will be expecting the impossible, the perfect man.

Yet, I don't really see the two as equivalent. Partly because Twilight presents what seems like a fairly positive ideal - a man who will sacrificially and unconditionally love - whilst pornography presents a very low ideal. Whilst the object of pornography may be physically perfect, they do not selflessly deny their desires, like Edward Cullen, but they have no desires of their own, apart from that of satisfying the consumer.

Also, I don't think the emotional desires of women which are evoked in the novels correspond to the sexual desires of men. Men have emotional desires which correspond far more closely.[3]

From my experience, I would say a novel like Tess of the d'Urbervilles might be the male equivalent to Twilight. Tess, by Thomas Hardy, is about a poor, naive girl who selflessly labours for the good of her family. Her naivety and good intentions are repeatedly abused by the men in her life, most notably in her rape [4] and her abandonment by her husband, Angel, on their wedding day. I once recommended the novel to a friend thinking that, because it had a female heroine, it would have a strong appeal to a female audience. It was only later that it really occurred to me that, although Tess is the protagonist, she is not a heroine. She is almost passive in her submission to the influences of Alec and Angel and her actions consistently lead her into, rather than away from, danger.

The novel very strongly brings out the protective instincts in a guy. Tess, beautiful and selfless, so clearly deserves a man who will protect her and appreciate her obvious virtue. The male reader observes how time and time again she is led into tragic circumstances, knowing that in each case that the male in her life - be it her irresponsible father, the cunning Alec or the unforgiving Angel - should have protected her. The man wishes he was in the story so that he could spare Tess from her suffering. So also the female reader of Twilight who wishes they were in the story so that Edward Cullen could love and protect them.

Bella is far from an ideal women - she is plain, uncoordinated and lacking in confidence. It is because of this that the novel is so emotive; the female reader is able to feel that they are more worthy of Edward Cullen than Bella. In Tess, Alec and Angel are so selfish they prove themselves unworthy of Tess. The bar is low enough that almost any reader is justified in feeling they are better equipped to protect and love Tess.

In both of these novels, there is a clear distinction in the gender roles of male and female: the man is the protector and the woman is the object of his protection. But the obvious difference is that Tess was written pre-feminism. It greatly surprises me that Twilight has been such a raging success in Western culture. Our society as a whole seems to be informing girls that gender distinction is not important, yet, when a novel emerges that seems to present the opposite message, it is a phenomenal success. American psychologist, Leonard Sax, has given this explanation:

Bella has broad appeal; as many girls can appreciate, she likes watching reruns of "The Simpsons" while she nibbles on Pop-Tarts. But the twist is that Bella's ideas about gender roles are decidedly unfeminist. The pairing of a modern setting and traditional gender roles is unusual in children's and teen literature…

Three decades of adults pretending that gender doesn't matter haven't created a generation of feminists who don't need men; they have instead created a horde of girls who adore the traditional male and female roles and relationships in the "Twilight" saga. Likewise, ignoring gender differences hasn't created a generation of boys who muse about their feelings while they work on their scrapbooks. Instead, a growing number of boys in this country spend much of their free time absorbed in the masculine mayhem of video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Halo or surfing the Internet for pornography. [5]

With the continuing popularity of Austen and the like, it is clear that there is a deep attraction towards traditional gender roles. But, at least in Austen the heroines are courageous and admirable, unlike Bella. Bella must be weak in order to highlight the strength of Edward, in much the same way that Tess's virtue is highlighted by the selfishness of the men around her.


[1] I have not actually read any of the novels, or seen the movie so it is quite possible that my observations of it are entirely false. If so, please leave a comment that says so. Thanks to my teenage sister, both the books and the movie are sitting around my house and I considered having a look at them before writing this post, but then I decided that I have far better things to do with my time.
[2] This presentation presents a fairly confronting description of the effects of pornography in relationships and society.
[3] However, I would concede that the emotional desires appear to be more powerful in women.
[4] The actual scene of the rape is not recounted, and it is never clear the extent to which Tess consented. But this is irrelevant since it is clearly Alec taking advantage of her sexually. As in case of the Matthew John's fiasco, it is clear that consent does not exclude rape.
[5] Leonard Sax, “'Twilight' Sinks Its Teeth Into Feminism”, The Washington Post, August 17, 2008

Prayer for the 21st century

For those tired of millennia old prayer methods, here are three easy steps to bring your prayer life into the 21st century:

1. Before praying, make sure you deck out your surrounds with lots of candles. Now, this little secret was discovered years ago, but has been lost amongst a maze of Bibles in in many of our 'contemporary' churches, just as the New Agers rediscover the aromatherapeutic power of the scented candle.

2. It can be hard to find the words to pray, so what you need to do is visit EXAMEN.me, which will do all that for you. And with the internet on your mobile phone, prayer can now be done on the train, at work, anywhere you want!

3. Now you have the prayers, get yourself a Prayer Answer-er.

This snazzy little gizmo will sort out those issues with lack of assurance. Its size may be a little inconvenient, but in a year or two it will have been adjusted so as to be a regular feature of all mobile phones - but don't wait 'til then to get in on the action.

Should we obey the law?

Here are the reasons that come to mind for why we do obey the law:

(1) We believe what the law is promoting: The law, at least in democracies, is based around the social consensus of what is worth protecting. So, most people recognize right to the security of the person, so assault and battery are criminalized; people tend to think property rights are valuable, so theft and robbery are criminalized. Laws, therefore, are not arbitrary but based on society’s beliefs. Thus, most individuals in society respect the principles on which the law is built. Presumably then, even if the law did not state that murder was wrong, we would still not murder. We desist from breaking the law because the behavior it prohibits, when adopted, compromises our own sense of morality.

(2) The law promotes peace and order: By having a legal institution that deters destructive behavior and promotes constructive behavior we create a society which is ordered and in which we can live in peace. We will sacrifice our immediate desires because, ultimately, more of our desires will be satisfied we if preserve the peace by honoring the law.

(3) Fear of retribution: The law has the authority to inflict punishment – such as, fines, jail, deportation (for non-citizens), corporal punishment (whipping, or amputation of hands in Sharia law) etc. – and naturally we will avoid action that may result in such penalties. When this is the motive for obedience, is likely that the law will only be followed if there is likelihood that it will be discovered by authorities.

(4) Habit: To some extent we are conditioned for certain behavior which is generally beneficial to our person. Whilst the reasons given thus far are all conscious, following the law by course of habit is subconscious.

For example, when I am crossing the road at the lights often I will begin walking before the man has gone green if it is clear that by doing so I will not put myself in danger or cause inconvenience to any drivers. Yet, oftentimes will pedestrians choose to wait for the man to go green despite (a) a lack of danger, (b) no fear of retribution, and (c) no moral quandary with jaywalking. One could make the argument that it promotes order (Point 2), but I think a more common explanation is that is simply does not occur to the pedestrian that they have the agency to disobey the law; waiting for the green man is simply a matter of habit.

(5) Religious imperatives: This is probably the reason that I come across least often, but it’s certainly out there and pretty central to some people.

The Bible says, “Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right” (1 Peter 2:13-14, also Romans 13:1, Titus 3:1). If we isolate this command from the reasons for which it was given, then it seems Christians are compelled to follow the law (except where it is in conflict with God’s law, see Acts 5:29). I have friends who oppose violation of the law as they see the Bible giving inherent value to the law.

Personally, I reject this interpretation. I think the Bible consistently promotes following the spirit of the law rather than legalistically following the details of the law. Take, for example, Matthew 12:1-7:

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent.

Or take Mark 10:2-9:

Some Pharisees came and tested Jesus by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
"What did Moses command you?" he replied.
They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."
"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

In the first case he endorses what, technically, is illegal and in the second he criticizes behavior that is technically legal but contradicts the spirit of the law.

The other night my friend and I were offered a lift home by a P1 driver. I accepted the offer, knowing that doing so was breaking a state law that was recently brought in, limiting P1 drivers to one passenger between the ages of 16 and 21. In the end we didn’t end up breaking the law because another friend had an ethical dilemma with it. I, on the other hand, did not.

The restrictions placed on P1 drivers are, to me, entirely reasonable. Many accidents occur as a result of P drivers carrying multiple peers who distract them or urge them on to reckless acts, thereby creating danger and disorder. This graph of when casualty crashes occur shows why such laws are important.

But, in the five minute trip home, I could predict that this would not occur, knowing myself and knowing the driver. I felt as though the law, in its spirit, did not apply to our case and therefore could be disobeyed. I could see nothing immoral about the situation as we would not be causing any undue risk to ourselves or others. Being a new law I was certainly not in the habit of adjusting my behavior to account for such a law. Since it was a short trip and we wouldn’t be driving recklessly there was also almost no chance that we would be caught. And I don’t think our intended action would have discouraged a peaceful society by legitimizing contravention of the law.

It seems I am quite happy to disregard details of the law, if the intentions of the law are being honored.

Humanism at Easter

Way back in Easter I took the time to visit a number of very different churches and was pretty startled and concerned about the humanist philosophy which had sunk through to Church teaching. Here are two examples that, although rather radical, seem to reflect ideas common throughout the church.

St Michael’s Uniting
Francis Macnab, minister of St Michael’s Uniting, is something of an old hat in ways, repeating the same heresies popularised by Bishop Spong years ago in the US – but I had never read Spong and, not having prepared myself, his message came as a bit of a shock.

The Good Friday address was entitled ‘The Churches Love Affair - With Violence. Time to Choose a Better Way.’

Humans, he suggests, are naturally fascinated by violence – as evidenced by our captivation with violent films, our love of high contact sport. The Church’s concentration on the cross – which he rightly observes to be a symbol of brutality, criminality and domination – is another symptom of this. Substitutionary atonement, he claims, promotes a cycle of violence by suggesting that violence cancels out violence.

The ‘better way’ suggested by Macnab is for Christians to stop focusing on the figure of Jesus and the cross and find instead the good within themselves. This internal goodness (‘god’) allows one to break the cycle of violence. You can watch it for yourself here.

The message was clearly humanism wrapped up in a rather unconvincing guise of Christianity. Gone were any suggestions of human depravity or helplessness. We are the solution to our own problems – the power is within.

St Patrick’s Cathedral Not quite so explicitly heretical, but still problematic, was the message given at the Catholic Cathedral on Easter Sunday. The priest presented the story of two (fictional) couples. One of which were good Catholics who went to Mass, had children and basically lived happy lives. The second could have been equally blessed, except for the abortion they chose to take which, naturally, led to relationship breakdown and a stream of other unfortunate events.

The obligatory defamation of abortion done, he proceeded to inform us of the message of Easter, is one of hope – hope that in the bad times, good times will follow; hope that in our sadness, happiness will follow; hope that (assuming we don’t have an abortion) God will look after us. Look at the disciples after Jesus died –afraid and hopeless, but then comes Easter Sunday and everything is somehow okay again, he didn’t actually explain why this was though.

Much like at St Michael’s, the message was easy words to comfort the heart. There was no explanation of the cross, no assumption of sinfulness. Rather, we can forge for ourselves a happy future by remembering the ‘hope of Easter’ and doing good (or rather avoiding evil, i.e. abortion). We are the solution to our own problems – the power is within.

This is common in the church when we emphasise works over the absolute grace of God. We live in an arrogant age where we can’t accept that we are far gone and desperately in need of saving. At St Pat’s, the motivation for obeying the Church was that God would make our lives easier; it is not God but our own abilities, needs and interests that are central to understanding and living in the world.

No more waltzing matilda for me

Apologies to anyone that may find my remarks insensitive at this time

As you most probably know, today is ANZAC Day – a national (or binational, since it is in NZ too) celebration of the actions of soldiers who have fought for the nation. I must admit that I don’t really approve of the whole thing. Here are a few reasons why:

(1) It is nationalistic – Perhaps one reason that I see this as a negative aspect is that I have never been particularly patriotic. I am a dual US-Australian citizen, but I have no real sense of American citizenry, and am unconvinced of my Australianness. I have affection for the land and its people, but am not easily stirred to nationalist fervour.

I also feel as though national boundaries are fairly arbitrary, so I don’t see why I should feel particular solidarity with someone I have never met who lives on the other side of the country. I can’t think of anything that really unites every Australian; there are some beliefs that are generally accepted – such as ‘mateship’, resentment of authority/hierarchy and a love of sport – but it isn’t like these are distinctive to Australia or true for every Australian.

Not only is it an arbitrary construction, but I also often find nationalism to insidious. Nationalism is always reinforced through the exclusion of foreigners and so it is a natural support for racism. It creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality which has no real justification or value. When we uphold nationalist stereotypes, like the ANZAC digger, those who fall outside the mould are denied their full status as citizens or even humans.

Nationalism is also a motivation and justification for war. War has always been the means by which nations establish their strength and merit, and taking pride in a nations war efforts suggests war is the solution to the nation’s problems.

(2) It is a glorification of war – I should say first of all that I don’t think all ANZAC celebrations explicitly glorify war. Very often they may reflect on the horror of war. However, they neglect to show the futility of war.

We desperately want to believe all those soldiers sacrificed their lives for a just cause, but for the most part they didn’t. The Australian forces has often acted as a peacekeeping force, but ANZAC particularly commemorates those who give their lives – something which rarely occurs in acting as a peacekeepers. Primarily, we are called to remember the wars Australia fought in, which have perhaps never been just. The country has never had the need to defend its own soil as the only time it was attacked at home was by the Japanese in Feb 1942 – months after we had declared war on Japan. Australia’s wars have generally not been defending its borders or its citizens, but defending its interests, or those of our allies, overseas.

When we remember our war efforts it should not be with pride, but with a deep regret that we were not able to resolve our problems in a humane manner.

(3) It negates the responsibility of soldiers for their actions – There is an idea out there that we should support the troops regardless of whether we believe that the war they are fighting in is justified. I find this an awful and dangerous idea. It suggests that no matter how unjust the war is those fighting are not wrong in supporting it and enabling it.

The universal soldier really is to blame for their actions. Just because you wear a uniform doesn’t mean you no longer have responsibility for your actions. It is always the soldier’s choice to fight, and they are always culpable for what they do (as are those who direct them to fight). I am not a pacifist, and I support armed conflict in some cases (though only ever as a last resort, and even then it is a hideous thing), but I would only ever fight, or support others fighting if the cause was just and means justified.

The intentions of the Australian soldiers defending their family and citizens were very often noble, but no digger should ever be proud of the fact that they attacked and killed other people, especially since those they killed were most often soldiers themselves, fighting for the same cause – the safety of their families. It is wrong for someone to go out and kill for an unjust cause, and there are Australian soldiers that we should be criticising for taking part in unjust wars.

All that said, there are some very good things about ANZAC Day. Most significantly, we are remembering lessons from history. We should never forget what has been done and what is being done to achieve the freedom we have. War often reveals the worst of mankind and we should be remembering what man is capable of. We should be remembering what the consequences are of both choosing to fight and choosing not to fight. And when we remember we should not do so with the non-critical gaze that ANZAC Day suggests is appropriate.

Non-Intervention

I was talking with a friend recently about the Australian Defence Force, and whether it was just that - a defence force. We seemed to be in agreement that it was an offensive force, yet I, unlike my friend, saw this to be a good thing. I am not a big fan of the policy of non-intervention - it seems to me irresponsible to stand by idly by and let evil run its course. They say, 'Evil triumphs because good men do nothing', but I think the man who does nothing is part of the evil, and can’t be separated from it.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we all need to go sticking their hand into every dispute we know about. For example, hindsight shows us that the American intervention in Vietnam escalated a small scale conflict into a huge scale war. It increased involvement from major Communist powers, brought in far more destructive weaponry and ended up costing millions of lives. But where we have the capability, we also have the responsibility to prevent evil.

I can think of a number of reasons I can think of that are given as a defence for passivity:

(1) The Postmodern View - given that right and wrong are products of a society s culture and heritage and therefore there is no universal right/wrong. Because of this, one culture can not criticise another based upon its own understanding of morality. This leads to the tag of neo-colonialism whenever the need for intervention arrives.
(2) Karma – if you believe ‘what goes around comes around’ then any suffering that you witness is the just return for somebody’s wickedness. Thus, to intervene would be to divert the divine course of justice, creating more unbalance.
(3) The Pacifist View – there are plenty of people out there who seem to think that ‘violence is never the answer’. Among the advocates of such a view are the Christian ‘peace churches’, such as the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), who somehow got in their head that Jesus promoted non-violence.

On the other hand, we have some strong reasons for being interventionist:

(1) Utilitarian View – ‘the end justifies the means’. If by intervening more suffering is prevented than created, then intervention is a moral imperative. However, one should not intervene if such an action will increase the overall suffering. This can be a useful way about thinking, but it can be unhelpful as you can’t really know how events will turn out (would the US have joined the Vietnam War if they had known the outcome?).
(2) Deontological View – if you hold that there are certain moral absolutes than it is necessary that you defend these absolutes, even if to do so would mean risking your life or the lives of others. So, if you actually think genocide is wrong, and that we ought to avert what is wrong, then you can not let genocide occur. Indeed, to not intervene would be to tacitly consent to genocide.

I wouldn’t be the first to criticise the isolationism of the Allied powers pre-WWII which allowed the rise of Hitler – whose views had been quite clearly stated in Mein Kampf. The decision not to intervene allowed the situation escalate into a world war. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who I consider something of an authority on the subject, claimed,
'There can only be a community of peace when it does not rest on lies and injustice. Where a community of peace endangers or chokes truth and justice, the community of peace must be broken and the battle joined.' [1]
When there is injustice, peace can not be present. First remove the injustice, paving the way for peace.


[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords

Discrimination?

Last week there was this thing in the papers about a Christian school which was being investigated by the Equal Opportunity Commission because it had refused offer a placement to a student teacher, Rachida Dahlal, because she was a Muslim [1]. Although this is obviously discrimination, my initial reaction was that it is entirely justified. How can you expect an organisation that aims to promote Christianity to employ those whose belief contradict Christianity?

At the moment I have mixed feelings on the issue, so I'll try and arrange my thoughts onto the two sides of the debate.

In defense of Heathdale Christian College
(1) There should be freedom to practise religion - since practise of the religion includes teaching in a religious framework, forcing the employment of people outside of this religion effectively prevents them from freely practising.
You wouldn't expect a Christian church to accept a Muslim as their minister, is this not much the same? The goal of the school is to create a Christian community, and this is undermined by have people with contrary beliefs in leadership positions.
(2) It is a private institution - unlike state schools, this private, Christian school should be under no obligation to cater for all children. As such, it should have freedom to basically teach whatever it wants to, but if it is expecting the education sector to recognise it would need to comply with curriculum.
It is also spending (primarily) its own money, not the public's, so it can spend it however it likes employing or not employing) whoever it sees fit. Surely we should have the freedom to spend our money as we choose (within certain limits). Although it doesn't sound nice, it seems right that a company is given freedom to employ people based on whatever factors it chooses, be these skill, experience, age, beliefs, or appearance [2]. While it is still passive discrimination, not offering someone a job can hardly be seen as criminal (I'll come back to this later).
(3) Respecting the student teacher's own beliefs - By employing Dahlal and expecting her to contribute to normal staff practises - including prayer devotion and Bible reading at morning staff briefing - they would be demanding she act against her own beliefs (assuming she holds to mainstream Islamic teaching). It is inappropriate that a condition of employment be that she deny her faith.
(4) The school is answerable to the parent's who may have chosen the school because it is explicitly Christian. Employing people who are openly non-Christians may be contrary to the image it presents.

In defense of the student teacher, Rachida Dahlal
(1) Teaching French and Math doesn't really involve religion, so it not unreasonable to expect that her presence would be of little or no detriment to the religious aspect of the school.
(2) In accepting the job she was also accepting the conditions of it. She was aware she would not be able to talk about her faith or against Christianity. Thus, she was agreeing to the school's beliefs in some sense, so the basis for refusing her employment was somewhat unjustified. Private people and institution's should not have freedom over their money when it reinforces inequality and discrimination. Recognising the dignity and equality of all people is a greater good than economic freedom.
(3) It is conceivable that any type of institution could call itself 'religious' and on that basis commit any kind of discrimination. For example, one could say that their religion necessitates that they only employ people of a particular race. If every institution did this it may end up that groups facing discrimination become second class citizens where they can't access any jobs or enter any private property etc.

I think that in this case I do sympathise with the school and I see their actions as justified. But, also, the law needs to protect the rights of all people by keeping discrimination in check. Basically, my first point is the one that I place most emphasis on - that there should be freedom to practise one's religion. There is only a small group of institution's that could be regarded as the practise of religion, and even those Mrs Dahlal's position was explicity religious in nature, the school as a whole can be seen as the practise of religion.

As an interesting aside, The Age quotes the principal of the Christian school as saying, "The way we practise our education is not just nominal, it's actually what parents want for their kids, and it would have been confusing for the kids. It's not that we have anything against her or her beliefs, we just felt it was an inappropriate placement". But surely if it was not just nominal then the principal actually believes in the what the Christian label suggests, in which case he really should have something against her beliefs, since they are in conflict with his own. So, it looks to me like he is basically lying to hide the fact that he really is discriminating against her, as a Muslim, or else really is nominal.


[1] To my great surprise this has actually made international news. It isn't like this is something new, is it?
[2] To be blatantly (and perhaps offensively) honest, stuff like Virgin Blue Airlines employment of only good looking girls as flight attendants seems quite reasonable since it benefits their company image.

Worth a look...

If you want some interesting reading, have a look at TIME Magazine's list of "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now", drawing on trends in economics, science, religion and culture. I should note that when they say the 'world' is being changed, they mean it in the American sense - like the 'World Series' of baseball or Superbowl winners being 'World Champion's' - although a number do concern the wider world.

Of particular interest was Number 3, The New Calvinism, a movement riding on the back of "the pioneering new-Calvinist John Piper of Minneapolis, Seattle's pugnacious Mark Driscoll and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Seminary of the huge Southern Baptist Convention". Number 7, The Rent-a-Country was also something interesting which I hadn't really heard much of.

The 10 Big Ideas they identify are

1. Jobs are the New Assets
2. Recycling the Suburbs
3. The New Calvinism
4. Reinstating the Interstate
5. Amortality
6. Africa, Business Destination
7. The Rent-a-Country
8. Biobanks
9. Survival Stores
10. Ecological Intelligence

Economic Justice

1.4 billion people, or one quarter of the population of the developing world, live on less than $1.25 a day. [1] The poorest 10% accounted for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% accounted for 59% of all the consumption. [2] Most of us, hopefully, are aware of the state of poverty in the world, whilst also constantly exposed to the decadence of our own cultures. This disparity must surely cause us to question the system in which we are operating which allows such injustice.

The capitalist system holds as the highest good the right of the individual to own property. Libertarian economist, Murray Rothbard, argued that, “It is wrong and criminal to violate the property or person of another, even if one is a Robin Hood, or starving, or is doing it to save one’s relatives, or is defending oneself against a third man's attack.” [3] Thus, we see property rights prioritised even over the right to life or security. It is a system such as this which permits the disproportionate distribution of wealth.

Socialist views, on the other hand, prefer state ownership in order to promote egalitarianism. Famous revolutionary Che Guevara observed that, “Socialism cannot exist without a change in consciousness resulting in a new fraternal attitude toward humanity, both at an individual level, within the societies where socialism is being built or has been built, and on a world scale, with regard to all peoples suffering from imperialist oppression.” [4] Whereas capitalism is based on an assumption that everyone is selfish – something I would say is true due to the Fall – socialism rests on the understanding that people may come to value others above themselves. I believe this kind of transformation can only come from God. As such, a socialist system is doomed to failure, unless everyone recognises Christ – an end that will only be achieved with Christ’s return.

Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas argued that private property rights are necessary to human life on the basis of pragmatics – they allow for human nature and maximise efficiency. But he also held that “man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need”. [6] Thus there is a public aspect to privately owned property so that, “In cases of need all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it common.” [6] Private property, when upheld as the absolute, leads to economic injustice. Rather, it must be seen as a means to an end if it is to be of any benefit to the world’s most needy, to whom we owe both charity and justice.

However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God (Deut. 15:4-5)



[1] 2008 World Bank Research by Martin Ravallion and Shaohua Chen
[2] World Development Indicators 2008, World Bank, August 2008
[3] War, Peace, and the State, 1963
[4] Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria, February 24, 1965
[5] Summa Theologica, On Theft and Robbery

Originally written for the economics edition of iCU (Melbourne Uni Christian Union Newsletter)

It's just my personal opinion...

Two weeks into the semester I am being driven crazy by one of my subjects. It's an education subject called Concepts of Childhood. What we are being taught is interesting enough, it's just the way it is being taught - I have never come across a subject so dominated by postmodernism.

Constantly we are reminded there there is no single truth, and we spent the first hour of class looking at ambiguous images and interpreting them so that we could see "everyone sees things differently, and that is what is most important". All the lecturers keep insisting that they don't want to "force us to believe" anything and every time they express their views they have to qualify it saying something like, "this is just what I believe, and you may think differently, but..." or "this is what I believe as a white, middle-class Australian, but you may be have a different background and may believe differently...".

The worst example was when the lecturer was introducing us to the theories of a behaviour psychologist called B.F. Skinner. She explained to us, "I don't agree with his views, so I am trying very hard to be objective, but it isn't easy. I see his theories about raising children as...well..dangerous. But if you agree with Skinner that is fine." I was a perplexed - how can you see certain views as being both dangerous and fine? I think the only way is if you actually had no concern for those who would be endangered by the implementation of these views. The lecturer was trying to tolerate other views; trying not to presume she had an exclusive hold to what was right, but at the same time is was clear that certain all views aren't equal - some lead to joy, some to destruction.

Worryingly everyone else in the classroom seems untroubled by this. Actually the class seems just as eager to promote postmodernism, with one girl reminded me that "everything is relative" when a comment of mine suggested absolute truth.

I thought I had seen the worst of it when I was studying Anthropology and we were told, "you can't judge culture because that is presuming your own truth is exclusively true" - but even in Anthropology relativism was seen to be problematic and quite aggressively critiqued. In Concepts of Childhood it is an unquestioned assumption. Should be an interesting semester...

Intellectual Property

I realise my blog has received very little use for some time, not sure whether I think less during holidays or just am less motivated to write my thoughts. In either case, uni is back, so also is the blogging.

Just a warning, this one is rather long because I didn't have the motivation or ability to condense it.

I recently took part in a very interesting conversation on the topic of music piracy. A friend was adamant that illegally sharing music is immoral as it is a form of stealing. However another friend raised the validity of ideas of intellectual property on which copyright laws are based and which had been an assumption for the first friend.

The conversation got me thinking about what value I place on intellectual rights.

I am no economist, but I can see the rationality in intellectual property laws. If there are high monetary incentives for creativity in a society then people will continue to strive for new ideas, inventions, marketing methods etc. which leads to more efficient methods of production. If everyone was permitted to download music, books, research papers for free, then the musicians, authors, and researchers would have lower incentives to produce.[1]

So I may concede that it is rational for intellectual property to be defended by law. But is there any moral basis for it? I struggle to see knowledge as property, largely because it is a public good, not a private good. A public good is something that is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Knowledge is former because the use of knowledge does not preclude its use by others. For example, if I discover that lemon juice is the cure to cancer (which, incidentally, it is not) and you used this knowledge to cure yourself of cancer, then your neighbour would be no less capable of using this knowledge as a cure because it has been used once. However, the neighbour would be less capable of accessing lemon juice because there is a limited supply of lemons in the world and you had just used some of them up in curing yourself from cancer. The more lemons you used, the less access others would have to lemons, however the you can use the information all you like and it is no less abundant because of your use.

Knowledge is also non-excludable.[2] Once I tell you the cure for cancer is lemon juice there is no possible way I can take that information back from you; I can't prevent you from accessing it. However, I could steal your lemon juice to prevent you from accessing it. Ergo, knowledge is a public good, lemons are a private good. It makes no sense to claim ownership of a public good because this ownership is not naturally exclusive. It follows that you also can't steal knowledge, because no-one owns it.

Whilst someone can not own a public good, they can be credited with making it a public good. Knowledge can be discovered, air can be made clean by not polluting, safety can be maximised by punishing crime - but no-one can own knowledge, clean air or safety. You can't steal any of these public goods, but you can steal credit for them. The government could claim that increasing air quality is due to the new wind farm when instead it may be the result of favourable winds, or the judges can claim their 'zero tolerance' policy caused a reduction in crime which actually resulted from decreasing poverty, or I can claim that I, and not Pascal, discovered at a2 + b2 = c2. However, I would see this act of taking credit more as lying than stealing. But I would say it is immoral to wilfully take credit for another person's idea, not because the idea belongs to them, but because of dishonesty in such a claim.

In The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke uses an analogy of a fountain of water, which is abundant to the degree that we can call it a public good - you can take a pitcher of water from the fountain and it will not be noticeably affected, so that by taking out a pitcher of water your neighbour is no less capable of taking out a pitcher of water for themselves. So you can't claim ownership of the water in the fountain. However, you can claim ownership of the water in the pitcher because your "labour hath taken it out of the hands of Nature where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath appropriated it to [yourself]". For a while I was tempted to think the same of knowledge: a person who laboured to discover the fact that lemon juice cures cancer had taken what was common and made a claim to own it by their labour. If your pitcher of water was stolen, you could no longer take it to the market to sell it to me. If my knowledge that lemon juice cures cancer was stolen, I could no longer take it to the market to sell it. But they are not the same. In one case you have lost your pitcher of water, in the other you have only lost your ability to sell the knowledge, not the knowledge itself. Rather than having a private good stolen, this situation is analogous to the market closing down, or the price for pitchers of water falling to zero, so they could no longer be sold for profit. So it is with music/video piracy. The musician has not actually had anything taken from them when their song is illegally downloaded, rather they have lost the opportunity to sell that song to the offender.

But perhaps you think they have lost the fruits of their labour, to which they are entitled? I would also dispute an argument such as this. I don't feel as though people have a right to be paid for their ideas or their labour. Say there are two people, Bill and Ben. Bill is a very hard working farmer. With his work his produces wheat, which people like to buy, so Bill's labour earns him money. Ben is also very hard working. He spend all day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year looking for and collecting rocks that are spherical. Through his work he has amassed an impressive collection of spherical rocks. However, no-one likes to pay money for his rocks, so his labour doesn't earn him money. My point is that labour can be used to gain wages, but there is nothing fundamental about it which established that all who labour should be paid for labour. If a person desires money it is rational to look for work which society is willing to pay for. Now, if a person professionally comes up with bright ideas or writes songs and is able to get money from that, all good and well. But just because they did the labour to come up with that idea or song doesn't entitle them to wages for it.

I am still debating with myself the extent to which artists/thinkers/inventors are responsible for what they produce. As a researcher, for example, I can't make lemon juice the cure for cancer, it is simply an apparent fact (or in this case a fiction). Inventions, songs and novels, on the other hand, are not apparent facts, but the degree to which they are original creations is debatable. If I write a song (those who know me will know just how farfetched this hypothetical scenario is), I am taking things from the world around me - singular musical notes and singular words, as well as series of notes and series of words which, through language, can be deciphered to form ideas - and arranged them using my creativity and knowledge of what combinations of notes sound good and what words invoke thought and feeling. It would be a part-whole fallacy to say that just because each of the components of a song (words and notes) are unoriginal, the song itself is too, but still the extent of originality is vague. In examining this question let us take the example of Yesterday by The Beatles. The song was by The Beatles, credited to "Lennon /McCartney" but written and performed solely by Paul McCartney (with string quartet accompaniment). I had a read of Wikipedia and it appears that the song purportedly shows similarities in lyrics to a Nat 'King' Cole song, Answer Me and musical similarities to Georgia on My Mind. However, the rather lengthy description of how it came to be written shows that it was original, although McCartney himself suspected he had subconsciously plagiarised saying, "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."

How much has to be plagiarised before a song would be considered unoriginal? Only two lines bear any resemblance to the lyrics of Answer Me and that caused an accusation. Ian Hammond has written a quite detailed piece on the similarities with Georgia on My Mind yet considers these purely innocent, saying "Every Beatles' song is constructed largely out of style components, and thus borrows from other songs, as all songs must". This isn't simply a matter of part-whole, because obviously much less than whole - just a 5 or 10 second snippet - would be considered the artist's creation. I wonder how the copyright laws deal with the vagueness of all this.

Even seeing the extent to which songs are creations, I would say that the issue of plagiarism in music is one of dishonesty rather than stealing. But what of the question of illegally sharing music? I am not all that cluey on copyright laws, but I have been informed that you are permitted to make a singly hard copy and unlimited soft copies of a piece of music that you buy [3]. It is also legal to share these copies. However it becomes illegal when the same product is being used multiple times simultaneously. For example, I can put my Beatles album onto iTunes, and I can also lend that CD to a friend. But it would be illegal for me to listen to the album on iTunes whilst my friend is playing in the CD in their house.

Personally, I have always thought of sharing as a good thing, and I think the sole reason the law opposes this is because it destroys the economic incentives for artists because they will sell less if their music is freely shared. Thus, the law is perhaps rational, but not just. I believe the role of the law is to enforce what is just, and not to determine what is just, so I think it is fair to disagree with the law.


[1] Result specific to the music industry would include a greater emphasis on live performances (an experience that can't be downloaded), albums being promoted for bonus material rather than songs, and poorer musicians. A positive effect would be that, with the easier access to a wide range of music, there should be a greater appreciation for music in society as a whole, and so less people would be listening to bad pop. Thus, pop artists would be earning far less, be getting less attention and the media would finally be free from reporting the riveting Britney Spears saga.
[2] Perhaps the existence of copyright laws suggests that knowledge can be made excludable, but it is not naturally so, and laws that make public good excludable are notoriously difficult to enforce (as it exemplified by the prevalence of music/video piracy).
[3] When you purchase a CD you are buying both the physical CD and the material on it. You don't buy ownership of the material but only the use of it, if that makes sense.


NB: It was not my intention from this argument to gain a license to ignore the law, because I acknowledge that following the law is of value in itself.