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< Back Football and Social Change David Cowles Sep 20, 2022 “…You feel your body sliding between other bodies, not under them; you look up and OMG, it’s Morning in America, daylight after all.” In Issue #2 of Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) , we looked at football as an enterprise, and, more broadly, as a metaphor for life itself. Hopefully, we were able to contribute some concrete ideas on how to coach a successful team , how to succeed as a player, and how to lead a successful life once it’s time to hang up those cleats for good. (When is that, Tom Brady?) Building on that theme, this edition of Thoughts While Shaving (TWS) asks, “How is working for social change like playing fullback on a football team?” R U ready!? The quarterback hands you the ball…and now you’re staring at maybe eight different colored shirts, supported by 16 cleated legs. True, some of those legs are pushing your way but still, it’s a congealed mass: No Daylight, No Joy! But you do your thing. Coach designs the plays, QB calls them (on this team), you execute them. You don’t get ‘paid’ to second guess (actually, you don’t get paid at all, unless you’ve already made it to the NFL…or are violating NCAA rules). Still, it takes all your strength and courage to smash your body at top speed and with maximum force into a 1,500 lb. scrum. Yet you do it! Why? There is no chance of gaining any yardage, and you’re risking a fumble or, even worse, an injury. Why not just take a knee? Doesn’t that make more sense? It might, but that doesn’t matter, you’re not doing it. Why not? Duty to your teammates ? Faith in your coaches? Both, but more than either, Hope . Take a knee, avoid disaster, but lose all hope of any gain, or smash into the scrum, risk mishap, but maintain a sliver of possibility . So, you crash, ball clutched, legs churning, and guess what? Loss of a yard! Fourth down! Ok then, so what did you accomplish? Absolutely nothing, right? Well, in terms of field position, ‘absolutely nothing’ would be putting it generously. More accurately, you lost a yard and wasted a down. Still you accomplished something. Your self-sacrifice actually accomplished a lot: You demonstrated your Love for your teammates. They can count on you, you did your duty . Solidarity! You demonstrated your Faith in your coaches and your quarterback. Plus, you made your team smarter! When you succumbed to the scrum, you created information , data. Your coaches could see what went wrong; they can make adjustments. And you planted that same information in the other team’s psyche : “We smoked ‘em; they won’t try that play again. We better be on the lookout for some sort of sweep or maybe a pass.” Whatever. You can’t control how another team reacts to your data, but you can put the data out there and hope they misread or misuse it. Information and disinformation. If it’s not Love that makes the world go ‘round then surely it’s info/disfo: it’s the currency of grade school squabbles, middle school gossip, political campaigns, international relations and, oh yeah, war. Fourth down: The coach is sending in a new play. He’s a ‘boomer,’ and now we see he’s a fan of The Who to boot. So, guess what?! “Meet the new play…same as the old play!” That’s right, same play (with a minor tweak to the blocking scheme). The Gods Must Be Crazy (or at least the coaches). Isn’t this exactly the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome? But, of course, you’ll do your duty . Again, you smash the scrum, but this time you feel your body sliding between other bodies, not under them; you look up and OMG, it’s Morning in America , daylight after all. What does this have to do with the struggle for social change? Well, take a look (regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum): The Conservative movement after Goldwater (1964) The Civil Rights movement after the Martin Luther King (1968) The Gay Rights movement after Stonewall (1969) The Anti-War movement after McGovern (1972) The Right to Life movement after Roe (1973) Nicaragua after the Contras (1990) I could go on. In each case, dogged perseverance paid off…big time! Causes that everyone had written off as hopeless suddenly, Phoenix like, rose victorious. That’s how social change happens. Against all odds, Faith, Hope, and Love ( Duty ) can carve out a sliver of daylight (possibility). That’s how to play fullback …and perhaps it’s also how to change the world. Have you taken the ATM Survey yet? Tell us what articles you want to read and how we're doing? Click here . Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back CVS and Consciousness David Cowles Oct 24, 2023 “…Congratulations…you just created your first universe. May I call you God? Or would you prefer Lord of ‘the Ring’?” Riddle : What does a cash register receipt from CVS have in common with an electron, human consciousness, and political revolution? Give up? Answer : They all exhibit 720° symmetry. What? 720° symmetry? That’s ridiculous! You can have 90° symmetry, 180° symmetry, 360° symmetry, but never 720°. That’s just not a thing. The idea itself is ridiculous. I agree with you. It is ridiculous…and yet, it is a thing. May I demonstrate? Next time you visit a CVS, please don’t throw away the mile-long cash register receipt they give you at check-out. Instead, turn it into a loop—but not just any loop—a special kind of loop known as a Möbius strip. Here’s how (not recommended for readers under the age of 3): Hold the two ends of the receipt, one in each hand. Twist one end 180 degrees. Scotch tape the two ends together. Not too challenging, but congratulations anyhow: you just created your first universe. May I call you God ? Or would you prefer Lord of ‘the Ring’ ? But now what can you do with your Precious ? Run your finger along its surface. Keep going. Still going? It’s endless, isn’t it? You’ve taken an everyday rectangle, albeit elongated, with well-defined sides and edges and turned it into a one-sided loop with no boundary. You’ve created what topologists call a ‘non-orientable’ surface. Now pick a spot on the ‘strip’ and imagine an arrow on that spot, pointing up; slide that arrow to the right or left until you come back to where you started (360°). Hmm, something’s different, isn’t it? Your arrow is pointing down now, as if it were a reflection of the original arrow. Of course, it is the original arrow, only now it’s ‘disoriented’, a bit like me after a long night at my local . But no problem! Just keep going in the same direction. Another 360° et voilà , your arrow’s pointing up again. Your universe is symmetrical after all, but that symmetry requires 720° of revolution, not the meager 360°, as in my boring universe. At first, it seems amazing that we can create 720°symmetry in 360° space, but the phenomenon is not as rare as you might suppose. Ever heard of an electron? Electrons have something called spin – the subatomic analog of your finger running along the Möbius strip. We’re familiar with spheroids. Obviously, they exhibit 360° symmetry, right? Not necessarily. Turns out that the electron, and the proton, all massive subatomic particles, in fact, exhibit 720° symmetry. They behave like figures on a Möbius strip, not like baseballs. BTW, just in case you were wondering, massless particles like the photon generally exhibit boring old 360°symmetry, but the graviton is a bit of a twist : it exhibits 180° symmetry. 720° symmetry is important in another context: consciousness. I am aware of a table. For the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s a real table existing in a material world. Thanks to the properties of my central nervous system, I am aware of the look and feel of this table, but I am also aware of myself, and I am aware of myself being aware of the table. That’s consciousness! But what’s that ? Is it some sort of transcendental substance, a ‘soul’ perhaps? Or is it just another manifestation of a material ‘neural net’? Neither. It’s a topological feature of Universe per se . Like mass and energy, particles and waves, it’s akin to the property of reflection: the universe reflects itself. Apparently, self-reflection is an irreducible property of Being. Perhaps it’s what Being is. That’s not to say that self-reflection is always, or even usually, conscious. Consciousness rises to the level of a phenomenon only in the context of certain well-defined, but currently unspecified, physical structures. Once upon a time, people broke Universe down into ‘mind’ and ‘matter." Gilbert Ryle ( The Concept of Mind ) put an end to that. He demonstrated that that sort of dualism makes no sense. Mind and matter, like mind and body, are just different aspects of one phenomenon. Today our models are more nuanced. But using the old terminology, it turns out that both mind (consciousness) and matter (massive particles) exhibit 720° symmetry. This appears to be the real, deep structure of Being, not the anemic ‘special case’ abstraction we know as 360° symmetry. As usual, we have things upside down! Universe is characterized by 720° symmetry; 360° symmetry is a relatively rare, ‘degenerate’ exception. Yet we’ve mistaken the exception to the rule…once again! We’ve imprisoned ourselves in a ‘toy universe’. We ‘swim’ in Maya . “You say you want a revolution” ( The Beatles )? Well, you’re at home here! And what is a revolution other than the inversion of the socio-economic arrow? Marx said it well: a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. The Psalmists, Isaiah and Mark, did even better: “The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.” But the prize for Best Said goes to The Who : “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” The Theory of Revolution requires that the fabric of society (the political logos ) be non-orientable. How else can we turn an up-arrow down? But, of course that could never happen in the real world, could it? We’ve never seen a revolutionary cadre turn into a new aristocracy, have we? Oh and BTW, I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn that has your name written all over it. Let’s chat. Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back How To Do Philosophy David Cowles Feb 6, 2025 “Communicating complex middle voice concepts has become philosophy’s #√2 challenge: So do it!” At its most fundamental level, philosophy takes data from one level of reality and organizes it into patterns that make sense of all levels of reality. “To see a World in a grain of sand…” (William Blake) Traditionally, philosophers have approached their mission from one of two vantage points. Existentialists, empiricists and phenomenologists (Sartre, Mill, Husserl) start with data taken from personal experience. They find patterns in that data which they hope will resonate at all levels of reality, experienced from all possible perspectives. The search for a TOE did not begin with Newton or Einstein or Hawking-Penrose; it began with Thales. From our unique, embedded vantage point we cannot know everything about everything, but perhaps we may hope to know something about something. So the task of philosophy is to identify ‘something’ we can know that can act as a universal decryption key. For some, that key lies in sense data (Hume), for others, in self-awareness (Descartes). Either way, this project requires a gigantic leap of faith. To do philosophy from the bottom up, you have to believe that the World is a Rosetta Stone, that it contains the key to its own decryption: “Signatures of all things I am here to read.” (James Joyce) Others take a top down approach. They consider the universe as a whole and search for patterns that can elucidate experience at all levels and from all perspectives. Plato, Hegel and Marx fall into this category. On the margins of Intellectual History, there is a ‘third way’ - an approach to philosophy that is neither bottom up nor top down; in fact it rejects the very idea that the World is organized along a vertical axis. Think ‘inside out’ instead of ‘up down’ (horizontal vs. vertical). Philosophers in this camp include Anaximander, Buber and Whitehead. Doing philosophy on the vertical axis means setting out either from the quantum or from the plenum and proceeding, somewhat algorithmically, to fill-in the gap. At its worst, this process can feel a bit mechanical. Doing philosophy on the horizontal axis, on the other hand, means giving up the polar concepts of quantum and plenum . The paradigm here is neither computation nor causation; it is organism. Sidebar : I am intentionally excluding from this survey folks whose primary contribution is as a theologian or religious leader. However, I cannot fail to mention Jesus of Nazareth. Without taking a single 400 level university course, he covered all bases: “ I am the Way (bottom up), the Truth (top down), and the Life (inside out).” We begin our journey c. 2500 BCE with the grandfather of Western philosophy, Anaximander. Anaximander believed the fundamental unit of reality to be neither quantum nor plenum but xreon (‘reck’), the mutuality of relationship. According to Anaximander, the ‘real’ World begins when two unrelated ‘virtual’ entities freely grant each other reck, each giving the other the space it needs to become itself. While not the dominant Western paradigm, it shows up everywhere in our culture: ➢ In advertisement: ‘Be all that you can be’. ➢ In scripture: “I (John the Baptist) must become less so that he (Jesus) may become more.” (John 3:30) ➢ On bumper stickers: “Live simply that others may simply live.” ➢ In prayer: “As we forgive those who trespass against us .” ➢ As a simple salutation: Shalom . Perhaps surprisingly, contemporary science has discovered that Anaximander’s somewhat arcane model is actually operational in the physical world; in fact, it forms the substructure of that world: ➢ Quantum Mechanics (c. 1925) revealed the existence of a ‘virtual world’ in which variables only acquire a specific value when they interact (are measured). ➢ Bell’s Theorem (1964) proved that particles well outside each other’s light cones can remain entangled and function as a single, coordinated entity. Philosophically, Martin Buber and Alfred North Whitehead brilliantly represented the horizontal vision during the early 20th century, but it was cybernetic philosopher, Gregory Bateson, who emerged in the later part of the 20th as the undesignated spokesperson for the ‘horizontal worldview’. Among his greatest hits: "It takes two to know one." R. Buckminster Fuller wrote, “The universe is plural and at minimum two.” In this he allied with our common ‘grandfather’. Bell’s Theorem refined this intuition: Everything is plural and at a minimum √2. Bell made Fuller interactive. In this horizontal ontology, there are no ‘naked singularities’; the #1 is just a placeholder. Counting begins with √2. A quantitative value less than √2 does not meet the threshold to be . Finally, the three vectors of Western Philosophy have analogs in our Indo-European languages. Our active voice verbs describe events from the bottom up (I do it); our passive voice verbs describe events from the top down (it is done to me). To describe events on the horizontal axis we would need a third voice, a ‘middle voice’ and we don’t have it, do we? But we did! Many IE languages had a strong middle voice syntax , once upon a time. It was used to describe events where reciprocity is involved; but according to some of the philosophers we met above, whenever there is an event, reciprocity is involved. If so, middle voice should be the ‘default voice’ in all our languages; it isn’t. And so, advocates of a horizontal world view struggle to express their positions and defend them against the glib, language assisted, advocates of the ‘vertical way’. As the quantum nature of reality unfolds, communicating complex middle voice concepts has become philosophy’s #√2 challenge: So do it! Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

“I am a spy; I can sense it, but I have no spy craft, no Bond-tech, and no ‘should you choose to accept it’ mission.” < Back I'm Ageless and Timeless David Cowles Mar 1, 2024 “I am a spy; I can sense it, but I have no spy craft, no Bond-tech, and no ‘should you choose to accept it’ mission.” My parents were members of The Greatest Generation, not me! I was born into the Who Am I Generation , aka the Baby Boomers. For some reason, ‘Who am I?’ seemed like a sensible question to us, and we allowed it to permeate every aspect of our lives. My parents couldn’t understand me, nor can my children. So 75 years on, I’m motivated to return to the defining question of my generation: at the end of the day, “after the cups, the marmalade, the tea” (Eliot), who am I? Well… I am an organism : I am a unique member of the species Homo sapiens , one out of 100 billion humans who have lived on Planet Earth. I am a society : I am 30 trillion organisms (cells), each harboring another organism (nucleus), some harboring up to 1,000 additional organisms (mitochondria). I am an economy : The 30 trillion cells that form my body share a common code (DNA); yet they differentiate into tissues and organs that perform vastly different functions, all in support of the host organism, me; they practice an extremely sophisticated version of division of labor . I am a polity : My body houses, protects, and provides for 100 billion, mostly symbiotic, bacteria. I am a citizen : I participate as a member in various overlapping human societies and in one overarching society, the biosphere, which encompasses all terrestrial organisms. I am topos : I am a fissure in the fabric of spacetime. I hold a mirror up to the world. I am how the universe experiences itself. I am consciousness . I am a black hole : I have no hair , i.e., I have no qualia . I just am. I am the collapse of space and time. I am a singularity. I am a monad – I am unchanged since the moment of my conception, and I am unchangeable… at least until the moment of my death. Nothing about me that can change; anything that can change is not about me. I am an ouroboros : I am not what I am, and I am what I am not. I am forever chasing my tail. In Exodus 3, YHWH says, “I am what am.” I, on the other hand, “am not!”. I am everything…but in the mode of not being it. I am not anything; I am not everything. I am la différance – a neologism contributed to the French language by late 20th-century philosopher Jacques Derrida. I am a quantum of difference. A ≠ A’ but A – A’ = 0 or A = A’ but A – A’ ≠ 0. I am not myself, yet there is nothing between me and myself. I am myself, displaced. From my earliest memories, I have always felt that something was out of place. I never felt quite ‘myself’…and it turns out that that’s because I am not ‘quite’ myself. I am separated from ‘myself’ by différance . As a child, I felt a powerful disconnect between who (or what) I really was and the things I was doing, the person I was being, and the roles I was playing - a disconnect between ‘who I am’ to myself (nothing) and ‘who I seem to be’ to others (a float in the Macy’s Day Parade). I am 5. I am standing at the far corner of my posh pre-school’s front lawn. I am gazing outward, across a field of wildflowers, over a distant row of shops, onto the horizon. I am lonely, anxious, and terribly sad. As I stand and gaze, I feel that I’m not supposed to be here, but somehow, I am. I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong body, but what can I do about it? Who can I go to for help? “Mommy, I’m not supposed to be here!” – I don’t think so. I don’t know enough yet to imagine that this angst might be the first stirring of philosophical insight or spiritual awakening. It just hurts…like most everything else at age 5. But I make a mental note: “Whatever happens, I will always remember this moment,” and so I do! In fact, thanks to Marcel Proust ( Search for Lost Time ), I’m still standing at the far corner of that lawn right now. Nothing has changed; no time has passed. I know that I’m supposed to be me. I mean, who else am I going to be? And I desperately want the me that I am to be ‘something or someone’. I confuse Being with Being X . Of course, to be something or someone is to be someone or something else , something I’m not, someone I can’t be. But I don’t know any of this at the age of 5! Imagine the loneliness…and the terror. I’m growing up among a bunch of ‘aliens’ (‘alien’ to me, not because I imagine they came from outer space, but because they appear to be something I’m not - persons.) I am a human baby, utterly defenseless, being raised by ‘wolves’. No wonder I have anxieties; no wonder I can’t breathe. I am a spy; I can sense it, but I have no spy craft, no James Bond tech, and no ‘should you choose to accept it’ mission. I am at the mercy of all that surveys me. Now I am 10; my ‘10-year-old boy’ identity is impressed upon me by every adult I encounter, by the way they treat me. But I am not a 10-year-old boy, and instinctively, at least, I know that. But again, what am I to do? Should I say, “Daddy, there’s been some mistake? I am not who you think I am. I am not 10; I am ageless and timeless. I’m just pretending to be 10. Please treat me as your equal, not as your 10-year-old son?” Gertrude Stein said that we are all always to ourselves, young men and young women. She was only partly right. Young adulthood is the time in life when we feel our age least. We are no longer too young for things, and we are not yet too old for other things. We are in the ‘opportunity zone’. We come to identify this period of minimal age with agelessness . Whenever we feel ageless and timeless, we imagine that we feel the way it feels to be a young man or woman. And so, I set off on a knight’s quest, determined to reunite my Peter Pan self with my shadow. Like generations of lords and ladies before me, I am in pursuit of the Holy Grail, aka ‘me’. Fortunately, I’ve always had friends in low places. My friends don’t treat me like a 10-year-old because they don’t see 10-ness in me anymore than they see it in themselves. To ourselves, we are ageless, and our friendship confirms this. Friendship is an agent and consequence of age-blindness. Why are peer groups so important to tweens and teens? Because they offer a safe space, free of toxic age consciousness. It’s the only thing that keeps us sane. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the image to return to Spring 2024. Previous Next Share Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back The Mystery of the Star of Bethlehem Solène Tadié For more than two millennia, the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Magi to the city where Jesus was born, has been rousing the curiosity of researchers worldwide. “And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was…” (Matthew 2:7). The Star of Bethlehem, mentioned in St. Matthew’s Gospel, is one of the main symbols associated with Jesus’ birth, embodying the light of hope of salvation in the midst of darkness. But beyond its symbolism, this star is also an exhaustible subject of debate as a scientific phenomenon. Was it a historical event or only a pious fiction invented by St. Matthew? And if it was a historical event, how can we scientifically explain the occurrence of this exceptional astronomical event? Such questions have given rise to many different interpretations over the centuries. Moreover, as it is difficult to determine with certainty the exact year of the Nativity, a scientific explanation of the phenomenon would also be a potential time marker to help pinpoint the date of Christ’s birth. According to a calculation by German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the 16th century, an extremely rare conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn occurred three times in the constellation Pisces in 7 B.C., appearing to observers as a single luminous star. This would coincide with St. Matthew’s description of the celestial body appearing, disappearing and then reappearing to the Magi. A century earlier, Portuguese Rabbi Isaac Abravanel had already claimed that this specific kind of conjunction triggered the birth of the Messiah. This theory gained more credibility in 1925, when German orientalist Paul Schnabel deciphered ancient cuneiform tablets from the astronomical school of the Babylonian city of Sippar , which described the exact same astronomical conjunction in 7 B.C. “This is a good theory,” Father Giulio Maspero, a physicist and theologian at the pontifical University of the Holy Cross, told EWTN, mentioning other plausible scientific explanations, including the possibility of a comet. “Another theory, which may be shocking for us, is that the star was an angel. So, no astronomy here, but just a spiritual light that accompanies the Three Wise Men along their path,” he said. Father Maspero says this explanation is “coherent with the whole narrative,” as Bethlehem was filled with angels who were “proclaiming the glory of Jesus and announcing to the shepherds what was happening there”. There is also the possibility of an appearance of a nova or the explosion of a supernova around 5 B.C., as suggested by several Chinese and Korean astronomer’s chronicles, but this has never been definitively determined. The Spiritual Strength of Mystery For Brother Guy Consolmagno, astronomer and director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, the importance of the shining Star of the Holy Night lies above all in the fact that it shows that the physical universe can be used to get closer to God. “We don’t know whether Matthew was intending this to be a pious story to show that Christ was even more significant than Augustus, who had used astrology to say that he had to be an emperor, or if he was describing a real star or a real astronomical event, or if it was something totally miraculous and we will never know until we can interview St. Mathew himself and find out!” he said. But if there is no definitive scientific conclusion regarding the nature of the Star, the mystery surrounding this story makes it even more powerful for Christians. “We have to read the symbols, we need to look at the narrative, otherwise we cannot catch the true meaning of what God is saying to us,” Father Maspero said, adding that everything in the Gospel is a mystery. And the universality of redemption and assurance that God always answers those who seek him is the central meaning of the Christmas Star — a symbol that shouldn’t be distorted by an excess of scientism. Image: Detail of the 6th-century nave mosaic — which depicts the Three Magi wearing trousers and Phrygian caps as a sign of their Asian origin — in the Basilica of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy. (Photo: Register Files) Solène Tadié is the Europe Correspondent for the National Catholic Register. She is French-Swiss and grew up in Paris. After graduating from Roma III University with a degree in journalism, she began reporting on Rome and the Vatican for Aleteia. She joined L’Osservatore Romano in 2015, where she successively worked for the French section and the Cultural pages of the Italian daily newspaper. She has also collaborated with several French-speaking Catholic media organizations. Solène has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and recently translated in French (for Editions Salvator) Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by the Acton Institute’s Fr. Robert Sirico. Return to our Yuletide Issue Previous Next

< Back Life After Life David Cowles Oct 17, 2024 “Nothing lasts forever. Maybe not even death.” Remember when things were simple? First you were alive, then you were dead. “Those were the days!” (Archie Bunker) Then medicine blurred the lines. ‘Brain death’ replaced ‘cardiac death’ as our preferred criterion; but now things have just gotten a whole lot more complicated! Researchers at Tufts University and the University of Vermont have found that the cells of deceased organisms can live on for substantial periods of time on their own and indefinitely when provided with nutrients, oxygen, and bioelectric or biochemical stimulation. Impressed? Don’t be: this is just the tip of the iceberg. Not all cells need to be reanimated immediately after the death of the host organism. For example, human white blood cells can survive up to 86 hours after organismal death. Muscle cells harvested from mice can be reanimated after as many as 14 days, fibroblast cells from goats and sheep after as long as a month. More astonishing still, these rejuvenated cells, nicknamed ‘xenobots’, have the ability to form multicellular organisms apparently unrelated to the body plans of their original host organisms. Skin cells extracted from deceased frog embryos can spontaneously reorganize into multicellular organisms in which they exhibit behaviors well outside their original biological roles. For example, these ‘second chance cells’ use cilia – small, hair-like structures – to navigate their surroundings. Who says there are no second acts in America? It gets better. Human lung cells can self-assemble into multicellular organisms that repair themselves and any neurons that just happen to be nearby. Apparently, there is such a thing as ‘a born caregiver’. The ability to restore themselves if they become damaged is a natural feature of living organisms, and it is preserved in xenobot biology. Xenobots can close a severe laceration within 5 minutes. These injured cells are able to heal their wounds, restore their shape and continue their work as before. Xenobots are even capable of memory; they have the ability to record information and use that information to modify their behavior. Researchers now hope that these xenobots may be trained to exhibit certain behaviors upon sensing appropriate stimuli. You were hoping your children would exhibit this ability, but that experiment turned out to be a howling failure; now you must place all your hope on xenobots. Can they learn to absorb and break down certain chemicals, especially environmental toxins? Can we train them to synthesize and excrete useful chemicals and proteins in the process? The remarkable plasticity of cellular collectives allows them to form bodies and exhibit behaviors that are quite different from their original organisms - without undergoing any modifications at the DNA level! These cells can spontaneously take on new roles and create new body plans without waiting for mutation and natural selection to work their magic. Perhaps these xenobots have things to teach us. For example, can they help us understand how individual cells naturally come together, communicate, and specialize to create a larger organism? It’s a new model that may provide a foundation for regenerative medicine. Xenobots and their successors may also provide insight into how multicellular organisms arose from ancient single celled organisms, and the origins of information processing, decision making and cognition in biological organisms. Perhaps you’re not as excited by all this as I am. Perhaps you don’t care so much about unicellular life forms. Maybe you’re wondering, “What about me? Why can’t my life be prolonged?” Well good news for you too! A new technology called OrganEx may be right up your street. Basically, OrganEx adds cellular level life support to traditional technologies like ECMO. It revives the body more slowly employing a gentler process of reviving cells that have already begun to die (see above). Turns out those single cell organisms are important after all! To test OrganEx, a Yale University team turned to humanity’s closest non-primate relative – who else but the common household pig? Two monitors, one for the heart and one for brain activity, showed flat lines. The pigs were dead. An hour passed. Then scientists connected each animal to the OrganEx system: heart monitors connected to four out of five pigs began to light up. The hearts’ electrical activity had resumed spontaneously, without chest compressions or other obvious lifesaving measures. What does this mean? With this technology, doctors might be able to extend the amount of time someone could be ‘dead’ before recovering. Minimally, it might make more organs from more bodies recoverable for transplantation. At a cellular level at least, death may not be as quick or as final as once thought. For the person who collapses from a heart attack and remains on the ground for 10 minutes, the findings raise a key question: How dead are they, really? One could imagine using OrganEx after a cardiac arrest. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe not even death. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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If Zeno can defeat his teacher, the whole class wins! Zeno today, me tomorrow! < Back Achilles and Tortoise David Cowles Oct 15, 2022 If Zeno can defeat his teacher, the whole class wins! Zeno today, me tomorrow! The students in Mrs. Dooley’s 5th grade math class are scratching their heads. According to Mrs. Dooley, someone has challenged the great Achilles to a foot race. But what makes this particularly puzzling is that the challenge is coming from a tortoise. Now, Achilles is the fastest runner in all of Greece and tortoises are, well, tortoises. This can’t end well for Tortoise, can it? Fortunately, though, Achilles is a generous man. He’s agreed to give Tortoise a head start. Achilles will begin the race at the start line, but Tortoise will begin halfway to the finish line. Still, Tortoise has a problem. As soon as the race begins, ESPN measures the speed of both runners, and Achilles is running four times as fast as Tortoise. Remember, though, Tortoise has a head start. Achilles must cover twice as much ground as Tortoise, but then again, Achilles is running four times as fast. Mrs. Dooley asks the class, “Do you think Achilles can catch up to Tortoise and win the race?” All the students nod their heads. All except one, Zeno! “You don’t agree, Zeno?” Mrs. Dooley asks, as the class groans impolitely. Zeno has a reputation for coming up with contrary answers and weird arguments. One time the banter between Mrs. Dooley and Zeno became so intense that the class was two minutes late for recess. Zeno’s classmates were not pleased! But Mrs. Dooley is always polite. “Ok, Zeno, how do you see it?” “Well,” the boy began. “Achilles can’t win the race unless he can catch up to Tortoise. He must catch Tortoise before he can pass him. Right?” “Ok,” Mrs. Dooley agreed, warily. “But obviously, Achilles can never catch up to Tortoise!” Zeno asserted confidently, as though their argument was over and the matter settled. Expecting more, but not getting it, Mrs. Dooley kept going, “Why not, Zeno? Why can’t Achilles catch Tortoise. After all, Achilles is running four times as fast and only has twice as far to go.” Mrs. Dooley was sure she’d got the better of Zeno this time, but Zeno was just annoyed. After all, Mrs. Dooley was supposed to be his teacher, and now he was going to have to teach her. With a slight air of condescension, Zeno continued. “Before Achilles can pass Tortoise, he has to catch up to Tortoise, right?” “Yes.” “So, the first thing Achilles has to do is get to the halfway marker where Tortoise began the race,” Zeno explained. “Ok,” Mrs. Dooley replied, still not understanding where the argument was headed. Zeno, by now a little exasperated, continued, “Well, by the time Achilles gets to the halfway mark, Tortoise isn’t there anymore, is he?” “No, I don’t suppose he is.” “Well, Achilles can’t beat Tortoise unless he can catch up to him and so far, he hasn’t done that, has he?” “No, but the race isn’t over yet, Zeno. Achilles will catch Tortoise later on.” “No, he won’t, Mrs. Dooley: the race is over. Achilles can never catch Tortoise.” Mrs. Dooley has a puzzled look but, strangely, Zeno’s classmates are suddenly listening intently. If Zeno can defeat his teacher, the whole class wins! Zeno today, me tomorrow! And this time, Zeno seems to be on to something. “Whenever Achilles gets where Tortoise was, Tortoise has moved on again.” “Of course.” “Well, Mrs. Dooley,” Zeno concluded, trying, unsuccessfully, to remain as respectful as possible. “Don’t you see that this same process will repeat over and over again? No matter how many times Achilles gets to where Tortoise was, Tortoise won’t be there.” “So, Zeno,” asked an exasperated Mrs. Dooley. “Who wins the race?” At that moment, the bell rang for lunch, but guess what? Something magical happened. The whole class sat motionless. Their attention was focused on Mrs. Dooley…and Zeno. Next to recess, lunch was the high point of the day, but believe it or not, the students in Mrs. Dooley’s class were willing to give up lunch if they could get to the bottom of what their whispers were already calling “Zeno’s Paradox.” Hungry herself, Mrs. Dooley thought to ‘tap out.' “So, then Tortoise wins the race, right Zeno?” Well, Zeno almost fell out of his seat, laughing. He couldn’t stop himself, “Of course, Tortoise didn’t win the race; everyone knows Achilles smoked him. Tortoise ate dust!” The class exploded in laughter, and Mrs. Dooley could not have been more annoyed. Speaking sternly, she pressed Zeno, “Explain yourself, Zeno. First you said Tortoise won the race, now you say Achilles. Are you just messin’ with us?” Mrs. Dooley didn’t often use slang with her students. Yup, she was angry; Zeno would soon find out just how angry! Sensing disaster, Zeno made one last futile effort to repair the situation, but, of course, it only made matters worse. “Mrs. Dooley, I never said that Tortoise won the race. I said Achilles couldn’t win the race…not according to the rules of arithmetic anyway. We all know that Achilles won the race. The point is that according to the rules of arithmetic, he couldn’t have won, could he? So, the rules of arithmetic must be wrong.” If only Mrs. Dooley had left it there, but she couldn’t help herself. “So if the rules of arithmetic are wrong, what are the right rules, Zeno?” And of course, Zeno couldn’t help himself either. “Aren’t you the teacher?” Class dismissed…for an abbreviated lunch, but now Zeno had become the class hero. Kids even offered him their hard-won desserts. And what of Zeno? He’s home now, writing 100 times, “I must not disrespect my teacher,” and he has never been happier in his whole life.” Image: Achilles during the Trojan War, polychromatic pottery painting, 300 BC. Public Domain David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back XFL and Lent David Cowles Mar 30, 2023 “The XFL is just what a patient in withdrawal needs to ease the transition.” Riddle : How is Super Bowl Sunday like Fat Tuesday? Well, both usually fall in the month of February, but I’m guessing you’re looking for a deeper connection than that. How about this? Each is a final ‘blowout’ before an ‘implosion’: a celebration before a deprivation! Mardi Gras is Biblical: seven ‘fat’ hours before seven ‘thin’ weeks. The streets are barely clear of revelers when the first rays of sun tell us that it’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and its 40 days of penance (i.e., fasting), starting with a major hangover on Day One. Ugh! Who doesn’t hate the month of March? It’s supposed to be spring, but it isn’t. In New England, March 21 st is keenly anticipated, not as the vernal equinox but as the anniversary of mega-blizzards past. And to top it off, you’re starving! This is bad, but not nearly as bad as when the referee blows the final whistle, ending the final play of the Super Bowl. Normally, when you’re watching a game, you turn the TV off the minute the game is over; not tonight. On Super Sunday, you remain in front of the TV for hours, hypnotized by the final broadcast of yet another spectacular season of College and Professional football. The winning coach has been doused in Gatorade, the final touchdown has been replayed for the two-dozenth time, the trophy has been awarded, the darn credits have even started to roll. You still can’t quite bring yourself to push the Power button to off . How come? Because this is day one of the winter of your discontent…and the spring, and the summer. Now begins the endless hiatus between Super Bowl and Training Camp. 5 horrible months – the butt-end of the calendar. Millennia ago, Celtic Druids anticipated today’s NFL calendar. Instead of the 4 calendar quarters we’re used to, they divided the year into 8 periods – one beginning 2/2 (Groundhog Day), another beginning c. 8/1 (Lamb Day) – one marking the end of one season, the other celebrating the beginning of the next. Our society is finally starting to pay long-overdue attention to mental health; and the NFL is determined to do its part. Traditionally, after the Super Bowl, 100,000,000 fans were forced to manage their addiction ‘cold turkey’: no maintenance doses, no Methadone, no counselling, no support groups! The consequences are well documented…and not pretty! Enter the XFL – the NFL’s answer to the crisis of withdrawal. 8 teams, 4 games per week for 10 weeks, followed by play-offs. By the time the XFL season ends (mid-May), the opening of NFL training camps is at least in sight. And the quality? Top-notch! These are not a bunch of NFL rejects. Many were drafted by NFL teams, and many have played on NFL teams, some for years. Some of these players are hoping to ‘get a second look’, some are undrafted ‘walk-ons’ who never got a full try-out, some are in the process of rehabbing prior to an expected return to the NFL. Others, like All-Pro receiver, Josh Gordon, are just looking for a ‘second chance’. Finally, there are a few skilled veterans, Tom Brady types, hoping to extend their playing lives by a season or two. All this and A-list coaches (Wade Phillips) as well. The XFL is just what a patient in withdrawal needs to ease the transition. But as any lifestyle coach will tell you, sobriety is not just about giving up (Lent); it’s also about rebuilding (Easter). Again, the XFL plays a role. Like a Broadway-bound play opening in Boston, the XFL season is an opportunity for Professional Football to showcase rules changes that might someday make their way into the NFL’s regular season. For example, this season we’re getting familiar with… A running clock that speeds up play. A super abbreviated half-time. New rules re kick-offs and punts, designed to foster more runbacks. College rules (one foot in) for pass receivers. The right of each coach to challenge any one play. By far the biggest change, however, is regarding the Point After Touchdown (PAT). Traditionally, teams have had an opportunity to add another point to their score by converting a chip shot kick. It’s almost automatic. The XFL rules eliminate the option to kick for a PAT. Instead, teams have a chance to add one, two or three points to a 6 point touchdown…but they must run or pass to get it. Score from the 2-yard line, get one point; score from the 5-yard line, 2 points; from the 10-yard line, 3 points. Now, a touchdown can be worth as much as 9 points; but the likelihood of having to settle for just 6 points is greatly increased. So, how are teams dealing with this extended palette? Poorly in my estimation. The new rules should have created a fascinating web of strategic considerations. In fact, some teams just routinely go for 2 points, almost regardless of the circumstances. It would be like playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and always throwing Rock. Others mix it up, but not always according to any transparent logic. Looking back at history from my vantage, we’d likely all agree that “something’s lost, but something’s gained.” Put XFL on the “gain” side of the cosmic ledger. Want more football content from Aletheia Today ? Just click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

“Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” < Back Happiness David Cowles Mar 1, 2024 “Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” In the Yule 2023 Issue of Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM), we pointed out some issues with the doctrine known as Utilitarianism , popularized in modern Western philosophy by the liberal John Stuart Mill and the socialist Jeremy Bentham. Classically, philosophical Utilitarianism has been based on an ethical imperative, usually formulated as ‘the greatest Good for the greatest number’. In our earlier article, we avoided the temptation to weigh in on the nature of the Good itself. Instead, we discussed issues related to the generation and distribution of that Good according to the utilitarian formula. According to Mill, happiness is ‘the Good’, the Summum Bonum ; we know this because no one would ever choose to be unhappy rather than happy. Some people choose chocolate over vanilla (no idea why), but no one ever chooses to be unhappy rather than happy, do they? Of course they do! They enter monasteries, they go on fasts, and in extreme cases, they even self-flagellate (figuratively…or literally). The problem with this counterargument is that these apparently unpleasant practices do, in fact, make their practitioners ‘happy’. In rare cases, we’re talking masochism; in most cases, we’re talking about a willingness to endure ‘superficial’ unhappiness (pain) in service of some ‘deeper’ happiness, ‘beyond the Pleasure Principle’. This semantic ‘trick’ makes it impossible for me, or anyone, to refute Mill…but it also robs Utilitarianism of its heuristic power. If I do X, then by definition, doing X must be calculated to make me happier than not doing X. Therefore, every time I do anything , I substantiate utilitarian theory: I always choose the option calculated to make me happiest. Otherwise, why would I choose it? And so in reality, I substantiate nothing. If that makes you uncomfortable, as it does me, you may ‘phone a friend’ for assistance. Patched into a gathering of Logical Positivists , in Vienna (1925–1935), you will hear that no proposition is meaningful unless it can be falsified. The basic premise of Utilitarianism, GGG#, cannot be falsified: it is impossible to imagine any objective, empirical data that would disprove it. How would I go about proving that some people choose to be unhappy rather than happy? What sort of instrument would I need to measure the quantity (not to mention the quality ) of someone’s happiness ? Let’s test this hypothesis with two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum: First, when I was barely yet a tween, I recall my grandmother going on about all the ‘sacrifices’ she made each day for the good of our family. She did a lot, no doubt! But cheekily, I countered, “You do what you do because doing it makes you happy.” Unwittingly, I was channeling Mill…at 10. No big deal: an even younger Mill channeled Plato…in the original Greek! The things she did, admittedly often repetitive and strenuous for a person her age, nevertheless gave her purpose and her life meaning. Watching TV game shows, hanging out in bars, or engaging in prostitution would probably not have made her happy. She would have been much less happy had she chosen not to do the things she did. None of which makes her any less virtuous! My second example requires us to travel back a bit in time. You may not remember it, but I was once burned at the stake, by John Calvin, no less (not to drop a name). Make no mistake, it hurt…a lot, but it came with the satisfaction of knowing that I had been true to my beliefs. Had I recanted and been spared, I would have had to endure a lifetime of shame, self-doubt, and regret. I chose the option that made me less unhappy …no matter how painful. All of which begs the question: “What is happiness anyway?” Is it a positive state that one can aspire to and even work to bring about? Or is it merely the absence of unhappiness? Consider the example above: “Recant or burn!” Neither will make me happy ‘happy’ but, I suppose, one might make me ‘less unhappy’ than the other. Reading Mill, you get the immediate sense that you are measuring unhappiness (e.g., poverty) rather than the much more elusive quantity known as ‘happiness’. It is the avoidance of penury that makes one happy, not a surfeit of riches. We are often reminded, correctly, that money does not buy happiness, but the myth of the ‘happy hobo’ is just that…a myth. As human beings, we are much better at defining what makes us unhappy than what makes us happy. We know what we don’t want; we have a harder time deciding what we prefer instead. But rest assured, whatever we choose to do, we will have chosen the option intended to make us happiest…always, every time, 100%. In the earlier article, we argued that the utilitarian formula for the distribution of Good was vacuous; now we’re arguing that the utilitarian definition of Good is itself meaningless, and beyond even that, that the concept of happiness itself has no meaning. It is as if we added the words, “…and it makes me happy,” to the end of every declarative sentence. Because we add this meme to every available utterance, it is utterly meaningless. It is impossible to devise a set of circumstances in which it doesn’t apply. Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar. What makes each person happy is not the venue; what makes them happy is the conviction that they are doing ‘what they ought to be doing’ at the time. Don’t let that ‘ought’ scare you! I’m not talking the 613 mitzvahs of Torah here. At any point in time, you have a sense of what you ought to be doing, or at least what you ought not to be doing. We are not here proposing any objective criteria for ‘ought’. In fact, this is where the concept of happiness becomes relevant after all. We are happy at those times when we’re doing what we feel we ought to be doing. But BYOO – Bring our own ‘ought’! It won’t be my ought…but so what? Be an Old Testament judge: Do what is right in your own eyes (Judges 21:25). But laying such analysis aside, Mill still faces insuperable hurdles. How does one define ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’? Is it a simple matter of arithmetic? Ʃ A+B+C…Z. In that case, a solution in which one person monopolizes 100% of the Good is at least conceivable. Of course, that is not what the liberal Mill or the socialist Bentham had in mind. They assumed some sort of distributive calculus – which is all well and good, but not part of Utilitarianism per se . Sidebar : If the meaning of life is ‘42’, then perhaps we can say the sum of all possible Good is ‘10’. Our job as philosopher-monarchs is to determine the distribution of that Good among, say, 10 beneficiaries. Turns out, the Utilitarian test, greatest good for the greatest number , can be satisfied using any distribution formula whatsoever, provided that 10 units of Good are distributed over 10 potential beneficiaries. Literally no one thinks this! And that fact alone demonstrates the absolute vacuity of Utilitarianism. Every practical version of Utilitarianism conceals another value (or set of values) which is the real driver. For Bentham, that value might have been ‘equality’, for Mill it might have been ‘liberty’ (including opportunity and the pursuit of happiness); for someone else, it might be ‘monopoly’, and for yet another, ‘productivity’ (whatever distribution of goods will generate the most total value). These are real driving values. The utilitarian formula is the veneer that attempts to clothe these values with invisibility, to hide them under the transparent mask of irrefutability. Mill and Bentham did not appreciate the full significance of the Industrial Revolution. Quantities are not fixed. They can grow (or diminish). A workable economic system needs to be concerned with the aggregate quantity of ‘goods’ as well as the just distribution of those ‘goods’. A professor of mine, John Rawls ( A Theory of Justice ), made a valiant attempt to reconcile Mill and Bentham and rescue Utilitarianism in the process. He proposed a system under which everyone would be guaranteed a certain minimal quantum of ‘happiness’ (goods), with the balance allocated among the beneficiaries in the way most likely to generate the greatest aggregate quantity of goods. The effort is valiant and no doubt correct, as far as it goes, but does it have any real content? Basically, Rawls states that there are three ‘goods’: (1) liberty (personal, civic); (2) prosperity (economic sufficiency); and (3) opportunity (economic freedom, the pursuit of happiness). I didn’t need to spend $250,000 on an Ivy League education to know this much. In fact, I can fit it on a bumper sticker for my next presidential run: “Liberty, Prosperity, Opportunity”. Curious to see what my opponents come up with! Would “Slavery, Poverty, Despair” be too much to hope for? David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Spring 2024. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Leviticus and the Fed "The Fed’s 2% inflation policy is a modern version of the Levitical program. It pays for the social safety net that is our way of redistributing wealth.” David Cowles From the Industrial Revolution to the AI Explosion , intellectual, social, and economic history has been dominated by the struggle between Socialism and Capitalism. Two great challenges confront every economic system: the generation of wealth and the distribution of that wealth. The success of every economic system must be measured according to these two criteria, and Socialism and Capitalism offer dramatically different approaches. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party , first published in 1848, Karl Marx famously wrote: “…The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” That single sentence became the rallying cry for a movement that, in many respects, dominated a 175-year period of world history. At the other end of the ideological seesaw, of course, was the 18th-century theory of Capitalism. These two great economic philosophies battled over one issue above all others: Who should own (control) society’s “means of production”? We have Marx to thank for this concept. He correctly understood that each society, each social epoch, is characterized by its means of production, i.e., by the way, in which it generates wealth. In Marx's 19th century, the means of production consisted of factories and machines, augmented by the labor of “wage slaves”. The bourgeoisie owned these means of production, either de jure as in the case of factories, or de facto, as in the case of labor. Marx did not decry the Industrial Revolution; he was no Green! He saw factories and machines as the instruments that would generate the wealth that would free the workers of the world from their chains. He decried the fact that ownership of the means of production was centralized in the hands of a few capitalists, who accumulated wealth and power at the expense of the proletariat, merely because they owned society’s productive assets. Marx’s solution was to abolish the institution of private property (at least as it relates to productive assets), collectivize productive property under the common ownership of the workers, and entrust the management of that property to institutions representing those workers (e.g., the Soviets, the Communist Party, or the State). Faintly but persistently, that great debate was punctuated with calls for a “Third Way”…a socio-economic alternative that might capture the most attractive features of both systems while discarding the undesirable elements of each. Proponents of a Third Way are typically looking to combine the egalitarian and communitarian virtues of Socialism with productivity and personal liberty, the strengths of Capitalism. It turns out that just such a Third Way was proposed…over 2500 years ago in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. The socio-economic blueprint laid out there embodies just those positive elements that we have come to associate with the best aspects of both Capitalism and Socialism. At first glance, it might appear that a socio-economic program written over two millennia ago for an agrarian economy could not possibly be implemented in a modern industrial society. But that would be incorrect. Upon deeper reflection, it is not only clear that the Levitical program can be implemented; it is clear that it has been implemented, at least in the United States. Evaluating the generation of wealth is easy; it’s basically a matter of arithmetic. Evaluating the distribution of wealth is much more difficult; values enter the discussion at every turn: Should wealth be distributed among members of society in proportion to the contribution of each toward the production of that wealth? Should wealth be distributed among members of society in proportion to the needs of each member? Should wealth be distributed equally among all members of society, regardless of the contribution or the need of any particular member? There are no immediately obvious, universally correct answers to these questions. Plus, there is another question that cuts diagonally across all three: If the production of wealth is in any way a function of the way in which that wealth is distributed, should the value of maximizing wealth influence in any way the decisions we make regarding its distribution? In his Theory of Justice , John Rawls proposed a solution to this enigma. He suggested that the optimum distribution of wealth was the distribution that would maximize production, consistent with the extension of civil rights and the provision of basic economic security to every member of society. His rationale: this is what an objective member of society would choose, provided that that member of society had no advance idea whether she would be at the top or the bottom end of the economic ladder. Rawls’ state of ‘disinformation’ is a modern version of Rousseau’s “State of Nature." The ideologies of Socialism and Capitalism have both been well tested in the laboratory of real life; how did each fare? Socialism did a reasonably good job of leveling economic (and therefore social) inequality, but it did an absolutely horrible job of maximizing production. Capitalism, on the other hand, did an astoundingly good job of maximizing production but a poor job managing social and economic inequality and providing basic economic security. After 65 years of real-life experimentation, the “workers of the world” did indeed unite. They voted with their feet: Yes to Capitalism, No to Communism! Apparently applying Rawls’ calculus, they decided it was better to risk being at the bottom of a Capitalist ladder than to languish hopelessly in the middle of a Communist heap. But this does not solve the dilemma: social justice is not an option; it is an imperative! Just as no one can validly sell themselves into slavery, neither can they bargain away their natural right to a basic share of society’s goods. A person may choose to ‘live poor’ (St. Francis) but they cannot justly be ‘made poor’ as a matter of law. Capitalism cannot celebrate its triumph until it fulfills Rawls’ condition of providing basic economic security to every member of society. Of course, folks will disagree, and rightly so, about what constitutes basic economic security, but most will agree that it has not yet been universally achieved. It certainly includes a decent place to live, decent clothing and enough to eat, but it’s more than that. It must include a safe environment, a healthy diet, health care and education. Even more than that; it must include the opportunity for economic, social and intellectual advancement…the right to ‘self-actualize’, to ‘be all that you can be’…and finally, it must include an acceptable level of social status, consistent with a positive self-image. Implementing an effective security net is useless if we label its beneficiaries ‘welfare cheats’. Clearly, the Capitalist world has a ways to go to meet John Rawls’ standards. Most, if not all, Capitalist societies have made some effort to construct a safety net. In some countries, the net is weak and full of holes; in other countries, it is stronger but tends to rob initiative and the sense of self-worth from those who rely on it. We can do better! “You shall count seven weeks of years – seven times seven years – such that the seven weeks of years amounts to forty-nine years…You shall treat this fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you…In this year of Jubilee, then, each of you shall return to your own property…The land shall not be sold irrevocably; for the land is mine, and you are but resident aliens and under my authority.” Leviticus (25:10) The social system outlined in Leviticus is based on the theory that every tribe of Israel began its career in Canaan with an equal share of productive property (i.e., land) and that every family within each tribe likewise began with an equal share. At the time of the Exodus from Egypt, land was the fundamental means of production and the primary source of all wealth, augmented by livestock and labor. In theory, at least, every family in the new society started out with an equal share of the means of production. But the social code of the Israelites reflected the fact that economic relations are never static. Some families grow wealthier, others poorer. The authors of Leviticus understood that some folks would ultimately be forced to sell their land, and even their labor, in order to survive. Leviticus did not forbid such economic activity…but it did limit its impact via two buffers: (1) a social safety net (Sabbath) and (2) a program to redistribute wealth (Jubilee). Leviticus calls for the total redistribution (or “restoration”) of productive wealth (i.e., the means of production) every 50 years. “…On the tenth day of the seventh month let the ram’s horn resound; on this, the Day of Atonement…each of you shall return to your own property.” Every 50 years, there’s a do-over. According to Leviticus, the State of Nature is renewable. Compare this ‘primitive’ social system with the more sophisticated Capitalist and Socialist systems. Under Capitalism, there are generally no do-overs; the sins (or mere mistakes) of the father/mother are most definitely visited on the sons and daughters for generations to come. Socialist societies, on the other hand, have a different problem. Here, the means of production are owned in common. This at least theoretically solves the problem of inequality, but it does nothing to motivate production. Without a system of economic incentives, labor languishes and there is little in the way of innovation or investment. Monday morning pep rallies are no substitute for profit sharing! The economic system offered by Leviticus solves this conundrum. All productive property is private! There is no ‘state’ per se . There are few restrictions on amassing wealth; incentives for labor and commerce abound. Yet, every 50 years, all productive property is redistributed, so every second generation gets a fresh start. It seems like the best of both worlds, a perfect solution. But you say, “It’s impractical; there’s simply no way that the productive property of the United States could be totally reallocated.” Is that so? Would you be surprised to learn that we have been living according to the Code of Leviticus for more than a decade? In fact, Jubilee has become a bright-letter Fed policy. Rather than redistributing all productive property every 50 years at the sound of a ram’s horn, the Federal Reserve has made a 2% annual rate of inflation a matter of policy. 2% x 50 years = 100%. The Fed’s 2% inflation policy is a modern version of the Levitical program. It pays for the social safety net, which is our way of redistributing wealth. How does this work? Consider our response to COVID-19. The US spent about $5 trillion that we didn’t have to mitigate the economic impact of COVID. We used that money to maintain our social safety net. They say money doesn’t grow on trees…yes it does! Ok, gold doesn’t grow on trees, but paper does. To pay for COVID, we printed money and effectively devalued our currency. We experienced that devaluation in the form of short-term hyperinflation (>2%). Essentially, we borrowed $5 trillion, and now we’re paying the ‘vig’…every time we purchase a roll of toilet paper. The wisdom of our response to COVID-19 is not our subject today, but as to the wisdom of the Fed’s 2% inflation target, we have only to look to the Book of Leviticus for confirmation. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Spring 2024. Previous Next

< Back Punctuation David Cowles Jul 26, 2021 Classical Western languages (e.g. Hebrew, Greek and Latin) for the most part lacked anything we would recognize today as ‘punctuation’. When marks did appear in texts, they were merely to guide actors and orators in their declamations. The same is true of Medieval languages (e.g. Old English, Old French and Old Norse). Classical Western languages (e.g. Hebrew, Greek and Latin) for the most part lacked anything we would recognize today as ‘punctuation’. When marks did appear in texts, they were merely to guide actors and orators in their declamations. The same is true of Medieval languages (e.g. Old English, Old French and Old Norse). What we recognize as punctuation today, marks in the service of meaning rather than rhetoric, did not become widespread until the invention of the printing press. Ever since then, punctuation has been the bane of every schoolboy’s and schoolgirl’s existence. Today, most writing happens on a cell phone or tablet. The typewriter’s single keyboard gives way to the multiple keyboards (screens) characteristic of electronic devices. The inclusion of punctuation marks in a text is no longer a seamless process; it requires the writer to switch screens which is inconvenient and time consuming. I predict that in a generation or two our written language will revert to the punctuation poor style of the ancients. The intrinsic value of every being lies in its potential to enter into an I – Thou (or Thou – Thou) relationship. The extrinsic value of every being lies in the actual Thou – Thou relationships it enters into. It is not obvious that beings in a cosmos would automatically have the potential to form Thou – Thou relationships. Such relationships are only possible in the context of transcendence and eternal values are only possible in the context of such relationships. Thomas Aquinas offered 5 proofs for the existence of God (transcendence). The only one that is still of interest to modern philosophers is the fourth, a proof based on the existence of values in the world. Aquinas was on to something! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back If He Chooses to Do So David Cowles Oct 14, 2021 My previous ‘thought’ concerned God’s dual role as ‘Creator of heaven and earth’ and ‘comrade-in-arms’. Further reflections: How can God be the creator of a radically free universe and yet play a role in the evolution of that universe? The answer lies in standing an old proverb (‘Man proposes, God disposes’) on its head. In fact, it is God who proposes but ‘man’ (i.e., worldly events) that disposes. Consider God’s words in Deuteronomy (30:19): “I set before you life and death (God proposes). Therefore, choose life. (Man disposes)” My previous ‘thought’ concerned God’s dual role as ‘Creator of heaven and earth’ and ‘comrade-in-arms’. Further reflections: How can God be the creator of a radically free universe and yet play a role in the evolution of that universe? The answer lies in standing an old proverb (‘Man proposes, God disposes’) on its head. In fact, it is God who proposes but ‘man’ (i.e., worldly events) that disposes. Consider God’s words in Deuteronomy (30:19): “I set before you life and death (God proposes). Therefore, choose life. (Man disposes)” This is also a solution to the famous ‘Problem of Evil’ (how can a good and omnipotent God tolerate evil in the world?). It is often said that my freedom extends only as far as the tip of your nose. Likewise, God’s omnipotence extends only as far as the edge of his creation. Beyond that edge God is a free actor among other free actors. In the dual acts of Creation and Incarnation, God sacrifices his omnipotence in order to share in the lot of mortals (pathos). It is important to note that this sublimation of power on God’s part is entirely voluntary; it does not diminish his omnipotence in any way. In fact, it is an expression of it. God chooses to place limits on his omnipotence so that he can be a true Creator and a ‘fellow traveler’. Remember the old adolescent paradox, “Can God make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?” Well, surprisingly, that paradox turns out to have an answer after all: “Yes, if he chooses to do so.” Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.