text:
Photo by J W on Unsplash
Consider these words from Carl Trueman's recent essay at Public Discourse:
The breakdown of political discourse and the crisis of legitimacy that traditional democratic institutions now face is therefore apocalyptic, in that it has unveiled this underlying, technologically fueled anthropological chaos. The "who are we?" question—always important, given that we are intentional, not merely instinctive creatures—has become the only question, no longer anchored in commitment to a notion of universal human nature, with limitations, a moral structure, and some common goal or range of common goals. Without such a foundation, without answering the "what are we" question, how can we answer the "who" question in any stable or meaningful way? How can we build any stable or coherent society?
Covid restrictions highlighted this in a painful way. Virtual Man, who works through his laptop and can thus work anywhere in general and nowhere in particular, found such restrictions to be far more reasonable than Real Man, who has to go to work in a particular time and particular place because he works with material, not virtual, reality. That is not simply a vocational divide. I would suggest it is an anthropological divide. Real Man experiences the world—and his own sense of self—in a fundamentally different way from Virtual Man. This is reflected in so many of the conflicts now straining western democracy, from the French Yellow Jackets to the rise of working-class nationalism to the Canadian truck protests. In each case, we see what Mary Harrington has dubbed the clash of the Virtuals versus the Reals. Underneath that divide lies a conflict of anthropologies between a technologically liberated view of human beings as disembodied wills who can transcend the limitations of the materiality of the world and a belief that embodiment and place are critical to survival.
This line of thinking has been explored also by online writer N.S. Lyons in his viral piece on the Canadian Trucker protests.
For the Virtual elite, the most unforgiveable thing about the Physicals, and the physical world in general, is that they stubbornly refuse to yield to full, frictionless control. There is a reason the dominant informational class is today most comfortable in a purely virtual environment – it's one where they can have direct, instantaneous control over (virtual) matter. Real matter is stubbornly resistant, a reminder that the self doesn't control the universe. It's dirty, polluting, a reminder of one's vulnerability, even mortality. And the need to rely on other humans to deal with it is super awkward.
So expect the Virtuals of the ruling class to double down on trying to exert control, moving with all haste to develop new and innovative methods of information management and coercion to try to eliminate every human vulnerability from the machine. Self-driving truck startups are about to have an excellent next funding round.
Finally, I wrote along similar lines a little while back, arguing that Farmers Make the Best Intellectuals.
So the farmer and the trucker get discipled into a kind of humility with regard to nature. Their relationship to the nature of the cosmos and of human behavior is such that they must adjust themselves, like a partner in a waltz, to the larger forces they reckon with and harness. The best farmers, or plumbers, or electricians, or woodworkers — all those hands-on trades — are those who best discern and adjust themselves to the raw material they handle, and the natural forces which act on that material. This willingness and ability to adjust to nature as we find it is a kind of humility which is absent from those who aim to remake the world.
Trueman's piece is important and helpful because he focuses in on anthropology. Anthropology is the study of man – what is man? What is human nature? He traces the loss of broad agreement on the answer to those questions from the Reformation to today. He makes an important point that I am not at all convinced most Christians are clear on:
Christianity takes the material world very seriously and sees it as having an authoritative moral structure that limits how we should act. Most obviously, it sees human nature as a real, universal thing, inextricably connected to our embodiment. From identity and sex to family and community, from the private sphere to the public square, this is foundational to Christian thinking. And in a world that wishes to assert the opposite, this means that the emerging terms of membership in civil society are increasingly those that will deny Christianity and Christians the possibility of full membership.
When I was growing up, I saw the conflict between orthodox belief and the unbelieving culture in the issues of exclusivity (Jesus as the only way to salvation) and sexual morality. But then over the course of my 20's and early 30's it dawned on me that a more fundamental divide was emerging, that of anthropology. Trueman does a good job making that divide clear in his piece.
What first alerted me to the deep significance of one's anthropology was the difference I observed between the 'Christian counseling' content I read in popular books and through some teachers at my Bible College and the 'Biblical counseling' content I was starting to come across from David Powlison, Paul Tripp and others at CCEF. Much of that difference boiled down to two very different ways of seeing the human person. The former approach adopted rather uncritically the concepts of secular psychology and tweaked the therapeutic advice to accord with Biblical statements. But the latter approach questioned the premises of secular psychology and sought to arrive at an understanding of human nature that was deeply informed by the Scriptures. This approach led to a deeper appreciation of the multifaceted effects of indwelling sin and of life lived in a broken world.
The writing and teaching of the folks at CCEF struck me as qualitatively different from what I had encountered in the popular Christian psychologists like Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. Larry Crabb, though their work was still very helpful in some ways. Nevertheless, this experience settled a conviction for me that a thoroughly Biblical anthropology was crucial for building on. Simply put, it serves as the substructure for your view of sanctification and human flourishing. This experience also convinced me that this was one of the areas where regular church folks and ministry leaders had imbibed an awful lot of unbiblical assumptions from the world around them.
Fast forward to today and we find that many of the most pressing moral issues of our time are directly related to the question of human nature: transgender ideology, the dystopian dreams of the transhumanists, and the advances of AI.
Now, more than ever, the church needs to search the Scriptures diligently and gain a new level of clarity and conviction on what human nature is, what God's intent for humanity is, and how this informs our response to the challenges that are coming at us with increasing complexity and velocity day by day.
While Trueman closes his piece with a glimmer of hope, his overall analysis is very sobering. I encourage you to read the whole thing. Here is how he wraps it up:
Yet here, perhaps, is a glimmer of hope. The reason for this is something we all intuitively know: we human beings are not simply whoever we wish to be; we are not simply disembodied wills; on the contrary, we do have a nature—a "whatness"—that cannot be indefinitely denied with impunity. We are embodied, and those bodies involve biological limits (we all die, even if we choose to self-identify as immortal) and a moral framework—we never exist in isolation but always within a network of dependence and obligation. If the time of Covid revealed anything, it revealed that most human beings still have some intuition that embodiment, and the communities of obligation and dependence that are intrinsic to our embodiment, are of critical importance to what it means to be human.
The challenge for the church, embedded as she is in this technological age, is to embody that reality in her life. The path forward is to take our coming marginalization seriously, as an opportunity, not merely a setback: an opportunity to embody in our own lives and congregations what it means to be truly human.
Phil Cotnoir Culture, Quote Leave a comment January 10, 2023
Why Farmers make the Best Intellectuals
There is a good reason why not many truck drivers and farmers are progressive utopians with dreams of revolutionizing society. A farmer who doesn't learn to work with the grain of reality is going to have silos with no grain. A trucker who doesn't learn that the wrong air pressure in his tires will lead to blowouts, or in other words, that he must conform to the rules of physics and not the other way around, is not going to be on the road very long before disaster strikes. In these professions, with their close proximity to grounded reality, error leads quickly to correction and discipline in the most obvious and painful of ways.
Discovering the inflexible laws of physics
But in the softer sciences, conceits and abstract theories can float around and spread like a mind-virus long before their incarnated effects reveal how disastrously mistaken their assumptions were. The long delay is a key and critical difference. The correction and discipline do come, but just like sending a child to time-out 3 hours after they hit their sibling is sure to teach them nothing, so the delayed correction to the wrong-headed theories rarely seem to change the minds of those who adopted them. And by then the damage has been done.
Working with the grain of the created order – and the wood.
Beyond the forces of nature, there are certain universal human elements that must be accounted for as well. For example, being punctual, truthful, and trustworthy will lead to repeat business and recommendations – in short, flourishing. So a brilliant plumber who cheats his customers will not get far, but a personable and honest electrician who burns a house down through shoddy work will do no better. One needs a measure of both practical and interpersonal skills.
If only the work of intellectuals had such tight feedback loops, we could save ourselves so much pain and misery. Unfortunately, the work of the intellectual allows him to entertain ideas which are manifest nonsense, but which sound good and appeal to a great many people for one reason or another. And the more wealthy and decadent a society becomes, where the educated classes are further and further insulated from the harsh realities of the created order — and its humbling lack of flexibility on many points — the more they have the illusion that everything is malleable and plastic. Yes, everything can be re-imagined! And then our perfect utopian vision can be brought to pass!
But God will not be mocked, and the particular shape he gave to the world we inhabit will only be thwarted for so long.
For this reason, I prefer my intellectuals and thought-leaders to also be farmers.
Phil Cotnoir Culture 2 Comments October 3, 2022 October 3, 2022
Where Men Fear to Tread
Only a meathead of a man would dare to speak prescriptively to women's issues these days.
Anyways, here are some interesting links exploring the intersection of modern technology, womanhood, and feminism.
These issues present themselves in different ways in the church compared to the culture at large. While the church appeals to Scripture as authoritative, the culture does not. And so I see the need for intellectually rigorous discussion in the public square on these issues, and I am grateful when I find it. Today I leave you with three examples.
First, a piece by Mary Harrington, whose writing I've enjoyed in a few places recently. I don't know if she is a Christian or not, but she is a thoughtful voice. Over at First Things, she has a book review called Gender After Eden, based on a book by Abigail Favale. In it she deals with some profound questions:
'The Genesis of Gender' addresses what I regard as the central cultural (which is to say theological) struggle of the early twenty-first century: the proper relation between technology and the human person, particularly as it applies to women.
She also interacts with the work of Judith Butler. Here is an extended quote that I think is first-rate:
But for Butler, this is obviously the path of liberation, for the fight against the oppressive structures of power that shape our sense of self is a feminist one, and it requires us to dismantle every structure that might induce us to view our reality as men and women as influenced by our bodies —structures Butler calls "heteronormativity." Ground Zero for that liberation is unmooring reproduction from sex and our bodies. Following her logic to its end, Butler advocates "replacing the maternal body" with technology, with the aim of "fully decoupling human reproduction from heterosexual relationships." We are finally free when our bodies have no relevance to our most intimate relationships and deepest commitments.
Favale invites us to consider whether this disaggregation of selfhood, reproduction, and embodiment—already underway technologically—really adds up to a better world. From the perspective of her reading of Genesis, it doesn't heal but rather deepens the postlapsarian fractures in our "spiritual-somatic unity," offering a vision of selfhood split from embodiment and a relation to ourselves and one another founded in objectification and control. Rather than affording escape from domination, it reproduces the very splits that make domination and control our fundamental mode of being in the world.
1. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/05/gender-after-eden
Onto our second link, which deals with similar themes from a different angle. Andrew Klavan, whose memoir of conversion to Christianity, The Great Good Thing, I enjoyed back in 2017, was recently on with Jonathan Van Maren's podcast to talk about his most recent book, The Truth and Beauty. It purports to show that a close reading of the English romantics—specifically Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Mary Shelley—can shed light onto the meaning of the words of Christ in the gospels. If nothing else, a fascinating hypothesis.
In the course of the discussion, Klavan lays out some interesting ideas about how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—perhaps the very first work of science fiction—is centered around the question of motherhood in a technological age. Shelley's own biography hints at this, as well as certain elements of the text itself. He goes on to posit that this is in some ways the central question facing our culture. I'm paraphrasing from memory here, so you'll have to listen for yourself to get the details. It's the kind of claim that seems implausible at first; it's too fundamental. Yet the more I think about it, the more I think he may be on to something. And of course he is by no means the first or the only person to suggest these connections. I just started reading his new book The Truth and Beauty and will hope to post a reflection on that when I'm done.
2. https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/conservative-author-explains-how-englands-greatest-poets-shed-light-on-the-meaning-of-jesus-words/
Thirdly, here is some further engagement with the writing of Abigail Favale, over at The Public Discourse. The value I find here is the substantive engagement with feminist literature (which, admittedly, I do not know well at all) from a religious and/or conservative perspective. Rejecting feminism out of hand as an unbiblical ideology is easy to find among conservative Christians. But those approaches are aimed at other Christians, not the culture at large. They do not really take the questions raised by feminism seriously. When it comes to talking with friends or family members who aren't conservative or Christian, it's helpful to be able to have more nuanced conversations that do not rely on appeals to Scripture.
3. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2021/07/76816/
Phil Cotnoir Culture 1 Comment May 5, 2022
The Tech Post
Is it just me, or are we all talking about technology far more than ever? It might be just me. I'm reminded of a strange phenomenon I have experienced a few times. It comes time to replace a vehicle, and I start doing a whole bunch of research, eventually zeroing in on one make and model. Suddenly I am noticing them everywhere: parking lots, streets, and even zipping by in the opposite direction on the highway. They were always there, but I never noticed them. Attention is a mysterious thing.
And so it was that during my month-long absence from social media that all kinds of hubbub and hoopla burst forth. Let's see—there was Jonathan Haidt's viral article in The Atlantic. If you're like me and you already used up your free monthly articles from The Atlantic, you can check out the related podcast interview between Haidt and Bari Weiss. Samuel D. James, who is writing a book on how technology shapes us and how Christians ought to respond, offered a response to Haidt's article: What Jonathan Haidt is Missing. It's a good word.
Last week I was at the last T4G in Louisville, KY, without Twitter, and so I spent a lot of time walking around and looking at things. I'll admit I felt a little bit like this:
"Hey, what's going on over there?"
With impeccable timing, Chris Martin wrote a piece titled "Things Are Real Even if We Don't Share Them." Ironically, I am sharing that piece with you now, dear reader. But not on social media. Unless you post this post on social media, in which case we will have achieved maximum self-referential absurdity and the fabric of the universe will unravel.
I plan to write some more on my time at T4G, so stay tuned for that. Lastly, I have been pondering the whole idea of natural and creaturely limits as well as technology's endless quest to transcend and transgress those limits. There is perhaps no greater illustration of this dynamic tension than the project of transhumanism. It was with great interest then that I read this piece by Wesley Smith at First Things: The Impossibility of Christian Transhumanism.
That's enough links for today.
Phil Cotnoir Culture Leave a comment April 26, 2022
Why Hollywood Can't Pull Off Goodness (According to C.S. Lewis)
I'm no movie critic – not even close. I don't seem to have whatever artistic antennae are required to appreciate the subtleties of the cinematic medium. Nevertheless, like most people, I do have eyes in my head and do enjoy a good movie. And it happens to be a fact that every movie works from a script – a story with characters and dialogue. So the basis for every movie is the written word, while it cannot be said that every book is based on a movie. (Woe to the book that is based on a movie: Thou art a fraud.) My point is that the same dynamics of moral imagination are at play in a movie as in a novel or any other creative work of fiction. And this is where the following quote by C.S. Lewis collided in my mind with a simple observation I've made about many of the movies and TV shows made in recent decades, which I'll get to in a moment.
It remains, of course, true that Satan is the best drawn of Milton's characters. The reason is not hard to find. Of the major characters whom Milton attempted he is incomparably the easiest to draw. Set a hundred poets to tell the same story and in ninety of the resulting poems Satan will be the best character. In all but a few writers the 'good' characters are the least successful, and every one who has ever tried to make even the humblest story ought to know why. To make a character worse than oneself it is only necessary to release imaginatively from control some of the bad passions which, in real life, are always straining at the leash; the Satan, the Iago [the scheming antagonist from Shakespeare's play Othello], the Becky Sharp [the morally vile protagonist from Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair], within each of us, is always there and only too ready, the moment the leash is slipped, to come out and have in our books that holiday we try to deny them in our lives. But if you try to draw a character better than yourself, all you can do is to take the best moments you have had and to imagine them prolonged and more consistently embodied in action. But the real high virtues which we do not possess at all, we cannot depict except in a purely external fashion. We do not really know what it feels like to be a man much better than ourselves. His whole inner landscape is one we have never seen, and when we guess it we blunder. It is in their 'good' characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self-revelations. … To project ourselves into a wicked character, we have only to stop doing something, and something that we are already tired of doing; to project ourselves into a good one we have to do what we cannot and become what we are not.
C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost, Chapter 13. Emphasis mine.
Now since I've already dipped into the mode of the woe-throwing Old Testament prophet, I'll allow myself one more: Woe to the one who looks to Hollywood for moral clarity. And all the people said Amen. But even without looking to movies for moral clarity, it remains a fact that so much of what is compelling about a movie is the moral fabric of the main characters, both good and evil. I am limiting myself here to those movies which are a essentially a contest between moral opposites: crime dramas, thrillers, action movies, or the never-ending series of original or rebooted or off-shoot superhero movies. The simple observation I am making about such movies and shows is that the good characters are becoming more troubled and morally compromised. It is so very rare to see a compelling protagonist that is good. The anti-hero is the hero for our age; the anti-hero is the only kind of hero we can believe in.
The above quote by Lewis is commenting on the scholarly consensus that Milton's Satan (in Paradise Lost) is more compelling as a character than any other in the story. Lewis then lays out a morally insightful explanation for why that is necessarily the case in fallen humanity's literature. Another example of this principle is found in the fact that Dante's Inferno is by far and away more popular and compelling to the typical reader than either Purgatorio or Paradisio.
I used to think that an author's characters had no vital connection to them – that an imagination could dream up moral monsters and virtuous heroes without it being a reflection of itself. But this is not true. As Lewis says, "It is in their 'good' characters that novelists [and screenwriters] make, unawares, the most shocking self-revelations." Indeed, we are infected with moral cynicism. We look back on the virtuous heroes of past literature and we groan at the naivety of such caricatures. But this reaction reveals far more about our modern moral weakness than it does about anything else. And our modern writers cannot conceive of a truly virtuous person because our culture has jettisoned objective morality and the priority of character formation.
Adam and Eve and the obedient angels may not have been Milton's best characters, but I dare say he was able to make them far more compelling than our typical cadre of authors and screenwriters could today. Even when they attempt to treat subjects of similar greatness, it seems they cannot avoid falling into caricatures either of rigid moralists and unhappily repressed religious people on the one hand, or vile hypocrites who are only pretending to be good on the other.
Small wonder then that the heroes we see onscreen, whatever technical mastery and skill they may have, are hardly ever compelling examples of deep moral goodness: Iron Man and the whole Marvel cast, John Wick, Deadpool, and so on. There are of course blessed exceptions to this rule, such as Aragorn in Peter Jackson's LotR Trilogy and Franz & Fani from Terrence Malick's recent movie A Hidden Life. It takes real effort to pull off these characters well and avoid portraying a plastic pseudo-goodness that comes across more as naivety than virtue. One common element between them is suffering. Perhaps goodness untested by suffering and evil is never very compelling. But I am straying from my main point, which is that we do learn all too much about the storytellers of our time by the manifestations of goodness that they are able to imagine and conjure for us.
Simply put, we do not have deep and compelling moral goodness manifested in our entertainment because a writer's imagination is constrained by his or her own moral character and by and large we have forgotten (or rejected) the possibility and priority of conforming ourselves to an objective standard of virtue.
I mean, have you ever seen Caillou? That kid's a brat.
"Weak point, sir. I'm from Canada, not Hollywood."
Phil Cotnoir Culture, Quote Leave a comment March 9, 2022 March 12, 2022
A lil' Ellul on Technology
We carry in our pockets little devices with incredible power. We do not really understand how they are made, how they connect to other devices, or how they affect us. And yet increasingly our lives are enmeshed with them. Like so many others, I struggle in my relationship with technology. I find impulses and compulsions at work in me in relation to social media, emails, and other aspects of connectedness that indicate, if nothing else, that this symbiotic relationship is tapping into aspects of my mind and heart that I do not fully control or understand.
While it is true that there is nothing new under the sun, we must nevertheless make the observation that our society is integrated with technology like none before. The fundamental nature of technology has not changed so much – a tool, device, or technique that allows you to exert influence and control over some aspect of the natural world – but the interconnectedness of those technologies and devices certainly has. And the reach they have into our lives has also deepened significantly. All of this begs for wisdom. We need wisdom and understanding if we are to think and act rightly. Thankfully we have a promise that such a request made of God is gladly met: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him" (James 1:5).
We also have wise teachers to guide us in the particulars of this challenge, gifted men and women who have pondered these questions and written prophetically and insightfully. Among those often cited as authorities on the subject of technology is Jacques Ellul (1912-1994). In the rest of this post, I will share some thoughts on his book Perspectives on our Age, the only English book of his I could track down at the main Montreal public library. It is not one of his major works, but rather an adaptation of interviews he did on his life and work for a radio broadcast of the CBC program Ideas. Which is probably why so much of the book was biographical.
This was my first attempt to read this author that I have heard so much about. It was not quite what I expected. Nevertheless, it was thought-provoking and displayed that originality of thought for which he is famous. The first section was largely autobiographical.
I was surprised to find that Marx was a major influence on Ellul throughout his life. He eventually rejected the Communist cause due to his interactions with their groups, and what he saw as their departure from Marx's thought. He speaks of "a revolutionary tendency in me." He said it was Marx who "convinced me that people in the various historical situations they find themselves, have a revolutionary function in regard to their society."
My jaw dropped however when I read his claim that "Marx was not opposed to the family. He himself started a family and was a good father who married off his daughters and so on." This is patently false, and certainly hinders my ability to take at face value his evaluation of Marx. See Paul Johnson's book Intellectuals (which is valuable despite some lamentable shortcomings) for a rather more sombre view of Marx's family life. It was not pretty. Ellul's takeaway from all this however is a decision to side with those who are poor (in the sense of alienation), the 'excluded' such as the aged, the unfit, those at the fringes.
Ellul eventually rejected Marx's atheism. He was disappointed however by the religious authorities that he turned to for answers to his questions, such as the local pastor. He embraced an intellectual attitude where he did not look to anyone to explain things to him but sought out solutions to problems and questions that he had. This would certainly encourage originality of thought.
Turning to his conversion to Christianity, Ellul says that the Bible offered answers to his existential questions, such as the meaning of life, death, and love. The Bible gave answers on a different level than Marx had:
"I was converted – not by someone, nor can I say I converted myself. It is a very personal story, but I will say that it was a very brutal and very sudden conversion. I became a Christian and I was obliged to profess myself a Christian in 1932. From that moment on, I lived through the conflict and the contradiction between what became the center of my life – this faith, this reference to the Bible, which I henceforth read from a different perspective – and what I knew of Marx and did not wish to abandon. For I did not see why I should have to give up the things that Marx said about society and explained about economy and injustice in the world. I saw no reason to reject them just because I was now a Christian."
It seems that he lived the rest of his intellectual life with these two sources of authority, Marx and the Bible, refusing to let go of either one, nor to create two domains, one material and one spiritual, but forged on in some kind of dialectic holding the two together in a kind of "permanent contradiction." Fascinating.
He joined the reformed Church in France, which was only faintly Calvinist at that time. But it led him to read Calvin, who he found very interesting for his "rigour, intransigence, and total use of the Scriptures." He went through a Calvin phase but then moved on to Barth. Indeed, Calvin was completely eclipsed by Karl Barth.
When World War 2 arrived, he was dismissed from his teaching role, his father was arrested, and his wife was in danger of being arrested. So he joined the Resistance. After the war, he tried to influence change in the French reformed Church for 15 years, but failed due to the "traditionalism of Christians," and the "indifference toward change." His verdict: "Once a movement becomes an institution, it is lost." I can only say that, given the nature of the far-reaching changes he had in mind, it seems to me that the mechanism of that institution protected it from being radically redefined. But I don't know enough about the details of it all to say whether that was for the good or not.
Ellul then tried to change the study of theology: "I kept trying to find what would be possible for a Christian who analyzes society with the apparatus of Marx's thinking." What strange echoes this has today as evangelicalism, these forty years later, wrestles with the role of Marxist modes of criticism like Critical Race Theory and intersectionality.
As I said, I was surprised to find so much Marx in Ellul's intellectual biography. Given the way Marxist categories have so profoundly infected and poisoned so much of Western (especially North-American) intellectual life, and the allergic reaction that the name Marx now triggers in many, it certainly seems to me that Ellul will not gain many friends or eager ears in my circles.
But now we move on to his seminal insights into technology and 'technique'. In studying the modern world he came to see that technique, as defined by him, had a similar or greater explanatory power than did capital in the works of Marx for the 19th century.
Distinguishing technique from technology, or from machinery, Ellul points out the common theme of efficiency, what we now sometimes refer to as 'hacks,' or the relentless pursuit of ever greater efficiency in every sphere and domain of our lives, including our minds, our sleep, our bodies, our meetings, our organizations, our transportation, our schedules, our athletics, our psychology, et cetera ad infinitum (and other Latin phrases). "This expansion of technique to human groups, to human life, is one of the essential characteristics of our world."
This seems to me to be precisely right. Ellul is helpful in exposing how technology and 'technique' have a kind of internal logic and telos which override whatever human aims we claim for the technology we invent. It remains the case that someone comes along, builds on what has been done before, and finds ever better ways of applying technology to more of life, revolutionizing sphere after sphere of human life to conform to this overriding principle of efficiency and inter-connectivity.
The history of technological development since the Industrial Revolution seems to bear this out. It is easy to think that the individual or small group developing some technology is acting in isolation and that the effects of their work is limited to the applications they themselves have in mind. But a broader view suggests that all such efforts are part of an unstoppable wave of technological advancement and expansion.
It is important to be clear-eyed about this reality and to take stock of our relationship with technology. We must never believe the lie that we merely use technology like a tool. Instead, technology shapes us more deeply than we usually like to recognize. And this process shows no sign of slowing down – indeed the rate of acceleration is increasing. Instead of being carried along in the powerful current, we must ask hard questions about how much technology we should really embrace in our lives, and ask how much of that technology is actually leading to human flourishing.
But to answer that question, one needs to have a definition of humanity, of the good, and therefore of what the 'good life' is. That is perhaps one of the most important things we need to recover – a vision of human nature. Are we merely biological machines, like the materialists insist? Are we free to define and redefine ourselves by our own authority, as the gender revolutionaries assume? Are we subject so some universal moral law that we ignore and defy to our own detriment, as the classical and Christian traditions teach?
I'll admit I did not find as much applicable insight in this book as I was hoping. Perhaps other thinkers have gone further and have spoken more directly to the modern challenges facing us today and into the future. If you have one to recommend, please let me know in the comments!
Phil Cotnoir Culture 1 Comment January 14, 2022 October 4, 2022
Vaccine Passports for Churches? Part 2
Something unusual is happening. A little over a week ago I penned an article that seemed to boil up from my heart when I first heard the Quebec government's announcement that churches would have to implement vaccine passports, excluding the unvaccinated from their worship services. I received a large amount of feedback from all kinds of people in all kinds of places. And although my piece had to do specifically with the situation in Quebec, readers connected from all over the globe, including sizable numbers from New Zealand. I don't know anyone in New Zealand. Clearly the topic struck a nerve.
In this follow-up, drawing on the many conversations I have had with church leaders here and there, I would like to 'think out loud' as a way of advocating for wisdom, courage, and balance. I don't believe there is a one-size-fits-all option that captures biblical faithfulness for each and every church. That being said, I believe some things are out of bounds, which was the point of that first article.
What I Said, What Happened
On the question of vaccine passports in churches, I landed decidedly on "No!". This resonated with quite a number of people, though certainly not all. One's response to my argument against vaccine passports, it seems to me, has a lot to do with how one understands the seriousness of the health crisis and the wisdom of public health directives thus far in the pandemic. Those who reached out to me to share their disagreement generally had more to say about those matters than Biblical principles.
This gets at one of the most pernicious aspects of this whole Covid moment. For those who see it as akin to a meteor hurling towards earth, no cost is too high and no freedoms are too precious to escape this threat and live to see another day. And this makes a lot of sense if that is more or less the nature of the threat. Others see a public health and media establishment always catastrophizing and assuming the worst, and regulations being enforced which seem more like theatre than anything based in data. And the difference between these two paradigms has a lot to do with where you get your news. In my first post I purposely avoided getting into such epidemiological details, knowing that it would only distract from the main point I was seeking to make.
What was that main point, you ask? It was simply to argue that this latest regulation was categorically different than all the previous regulations imposed on houses of worship. My point was this mandate crossed a line that had not yet been crossed in this province. I sought to ground that argument in the Scriptures, as I was writing primarily to fellow Christians. If I were to write an open letter to the government I would base my argument on other grounds, of which there are plenty to choose from.
It was my hope that houses of worship across the province would unite in defying this decree, applying enough immediate pressure to cause the government to rescind it. That has not happened. It was also my hope that Christian pastors and elders would be agreed upon the conviction that to install such a system in their church would be a stain upon that church's witness, such that whatever other options were considered, this one would be set to the side as a non-option. This has not happened either.
And so we find ourselves in a situation where we are faced with dire choices, none of which are ideal. What are we to do? How do we go about weighing these options? Many pastors and church leaders are facing decisions which may prove decisive for their future ministries and for the continued existence of their churches. The stakes have never been higher in our lifetimes.
Many have noted that social media tends to amplify those voices which are on the extreme ends of any given question. This has something to do with human psychology but also with the kinds of algorithms that control the dials for what gets shown to who. One of the things I have noticed in the course of this pandemic is how this dynamic has played itself out. Needless to say, rare is the social media post dealing with any of these covid-related issues that actually builds bridges between opposing sides. One of the results of this is we become reinforced in our way of thinking.
The temptation is to view anyone more critical of the government as extreme and divisive, and anyone more compliant to the government as cowardly and terminally compromised. When these temptations are indulged, the resulting rhetoric rolls off the tongue – or off the keyboard – with uncanny ease. It is very easy to do, and it feels good too. But I do not think that it is ultimately all that helpful for anyone.
The reality in Quebec is that there are a lot fewer evangelical churches per capita than anywhere else in North America. This means that, by and large, there is more diversity inside those churches than might be the case elsewhere. Why? Because instead of having six churches to choose from in a given town, there is one, maybe two options within reasonable driving distance. The kind of sorting according to personality types and political leanings that can happen in places with a higher density of believers has not happened here to nearly the same degree.
This diversity means that unity in the church requires constant effort. For many pastors faced with this government mandate – which, due to emergency powers, legally has the force of law – the question of unity is a critical one. In many churches where there is a wide diversity of opinion, there are two options which are guaranteed to cause a catastrophic split in their church: 1. Imposing a vaccine passport system in compliance with the mandate, or 2. Holding services without a vaccine passport system, in open defiance to the mandate. Either of those options will instantly alienate a large percentage of their members, making it impossible for them to continue worshipping there. Some zealous folks might say "Good riddance! Let us be rid of them, and separate the sheep from the goats."
But the pastors I know facing this exact situation are good shepherds. They know that despite whatever deep differences of opinion, these are genuine believers that need to be vitally connected to a local church. They also know that some of them need much pastoral care, prayer, and counseling. And so the question inevitably becomes: Is this decision worth splitting the church? Is it really the only faithful option?
Many are choosing to avoid either of those options, which we might call the two far ends of the spectrum. Among the middle options I have heard floated are the following:
Close in-person gatherings and live-stream services.
Close in-person gatherings and live-stream services to small groups of congregants gathered in homes.
Practice "righteous deception" in the way of the Israelite midwives, purporting to live-stream services while actually meeting in person in a discreet location.
Nobody landing on one of these options would consider it ideal. But that doesn't mean it isn't much to be preferred over a permanently damaging church split. In a situation as fraught and complex as this one, it may be that the best outcome we can hope for is a course of action that nobody really loves, but that everyone can at least understand and support without violating their convictions. Such a decision will require that everyone lay aside their personal preferences. It will show that what unites us in Christ is stronger than what divides us in the flesh. And this, I believe, can be a wholesome, faithful, God-honoring path to chart for many churches.
But not all churches. There are some that have a unity of conviction among the leadership, with a congregation eager to follow their lead. Some of these are opting to openly defy the passport mandate while continuing to take all other precautions to reduce risk. Indeed, the risk they are taking is in the form of hefty fines and legal troubles. There is courage here that does not seek to offend, a gracious refusal to comply. I applaud and support these brothers and sisters in Christ. They are able to stand up to government overreach without causing violence to the unity of the body of Christ under their care.
Dangers Everywhere
One of the things I learned from reading the Puritans it that there is spiritual danger everywhere. Sin is ever-present in this broken world, and no course of action is without its own particular temptations. For those churches and leaders who have decided to openly defy the government mandate, it is important to be aware and wary of the ditch along the path. Those who have been loudest in their defiance of what they perceive as government tyranny have at times engaged in rhetoric intimating that anything short of equal defiance was compromise motivated by cowardice. In other words, this is the only faithful option.
What often went unstated however was that such judgments presupposed an interpretation of the epidemiological situation that differed greatly from the mainstream narrative. In some circles, these alternative interpretations of the pandemic were dominant. Fed largely by conservative media from the USA, as well as some other online sources, these views ranged from conspiracy theories (it's a Plandemic!) to far more plausible ideas like 'the public health establishment has mishandled this pandemic in a historic way.'
Whatever else we might say about such questions, they are not addressed directly in Scripture. We cannot find chapter and verse to explain to us the best practices for a modern 21st-century nation-wide response to a novel virus causing widespread sickness and death. But some of the voices decrying government actions were loudest precisely on those points where Scripture was silent, taking on at times the ethos and energy of a culture warrior or political activist rather than a pastor or Christian leader.
But still I have been quite sympathetic to such leaders. I respect their courage and the clarity of their convictions. The dangers they decry (the infringement of religious liberty and authoritarianism) are not imaginary, even if we perceive them differently. At the same time, I know my heart is not immune to cowardice. But the spiritual danger I see in such a posture is to run roughshod over those Christians who are fearful and do not know what to believe. Competing narratives seem to offer wildly different accounts of the government's actions. For some, they are heroes making the tough calls to keep everyone safe; for others, tyrants and authoritarians gleefully stripping away civil liberties from the unwitting public. Who is right? And must it be one or the other? Is cowardice really the only possible explanation for the various paths churches have taken throughout this pandemic?
I find that kind of rhetoric to be reminiscent of the 'fighting fundamentalists' of the 20th-century. Certain on every minute point of doctrine, nearly every church but theirs was hopelessly compromised and deceived by Satan. Discontent with co-belligerence, they chose belligerency towards all who differed. But this bred a toxic kind of self-righteousness that was not attractive to unbelievers or spiritually healthy for believers. It led to divisions and schism where they were not at all necessary.
As church leaders face some of the toughest decisions of their ministries, many are crying out for wisdom and guidance through prayer and fasting. May God grant them such graces in abundance, both to lead well and to avoid the dangers which lie inevitably along any of the possible paths. And as friends, family members, and fellow believers choose differently, may the unity we have in Christ enable us to disagree charitably, even warmly.
Loving Our Neighbours (Jabbed or Not)
The Biblical principle most often cited to me to support the idea of vaccination passports in churches is love for one's neighbour. The questions are perennial: What does it mean to love our neighbour in this situation? And in the words that called forth that great parable of the Good Samaritan, just who is my neighbour? Many reasonably see vaccination as an act of neighbourly love. So far, so good. From this premise many conclude that a refusal to get vaccinated is motivated by a selfishness and lack of love for others. I don't think that's true, but for the sake of argument let's assume it is.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that, in Canada as well as many other places in the world, there is a growing hostility towards the unvaccinated that has dark foreboding element to it. In its worst manifestations, the unvaxxed are treated as if they were disease-ridden, unclean, and guilty for the sufferings of others, deserving whatever comes to them. Such scapegoating and marginalization essentially make the unvaccinated a group of societal outcasts. The speed and viciousness with which large portions of our society seem to have "othered" and dehumanized the unvaccinated is one of the most troubling things I have seen in a long time.
But are they not our neighbours too? Do people cease to be our neighbours when they make choices we disagree with? Shall the church of Christ join in the mob calling for them to be shoved to the margins of society? Isn't the church called especially to those on the margins? What does loving these neighbours look like?
Love, I am told, is patient and kind. It is not arrogant or rude, irritable or resentful. It assumes the best about others' motivations. Love does not let the categories and divisions of the world tear apart the unity that Christ purchased with His precious blood.
Phil Cotnoir Culture, Reflections 4 Comments December 27, 2021 January 20, 2022
Vaccine Passports for Churches?
(This is first of two posts on this topic. Part 2 can be found here.)
It is a dark day for churches in Quebec, and my heart is heavy. Word came down on the evening of December 16th that houses of worship have been mandated by the provincial government to turn away from their public services those without vaccine passports.
I do not make it a habit to get on my soapbox and declare my thoughts about public policy, but today I am making an exception. I would like to try and make the argument that this new regulation from the government is categorically different than any other regulation that has heretofore been applied to churches, and that in asking churches to do this, the government is asking churches to disobey the teaching of the Scriptures and to betray the essence of being a church.
Elders and pastors have carried a heavy burden since the very start of this pandemic. I know the weight of it, as I served as an elder for the first chaotic year of the pandemic. All the local church elders and pastors I've spoken to, without exception, affirmed that they have had under their shepherding care people at both ends of the spectrum (and everywhere in between) when it comes to responding to this pandemic. This government decree has, with one fell swoop, made each of their lives and leadership exponentially more difficult.
Church leaders have, by and large, done their best to thread the needle during these two tortuous years, and have repeatedly had to adapt at the last minute to ever-changing regulations, coming up with new policies for their gatherings. Each of those decisions has been stressful, demanding, and usually criticized by some for going too far and by others for not going far enough. I have immense respect and admiration for these faithful leaders.
When we were mandated to wear masks indoors, we bought masks and wore them. When we were restricted to 50, and then 25 people in the building, we mobilized volunteers and multiplied services, running three per Sunday at one point. We also bought equipment, trained volunteers, and started live-streaming services. When singing was restricted, we chafed and struggled but we sang with our hearts instead of our lips. We did all these things because, as hard as these restrictions were, they did not seem to directly go against the teaching of the Scriptures which we hold as the only ultimate authority in matters of faith and worship.
I will not pretend to be of two minds about this. The announcement from the government marks the start of something completely new. Everything that has come before has been on the scale from mildly to extremely inconvenient. To my mind, the church in Quebec now faces a test not of creativity and flexibility, or of neighbourly love and graciousness, but of conviction and principle.
To be plain: I think it unconscionable for a local church, which is a visible manifestation of the universal church of Christ on earth, to enforce this kind of discrimination. We simply cannot say in our call to worship, "This church opens wide her doors," while at the same time having someone with a QR-Code scanner shutting those doors on the unvaccinated.
Yes, this new regulation is different. I believe it asks churches to disobey the clear teaching and principles of Scripture that we find in several passages. I will limit myself to two that come to mind, for the sake of brevity and clarity.
First, James 2. In this passage, the church is commanded to not show favoritism by seating a rich person in a good seat and telling a poor person to "Stand over there" or to sit on the floor. The passage concludes by saying to those who behave this way: "haven't you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" (James 2:4). The principle is simple: favoritism that makes such distinctions among the body of believers is wrong. The distinction need not be between rich and poor, but between any two groups of people within the church body who are not treated the same. More could be said, but we move on to a second passage.
In Galatians 2, Peter fell into hypocrisy by separating from one group of believers (the Gentile believers in Antioch) out of a fear of displeasing another group (legalistic Jewish believers from Jerusalem). Paul rebuked him publicly, for he saw that creating such a division in the body of Christ was tantamount to "deviating from the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:14). These passages do not mince words – let us heed them and consider their implications carefully.
And although the Scriptural principles are clear, perhaps an even more powerful line of argument is found in the power of symbolism.
So let's picture the scene: In order to obey this mandate, someone will need to stand at the front door with a device that has some government application on it. And that person will need to take each arriving worshipper in turn and scan their government-provided code, at which point their device will communicate with a government database, exchange some packets of information, and find out if they are allowed to come in and worship the living God in person.
But not so fast – a successful scan will not be enough. A photo ID will also be required to establish that the person is who they claim to be. The ecclesiastical bouncer will need to be ready to turn people away; people who are looking for hope, life-giving truth, and fellowship. Yes, that person will need to be willing to say words to this effect: "You cannot come in to this church, since you do not meet our government's definition of 'fully vaccinated.' You will have to turn around, get back in your car, and go home." Who is willing to do this work? Are you?
It is a shocking scene even to imagine, but we must imagine it and be clear about what it means. Tragically, I assume it will be a scene playing out at some houses of worship this Sunday and in coming weeks.
While different churches have responded differently thus far in the pandemic, the vast majority have made extraordinary efforts to meet and exceed the safety measures required by the government regulations, even when some of those regulations had awfully thin rationales behind them; the vast majority have sought to honor and obey the magistrates over them. But brothers and sisters, this is not one more rule among many; this is not just a new item on the list. No, this is something we cannot do. Whatever creative solutions and workarounds churches come up with – and there is surely a place for that – this is a line no church should cross.
I earnestly hope and pray that houses of worship of every type and stripe will hold firm to their convictions on these matters and present a unified front of non-compliance. I also hope and expect that those houses of worship will continue to follow all the other recommended safety guidelines even as they disobey this new rule. The posture must be one of gracious but firm refusal: We have bent over backwards, we have stretched, we have multiplied our services, we have taxed our volunteers, we have found ways to make it work, but we cannot and we will not do this thing. To do so would be to cease to be the kind of church we say we are.
The people of God are surely willing to be inconvenienced to a great extent, even to sacrifice much. But we cannot betray those principles and truths which amount to our very obedience to the One who is forever and infinitely above any provincial or national authority. We cannot turn hungry and thirsty souls away from the place where they might hear the words of life spoken to them. The heart of the gospel is the free offer of forgiving and renewing grace to any and all who would come to Jesus Christ by faith. We cannot make such an offer to people who have been turned away because the government told us to.
One feels that this moment is pregnant with meaning, and that much is at stake. The dramatic tension is high. In such a moment, dramatic words are not uncalled for. And I can't think of any better suited to the moment than those purportedly uttered by the reformer Martin Luther (slightly adapted for our purposes). May this be the essence of the unified voice of the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ in response to this moment:
"Unless we are convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by clear reason, we are bound by the Scriptures. Our conscience is captive to the Word of God. We cannot and we will not enforce this mandate, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here we stand. We cannot do otherwise. God help us. Amen."
(I think maybe even a Roman Catholic could say "Amen" to that).
I conclude with a word to church leaders, among whom are many dear friends and family members. I do not envy your position. Whatever decision you make, there will be emails, messages, and phone calls to face from those who disagree. And indeed, many churches are led by teams of elders, meaning that there is a diversity of viewpoints on all kinds of matters among them. The final decision may not be what every member (or any one member) of that group desired. And yet, for the good of the church, and the glory of God, decisions are made, policies put in place, and the work continues. I have tried to make my case as plain and clear as possible. And while I see a red line here, others may not. Even in disagreement, may we be known for a remarkable gentleness and humility. We never know all that goes into a group decision. Let us believe the best about each other and seek to preserve that precious bond of unity when all around us is division.
Phil Cotnoir Culture, Reflections 4 Comments December 17, 2021 February 13, 2022
A Voice from the Wilderness
I have been enjoying reading some of the writings of Paul Kingsnorth recently. He is a British author of some repute and has a very interesting background. Now a Christian in the Orthodox church, he was not so long ago a radical environmentalist and practicing Wiccan. I first encountered him in an interview he did with Jonathan Pageau, who is another interesting character. Kingsnorth has written for First Things here, where he details his conversion and gives the reader a taste of his style and substance. He is a gifted writer.
I have a weakness for good writing, even when I find myself disagreeing with some or much of what is written. Thus I find myself reading and returning to a broad range of writers – but this I think ends up being a good thing. I am not so rootless in my own tradition that I end up being tossed to and fro, but I love to get inside the minds of those who think differently than me, or who see the world from another vantage point. Good writers are those who can express these thoughts, ideas, and insights with the most clarity and beauty. I am the better for this exposure, and the best of those insights can always be incorporated into my own thinking.
On his Substack, The Abbey of Misrule, Kingsnorth has been exploring the role of technology in modern society in a series of reflections titled Divining the Machine. It is worth reading. I'd like to draw a link between something he explores in Part Five of the series and a theme one finds throughout the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien: the relationship between magic and science.
First, Lewis, from his (increasingly?) prescient and relevant The Abolition of Man:
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the 'wisdom' of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead. If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe's Faustus, the similarity is striking.
First Edition of The Abolition of Man
We see a fictional representation of this dynamic in Tolkiens' The Two Towers, where the wizard Saruman constructs an industrial hellhole – or should we say a dark Satanic Mill – in and around Isengard. The key line is placed in the mouth of Treebeard, who says of Saruman:
"He is plotting to become a Power. He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment."
That a corrupted wizard would be the one to lead in mechanization is telling. By itself it may mean nothing, but in context of Tolkien's other writings on the subject, and those of his friend Lewis, we see that he is making a profound point. Tolkien explains this in a letter to a friend in 1951, where he describes the almost-finished Lord of the Rings as having to do, amongst other things, with The Machine:
By the [Machine] I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of development of the inherent inner powers or talents — or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world, or coercing other wills. The Machine is our more obvious modern form though more closely related to Magic than is usually recognised. . . . The Enemy in successive forms is always 'naturally' concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines.
I found this quote in an article by Alan Jacobs in The Atlantic
Fascinating. We do Lewis and Tolkien a great injustice when we make it seem that they were simply good writers of compelling fiction. The more one digs into their thought, the more one finds a depth of learning and reflection that informs a stunningly broad range of topics. I will now quote a somewhat lengthy section of Paul Kingsnorth's piece (but if Rod Dreher is allowed to do it, then so am I).
The scientific worldview is leading us rapidly towards the total remaking of both humanity and non-human nature in the image of the (post) modern self. Science built the Machine. Now the Machine will rebuild the world, and us with it. As Sherrard has it:
"There is a price to be paid for fabricating around us a society which is as artificial and mechanised as our own, and this is that we can exist in it only on condition that we adapt ourselves to it. This is our punishment."
Sherrard presents science as a modern enterprise built on a Christian rootstock that grew out of shape. He is not the only one to make this case, but as I was reading his book, another thought occurred to me; a thought that took me back to the time, not so long ago, when I used to practice magic.
When I say 'magic' I don't mean fairground tricks; I mean the workings of what is sometimes called the Western Mystery Tradition, or, if we want to be spookier about it, the occult. The meaning of the word 'occult' is actually less sinister than it has been made to sound: occulted simply means hidden. A few years back, before I became, to my own surprise, an Orthodox Christian, I was a practicioner of Wicca, a nature religion founded by the eccentric Englishman Gerald Gardner back in the 1950s. Wicca is a form of modern 'witchcraft', though everyone involved will have a different explanation of what that word means. Being a modern path, Wicca is mostly undefined and eclectic. At its (usually American) extreme, you can basically make it up as you go along, which is why it has proved so appealing to millennial teenagers.
The Wicca I practiced was the more traditional variety: I was a member of a coven, whose workings and details were secret and into which you had to be initiated. The people in the coven were not dastardly devil-worshippers; they were basically good-hearted, interesting people looking for meaning in a society which offered none outside the marketplace. Wiccan covens do all sorts of things, but at the heart of the enterprise is the practice of magic: which, if you're feeling mysterious or pretentious, you can spell magick.
There are all kinds of magick available to the practicing mage. There's sympathetic magic, Hermetic magic, herbal magic, elemental magic, High (or ceremonial) magic, folk magic (or 'cunning craft'), natural magic, Enochian magic (fun with secret Angelic languages) and – for the ultimate rush – Goetic magic, which involves the summoning of spirits to do your will. Faust, who did his famous deal with the devil, was practicing Goetia. At the heart of the practice is the notion that the spirits of the otherworld are ours to command. If we are knowledgeable, smart and well-trained enough, we can summon up the very forces of nature itself, and 'bind' them to our will.
Perhaps you can see where I'm going here. The history of magic in the West is a long one, but one thing it teaches is that what we call 'magic' and what we call 'science' are intertwined. Many of the pioneers of science we know today were also magicians of one sort or another. Bacon was said to be a Freemason and an alchemist. Isaac Newton wrote far more about alchemy than he did about physics, and many of the august founders of England's Royal Society, still one of its foremost scientific institutions, were alchemists or mages. In the early modern period, today's distinction between 'science' (real, good, objective) and 'magic' (fantastical, bad, superstitious) did not really exist. Both were branches of the same effort: to understand the mysterious forces of the universe, and ultimately to control them.
Here is Francis Bacon's definition of science:
"The knowledge of causes and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."
And here is the occultist Aleister Crowley's definition of magic:
"The science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will."
These could be swapped around without anybody really noticing. The thread that links them together is control. Both the scientific enterprise, and the magical quest which it was part of, spring from the same desire: to know the world, and to bend it to our will. Will, in both cases, is the key word. When Aleister Crowley, pioneering occultist, rampant self-publicist and self-described 'Great Beast', created his own occult religion, Thelema, in the early 20th century, he gave it its own famous commandment: do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Thelema wilted on the vine, but we could say that Crowley's dictum lived on as the foundational basis of what our culture has become.
At this point, any scientists reading will be protesting. No, no! they might cry; that's not what we do at all! We're driven only by curiosity, by wonder, by a desire to understand the world! Maybe. But science, always and everywhere, is handmaiden to technology, and technology is, in this time, never innocent. Einstein bombed Hiroshima just as surely as the pilots of the Enola Gay, and he knew it.
My point is not that all magical workings, or all scientific experiments, are bad, let alone the people who carry them out. A magician might want to perform a working aimed at bringing good luck to a friend. A scientist may be searching for a cure for cancer. But the wider project of both carries hidden within it a telos: a direction of travel. It is the direction of the Machine that now envelops us, and the new world it is building.
Read the whole thing.
Clearly there is a lot of overlap here and, I think, something profound we need to grasp. And given our – all of us – embeddedness in the Machine, something to grapple with personally. Are we giving ourselves over to the human desire for control? Is such control always bad? I wish that Kingsnorth dealt with the tension and distinction between the desire for control and the calling we have to exercise dominion over the natural world. I haven't finished his series yet, so maybe I will find it addressed elsewhere.
One thing is for sure, the signals are coming increasingly loudly and clearly from every conceivable source that our relationship to technology is deeply unhealthy. We need thinkers and resources to help us navigate this with wisdom we do not yet possess. I commend to you the artful writing of Paul Kingsnorth, a voice in the wilderness, to stimulate your thinking in this important endeavor.
Phil Cotnoir Books, Culture, Quote, Reflections Leave a comment November 10, 2021 November 10, 2021
Chronological Snobbery – Part 2
In the first post on the topic of chronological snobbery we looked at what C.S. Lewis meant by the phrase and we considered two reasons for its particular prevalence in our own day. In this post I would like to explore related ideas from a thinker that has been helpful to me: René Girard.
Girard was a profound and original thinker whose work ranges over many disciplines. I am familiar with only a few small slices of that work, but some of those slices have been eye-opening. Consider his reflections on the words of Jesus in Matthew 23:29-30.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.'
Girard focuses in on the attitude of the scribes and Pharisees as they built tombs and monuments for prophets who were harassed, persecuted, and killed by their forefathers: "If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." He considers this as a kind of spirit, an attitude of the heart that any of us can adopt.
In the context of his broader theory of mimetic desire and the scapegoating mechanism, he describes this impulse as a mob of the living scapegoating the dead. For our purposes, we can simply say it is the attitude whereby one generation or group condemns those who came before them, exonerating themselves.
Girard points out one historical example of this in the phenomenon of Christian anti-Semitism, the kind that blames the Jews for killing Jesus. It says "if we, who are the spiritual children of Abraham, had been there when Jesus was crucified, we would not have joined the actual children of Abraham in condemning and killing Jesus. We are better than them. We alone would have resisted the mob. We would have stood by him when all had deserted him. We would have been willing to be killed with him rather than deny him."
When one lays out what such an attitude really claims, as I did above, it starts to be seen for what it is. But usually the claim to superiority is not parsed and exposed for what it is. A claim like that is really more about the person making it than about the people he or she is supposedly superior to. At bottom, such statements are saying something like: "If everyone was as innocent as I am the world would be better. Therefore they must not be innocent like me, because someone has to be responsible for all this mess."
Ask any high school class if they think they would have stood up against the Nazis if they had lived in Germany leading up to and during WW2. Most will say they would have resisted, which is to claim that if Germany had been populated with 21st-century North American teenagers instead of Weimar-era Germans, Hitler would not have done what he did. More pointedly, it is to claim that each of those students raising their hands, students who allow their wardrobes, attitudes, mannerisms, and vocabulary to be dictated by the passing fads and peer pressures of their social peers, yes these paragons of strict moral virtue, would have had the backbone to stand against what was an immense amount of social pressure and very real threats to their reputations, social standing, finances, and very lives.
In Romans 2:1, the apostle Paul writes "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." We live in a time when forces all around us seem to be working hard to whip up offense, outrage, and judgment towards the other. But not all judgment is the same. Some judgment is warranted and needed, but a lot of it is spiritually dangerous.
What do I mean by spiritually dangerous? Well, I mean that it is dependent on sin and it fosters sin. To judge others for what I am guilty of is to reinforce my own blindness to that sin, thereby distancing myself further from the truth about myself that might lead me to repentance and freedom. It is much harder to admit to a sin that I have clearly – and perhaps publicly – judged another for. I am less able to see it in myself when I get a kick out of pointing it out in others.
So this leaves the one judging further from the grace of humility, further from the grace of gospel sanity, further from the grace of honesty about my sin. These are graces that flow from Christ and to Christ.
When one takes this principle and applies it, what happens? It becomes very difficult to stand in judgment over our historical predecessors, because we now see that to do so is to fall into a very dangerous spiritual trap. It is the trap of saying that we are better and we would not have done what they did.
But does this rule out any and all criticism of the past? Quite the opposite: It allows for the kind of criticism that is good for us, rather than a danger. When I recognize that in the garden of my own soul grows the same root that in others bore such heinous fruit, it motivates me to weed it out. When I recognize that there is more than a little family resemblance between their sin and my own – if not in the fruit, then in the root – this encourages humility.
Indeed the effect is precisely the opposite of what self-righteous criticism produces, namely a deepening blindness with regard to my own expressions of whatever fault I am pointing out in others married to a swelling pride at being found so much superior.
The best writers of history intuitively (or perhaps intentionally) treat their subjects with this kind of moral sensitivity. They do not fall into moral relativism, which may be an enjoyable intellectual hobby for rich and comfortable Westerners, but is insufferable in the face of actual evil. Neither do they unleash a full one-dimensional moral tirade against historical villains, painting them as uniformly evil characters. Rather they preserve the humanity of both heroes and villains, allowing for nuance and being honest about the shortcomings of the heroes as well as the positive qualities of the villains, all while writing with a sense of moral clarity. This kind of history proves informative and beneficial to the reader. It is humbling, sobering, inspiring.
Moving from history to the contemporary, we can apply this idea to so many current cultural issues. For example, I see a lot of folks these days eager to tear down statues of people who, terribly flawed and implicated in evil as they may have been, are nevertheless in many ways their betters. Leaving aside the specific arguments for or against any particular monument, or even for the taking down of statues in general, I just want to point out that this kind of fury, this kind of one-dimensional judgment of those in the past, is spiritually dangerous for all the reasons described above.
To take an example from the opposite side of the culture wars, we have the phenomenon of so many conservative religious leaders who were so thundering in their denouncing of sexual immorality being revealed to be sexually immoral themselves. Zacharias, Falwell, Hybels, and the list goes on and on. We all know such failures do not happen overnight. So we have someone publicly denouncing a sin in others that they are not just struggling against but positively nurturing in their own hearts.
This can happen on the political left as much as on the right, both inside and outside the church. But from my perspective, which is admittedly conservative, it does seem to be a particularly fashionable attitude among progressives on the left these days. If you think I'm wrong about that, let me know why in the comments.
Phil Cotnoir Books, Culture, Quote, Reflections 1 Comment October 5, 2021 March 13, 2022


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Increased discount rates, global equity returns generate uptick in the ratios for plans in the index.
The average funded ratio for the pension plans of S&P 500 companies crept to nearly 91% in September, a multi-year high for those in the index.
Higher discount rates and decent global equity gains helped drive the average funded status to 90.7% over the month. Rates rose to 3.92% from 3.82% during the period, with the equity markets rising 0.4%, according to Northern Trust Asset Management.
Kutliroff suggested plan sponsors consider "preserving some of those gains" by shifting some equity allocations to fixed-income investments that "behave more like the liabilities" to help mitigate risk in the case of a market correction.
The top funding ratios by industry for September were the financial, information technology, and utilities industries. The financial sector stood at 97% funded, with about $6 billion in aggregate liabilities, and IT was 89% funded, with about $19 billion worth of deficit. The utilities industry sat at 88% funded, and has $22 billion in obligations.
Industrials, however, while not the lowest-funded bracket in the S&P index at 81%, has the largest debt load with $125 billion in liabilities. The second-highest debt was the 86% funded consumer discretionary area, which held $35 billion in aggregate obligations. S&P 500 funds in the industrial category account for about $85 billion in assets.


PRIME LOCATION! Build your dream home on this level and scenic lot. Check out this 1.6 acre parcel now for sale located just off Green Meadow and Lincoln Rd in Helena, Montana. On top of the great location, the septic, well, and power are all installed. There are no CC&R's. Enjoy end of the road privacy since it is at the end of the cul-de-sac. It is close to everything that Helena and the surrounding areas have to offer. Fish, float or relax by Silver Creek, Lake Helena, Missouri River, or Holter Lake. If you like to hike, hunt or ATV, travel to the Beartooth Mountain, Greenhorn Mountain, or even Helena National Forest. Fox Ridge Golf Course and Great Divide Ski Area aren't far from the property either. There are many possibilities for this property other than a residence. When you're ready to see this perfect residential lot give Grant Bonnice a call, 406-439-0059. Priced at $99,900.


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Piezoelectric chin strap generates electricity from chewing
By Nick Lavars
Canadian researchers have developed a chin strap made from piezoelectric fibre composites that harvest energy from jaw movements
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In a development that could bring new meaning to the term "motor mouth," Canadian researchers have developed a chin strap capable of generating electricity from jaw movements. The team is hopeful that the strap will be able to harvest energy from common actions like eating, chewing and talking to power medical implants and wearable devices.
Based at Montreal's Sonomax-ÉTS Industrial Research Chair in In-ear Technologies (CRITIAS) at École de technologie supérieure, the researchers were looking into the potential of jaw movements as a means of generating power. The jaw has been recognized as one of the body parts with the most potential in this area, with estimates that the act of chewing during mealtime, for example, could produce around 7 mW of power.
In an attempt to avoid all of that munching from going to waste, the team built a specialized chinstrap made from piezoelectric fiber composites (PFCs). This piezoelectric material comprises integrated electrodes and an adhesive polymer mix and is subject to mechanical stress as it stretches, resulting in an electric charge.
So how much charge are we talking exactly? Well, don't go ditching your phone chargers just yet. In testing where a subject chewed gum for 60 seconds, the strap's power output was around 10 µW, (out of a theoretical maximum of 18 µW). Research suggests it takes between 400,000 and 1,000,000 µW to make a phone call.
Exploring the possibilities of kinetic energy has turned up some interesting results of late. From pedal-powered work stations to percussion instruments that double as mini-generators, there's something quite alluring about physical exertion driving more than just our body's movements.
Basic and functional, but not exactly inconspicuous, the piezoelectric chinstrap is still a ways off becoming a viable product. The researchers do describe it more as a proof of concept rather than a device they actually expect people to wear, but they hope advances in this area could help wean us off expensive batteries that can be harmful to the environment.
"The power level we achieved is hardly sufficient for powering electrical devices at the moment; however, we can multiply the power output by adding more PFC layers to the chinstrap," says Aidin Delnavaz, one of the study's co-authors. "For example, 20 PFC layers, with a total thickness of 6 mm, would be able to power a 200 µW intelligent hearing protector."
The team will now turn its attention to increasing the amount of piezoelectric elements in the strap to improve its energy harvesting capacity. It is hoped they can then use it to power small electronic devices and integrate a rechargeable battery for power management.
The research paper was published in the journal Smart Materials and Structures.
Source: Institute of Physics
ElectronicsWearableEnergyPowerElectricityKinetic EnergyPiezoelectric
Nick Lavars
Nick has been writing and editing at New Atlas for over six years, where he has covered everything from distant space probes to self-driving cars to oddball animal science. He previously spent time at The Conversation, Mashable and The Santiago Times, earning a Masters degree in communications from Melbourne's RMIT University along the way.
Facebook User September 19, 2014 06:39 AM
We could solve the entire nations energy problem by simply wiring up the great unwashed while they're eating their KFC....
Stervin September 19, 2014 06:59 AM
This should be a mandatory attachment for all politicians.
We could power the whole world whenever congress was in session!
Cosmoo September 19, 2014 10:05 AM
I can't tell if this is the worst energy scavenging idea I've ever heard of, or just one of the worst.
Dirk Scott September 22, 2014 11:02 AM
Is this what you wear in the Hamster Wheel desk?


Born in Manchester, England, in 1924. Its founder Harold Humphreys, along with his brother, decided to bring the elegance of tailoring to sportswear.
Umbro is the authentic soccer brand because it has been dedicated to this sport for over 90 years. The brand's products are worn in and out of the field in 100+ countries across the world. Today, the company adds its tailored sportswear legacy to a modern take on soccer to create uniforms, footwear, and accessories that pair performance and style.
Umbro is currently one of the world's top sporting goods brands and has been a major player in the history of world soccer by sponsoring national squads, clubs, and first-rate players.
The brand's licensing and manufacturing in Brazil have been managed by Grupo Dass since 1999.


Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced Wednesday morning that the company is working on two Legend of Zelda games for the Wii U. One is a brand new game and the other is a remake of the classic "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker."
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata apologized to Wii U owners on Wednesday for failing to deliver any new games for the company's brand new home game machine in the early months of 2013. But he also revealed that Nintendo is working on a host of new Wii U games starring some of the company's most beloved characters.
Iwata announced that Nintendo is working on two brand new Mario games, a new Zelda and a new Yoshi game as well as a new Super Smash Bros. game for the Wii U.
As part of the Nintendo Direct webcast (available in its entirety here), Iwata also revealed that Nintendo is remaking one of the company's beloved classic games — "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" — especially for the Wii U.
The news comes as Nintendo tries to boost interest in the Wii U. The company has sold 890,000 of the machines in the United States since its October launch. But since the initial wave of games arrived, new titles to play on the machine have been few and far between. And last week, Nintendo revealed that some of the biggest games for the Wii U — "Game & Wario," "The Wonderful 101," "Wii Fit U" and "Pikmin 3" — would not be arriving during the early months of 2013 as it had been previously suggested.
"There will be no new titles released for Wii U from Nintendo in January or February," Iwata said Wednesday morning. "Nintendo takes seriously its responsibility to offer a steady stream of new titles in the very early days of a new platform to establish a good lineup of software. On the other hand, we also firmly believe we have to offer quality experiences when we release new titles.
"Based on our software development schedules at the end of last year, we concluded we should spend a little more time to satisfy our Nintendo standard of quality," he said. "I apologize to those supporting Wii U about the lack of new titles from Nintendo in January and February but please understand we will have new titles to offer from March onward."
He promised a steady stream of games for the Wii U through spring and summer including "Game & Wario," "The Wonderful 101," "Wii Fit U," "Pikmin 3" and "LEGO City Undercover." And he also revealed some of the games that will be arriving beyond that.
Yoshi gets to star in a new game ... and gets a crafty makeover at the same time.
Nintendo's mustashioed mascott Mario will be leading the charge. Though he didn't reveal many details, Iwata said the team that created the best-selling "Super Mario Galaxy" games is working on a new 3D Mario action game and that a new installment in the "Mario Kart" racing series is also in the works. Iwata said Nintendo will have playable versions of both games ready to show in June at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3) in Los Angeles.
A new Yoshi yarn is on the way.
Iwata said Nintendo is also working on a new installment in the company's famed fighting franchise — Super Smash Bros. — and will show off screenshots from the game at E3.
Meanwhile, the new Legend of Zelda game in the works for the Wii U will be a departure from earlier series installments, producer Eiji Aonuma said during Nintendo's video event Wednesday. He said the team plans "to create a newborn Zelda so players today can enjoy the real essence of the franchise."
But that game "is going to take some time to complete," Aonuma admitted. In the meantime, Zelda fans will be able to tide themselves over with the remake of "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" (which originally launched in 2003 for Nintendo's GameGube). The remake will see the game getting an HD graphics upgrade so it can shine on the Wii U, and it will be available this fall.
While it doesn't come as a shock to hear that Nintendo is updating its biggest franchises with new games, it was something of a surprise to hear that Yoshi — Mario and Luigi's beloved dinosaur sidekick — will get to star in his own home console game for the first time since the 1998 Nintendo 64 game "Yoshi's Story." The team that created the delightful "Kirby's Epic Yarn" (one of my favorite games of 2010) is in the midst of working the new Yoshi game, which finds the dino critter getting a crafty makeover much like Kirby did.
Certainly an influx of famed Nintendo characters would do much to boost excitement about the Wii U console — especially as Microsoft and Sony are expected to soon reveal reveal their own new home game machines in the coming months. But whether Mario, Zelda and Yoshi arrive in time to help Nintendo's machine keep up with the forthcoming competition remains to be seen.
Nintendo is working on smartphone support for the Wii U's online Miiverse community. That support will eventually include an app which will enable console owners to access Miiverse content while away from home.
Wii U software updates are coming both in the Spring and Summer which will allow games to load faster and endable quicker access to the machine's main menu (which is good news for any Wii U owner who has been not-so-patiently waiting through the console's painfully sloooow load times).
The Will U Virtual Console — which will lets you play NES and Super NES titles on the Wii U — will arrive in Spring.


Ultimately to be had for the 1st time in one booklet structure, Abolish Work combines influential and well-circulated pamphlets written from the frontlines of the category battle. The texts from the nameless staff at Prole.info supply state-of-the-art classification research and evaluations of everyday life observed by means of uncensored, cutting edge illustrations.
Moving from own techniques and interactions to large-scale political and monetary forces, Abolish Work reads alternately like a worker's diary, a brief tale, a psychology of daily life, a old account, and an indignant flyer a person might move you at the street.
The vintage "Abolish Restaurants" is an illustrated advisor to the day-by-day distress, pressure, boredom, and alienation of eating place paintings, in addition to the ways that eating place staff struggle opposed to it. Drawing on more than a few anti-capitalist principles in addition to a heaping plate of private event, it truly is half research and half call-to-arms. an extra piece, "Work, neighborhood, Politics, War" is a comic creation to trendy society, deciding upon either the oppressive and subversive developments that exist this present day with the purpose of thoroughly remaking society.
These notes of 1857-58 throw mild on Marx's perspectives about the epochs of society and their evolutionary levels. vital for realizing the process of ancient materialism, and as history for extra improvement of the Marxist examine of historical past.
Of the entire recommendations that have emerged to explain the consequences of capitalism at the human global, none is extra picture or simply grasped than "reification"—the procedure during which women and men are changed into gadgets, issues. bobbing up out of Marx's account of commodity fetishism, the idea that of reification bargains an unrivalled software with which to provide an explanation for the genuine results of the facility of capital on awareness itself.
The worldwide monetary and monetary obstacle beginning in 2007 has provoked the exploration of possible choices to neo-liberalism. even if neo-liberalism has been critiqued from quite a few views, those evaluations haven't coalesced right into a concrete substitute in improvement economics literature. the most aim of this publication is to call and formulate this substitute, establish what's new approximately this standpoint, and undertaking it directly to the tutorial landscape.
This e-book comprises contributions from many admired improvement economists who're unified by means of a kind of "developmental pragmatism". Their situation is with the issues of improvement that preoccupied the pioneers of monetary improvement within the mid-twentieth century, referred to as the developmentalists. just like the developmentalists, the individuals to in the direction of New Developmentalism are policy-oriented and supportive of institutional improvement and engagement with financial globalization. This assortment has an over-arching main issue with selling social justice, and holds the final view of the industry because the capacity to affecting an alternate application of improvement instead of as a grasp whose dictates are to be obeyed with out question.
This very important assortment units the schedule for brand spanking new developmentalism, drawing on concerns resembling business coverage, know-how, pageant, progress and poverty. In extensive phrases, the industrial improvement debate is solid when it comes to even if the marketplace is the grasp, an ideological neo-liberal standpoint, or the skill to impact swap as recommended via the pragmatic point of view that's being termed neo-developmentalism. This e-book might be priceless studying to postgraduates and researchers specialising within the zone of improvement stories together with inside economics, diplomacy, political technological know-how and sociology.
Installed in the cloister, Jeff Koons's newly commissioned Split-Rocker – a giant floral hybrid bust (half horse's head and half dinosaur's, with handles attached to suggest a child's ride) – provided a counterpoint of kitsch jubilation. 121 As with Bourriaud and Lacy, as well as Filliou and Oiticica, Hirschhorn's interest lies in the contrast of this passive consumption of the spectacle with a more active, 'implicated' experience. Rather than being timeless, Deleuze Monument was, above all, an essentially unpredictable experience inscribed within a specific place and a limited duration.
Two other men, identified only by their first names but likely members of the team who built and maintained the monument, are cited in different newspaper articles. Mahmed informs Libération art critic Elisabeth Lebovici that only 8,000 people live within the Avignon walls, while 80,000 reside outside;138 Salim complains to another journalist that 'culture in this city never goes beyond the walls. They think we're not normal people. Avignon, for them, is just the city centre, that's all. '139 For most of the journalists, such exclamations testified to the work's socalled impact on the population of the Cité Champfleury, but this kind of assessment suggests concrete, if not measureable, outcomes, of the kind that drive community arts more than Hirschhorn's projects.
34), by providing training, a television recording studio and access to (and publicity through) the artists' internet platform (the Superchannel server). 125 A 1993 exhibition, 'PROJECT UNITE', brought together a number of artists in another apartment block, the run-down Unité d'Habitation built by Le Corbusier in Firminy in France's Loire region, largely inhabited by a working-class Algerian immigrant population. For this exhibition, artist duo Clegg & Guttmann asked each resident of the building to donate tapes of their favourite music, photographed each of them for the cover of their chosen tape and displayed each cassette in the corresponding apartment of an architectural model of the modernist Unité d'Habitation.