Discipline vs. Human Rights

The small island-nation of Singapore just executed someone for attempting to traffic marijuana into Singapore. This is the second such execution (by hanging) in the last three weeks. Last year a total of eleven people were executed for drug-trafficking related offenses.

The article highlights the typical Western response – protesting against allegedly draconian punishments as a potential (or actual) human rights violation. I think it’s funny the article refers to both the United Nations and Richard Branson as evidence of this disapproval and some sort of validation of why such disapproval should be taken seriously. Why is Richard Branson considered on the same level as the United Nations?!? Or perhaps, more reasonably, the UN is being reduced in importance to the same stature as a business “mogul”. Hmmmm.

The assertion is that the death penalty is not effective as a deterrent. Given the large amounts of money to be made in successfully trafficking drugs, I wonder if there is any deterrent that is truly effective. Someone will always either be daring or desperate enough to take the risk. That some people are successful is evident by the reality that there exists a drug abuse country in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and other countries with death penalties for these kinds of crimes.

Perhaps Sir Richard Branson is right?

Or, perhaps we should examine the huge problem that reducing penalties for drug trafficking seems to create. In the US there has been a persistent push for and recent victories in decriminalizing marijuana usage, possession and trafficking. Now harder drugs are being gradually treated the same way. Enforcement is spotty – with only the most egregious violators likely to be caught. Has this more relaxed treatment of drug trafficking and use resulted in less of a drug problem?

That answer should be pretty obvious. No, it hasn’t made it any better. Billions of dollars spent over the last 40 years alone have failed to stem either the demand or the supply of illegal drugs, and now prescription drugs are becoming a larger and larger problem. Normalizing the use of drugs either legally or illegally has not reduced the demand or de-glamorized it or made it so unprofitable that suppliers are no longer interested.

Harsh penalties cannot in and of themselves eliminate the desire for drugs or the willingness to risk life in prison or even death in order to make vast amounts of money in providing the drugs. But this can’t be the sole determinant of whether stricter rules are useful. While it cannot eliminate the problem, I’d argue it does slow the problem at the very least, or keep it at a lower level. Zero tolerance is not simply a criminal matter in the courts but a social and cultural one as well. Something everyone knows is illegal and carries a huge and real risk of life-altering or ending repercussions is not likely going to be glibly offered at a casual dinner with friends.

This isn’t a new debate.

I remember as a high schooler hearing stories of an American being caned in some Southeast Asian nation for breaking the law. Some of my classmates who thought that was barbaric and unfair and he should be exempted from such punishment as a foreigner. However I felt then, as I do now, that strict laws and harsh punishments are helpful deterrents. The influenceable middle group of folks who might or might not be induced or seduced into breaking the law are more likely to resist such offers if the stakes are higher than if the stakes are lower.

The only alternatives ever offered seem just as limited in the good they foster and less effective in terms of the evil they restrain, and definitely lead to a more permissive culture that only facilitates further abuse until the abuse has to be legalized to prevent unjustifiable numbers of citizens being locked up.

I chuckle to myself these days that as I fly in and out of countries – often Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia – there is an announcement about 30 minutes before landing warning passengers these countries have very strict drug laws and violating those laws can lead to imprisonment or execution. I think it’s funny they announce this just before landing (as opposed to just before boarding). Perhaps all those people making a beeline for the bathrooms upon landing are heeding more than just nature’s call.

To Sing or Not to Sing

Some interesting articles that caught my eye belatedly regarding an interesting (though I’d say hardly surprising or even new) trend in Christian worship – congregations aren’t singing.

As if often the case (when I remember to check their website) the good folks at GetReligion.org first caught my eye with this story. Which in turn led to this essentially same article, which in turn led me to this list of nine reasons one person thinks congregants are no longer singing in worship, in an ironic reversal of the Protestant tradition of congregational singing contra the previous Roman Catholic tradition of singing relegated to choirs rather than congregations. I think the list is very useful and accurate.

In my times worshiping in other Christian traditions the challenge of congregational singing is evident. Certainly in the more non-denom, big box environments where professional musicians, lighting experts, sound mixers, and special effects artist create a ‘worship’ experience to rival a lot of smaller-scale secular professional performers this is the case. But even in some traditional mainline denominational congregations I’ve experienced difficulty joining in the singing. One notable location plays familiar enough hymns, but the accompanist has the annoying habit of raising the octave with each stanza, so what began as a graspable but slight reach for my aging voice becomes near-impossible to sing by the third verse.

Is congregational singing an important or even necessary part of Christian worship? I posed that question to a small online discussion group this evening. We came up with several reasons why congregational singing ought to be part of Christian worship. Strangely enough, we came up with nine reasons :-)

1. Music is beautiful!
2. As such music is a near-universal part of the human experience whether on the large scale or individual scale. If we listen to music for simple enjoyment, and if we sing along in the shower or during our daily commute to the office, why wouldn’t we also sing in worship?
3. Congregational singing is very Biblical. Think of Moses and Mirian leading the people of God in communal worship after having been delivered from the Egyptians in Exodus 15. Think also of Revelation and the continual chorus of praise raised to God by angels and the saints.
4. Because of this, much historic liturgy and music is drawn directly from Scripture. As we sing together in worship we are joining with the communion of the saints who are doing the same thing, and practicing what we will be doing in eternity.
5. Congregational music is a way of teaching.
6. Music is often a good mnemonic device to assist people in remembering.
7. As an extension of this, I’ve had numerous parishioners over the years suffering from severe illnesses who reported that while they weren’t able to think or communicate much, they had hymns playing in their heads as they lay in ICU and these familiar tunes provided extraordinary comfort and peace in an otherwise terrifying situation.
8. Group singing is an encouraging experience – we grow in our willingness and even ability to sing praise to God as we join in with our brothers and sisters who are doing the same thing. This is true even in small groups (albeit a bit more timidly!) as it is in arenas.
9. Music is a part of liturgy and even when other aspects of the liturgy are somewhat lackluster, congregational singing can still deliver God’s Word and promises to people in an important way. As a pastor I take comfort that not all of my sermons will be good, but choosing some solid hymns is a way of ensuring congregants are still fed!

In my narrow Lutheran circles the argument is more often stylistic, with some preferring traditional (though no less arbitrary, just with a longer pedigree) forms of hymnody and instrumentation while others feeling more updated music and lyrics are necessary (particularly for “the young people”). Perhaps the focus needs to be more on how to engage communicants in singing than worrying about the instruments or tempos they’re singing to/with. And I’d argue it’s another good reason to reconsider building a stage and putting the praise team on it to “lead” worship. While this can work, I suspect it more often than not leads to less congregational participation in singing for the reasons articulated in the article above.

Truth by Majority Opinion?

There is a logical fallacy called the Bandwagon Fallacy, or an Appeal to the Majority Fallacy, or various other permutations. The idea is that just because a lot of people (4/5 Dentists, for example) do something or believe something doesn’t mean they’re right or what they believe is true. In our age of ultra-connectivity, social media influencers, activist celebrities and all manner of other media onslaught this fallacy is more relevant and dangerous than ever.

The truth remains, however, that simply being the minority opinion does not mean you’re wrong. Or stupid. Or evil. And being the majority opinion doesn’t mean you’re right. Or smart. Or virtuous.

Thriving as we do on righteous indignation, cancel-culture and revisionism of all stripes, it is imperative we remember this. Not just in retrospect, but in the moment. The more people scream at you that you’re wrong because all these other people are convinced their right, the more you need to hold on in quiet maturity. Listen to what they have to say. Weigh the evidence (if there is any), be as objective as you can, but don’t cave in to pressure to change your opinion just because a lot of other people insist your point of view must be wrong. In the absence of incontrovertible evidence, we must recognize in humility the constant possibility of error – well-intentioned or otherwise.

Two excellent cases in point.

First, as I’ve maintained for years, if you object to a law the best course of action is not to ignore the law but to work to change it. Laws are there for a reason. They are not perfect and may need to be amended or replaced, but simply to ignore them creates bigger problems. Immigration laws are a leading example of this. But it’s not just the US where our laws are routinely ignored because of some vaguely defined public opinion. Case in point, Great Britain, and the story of someone who was due to be extradited for violations of the law but his case was reversed because of agitation by immigration lawyers and a slew of celebrities and political officials. Instead of being back in his own country where he legally belonged, he remained in Great Britain and went on to commit and be convicted of murder. Not surprisingly, those people who previously very publicly advocated for the man not to be extradited are now completely silent when asked to comment on the situation.

After all, no need to admit you might have been wrong, to question the use of celebrity to circumvent the rule of law and all that jazz. We’ll just pretend nothing happened and move on with our lives. Lovely.

Another example comes in the wake of Covid. I won’t go into the ridiculousness about the early promises regarding vaccines compared to their eventual reality. But just in the matter of trying to understand how all of it started there was a great deal of insistence on what could or couldn’t have happened. Early on there were suspicions that a Chinese biomedical research facility near Wuhan (the epicenter of the outbreak) might have accidentally leaked the virus. It’s not an unrealistic surmise, but it was angrily and loudly denounced by a great many media and other figures who found it racist or insulting to the Chinese.

Perhaps our relations were better with China back then because there certainly seemed to be a strong desire not to offend them, and the idea of a lab leak was scuttled by and large by the preferred narrative of a cross-over event in a wet market, possibly from contaminated bats. Also a possible explanation, to be sure. But I was curious at the time why so many people seemed so insistent that this had to be the truth, and not the equally plausible alternative of a lab leak – particularly in light of Chinese reticence to share information about the early stages of the outbreak.

Now, in addition to the FBI, the US Department of Energy released a report this week indicating a low-level of support for the lab leak theory. Interesting on a variety of levels (Why is the Department of Energy weighing in on this topic?!). Is there a need for this sort of report at this time? Is it another means of ratcheting up hypothetical pressure on or against China in light of their stance on the Ukraine War? It’s odd, to say the least.

But certainly not odd enough for the media to immediately begin mitigating it. We are assured in a follow-up article that the DoE’s report is only a low-confidence assessment, meaning they aren’t confident that their findings are correct, but they (I assume) warrant releasing the report (again, why?). And, further, the lab leak theory continues to remain a minority view among those who weigh in on this sort of thing (qualified or otherwise, I presume).

The heart of the matter is that we don’t know for sure what happened. Maybe we will someday, but I don’t think that’s likely at this point. Therefore to have two or more possible explanations hardly seems extravagant. There seems to be no compelling reason to accept China’s proffered explanation of a cross-over infection at a Wuhan wet market. Particularly in light of the information of a nearby lab known to be researching exactly this sort of virus. Yet the public is being coached in terms of a majority and minority view which view to have. Why?

Truth is not a matter of majority rule. Application may be. But truth remains truth regardless of what we say or think about it, or whether we accept it or recognize it. Objective truth simply is. Sometimes discoverable as such. Sometimes revealed as such. Sometimes surmised as much. Sometimes convenient and other times not so much. But always true. No matter how many people want it to be or not.

Let’s quit treating people as stupid when their conclusions don’t match our own. Instead let’s focus more on training ourselves and our children to know the difference between a logical fallacy and a truth. Let’s teach them that media and celebrities can be just as flawed and inaccurate in their judgments and conclusions as the people they’re comfortable attacking. That should keep us plenty busy as the truth is ferreted out.

Elephants & Science

Two interesting articles this week that at least I see a connection with. Then again, I’m no scientist.

One is the first public study I’ve heard of linking (at least potentially) the growing trend of self-violence, self-medication and suicide with a decline in religious belief. I originally saw the reference on a Roman Catholic web site, but then saw it picked up by the Daily Mail. Although I’m sure it won’t result in any measurable change in public, academic or political policies, at least someone has pointed out that these two trends – falling levels of religious behavior and rising levels of deaths of despair – might be related.

Of particular interest is the correlation not between religious belief and despairing actions, but the correlation between religious behavior (weekly worship attendance) and deaths of despair. What you say isn’t nearly as important as what you do. And whether you think you have a deep spiritual life or not, spirituality and privatized beliefs are not the same as active participation in religious life.

How could such an obvious (at least to me) correlation have escaped study for so long? Perhaps it’s because there is an overall trend for scientific research and studies to be less challenging than they used to be. In other words, disruptive science has seen a marked decline since the mid-20th century. This could of course mean we’ve reached a plateau and we aren’t able at this time to make more disruptive discoveries.

But it could also mean science as a whole is less interested in looking for disruptions.

As such, elephants in the room such as a decline in religious life and a rise in self-harm (as well as harm to others, which the study didn’t cover but which I think is also directly related) are simply not seen. People don’t want to see them, perhaps. Or they’re simply so inculcated in a particular line of thought as to not even conceive of such possibilities.

I also think there are deeper spiritual powers at work here. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to think of Satan and his powers being particularly interested in prompting lines of thought and inquiry that appear to render religious understandings of creation invalid. And that having accomplished this (or convincing enough people that it was accomplished) there’s no further diabolical interest in sparking scientific inquiry in such directions. After all, a diabolical misdirect might be discovered if science was truly as objective as it claims to be. Since people are inherently non-objective, the idea that science is not either shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone, peer reviews and other mechanisms aside.

It could also be that science has reached a certain level of institutionalization, financially and otherwise, where bold ideas are suppressed as unhelpful to the larger edifice. Scientists nurtured from primary school through their doctoral work might be so inculcated in an acceptance of the status quo that outside thought seems, well, blasphemous. As well as directly threatening to their livelihood. We witness the vitriol and professional bans applied against those who dare disagree with an established line of scientific thought, and it’s obvious that even the best-intentioned of scientists or academics would be loathe to challenge such a juggernaut. Watching your funding disappear and facing the wrath of school administrators is terrible. Being blacklisted on social media for simply asking questions is the same sort of terrorism those now in control (apparently) of our culture levied against the cultural movers and shakers of just a few generations ago.

I’m all for science in it’s proper contexts. But it’s no shock to me that those contexts have been warped and exceeded wildly on the one hand, and curtailed perhaps unprofitably on the other hand. Science as a monolithic institution of sorts may find itself caught in the very same difficulties it so glibly derided the Church for (and not entirely unfairly, to be sure). Either reason or faith when misapplied or misdirected can be terribly damaging, and Satan has proven himself adept at using whichever extreme is most advantageous at the moment.

A Needed Gospel

I was having a theological discussion the other day with a friend regarding the challenge of sharing the Gospel in some cultures, particularly affluent ones. I pointed out that in such situations there might be no perceived need for the Gospel to address, and therefore people would be less open to the Gospel. He countered that we have to be careful about tailoring the Gospel to fit the perceived needs of recipients. This is a flaw in a great deal of global Christianity through the heretical prosperity gospel, which preaches that faith in God will naturally lead to tangible, economic benefits that will improve the lives of the faithful because God the Father’s intent is to lavish his good gifts upon us.

As I contemplated the discussion later, I kept coming back to this issue of need and the Gospel. It’s a historical reality that the Gospel often finds the most faithful and eager adherents among the most marginalized of society. Whether it was the lepers and the prostitutes blessed by Jesus directly, or the lower classes of Greek and Roman society who heard the disciples preach, or the poorer citizens of cultures around the world – such as the untouchable class in India’s Hindu caste system – people with very real and imminent needs often hear the Gospel more clearly and place their faith in it more readily.

After all, their other options might be few to none.

Add to this the Church’s historic (and present) practice of providing help and relief to the suffering both locally and globally, and it makes sense that people suffering through dire need who hear the Gospel and are assisted by those already professing it would be more open to making it their own faith. They’ve seen it in action.

It sounds good, but the flip side is just as slippery. Should a perceived need not be met by the Gospel or the Church, it might be equally easy for someone new in the faith or only shallowly familiar with it to despair and give up the Gospel in search of another, better option. Or the option of giving up entirely. My friend is right, relying on the ability to assist with a particular need in terms of tangible aid is a potentially dangerous confusion of the Gospel.

But the reality remains that the Gospel does meet our needs. And it should be preached and taught as such. But this requires adequate teaching to counteract the default cultural teaching and assumptions about life and reality. It requires an active counterpoint to cultural mantras (at least in the West) of rugged individualism or the promises of science and technology to solve our problems. It requires a more fundamental awareness of the Big Picture. This can’t be stressed enough, particularly in cultures where there no longer is a Big Picture. Where there’s nothing but the abyss of meaninglessness that logically follows in a mechanistic universe formed by accident. When culture insists there is no meaning in anything or anyone, the Church must work harder to teach that there is meaning in everything and everyone.

The Gospel does meet our needs, but those needs are not always (or ultimately) a matter of food or clothing or money. The Gospel fulfills our deepest needs and longings, but in many places those needs or longings have been buried under nothingness. There is no explanation for the sense of guilt, or disappointment, or frustration. And there is no fundamental hope that things can, should, or will be radically different at some point in the future. There can only be the vague encouragements to pretend life has meaning and to soldier on through suffering.

Given the skyrocketing rates of violence in the West – both in suicide as well as in the wanton destruction of other lives – such encouragements are understandably less than convincing. Evolutionary theory and natural selection can’t address the fundamental issues we face as human beings – why am I here? why is there suffering? why should I endure suffering? why should I help others? why should I continue on day after day when I’m unhappy? will there ever be anything more or better than this?

But the Gospel can and does answer these questions. It provides the meta-answers that place the problems human face individually and corporately in perspective, providing ways and means of interpreting them, coping with them, and continuing on in the face of adversity. As such the Gospel not only meets our needs, it defines them for us. We might be happy enough to simply acknowledge unhappiness with our lives, dissatisfaction with our jobs, loneliness from a lack of meaningful connection to other people. But the Word of God lifts our eyes to the Big Picture. A Big Picture that accounts for why we deal with such things, how we can deal with them better, and provides the all-important basis for hope to endure – things will not always be this way. There is a better day coming – the Day of the Lord.

So I’d still argue that the Gospel does address our needs and it’s not wrong to talk about it in such terms, so long as we allow Scripture rather than our sinful and narrow-minded hearts to define what our needs are. My need is not more followers on my blog, or more money in the bank, or a better car or a prettier wife or better behaved children. My needs are at the core of my being and cannot be addressed by more zeros at the end of my bank balance.

Let the Gospel address the needs people have, because it has addressed – and defined – the needs of those who share it. Jesus is the answer not just to temporary happiness or satisfaction but to the deepest existential questions existence conjures. Including, sometimes, hunger and nakedness and oppression. And miracle of miracles, the Gospel draws us in to sometimes be direct or indirect contributors to meeting the needs of those around us, which we find usually results in our own needs being met at the same time.

Which Texts, Please?

I mean, how hard did you have to look to find a group like this to support your-predetermined conclusion that religious groups are in favor of abortion?

The group’s website is here, but although it claims to have started in the 70’s, the copyright information is only indicated as last year and there’s literally no information or activity on this site (at least without being a member). Not only that, there’s absolutely no indication of which sacred texts support the idea that a baby can be physical but not spiritual, or rather a clump of cells like a fingernail and then miraculously a human being with an immortal soul simply because of the birth process.

I’d love to know which texts they’re relying on. But really, for reporting purposes, we don’t need to actually substantiate anything. The average reader is neither literate enough nor has the attention span to process it, so we’ll just skip it.

Trust us. It’s true. Really.

Say What?

I’m sorry, can you explain this?

‘Experts’ are warning of a rise in infant mortality rate with the undoing of Roe v. Wade. Claiming an additional 75,000 births per year could be expected if abortion is not readily available on demand everywhere.

Compare that to over 60,000,000 abortions since 1973.

First off, if we are worried about infant mortality, shouldn’t we be more worried about the number of infants killed via abortion rather than the statistically much smaller number of infants potentially at risk through pregnancy complications? If we’re going to throw numbers around, which ones are bigger?

And doesn’t infant mortality imply that unborn children are actually, you know, children? Oh wait – I forget – they’re only human children if you want them to be. Otherwise they’re fingernails. My bad.

Moreover, they’re predicting a greater impact for people of color, which to my mind means that people of color were aborting babies at a higher percentage than people-of-no-color (?). So if more people of color were getting abortions, then how is it that more of their children are going to die without abortion?

I’m also curious about blanket statements such as this:

Pregnant people of color have long been marginalized and neglected in the medical system, frequently experiencing racism and discrimination at all points of care.

I’d be curious to see supporting documentation on this. But to just throw it out there as an accepted fact? Hmmm. Problematic to me.

And of course the logical conclusion is that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is racist. If people aren’t allowed to abort their unborn children before childbirth stage, more of them are going to die.

What?

Legislating Reality

Getting a kick out of all the uproar now that people are finally doing the math (or having the math done for them) and finding out Laura Dern was 23 in the original Jurassic Park movie, cast opposite her leading man Sam Neil who was 20 years her senior.

A few interesting observations.

I’ll assume Dern and other appropriately anti-patriarchy folks talked with Amber Heard a scant seven years ago when she married Johnny Depp, who is 23 years her senior. In real life.

In case folks are worried this was just an example of Hollywood wanting a younger woman with an older male actor, the book apparently also indicates there is a roughly 20-year age difference in the couple.

Dern herself notes at that at the time it seemed “appropriate” to love her co-star despite the age-difference.

However with 30 years to look back on it, she no longer feels this ought to have been the case then, or should be the case now.

In which case, what would an appropriate age difference be between a man and a woman? Or is a 20-year gap acceptable so long as there are an equal number of similarly profiled pairings? So for every Heard-Depp with 20+ years on the guy, there needs to be another high-profile couple where the woman is 20 years older than the man?

Makes me wonder why it felt “appropriate” to her back then but not so now? It seems clear she has a good relationship with her co-star. I’m sure that made their pairing all those years ago much more natural and easy for her to believe. And which may lead one to the conclusion that it isn’t simply male-dominance forcing young women into relationships with older men, but rather there are situations where the age difference (in either direction) seems less important than the quality of the connection and chemistry.

I won’t argue Hollywood clearly has a bias favoring younger actresses paired with older actors. I won’t even argue this is problematic at some level. But what level? At a patriarchy level? What does that even mean in this context? Was it wrong of the author to conceive of such a relationship? Wrong for Hollywood to cast it? Wrong for Dern and/or Neil to accept it? What should they have insisted on instead?

As a father of a daughter, what should I tell my daughter? Certainly if she were to be courted by a significantly older guy I would have my concerns. But should I tell her he can’t be more than 10 years her senior? Five? Fifteen? Should I recognize that sometimes, love transcends age and it isn’t exploitation or the patriarchy or anything nefarious? I’d like to think that with my daughter – as well as my sons – the quality of the person they consider spending time with is going to factor more heavily than simply an age, while trying not to be naive about the risks posed in potential spouses who are considerably older. But to simply declare an arbitrary age as disgusting or inappropriate seems just as disempowering as whatever alleged patriarchy threats Dern imagines.

Some people age better than others, not just physically but as a person, making them attractive to a broader age-range of the opposite sex. Hollywood typically shows us younger women with older men, but I believe it probably happens the other direction just as frequently. The important thing in both the fictional and real world is that the relationship works. And that will necessitate additional efforts when there is a significant age disparity involved.

At least we’ve all got something new to be indignant about. Lord knows, that’s what we need.

Abandoning the Field, and the Need to Redefine the Field

The last of my long-neglected articles is this essay by professor (former, now) speaker, thinker and writer Jordan Peterson.

This is a fantastic, no-punches-pulled essay. I believe Peterson has rightly diagnosed an extremely dangerous shift in our culture, one that I’ve been warning about for over a decade. It is not something that is going to go away any time soon. But there are hopeful signs that some leaders are fed up with it and willing to take a stand against it. The best example of this is Netflix, who seemed to be on the ropes last year with employees trying to hold the company hostage in order to force programming and production changes along the lines of what Peterson talks about. But rather than cave (and there was definitely wobbling last year), Netflix has decided that the honesty of artistic expression (and hopefully corresponding capital rewards) outweigh cancel culture. In a memo last week Netflix suggested employees who can’t handle any of the content Netflix produces or sells should consider working elsewhere rather than attempting hostage-techniques to wrest control of the company.

Not surprisingly, media coverage of this memo has been decidedly muted in comparison to the non-stop coverage of a handful of irate employees demanding sweeping changes and control of Netflix content last year. We can only hope more CEOs will follow suit.

It’s tempting to blame Peterson for abandoning the field. After all, if there aren’t holdouts against the rising order, can we ever hope for change? And wasn’t it exactly that tactic of gradual infiltration that ultimately turned American universities into bastions of radical liberal ideology? But I have to admit Peterson makes some good points. The very folks inclined to seek out his mentorship will be rewarded, no doubt, with bright scarlet letters atop their curriculum vitae in any academic HR department or before any hiring committee. He makes a good case that he’s actually doing limited good and by redirecting his efforts he might have a broader impact. Perhaps, within the echo-chamber of existing like-minded people.

But it seems Peterson should do more than lambast his peers who hide and curry favor in order to keep their jobs. Something different is called for, I’d suggest. A turning away from the increasing cycle of more and more years of public education and corresponding radical ideology. What is required is a re-thinking of whether universal university education is an expectation that provides any real degree of value. There will always be a need and place for people who do require advanced or specialized types of training, though I’d argue alternatives could and should be developed still to mandatory undergraduate and graduate degrees for doctors and other professionals. Peterson seems to accept the mandate that has grown unceasingly over the last 40 years – universal university education is a good goal and a benefit to both the individual and society.

But as pressure mounts to eliminate some or all student loan debt, this clearly is a flawed premise. Even when I was in high school in the early 80’s there was already a stigma against vocational education. Maybe more effort should be directed at countering this stigma and providing recognition of honorable work that doesn’t require a degree. While I’m not familiar with and therefore not endorsing everything Mike Rowe might be saying, I do respect his critique of the denigration in American society of vocational training and jobs as somehow menial and non-respectable.

Hopefully Peterson will find that broader platform he hints at. His voice is much needed. But one voice isn’t nearly enough.

Catching Up, Philosophically

Now that I have reliable Internet for the first time in almost three months, I want to catch up on a backlog of bookmarked articles to share or comment on.

First up (literally) is this article explaining the prevalence of scientism in the West, and noting the fundamental philosophical flaws that render it’s confidence problematic at best, dangerous at worst. If we’re honest with ourselves, all of us as Westerners raised in the 21st century suffer from this to some extent. Living in another part of the world for a while, I begin to realize the extent goes a lot deeper than I’d like to think. The author’s distinction of scientism zealots vs. agnostics is helpful in this regard.

Realizing that even in Christian communities there are a lot of folks who are effectively scientism agnostics even though they profess Jesus as Lord and Savior is complicated, to say the least. Examining our own ideas about things is a good place to start, both towards humble reconciliation with what we claim is Truth, as well as loving care and outreach to others struggling with these two irreconcilable ideas of truth.