Our food habits reflect our self-respect

A bought breakfast on the way to school. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran.

That food manufacturers sell products that seriously affect the health of consumers is a scandal that demands attention.

An article by a senior journalist, with plenty of experience in dealing with agricultural issues and food safety, hit home to me how processed food has become the plaything of businesses in the same way that the tobacco industry has been pursuing profit while determinedly playing down the serious health consequences of the use of its products. 

With food we are seeing another case of private interests gaining profit while society is left to bear the cost of health care and family upheaval. 

"Diet-related diseases pose a major risk for Covid-19. But the U.S. overlooks them." is the title of the article on this issue that Politico (US Edition) ran last month. The writer is Helena Bottemiller Evich. She uses as examples of countries making efforts to encourage public health, from the British prime minister pushing steps to foster among the public a healthier diet, to Mexico:

Some states in Mexico recently went as far as banning junk food sales to children — on top of the country’s existing taxes on sugary drinks and fast food. Chile was already deep in its own crackdown on unhealthy products, having imposed the first mandatory, national warning labels for foods with high levels of salt, sugar and fat along with a ban on marketing such foods to kids.

In the US, apart from Michelle Obama's campaign, there has been no sustained effort to block the trend of the mounting toll of obesity:

[This is so] even as researchers increasingly recognize that obesity is a disease that is driven not by lack of willpower, but a modern society and food system that’s almost perfectly designed to encourage the overeating of empty calories, along with more stress, less sleep and less daily exercise, setting millions on a path to poor health outcomes that is extremely difficult to break from. 

Marion Nestle, a New York University professor and author of  books on food policy, told Evich:

How do we stop it? With great difficulty and political will. If you’re going to do anything about it, you have to take on the food industry, which no one wants to do.

Evich points out that the narrative cultivated by the food industry is another of the viewpoints propogated by elite groups for their own self-interested purposes, whether to sell newspapers, advertising, or political party. This time it goes like this:

There’s also a deep-seated belief in America that obesity and other diet-related diseases are the result of personal choices and anything the government does to meddle with our diets is an assault on American liberty. That narrative is increasingly being challenged by science. 

Research shows that once someone has obesity, there are almost no dietary or exercise interventions that are successful at reversing the disease over the long term and many people lack access to more aggressive treatments like drugs and bariatric surgery. Humans, it turns out, are largely hardwired to keep weight on once they gain it. 

 The severity of the matter is made clear by these statistics:

More than 42 percent of American adults — about 100 million people — had obesity before the pandemic began, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly three-fourths of American adults are overweight or have obesity. Roughly one in five children now have obesity.

The costs associated with this epidemic, along with diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer, all related to diet, are among the greatest threats to the fiscal future of the United States, not to mention the health, well-being and productivity of millions of people. 

Where America goes, the rest of the world follows. Vietnam, where I live, has seen its the rate of overweight and obese children more than double in the past 10 years. From VnExpress:

By 2020, for every 100 children between the ages of five and 19, 19 are either overweight or obese, a sharp increase compared to the figure of 8.5 in 2010, according to National Institute of Nutrition figures released in April.

The rate of overweight and obese children was 26.8 percent in urban areas, 18.3 percent in rural districts and 6.9 percent in mountainous regions.

The health ministry has set a target of controlling obesity and overweight rates among children under five years at 5 percent in rural areas and 10 percent in urban areas.

Rana Flowers, a representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) in Vietnam, said the nation is facing an overweight and obesity burden. She warned of an increase in the consumption of soft drinks and fast food in schools across urban cities. 

In Vietnam, an increase in spending power has meant parents, often unaware of the likely result, give snacks of processed foods and soda drinks to their children because they are too busy to provide healthy meals. Also, it is true that "fat and healthy" is a pairing that is firmly in the traditional mindset of Vietnamese. 

In the US, says Evich,  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is the only political leader who expresses concern. She adds:

There’s a bipartisan bill to require Medicare to cover medications and more types of specialists to help treat obesity. The legislation has been introduced repeatedly since 2013, the year the American Medical Association formally recognized obesity as a disease, but has not gotten much traction even as major Covid aid bills have moved through Congress.

Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School who is a key advocate for the bill, said the pandemic has sparked much more interest among lawmakers and staff, but it hasn’t yet translated into legislative action.

One of the biggest challenges, she said, is that most people still do not understand obesity is a complex disease, not something that can be blamed on or fixed by personal choices, and it often requires multidisciplinary treatment that many people do not have access to.

“We aren’t taught about obesity,” Stanford said, referring to a lack of education in medical schools. “If doctors don’t understand obesity, why would the general public? Why would policymakers?” 

The minimal action within the government bureaucracy is of this type, as per Evich:

The Food and Drug Administration has been working to update what foods can be labeled as “healthy” since 2018 and has yet to unveil a proposed rule, let alone finalize or enforce one. The agency this month released long-delayed voluntary sodium reduction goals for food-makers to try to nudge them to use less salt in their products over the next two years. The policy, which is voluntary, took the better part of a decade to develop amid some pushback from the food industry. 

The goal is to slowly dial down the sodium used across the American food supply so consumers' palates can adjust to eating less salt over time.

As well as the use of added salt and sugar in processed food, there is the matter of foods becoming less nutritious even as their bulk grows. Crops, too, have higher yields, but the gain is according to weight, not nutrional value.

The Rothamsted Research centre, a leading British non-profit agricultural institute, has used statistics that go back 175 years to show that here has been a profound change in nutritional value of  wheat in particular since the 1960s.

With soil conditions being a stable element, the outcome is major for a world trying to feed itself in a healthy fashion, as well as preventing basic hunger. Scientists at Rothamsted report this:

Wheat is an important source of minerals such as iron, zinc, copper and magnesium in the UK diet. If you look at the data, their concentrations remained stable between 1845 and the mid-1960s, but since then have decreased significantly - which coincided with the introduction of semi-dwarf, high-yielding wheat cultivars. The overall decrease in mineral content of between 20 and 30% is considerable.

One effect which may contribute to the decreased mineral contents of semi-dwarf wheats, and other high yielding modern crops is ‘yield dilution’. During the ‘green revolution’ of the 1960s, these newer wheat varieties were bred that had higher yields – the driver for this was to combat hunger across the rapidly expanding populations in the developing world. These varieties produce bigger and more grains, but that means an increased amount of starch - which dilutes other grain components including minerals.  We have shown that semi-dwarf wheats also contain less minerals even when grown under the same conditions side by side with the old varieties. This demonstrates that is clearly a genetic effect and not due to environmental factors.  

The genetic effect cited here has dramatic implications for the effort to feed the world in a healthy way, given that genetically modified crops of all kinds are grabbing market share all around the world. 

News from Reuters out today:

Brazil Thursday became the first country to allow imports of flour made with genetically modified wheat, though shipments of the new variety developed in Argentina are unlikely anytime soon due to opposition from Brazilian millers and global consumers.

The story gives insight into what is happening in GM agriculture:

The decision may spur a broader global discussion about genetically modified wheat as prices rise and concerns grow that more severe weather could threaten food security. Genetically modified soybeans and corn have long been accepted on global markets, but are primarily fed to livestock rather than humans.

To conclude, Evich points out that the obesity crisis already apparent in many countries is a complex matter:

The problem is driven by so many factors, including poverty and systemic inequality, lack of access to healthy foods, lack of time to cook, overall stress levels, trauma, poor sleep, a lack of access to safe walking paths and parks, to name just a few. 

However, care over our food is important to personal health and it is something we have control over to a large extent. Care in this direction is also important as to the non-wasteful use of a nation's resources through having to increase the public health budget. The population as a whole needs to get busy in demanding political action to push manufacturers to be proactive in  food safety and public health to sustain the common good.

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Metaverse must spur parents into action

Family engagement breaks the digital stranglehold. Photo by August de Richelieu from Pexels 

Parents, please give full attention to the whirlwind surrounding Facebook, the toll levelled at its social media platforms, and its massive new project involving ways to entrap children first, but the rest of us, too, in a civilisation of its own making.

The fact that many leaders in the tech field apply tight restrictions on their own children's use of digital devices gives us one solution to society's difficulties with the whole tech domain.

First, what is going on that impels us to break new ground in parental control within the family. We need to be convinced that the array of digital dangers is large and that protection by way of restriction on device use is essential. 

Facebook's ambition to reconfigure everyone's environment into a proprietary "metaverse" creates a whole new set of dangers on top of the damage, to young people particularly, that its social media platforms already cause, according to Frances Haugen, the former Facebook data engineer and product manager, who produced thousands of company documents to explain her motivation in becoming a whistleblower.  

Within days of the public alarm and the intense interest of legislators aroused by the release of Haugen's Facebook information, Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta, saying it wanted a new name to point to the all-encompassing virtual reality world at the heart of its growth strategy. It was where the future of the internet lay. Commentators said Facebook was trying to distract attention from Haugen by starting a new narrative.

The word metaverse is borrowed from science-fiction, and refers to a future version of the internet which people access using virtual-reality and augmented-reality headsets, rather than via laptops and phones. (Source)

While in the UK and Europe, speaking at conferences and meeting lawmakers, Haugen has been condemning Facebook for launching this massive project while its Facebook and Instagram entities are wreaking havoc.

Instead of putting its profits before the well-being of its users, Facebook must invest in “security” before “metaverse”,  Haugen told a tech summit in Lisbon. The safety of children and protecting the public from false information must be the priorities. Her words:

 Again and again, Facebook chooses to expand into new areas rather than sticking to what it has already done. I find that unacceptable… We must devote more resources to basic security systems.

“Instead of investing to ensure that their platforms are a minimum safe, they are about to (hire) 10,000 engineers” in Europe for the development of the “metaverse”, she added.

 While in Brussels, Haugen gave an interview:

[T]he new focus on the metaverse creates a whole new set of dangers, Haugen said. In Snow Crash, the 1992 sci-fi novel that coined the phrase, “it was a thing that people used to numb themselves when their lives were horrible,” she said.

 “So beyond the fact that these immersive environments are extremely addictive and they encourage people to unplug from the reality we actually live,” she said, “I’m also worried about it on the level of — the metaverse will require us to put many, many more sensors in our homes and our workplaces,” forcing users to relinquish more of their data and their privacy.

 But Haugen said employees of companies that use the metaverse would have little option but to participate in the system or leave their jobs.

“If your employer decides they’re now a metaverse company, you have to give out way more personal data to a company that’s demonstrated that it lies whenever it is in its best interests,” she said.

And she cautioned the public not to expect more transparency.

“They’ve demonstrated with regard to Facebook that they can hide behind a wall. They keep making unforced errors, they keep making things that prioritize their own profits over our safety,” she said.

Haugen told the European Parliament: 

“The choices being made by Facebook’s leadership are a huge problem — for children, for public safety, for democracy — that is why I came forward,” she said. “And let’s be clear: it doesn’t have to be this way.”

She previously worked at other tech companies including Google, Pinterest and Yelp, and was able to compare the way they operate. She said that Twitter, for example, was “substantially more transparent”, accountable and aware of what is on its platform.

When before a UK parliamentary committee Haugen spoke of the urgent need for regulation of Facebook. The Guardian reported her testimony this way:

 [Facebook's] internal culture prioritised profitability over its impact on the wider world, said Haugen, and “there is no will at the top to make sure these systems are run in an adequately safe way”. She added: “Until we bring in a counterweight, these things will be operated for the shareholders’ interest and not the public interest.”

She warned that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook and used by millions of children worldwide, may never be safe for pre-teens.

Amid growing concerns about the impact of Instagram on the mental health and body image of teenagers, Haugen said Facebook’s own research likened the app’s young users to addicts who feel unable to step away from a service that makes them unhappy.

“The last thing they see at night is someone being cruel to them. The first thing they see in the morning is a hateful statement and that is just so much worse.” She claimed the company’s own research found Instagram was more dangerous than other social media such as TikTok and Snapchat because the platform is focused on “social comparison about bodies, about people’s lifestyles, and that’s what ends up being worse for kids”.

She added: “I’m deeply worried it may not be possible to make Instagram safe for a 14-year-old and I sincerely doubt it’s possible to make it safe for a 10-year-old.”

Even without Haugen's evidence, public alarm at the toll of social media has been mounting. But it's becoming increasingly clear how the technology employs algorithms that actually promote addictive use, that encourage division in society by spreading the kind of information that outrages rather than informs. The whole technological world also robs people of personal information.

Parents, step forward. Protect your kids. 

The fact that many leaders in the tech field apply tight restrictions on their own children's use of smartphones and the like seems to have flown under the radar of busy parents, who know the dangers facing their children, who despair at the lack of mutual engagement of family members, who acknowledge the addictive power of devices on their children and themselves, but who do not relish the battles with self-discipline or with complaining youngsters who are battling peer pressure.

Before we turn to some enlightened tech leaders for inspiration, guidance from health leaders might be in order:

In 2019, the World Health Organization released guidelines dictating that children aged 5 and under should have no more than one hour of screen time a day. The guidelines are somewhat similar to advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends children younger than 18 months should avoid screens aside from video chats. (Source)

It says parents of children under 2 should choose "high-quality programming" with educational value and that can be watched with a parent to help kids understand what they're seeing.

A 2020 BusinessInsider article provides useful motivational information;

Our first example is Google CEO Sundar Pichai, whose middle-school-aged son doesn't own a cell phone — and the TV can only be accessed by using special controls. He aims to model the desired behaviour by restricting his own cellphone and computer use. 

Pichai's standards for screen time in the household may stem from his own childhood in Chennai, India. He told Bloomberg that he grew up with little phone access, no computer, and no television.

Second is the old favourite, Steve Jobs: In his household, dinnertime was reserved for face-to-face conversation with his children — meaning no iPads or iPhones in sight. Meal times "provided a space for him to discuss different topics and connect with his kids". 

Apparently the Jobs children hadn't even tried out the iPad after it hit shelves in 2010. He told the writer of a biography: "They haven't used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home."

Third, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and her husband, Google executive Dennis Troper, "want their  children to learn how to ... balance screen-time with other activities".

In 2019, [she] told the Guardian that while she prefers her five children to create 'self-control methods,' there are times when she needs to limit screen-time.

"I have times when I take away all my kids' phones, especially if we're on a family vacation, because I want people to interact with each other," said Wojcicki. "So, I take away their phones and say: 'We're all going to focus on being present today.'"

Wojcicki emphasizes that she wants her children to have a healthy outlook on devices and understand when it is time to take a break from them. 

Fourth is investor and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban, "who set up special routers in his house, allowing him to monitor when his kids are using the internet — and shut down all activities when they go over their set screen-time limits".

Fifth are Snapchat cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel and former Victoria's Secret Angel Miranda Kerr. They limit their [then] 8-year-old's screen time to 1.5 hours per week.

Spiegel himself grew up not watching TV as a kid, and has said it forced him to read, build things, and think for himself. He told the Financial Times that he wants to pass on the same benefits to his daughter.

Though that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to completely cut her off from technology. 

"I think the more interesting conversation to have is really around the quality of that screen time," Spiegel told the Financial Times.

In the past he has advocated for parents to consider reevaluating and limiting their kids' screen time.

Finally, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and tennis icon Serena Williams "say they plan on limiting their daughter's screen time as she gets older". 

Although [their] daughter is only two years old, Ohanian told CNBC that the couple already have a game plan for when their toddler develops a curiosity for all things digital.

"My wife and I both want her to know what it's like to have limits on tech," Ohanian said. "I do look forward to playing video games with her when she's older, but it's really important that she gets time to just be with her thoughts and be with her blocks and be with her toys, so we'll be regulating it pretty heavily."

Restrictions imposed on screentime offer the opportunity for young people to learn how to be warm and engaged and for adults to flourish.

The countercultural aspect of standing against the digital oppression evident in modern life comes clear when that environment is observed by a newcomer. An example is given in the observation offered by Chinese student Habi Zhang and reported here:

She said that when she arrived in Indiana, she was amazed by large homeschooling Catholic families in Indiana where people don’t give their kids cellphones, and where people’s social lives don’t seem driven by technology. She said, “I see true, full humans in those lovely souls.”

[There,] no one is distracted by the “modern life” that is supposed to be inundated with emails, texts, or phone calls; they are effortlessly fully present and engaging each other with full attention. 

Her experience contrasted sharply with what amounted to a shallow shared consumerism she was accustomed to in China. It also confirmed her "conviction that our deepest emotional needs can be satisfied only in genuine human companionship".

From the same reporting, we learn of the views of James Poulos who has a new book out, Human Forever: The Digital Politics of Spiritual War. He foresees the moral attitudes abroad in society enabling political forces that will overwhelm society.

Poulos said that what’s wrong with [civil] institutions is that they are not going to survive in a world in which everyone has a smartphone and plugging it into our brains all the time. “We have to accept the fact that we are cyborgs now,” he said.

He added that it is not clear that most people want to live in a world free from digital devices. Poulos: “The thought that institutions built to rule the world, in a liberal international sense, are able to extend control over those devices is being proven not to be true. Liberal democracy [is not] proving itself capable of controlling these technologies.”

In brief, it's up to parents to take control of what they can to prevent their families being hollowed out by the powerful digital realm. The family is the basic unit of society and its influence can also be powerful. Therefore, it seems true to our situation that the survival of thriving communities is dependent on "the activism that happens in our neighborhoods and homes”.

See also my posts:

Facebook: What parents can and must do 

Facebook evidence calls parents to arms

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'Inheritance impatience' - It's out with the old!

She is told: 'Give me my money now!'  Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels

As societies lose their ability to exercise moral coherence particular groups who are the least able to defend themselves are bearing the brunt of the harsh individualism that is coming to dominate. This post examines how elder abuse and euthanasia are being intertwined as both chop through traditional bonds within the family.  

In speaking about the introduction of euthanasia, journalist Bak Se-hwan wrote:

In South Korea, a highly Confucian society where embracing death is deemed as disrespect for life, the idea of seriously ill people choosing to forgo artificial life-prolonging methods has been uncomfortable for many.

But a rapidly aging population has prompted a shift in the attitude, raising demand for end-of-life care among the elderly. 

That shift in attitude toward promoting "end-of-life" procedures for the elderly is most evident among younger generations, with other Asian countries also shedding their traditional moral stance of utmost respect for elders. 

From Japan:

Since the late twentieth century, movements to legalize euthanasia in Western countries have received growing coverage in the Japanese press. For the most part, though, this has not sparked serious debate on the topic among the Japanese, who have tended to view it as an issue not impacting their own country.

The handful of Western countries with euthanasia laws boast strong traditions of individualism, and it would be a slippery slope for Japan, with its group-oriented culture, to follow their lead in drawing up its own legislation. If euthanasia is legalized, there is a real danger of patients being pressured into choosing anrakushi [“mercy killing” in cases of pain and suffering] out of deference to their families and society, a risk made even greater by the lack of laws laying out the rights of patients.

The writer of this piece is Andō Yasunori, associate professor at Tottori University, specializing in death studies, bioethics, and religious studies. Born in 1961, he is a member of the Science Council of Japan, and he sits on the boards of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies and Japan Association for Bioethics.  He has written extensively on the Japanese view of death.

He says the Japanese have another concept relating to this subject, songenshi, which is closer to normal medical practice:

[This] suggests a “natural death”, such as a family choosing to disconnect a relative in a vegetative state from a ventilator, based on an advance directive from the individual in question, or a critically ill patient opting to cease or forego life-prolonging treatments.

Singapore has been alarmed by the increase in elder abuse more than doubling, even before the Covid pandemic.  The Straits Times reported how the abusers were often family members:

Evonne Lek, a family therapist, [said]: "At their end of life, having to face such abuse at the hands of their children can lead to a steep psychological decline, and they may feel that life is not worth living."

Associate Professor Tan Ern Ser said: "(A rise in elder abuse cases) would undermine the family as an institution for mutual support and for inculcating respect and honour for elders in the family."

At least 5 per cent of India’s elderly population aged 60 years and above stated they experienced ill-treatment, according to the national longitudinal ageing study published this year. "Close to a quarter experienced economic exploitation (26.5 per cent), which means misuse of an elderly person’s money, property and assets." 

By comparison, " as many as 1 in 10 people over the age of 60 experience elder abuse, according to the US Centers for Disease Control". The CDC states: "Elder abuse is a serious problem in the United States." Its next set of figures, relating to physical abuse, shows the extent of the degradation of US society: "From 2002 to 2016, more than 643,000 older adults were treated in the emergency department for nonfatal assaults and over 19,000 homicides occurred."

Ten US states have given in to the push for euthanasia. 

With assisted dying-euthanasia legislation debated again in the UK Parliament last month, this information was published:

 In March 2021, Canada expanded its law on assisted dying. Now adults with a serious and incurable “disease, illness or disability”, who are in an advanced state of decline and are suffering, are able to seek a medically assisted death - even if they are not dying,  The Times reported.

Previously, the country had only permitted euthanasia and assisted suicide for adults suffering from “grievous and irremediable conditions” whose death is “reasonably foreseeable”. 

Medically assisted deaths counted for 1.89% of all deaths in Canada in 2019, the BBC reported. About 1.5% of Swiss deaths are the result of assisted suicide.

Belgium allows euthanasia and assisted suicide for those with unbearable suffering and no prospect of improvement. If a patient is not terminally ill, there is a one-month waiting period before euthanasia can be performed. Belgium has no age restriction for children, but they must have a terminal illness to meet the criteria for approval.

The pattern of a rise in elder abuse and a growing list of jurisdictions legalising euthanasia is striking. 

This is how the academic literature treats the abuse crisis:

Elder abuse is now recognized internationally as an extensive and serious problem, urgently requiring the attention of health care systems, social welfare agencies, policymakers, and the general public. Reports from the World Health Organization, United Nations, and other international bodies have prominently featured elder abuse and highlighted the range of harmful activities subsumed under this rubric throughout the world ( World Health Organization, 2011 , 2014 ; OHCHR, 2010 ; Podnieks, Anetzberger, Wilson, Teaster, & Wangmo, 2010 ).

With a global explosion in the older adult population, elder abuse is expected to become an even more pressing problem, affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Elder abuse is associated with devastating individual consequences and societal costs, meriting attention as a serious public health issue. 

Arizona's attorney-general states: "Reports of abuse have increased 150% over the last decade." The statement continues:

The most prevalent type of abuse referred to law enforcement is financial exploitation and fraud. The most common characteristics of victims of fraud and exploitation are that they are gregarious (need interaction), compulsive (cannot pass up a good deal), have a sense of machismo (believe they cannot be fooled), vulnerable (have experienced a recent trauma) and naïve (they want to believe everything they have been told is true).

From the United Nations, to mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (June 15), comes this:

Older people are increasingly subject to financial abuse, in many cases by their own family members, Rosa Kornfeld-Matte, the UN-appointed independent expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, warns.

“Financial abuse of older persons is rampant but largely invisible, and the problem is expected to grow dramatically with the ageing of our societies,”  Kornfeld-Matte said.

“Sadly, most abusers are family members", adding that even experienced professionals have difficulty distinguishing an unwise but legitimate financial transaction, from an exploitative one that was the result of undue influence, duress, fraud, or a lack of informed consent.

Financial abuse reflects a pattern of behaviour rather than a single event, and occurs over a period of time. Older people may even tacitly acknowledge it, or feel that the perpetrator has some entitlement to their assets.

“Some older people also have a desire to compensate those who provide them with care, affection, or attention”, she said.

To put my theme into a wider context, I turn to Alasdair MacIntyre who is a Scottish born, British educated, moral and political philosopher who has worked in the United States since 1970.  After Virtue is his great 1981 work of moral philosophy. One commentator states that work's main principle this way: 

We are entering a time of crisis, claimed MacIntyre. The Enlightenment destroyed the idea that human life is imbued with purpose and direction. It took morality away from the community and made it a matter of individual choice, thus replacing morality with individual self-assertion. The final passage reads:

If my account of our moral condition is correct we ought to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us.

And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope. This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament.

The predicament is that the grouping of nations as "Western" is now a false identity because that concept depended on adherence to Christian insights and morality. But, says our commentator, "the United States is not really a Christian country at all, that it worships a god that has been made in its own image – that is, it worships itself. And that capitalism and a belief in the total freedom of the individual is not [an] unmitigated good..."

Christians are now merely "resident aliens" in what had been a supportive homeland. The environment is "overwhelmingly hostile"; it is "enemy territory". And "much that passes for orthodox Christianity in American life" ... [is a] "pale reflection of traditional Christianity [that] has been hollowed out by the continual march of market-driven acquisitiveness".

The greed that infects Western society and its imitators brings me to my final example of the dysfunction that is increasingly crippling societies worldwide.

With house prices soaring in Australia, as in many other countries, even with the pandemic still rampant, a perverse outcome has been noted - adult children seeking to exploit their relatives to alleviate their own financial or housing difficulties.

Mary Lovelock is a senior lawyer at Legal Aid New South Wales who specialises in elder abuse. She says:

What our service is seeing [more of] is the abusive behaviour of adult children and that's what makes elder abuse so particularly confronting and challenging to deal with.

 It can be an adult child standing over mum or dad on pension day. But with the recent surge in housing prices, it can involve really serious amounts of money.

The housing crisis has fuelled a lot of the financial abuse we're seeing.

We've assisted many clients who've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars through different forms of financial abuse.

There's what we call 'inheritance impatience'. We get children saying 'mum and dad are spending their money, that's my inheritance'.

The other thing we've seen through Covid is adult children moving back into the family home because they've lost their job. Sometimes it's very difficult for the older person to say no.

Elderly members of the community, like the unborn, are at the frontlines of the battleground that society is increasingly becoming as we see younger generations devoid of a moral foundation that values self-sacrifice and altruism. Instead, the self-seeking acquisitiveness ingrained in them by our consumerist society, and the untethered self-assertion learned from fickle celebrities are directing us into vile places to a degree that seems inevitable. 

I was struck by the words underlined above, from researchers who have absorbed the conclusions of world organisations and fellow academic observers, that a growing ageing population would lead to a higher incidence of elder abuse. What an indictment of the society we have, and that of the decades ahead! Why is there an expectation of a more depraved society? 

And so to return to Alisdair MacIntyre. He ends his After Virtue with a call for a moral regeneration that is deep and extensive by tapping the Christian heritage that laid the basis for the true human rights achieved since the days of the Roman empire. It must start now because it will take several generations to achieve and, in the meantime, it will go toward preventing the last of our remaining faith, hope and charity from bleeding away.

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Infallibility: The Church as the "oracle of God"

The former Anglican Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, has been ordained to the Catholic priesthood by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster. He will serve in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, set up for Anglicans who seek union with the Catholic Church. All who were ordained in the Anglican Communion must receive ordination in the Catholic Church to continue their ministry. 

Days earlier he was received into the Catholic Church. At that ceremony, Dr Nazir-Ali said:

I believe that the Anglican desire to adhere to apostolic, patristic and conciliar teaching can now best be maintained in the Ordinariate. Provisions there to safeguard legitimate Anglican patrimony are very encouraging and, I believe, that such patrimony in its Liturgy, approaches to biblical study, pastoral commitment to the community, methods of moral theology and much else besides has a great deal to offer the wider Church.

I am looking forward to receiving from the riches of other parts of the Church, while perhaps making a modest contribution to the maintenance and enhancement of Anglican patrimony within the wider fellowship.

He is the third bishop from the Church of England to join the Catholic Church this year. In December of 2019, former Church of England priest Gavin Ashenden was also received into the Catholic Church. Ashenden had been ordained a bishop in the Christian Episcopal Church, a breakaway Anglican denomination, in 2017.

Dr Nazir-Ali laid out his reasons for becoming a Catholic in a column in the Daily Mail. It came down to this, the unity of doctrine:

The Catholic Church is a truly united global organisation, which gives it strength. The Anglican Church has become splintered, a loose collection of churches, many of whom have conflicting interpretations of Christianity. Even when the Church manages to agree on things, these decisions don't seem to carry much weight – people go off and do it their own way.

The source of Catholic unity while being global is recognised as flowing from its exercise of authority invested in the successor of the apostle Peter. The matter of infallibility within the Catholic Church, has been from the beginning a provocative doctrine for Anglicans,  and a matter of a famous defence (given in part below) by former Anglican priest John Henry Newman, who became a Catholic, was ordained a priest and made a cardinal, and, in 2019, was declared a saint.

Cardinal Nichols spoke at Dr Nazir-Ali's ordination on the doctrine of infallibility:

[T]he gift of the Holy Spirit ... affects the birth of the Church, a birth renewed, again and again, at every Eucharist. From here spring two key characteristics of the Church: its cohesion and its mission. Neither is easy to put into practice and sustain.Indeed, the first practical problems emerge immediately for the infant Church. The first: how to replace Judas, whose heart had been totally corrupted by greed. It is not without consequences that the first words spoken on this matter were the words of Peter, leading decisively to the course to be taken. The gift of the Petrine ministry is part of the gift given to the Church to sustain its cohesion of life and action.

So too in its mission. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that after the great event of Pentecost, as the mission of the Church explodes into life, it is Peter who ‘stood up with the Eleven and addressed them (the crowd) in a loud voice’ (Acts 2:14). Already the challenge of the mission of the Church is clear, for that crowd consisted of people ‘from every nation under heaven’. Our mission is always shaped by the interface between the joy of the Gospel truth and the history and culture of those to whom it is addressed. That dynamic, too, comes under the guidance of the Successor of Peter and those around him, and one with him, in the ministry of oversight.

During Dr Nazir-Ali's ordination on October 30, 2021

Dr Nazir-Ali was born in Pakistan in 1949 and has both British and Pakistani citizenship. He holds many academic awards, including from the universities of Karachi, Oxford and Cambridge. He has taught and researched at a number of institutions and continues to teach and supervise research. He was appointed Bishop of Rochester in 1994, resigning in 2009. Since then he has been director of a centre that prepares Christians for ministry in situations where the Church is in danger from persecution. He is the author of many books. He has been married to Valerie since 1972 and they have two adult sons.

The quality of the man, his learning, and his courage in following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, remind observers of John Henry Newman, who left the Anglican Church to became a Catholic in 1845. In 1864, he published his celebrated Apologia Pro Sua Vita, defending himself from vicious personal attacks for what was seen as a deceitful defection.

Newman writes beautifully, with intellectual power, and with passion. This section gives his view of how infallibility is a power that energises the bonds of unity, a unity that speaks of God's care for all people, not just those in the Church:  

Starting then with the being of a God, (which, as I have said, is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, though when I try to put the grounds of that certainty into logical shape I find a difficulty in doing so in mood and figure to my satisfaction,) I look out of myself into the world of men, and there I see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give the lie to that great truth, of which my whole being is so full; and the effect upon me is, in consequence, as a matter of necessity, as confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself. 

If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator. This is, to me, one of those great difficulties of this absolute primary truth, to which I referred just now. Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a polytheist when I looked into the world.

I am speaking for myself only; and I am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general facts of human society and the course of history, but these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice. The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full of "lamentations, and mourning, and woe."

To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity.

[Or] the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no hope and without God in the world"—all this is a vision to dizzy and appal; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution.

What shall be said to this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering fact? I can only answer, that either there is no Creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense discarded from His presence. Did I see a boy of good make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined nature, cast upon the world without provision, unable to say whence he came, his birth-place or his family connexions, I should conclude that there was some mystery connected with his history, and that he was one, of whom, from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed.

Thus only should I be able to account for the contrast between the promise and the condition of his being. And so I argue about the world;—if there be a God, since there is a God, the human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, and as the existence of God.

And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of the Creator to interfere in this anarchical condition of things, what are we to suppose would be the methods which might be necessarily or naturally involved in His purpose of mercy? Since the world is in so abnormal a state, surely it would be no surprise to me, if the interposition were of necessity equally extraordinary—or what is called miraculous. 

But that subject does not directly come into the scope of my present remarks. Miracles as evidence, involve a process of reason, or an argument; and of course I am thinking of some mode of interference which does not immediately run into argument. I am rather asking what must be the face-to-face antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries?

And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church things are tending,—with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age,—to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this day! and not only Europe, but every government and every civilization through the world, which is under the influence of the European mind! Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form, is the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of England, France, and Germany! 

Lovers of their country and of their race, religious men, external to the Catholic Church, have attempted various expedients to arrest fierce wilful human nature in its onward course, and to bring it into subjection. The necessity of some form of religion for the interests of humanity, has been generally acknowledged: but where was the concrete representative of things invisible, which would have the force and the toughness necessary to be a breakwater against the deluge? 

Three centuries ago the establishment of religion, material, legal, and social, was generally adopted as the best expedient for the purpose, in those countries which separated from the Catholic Church; and for a long time it was successful; but now the crevices of those establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years ago, education was relied upon: ten years ago there was a hope that wars would cease for ever, under the influence of commercial enterprise and the reign of the useful and fine arts; but will any one venture to say that there is any thing any where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us, whereby to keep the earth from moving onwards?

The judgment, which experience passes whether on establishments or on education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anarchical world, must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine. Experience proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose for which it was never intended. It may be accidentally the means of the conversion of individuals; but a book, after all, cannot make a stand against the wild living intellect of man, and in this day it begins to testify, as regards its own structure and contents, to the power of that universal solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious establishments.

Even the Bible is liable to be used against God. It has been said: "Enter as a Christian a university course on biblical studies, and for sure you will leave it an atheist." Newman continues:

Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere in human affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a knowledge of Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof against the energy of human scepticism, in such a case,—I am far from saying that there was no other way,—but there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to introduce a power into the world, invested with the prerogative of infallibility in religious matters.

Such a provision would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding the difficulty; it would be an instrument suited to the need; and, when I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but there is a fitness in it, which recommends it to my mind.

And thus I am brought to speak of the Church's infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal excesses.

And let it be observed that, neither here nor in what follows, shall I have occasion to speak directly of Revelation in its subject-matter, but in reference to the sanction which it gives to truths which may be known independently of it,—as it bears upon the defence of natural religion. I say, that a power, possessed of infallibility in religious teaching, is happily adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of human affairs, for smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of the aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy intellect....

And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher must be an emphatic protest against the existing state of mankind. Man had rebelled against his Maker. It was this that caused the divine interposition: and to proclaim it must be the first act of the divinely-accredited messenger. The Church must denounce rebellion as of all possible evils the greatest. She must have no terms with it; if she would be true to her Master, she must ban and anathematize it. [...] 

It is because of the intensity of the evil which has possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been provided against it; and the initial act of that divinely-commissioned power is of course to deliver her challenge and to defy the enemy. Such a preamble gives a meaning to her position in the world, and an interpretation to her whole course of teaching and action.

In like manner she has ever put forth, with most energetic distinctness, those other great elementary truths, which either are an explanation of her mission or give a character to her work. She does not teach that human nature is irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent? not, that it is to be shattered and reversed, but to be extricated, purified, and restored; not that it is a mere mass of hopeless evil, but that it has the promise upon it of great things, and even now, in its present state of disorder and excess, has a virtue and a praise proper to itself. 

But in the next place she knows and she preaches that such a restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be brought about, not simply through certain outward provisions of preaching and teaching, even though they be her own, but from an inward spiritual power or grace imparted directly from above, and of which she is the channel. She has it in charge to rescue human nature from its misery, but not simply by restoring it on its own level, but by lifting it up to a higher level than its own. She recognizes in it real moral excellence though degraded, but she cannot set it free from earth except by exalting it towards heaven. 

It was for this end that a renovating grace was put into her hands; and therefore from the nature of the gift, as well as from the reasonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to insist, that all true conversion must begin with the first springs of thought, and to teach that each individual man must be in his own person one whole and perfect temple of God, while he is also one of the living stones which build up a visible religious community. 

Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and pertinaciously inflicts upon mankind; as to such she observes no half-measures, no economical reserve, no delicacy or prudence. "Ye must be born again," is the simple, direct form of words which she uses after her Divine Master: "your whole nature must be re-born; your passions, and your affections, and your aims, and your conscience, and your will, must all be bathed in a new element, and reconsecrated to your Maker,—and, the last not the least, your intellect."

This power [of infallibility], viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as the giant evil which has called for it. It claims, when brought into exercise but in the legitimate manner, for otherwise of course it is but quiescent, to know for certain the very meaning of every portion of that Divine Message in detail, which was committed by our Lord to His Apostles. It claims to know its own limits, and to decide what it can determine absolutely and what it cannot. It claims, moreover, to have a hold upon statements not directly religious, so far as this,—to determine whether they indirectly relate to religion, and, according to its own definitive judgment, to pronounce whether or not, in a particular case, they are simply consistent with revealed truth.

It claims to decide magisterially, whether as within its own province or not, that such and such statements are or are not prejudicial to the Depositum of faith, in their spirit or in their consequences, and to allow them, or condemn and forbid them, accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own ipse dixit, it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or inopportune. It claims that, whatever may be the judgment of Catholics upon such acts, these acts should be received by them with those outward marks of reverence, submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance, pay to the presence of their sovereign, without expressing any criticism on them on the ground that in their matter they are inexpedient, or in their manner violent or harsh.

And lastly, it claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual punishment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of the divine life, and of simply excommunicating, those who refuse to submit themselves to its formal declarations. Such is the infallibility lodged in the Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as clothed and surrounded by the appendages of its high sovereignty: it is, to repeat what I said above, a super-eminent prodigious power sent upon earth to encounter and master a giant evil.

And now, having thus described it, I profess my own absolute submission to its claim. I believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to the Church; and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end of time.

I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed.

Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days.

St. Paul says in one place that his Apostolical power is given him to edification, and not to destruction. There can be no better account of the Infallibility of the Church. It is a supply for a need, and it does not go beyond that need. Its object is, and its effect also, not to enfeeble the freedom or vigour of human thought in religious speculation, but to resist and control its extravagance. What have been its great works? All of them in the distinct province of theology:—to put down Arianism, Eutychianism, Pelagianism, Manichæism, Lutheranism, Jansenism. Such is the broad result of its action in the past;—and now as to the securities which are given us that so it ever will act in time to come. 

Such glorious words! I find it hard to edit Newman's piece to an easy length. However, in essence, he uses intellect and passion to state that the Catholic Church, in the person of the pope and bishops, in the midst of the cloud of believers, is the "oracle of God", and "it is because of the intensity of the evil which has possession of mankind, that a suitable antagonist has been provided against it; and the initial act of that divinely-commissioned power is to deliver her challenge and to defy the enemy." Secondly, as has just been said, it is for the cause of "edification" of all humankind. 

He writes further on this topic in his Apologia, and his thoughts are so relevant that they gave rise to some of the Church's declarations about its character and mission in the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). 

[] As for John Henry Newman, for anyone to be declared a saint, that is, someone who the Church holds has achieved everlasting life with God in heaven, events arising from their intercession to God that can only be explained as miraculous must be accepted after investigation. For Newman, two Americans gave evidence of the miracles that occurred in their lives after they prayed to Newman to intercede to God to help them in their time of need. See here for details. 

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'They who die rich die disgraced' applies today!

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and MacKenzie Scott have promised to share their wealth with the rest of the world, the first two, hitting the headlines on this just this week.

Musk, the world's richest individual, has pledged US$6 billion to help stop world hunger - if certain conditions are met. The Tesla CEO hit a record net worth of $315 billion on November 1. That net worth has ballooned by more than $140 billion this year. Some detail:  

After adding tens of billions to his net worth on Monday, November 1, Elon Musk has become the first person with more than $300 billion to his name. Musk’s fortune settled at $306.4 billion on Tuesday afternoon, Forbes estimates, after crossing the previously untouched $300 billion threshold on Monday as Tesla’s stock continued its tear.   

Bezos, with an estimated net worth of $192.9 billion, is the second-richest person in the world. He was the first person to break the $200 million net worth barrier, making close to $80 billion in the Covid-19 storm from March to December last year:

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has pledged $2 billion in funding to help restore nature and transform food systems.The funding, which will come from the Bezos Earth Fund, is part of his commitment to spend $10 billion on fighting climate change this decade. (Source)

Andrew Carnegie, like all the others on our list, the possessor of great talent, sold his steel company, Carnegie Steel, to J.P. Morgan for $480 million in 1901. According to the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie's personal peak wealth was about $380 million, or around $309 billion by today's standard.

In his final years, Carnegie's net worth was US$475 million (as then), but by the time of his death in 1919 he had donated most to charities and other philanthropic endeavors such as libraries, universities and world peace, and had only US$30 million left to his personal fortune when he died in 1919.

Carnegie is famous, not only for his extraordinary talent, but also for his principled life. It was he who wrote:

 “The man who dies rich thus dies disgraced.”

In 1889, he wrote an article that came to known as "The Gospel of Wealth" in which the above condemnation appears, putting so many leading people of our time to shame. We can gain by considering key excerpts as so much of what he speaks about applies to the realm of business and commerce today. He starts:

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship. The conditions of human life have not only been changed, but revolutionized, within the past few hundred years. In former days there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, and environment of the chief and those of his retainers.

The contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the laborer with us today measures the change which has come with civilization. This change, however, is not to be deplored, but welcomed as highly beneficial. It is well, nay, essential for the progress of the race, that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the arts, and for all the refinements of civilization, rather than that none should be so. Much better this great irregularity than universal squalor.

He highlights the benefits that accrue to society of opportunities for creating wealth but he also recognises it comes at a price:

The price we pay for this salutary change is, no doubt, great. We assemble thousands of operatives in the factory, in the mine, and in the counting-house, of whom the employer can know little or nothing, and to whom the employer is little better than a myth. All intercourse between them is at an end. Rigid castes are formed, and, as usual, mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.

Each caste is without sympathy for the other, and ready to credit anything disparaging in regard to it. Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed, between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity.

Though he strikes a positive note over the ability to deliver "cheap comforts and luxuries" to most people, Carnegie identifies what we know well today:

The price which society pays for the law of competition [... is] great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these.

'Violent or radical change'

However, Carnegie rejoices at the appearance of individuals like himself who have the capability to manouvre their way through the battlefield of business competition and in the process build great wealth.

He believes that preventing wealth to mount by sharing surplus capital with employees in higher wages is a waste of resources:

Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years.

"Trifling amounts" are what higher wages may be to the rich in their "palace" but for the ordinary person it may be the difference between being able to pay the rent or mortgage, and being homeless.

Still, Carnegie has this refrain: "Let the advocate of violent or radical change ponder well this thought" when he makes his case that wages and conditions are likely to be frittered away whereas the person of great wealth can channel their resources into what will benefit the community for generations to come:

Poor and restricted are our opportunities in this life; narrow our horizon; our best work most imperfect; but rich men should be thankful for one inestimable boon. They have it in their power during their lives to busy themselves in organizing benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage, and thus dignify their own lives. 

The highest life is probably to be reached, not by such imitation of the life of Christ as Count Tolstoi gives us, but, while animated by Christ's spirit, by recognizing the changed conditions of this age, and adopting modes of expressing this spirit suitable to the changed conditions under which we live; still laboring for the good of our fellows, which was the essence of his life and teaching, but laboring in a different manner.

That's a welcome relief, that he sees himself and his rich peers acting in the loving spirit of Christ "for the good of our fellows", for what today we would term  the common good. For this reason Carnegie calls on the generosity of the rich to serve the community, even nation, even world:

This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

I wonder if Musk and Bezos see themselves as bound stewards of their wealth on behalf of humanity, or as free agents who divert a few billion here and there to salve their reputation and conscience. I would certainly say that Bill and Melinda Gates, along with Buffett, adhere to the concept of stewardship.

Judging the super-wealthy

As a man with a principled view of his place in society, Carnegie also provides standards on which we measure the super-wealthy of our day. With regards "good manners, good taste, or the rules of propriety" in general, he states that:

Public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. So in the case of wealth. The rule in regard to good taste in the dress of men or women applies here. Whatever makes one conspicuous offends the canon. If any family be chiefly known for display, for extravagance in home, table, equipage, for enormous sums ostentatiously spent in any form upon itself, if these be its chief distinctions, we have no difficulty in estimating its nature or culture.

So likewise in regard to the use or abuse of its surplus wealth, or to generous, freehanded cooperation in good public uses, or to unabated efforts to accumulate and hoard to the last, whether they administer or bequeath.

The verdict rests with the best and most enlightened public sentiment. The community will surely judge and its judgments will not often be wrong.

As with distributing personal wealth through higher wages, so too with almsgiving. Carnegie believed that more often than not in these cases it will be used unwisely. Therefore, the wealthy should select causes where their administrative expertise could be employed for optimal effect. He writes:

[We] know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise—parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste; and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good.

Drawing to a close, Carnegie emphasises that full credit goes to the wealthy who see themselves as trustees of their fortune and set about dispensing funds to the best effect according to their knowledge of the public need:

Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. The best minds will thus have reached a stage in the development of the race which it is clearly seen that there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good. This day already dawns.

He concludes by sympathising with the rich whose wealth is unable to be freed from their business but who intend it for public use, while pouring scorn on those who have the wealth available but do nothing with it:

But a little while, and although, without incurring the pity of their fellows, men may die sharers in great business enterprises from which their capital cannot be or has not been withdrawn, and is left chiefly at death for public uses, yet the man who dies leaving behind many millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during life, will pass away "unwept, unhonored, and unsung", no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."

Such, in my opinion, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men good will." 

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Bland secularism renders our vision blurred

                                                                                                                        Photo by Harshima UnniKrishnan from Pexels

Using the mirror of history to look at ourselves as fully modern people we tend to find much to like, but are often suprised to discover flaws in our appearance. One is a conceit, an arrogant individualism that we have been trained to admire, but which in our heart of hearts we know is depressing individual well-being and putting the whole planet at risk.

With that in mind, join me in considering these ideas on "the great program of modernity":

All of us, whether we want to or not, whether we know it or not, we are immersed in the assumptions of modernity.

Self-direction.

Autonomy.

“Auto-nomos” —I’m my own law. [We say:] I tell you what I think. I tell you what my values are. How important [it is] today that my voice is heard, that you listen to my story.

Now there's something to that..., but nevertheless, that is not the assumption of the Bible. The opening word is not, “Hey, listen to me. Hear my voice.” The opening move is "Shema". Listen.

 Adam's problem was he didn't listen to the command of the Lord and from that inattention followed the sin that destroyed the world.

Abraham is the founder of the holy people Israel. Why? Because he listened. Because he heard a higher voice, a voice beyond his own autonomy, beyond his own self-assertion.

Shema, listen, listen. Hear, O Israel. “Sh'ma Yisrael.” Israel—you know what it means? “The people that wrestle with God.”

What's the trouble with secularism?  It's a bracketing of God. Even if I believe in some kind of vague first principle, I don't take God seriously. I just maybe vaguely acknowledge his existence.

But Israel, this people that listened to God's voice then became a people that wrestled with him—that great image of Jacob wrestling with the angel. That's what it means.

That you take God and God's demands with such seriousness that you wrestle even when you don't understand them. Even when it's not making sense to you, you wrestle with God. Don't give in to the blandness of secularism that brackets God.

You can look at God philosophically as a prime mover or a first cause, an abstract principle. The Bible's got no trouble with that. 

But, and it's a big but:

The Lord your God, Adonai, the Lord. The Lord. That means the commander. That means the one who is commanding your will. The one who wants to have a directive role in your life. The one to whom your will and your plan should be submitted. God is not satisfied to be in the deep background of one's life.

What's it like to be a servant of this divine Lord? That's biblical religion.

Think of so much of modernity predicated on people like Isaac Newton or Thomas Jefferson or maybe Ralph Waldo Emerson in our setting, where God at best is a distant deist force. That is not the Bible.

Hear, O wrestlers with God.  The Lord, your God. That's how to be in the right relationship.

Now what do we hear about the Lord, our God? The Lord is one. The Lord is Lord alone.

Is it a statement abstractly and philosophically of monotheism? Sure. That there's one God. Israel bequeathed to the world, bequeathed to our Western culture certainly, this belief in the unity of God, the unicity of God. So at the theoretical theological level, a very important claim of monotheism.

But [...] the unicity and unity of God is not just a theoretical statement. It's of enormous spiritual and existential import.

Why? When you say, ‘Hear, listen, O wrestlers with God, the Lord your God is one,’ that means that there's no competition. That means that nothing else can possibly be construed as absolute. That means no country is God. That means no politician is God. That means no political power is God. That means no human being is God. That means nothing in nature. That means the universe is not God. There's only one God and that's the Lord God.

[I]n a way the whole spiritual life hinges upon this. What do you worship? What's God to you? What's of highest value?

It can't be anything other than the Lord God of Israel. It's a statement of enormous clarification spiritually speaking.

Now from all of this —"Listen, O wrestler with God", is "The Lord, your God is one". Following from that is this great ethical or behavioral implication, that we must love the Lord our God.

How?

With the entirety of our being. With the whole heart. The heart's the seat of the passions and the emotions. With every emotion in us.

With our whole soul. That's the highest spiritual dimension of the person. That's the spiritual dimension that organizes the whole of the self. That must be directed to God.

And with all of our strength. That means every gift that I've got, every capacity I've got, should be directed to God.

Well, how do you do that? Unless you become a Trappist monk who's just utterly, utterly devoted to God every single minute, how could you possibly respond to this?

Isn't it unrealistic? I mean, can't we give God some time and some of our energy, but not all of it.

Well, here's the solution.

Remember [...] God is not competitive with us, is not competitive to the world. God is not one of the beings within the world. God's not one thing among many, but as Aquinas says, God is “ipsum esse”.

That means he's the sheer act of ‘to be’ itself. God is that infinite source from which all of created matter and energy and objectivity comes. Therefore, God's not competing with creaturely things for space on the same background.

No. God is that which lies behind and shines through all things.

So, I'm attending a baseball game and I'm finding it beautiful and entertaining. But, if I've got the Shema in my mind, I've got this prayer in my mind, I see the beauty and the enjoyment of that game as coming from, even now, a divine source.

God's the creator of all things. More to it, the beauty of that game anticipates the fullness of beauty that I'll experience in heaven.

I sit down for a good meal and I'm enjoying it. It comes from the creative hand of God and the enjoyment of that meal is an anticipation of the banquet of heaven.

I fall in love with another person. And I see that person with all of her beauty and all of her qualities coming from God. And then she becomes for me a sign and a symbol of the ultimate love that I'll experience in heaven.

Do you see what I'm driving at? I can love the Lord, my God, with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength because I see God and I appreciate God and I love God in and through all things.

It's not a zero-sum competitive game. But once I get the implication of the Shema, yes, indeed, the whole world now lights up with this spiritual luminosity.

Writers from many hues of spiritual background have identified the loss of this quality of seeing God among us as one of the most significant losses suffered by those captured by "modernity". They often term this lost quality as "enchantment", which is not a simple-minded belief in goblins and fairy godmothers, but a deep-seated ability to interpret with a transcendental meaning and value everything in our lives.

Whether it is focused on what is ordinary or on what is of the highest significance, the exercise of our God-given capacity to be "enchanted" means we have a spirit that can be awake to God present, sustaining and loving. 

As with Jews beginning and ending their day reciting the Shema, we need to train ourselves to be God-conscious. Put all your mindfulness training to good use: pray, praise, and thank God for all that is, and all that happens—and watch the whole world light up.

💢 It demands working on what is a countercultural task: "Don't give in to the blandness of secularism that brackets God". 

💢 It means practicing being alive in a new way: "God is not satisfied to be in the deep background of one's life." 

💢 Finally, it gives us new meaning and direction in all elements of our lives as we recognise the power of our soul: "That's the spiritual dimension that organizes the whole of the self. That must be directed to God."

Ω With everlasting thanks to Bishop Robert Barron, of Santa Barbara. His words are taken from         his video sermon for the Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary time (October 31). View it here. The         Shema is at Deuteronomy 6:2-6. 

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