'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. 

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

A simpler lifestyle for a joyful world

Pope Francis on the courage of young activists (From video here)

The Covid-19 pandemic has made us aware the "no one is safe until everyone is safe, that our actions really do affect one another, and that what we do today affects what happens tomorrow". That is a lesson that must stand us in good stead in dealing with the crisis in our use of the world's resources and care of the global environment, our common home.

We are fortunate to have as motivation to transform our lifestyle some recent statements that express the urgency of our inescapable situation arising from overuse and misuse of resources and, at a personal or family level, an overconsumption that brings us not happiness but a poverty of mind and spirit. 

There are clear steps that we - each of us - can take now that will contribute to a reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, which make the planet warmer, and reshape our communities in such a way that relationships will be more important than possessions.

Why bother?

The world's political leaders going to Scotland for this year's summit on climate change are dependent on each of us in order to make commitments that will affect their nations and the world. We members of the public must be ready to support the promises made in good faith by leaders.

Let's hear some reasons why we must commit ourselves to the global effort to restore balance to the world we share. 

Some of the most powerful calls for action come from religious leaders, whose universal perspective enable them to easily embrace the concept of Earth as "our common home".

In our common Christian tradition... the concept of stewardship—of individual and collective responsibility for our God-given endowment—presents a vital starting-point for social, economic and environmental sustainability. In the New Testament, we read of the rich and foolish man who stores great wealth of grain while forgetting about his finite end.

We learn of the prodigal son who takes his inheritance early, only to squander it and end up hungry. We are cautioned against adopting short term and seemingly inexpensive options of building on sand, instead of building on rock for our common home to withstand storms. These stories invite us to adopt a broader outlook and recognise our place in the extended story of humanity.

But we have taken the opposite direction. We have maximised our own interest at the expense of future generations. By concentrating on our wealth, we find that long-term assets, including the bounty of nature, are depleted for short-term advantage. Technology has unfolded new possibilities for progress but also for accumulating unrestrained wealth, and many of us behave in ways which demonstrate little concern for other people or the limits of the planet. Nature is resilient, yet delicate.

We are already witnessing the consequences of our refusal to protect and preserve it (Gn 2.15). Now, in this moment, we have an opportunity to repent, to turn around in resolve, to head in the opposite direction. We must pursue generosity and fairness in the ways that we live, work and use money, instead of selfish gain.

This is from a joint message on the protection of creation from Pope Francis, Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby issued in September, looking toward the summit in Glasgow.

To enter into the vision they have of the world burning up and the poor of the planet being harmed most by the lifestyle of the people of the wealthiest nations it's worthwhile to look at more from their message to the world:

The current climate crisis speaks volumes about who we are and how we view and treat God’s creation. We stand before a harsh justice: biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and climate change are the inevitable consequences of our actions, since we have greedily consumed more of the earth’s resources than the planet can endure. But we also face a profound injustice: the people bearing the most catastrophic consequences of these abuses are the poorest on the planet and have been the least responsible for causing them....

Accordingly, as leaders of our Churches, we call on everyone, whatever their belief or worldview, to endeavour to listen to the cry of the earth and of people who are poor, examining their behaviour and pledging meaningful sacrifices for the sake of the earth which God has given us.

Today, we are paying the price. The extreme weather and natural disasters of recent months reveal afresh to us with great force and at great human cost that climate change is not only a future challenge, but an immediate and urgent matter of survival. Widespread floods, fires and droughts threaten entire continents. 

Sea levels rise, forcing whole communities to relocate; cyclones devastate entire regions, ruining lives and livelihoods. Water has become scarce and food supplies insecure, causing conflict and displacement for millions of people. We have already seen this in places where people rely on small scale agricultural holdings. Today we see it in more industrialised countries where even sophisticated infrastructure cannot completely prevent extraordinary destruction.

Tomorrow could be worse. Today’s children and teenagers will face catastrophic consequences unless we take responsibility now, as ‘fellow workers with God’ (Gn 2.4–7), to sustain our world. We frequently hear from young people who understand that their futures are under threat.

For their sake, we must choose to eat, travel, spend, invest and live differently, thinking not only of immediate interest and gains but also of future benefits.We repent of our generation’s sins. We stand alongside our younger sisters and brothers throughout the world in committed prayer and dedicated action for a future which corresponds ever more to the promises of God.

Here, then, are the most important words for us:  "We must choose to eat, travel, spend, invest and live differently, thinking not only of immediate interest and gains but also of future benefits."

The three leaders point to the various crises confronting us at present and urge cooperation:

We are in a unique position either to address them with shortsightedness and profiteering or seize this as an opportunity for conversion and transformation. If we think of humanity as a family and work together towards a future based on the common good, we could find ourselves living in a very different world. Together we can share a vision for life where everyone flourishes. Together we can choose to act with love, justice and mercy. Together we can walk towards a fairer and fulfilling society with those who are most vulnerable at the centre.

But this involves making changes. Each of us, individually, must take responsibility for the ways we use our resources. [...] Together, as communities, churches, cities and nations, we must change route and discover new ways of working together to break down the traditional barriers between peoples, to stop competing for resources and start collaborating.

They end with a call for each and every individual to take part  in a united effort:

All of us—whoever and wherever we are—can play a part in changing our collective response to the unprecedented threat of climate change and environmental degradation.

Caring for God’s creation is a spiritual commission requiring a response of commitment. This is a critical moment. Our children’s future and the future of our common home depend on it. 

What to do?

Most people now understand that the gross exploitation of the planet in order to support one particular kind of economic system, which entails pushing consumers to desire more, truly poses a threat to human existence on Earth. It has taken disaster after disaster to wake us up to this. How to respond is the question that is getting increased attention.

In the message above, we saw the call to change the nature of our choices, to live differently, to give more regard to the future. We were urged to commit to setting or accepting limits, to restrain our desires and to fucus on our needs; instead of selfish gain, to share and colloborate, and "pledging meaningful sacrifices".

This is hard, but it can also be joyful as we join together as a family to transform our lives, joining with others who are doing likewise.

This is what Pope Francis said in a video message earlier September asking for prayer and personal action on the care of creation. He identified where we can transform our lifestyle. This is what he said:

Let us choose to change! Let us advance with young people towards lifestyles that are simpler and more respectful of the environment.

Let us pray that we all will make courageous choices, the choices necessary for a simple and environmentally sustainable lifestyle, taking inspiration from our young people who are resolutely committed to this.

And they aren’t foolish, because they are committed to their own future. This is why they want to change what they will inherit at a time when we will no longer be here.

Let us reflect on how the way we eat, consume, travel, or the way we use water, energy, plastics, and many other material goods, is often harmful to the earth.

So each of us can make a start, using these items as a template for action:

Fill in your own details, with a focus on sustainability, avoiding waste, and reducing the amount of the earth's resources used, for a lifestyle that is "simpler and more respectful of the environment".

We commit to these changes in our lifestyle:

In what we eat — We will:

In the form and amount of goods consumed — We will:

In the form and amount of our travel — We will:

In the way we use water — We will:   

In the way we use energy — We will:

In our use of plastics —  We will:

In ...                             —  We will: 

In ...                             —  We will:

Can stuff make us happy? 

Matt Fradd has advice on making our life simpler. He's written a book that explains why it is one of the most common traps we fall into is thinking that earthly possessions can make us happy. 

When we’re incapable of possessing things, we can mistakenly believe that, if we had them, they would make us happy (be it a thing or even a person with whom we are infatuated). But when we obtain them, we realize that they can’t fill the void in our hearts that is the root cause of our unhappiness. 

In fact, there’s a whole movement of people who understand this and try to live a life of minimalism. They know that as we accumulate more stuff, we accumulate more worry about our stuff. We worry about it breaking, being stolen, or eventually fading in quality over time. We worry that other people won’t be impressed by our stuff or that we need newer stuff to make us happy because the old stuff is now inferior or obsolete in comparison. 

Fradd cites a study of people who had won the lottery. The happiness felt at the time of their win soon fades:

Thus, as lottery winners become accustomed to the additional pleasures made possible by their new wealth, these pleasures should be experienced as less intense and should no longer contribute very much to their general level of happiness. 

There's also the matter of how we should think of money: 

Don’t get confused, however, in all this talk about money not making us happy, to think this means money is evil. In 1 Timothy 6:10 St. Paul says, “For the love of money is the root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs.” 

Paul doesn’t say money is the root of all evil. He says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”. St. Thomas Aquinas defines sin as the result of loving creatures more than creator. Money (or anything) becomes evil when we love it more than God. 

In brief, our putting into effect the simpler lifestyle that is being urged on us by our religious leaders, who are at the forefront of the environmental movement, means that we will be living more closely to God's will, we will be happier - with fewer worries about the security of our material posessions or what our neighbours think about what we own - and planet Earth will be happier, sending fewer natural disasters across our path. That commitment to more care for our small blue planet seems to make for a pretty good outcome all round.

See also:

💢 ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF POPE FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

💢 ENCYCLICAL LETTER FRATELLI TUTTI OF POPE FRANCIS ON FRATERNITY AND SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP

💢 Patriarch Bartholomew on creation and the ecological crisis - here 

Ω If you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified when a new post is published.

Science is a process not an endpoint

Photo by Willy Arisky from Pexels

The Covid-19 pandemic has provided us with almost daily observation of science at work. It has very much been an ugly affair with uncertainty being the key feature. But this is the nature of the beast, so to speak. 

Yes, science can be characterised by its dealing in uncertainty, as we have seen by the variations in the daily proclamations of what we should do or should not do to avoid the grip of the Covid virus and return to some semblance of normality. All this is expressed well by an Australian commentator viewing the changing advice of scientific experts on how to escape the ravages of the pandemic:

To the casual onlooker, this flip-flopping may indicate that the so-called experts have no idea what they’re doing. If you’ve spent any time in a comments section on the internet, you will have seen how this changing advice led to doubt and scepticism among the general population, evidence that scientists and public health officials have lost the plot. But instead, what is actually happening is that we are seeing the proverbial sausage of science being made in real time through our public health discourse.

The pandemic has been a clear demonstration that science is a method, not an endpoint. It is an ongoing process of hypothesising, testing, and interpreting the results of those tests through public policy. Though the hypothesis may be accepted or rejected, these interpretations are unlikely to be absolutely definitive statements or recommendations and are usually made with varying degrees of certainty.

The changes in advice have fed into the anti-vax logic. However:

Does this mean the science was wrong and that we can’t trust it? No. It means the science is working exactly as it should: our knowledge was incomplete, and we did more research, and adapted public health advice as a result. The fact that our institutions are paying attention to the constantly updating science and changing recommendations based on this information should be a comfort to us, but instead it tends to breed uncertainty. 

Trusting in the process of science, as it plays out in public health policy, sometimes involves uncomfortably abandoning ideas that provide a false sense of safety. This discomfort is one of the reasons many struggled to let go of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as miracle treatments, after both these drugs showed some early promise in managing COVID-19.

Unfortunately, as more research has been done, we have seen contradictory evidence for their efficacy and we cannot responsibly say with any substantial degree of certainty that these drugs are appropriate for the treatment of COVID-19 (at least at the time of publication). 

The writer urges an empathethic response to those skeptical of the generally accepted scientific findings:

The cold, hard hand of science is good at giving the answers we need, but not necessarily the assurances we want. This is where the human element can come in to bridge the gaps. We can’t promise our friends and family absolute safety in an uncertain world, but we can remind them there are steps we can take to improve our chances and help others who are more vulnerable than ourselves. Hopefully, we can all be communally minded and listen to the ongoing recommendations of those with expertise in this area, even when they can’t promise us the certainty we seek.

Scientists, too, will have been reminded through this pandemic experience that science is, indeed, a process and that any one finding is only as solid as the next one allows. They have to accept that their proclamations cannot be couched in terms of inevitability or certitude, but must be presented as evidence pointing in a certain direction. That takes humility, but it reflects the reality of the situation.  

Compassion exploited as a mere rhetorical tool

                                                                                                                                 Photo by Shvets production from Pexels

Both at the beginning of life and at its conclusion the forces of death exploit the rhetoric of compassion. 

The secular French writer, Michel Houellebecq, has said: 

Partisans of euthanasia like to gargle on words whose meanings they distort to such an extent that they should no longer even have the right to utter them. In the case of “compassion”, the lie is palpable.

He would argue that instead of building a healthcare system that supports and advocates for the sick, the disabled, the mentally ill, so that they get the care due to a person with innate dignity, the non-rational, specifically, the sentimental approach to existential questions comes into play so that activists substitute the human capacity for dealing with reality "with a shallower more animal concept of good health".  

Another comment of this kind comes in a column by Andrew Hamilton on how the central argument of those advocating abortion and those supporting euthanasia is that death will improve the "lives of people who were already heavily burdened", whether poor or unsupported mothers, or the sick and disabled:

Public awareness of such suffering has fed the compassion that underlies the popular support for legislative change.

Hamilton foresees the time when governments will have taken on the task of directing the application of euthanasia, perhaps in the decades ahead when there will be a deluge of elderly in a swiftly fading economy. Such aggressive decisions could easily entail...

[...] an appeal to compassion for their [the 'patient's'] diminished condition and for their relatives who must observe it.

The focus on compassion as the foundation for legislation that involves life and death situations is fraught with danger for society because it tends be myopic over long-term implications.

To examine this aspect of social re-engineering,  British writer Mary Harrington has compiled a  list of unexpected outcomes of the "feminist" push to widen access to contraception and abortion.

One US study shows that the availability of oral contraceptives so increased demand for extra-marital sex that — because the method wasn’t 100% reliable — it also increased the rate of extra-marital pregnancies by around 15%. 

Linked to this statistic is the one involving the introduction of legal abortion in that the number of "shotgun weddings" fell by a greater percentage than that of the extra-marital pregnancies, meaning that the male party was given license to walk away scot-free of any responsibility for the child when the mother opted not to abort.

Thus, while advocates of legal abortion believed that it would reduce instances of single motherhood, its paradoxical effect was the opposite. By relieving social pressure on men to step up after impregnating a woman, legalising abortion accelerated the prevalence of single motherhood — a phenomenon now widely recognised as a central to the feminisation of poverty.

Compassion is powerful as a rhetorical tool, but it can quickly fade. Harrington sees a case in point with the introduction of legalised abortion in Britian. She goes on "to draw out a more general implication: that when a previously unavoidable life experience becomes avoidable, wider attitudes to that experience will change. And for some, it’ll stop being a matter for sympathy."

Therefore, unmarried mothers came to be seen by some in the political realm as "lazy, parasitic 'welfare scroungers'”:

[T]hose who took this position assumed that because such women could have terminated a pregnancy, the duties following on having not done so should be wholly on their shoulders. In other words: if suffering is avoidable, the choice to suffer comes to be seen as wholly private.

This could be carried over into attitudes toward the disabled - if parents did not abort a child who would be born with disabilities, or if disabled people themselves choose to not kill themselves, then they should accept the financial - and all - burdens of their decision.

Harrington:

And notwithstanding cruel conservative stereotypes, it’s overwhelmingly scarcity that drives the “choice” to end a pregnancy. In the US, the poorest 12% of women account for almost 50% of abortions. And a glance through women’s stories swiftly illustrates just how far the individual “choice” to end a pregnancy is often far from free, but rather a reluctant decision driven overwhelmingly by poverty.

In a world where dwindling welfare resources are ever more grudgingly funded by a shrinking working-age population, it’s easy to imagine the arguments from scarcity that will follow, ever more explicitly, upon the transformation of terminal illness into a “choice”. Indeed, they’re already foreshadowed by an assessment of assisted suicide by the Canadian government, which noted that legalisation “could reduce annual health care spending across Canada by between $34.7 million and $138.8 million”.

Those individualists now pushing to extend “choice” to the end of life are still wedded to a hyper-individualist twentieth-century mindset that relies on an ever-expanding welfare state to underwrite its freedoms. But they’re not paying attention: the age of abundance that shaped that dream of endless choice is already over.

And yet they push on. If they succeed, many people now healthy will face terminal illness in a “care” landscape created by individualists, for a society that’s enshrined “choice” over any public duty of compassion — and that can no longer afford a publicly-funded care infrastructure to pick up the pieces. I don’t want to live in a world where ‘tough-minded’ right-liberals write op-eds implying that those with terminal illnesses who refuse the Socratic way out are selfish parasites.

A cynic might argue that given all this, adjusting the statute book to allow for a 21st-century “lapot” [ritual killing of elderly]  is merely sensible. But if this is so, we should drop the rhetoric about freedom and compassion. We should be under no illusions about what [assisted-dying legislation] is for, or about the callously neo-Roman attitude to human life that will follow in its wake.

So all of this can be seen as "sentimental homicide". As one scholar put it:

We should not think that the Dutch or Nazis were terribly different from our contemporary suicide advocates, for part of their propaganda was the call to allow self-killing as a means to avoid profound and intractable pain and suffering. In their misguided attempts to do this, their movement was driven by the logic of its principles to permit deliberate and unconsented killing of the incompetent.

Diana Johnson, who this year introduced to the British parliament an amendment to decriminalize abortion, that is, removing all oversight of the removal of members of the next generation, received a letter from more than 800 medical professionals asking her not to take her proposal to the vote. Such was the response, the proposal went nowhere. What the medical people told her was:

Your proposal to allow abortion up to birth in this country would be to attack the heart of the medical profession — our core duty to protect life whenever and wherever possible. Such an extreme and radical abortion law has no place in the United Kingdom. 

The insight that such a death-promoting law struck at life-supporting principles at the heart of the national character is also seen in the concluding thought of Houellebecq in his article quoted here but which first appeared in Le Figaro newspaper in Paris at the time of a planned euthanasia law change in France. Houellebecq wrote:

The honour of a civilisation is not exactly nothing. But really something else is at stake; from the anthropological point of view. It is a question of life and death. And on this point I am going to have to be very explicit: when a country — a society, a civilisation — gets to the point of legalising euthanasia, it loses in my eyes all right to respect. It becomes henceforth not only legitimate, but desirable, to destroy it; so that something else — another country, another society, another civilisation — might have a chance to arise.

The hedonistic spirit abroad among the elite of many societies and so among the general public is that freedom of individual behaviour is of the highest value. The discipline needed for a rational ordering of personal life and society as a whole has been lost for the most part. That is because darker psychological forces have been allowed to overwhelm the rational. Foremost among those dark forces are passion, guilt, fear, revenge, self-hatred, and despair - and one can add a compassion untethered from moral principles of the highest order. 

Resources linked to euthanasia:

What is the Church's teaching on suicide? See article here

The development of the Catholic Church's teaching on suicide - See here

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Covid crisis and fresh beginnings: Pope Francis

Lockdown crisis ... artist Luke Adam Hawker (Source)

To gain from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic rather than believe it a lost time people should try to see the future shape of their society with fresh eyes, especially in overcoming "the social inequalities that afflict our peoples", says Pope Francis. "Seeking neither permission nor forgiveness, [the virus] has exposed the heart-breaking situation of so many brothers and sisters," he says. 

Speaking by video to an online meeting of international popular movements - groups that aim to defend the poor and support action for decent work and housing, and care for the land - Francis said the world needed an invigorated search for alternatives that centre on human needs whereas the world system promotes "the throwaway culture, and it is part of the technocratic paradigm" within "capitalist globalisation". 

Before taking an extensive dive into the rich vein of the Church's social teaching, Francis used the occasion to make a plea for immediate action to overcome some of the most glaring global inequalities:

I ask all the great pharmaceutical laboratories to release the [Covid virus vaccine] patents. Make a gesture of humanity and allow every country, every people, every human being, to have access to the vaccines. There are countries where only three or four per cent of the inhabitants have been vaccinated.

In the name of God, I ask financial groups and international credit institutions to allow poor countries to assure “the basic needs of their people” and to cancel those debts that so often are contracted against the interests of those same peoples.

In the name of God, I ask the great extractive industries - mining, oil, forestry, real estate, agribusiness - to stop destroying forests, wetlands and mountains, to stop polluting rivers and seas, to stop poisoning food and people.

In the name of God, I ask the great food corporations to stop imposing monopolistic systems of production and distribution that inflate prices and end up withholding bread from the hungry.

In the name of God, I ask arms manufacturers and dealers to completely stop their activity, because it foments violence and war, it contributes to those awful geopolitical games which cost millions of lives displaced and millions dead.

In the name of God, I ask the technology giants to stop exploiting human weakness, people’s vulnerability, for the sake of profits without caring about the spread of hate speech, grooming, fake news, conspiracy theories, and political manipulation.

In the name of God, I ask the telecommunications giants to ease access to educational material and connectivity for teachers via the internet so that poor children can be educated even under quarantine.

In the name of God, I ask the media to stop the logic of post-truth, disinformation, defamation, slander and the unhealthy attraction to dirt and scandal, and to contribute to human fraternity and empathy with those who are most deeply damaged.

In the name of God, I call on powerful countries to stop aggression, blockades and unilateral sanctions against any country anywhere on earth. No to neo-colonialism. Conflicts must be resolved in multilateral forums such as the United Nations. We have already seen how unilateral interventions, invasions and occupations end up; even if they are justified by noble motives and fine words.

This system, with its relentless logic of profit, is escaping all human control. It is time to slow the locomotive down, an out-of-control locomotive hurtling towards the abyss. There is still time.

Together with the poor of the earth, I wish to ask governments in general, politicians of all parties, to represent their people and to work for the common good. I want to ask them for the courage to look at their own people, to look people in the eye, and the courage to know that the good of a people is much more than a consensus between parties (cf. Evangelii gaudium, 2018).

Let them stop listening exclusively to the economic elites, who so often spout superficial ideologies that ignore humanity's real dilemmas. May they be servants of the people who demand land, work, housing and good living. This aboriginal good living or buen vivir is not the same as la dolce vita or “sweet idleness”, no. This is good human living that puts us in harmony with all humanity, with all creation.

I also want to ask all of us religious leaders never to use the name of God to foment wars or coups (cf. Document on Human Fraternity, 2019). Let us stand by the peoples, the workers, the humble, and let us struggle together with them so that integral human development may become a reality. Let us build bridges of love so that the voices of the periphery with their weeping, but also with their singing and joy, provoke not fear but empathy in the rest of society.

A time to dream together

Rather than continue along the road of "indifference, meritocracy and individualism", we should reject the "narratives [that] only serve to divide our peoples, and to undermine and nullify our poetic capacity, the capacity to dream together". On this poetic theme, Francis said:

Sisters and brothers, let us dream together. And so, as I ask all of this with you as well as of you, I want to add some reflections on the future that we must dream and build. Although I say reflections, perhaps I ought to say dreams, because right now our brains and hands are not enough, we also need our hearts and our imagination; we need to dream so that we do not go backwards.

We need to use that sublime human faculty which is the imagination, that place where intelligence, intuition, experience and historical memory come together to create, compose, venture and risk. Let us dream together, because it was precisely the dreams of freedom and equality, of justice and dignity, the dreams of fraternity, that improved the world. And I am convinced when we look through these dreams we will find God’s own dream for all of us, who are His own sons and daughters.

Dreams transcend the narrow limits imposed on us and suggest possible new worlds to us. And I am not talking about ignoble fantasies that confuse living well with having fun, which is nothing more than passing the time to fill the void of meaning and thus remain at the mercy of the world’s dominant ideology. No, it is not that. But to dream of that good living in harmony with all humanity and creation.

... there are many young people who feel hope, but there are many other young people who are sad, who perhaps in order to feel something in this world need to resort to the cheap consolations offered by the consumerist and narcotising system. And others, sad to say, others choose to leave the system altogether. The statistics on youth suicides are not published in their entirety.

In dreaming of a more human future, Francis offers guidelines arising from the social teaching of the Church, "principles useful to Christians and non-Christians alike". He does so with a defensive manner because he knows criticism of past popes, and himself, have flared when they touch upon "social issues". Therefore he cites his source for the teaching he offers, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004), compiled under Pope John Paul II (online here). Francis says:

In chapter four of this document, we find principles such as the preferential option for the poor, the universal destination of goods, solidarity, subsidiarity, participation, and the common good. These are all ways in which the Good News of the Gospel takes concrete form on a social and cultural level. And it saddens me that some members of the Church get annoyed when we mention these guidelines that belong to the full tradition of the Church. But the Pope must not stop mentioning this teaching, even if it often annoys people, because what is at stake is not the Pope but the Gospel.

The principle of solidarity: Solidarity not only as a moral virtue but also as a social principle: a principle that seeks to confront unjust systems with the aim of building a culture of solidarity that expresses, the Compendium says, “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”.

Participation and subsidiarity: The common good cannot be used as an excuse to quash private initiative, local identity or community projects. Therefore, these principles promote an economy and politics that recognise the role of popular movements, “the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth”.

A time to act

Francis said that even with the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, "I believe we can take the next step from dream to action. Because it is time for action."

He said that he does not have the answer to all social problems but "we must dream together and find it together". In the past he and the popular movements had offered solutions by way of  urban integration, family farming and the popular economy. "We have to go on working together to make them a reality, and now let me add two more: the universal wage and shortening the workday".

A basic income (the UBI) or salary so that everyone in the world may have access to the most basic necessities of life. It is right to fight for a humane distribution of these resources, and it is up to governments to establish tax and redistribution schemes so that the wealth of one part of society is shared fairly, but without imposing an unbearable burden, especially upon the middle class. Generally, when conflicts arise in this matter, it is the middle class that suffers most. Let us not forget that today’s huge fortunes are the fruit of the work, scientific research and technical innovation of thousands of men and women over generations.

Shortening the workday is another possibility: the minimum income is one, the reduction of the working day is another possibility, and one that needs seriously to be explored. In the 19th century, workers laboured twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day. When they achieved the eight-hour day, nothing collapsed, contrary to what some sectors had predicted. So, I insist, “working fewer hours so that more people can have access to the labour market is something we need to explore with some urgency”. There must not be so many people overwhelmed by overwork and so many others overwhelmed by lack of work.

I believe these measures are necessary, but of course not sufficient. They do not solve the root problem, nor do they guarantee access to land, housing and work in the quantity and quality that landless farmers, families without secure shelter and precarious workers deserve. Nor will they solve the enormous environmental challenges we face. But I wanted to mention them because they are possible measures and would point us in the right direction.

The key point that Francis made in his conclusion is that all leaders should agree "to place the economy at the service of the people". For sure, that is not the mentality at present. But if that re-orientation were achieved there would more likely be "a lasting peace based on social justice and on care for our Common Home". Before he ends, Francis is moved to say: 

Let us ask God to pour out His blessings on our dreams. Let us not lose our hope. Let us remember the promise that Jesus made to His disciples: “I will be with you always.” [...] The important thing is to realise that He is with you.

In those words there is an echo of those magnificent words that open the Vatican Council's Document on the Church in the Modern World:

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and axieities of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. 

We cannot squander the global Covid-19 crisis by escaping from all the tribulations of this pandemic without finding fresh impetus to implement changes in society that reflect the importance of every person and of the family. From those two focal points will come, as Francis declares, changes to the way economic resources are shared, and to the organisation of work allowing more flexibility for individual workers. The environment will also benefit, as harmful pollution levels will no longer be tolerated. Human society is a project of continual renewal. Let's hope we do not fail in our responsibility. 

Pope Francis's message to the global meeting was aired on October 16, 2021. The link is here. 

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Life in the womb matters to these women

Myleene Klass...has three children but is mother to seven Photo BBC screenshot

Britain has just held Baby Loss Awareness Week. The BBC built up a series of videos and stories providing interviews with the mothers who have suffered a miscarriage or whose child died at birth. 

For Claire Dalles, the pain was still raw three months after losing twins in early pregnancy:

"We went from being told we were going from a couple to a family of four and within 21 weeks going back to just being the two of us," she said.

"It was devastating. I felt numb, like someone had put me in a boxing ring and knocked me out.

"It's your baby and it exists the minute you see on the pregnancy test that you are pregnant. It's the imagination, the fantasy of that life, what you will do, how much you will love that baby, what will become of it, how much your life will change and whether it is one week or 24 weeks the loss is just as horrible."

Claire lost both her babies within 21 weeks. She said that since the loss was classed as a miscarriage, she felt like her babies didn't matter and were not seen as real people. 

One of the twins disappeared about week 12. Around week 21 the other was found to be lacking several organs and the parents were advised to abort that child.

"My biggest concern was if my baby was feeling pain," said Claire. "We were told at this stage he was not feeling pain because the nervous system was not developed. So we decided to terminate the pregnancy while the baby was not feeling pain, because that was the only thing we could give our baby."

The information that Claire's baby could be aborted painlessly seems to have come from a medical staffer who told the lie (and see here: pain felt as early as 12 weeks) trying to be helpful during an emotionally draining time. Maybe the staffer was well down the slippery slope of disregard for any baby, or did not know that in 2020 Richard Hutchinson was born in Minneapolis at a gestational age of 21 weeks 2 days. His is the earliest birth of a baby who has celebrated a first birthday.

When Sally Thompson's first pregnancy ended at nine weeks she felt a sense of sadness: 

"It doesn't take long to get attached," she says. "As soon as you kind of see the two lines or 'pregnant' on the test, you don't think of a ball of cells, you think of the baby that's going to come in nine months. That's what you think about and it is sad when it happens."

She has been pregnant nine more times, but none of the pregnancies have gone to term.

Laura and Steve Hughes's son Jesse died on 19 October 2019 in pregnancy. He was their second child. Each year they light a candle to remember him. Laura:

"Any baby, no matter at what gestation they were lost, they are still a baby and are part of the family."

Naomi and Ross Coniam's daughter Norah died at birth. Naomi says some people don't recognise the reality of the child who has died:

"You do find some people say things like: 'Oh, you'll make great parents again one day'. But you want to tell them that you are a parent, just not in the way you were hoping to be one."

The BBC interviewed Myleene Klass who "has been in the public eye in Britain as a pop musician, broadcaster and classical pianist for two decades". The report goes on:

But last October she broke her silence about a matter that had redefined her life. In an Instagram post she talked about her miscarriages - not one, but four - and the agony she had experienced as a result of the loss.

A miscarriage and having to have a D&C is "horrific", she says. "It turns your world inside out... It definitely changes how you view the world."

"If you have to sign a form for a D&C you have to decide what you wish to do with the 'products of pregnancy'. Products! And to tick a box... and we hand that form to women just before they go down to theatre.

"I couldn't fill the form in. My partner did it for me.

"You enter hospital still with a baby and you leave just with your paperwork."

Klass is asked: "You say 'I have three children but I am a mother to seven'. Is that how it feels?"

She answers with a simple "Yes", and a firm nod of the head.

The interviewer: "Because you are imagining their lives still?" Klass answers again with a definite "Yes".

Given the statistic that one in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage, she says she is unlikely to ask other women if they have children..." because you just know that those questions are loaded...you just don't know what that question, 'Do you have any children?' ... is going to do to that person, that day." 

British TV actress Lacey Turner has had two miscarriages. She has a very graphic way of describing the connection between the woman and the being in her womb.

"I think you become a mother the minute you're pregnant, and for that to be taken away, that's another loss. You grieve the fact that you aren't going to be a mother as well as losing a baby. It was a loss at seven weeks."

Meeting with Lacey is Laura Bradshaw, who has had four miscarriages:

"I think about it every day. It's the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing at night because it's consuming...it's a hard thing to go through."

The apparent lack of support for mothers who have had miscarriages disturbs Laura:

"It makes you feel that they don't take it seriously as they should...it makes it seem as if it's no big deal."

The loss of a baby in pregnancy clearly is a big deal. The BBC adds this information: 

New research published in The Lancet [the British medical journal], reveals that miscarriage doubles the risk of depression and quadruples the risk of suicide.

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