It’s About Time

We have a limited amount of time with our kids. Before we even blink… they’re talking …reading… and then they’re driving… then they’re driving away.

So one of our main concerns is what kind of education our kids get while they’re with us.

In the modern age there seem to be limited options on that front. We can send them to the public school , we can find them a private school… or we can homeschool them. But those are pretty much our choices. In other ways, though, there seem to be unlimited options. There are all these books, and lists, and advice from super moms and genius dads who seemed to have it all together… giving us conflicting advice:

• They need to be “socialized” but… by whom? For what purpose? A GANG is socialized.

• They need to be CHALLENGED…. So give them 3.5 hours of homework a night?

• They should learn how to code, but don’t forget the arts and their creative side!

• They should get out and get some exercise, but don’t overschedule them with sports!

• They should be independent…. But they need precious family time!

What many have missed is that the most fundamental and meaningful way to educate your kids is NOT to separate out the education of them out from the raising of them. We have a choice to make: either education is a function of family and community or it is not. If it is, then what the kids need is not a school.. but something else.

No school, by the current definition of a school — 180 days times seven hours of “instructional time” for 13 years; over 16,000 hours of professional instruction— can really strike this balance for us. What the kids need… what the family needs…  is a community. A place where the kids can learn, with support from peers and from mentors who can guide them through wholesome content, good conversations, and great ideas.

Families don’t need another school…but … a Team. A Coalition…. a League… a Tribe… a Village … where there is a common pursuit, a united purpose, with a variety of different vocations and roles to fill… where people with different skills and strengths can help each other in pursuing Wisdom, and Good, and a life of Virtue…

What they need…. is a GUILD

They need a Guild.

Introducing … The Guild at the Loudoun Field Center, where students, ages 11 to 18, come together to pursue common goals of scholarship, artisanship, communication skills, service, and good character. A place where they can gain knowledge from local artisans, thinkers, and community leaders.

With a championship disc golf course and hiking trails, a peaceful - but stocked - natural-spring-supported lake, camping grounds, an archery range, athletic facilities, a workshop/makerspace, and a chapel… the LFC is a place to escape from the workaday world and focus on being the person you want to be, with the help and love of others doing the same.

Maybe your family is ready for something like this. Maybe you’re an artist, a teacher, or someone with a unique skill or passion that can help the next generation.

If you’re looking to join, the first step is to schedule an interview. We have limited space for students and limited opportunities for programming and talent for this coming fall. But if you’re looking to get away and just… be, and learn, and share your passion…this is the right place.

Prospective Mentors: https://loudounfieldcenter.org/mentors-at-the-field-center/
Prospective Students/Families: https://loudounfieldcenter.org/the-guild-inquiry/

Welcome everyone, Blessed Advent, and Merry Christmas to all of you. Three things that I want to talk about briefly on the rare occasions that I get this many of my favorite people in the same room at the same time.

First I think what initially brings this merry and motley crew together, other than the season’s festivities, is the science and art of conversation, not only in terms of education but in terms of citizenship and civil discourse, and actually, perhaps more importantly, simply being the best humans we can be.

We live in a time where a conversation on a complex topic can cost you a friendship. Who here has lost long-term friendships — or even family members — in the last few years? The times really aren’t unique. Some of our country’s founders had massive contentious disagreements lasting years. Today, the technology is different, the conversation can occur more quickly, sometimes in a matter of minutes, over thousands of miles. But the fallen nature behind them is rather … unchanged. So we’re all here at least partially because we value Great Conversation(s) with good people and realize that good people can share disagreements over important issues and still be not only good, but good friends.

So notwithstanding the desire that many of us may have to win arguments and others of us may have to avoid them… the key from my point of view is to have the arguments and have our relationships survive them. There are many directions to take that topic — focusing on ideas instead of people is one of those; and arguing in a way that seeks truth instead of victory is another — but that’s another discussion for another day; instead let me just express my thanks to the Paul and the Freedom Center / Loudoun Field Center, for allowing us to have our Fifth Annual Great Conversation(s) Christmas Party here in the lovely Wells Chapel, as well as Sue, Jennifer, and Karen, and the Buckingham family, for putting this together.

We consider this sort of a kickoff of many amazing opportunities for fellowship here on the campus and elsewhere. We have great things in store… and of course in particular tonight for the event itself, a Christmas Party, a celebration of the season of Advent… a season filled with such a rich mixture of penitence and joy, generosity, anticipation, and a time to reflect on the year past. If you’re from a Western liturgical tradition, Advent is not the end of the year, but the beginning, so it spills over well beyond the spirit of Black Friday and instead shoots towards Good Friday; so we hope that its meaning for even the most … skeptical American is something along the lines of “So this is Christmas, what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun…”

With that in mind, I want to quickly announce what our next major event for our little Dinner Club is going to be — the “minor” events (minor in size and complexity, but indispensable in importance to the cause here) being the monthly dinners and weekly coffees.

We’ll be partnering with a few non-profits both in Lucketts and Leesburg to do an event to support those in need in our community. We feel strongly that the next best way to have a real impact is to stop talking for a minute, and start listening for several to some of the needs we may find and experience right here in Northern Loudoun County. More details to come, but it’ll fall around the Lenten season, probably a week or two before Easter. If you want to be involved with that, or this party next year, or our Constitution Day cookout in September, please touch base with one of the aforementioned event committee types and let them know you want to help.

Which brings me, lastly to this one final point I want to share. My good friend here, Paul, our host, and I have had a few conversations about what a place like this and the things we hope to do here really mean and the word, “community,” keeps coming up. It’s a very critical issue for me, personally. Over the years many of you have had such an impact on me through different, concentric, and often overlapping institutions, from the education community that Helena has been so central and essential to, to the political activist world that many here have found me through.

The local Chamber produced many of our connections, of course, including my daughter’s godmother, Sue, godfather, Ken, as well as Karen who is responsible for most of these great decorations tonight. Some of the St Patrick family is here including my sponsor, Jim and his wife Lori.

So every time Paul and I have this conversation about community, I leave it a little confused, and wondering if “community” is really the right word. It’s thrown around a lot. Many people, based on their identity — race, gender, sexual orientation, political stances, etc — get lumped in with a “community,” while people in a certain geographic feel apart, disconnected, isolated from, the communities in which they live.

So on that front, I’m going to get a little serious about what I consider a major failing of my own in terms of the “ICU” (IndED Cinematic Universe), including this Mighty Network community we created (HERE!) called Great Conversation(s). We’re still less than 100 people at the moment, and it’s mostly local folks and three to five people account for 90% of the activity. But suffice it to say that most of the people on it are people I know.

One of the FIRST people I was aware of that joined this fledgling little Network that I DIDN’T know was a man named Baraka James. His profile is still on here. Good looking guy, beautiful family… member of many “communities” which at least intersect or overlap with many of mine. Never met Baraka though. He was invited by our friend Charles, and joined several months ago… towards the beginning of this fledgling little group.

In June, tragically, Baraka took his own life. Now … the details of this are a little much to get into at a Christmas Party, but a few weeks ago I came across his profile again and just thought, “I know that I don’t feel responsible for anything here… but shouldn’t I?”

I’m sure Facebook and Twitter don’t feel responsible for his loss either, but our purpose here is not to connect online, but to connect in person… like this. I never did so with him. With all his connections and “communities” there was something quite obviously missing. I’m no expert in mental health… but obviously there was a lack of a connection to something important.

Without dragging this point out, let me just say that 100, even 50 years ago the concept of a “family” was so very different than it is today (and is still to this day in many parts of the world). Many Americans seem to think of our family as our parents, our siblings, and maybe a few nieces and nephews, and as we get older, our kids look at us, their siblings and their nieces and nephews; their cousins are somewhere else with their own kids and parents and nieces and nephews. So we’ve lost a lot of the nature of family which makes it really “extended”, and so what many of us are looking for in terms of our friendships is not simply a community, but a TRIBE… a family for lack of a better term. Not simply a group of people with similar interests — political opinions? Zipcodes? — but the people that we truly and openly seek to learn from and develop ourselves with; people we’ll open a vein for; people to be there when we’re looking to connect, when we’re happy and when we’re sad. So sure… one way to go is to simply start having more kids… but in the meantime, where is our tribe?

You see, we take such great pains in the modern zeitgeist to emphasize the ways in which we’re … unique. We want to express our amazing special singular identity. There is definitely a place for that.

Here, however, in this place, with these people — as often as we can get together and connect — this is where we, first and foremost, find each other’s common humanity. What we have in common is what makes us human because what makes us human is loving each other as humans FIRST, as individuals second, and if we want to go tribal, then we probably won’t need to because this IS our tribe… our extended family.

Anyway … that’s the way I see it … thanks for indulging me.

So let’s lift up our (non-alcoholic) glasses to Baraka; to my dear mother — this will be our first Christmas without the opportunity to at least talk to her — to community, to family, and to the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth God, world without end.

(Asked Blessing of the food)

(This is going out on the Feast of the Epiphany (Theophany in the East) so let me take this chance to wish all of you and yours… a blessed Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year! To stay tuned to the events in Northern Virginia — and elsewhere — please join the Great Conversation(s) Network.)

σχολειο μεσω συνομιλιας

Butch Porter
Founder/Director Independent Education (IndED)
Great Conversation(s)
Loudoun Field Center

It's fairly evident, though, that in the case of the school system, a simple lack of foreknowledge — or even a lack of competence — is not all that is at play. The issue is actually one of purpose. There's a divide between what they seek and what we seek for our kids.

So the one thing we do know is that we must declare our independence. We have to extricate ourselves from the system that is continuing to disrupt and corrupt our families, our communities, our institutions. What happens after that is not under our control. The problem is that we won’t know what to do next as long as we’re fighting a behemoth whose main operational significance is that it DEMANDS 180 days a year of your child’s all-day rapt attention.

There is absolutely no way around it. An #armyofparents needs to find and understand what territory it is actually defending, and defend it. Either education is a community and family driven enterprise or it is not. If it is, then sending the army up against the battlements of a 100 year old entrenched system hyper-focused on inputs and the maintenance of its own existence… is not the most productive use of our time.

On July 4 we celebrated our independence from Great Britain. By then many had also made the decision that they weren’t going to send their kids back to an organization that continues to fail us and our children. 

But if we didn't make that leap yet, know this: on September 18, 2021 we have our Constitution Day. Come celebrate with us at the Loudoun field center in Lucketts Virginia, and meet folks from all around… educators, parents, community leaders, and other concerned citizens who are ready to reassert the community itself, and not the educational bureaucracy as the backbone of our kids’ — and our — education.

On the Loudoun Field Center website:

https://loudounfieldcenter.org/events/constitution-day-celebration-10th-anniversary/

On Facebook:

https://fb.me/e/1eRR8PZjT

Or join the GCN:

https://GC.IndED.us

This week's Rule is: "Efficiency almost always wins...and we're often the worse for it."

Butch's article on "Efficiency..": 

Great Conversation(s)

Efficiency Always Wins Out

We’ve become quite efficient. We can transmit information across the planet in a matter of seconds. We can cook (or have delivered) a nutritious meal in a matter of minutes. We can travel from sea to shining sea — and across them — in a matter of hours. Intricate and complex objects can be manufactured to our minute specifications and delivered to our f…

Read more

5 years ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Butch Porter

________________________
Independent Education: https://inded.us
Great Conversation(s) Blog: https://greatconversations.us   
Great Conversation(s) Network: https://gc.inded.us
ROTG Podcast: https://rotgpodcast.us
Patreon: https://patreon.com/rulesofthegame

Efficiency is humanity’s bag. We have gotten really good at it.

The last year has taught us how efficient we really can be. Meetings with several employees, dozens of “networkers,” or even hundreds of conference attendees can now be done much more conveniently without leaving your home. This has changed the way we work, not just during a pandemic…but possibly forever.

School, and its requisite 180 days times seven hours of “instructional time” can all be done online now. What could go wrong? We can attend church anywhere in the world from our bed. Everyone can go to “St Mattress.”

So, how is that working out for us? Are we… healthier? More informed? Better educated? Happier in our work? No? Well why not?

One option came to me recently while exploring the subject of prayer. The question is often asked (mostly by me): why is it so hard to pray? None of the answers have ever satisfied me, but there could be something here on the topic of “efficiency.”

Prayer is the ultimate inefficient exercise. Its effectiveness cannot be improved by an improvement in its efficiency. It’s impervious to efficiency. The inefficiency is melded to its effectiveness; in essence the more inefficient you are, indeed the more inefficient you desire to be in its implementation, the more effective it becomes in improving your spiritual life. There seems to be no way around it. In order to be effective at praying (what “effective” means in terms of praying is a) a topic for another day, and likely b) above my pay grade), you have to be present to a degree that the inefficiency become of zero concern.

But that’s prayer. Prayer is esoteric; it’s spiritual, so of course it’s inefficient, and the inefficiency is good.

What if we approached all the things we do with that sort of … intention. What if we took our time cooking meals; what else could be gained? There are a myriad of various movements in play all over the civilized world in this regard, and they’re not all “religious” in nature. If you boil them down, they really can be summed up as: waste more time cooking, because it’s better for you.

What if we read information deeper for the purpose of understanding ideas instead of memorizing facts and talking points? Is there anyone reading this that thinks that a deeper exploration of ideas and their meaning wouldn’t help the major communication gap we currently have? The polarization, the talking past each other, the tribalism; all could be improved by making our information gathering and processing and deliberation … less efficient. 

What if we ran our businesses, taught our children, worshipped, communicated — with the public, as well as our family, friends, colleagues —  in a way that wasn’t rushed. What if we did it in a way that purposefully was “unnecessary”… and consequentially… inefficient. After all, it’s a lot quicker to just send an email to that friend, listen to a service on your headphones… so that we can have time to… do what? Watch more television?

Maybe efficiency isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

We could talk about those young adults, having launched, marrying later than they ever really imagined, feeling disappointment in their careers — if they have one—a lack of fulfillment in their relationships, disconnect from their communities. In the end, it would be hard not to come to one over-arching and inevitable conclusion: something has to change.

Where does the failure lie? Who is to blame? Schools? Families? The Church? Bad diet? Social media? Sin? Video Games?

Who knows, really. But what can we do about it? Maybe another “Great Awakening” is around the corner. Maybe these things have a tendency to simply work themselves out. Every generation seems to have a version of lament about “kids these days.”

The truth is that there is one place where we can look to try to make a real difference: High School.

High School is that magical place where the children gain all the functional abilities to become an adult, but without the Executive Function to do it in a way that doesn’t make us all a little bit anxious. Infinite possibilities and infinite diversity in infinite combinations all culminating in that glorious moment: when they turn 18 and they are no longer the legal responsibility of anyone but themselves.

So what would a high school look like if all it really focused on was making sure that at that monumental 18th birthday, the newly minted “adult” was in the best possible position to forge their path into the “real world”?

First, it would most certainly NOT focus on “career readiness”… mainly because there is a great likelihood that whatever given career the youngster intends to pursue, either their talents, their opportunities, or sheer circumstances will likely lead them somewhere completely unexpected, and that’s not always a bad thing (your humble author was supposed to be an astronomer).

Second, a properly focused secondary educational program would most likely NOT focus too much on the social “identity” aspects of their lives, as they are still in the process of understanding the own inclinations and personalities. Constant obsessions with identity in terms of groups or in terms of individualism has resulted in our current zeitgeist’s inculcation into modern youth an unspeakably harmful narcissism. This leads nowhere but disappointment.

Speaking of self discovery (and disappointment), this high school program would also certainly NOT be focused on a mission to “save the world” or to make “relevant contributions” to the world. Many life and career paths can seem very frustrating and unfulfilling, especially as it is measured up against the unrealistic (or unreal) profiles one is going to see on one’s friends’ Instagrams. Not everyone is going to be a marine biologist and save the whales, much less the planet from ecological catastrophes. Not everyone is going to cure cancer, fix world hunger, or end racism. Some will be thankful for having a job where they can help anyone or build anything or feel like they’re making a difference at all, even within their own small communities.

Rather, a “high school” education should work not on the future, or for that matter the past or even just being “present” and “in the now.” Instead it should be about the Permanent Things. Things that have lasted and will last. Character, wisdom, humility, and all the virtues of humanity which unfailingly make us good husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, service-minded bosses or employees, citizens and statesmen, thinkers, craftsmen, artists… human beings.

A real, modern, and successful high school experience should be concerned with developing strong communication skills — reading, writing, listening, thinking, and speaking — so as to prepare young adults to communicate with a variety of people in a variety of circumstances, wherever life takes them.

Lastly, an effective high school program should encourage students to focus less on saving the world and more on improving themselves. It should help them to work on their own strengths and challenges; to take the time and give proper attention to their souls, spirits, and their Creator, so that when they go out into the world, they can make it better by their witness, their example, their faith, and through confidence borne through humility and God’s grace.

All of us — mentors, parents, citizens, students — are in a position right now where we see the “system,” for lack of a better term, systematically failing us. But our community is stronger, more resilient, more permanent, and has no choice but to strive for something better.

JOIN US

————

And by “something better,” we don’t mean something theoretical. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be discussing a new — and old — approach to secondary education which will seek to forge a new path for a select set of teenagers. The program, set in Loudoun County, is the culmination of years of work, of deliberation, and no shortage of prayer, and comes at the time when we are most in need of good and affordable options. 

We will be accepting between 10 and 30 students for the first year, and will give priority to freshmen and sophomores. If you are, have, or know of, a high school student who is ready to take on the high school years in a unique, rewarding, and thoughtful way that is respectful of teenagers’ time … then reach out to us as soon as you see this. Time is of the essence, possibly for your teen, but indeed for the country.

(Listen on: APPLE SPOTIFY GOOGLE ANCHOR )

For our 41st Episode, Jessica and Butch start out chatting about the Terrence Mallick film, The Tree of Life, and quickly switch gears (to dig in deeper at a later date) to "What it means to be a Southerner?"

It's a conversation about "values" and "value sets" and what it means for a southern (especially a southern Christian) when they hear things like "D & I (&E)" as a "value." One of the more common slights to Southerners is their tendency to "act fake" in their kindness and sweetness, and Jessica and Butch take issue with that and the importance of handling life's ups and downs with charm, grace, and a smile... in other words: "Fake it 'till you make it…"

________________________
Independent Education: https://inded.us
Great Conversation(s) Blog: https://greatconversations.us   
Great Conversation(s) Network: https://gc.inded.us
ROTG Podcast: https://rotgpodcast.us
Patreon: https://patreon.com/rulesofthegame

Jessica and Butch continue a conversation started with our special guest in the previous episode with a question of, "From where do people get their moral foundations if not from religion?" We explore the issue thoroughly in terms of online communities, and the workplace and the #metoo world as well. Notwithstanding the conundrum of finding morality in the secular world, we posit that "power" is a poor measure of it.

The rule for the day is: "Pursue morality first..." because without it, where will justice emerge from something as vague as #metoo?

________________________
Independent Education: https://inded.us
Great Conversation(s) Blog: https://www.greatconversations.us
Great Conversation(s) Network: https://gc.inded.us
ROTG Podcast: https://rotgpodcast.us

Jessica and Butch spend some time talking about the future of education, in terms of what education means, what its purpose is, and what a teacher is. We talk about how the most important thing to teach kids is WHO THEY ARE; also what our responsibilities are as parents, as a community; and the goal of a multi-generational community which needs its elderly (see Episode 33) and it needs its children. Jessica spoke about "intentional" parenting, which involves educator as the role of the parent. Obviously the role of technology came up, and the rule of this episode is, of course: "The Future of Education is not 'STEM'..."

For more information on IndED's "The Best Education of a Lifetime Course Is..." course join the conversation at: https://gc.inded.us, (which, just like subscribing on the blog here, will also give you access to the video versions of this podcast!) and find the "IndED Community" group... For only $20 a month you can join a small but growing number of families who are striving to be more intentional in how they teach their kids, whether they go to public, private, or homeschool.

________________________

Independent Education: https://inded.us
Great Conversation(s) Network: https://gc.inded.us
ROTG Podcast: https://rotgpodcast.us
Patreon: https://patreon.com/rulesofthegame

Eleanor Roosevelt’s (or whoever it came from) quote above should animate how we approach any number of endeavors involving knowledge… from literature, to news, to education.

It’s almost self-evident that discussion about ideas are of the highest value, above those of events or worst of all… people. (If you think about it, this is why tabloid, “click-bait” — the lowest form of information out there — news outlets are almost completely about people — “celebrities” if you will. This is why the Royal Family (with the possible exception of the Queen herself) in the United Kingdom has become so blasé. There is no real reverence or solemn deference for the crown anymore. No genuflecting to the “sovereign.” They’re just… really rich and famous. Important… but mostly rich and famous. This is, by the way, why I would hardly ever pick up a “People” magazine. It’s hard to get worked up about famous people … especially simply because they’re famous. But they’re “real” people…. right? (By the way, when the U.S. media starts describing its famous people as “American Royalty”… then that should tell you something.)

“Normal” news, or “straight” news (basically the relaying of the most recent possible events) is right behind the tabloids in uselessness; this is most especially true, of course, when the news is focused on the foibles of certain people, including the ones delivering the news, but even in its purest form of relaying factual information… it can still be wrong, inaccurate, slanted, and even selective to the point of deceiving.

In other words, people and events… even real, verified, true ones… even the ones we know are good don’t always have good things to tell us strictly by being real. Their choices, though, and their words, and their character and actions can tell us a great deal, which means that this is what we’re learning from, and fictional characters, written well, can perform the same service… sometimes even better than the real thing.

God is everywhere

So what about the spiritual objection — the belief that fantasy and science fiction are possibly even demonic or anti-biblical? After all, the characters aren’t even always human. They could be aliens or dwarves. How can you dig into the cosmology, anthropology, or ecclesiology of your faith when you’re having to contend with stories of creatures that don’t exist, from planets or realms with no “fall” and varying characters with impossible, sometimes God-like powers over nature? How do you ignore the connection of these things to witchcraft and the possibility of the occult creeping in.

First off, it’s important to know that some fantasy is indeed bordering on the occult and some fantasy stories can look and feel and convey demonic ideas. (If you believe that is truly at work in the world, then this is…known.) But of course not all fantasy and sci-fi is demonic or cultish. The two Godfathers of all modern (20th Century) fantasy were VERY devout Christians, one Roman Catholic and one High Church Anglican. The latter, C. S. Lewis even wrote probably the most profoundly beautiful science fiction stories ever written. They both wrote extensively on how their stories conveyed Christian ideas. The Narnia novels were almost explicitly allegorical, while J.R.R. Tolkien was adamant about the stories of Middle Earth being not so. The depth of Tolkien’s legendarium, though, and the elegance of Lewis’s Narnia are objectively truthful and undeniably beautiful. The ideas they convey.. the truths about humanity (Hobbits and Fauns are people, too) are relevant to us no matter how confident we think we are about their not being “real.” Legends are legends. Whether it’s a fictionalized character of someone we know, or a true-to-life character of someone we’re sure never existed, doesn’t really matter.

To take this a slightly different direction, let’s ask this: 

How do angels work?

Do they have souls? Do they live forever? Can they feel pain? Are they aware of God’s plan inherently or do they have a meeting every morning (or millennium or so) and take notes?

Angels are an important group of characters in The western scripture… in the universe as we see it through the Torah/Bible. If you are a Jew or a Christian, then you must believe that angels and demons exist… I mean I hope so, or we might end up giving someone credit for… the greatest trick.

So if angels do exist, then we really don’t understand them well. There is not a lot that I know about a lot of things.  But there’s one thing that I’m almost positive about: that all the renditions of angels in modern entertainment — even those expressly and honestly created for the purpose of conveying Christian ideals and values — are wrong. From Touched by and Angel to It’s a Wonderful Life, to Lucifer to Angels in the Outfield, A Life Less Ordinary (one of my favorites)… all of them are wrong. If there is any accuracy in them, it’s almost completely by accident. The Good Place has to be one of the least Christian-oriented television shows involving angels… maybe ever. Neither God (nor Jesus of course) is even mentioned in the show that I recall…. but it still seems that it probably has more going for it as a show in terms of teaching us to think about what it means to be good, than even “It’s a Wonderful Life”… a favorite angel movie of Christians and non-Christians alike.

Angel shows are often entertaining, occasionally enlightening, and yet the cosmology of all them is most likely all wrong. Elves, on the other hand? We know a lot more about elves. They are essentially the angels of Middle Earth and their understanding of men and man’s understanding of them in Tolkien’s legendarium speaks volumes about what it means to be human.

Hobbits and Fauns are People

Quickly on the topic of science fiction, specifically — though the line between sci-fi and fantasy can sometimes get a little blurry. On the nature of archetypes, there are a ton of similarities, especially in modern cinema renditions, between Vulcans and Elves (no, not just the ears), even though in the Tolkien books the elves are QUITE different than Vulcans. The similarity is mostly in their demeanor: serene, thoughtful, long-lived… and arrogant. These are virtues — and their often accompanying — vices we can stand to think about a little more anyway.

The other, perhaps more important facet of science fiction that is of value is how humans interact with technology. Most futuristic dystopian fantasies were considered science fiction in their day and were remarkably prescient, not just about specific technologies but our failures in using them justly and wisely.

I’ve predicted that the current generation still being born… roughly from 2010 to 2025 will be called “Generation R” — with “R” standing for “robot.” (Actually just make that official. You learned it here first.) When this starts to become more stark (it’s already happening) we will likely be thankful for the half dozen or so Robot Novels from Isaac Asimov and the stark warnings from Phillip K Dick and others. Even Terminator is educational; how much control can/should we give computers?

More importantly than how we interact with technology are the more important questions of: what it means to be a human being? How important is it to our humanity that we are born, live, and die? Bicentennial Man has an answer worth exploring. How really did we come into existence and what would it mean if it happened in a way very different than we thought? Does it matter? How do we treat these who are fundamentally different than us in every way imaginable, including and not limited to: how we interact, including and not limited to: how we interact with gravity (The Expanse). How we build our homes (Hobbits) whether we have souls which will escape this Earth our death (Elves and Men), whether we speak through verbal or visual communication at all (to say nothing of a different language).

This doesn’t mean that “real” literature is less valuable. We have a lot to learn from it. But it’s my opinion that the real hard stuff that will prepare us for the next millennium in the most robust ways possible will be high-quality, speculative (yes, speculative and fantastical) fiction.

All the stories come from humans, which means all the creatures in all the stories come from humans, thus they have human qualities, virtues, foibles, ideas that we need to contend with. As many tools as we can have in our tool chest to learn those things, the better off we are.  We need every available mechanism we can muster to teach our kids and ourselves virtues of courage, kindness, perseverance, humility … love … all of them.

We’ll end with another quote from Chesterton (can’t seem to get away from him):

“Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.”

Recently someone relayed to me that they just didn’t appreciate fantasy or science fiction. One would think at this point that I’d be used to this sort of thing. Now this young lady, Lord bless her, is still young and figuring it out (and she has yet to spend enough time with us!) but I’ve heard this from full-blown adults… some even responsible for raising kids (*shudder*) so it occasionally feels like an issue worthy of addressing… directly.

As much as I hesitate to make the mystical too much of a trend, let’s dive into the value and reality of fiction.

Let’s start with the objections to fantasy and science fiction, which seem to come from three different directions.

First is the position of the devout Christian and the notion that fiction cannot comport with either a Biblical or liturgical truth. The second is from the angle of needing to know something is “real” scientifically or materially in order to be relevant (so kind of the precise opposite objection as the first). The third objection to fantasy and sci-fi comes from the more pragmatic notion of making sure that what we fill our minds with is “useful” (especially in terms of what we can do with it productively.

Going in reverse order, let me address the pragmatism objection right out.

Is it… useful? What is “useful?”

The first question to ask is, of course, what does “useful” even mean? Useful for what? For a career? For life? For survival in case of apocalypse? What are we using our literature for? The assumption, always, is that what we really mean by useful is something that will help us in our career or “productive” life. Even things we’re supposed to learn that are not “academic” or “job-related” are still put in terms of what our responsibilities are in the marketplace. (SEE: the latest episode of ROTG where Jessica and I discuss Joseph Pieper’s 1947 masterpiece of work, Leisure: the Basis of Culture) How many times do we hear, “the kids should be taught how to balance a checkbook” or manage their investments, or fix their own car (to save money), or cook a nice meal (to be healthier and more productive) or any number of other things which make us independent citizens not on the public dole and making it to our job every day.

Our entire educational system is geared for “college and career”… which means wasting time on fantasy and sci-fi (the most fictiony fiction) should be discouraged. Sure we’re good with literature which makes us more historically informed and better communicators … so we can get a better job or better at our jobs.

Anyone who spends any time with me on education knows that “career readiness” is at best a secondary, and most likely a tertiary concern… especially in an age where a) our problems are more related to a failure of moral imagination than a failure of properly using SAT words and/or navigating a balance sheet and b) the odds of having a long term “career” where you work at the same company (or even the same industry) for extended periods is dwindling quickly.

But more importantly, how high on the importance rank should we put career readiness anyway? Does it make us happy? A better wife or husband? Father or mother? Maybe we are marginally more likely to be good providers, but that sounds more like a prerequisite to a good life than a real qualification.

“True” and “factual” are not synonymous

So let’s assume that an appreciation of higher level thinking or deeper meaning is already a goal, then what about the disconnection of fantasy or sci-fi or any other kind of speculative fiction and the “real” world? This is actually tougher to answer because our own modern culture has begun to put so much weight on experiential learning and pursuit of happiness, justice, love, etc. that it seems silly to make things up from whole cloth.

Seriously, there are hundreds of years now of historical accounts of real people doing real things, living real lives and accomplishing wonderful, miraculous things against impossible odds. These were people who lived in this earth and really existed and people knew them and in some cases could relay their wisdom and virtues directly and with purpose. Use what we know to be provable and verifiable. Explorers, philosophers, theologians, politicians, kings and queens, peasants, activists, former slaves, escaped prisoners from tyrannical regimes… the list goes on and on and on. Real answers about most of the real struggles we’re having are there… with Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, there for the taking and application.

This is all true, and apparently it’s all not good enough. Otherwise, why would there still be a problem? If all the answers are there in history, and we still keep making many of the same mistakes, driving headlong into the same traps and ignoring the same truths. (Or coming to different conclusions and not agreeing on the truths).

Why? Well we’re humans for one… with sinful fallen natures and inadequate motives, means, and opportunities for interpreting “truths” purely without fail. We don’t necessarily learn all that is required of us from facts because facts can’t really give us the “why” of something (as we discussed before) but also we simply don’t know as much as we think we know.

Look at “historical fiction” for instance. I’ve seen three different renditions of the period of Henry VIII on screen (probably more than three but three come to mind, and besides there are probably dozens I haven’t seen). One from the point of view of Thomas More (A Man for All Seasons), one from the point of view of Henry VIII himself (Tudors on Showtime) and one from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell (Wolf Hall). They all three took completely different ideas from the story and relayed three different narratives — based partially on the different points of view in focus in the story but mostly on different points of view of those telling the story.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”

Take the most widely acclaimed “historical fiction” writer in the West in the last 2000 years: William Shakespeare, and answer this question:

Which speech has had the greater impact on the modern world, our view of war and sacrifice, of monarchy, of patriotism, “manliness," leadership, courage (and any number of other things): the speech that Henry V actually gave to his men on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, or the speech that Shakespeare wrote for him. Just for reference, here’s the “St Crispin’s Day Speech” from Shakespeare:

WESTMORLAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmorland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made, 
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

We know the answer to this question. Real people are made into legends in a myriad of ways and their legends are at least as educational and valuable and worthy of our reading, studying, and analyzing as are their “real” characters who could be more complex (which has value for sure) with virtues and vices which are more opaque and harder to access (especially if, since we don’t know them, and weren’t there, we aren’t likely to ever know their true natures anyway).

The main reason why Homer’s Achilles is so legendary and mysterious, mythical, and almost superhuman is that he is more distant. He might have been a real person, or a compilation of characters from the Trojan War and Greek mythos. Who is to say that George Washington, several centuries from now doesn’t become as mythical and heroic as Achilles (In some ways he already has, though obviously not to the same degree… only as a matter of degree, not a matter of kind). He is lionized and almost idealized. His virtues are what we care about. Finding out he (or Achilles) was just a flawed human being with foibles and flaws has less value than we might think. Sure it’s good to be “relatable” but after the first few dozen historical characters have been shown to be human while still accomplishing great things, that particular lesson begins to lose its value. The virtues or ideals or character traits that helps people pursue good, truth, beauty, justice, etc, etc… and of course the stark examples of characters that display traits that almost always stem from one of the Seven Deadly Sins…that’s the gold. That’s the value.

(I’ve been unable to thread this within my article after the fact due to time constraints, but could be tempted to do so for Part II, which will come out next week, but the work of Joseph Campbell on “The Power of Myth” which has some multimedia support on Amazon Prime now is a worthy deep dive into this topic. Thanks to one of our IndED parents for reminding me of it!)

(Part II, next Week)

Pageau is an iconographer; someone who, rebelliously it seems, treats art as something sacred, divine, mystical, even enchanted; he represents a modern search for the sublime. Sacred is the new counter culture.

But the Santa Claus shirt hit me (and not just because it’s been a topic here before): I’ve always maintained that Miracle on 34th Street was the best Christmas movie. To be sure, there are plenty contenders, so I have always found myself awkwardly defending it as objectively better than It’s a Wonderful Life or — pick your favorite version of (Scrooged” is still my favorite) — The Christmas Carol. Love Actually is a popular one for my wife and I, and of course, my second favorite: Die Hard.

Miracle on 34th Street always won out for me and here’s the reason why: it forces us to confront a deeper and higher meaning to the question — not the “is Santa Claus Real” question, but THE question (no, not that one) — what is Truth. After all, if the floods of letters coming into the courthouse is enough to prove that there’s a Santa Claus to the nice judge in New York (granted, yes, he probably had an election coming up soon), then is that good enough for the rest of us — or no?

Can you prove that the “big guy” can get down the chimneys of billions of homes all in a night? No. Could you prove he didn’t exist by confronting 6 or 7 years olds with video of their parents putting together the toys that purportedly came from… the big guy? Sure you could. But does that make him not real? Because the idea of him and what he represents has intrinsic value. It’s not just a “feeling” or a cool idea, or a gimmick, but a tangible, real phenomenon, with a history and substance and consequences. Santa Claus is real for the same reason that love is real. Not just a mother’s love, or erotic love, but love for your dog, for a stranger in need, for your country. 

On the latter topic, our latest reading in “Great Ideas Through the Arts” was Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws. He had the following to say about the most valuable virtue in a Republic:

“This virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our country. As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, it is the source of all private virtues; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself.”

Which brings us to the topic at hand… the counter culture of the day… the faithful. There is no better example than the recent Kanye West Christian conversion, followed by the briefest of Presidential campaigns. It’s another example of my wanting to support something before I even had any rational reason why. My endorsement here was very tongue-in-cheek, as it wasn’t until very recently it became apparent why it made a sort of real sense. I had not seen this ad until it was mentioned by Pageau:

Kanye mentioned faith, and families, and prayer, and (GASP! EGADS!) God, and this was, for weeks, the source of a lot of jest and jeering.

Pageau’s line was “pay attention to the fools”; many consider West a fool, but he’s a fool in the same sense that the fools and jesters in Shakespeare were fools, in that he is going against the “gentleman’s agreement” in the court (the court here being the world of media and entertainment. In this case, it is the agreement that faith and God and prayer are not that important. “Sure. We all like families,” the gentlemen say, “but we can hold it all together without all that religion stuff…right?” The fools are often the ones tapping into something we’ve decided is untappable that ends up being something we lost and shouldn’t have. It’s inevitably sacred and mystical — and in every way real.

Speaking of entertainers and fools, I don’t watch “ghost hunter” shows for the same reason I don’t watch most reality TV shows: I don’t hate myself. Really though, it’s because the format is painful - repetitive, predictable, with a lot of “filler”… “clickbaity” for lack of a better term.

The actual challenge with ghost shows, of course, is that it seeks to show what which shouldn’t be shown, or rather that which, once shown would lose its allure and value. What would happen if we really did start scientifically proving the existence of ghosts, and communing with them? Besides the fact that we would likely end up having to give them the right to vote (wait…too soon?), the mystery would be gone. When you’re dealing with the “paranormal, “ once the inaccessible nature of the thing is gone, its value is gone. It ceases to be “paranormal” and becomes normal. It would likely be closer akin to discovering that aliens were among us than it would be to bringing us closer to any understanding of our Creator (not that the two must be mutually exclusive). This is why the “m word” was never, ever, ever uttered again past the second act of “The Phantom Menace”, because NO rational person wanted the Force to be explained away as a disease with cool side-effects.

There is a consistent call to “follow the science” or “believe the science” or (my personal favorite - and I even have a response in my yard) “science is real.” Notwithstanding the aphoristic nature of the latter — which if you think about it just a second or two, you could come to ask: what does “believing” or “trusting” in science really mean? — if science is “real”, and it’s provable, then we don’t have to believe in it. It’s real. If it’s shown to be true, then there is no belief required. It just is. 

As a belief system, science is a dead letter. It doesn’t really give us a “why” to do anything; though often it can provide a “how.” Science can slaughter millions of lives or save one precious life. It can rationalize slaughtering hundreds to save thousands, or slaughtering millions for other pretenses of “the greater good.” Science is wholly inadequate at sacrificing many to save one… which is sometimes the most…. rational, and humane choice.

The Star Trek Trilogy (II, III, and IV) was mediocre sci-fi (unlike the first movie which was brilliant and quite underrated), but great movie making.  At its core the entire trilogy was about one thing: disproving the original, hypothesis posited by Mr. Spock that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (after all, if nihilism is true what difference does the number of lives make anyway?). The fact that Spock’s cold, utilitarian notion is completely destroyed over the course of the three movies makes sense, though. It’s the same reason that the most Malthusian villain of all time (you know) is so effective as a villain. The reason is that we know the the individual souls lost randomly are not less important or valuable because of “mouths to feed” or “scarce resources” to feed them.

And if we know this, the gentleman’s agreement is off. Nihilism is not true. There is a meaning to things. There are truths that are immutable. There are wrongs which we need to strive to make right, and inevitably we must, as neighbors and friends and fellow humans be bold enough to call them wrong in order to make them right.

We must speak them even if we’re considered fools — or worse; lest unimaginable evils become assumed as true, good, and proper. We must fill the world with good, even when we can’t prove it. Because it is good, the goodness will be apparent.

On the Christianity front, I heard a homily a couple weeks ago which closed with:

“The question you need to ask yourself is… if you were arrested for being a Christian, would the prosecution have enough evidence, from the way you live your life, to convict you.”

If you’re a person of faith, this is the right question. If you’re not, then find faith. Most importantly something you can’t prove scientifically, because in a paradox of paradoxes, it’s not real belief if you can take it apart, put it in a box and look at if from all angles, because then, you close the box and don’t think about it anymore, and it is the thinking about it, the wondering, even the doubting, that is required.

Faith is something we need now more than ever, not just because our society is going through a long struggle, but because in some ways the most critical things are likely going to get worse before they get better. And we need it because we need the anchor of uncertainty in the “why”… (not just the “how”) lest it become “because we can get away with it.” And, as discussed, “science” is not going to cut it.

More Montesquieu, and this time on the importance of virtue in a Republic, and being bold enough to care whether something is objectively good and true or not, as opposed to whether it means “your side” is winning the moment:

“When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The objects of their desires are changed; what they were fond of before has become indifferent; they were free while under the restraint of laws, but they would fain now be free to act against law; and as each citizen is like a slave who has run away from his master, that which was a maxim of equity he calls rigor; that which was a rule of action he styles constraint; and to precaution he gives the name of fear. Frugality, and not the thirst of gain, now passes for avarice. Formerly the wealth of individuals constituted the public treasure; but now this has become the patrimony of private persons. The members of the commonwealth riot on the public spoils, and its strength is only the power of a few, and the license of many.”

Nihilism is not true, because mystery — like love, and heaven, and Santa Claus — is real. (Below is the flag that we have put up in front of our house. It was one of our country’s first revolutionary flags. It will be up until — at least — July 4th.) 

I place a very high value on our friendship, however a part of friendship is being honest with each other. We have a responsibility to help each other be better than we are today. When we see a friend doing things or believing things which are unhealthy, we should lovingly help each other in those moments. It is in that spirit that I have to tell you that, with all due respect, you are wrong. This is the basis of true and powerful relationships.

Being wrong is causing problems in your life. Your inability to see that you are wrong — indeed your unwillingness to even consider that are wrong — is doing harm to you and those around you. It is causing a rift in our relationship. It is causing you to act in ways that are contrary to your best interests.

I know your first response to this is to be defensive, and to explain how you are right. This leads to arguments in which the entire point is to prove you are right. It denies true discussions that might allow us to find out what is right, what is true.

You are wrong. You believe things that aren’t true. It’s a fact.

So, step away from what I am saying for a few minutes. Grab a coffee or some cola and spend a few minutes chilling with some nice music in the background. Then come back and I’ll continue.

Go ahead… I’ll wait.

Ready? Perhaps a few more minutes of music might be helpful.

Ok… let’s proceed.

Look, I know you are wrong. There isn’t any room to question that fact. It is obvious if you simply step back and consider the matter at hand. No one is infallible. We all “KNOW” facts that are simply wrong, untrue, incorrect. Some are just outright crazy, stupid, unbelievable, silly. Yeah, I’m sorry to be so brutal, but we need to face this inconvenient truth: You firmly believe many things that are simply not true -- and you are all too often willing to argue endlessly to prove it. That isn’t healthy for anyone.

The ability to be effective in this world depends on our ability to step back and consider whether even the most basic things we “KNOW” are true, or not. The more often we are able to correct these incorrect knowings, the more effective we will be in the real world.

Don’t get me wrong. One cannot walk around questioning everything. There is no power, no effectiveness in this world in constantly questioning one’s every thought. The scientific method, however, tells us that when confronted by something which is not explained by our “knowledge” we have to adjust our understanding to match reality. We have to stand ready to change our understanding when evidence is presented which contradicts it.

To do so we have to listen and consider when someone else says something, or shows something, which is contrary to our understanding. We have to take the time to understand how they came to their understanding and honestly hold up the light to both and see where the paths go in different directions. To honestly and openly say “Cold they be right about that?”

We have all walked up to a building and pushed on a door to enter and the door didn’t open. We believed that pushing would open the door, but the sad truth is that we were wrong. We can either continue to push on the door insisting that it opens inward, or we can step back and reconsider our understanding. We won’t be effective in entering until we realize that the door pulls to open instead of pushing.

A door is a very simply, fundament item in the world. It works as it works whether we understand, know, or believe it. The door’s truth is the truth.

If you can be wrong about something as simple as a door, it stands to reason that you may be mistaken, in whole or in part, on the very complex things you face every day. Particularly about the complex things you spend so much time arguing about.

So yes, you’re wrong… about many things. I’m wrong about many things. Whichever (both?) of us can correct our “knowings” the more we’ll be effective in the real world.

So how do we figure out if we are wrong?

Let’s start at the scientific method as described by the infallible Wikipedia (disclosure: sarcasm at work):

“The scientific method … involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.”

Basically, we have to step back and consider what is observed and see if it matches what we believed. The key is that we must step back and actually consider.

Science is all about, “We understand X to be true until proven otherwise.”

I think we would all do well to understand that we’re wrong… about some things… and need to listen to others and seriously, honestly, openly consider whether that person is right.

But they’re probably wrong.

So, we have a new President. In case anyone missed it, yes there was an inauguration on January 20th. There were the MOST security precautions and the LEAST attendees in at least modern memory and probably ever. Notwithstanding the shenanigans and violence on January 6th, the transition has gone…smoothly. Doesn’t seem it. But history will mark it as such, in my view.

Now I want to avoid doing the “two Americas” approach to the conversation about what we can all do moving forward. I want to approach the matter treating all those reading as: human beings first, individuals second, before even thinking of going “tribal” (H/T Heather Heying).

Ideally, it would be also… ideal to avoid talking about who-is-to-blame for our current divisiveness. However, it’s not clear that anyone in the current landscape will read much further without some sort of understanding, and if not a common understanding, then at least common airing, of the things that got us here.

Let me take, then, the — begrudgingly — few inches of text regarding…

WHO IS TO BLAME

First: Donald J Trump. He is mentioned first here not because he is necessarily the MOST to blame, but he is the most important and — until about a week ago — the most powerful personality at the heart of our current crisis of confidence in each other and in that common cause (“The Republic” in theory)  which we must consider required for our unity as a nation. Even if President Trump is not the cause of any of this, but that he has definitely not taken sufficient responsibility in trying to make it better and not worse. We will not list the myriad ways in which it can be safely argued this is true. Instead, we should simply focus on the one, singular (and in my view, unforgivable), betrayal:  he participated in the passion, partisanship, populism, and raw power of victimology. It’s not clear to me how many times he used the term (my assumption is not that often), but it was one of the later speeches of his term in which he told the crowd “all of us here [including himself of course] are victims!” From my perspective, this is the most salient sin, which animated his rhetoric from the beginning and it is — for lack of a better way to describe it — un-American. This is not his only sin, but it leads to at least a majority of his others. After all, you can’t be “winning all the time!” and be a victim! Pick a lane.

Speaking of victimology, another source one can look to for blame: “critical race theory” (CRT), and the progressive, activist, left… specifically those who have promoted this conflation of speech and violence since about 2014 (Michael Brown), ramped up rhetoric and rationalizations in about 2017 (don’t like the President? “punch a Nazi!”), and providing an inappropriate amount of cover for those committing violence (resulting in the loss of 25 souls) since the beginning of the civil unrest in late May 2020 after the death of George Floyd. (There is a lot more to say about this, but will have to do so in another piece.)

Next: the Evangelical, Trump-loving “right-wing.” It was unconscionable to pretend that President Trump— even if the better choice over Hillary Clinton for President in 2016 — was a “fellow traveler” in faith, temperament, reason, or humility. Somehow a fantasy world took hold where some managed to convince themselves we had something different — to put it mildly — than what we actually had in the White House. Some in leadership positions in evangelical circles are slowly but surely coming to terms with this. The more of that the better.

THE ANSWER IS: ALL OF US

Lastly, all the rest of us. No, really. You, the reader. Your humble author. Everyone. Including in this very article for spending so much time looking to the Federal Government in general, and the White House in particular, for leadership, for guidance, for virtue and wisdom, for anything. We are guilty of taking our eyes off of the ball. For forgetting that we’re in charge of our destinies and that we are citizens and not subjects. Now I say that not in terms of “speaking truth to power” or making sure we have a voice, or some other mindless (victim-centric) democratic (small d) notion that we need to finally storm the castle (too soon?) and let them know we’re boss. Number one, that’s insane. That’s not the way any of this works. But more importantly, we have to take a much harder look at what we are doing, personally, as individuals and families and communities, and expect LESS from our Government, lest we get more than what we bargained for (also another piece for another day).

Now, if you made it this far, God bless you, you’re willing to acknowledge, a) that we are not (almost none of us) victims of any of the operators of the current political mess, and b) that more than that we (everyone) are indeed the ones at fault.

NO, THE PRESIDENT IS NOT GOING TO HELP

So what to do moving forward to get beyond this morass? First, our new President (as if to put an exclamation mark on the previous point that the Federal Government is not going to help, and is probably incapable of helping), has done three things that tell us he’s not serious about actually helping “bring us together” (notice I didn’t put President Biden in the people to blame — in particular…he is a part of “everyone” — because I believe the point here is that he’s not HELPING, not that he has been a cause):

First, he made sure and provided his ode to CRT with his denouncement of “White Supremacists” and “domestic terrorists’ in his speech, without an ounce of curiosity, humility, or accountability to the far-left madness and violence of the last eight months. 

Second, he proceeded to launch into the usual (though — at least in pure volume/speed/density — bigger, bolder, and better!) foray of Executive Orders that every President since Reagan that represented a party change in the White House felt the need to do: kill/save babies; wokeify/unwokeify college campuses and the military; join/leave whatever international cabal/treaty that will send signals to your base that you care about their strongest passions. A president that wanted unity would stop that predictable back and forth and demand that the country’s lawmakers (remember those guys?) actually write the laws… just for the nostalgia of the thing.

Third, as if to show that President Biden really has not actually had a conversation with a single solitary Trump supporter… ever, he tapped Jeb Bush(!!) as his way of reaching out to Republican voters. For those of you who are NOT Trump supporters, in case this confuses you, let me help: Jeb Bush is the quintessential representation of everything the Republican electorate rejected when picking Donald J Trump as their nominee in 2016. There is no worse ambassador to committed Trump supporters than Jeb, no matter how nice of a fella he is. So, either Biden has indeed not met a Trump supporter, or this is specifically  calculated to divide the GOP even further. I can tell you which one of those options, most Trump fans will believe. Both. Definitely both.

SO WHAT TO DO

One of my favorite, eye-roll-inducing, cliche catchphrases is: “Think Globally; Act Locally.” Let’s start here. The next time someone tells you to “Think Globally; Act Locally”… just say no. One of the more modern iterations of this same mindset is (on the K-12 education front.. yet another future piece) is the singular worst possible alternative to the modern (also bad) education paradigm of job preparation and behavior modification/self-esteem management. That is, of course, the “my-kid-is-gonna-save-the-world-with-her-ipad!” approach:

Just… please. First, what happens to her precious self-esteem when she’s been working for 10 years and still hasn’t saved the world, and second, what does she have to offer the planet right now, other than a culturally ingrained narcissism? Not her fault of course (this poor girl… I mean she’s just a model, but I still feel like I’m picking on her… I’m sure she’ll be fine!), but we should encourage our kids to… well … do what I’m going to propose that all of us should do.

“Thinking Globally” operates under the assumption that the world really cares about what you think. “Acting locally” says that you have it all figured out and all you really need to do is: get up and ACT! This is a completely backwards way to treat your neighbors, whether they be next door, or a fellow countryman in a state with (shudder) more Trump voters than Biden voters (or vice versa). All of us, at any age, need to be more humble in our thinking, and do a lot more thinking before acting. And the “acting” should start with conversations where we can seek to learn as well as persuade. No. It’s not “kumbaya”; it’s… humility, and friendship, and… society.

Instead, we should look at our communities as something more than a stage in desperate need of our life-changing wisdom and more as a neighborhood where we can put down roots, and be better human beings, and build and maintain relationships. And we should do this not only based on the things we have as common interests or the ways in which we help each other, but through that third-tier Aristotelian style of friendship, where we support each other’s efforts at seeking and pursuing what is “the good.” Not for the world, but for each other, for our families and neighbors and friends. We start improving the world by starting where we are. We should completely ditch “Think Globally; Act Locally” and instead just go with: “Be Good; Be Local.”

Now we should read a few minds here and predict that there are a few who are now saying something along the lines of:

“Here Butch goes with that old ‘let’s-be-more-civil-and-sing-kumbaya-and-just-love-each-other’ hogwash! What a bunch of malarkey! Our culture is being thrown in the trash heap by a bunch of [insert your favorite bogeymen here] and we need to [Fight? Re-educate the backward? Buy more ammo? Speak truth to power? WIN the culture war once and for all instead of giving it up?] if we stand a chance of surviving!”

To that, let me say two things: 1) I’ve never been a fan of nicey-nice, touchy feely, civil discourse for the purpose of hearing each other out and making sure ALL our feelings are heard. I’m supportive of the people engaged in that mission, but am quite convinced the real progress is only made by doing two things at the same time, paradoxically even: telling the truth about what we think and believe and even being so bold as to consider it “the truth” where we believe it as such (coupled with acknowledging that in some cases it can be just a perspective), 2) caring about, showing compassion for, and minding the humanity of those we are speaking to, even those who strongly disagree with our beliefs, and even our “truths.” The reason for this is pretty simple: there is no alternative. What choice do we have but to be loving and compassionate to our fellow neighbors and countrymen? Eradicate? Re-educate? Ignore? There are no good options, anyway.

OUR COMMON PARADOX

For instance, just to take two very extreme example; one longer-running and one very recent (though the recent one is part of something much more long term which is why it is so important). 

Let’s start with the LGBTQIA+ movement/community/paradigm (since I’ve already made everyone mad on that issue, why not double down and use it as an example). If you consider yourself (at the least) an ally of that movement and you also think it is an objective “truth” that every aspect of the movement should be embraced and justified because “love is love” or something of that sort… then you may not immediately understand or appreciate someone who has a cultural or religious objection to the tenets of the LGBTQIA+ faith. But since most world religions (yes, even the ones you may feel justified in remaining a part of, and/or the ones that you’ve left in disgust), dating back thousands of years do not share your view; added to the internal contradictions (TERFs come to mind) in the narrative itself; and the fact that the most relevant progressive idol of the age was against gay marriage until after a full term in the White House (and a whopping three years prior to the Obergefell decision); and what you get is a very weak basis for the assumption that you are definitively on the “right side” of history, reason, or justice. Further, you have to approach the issue, and your ideological counterparts not with, “bless their hearts; they’re just behind the times,” but in a way in which you have to believe in at least the possibility that you’re wrong. (Yes, even that gay marriage is doubleplusgood, but most importantly on the extreme that rushing to chemically castrating drugs is somehow always a life-saver to those suffering from gender dysphoria — especially adolescents.) After all, if you are definitively against all religions, then you might be the bigot in this scenario (more on “bigotry” at the end).

More recently, we’re going to talk frankly and directly to the 50+ million people who believe that the election was stolen by the Democrats in November. Here’s the thing: you must be able to live alongside those who believe it was perfectly above board, and folks like myself who… well are unconvinced either way. To the above point, if our Republic is being stolen, it is up to us to restore it, and we must do it by loving our neighbor as ourselves. If, after the last 5 years, we have a limited-government bone left in our bodies, we must know that we have to set the example. We must be the good in the world, and let it make us better. We must pursue wisdom and virtue because it’s right; not because someone else wins or loses an election.

Want to save the culture? Be better. Better in our conversations. Better in our faith. Bold in our expressions. Confident and compassionate. Speak truth…not “to power," but with love to our neighbor. That is our culture. America is more than our Government. It is de Toqueville’s and Burke’s “little platoons” …. America is nothing if it is not a paradox of fierce individuality and a commitment to our fellow man… no election; no matter how contentious, should take that away. 

Speaking of presidents (and inaugurations), our second and third Presidents had many vehement disagreements. So much so that the 2nd didn’t even attend the 3rd’s inauguration. They didn’t speak for many years…. but eventually  they connected again through correspondence, and exchanged some letters about religious liberty and pluralism (more specifically, trinitarianism and unitarianism), and Thomas Jefferson wrote the following:

“I very much think that if thinking men would have the courage to think for themselves, and to speak what they think, it would be found they do not differ in religious opinions as much as is supposed…”

Doing our own thinking and speaking what we think is paramount, even at the risk of being called a commie or a bigot, for as G.K. Chesteron put it, “Bigotry can be roughly defined as the anger of men with no opinions.”

Don’t be a bigot. Thanks for reading.

Social Media Artificial intelligence algorithms shape your world view by creating a custom designed “reality” based on your personality and activities in all areas of your usage of the internet — across applications, websites, and services. The reality you have created for you is very different than that created for someone else. It is completely different that the one presented to your child.

The facts, memes, articles, notifications, discussions, and ads that you see are only those various AI Algorithms select. The AI are designed to keep you engaged online and to influence you as desired by the company or their paying customers. You are targeted based on the most extensive profile anyone has ever created on you, your views, your activities, and those of your friends.

The more you respond to one type of article, the more of those types of articles you will see, the more of the posts from your friends that also read them you’ll see. The more discussions of one nature you and your friends are engage in the more you’ll see that type of discussion and information related to the discussion. These things will “bubble up” to the top of your social networking newsfeed.

These artificial intelligence networks are designed to draw you as far into an areas as they can get you. That keeps you engaged. If you’re into trains it will take you as deep into the train information, ads, and community as it can get you to go. If you are into politics it will take you whatever direction you starting and take you as far as it can get you to go… to keep you engaged.

If you click on an article about a democrat running for office, the system will start showing you more articles and ads for democrats. It will start showing you more content about things democrats are talking about. It will priorities postings of friends who are likewise engaged. The more time you spend on those things the more it will show you.

As you progress and read more of those types of article and posts and ads that you look at, even if you don’t click on them, those actions will be noted. If you select something a little more to the left it will show you more of that. If you engage in discussions with a friend about something a little further left it will show you more of that… and so on. The more time you spend on things related to that the more it will show you.

All the while it is leading you down the path to radicalization. All you start seeing is further left articles, discussions, ads, “news”. It slowly eliminates things which contradict your positions. UNLESS, you spend more time engaging in arguments, then it will show you things which make you argue because… that’s more time online, you’re more engaged… which is what the algorithms are designed to do.

Eventually all you are seeing are things on “your” side of the issues. All the people you’re engaged with agree with you. Everything is one “reality”, one world view, one position - except perhaps for that one person you keep arguing with.

Through this process the social network’s artificial intelligence networks are creating different sets of reality. It spreads everyone out into various levels of left/right/. It reinforces each set, from neutral to radical and keep them all in their various echo chambers.

These artificial intelligence systems are based on neural nets. These are systems which are fed input, told what output they want and the AI systems build their own methods on how to accomplish that. The people who set-up and train these systems are unaware of the details and “methods the neural network make to produce the desired result. They understand the process of how it might have determined it, but they won’t understand the methods the neural nets end up using. It just works… somehow. We feed it this information and get the result we want.

For example, I can feed a neural network a large number of fish pictures with labels of what that picture is. I can feed this into a neural network learning set-up and it will learn to identify fish in pictures. I can then start feeding it unlabeled pictures and it will label the fish for more. Once the network has learned something I can save that “state” and use it whenever I want.

What I can’t tell you is exactly how it identifies the fish. Two neural networks doing the same thing may end up with completely different ways of doing things. They can continue to learn if they are corrected and will endlessly modify their method — in ways that might take an engineering team years to reverse engineer and understand what exactly it is doing.

Lets do some math explorations just to get a feel for how this might work in the real world… using assumptions pulled completely out of thin air.

So let’s say that one percent of the population have personalities that are susceptible to radicalization on a passionate ideological level. Let’s further assume that one percent of those (.01% of the entire population) are susceptible to be influenced to commit to some extreme actions for a cause. Then one percent of those are open to serious criminal activities associated with that. There are 244,000,000 people on social media in the United States. One percent of that is 2,440,000 “passionate” people. One percent of that is 24,000 activated people. That leaves 240 people who will commit a crime for the cause.

So how does this work in reality. Let’s say I want to influence a number of people in a direction towards something I believe and am passionate about. Let’s say I want to create a March on DC to end the vitriol against brussel sprouts, — a subject that has started when the president mentioned how he hates them.

Now for this march I want people highly motived people. So I define a group of people who are “against the president”, “have attended a protests”, “are foodies”, unemployed, between the ages of 15 and 35, and are within 300 miles of DC. I can target these specific people with ads and information about my cause.

If they click on it their friends will likely see it. The more they click on information the more I’ll pay for their future clicks. Soon they’re protesting. It wouldn’t be hard to target those who might do “more”.

The systems are designed to draw people in. The more they click the more they get. All the same view or a little further down the line.

Censorship on social networking isn’t the threat… it’s the foundational way social networks work.

Butch starts this podcast episode out with a public service announcement warning people NOT to go see the new Wonder Woman movie. It's... horrible. After that, Jessica and Butch tackle the issue of vaccines and whether it should be mandatory, and parsing out what is good for society and what is good for families and individuals.

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Independent Education: https://inded.us
Great Conversation(s): https://greatconversations.us   
ROTG Podcast: https://rotgpodcast.us
Patreon: https://patreon.com/rotgpodcast
Twitter: https://twitter.com/realbutchporter
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user126997330

Flor's Rule is: "Never be intimidated by being by yourself, because you can always find something that is close to your heart to give you comfort."

For more information on the Leesburg Nativity Tour, go go:

https://www.loudounawakening.org/leesburgnativitytour

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AND from all of us at IndED, Great Conversation(s), and the Rules of the Game Podcast, have a safe and happy, very MERRY Christmas!

📷:Jaroslav Čermák (1831-1878), “St. Nicholas” (photo: Public Domain)

The “Modern” Santa Claus

Did you see the one about a 4-year-old boy telling Santa he wants a Nerf gun for Christmas? Santa’s response was an immediate, “No, no guns!” The boy made plain he had asked for a Nerf gun, you know, the toy gun that shoots out Styrofoam. Santa responds with, “Nope, not even a Nerf gun.” The Mall-Santa-Who-Stole-Christmas threw the kid a bone and suggested this boys’ Dad get him a Nerf gun, but pushed that Santa could/would NOT.

Bah, humbug!

Call me crazy, but Santa isn’t paid to be politically correct or to drive an anti-gun agenda on children as he dissuades them from asking for their favorite toy for Christmas. He’s paid to nod yes and smile for pictures. Am I right? 

While Santa Claus + political agendas + individual liberties + parental rights make for a tempting topic, that idea will have to wait.

Who is St. Nicholas really?

However, let’s think more about Santa Claus. Let’s think first about St. Nicholas, the man who inspired the great “Papa Noel,” “Babadimri,” and “Dyado Koleda.”

There are many tales of St. Nicholas that combine to create the portrait of a heartening fellow. There’s one about a poor man’s daughters and how mysteriously bags of gold appeared in their home providing needed dowries to protect them from prostitution. There’s one about a pirate who kidnapped and enslaved a young boy who was then rescued a year later by Nicholas and returned to his grieving parents holding his captures golden cup. Another tells of a murderous innkeeper who hid his victims in pickling tubs. It is said that Nicholas found some of these pickled people, appealed to God through prayer, and these bodies were restored to life! Nicholas’s prayers have also been said to have calmed stormy seas and saved people from famine. These stories inform us how it is that St. Nicholas has become known as gift giver, protectorate, and savior.

While some of the tales about St. Nicholas are tall, it is true that he was a man after God’s own heart, passionate and compassionate, zealous for truth and mercy. He was a devout Christian who sold everything he had and gave his money to the poor. He dedicated his life to God and caring for the sick and needy. He even suffered exile and imprisonment for his faith.

So I have to wonder then what St. Nicholas would think of his alter-ego that has become so prominent in today’s Christmas culture? St. Nicholas’ passion and zeal for truth after all compelled him to slap Arius the heretic across the face at the Council of Nicaea. Might he then be compelled, maybe less so for the sake of sailors but at least for the children’s sake, to knock some upside the head and trumpet, “For the love of Baby Jesus, pay attention, there is but one worthy omniscient, omnipresent, giver of good gifts, most famous ‘old man in the sky’ figure!”

What Would Santa think?

Troubled by the obvious contradictions between himself and this Santa character, St. Nicholas may think, “Who is this idol who belongs only to children? I am a model for all of life. I did not come to boost Christmas sales, but to deliver peace, goodwill and God’s hope. It’s not about consumption; it’s about compassion! This Santa appears only for a short time, I am part of the communion of saints who surround you always with prayer and example. I did not fly through the air, but walked on the earth. I did not exist to replace the Babe of Bethlehem, but to point to the Babe of Bethlehem!”

Maybe he would go on to proclaim, “No, I want the children to be affected with great surprise and wonder by the truth that they can delight in all their lives. Not a story that loses it’s magic at the age of eight or so. The real reason for the season, the real joy to be shared at Christmas, is not a fairy tale, nor is it bound to a single month on the calendar. The reason we celebrate Christmas is actual and everlasting. It’s not put away until the following year or exposed and discredited when a child comes of age. There should be no false benefactor with whom Jesus will have to compete. The tone should not be: Be good and you will get more stuff. Christmas should be obsessed with a baby in a manger, and no other!” 

(Can you hear the passion in this “Santa’s” tone? It’s why (s)he’s noted before that deprivation for a child would be to allow the Living Savior to be overshadowed by a jolly twinkly flying character, or depending on your perspective, an obese toy maker who enslaves elves to work day and night, all year long, without any breaks, for high-fructose corn syrup in the form of confections and candies! A man who sends an elf to encourage superficial behavior modification in exchange for short-term earthly treasures discarded or forgotten about or unaffectionately acknowledged before the next years list is born.) 

Get rid of Santa?

I just do not believe that discluding Santa Clause in our Christmas celebration we are depriving children of the joy of the season. (For boys and girls with visions of Nerf guns in their heads, perhaps we would be preserving some of that joy?) Rather, we are redirecting that joy and giving Christmas back to the true omniscient, omnipresent, giver of good gifts, for the benefit of all. I think St. Nicholas would cheer, “May their hearts know this joy each and everyday!”

There’s a great advantage for literal-thinking and uncritical young minds to not have to pick through a marble cake of part truth and part imaginative story to find the crumbs of reality surrounding the meaning of Christmas. The truth is Christmas gifts do not come from a bottomless sack but from the people they love, who know the worst of their behavior throughout the year and still show love and generosity in return. The truth is despite our unworthiness, our loving Father sent his son to be born as a baby to live a life in this world, be put to death by this world, so that when we leave this world, we can spend an eternity in heaven where we will have everything our hearts desire.

Some Alternatives

So here are some NEW ideas for remembering St. Nicholas’ love of Jesus (sans Santa Claus):

1) Fill a golden cup with chocolate coins and place it by your fireplace or Christmas tree for the kids to enjoy. It's a great time to retell the story of St. Nicholas and how he was inspired by his faith.

2) Host a lunch or dinner for friends or neighbors and tell your favorite stories of St. Nicholas while feasting. It's a great way to extend hospitality, show generosity, and everyone gets to remember the life and muse of a great man.

3) Make up "Blessing Bags" for the homeless and needy. Use large Ziploc bags and put in helpful items (a bottle of water, granola bar, toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, gift cards if you like). These can be packed on St. Nicholas day, December the 6th, then kept handy for when you see folks in need, at a stop light, exit, sidewalk, etc. Don’t forget to include a small card that reads, “Jesus loves you!”

Lots of other ways, for all ages, to enjoy the love, joy, and peace that is advent and the Christmas season. Merry Christmas!