A Sound of Sheer Silence

In 1651, in the middle of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan , or more fully " Leviathan: On the Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil ."  Leviathan is a classic of political theory, and is read alongside Locke, Rousseau, and Machiavelli as part of the basis of "early modern" or "Enlightenment" political thinking.  It is also, I think, a deeply misunderstood book.  It's misunderstood because there is a surface-level argument that Hobbes is making (which is the one that everyone focuses on), and then there is a a much more interesting and I think much more relevant argument that he makes under the surface. Hobbes begins his thinking with the notion of "the State of Nature"--what human beings are like without any of the constraints of society.  Unlike those that would follow him (like Locke and especially Rousseau), Hobbes thinks that this State of Nature is unambiguously terrible, expressed ...

“I recommend it to the Charity of all good People to look back, and reflect duly upon the Terrors of the Time; and whoever does so will see, that it is not an ordinary Strength that cou'd support it; it was not like appearing in the Head of an Army, or charging a Body of Horse in the Field; but it was charging Death itself on his pale Horse; to stay indeed was to die, and it could be esteemed nothing less.” --Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) I have about 75 pages written of a science fiction novel.  It is set about 50 years in the future, in the aftermath of a plague.  The plague killed off around half of the Earth's population.  But what the novel is really about is the ways in which that event changed our political and social life.  The origin of the book is in a thought experiment--what it really take to get people to do the work necessary to reverse climate change?  What would it take to allow for conditions of truly significant, radica...

Charlie has hit every major military target in Vietnam, and hit 'em hard. In Saigon, the United States Embassy has been overrun by suicide squads. Khe Sahn is standing by to be overrun. We also have reports that a division of N.V.A. has occupied all of the city of Hue south of the Perfume River. In strategic terms, Charlie's cut the country in half... the civilian press are about to wet their pants and we've heard even Cronkite's going to say the war is now unwinnable. In other words, it's a huge shit sandwich, and we're all gonna have to take a bite.   --Lt. Lockhart, Full Metal Jacket (1987). Everything is going to shit.  In your heart, you know I'm right. For my American readers, we are collectively living in Year 2 of the slow-motion car crash that is the Trump regime.  And, as I sit here on New Year's Eve, every indicator suggests that we are about to enter into some sort of new, more baroque version in Year 3, as the Mueller investigation clos...

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots ...

We have intentionally obscured the unambiguously clear, unifying message of the New Testament, in all of its diversity—that God’s agenda is to transfigure the world through nonviolent, self-sacrificial love. That is the Jesus way. There is simply no way around this. — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) October 4, 2018 I happened to see this first thing this morning.  It's very much worth reading in full, but I was particularly struck by these two observations. The fact of the matter is, the pendulum will swing hard the other way against the powers that be, & there is plenty I am not/will not be comfortable with. But don’t miss the point-even when it gets a little wild or far, that doesn’t mean Spirit isn’t at work in the anarchy. — Jonathan Martin (@theboyonthebike) October 4, 2018 It sounds like a rushing mighty wind, but it is only experienced as violence to those that resist it. Sons & daughter will go too far in their newfound freedom, like all liber...

There is a lot of talk about "owning your privilege."  Allow me to make an attempt at owning mine. One of the things about my life that I am increasingly aware is very unusual for a straight man of my age is that I have a handful of very close, very deep male friendships.  There are three or four (depending on the circumstances) people that I have known for a very long time (20+ years) and with whom I feel comfortable sharing personal things--struggles, fears, losses, disappointments.  And these people have shared similar things in their lives with me. This has been an enormous blessing in my life, one of the top two or three blessings that I have received.  But it has one notable downside, and has created a notable blindspot.  Because I know these guys so well, and so intimately, they form the baseline for what I think men as a whole are like.  Or, more accurately, they form a sample set from which I extrapolate my back-of-the-envelope estimates of wha...

1.  The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I spent a week in Tallahassee, Florida at an event called Boys' State.  It was put on by the American Legion (an association of foreign war veterans), and it was a government/civics-oriented thing.  The highlight, at least for me, was that you could get yourself "elected" to various positions in a faux state government, and then form up and go through the motions of being legislators and other politicians.  I got "elected" to the State Senate, and we deliberated in the actual Florida State Senate chambers, voted on proposed legislation, and all the rest.  I "served" the State Senate with my (still to this day) close friend Justin (now Father Justin, the Russian Orthodox priest), and we had a grand old time. In addition to the legislative stuff, there was a great deal of, well, political content, for lack of a better term.  The biggest part of this was that we all had to prepare "Am...

I will confess that I really like Jesus Christ Superstar .  I like the music, I like the over-the-top staging.  I just like it.  And, in a true upset, the live version on NBC Easter Sunday night was actually really well done.  Judas (Brandon Dixon), Mary Magdalene (Sarah Bareillis), and Simon the Zealot (Erik Gronwall) were particularly good, Alice Cooper was appropriately ridiculous as Herod, and John Legend as Jesus brought a soulful note to the character.  The live audience was a nice touch, and the staging was very industrial and interesting. But, watching in Sunday night, it hit me as to the real reason why I like Jesus Christ Superstar .  People talk about how  Jesus Christ Superstar  is a "modern" take on the Jesus story, and that's true.  People talk about how it shows a more human Jesus, and that's true, too.  But the real reason why  Jesus Christ Superstar  is modern is that the whole story is really a reflection on...

Twitter is mostly terrible, but there are a few bright spots, and one of them is Nicole Cliffe.  Moreso than anyone else I have found, she is able to tell consistently compelling stories in the weird and artificial format that Twitter provides.  She also has this incredibly ability to build community around her writing on Twitter, which sounds strange when you say it but is 100% true. Yesterday, Cliffe dropped a particularly amazing story, the beginning of which is: OKAY: I am going to tell the story of my bigamous grandmother at the current time. Please mute me if you heard it two years ago. Please do not steal it for an Elite Daily story (happened last time.) — Nicole Cliffe (@Nicole_Cliffe) March 25, 2018 Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.  Beyond being a cracker of a tale, her story got me thinking about a question that I think is at the heart of so much what is going on in America right now.  Everyone, I think, recognizes that things have chan...

1. There are many radical ideas and claims in Christianity.  But if I had to pick one, it would be what Christianity, or more specifically Jesus, has to say about power.  There are probably other religious or wisdom traditions have a similar take on power, but I am not aware of any that present it so clearly and so forcefully. Here is what Jesus, in essence, teaches us about power:  We think that power and having power (in all of its normal forms--authority, money, sex, fame, social or other kinds of status, etc.) makes us powerful.  In fact, phrased this way, it sound like a self-evident truism.  But, and here is the truly radical part, it's not true.  And not just not true--having power and acquiring power and protecting power actually is a trap, a prison that disempowers us in the end.  In fact, the only way to obtain something like "power," if that's the right word, is to voluntarily and self-consciously give up all of our power. As I s...

1. In 1843, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote a book entitled Fear and Trembling .  The primary focus of the book is the story of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22), known in the Jewish tradition as the Akedah .  Kierkegaard begins his analysis by noting that sacrificing one's own son, or any innocent person for that matter, is unethical.  In the normal course of affairs, if someone asked you or told you to kill your own child or some other random person, you would of course reject that request.  In fact, you would be obligated , by any reasonable moral framework, to reject that request.  Your ethical duty is clear, and it says that you must not kill an innocent child. But, in the Akedah , it is God who commands Abraham to kill Isaac.  As the creator of the universe and the ground of all being, God is generally seen as the ultimate source for all moral analysis.  If God is the ultimate measur...