Interesting articles and Lamentations
Welcome to the Mueller Report!
Well, this didn’t go out yesterday…Such is life with car searching, student retreats, and sermon prep!
I often read Alan Jacob’s newsletter “Snakes and Ladders.” It’s fun, interesting, and often dizzying in the variety of topics he includes. I’ve always wondered how he does it, but I am starting to get a sense as I try to round up my thoughts from the past week which have varied wildly from taking the family on long treks to look at used cars and then to camp with a couple hundred students for a night, while trying to prep for classes, write a sermon for Sunday, and deal with other sundry matters.
This week I have a few things to share.
Articles
Here are a couple articles you may find interesting. One is a nice essay by philosopher Rob Koons at First Things about “Prudence during the Pandemic.” I like much of what he has to say, especially in clarifying various moral categories and judgments. I can’t say he gives Adam Smith a fair shake, though, and am thinking about writing a response (maybe, someday) - in this I think he follows Aliasdair MacIntyre all too closely.
One of my former professors, Bryan Caplan, has written an article reflecting on homeschooling his kids. Caplan is not your normal educated secular person. He has written interesting and provocative books like The Case Against Education and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. I found both quite persuasive. And Caplan lives by what he believes to be true - having four children of his own, again, almost unheard of in a highly educated wealthy non-religious household.
He also wrote this delightful justification of embarking on homeschooling his boys many years ago.
Classes
I taught my first session at NYU this week. I was impressed and pleasantly surprised by the students. They participated eagerly in Socratic back and forth. They had obviously read and thought about the assigned readings and recorded lectures ahead of time. And, what I find most encouraging, they were willing to engage the material on its own terms - it’s not every day you can get economics majors at a secular school to have a three hour conversation on just price theory, including commentary from Aristotle, Aquinas, the Spanish Scholastics, and John Locke.
In Economic Policy, we had conversations about efficiency, and how tricky it can be to define. What does “benefits” being greater than “costs” really mean when it comes to human health? Or when some people get a disproportionate share of the benefits and others get a disproportionate share of the costs? Economists have long suggested that market exchange is the best way to increase efficiency in society because both parties are made better off and no one is made worse off. Except that sometimes other people may be worse off if there are external costs to a transaction (such as pollution, noise, congestion, etc.) Multiple fields within economics emerged in the 20th century dealing with these questions of public goods, externalities, transaction costs, and the nature of efficiency.
The seminal article on this is by economist Ronald Coase: “The Problem of Social Cost”. I highly recommend it, even if you are not an economist.
In ETAP, we discussed the materialism of the Hobbesian turn, both politically and economically. Hobbes more or less argues that government cannot make citizens virtuous the way previous philosophers argued it should. Even more subversive, he claims that virtue, by itself, is not enough to get men to do what they ought in most situations:
For the laws of nature (as justice, equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be done to) of themselves, without the terror of some power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge and the like.
Instead, government should focus on maintaining peace and promoting material prosperity. His later counterpart in economics was a physician named Bernard Mandeville who argued that all action is motivated by self-interest and therefore even what we often consider virtuous behavior is actually vice in disguise because the person engaging in the activity must get some benefit from the activity - even if it is only internal satisfaction.
Mandeville goes on to argue that modern prosperity and economic growth relies on vanity, greed, selfishness, and excessive luxury - in short consumption beyond what we need in order to live. He suggests we should worry less about distinctions between virtue and vice and instead appreciate and support ever expanding market activity.
As you can probably guess, he caused quite a stir in the early 1700s and many of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers responded with vigor to his claims.
Sermon
I am preaching on Lamentations tomorrow. It is not a book one reads or considers much - I am not sure I have ever heard a sermon on it. But I think will be quite edifying and helpful for us to consider in light of our current cultural moment.
In sum, Jeremiah’s lament reminds us of the holiness and severity of God’s justice, while also pointing to his mercy. The stark situation he laments is the loss of every material, physical blessing one could look for. Death, destruction, shame, and loss are every as God punishes Israel and sends them into exile. There is no home, there is no comfort, even families are no longer intact.
One song my family started listening to a few years ago has a line about Israel’s punishment, saying that because of their disobedience they have: “Big problems, big, big problems. Assyrian and Babylonian problems.” That line gives me comfort, perhaps wrongly, because I often think - “well, my problems aren’t that bad. I have to find a new car to buy, deal with being sick, file my taxes, bear up with ungrateful children…Not worry about my home being demolished, my family and community being killed and/or going into exile, etc.” It provides some perspective.
But, Lamentations also reminds us not to rely on our circumstances for joy or hope. The Lord is our hope - when our nation is in turmoil or at risk of losing its national pre-eminence, or when our situation is difficult due to disease or government diktat. And things could always get worse. The question is, how will we respond if our situation does worsen?
Jeremiah reminds us:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b]
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
And as God’s people, we know:
You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
you have redeemed my life.
I plan to finish with the following words - I hope they encourage you:
Remember Christ when you read about Covid-19 risks and variants
Remember Christ when you are frustrated by those who disagree with you, whether about vaccines, masks, tax policy, foreign policy, or social policy.
Remember Christ when you see senseless and shameful violence in society.
Remember Christ when you are disappointed
Remember Christ when you are lonely.
Remember Christ when you suffer….
Until next week…