Men Resemble Heaven and Earth

Men resemble heaven and earth in that they cherish five principles. Of all creatures, man is the most skilful. His nails and teeth do not suffice to procure him maintenance and shelter. His skin and sinews do not suffice to defend him; though running he cannot attain profit nor escape harm, and he has neither hair nor feathers to protect him from the cold and heat. He is thus compelled to use things to nourish his nature, to rely on his intelligence, and not to put his confidence in brute force; therefore intelligence is appreciated because it preserves us and brute force despised because it encroaches upon things.

From Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasures, Chapter XVI. Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasures is Anton Forke's 1912 translation of the seventh part of the Liezi, which purports to give the views of the philosopher Yang Zhu (also known as Yang Zi). Yangist philosophy had a period in which it was apparently extremely popular, but we don't actually have any direct information about Yang Zhu; Mencius argued against him, attributing to him the view that you should act for your own good. The Yang Zhu chapter is much more likely to be someone's attempt to expand on this idea than to be anything connected by actual tradition to Master Yang himself; the chapter's Epicurus-like hedonism is not obviously consistent with the particular version of Taoism that seems espoused by the rest of the Liezi. The "Yang Zhu" section is famous for its claim that all a man needs in a life is "a comfortable house, fine clothes, good food, and pretty women" (Chapter XIX).

Common Doctor

 Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church. One of his most famous works:

Pange Lingua
by St. Thomas Aquinas
Edward Caswall, tr.

Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory,
of His flesh the mystery sing;
of the Blood, all price exceeding,
shed by our immortal King,
destined, for the world's redemption,
from a noble womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin
born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing,
stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
then He closed in solemn order
wondrously His life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper,
seated with His chosen band,
He the Pascal victim eating,
first fulfills the Law's command;
then as Food to His Apostles
gives Himself with His own hand.

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
by His word to Flesh He turns;
wine into His Blood He changes;--
what though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest,
faith her lesson quickly learns.

Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail;
Lo! o'er ancient forms departing,
newer rites of grace prevail;
faith for all defects supplying,
where the feeble senses fail.

To the everlasting Father,
and the Son who reigns on high,
with the Holy Ghost proceeding
forth from Each eternally,
be salvation, honor, blessing,
might and endless majesty.
Amen. Alleluia.

 

Westra on Virtue Signaling

 Evan Westra has a forthcoming paper on virtue signaling in the unfortunate genre of analyses that do not analyze the term being analyzed but analyze instead of what it looks like it might be if you ignore its actual use. In particular, it's one of those that takes 'virtue signaling' to mean either 'signaling your virtue' or 'signaling what virtues you consider important', despite all the endless evidence that it means 'trying to treat one's signaling of virtue as equivalent to virtue'. Wenstra comes right out and states it: "Virtue signaling is the act of engaging in public moral discourse in order to enhance or preserve one’s moral reputation." He justifies this with a footnote to Bartholomew's essay, which was a key influence on the spread of the term, but this is not at all what Bartholomew says. As Bartholomew describes it, virtue signaling is a kind of "camouflage" and "disguise" that "comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs" and is contrasted with being virtuous by doing virtuous things. Westra's description is so absurdly broad that it would include defending oneself from scurrilous attack, which is not at all what people mean when they talk about virtue-signaling. He continues, "What makes the act in question an instance of virtue signaling is not the content of the moral expression itself, but rather the status-seeking desires of the person or corporate entity making it." But this is also not the point; Bartholomew, for instance, gives status-seeking as an explanation for why people virtue signal, not as a criterion for what it is. And you have only to look at how the term is used in social media to see that this, not Wenstra's description, is more or less how it is understood when used at large.

He also makes the error, which has become increasingly common, of confusing virtue signaling with moral grandstanding as discussed by Tosi and Warmke; Tosi and Warmke explicitly do not treat their account of moral grandstanding as an account of virtue signaling. Westra's reason for conflating them is that the definition of moral grandstanding "coincides with the commonsense understanding of 'virtue signaling'". I think Westra is not quite getting Tosi and Warmke right (e.g., they repeatedly characterize it not as enhancing or preserving one's moral reputation but as trying to impress others with how moral you are, which is easily seen to be not at all equivalent when you start thinking through different cases). But as we've seen, even if we take Westra to be getting Tosi and Warmke correct, he only can say this because he mischaracterizes 'virtue signaling'. 

Co-Workers

Today is the feast of SS. Timothy and Titus, who were companions of St. Paul. They both have letters addressed to them in the New Testament, of course, but it's often forgotten that Paul lists Timothy as co-author of 1 and 2 Thessalonians (with Silas), 2 Corinthians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians. (He is also mentioned as being with Paul, although not as author, in Romans.) Now there's no doubt, for a number of reasons, that Paul is the principal author and the primary person responsible for all of these. 

We don't know for certain what it says about St. Timothy's contribution to our New Testament -- there are too many possibilities. But E. Randolph Richards, in his Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, says,

Whatever the role of named cosender, it went beyond courtesy, presence, connection or favored status. I must conclude that a named cosender, at least after the early letters, had a different -- presumably larger -- role than the other team members. Otherwise, I see no explanation for some team members being in the letter address while others are in the concluding greetings, especially when Timothy appears first in the address, then in the greetings, then back again in the address. 

[E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, IVP Academic (Downers Grove, IL: 2004) p. 105.]

According to tradition, St. Timothy was first bishop of Ephesus and was stoned to death when he tried to preach the gospel at a religious festival devoted to the goddess Artemis. St. Titus became the first bishop for Crete and died of old age.

Three Poem Re-Drafts

I Know Not How

I know not how the world was born,
yet born it was.
I know not how the veil is torn,
yet torn it is.
I know not how God gives His grace,
yet this He does.
I known not how moons formed in place,
and yet they are.
I known not how worlds can endure;
they travel still.
I known not how stars meet their fate,
and yet they will.

I known not how the mighty suns
that brightly shine
in burning vessels swiftly run
through space and time,

nor know I how your love has come
upon my heart,
nor how this is, nor how it ends
or even starts,
though yet it like a wind descends
to blaze like stars,

nor how it is that you can be,
and yet you are.

The Unicorn Rite Catholics

 
The Unicorn Rite Catholics sing their Mass,
lifting their voices to the God of creation,
singing the introit and collect of the day,
today, this day, that the Lord has made,
today, this day, on which they all hearken.
   There is healing in the horn,
   the light of sun and moon;
   but reverent or relevant,
   the Mass is finished soon.

Antiphons rise in a fountain of prayer,
glorias lift up in heartfelt rejoicing;
blessed like balm is the holy union,
like great grace their deep communion;
and every credo is hale and holy,
and every word bears the kiss of peace.
   Perhaps one day I'll see the shine
   of crystal catching star;
   perhaps in some oneiric time,
   or foreign country far.

Love's Madness

Three parts make up the kiss of love:
lips that press,
mixing breath,
union of the souls
with bond as grave and strong as death.
Two,
the lover and the loved,
are one
in gift of beating heart;
each to each gives person whole,
becomes for each
a living part.
Insuperable impulse,
blessed wound,
immutable act of ardent will,
burns away all lesser things
in peace
that pierces every shield I make;
O blow from single glance
that snares me
and my heart
takes!
O sacred glance
destroy the link
of flesh and soul:
O love that separates like death
undo the whole!
O peace destructive!
Severing bond!
O leap into the darkness bright
in endless radiance of light!
The heat of love
maddens
with reasons beyond reason's reach;
in my madness I understand
things that reason cannot teach.

Suggestiveness

Suggestiveness, not articulateness, is the ideal of all Chinese art, whether it be poetry, painting, or anything else. In poetry, what the poet intends to communicate is often not what is directly said in the poetry, but what is not said in it. According to Chinese literary tradition, in good poetry "the number of words is limited, but the ideas it suggests are limitless." So an intelligent reader of poetry reads what is outside the poem; and a good reader of books reads "what is between the lines." Such is the ideal of Chinese art, and this ideal is reflected in the way in which Chinese philosophers have expressed themselves.

Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, Bodde, ed., The Free Press (New York: 1966) p. 12.

Relativity of Vote Weight

'Democracy' is of course a variable word. In the strict sense, democracy is rule by the Demos and based on something like the following principle:

(1) Every citizen, by being a citizen, equally has the right to vote in all matters of legislation.

Naturally, this is not what most people mean by 'democratic' most of the time. In modern times we often talk about democracy in talking about 'democratic elections'. Now, as the ancient Greeks quite correctly recognized, all election systems for legislatures are by nature inherently not democratic but oligarchical, because they are based on the principle of restricting the access of citizens to legislative voting power, and all sufficiently large election systems necessarily create a class of Eligibles, People Capable of Being Elected, in contrast to those who, practically speaking, stand no chance of being elected. The only genuinely democratic method for representative democracy is sortition, choosing by lot, because then it's still genuinely true any citizen can become a representative. There are ways to have oligarchies without elections, but all election systems, introduced into a society, create oligarchies. They are, in fact, quite effective at doing so.

When we talk about 'democratic elections', then, what we really mean are elections with extra concessions that alleviate their oligarchical tendency. A common, and commonly discussed such concession is something like the following principle:

(2) Every citizen, by being a citizen, equally has the right to vote in elections.

This universal suffrage principle is sometimes confused with a very different concession you could have:

(3) Every citizen, by being a citizen, has the right to vote in elections with votes equal in number to every other voter.

You could have the universal suffrage principle without much caring about the equal number principle, and vice versa; the universal suffrage principle is about how votes are made and the equal number principle is about how votes are counted. You could have a voting system in which everyone could vote but some people got one vote, some people got two votes, for any reason whatsoever. Likewise, you could have a voting system in which not everyone equally has the right to vote, but, when they vote, everyone has an equal number of votes.  Both of these give you a sense in which you can say your election is democratic, i.e., makes democracy-leaning concessions.

Both (2) and (3) are often confused with yet another principle:

(4) Every citizen, by being a citizen, has the right to vote in elections with a vote of weight equal to every other vote.

This equal weight principle is an independent principle, as it concerns not how votes are made, nor how they are counted, but the effect that they have. You can have (2), (3), and (4) in any combination. But there are problems with (4) that don't arise with (2) or (3), and the primary problem is that whether votes have equal weight is relative to measure, and there are many different measures you can use. Two votes of equal weight by one measure can fail to be of equal weight by another. This just follows from the fact that equal weight is a matter of the consequences.

Weight of vote, to be more exact, is a matter of how your vote contributes to the result in light of every other vote. This depends, of course, on exactly what overall population you are considering; in Presidential elections, even if votes weigh equally in a state, they don't weigh equally across jurisdictions of any states, because they are different elections, albeit for the same office. 

In one district I may be voting in a larger population than I would be in another, thus diluting my vote. One could thus say that my vote weighs more in a smaller population than in a larger population. The relative voting population, however, could be actual voters, likely voters (and there are several different ways of measuring who counts as a likely voter), or eligible voters.

If A has a vote in a gerrymandered district clearly designed to favor a given result and B has a vote in a district not so gerrymandered, someone could say that their votes do not contribute equally to the respective results of their districts, and are thus not of equal weight, even though A and B are not in the same voting population and even if the voting populations are the same size.

If people wanting A can easily vote and people wanting B can only vote with difficulty (e.g., due to geographical location in the district), even in the same voting population, do their votes weigh equally? We don't often think about whether vote-weighting should consider difficulty of voting, but nothing about the weight of a vote relate to other votes rules out doing so. It seems that we could see this as a bias in the system that favors a vote for A over a vote for B even if they are counted the same when given, thus increasing the ease of A winning over the scenario in which difficulty of each individual vote is the same across the board.

One thing that often comes up in equal weight discussions is how many candidates there are are, which affects how much the vote captures the preferences of the voter.

One could use other measures, for any number of purposes, but the point is that whether two votes are of equal weight depends on the measure being used, and the measures are not guaranteed to give you the same result. Thus one should not talk about equal weight of votes without specifying a measure of weight and (in practical applications) why that measure is the relevant one to use.