Beneficence

Public Benefit

Bill Schambra points me to a story he finds of interest "because we have a major apologist for the plutocratic exploiters of the masses editorializing in favor of a decision that protects small community against . . . well, plutocratic exploitation of the masses. Another category scrambler for your friends at GiftHub."

The more troubling category scrambler is that creative shift from "public use" to "public benefit" argument that created the trouble in the first place.

This is a great example of why we need to take care when presuming "benefit" and to be on guard when beneficence is justified on the grounds of "public" interest.

Poletown's Revenge
Wall Street Journal
August 3, 2004; Page A10

It must come as cold comfort to the citizens of Poletown, who back in 1981 had their homes taken away from them by the city of Detroit and bulldozed for a car factory. But the Michigan Supreme Court has finally stated the obvious: What's good for General Motors wasn't so good for the people -- and it sure didn't justify violating their "sacrosanct" Constitutional property rights.

Though Friday's decision comes nearly a quarter-century after an earlier Michigan Supreme Court cleared the way for Detroit to condemn the homes, churches, schools and hospitals of Poletown on behalf of a Cadillac plant, it's hard to overstate the significance of this reversal. By expanding the justifications for eminent domain seizures to include "economic development," the earlier decision not only ushered in the destruction of a neighborhood. It set a woeful precedent that continues to embolden unseemly coalitions of private developers and tax-hungry municipalities using government powers to take other people's land.

Friday's decision was unanimous. The lead opinion put it this way: "Poletown's 'economic benefit' rationale would validate practically any exercise of the power of eminent domain on behalf of a private entity. After all, if one's ownership of private property is forever subject to the government's determination that another private party would put one's land to better use, then the ownership of real property is perpetually threatened by the expansion plans of any large discount retailer, 'megastore,' or the like."

Exactly. Remember, we're not talking about a public highway or bridge. To the contrary, today we have governments taking land from Peter because they'd rather Paul have it. In the Michigan case, Wayne County was fighting to condemn the property of a handful of owners after they refused to sell land the county wanted to use for a business and technology park.

In one sense you can hardly blame the planners. Once the Poletown case shifted the test from "public use" to "public benefit," it put any limits on eminent domain on a slippery slope. State and local governments all across America have been happily sliding down it ever since -- and citing Poletown as their justification. The Institute for Justice reckons that between 1998 and 2002 some 10,000 private properties were either taken by or threatened with eminent domain on behalf of other private parties.

for entire article see WSJ

Dementors and Human Kindness

Fun stuff from Tom Munnecke today.

Imagine a Harry Potter-like scene in a stone-walled academy, not unlike Hogwarts. A young apprentice is defending her ideas, surrounded by dark, dismal dementors hovering about, ready to suck the life out of any idea which contradicts ...

For a moment there I thought he'd been over here reading the comments to recent posts!

Truly, this is a fun read, and I'm hopeful he'll be continuing the story line. My only challenge is with this statement of a core value:

We believe people are basically good

Doesn't square with my view of original sin. I could buy it better at a pragmatic level if we stated it this way:

We believe people are basically well intentioned.

Market Bonds

From Chris Corrigan:

Our traditional sense of markets are changing largely because of the world wide web, but have we got to the place where markets are actually places where people create bonds?

This question called to mind a book of Frederick Turner's: Shakespeare's Twenty-First Century Economics: The Morality of Love and Money.

In fact, this might be a productive one to read together once Chris finishes The Gift.

Turner opens chapter 1 with this sentence:

"I love your majesty/According to my bond," says Cordelia to her father, King Lear, at the beginning of Shakespeare's great play."

The next paragraph begins:

Bonds, at the most fundamental level, form the essential structure of the universe.

And before we're out of chapter one, we have this:

What we need is a human economics, a capitalism with a human face; that is, a kind of market that fully expresses the moral, spiritual, and aesthetic relationships among persons and things. It is clear that we should revise our earlier mechanistic notion of economics. Must we find a new language for it?

The answer, surprisingly, is no. As Shakespeare shows, buried within our existing language of finance and business are the living meanings that we seek. Such words as "bond," "trust," "goods," "save," "equity," "value," "mean," "redeem," "redemption," "forgive," "dear," "obligation," "interest," "honor," "company," "balance," "credit," "issue," "worth," "due," "duty," "thrift," "use," "will," "partner," "deed," "fair," "owe," "ought," "treasure," "sacrifice," "risk," "royalty," "fortune," "venture," and "grace" preserve within them the values, patterns of action, qualities, abstract entities, and social emotions that characterize the gift and barter exchange systems upon which they are founded. Indeed, these words, whose meanings are inseparable from their economic content, make up a large fraction of our most fundamental ethical vocabulary?

Might it be that what we've been looking for has been with us all the time?

Conblogation

Chris Corrigan is still sharing with us his reflections as he reads Lewis Hyde's The Gift.

Chances are we won't be able to slow Chris down sufficiently to catch up with him, but what if some of us cross-posting in these spaces were to select something that we could read and blog about simultaneously.

I recently hosted an online conversation in a private discussion space that was facilitated by Amy Kass. We had about a dozen participants talking about two short readings in her book, The Perfect Gift.

Now that I'm beginning to get the hang of this blogging stuff it seems that we could do something similar out here in the open. I have a few extra copies of The Perfect Gift if anyone wants to take me up on it! We would simply agree on a reading and a time frame in which we would begin blogging. Could be fun.

Witnesses

Gerry asks in comment on Lay Down Your Hammer about my reference to Golgotha as well as points us to an interesting discussion taking place at Wealth Bondage.

Having neither read Multitude nor having much affinity for Fukuyama's take on the world, I don't have much to contribute to the WB conversation. I think that Fukuyama's End of History missed a fundamental point about the human condition that Samuel Huntington probably better addresses in his article and book on the Clash of Civilizations. I can critique neither in detail, but this brings me to the question about Golgotha.

The reference is to the hill where Christ was crucified, and the phrasing I used was meant to echo the resonant and pregnant words of Whittaker Chambers in the last paragraph of A Letter to my Children.

Chambers' essay is haunting, and I find it worth re-reading often. The point about freedom is one I share with Chambers--

One thing most ex-Communists could agree upon: they broke because they wanted to be free. They do not all mean the same thing by "free." Freedom is a need of the soul, and nothing else. It is in striving toward God that the soul strives continually after a condition of freedom. God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor. External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom. Necessity is the only ultimate justification known to the mind. Hence every sincere break with Communism is a religious experience, though the Communist fail to identify its true nature, though he fail to go to the end of the experience. His break is the political expression of the perpetual need of the soul whose first faint stirring he has felt within him years, months or days before he breaks. A Communist breaks because he must choose at last between irreconcilable opposites-- God or Man, Soul or Mind, Freedom or Communism.

I'm not sure whether Gerry is stating or asking if I believe that "For the powerless, to hold to the path of moderation is to choose Golgatha over Mars, martyrdom over the battlefield." In either case, to the extent that a martyr is a witness in the sense that Chambers uses the term (the Greek martyr literally translates as witness), I believe this may be true.

I am no pacifist, and understand that war is sometimes a necessity. Yet even to question honestly whether the Christian virtues might serve us better in fighting the violence of radical Islam than the martial virtues has earned me criticism from friends in certain circles... including people with whom I share a religious faith. Politics at its worst divides even friends. At its best--marked by civility and humility--it can unite even certain kinds of enemies.

My point about Golgotha, however, is merely to say that I have quite limited expectations about our our ability to create heaven on earth. Substantive equality/social justice seem to overshoot the possibilities for me, and so I favor procedural equality/rule of law. We should explore just how/whether these differences in language really reflect differences in vision.

Lay Your Hammer Down

In his recent commencement address at Hilldsale College, Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation makes a compelling call for civil discourse. Explaining how incivility fuels incivility (by way of discussing James Wilson's "broken windows theory"), Feulner writes:

What we see today, I am afraid, is an accelerating competition between the left and the right to see which side can inflict the most damage with the hammer of incivility. Increasingly, those who take part in public debates appear to be exchanging ideas when, in fact, they are trading insults: idiot, liar, moron, traitor.

He then enjoins the graduating class at Hillsdale:

After four years of study at Hillsdale, you know the difference between attacking a person's argument and attacking a person's character. Respect that difference.

I'm thrilled to read these remarks, which echo some of my own considerations in this space. Makes me proud to have once worked with Ed at Heritage.

I wonder further whether it isn't also incumbent upon us all to remember as well that when someone attacks our argument, they may not necessarily be attacking our character. An important but overlooked virtue of a free, self-governing people is their slowness to take offense.

In a world where public discourse is increasingly marked by incivilities of ad hominem argument and invective, we all get bristly and rise too quickly to defend our character when what is needed is more clear headed and calm persuasion.

I believe the trends of incivility are accelerated by our tendencies to separate ourselves off into pure enclaves, where we can interact mostly with those who think like us. The more we take our identities from our political/ideological cohorts, the more difficult it is to think clearly--without taking personal offense--about arguments against the ideas we hold dear. In this way, ideas truly may have consequences, and perverse, unintended ones at that. It does us all good to be reminded how easily we wield our hammers, and how quickly everything outside our own worldview begins to look like a nail.

Revisionism--Areopagus Revisited

I jumped from thinking about new cultural spaces to reflect on the conversations I had at the Chicago Giving Conference. Chris Corrigan, whom I had the pleasure of meeting there, is discussing some of these issues at Parking Lot by way of his reading of Lewis Hyde's The Gift.

It's such a pleasure to follow these conversations as they are emerging from distinct cultural spaces, none of which look quite like the space in which I live most of my days--and to find that the gift of forbearance is among the greatest we can offer. My effort--and it is at some moments an act of will--to forbear prejudice simply because someone comes from a different cultural space than my own allows me to reap the gift of their words and wisdom. As well as to hope that my boldness in speaking from my own identity might also be a form of gift into the conversation of mankind.

I began these reflections some time ago by thinking aloud about Milton and the Areopagus. It's interesting now to revise my consideration of the use of "Areopagus." The original Areopagus itself was the "hill of Ares," the place in Athens where the tribunal met on matters of justice. Milton's Areopagitica, of course, was a plea to the English parliament forbear the regulation of printing as well as a sturdy defense of truth's ability to hold its own in the court of public opinion.

The Areopagus, then, represents justice, especially of the aristocratic sort.

To achieve the virtue of beneficence, we have to turn the virtue--the strict justice--of the Areopagus on its head, as Milton argued, and as did the Apostle Paul in speaking on Mars Hill (Acts 17):

16 Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. 17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. 18 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.

19 And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 20 For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. 21 (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. 33 So Paul departed from among them. 34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

For the Christian, beneficence emerges from a cultural space in which charity is made possible only through him who "giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." It is rooted in grace and stands apart from strict justice, the demands of which no man can uphold.

So, it's not the Areopagus itself we seek but the antidote to it. For Paul, the life-gift of the God Who Became Known contra the idolatry of Athens. For Milton, forbearance of over-reaching justice/judgment in order that a space of utmost civil liberty might emerge.

Milton reminds us that there will be dissent and division:

For this is not the liberty which wee can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth, that let no man in this World expect...

But he continues to paint for us a model of civil and charitable discourse:

but when complaints are freely heard, deeply consider'd, and speedily reform'd, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attain'd, that wise men looke for.

Anyone seeking liberty beyond this must cast his eyes to the Hill of Golgotha rather than to the Hill of Mars.

Cultural Spaces

Thanks to Will Wilkinson for the pointer to This Blog Sits . MCracken's reflections on the emergence of diverse cultural spaces makes me hope that we can eventually carve out yet another cultural space in which people can pursue their identities as gift-makers.

As I see this space, it would be one where people would share hope in the power of gift as well as explore together the personal, social, political, and cultural impact of gift-making. A place where we might discover what gift-making looks like done well, which must include confronting the shadows of obligation and expectation that accompany gifts. Beneficence has the power to provide blessings as well as to create restraints. This dual nature of the gift requires us to consider its role as both a social lubricant and as an agent of social cohesion.

Beneficence, in other words, may be rather like the carbon atom--it can have radically different properties depending on the way that it forms bonds:

carbon atoms form the substances diamond and graphite. Graphite is soft and slippery, while diamond is the hardest substance known to man. How is it possible for one element to form substances with such different properties? ... Graphite is a good electrical conductor. Diamond is a good insulator. Diamond is an excellent abrasive. Graphite makes a good lubricant. Graphite is opaque. Diamond is transparent. It is because of their respective structures that two substances composed solely of carbon atoms can have such different properties.

Well, I don't know that there is anything profound in all that.. just struck me as interesting!

Uplift Improv

Tom Munnecke at Uplift makes an Opening Uplift Improv Offer:

We need to create more Weapons of Mass Affection, giving our societies more ways of connecting with each other in positive, life-affirming ways.

Please continue this line of thinking on your blog, beginning Yes, and... and linking back to this entry.

See Tom's blog for the background on this, but here goes...

Yes, and let's call them not "weapons" but "gifts" of mass affection.

Serious Popcorn

Martha Bayles, a friend from my days in DC and author of Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music has started a new blog at ArtsJournal called Serious Popcorn. I'm looking forward to being able to follow her reflections on the way to the theater. She promises that

while I will bash movies that deserve it, my focus will be positive. Despite what's in the theaters on any given day, we are living in a golden age of film. The number of superb movies each year is not in the triple or even double digits. But amazingly, they keep coming. Film is the chief narrative art of our time, and for all its problems, it's flourishing.

And don't you love the name of the blog!? When you pay $7 for a tub of popcorn, you have to really be serious! My husband, Steve, is notorious for refusing to stand in line and pay for popcorn at these prices. I notice that he never manages to keep his hand out of my bucket, though. My own little way of being beneficent, I suppose...