Brad Pitt and Ayn Rand Make Strange Bedfellows

A recent article from Variety suggests that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt might team up to finally get “Atlas Shrugged” on film. I wonder if Ayn Rand would shrug or roll over in her grave at these casting choices. It strikes me that “Atlas Shrugged” may have become too popular for its own good, loved by people who probably have never read it (Mark Twain’s description of a great book) and name-dropped to imply a certain enlightened sophistication and post-modern sensibility. When definitive moochers and non-producers like Jolie and Pitt can claim to be Randian objectivists, I wonder if her points are fading and her ideas becoming less clear over time.

I know, I know, in a capitalistic system, heartthrobs like Jolie and Pitt are merely getting paid what the market will bear for their services. Maybe they’re not Captains of Industry and maybe they don’t have the next great invention that will change the way we use the world’s natural resources. But they’re good-looking, very talented and if the market says they’re worth $20 million/picture, then they’re worth it. It doesn’t make them any less of a producer than the Carnegies and Fords of the world.

Except, of course, it does. Jolie was born into the business (her father is Jon Voigt) and we all know if not for his boyish good looks, Pitt would have never made it as far as he did. He is talented, and I don’t doubt very intelligent. (At least he’s playing John Galt, who I never really liked. Please, Mr. Director, get Russell Crowe for Hank Reardon.) But these aren’t the sort of people that come to mind when I think of the word, “producer.” To me, they are the essence of the word “moocher.” They don’t create anything, they don’t offer the world great solutions to modern problems. If either one of them was a true libertarian, I might sympathize. But while I can’t speak for Jolie’s politics, I remember Pitt giving speeches on behalf of John Kerry (D-Mass) at the University of Missouri in 2004. Yeah, like college students need pep talks to be more liberal.

Regardless, that they are so interested in objectivism and “Atlas Shrugged” just strikes me as superficial. Why can’t celebrities just do what they’re best at? Act in average movies, be eye candy, and let us fantasize from time to time how great it must be to be them. That’s it. That’s all we need from them. You don’t have to pretend to be some intellectual or to be well read. You don’t have to look down from above as though you single-handedly have the answers to all the world’s problems. I applaud you for your adoptions and efforts to help those less fortunate, but name-dropping Ayn Rand when you petition for John Kerry is like name-dropping Pope Benedict XVI at a Dan Brown book signing.

My own feelings on Ayn Rand are mixed. I love that she was able to portray so clearly the distinction between producers and moochers, and define what makes capitalism a moral economic system. I love her epic backdrops, her enormous settings that make “Atlas Shrugged” explode off the page, and give it a feeling of immense importance. I love that she has the ability to pinpoint very subtle behaviors and sayings that moochers have and use, that she is able to write a novel that makes a philosophical argument convincingly and unashamedly.

Of course, from my religious point of view, I find it lacking, a critique Rand couldn’t have cared less about. Her idea of the superman is grossly immoral and a breaking of the first and only commandment, to love God above all things, including ourselves. I find it irritating that she lumps all religious leaders into the category of mystics, and doesn’t recognize the contributions religion has made to free societies, only their detriments (which I agree are numerous). Her take on capitalism, though dead-on in the world of economics, is not sufficient to build a philosophy around. Any philosophy that points back to the human person is the equivalent of a dog chasing after its own tail.

But even though I have my issues with Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” (and I realize I’m name-dropping!) was a formative book for my understandings of capitalism, and hence conservatism. In its own way, it helped me to appreciate the Fall, to define greed, and to immediately recognize the language of hateful, bitter and resentful people. And like everyone who reads the book, I feel like I have a little stake in its future. So Brad and Angelina, please, stick to your silly “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” picture shows and leave the real art to real artists.

The Not-so-Conservative Conservatives

If and when Republicans lose in the November elections, it won’t be because the nation has in any way turned liberal, but because it has become too conservative for the blowhards in Washington. Americans in all those red counties (parishes in my home state of Louisiana) are tired of compromises with socialists on issues like immigration, government spending, making the tax cuts permanent, and education. Not every American minds these compromises, of course, but clearly enough to get W re-elected by 4 million votes. When we see his poll numbers go down, it doesn’t seem that it’s because the nation is becoming more liberal, but that he has acted too liberal for a conservative nation. His poll numbers are down because conservatives don’t think he’s conservative enough, not because there are all of a sudden more leftists in America.

I can hear the ribbing I will get from the liberals that envelope me at my institution of higher learning. From what I can determine, at least 90% of faculty, staff and students at my school are not only liberal, but examples of classic, 60s-style civil rights liberal. Which is their right, of course. It’s just that I find this sort of nostalgia about the past harmful, and constantly in need of new victims instead of making way for truly progressive ideas. So these liberals will love to use Republican losses (or sagging poll numbers if Republicans win again) as proof that the nation has finally turned against Bush, against conservatives and have embraced Democratic party and their liberal ways. But it seems the Dems are a party that is in such tatters, one would have to be truly delusional to believe such a change took place in the populace.

My own thinking leads me to believe that America is not any more socialist now than ever, but more conservative than ever. This future optimism by lefties is a gross misreading of American culture, past, present and future. While I have been snickered at for having the audacity to tout the “rugged individual” image as part of what defines American culture, I very much believe it still to be the case. But instead of lumberjacks and gold miners coming to mind, the new “rugged individual” owns his own business, works from home, and pays other people to do his work for him.

His individuality comes more in his ideas and entrepreneurial spirit than his rugged five o’clock shadow. Those who work for big corporations and even government bureaucracies rarely think of themselves as being cogs in the wheel, as the National Socialist Worker’s Party (Nazis) or the Marxists once wanted people to believe. (It is fascinating for me to hear of the rebellion taking place at my fiancée’s new corporate office, where everything from staplers to desk chairs are ordered to be congruous, and the effort to keep every cube identical is kept alive, one memo at a time.)

Americans know America when they see it. They accept that it is a melting pot, whereby various cultures were melted and formed into one, as much as a number of cultures can become one. But they know they didn’t lose their individuality, even as they became cultural Americans. And that sense of the individual, which I often lament as someone who works in the Church, feeds many of our political views, particularly on immigration, but also on taxation and education. So Bush, keep being a cowboy. And Congress, please do what you were elected to do: be conservative and protect the Constitution. If you lose in ‘06, it should be viewed as suicide, not homicide. Homicide happened to the Dems in 1994, when the nation became aware of its conservative culture, and then proceeded to vote on it.

Mon Oncle: An Architecture Film

When it comes to movies that feature architecture as a major theme, the pickings are rather slim. Among only a handful of films that deal with architectural design in any meaningful depth, the best known and most accessible film was the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead. Even that movie is more about projecting a comprehensive philosophic viewpoint and milking the melodramatic values of the romance between the protagonist and his client than it is about a real debate about the design of buildings.

Instead, students in architecture are led by their teachers to discover films that make heavy use of sets, color and lighting but generally contain an esoterically boring script. Bladerunner, Brazil and almost any film by Peter Greenaway (The Cook, Thief, Wife and His Lover; Belly of an Architect), David Lynch (Blue Velvet) or Wim Wenders emphasize the setting to such a degree that it becomes a character in the film itself. Yet the effect these films have on the designer’s mind is instilling an appreciation of technique by realizing that crafting an environment a particular way can impact the viewer’s perception of reality.

Jacques Tati’s 1958 film Mon Oncle (My Uncle) continues the same pattern, but it distinguishes itself by presenting to the viewer the fundamental debate that confronted architecture of the time. If there is one film that crystallizes the conflict that dominated twentieth century discourse regarding modernization, Mon Oncle introduces this more lucidly than any other. The story is itself rather thin as its entertainment value lies more in a series of visual gags similar to the comedies of Charlie Chaplin in which the main character Monsieur Hulot never speaks (played by Tati, a former mime). Hulot is the uncle of his sister’s young son, whose father is an executive at the local plastic tubing factory. The family lives in a ridiculously modern home, with its absurdly minimalist garden, its fully automated fountain and a state-of-the-art kitchen. Much of the film consists of sequences that demonstrate how the family goes about it its daily routine by submitting to the demands of the house’s harsh design. Corbusier’s “Machine for Living In” becomes reality in the movie, in which the house forces its occupants to suppress the way people would normally live. The people become the props.

Monsieur Hulot lives in another part of town that is representative of the typical small French town, with its animated market square, its charming rustic facades and lively cast of characters that inhabit it. His apartment is on top of tall building composed of a mish-mash of different vernacular styles, accessed by a labyrinth of stairwells. The contrast between Monsieur Hulot’s old-fashioned neighborhood and his sister’s and brother in law’s clinically modern surroundings is deliberate. There is a recurring scene that marks Hulot’s transition from the old to the new part of town, which consists of him walking trough toppled portion of a ramshackle brick wall that frames a view of monotonous modernist housing towers in the distance. This short scene serves as powerful reminder of the ongoing destruction of the old urban fabric in favor of the brand new and alien presence of modern structures. Considering the time the movie was made, it was likely Tati’s way of critiquing the unstoppable trend of ‘urban renewal’ common in his day. Monsieur Hulot serves as Tati’s hapless warrior against modernity, accidentally bungling and ruining some aspect modern convenience, whether it’s at his brother in law’s plastics factory or at the automated appliances of his sister’s home.

Since the Mon Oncle is mostly a series of choreographed comedic sketches, Tati’s argument against the ravages of modernism does not rest on tragedy but rather on light-hearted silliness. Yet this absurdity had very serious message which makes the film’s conclusion ironically tragic, even if it doesn’t come off that way. The charming melodic theme that recurs constantly throughout the film give an inconsequential air about the events within the film, but there is a sense of melancholy in the tune that triggers as sense of loss. It’s a nostalgic theme, a response we have when realized that we have lost something only when there is none of it left. Tati uses nostalgia in describing the old town to a level exaggeration equal to the way the he caricatures ultra-modern life. The depiction of the bustling market square is almost too perfect, and is as much divorced from the actual reality of such a place as his depiction of the machine house governing every aspect of the life of the family. My own observation is that nostalgia for the past can be just as deceptive in solving current problems as an un-tempered confidence in modern solutions. Still, Tati makes a compelling case for the preservation of the traditional life, and his attitude towards modernity is a sentiment shared by most people today. It should be mentioned that this film preceded by several years the first major campaigns against ‘urban renewal’ and provides basis on which much of post-modern architecture theory would based.

There’s plenty in this film for architecture students to study beyond its philosophical point. There was evidently much attention to the details of the sets used, stylistic cues in the architecture, and even the use of techni-color to emphasize the contrast between the ‘natural’ colors old world the artificial tones of the new. Mr. Hulot’s building is a weird post-modernist dream, while his sister’s house reminds students the contradiction of designing a house where inside and outside are one and using an electric gate to imprison visitors within.

In all Tati is to be recommended in bringing to the fore the affect architecture has on people while still instilling humor to make it accessible to the public at large. Although the film is nearly fifty years old, the contentions on modernity and our architectural environment are extremely relevant for situations in our own day.

The Gift of Heresy: What Western Culture Lost in the Reformation

There were so many lasting effects of the Reformation on Western Civilization, it is no wonder more has been written about Martin Luther than any man except Jesus. Economic, cultural, philosophical and, of course, ecclesial changes swept Europe and were eventually shipped to America. The “Protestant work ethic,” anti-Catholic sentiment and distrust of authority were offshoots of Luther’s originally ideological disagreement over justification with the Roman Catholic Church, and these fiercely independent characteristics are part of what define America. No doubt the Catholic Church was ripe for Reformation; it had been corrupt for centuries, practicing simony, the selling of indulgences, and confusing church and state as freely as any theocracy might.

But at least a little, if not a lot, was lost in the Reformation. Non-Catholic Christians, like myself, lost the ability to claim there was one true church in the literal sense; even though we confess in one “holy catholic and apostolic church.” I assume this means one spiritual church, not one physical one. I have no problem confessing this, but it’s a shame we can’t literally be one, and only one church. We also lost common understandings of the sacraments, and how to achieve salvation. But maybe worst of all, Protestants effectively lost the gift of heresy, the ability to rightly accuse a heretic of false or perverted teachings. Losing an understanding of heresy may have had a further-reaching impact on western civilization than any other consequence of the Reformation.

Let’s quickly define heresy. Here’s a definition I found that sounds about right: “Doctrine which is erroneous in such a way that Christians must divide themselves as a church from all who teach or accept it; those adhering to heresy are assumed to be lost, although Christians are unable to make definitive judgments on this matter. The opposite of orthodoxy.” Far from the stereotypes of the Church calling anyone and everyone heretics as during the Spanish Inquisition, the Church successfully defended right thinking of the faith for many centuries, usually democratically and nonviolently. These half-truths (as all heresy is in some part truth) were debated, voted down and decided they could not be tolerated for the GOOD of the faithful. After all, salvation was on the line.

But after the Reformation, what institution would Lutherans turn to for a definition of orthodoxy? Worse, just as an example, who do the literally tens of thousands of Pentecostal denominations turn to do today to define what is heresy and what is not? At least Lutherans didn’t fall far from the tree. But today’s Protestants are a whole different fruit, whose doctrinal gears are so stripped they can scarcely determine the difference between historic heresy and historic doctrine.

More practically, and, in a sense, more importantly, western culture lost over time the ability to call any moral behavior heretical, not just bad religious thinking. Of course, we wouldn’t use the word “heretical;” we would call it “immoral,” or “wrong,” or even just plain old “bad.” But we would call it something, and it might even be bad enough that we would willingly separate ourselves from it, by ostracization or even shunning. The Amish understand this, as did the ancient Greeks and many African tribes continue to practice shunning as a way of discipline. I’m not saying we need to adopt those discipline techniques per se, but we shouldn’t dismiss all discipline so quickly either. Guilt plays an integral part in our moral development, and as we have lost the ability to call immoral behavior “heretical,” guilt been put on a back burner so far away, it is hardly in reach of the pilot light anymore.

What else would make teenage girls go on “The Today Show” (with that hardest-of-hitting journalist Katie Couric) and brag (at worst) or feel no remorse (at best) for smoking marijuana, performing oral sex and binge drinking at the ages of 14 and 15? To these girls, their behavior wasn’t wrong. They were behaviors everyone does at some point, just good learning experiences. Or what about the regularity of soft porn or hard porn images in cultural life? No heresy here! Just a moral preference, no more right or wrong than any other!

Is this the result of losing the ability to call heresy what it is? Perhaps my thesis is too far-reaching. Perhaps there is no connection between the historical breaking away from the Catholic Church and western culture’s descent into excused immorality. But something happened. Something has allowed our present culture to feel no remorse for wrong behavior, and something has prevented our present culture for calling wrong behavior wrong. We mocked those who called heretics “heretics” for so long that we have prevented ourselves from using such accurate labels. Goodbye truth, hello disorder, until we reclaim the authority to speak the truth in love for the GOOD of ourselves. Persecuting heresy, whether ecclesial or cultural, is a blessed enterprise if done out of love.

Academia and Faith: Are They Compatible?

During a recent pre-marital counseling session, my pastor used Genesis 2 and 3 to speak about what marriage was, how it was established, and what made marriages healthy or unhealthy. The discussion took me back about two years to a class at my seminary that focused on Genesis, where we discussed the nature of the serpent, whether the Fall was a reality, and who was really being honest in that garden of lore. At the time, my professor posited the idea that the serpent was the truth-teller in the Garden and God was the liar, and this has led me to wonder if academia and faith are at all compatible.

Before creating Eve, God instructed Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (2:17). According to my professor, when the serpent told Eve that she would not die if she ate from this tree, it was, in fact, telling the truth. This was attested to by the fact that neither Adam nor Eve died immediately after eating this fruit. So it was God who had told the lie, God who had tricked Adam, God who was seemingly using these puppets he created as a kind of social experiment, and little else. The real truth lay, according to my professor, with the serpent. Looking over my notes from the class, my exact comments were, “The snake was right; they did not die, but they did get knowledge of good and evil”.

Looking back, I’m ashamed I took all this in at face value. But if this bit of scripture is taken literally and believed to be inerrant, I can see how this conclusion was reached. Adam and Eve did not die immediately. But is this what Christians believe about the events in the Garden of Eden, that God was the liar and the serpent the beacon of truth? No, we do not, and the Church has never held this to be the case. In fact, this act of disobedience by Adam and Eve did bring death into the world. Adam and Eve didn’t die immediately, but they would no longer escape death altogether. According to Richard Marius, a not-so-sympathetic biographer of Luther, Luther saw Adam as created immortal, “but God imposed death on Adam for sin, and death is carried on in the original sin that exists in procreation and the concupiscence that inevitably goes with sexual intercourse” (Martin Luther, 65). Lutheran theology and Catholic theology before it understood the serpent to be the deceiver, when he said the fruit would not introduce death when, of course, it did.

So why teach that the serpent was doing Adam and Eve some sort of favor by letting them in on the truth? Was this just an attempt to challenge students so that they may come to their own theological conclusions about the Fall? I wonder if pressures in the academic world force us to constantly seek new interpretations when, in fact, no new interpretations are needed? Must we search for new clues into what scripture is trying to say at the cost of saying something contrary to the nature of God? And what is more contrary to our understanding of God’s grace than the thought that God lies to us, tries to deceive us, and the real advocate for honesty in the Garden of Eden was the serpent? Does no one else see this as getting it all backwards?

Sometimes I wonder about the historical-critical and/or academic approach used in the vast majority of seminaries. I am not opposed to rigorous, serious and academic study of scripture; I understand there must be a balance between piety and technique. But I am opposed to teaching that plants seeds of distrust. Doubt is more understandable, even organic to our faith. Distrust strikes me as more dangerous. It is time to bring attention to the fact that if we are not careful in our interpretation of scripture, we may end up committing a grave sin: calling God a liar.

The Luckiest Generation: Why the French Can't Quit Socialism

As I observe the recent French riots and their success in defeating a new employment law, I can’t help but think what I would have done had my family decided to stay in France rather than leave for the U.S. I immigrated to America from France when I was several years into elementary school, too young to realize that the move was final and that my future lay in my new country. There was always the option of finding my way back to France, and I still maintain privileges of French citizenship. As a young family man with a career in Texas, it’s clear that I have made no attempts to re-establish myself in the “hexagone” (the shape of the French mainland). This has been the case with my other numerous siblings, even with one of them obtaining a masters degree from an elite French University (ESSEC) only to find himself working the U.K. and now in Putin’s Russia.

The barrier of entry to the world of decently paying work in France is extremely high. It’s almost impossible for any trained professional from outside the country to make a living, but it’s getting just as difficult for native French citizens. I have numerous French cousins close to my age who have yet to secure any kind of stable employment, floating from one low-paid (or un-paid) internship to the next, or going back to school to obtain another little degree in the hope of finding something. My parents and siblings constantly offer to help my French cousins by sponsoring them to live and work in the U.S. There are dozens of French multinationals with headquarter offices in Dallas/Fort Worth, and enrolling at the local university isn’t at all that difficult. You would think that my French cousins would jump at the opportunity to reinvent themselves in a place that allows individuals to achieve their full potential while benefiting from the support of their Francophone relatives. So far, there have been no takers, and family gossip from France continues to entail stories of temporary internships, new job-training programs, or unemployment. And if it’s not from my relatives, from time to time my father will receive formal letters of consideration from alumni from his elite alma mater (HEC) on behalf of their children still seeking employment or even an internship wherever they can.

Actually, such letters of consideration point to a primary way in gaining access to secure employment in France. It seems that parents have an important responsibility in creating and maintaining as many connections as possible, whether through their profession or their active involvement in civic associations. Some of my cousins have done quite well, either by completing studies in the most competitive schools or by having their parents vouch for them. Without that advantage, strangers are met with skepticism by prospective employers. Still most have average degrees from average French Universities, with parents working at state-run enterprises that are already saturated with liabilities that make them averse to hiring.

This is similar to the situation found in many rust-belt areas here in the U.S. Although the decline of manufacturing doesn’t get near the amount of government assistance as it does in France, they prospered during a time where labor was in high demand, markets were less competitive, and benefits to employees seemed to expand as far the eyes could see. This golden era of lifetime and intergenerational employment in one company that sustained large middle class communities took place in the three decades following the Second World War, similar to what was going on in France during the “Trente Glorieuses”, the roughly thirty-year span of rapid economic growth the defeat of the Nazis. The bottom fell out in the U.S. during the 1970’s only to be dealt with with uninspired political leadership that hoped that price controls and mounting regulations would be adequate panaceas. The 1980’s was the equivalent in France, and the voters had put their faith in socialist president Francois Mitterand who in turn did everything to make it even harder on the French by aggressively nationalizing many of his country’s biggest companies.

What sets the general economic course of the two countries apart is the emergence in America of a political force that is protective of capitalistic development over all else. This policy was embodied by Reagan, and in Britain by Thatcher, and prosperity and growth trumped over any concerns of deep structural changes in the economy that disrupted the happy employment stability of our manufacturing sector. France is to have never had the opportunity (nor the interest) of choosing a Reagan equivalent, settling instead with the uninspired careerist Jacques Chiraq. The high level of ‘structural un-employment’ has stayed pretty constant in France for the last generation, and there is currently no serious or creative discussion on how increase employment. The pro-market voice in political affairs, a given in our country, is considered a fringe opinion more unusual to hear than the shallow theories of Jean-Marie Le Pen. When debating joblessness, the discussion seems to be about how to tweak the existing system, either by forcing early retirement, expanding the state payroll or deporting foreigners to make room for those who won’t work such jobs.

Why is radical economic liberalization of an obviously sclerotic system not considered worthwhile in re-invigorating France? Beyond the common observation that welfare states tend to grow over time and citizens desire more assistance from the state for an ever-growing number of reasons, there is an almost deeper psychological explanation: the post-war economic boom in the West was less the status quo in the natural evolution of economies than it was a fortunate anomaly. High birthrates, large un-tapped markets with few countries able to supply them, and dormant populous countries undergoing their socialist experiments (e.g. India and China) permitted large swaths of relatively unskilled workers to acquire generous livelihoods. Compared to all the other workers who obtained advance degrees and working very hard for half the wage an average assembly line worker at an automobile plant, the latter has hit the jackpot. For those who are not driven to improve, acquire more responsibility and become more versatile in their jobs, the terms that some manufacturing workers enjoy is as good as it gets.

While this ideal state of affairs only affects a dwindling minority of American workers, such a deal exists for almost all French workers. Job tenure, generous unemployment benefits and the disincentive to perform well is as good as it can get, and has unsurprisingly become a fundamental human right. What the French fail to understand is that these so-called rights are mostly based on the most fortunate and unusual economic occurrences after the War which makes it therefore inherently unsustainable. For the French socio-economic system to continue to thrive would require high birthrates, less international competition, a dynamic job-market and continued military support from an outside power (the U.S.). Only the last factor has actually held, while the first three have not come to pass. But that obviously doesn’t stop the French youth from believing that one day soon they too will enjoy the benefits of their system. They await the next jackpot where all the stars align in their favor.

I find that a high dependence on a generous social welfare system is a lot like a gambling addiction. You could lose everything and still be convinced that the jackpot follows after the next pull of the lever. France has lost its international prestige, its competitiveness and many of its people have lost hope, not to mention its ability to work. But the recent demonstrations are evidence that the French youth are still willing to pull the lever for the chance to win it all.

My question then becomes: When you’ve finally set yourself up for lifetime employment, are you excited about the future, about all the things that could be but never will because of the permanence of your position? What can you look forward to?

Franceland: My Dreams and Reality

Just a day ago, Jonah Goldberg summarized what I think of the land of my birth these days:

“…Write the place off. Put a wall around the nice bits and call it Franceland. The tourists will love the quaint historical re-enactments.”

Unlike other French émigrés who consciously made the decision to leave their home country in search of better opportunities, I came to the U.S. as a child not knowing much about what I was leaving behind. From my point of view at the time, France seemed like a swell place, with beautiful streetscapes and rural landscapes (we lived in Provence), aromatic outdoor markets with its amazing produce. Compared to what I would later encounter in the public schools in the U.S, elementary school in France was a pretty serious place, and I feared constant belittling from my teachers. The principle of self-esteem was non-existent in the French educational system, and teachers did not hesitate to humiliate you in front of everybody by discussing your results on a test or the failure to organize your notebook neatly. As a kid I loved France but I was not terribly confident of myself.

Moving to the U.S., I was quick to compare and judge my new environment quite negatively. Mid-sized southern cities seemed to have a whole host of problems, with their distant spaces and tacky streetscapes, steril supermarkets and schools that seemed to be more about having a fun time rather than evading the teacher’s scorn as I had been accustomed to until then (this was a good thing, as it was a big boost to my self-confidance) . And even at a young age, it wasn’t unusual to be aware of France’s rich cultural heritage. This consciousness colored my first impressions of America, perceiving it as culturally vapid, anti-intellectual, and overall kind of ‘fake’. In other words my attitudes as a child was not much different from many grown-ups who have some sort of beef against America, and who tend to idealize a more glorious reality in the land flowing with wine, cheese, and ‘joie de vivre’.

As an adult, I have settled in the U.S. without giving much thought to going back to France. After witnessing millions of young French people taking to the streets to maintain stasis over much needed change, I have no regrets of not having made a life there. Still, I would like to acquire a nice piece property there, perhaps some rural manor in which to spend some of my retirement. I’ve learned over time that France is still a wonderful place as long as you are not engaged in the reality of making a living there. Upward mobility is extremely limited, and the current social system actually ends up favoring the privileged classes over those at the bottom. If you are a person of privilege, in which you have parents in important positions in a major bureaucracy or industrial concern, chances are that you will do reasonably well in France. Without this advantage, your best bet is to compete against all others in highly selective national exams that determine who gets to go the country’s elite graduate institutions. There are no second acts in French professional life, and in many ways you have only one shot to succeed. Screw up that chance and you find yourself either unemployed or floating from one unpaid internship to the next for several years before hitting the jackpot by securing a tenured job for life.

Apparently that latter prize is worth everything to most of the French. Freedom from risk, uncertainty, and opportunity is the French person’s most treasured value. The stigma against unemployment is not that negative compared to the way Americans see it, so it has become socially acceptable to mill around at the expense of taxpayers for quite a long time before finding something secure.

My most treasured value as a Franco-American is freedom from stasis, from predictability and determinism. These values will hopefully allow me to enjoy France from a position of extreme privilege, where I can afford anything I need without having to worry about how to pay for anything. Provincial France is emptying out quite rapidly as the young move to Paris to find work, so there’s lots of idyllic historic properties waiting to be restored. I hope to enjoy ‘Franceland’ in the future but I wonder if it will become an even more unrecognizable place in thirty years from what I remember as a child.

Walls, Welfare and Illegal Immigration

The subsequent debate over how to “solve” illegal immigration has brought the idea of a border wall to the forefront. This is seen by some as not only a good idea but an absolutely necessary one, an idea whose proponents have given up caring how politically correct or compassionate they (don’t) sound when proposing it. “Good fences make good neighbors” is an adage political conservatives have adopted for this current debate, and history seems to be on their side.

The Roman Empire learned the hard way to build walls. After being sacked in 390 BC by the Celts, Rome built an enormous wall, 24 feet high by 10ft thick. Rome wasn’t sacked again for almost a millennium, in 476. Now, I know some love to compare American “imperialism” with the Roman Empire, and I’m no apologist for Rome. Certainly, many of their campaigns were aggressive acts of empire building. But not all of them; the empire was attacked regularly by the barbarian Gauls, Hannibal, and the Parthians. As Rome won these battles, it acquired more and more territory, but part of what led to its downfall was a confusion of its borders. Only half of 1% of its citizens were in the army, and this made their borders unenforceable. The empire collapsed when its walls were no longer effective, either because invaders had learned ways through the city walls, or because the empire’s invisible borders had become too porous.

Ironically, while the Empire ruled, a great amount of peace was achieved. Before the empire, most of the world knew bloodshed and tribal division. But under Roman rule, “Pax Romana” was a reality for millions. To be sure, there were costs to empirical rule, but many of the subjects found that they lived in peace, with a common language, leader and rule of law. Today, we would not consider this to be an acceptable way of life; every ethnicity and culture has a built-in desire for self-governance since democracy has proven to be a success in so many parts of the world. But at the time, the walls that defined Rome and the empire were crucial for its society to survive. Only when those walls were torn down did Europe decay into the Dark Ages.

For Israel and Palestine, a wall seems to have worked remarkably well. Of course, many groups condemn the wall, comparing it to the Berlin Wall and see it as a sign of anti-humanitarianism. But like the Roman walls, this wall keeps people out more than it keeps them in, so it is a wonderfully humanitarian wall for the people of Israel. (For reasons unfathomable to me, many Christians lament the wall, apparently forgetting the horrors of the Holocaust and the need for a Jewish state. Most Mainline Protestant official bodies regard Israel and America as evil centerpieces of aggression, not North Korea, Iran, China, the Taliban’s Afghanistan or Saddam’s Iraq.) So walls indeed seem to make for more peaceable neighbors, and must be the first priority in America’s dealings with illegal immigration. It is more humane than having no physical wall, but enforcing legal ones later.

But part of the reason there has never been incentive to build a wall is that Americans seem not to mind giving some jobs away. It’s not that Americans won’t do the jobs that illegal immigrants do; it’s that they don’t have to. The problem of immigration is in large part a by-product of America’s wealth and the catatonic nature of the welfare state. When we pay people not to work, why should they? When a nation becomes too wealthy (defined as wealthy enough to pay people not to work), an economic vacuum is created. And who will fill it but those hungry to work in this wealthy country?

So it seems that part of what is needed for a nation to be sovereign (not necessarily politically but economically) is relative poverty. I wonder if a nation needs to be poor enough so that it appreciates work and does jobs some may consider undesirable? Economists recognize this when they speak of the desired rate of unemployment, which coincidentally is as statistically as low as it can possibly be. 4.7% unemployment is considered statistically full employment, so even with 4.7% of America unemployed, the economy has no room to employ them. The question is, will we lose enough wealth in time, and become so desperate that we will truly lament the loss of jobs to illegal immigrants?

Illegal Immigration is a Term Limits Issue

While the American public makes it clear that it is not in favor of illegal activity (including immigration), politicians in Washington do not seem concerned to make serious changes to current policy, or enforce existing law. Yes, there is a bill that may or not make it out of the Senate alive, but many of the problems will stay the same. There will be no incentive for those coming here to work in defense of America’s culture and language, it is unclear as to weather taxes and Social Security will become deducted from their pay, and the question of outright amnesty is still a possibility in the future. None of the proposed changes, though, send the clear signal that America is a sovereign nation that can make decisions in its own interests. I gather this is not said for fear of upsetting those who work here illegally, and the voters sympathetic to their cause.

What causes this fear? Why would a politician, who is supposed to represent American citizens, be afraid to speak on an issue ideologically, and why is it so hard to defend the right of America to name and claim what it is to be American? Like a host of other issues, politicians in Washington have become indebted to “special interests,” voting blocs and “swing voters.” It seems even at the congressional level, there is enough of a swing vote in the Hispanic communities to cause many incumbent Republicans to ignore what their constituents want. They naively believe they can count on the faithful conservative vote, and hope for enough of the swing vote to win reelection. In other words, reelection drives politicians, not values, ideology or even morals unless they play a part in election campaigns.

So, it seems to me that term limits is worth lobbying for, since lobbies seem to be so powerful. We have long lost the ideal situation where moral men and women saw public service as a distraction from their life’s work and a sacrifice they made for their country, a sacrifice of only a term or two. Now, “public service” is a grossly misleading term, as bureaucratic comforts and the acquisition of power are not sacrifices, but benefits of being a government lackey. If conservatives value small government, the best way to ensure it is through term limits; those who know they will not be in power for long lose incentive to build a substantial power base, and the will of the people can be more powerfully represented without fear of reprisal.

I understand the opposition to term limits. There are sound arguments that it limits voter freedom; if we live in a free country, we should be able to vote for whomever we like, whether they’ve never held political office or have been in the Senate for 6 decades. Term limits may also remove an effective politician before they can get any work done. But term limits does not curtail freedom in any broad sense. They don’t limit the right to vote, just the right to vote someone into an office that has more times than not been compromised by special interests. And which politician got “more done” (rarely a good thing) in their second term, having greased the wheels during their first? The second term of President Bush seems to have accomplished little, with the exception of the continuation of the war in Iraq.

And why is it that term limits are good for governors, presidents, mayors, city council members, and school board members, but not the politicians who make the highest laws in the land? Of course, I understand that no politician in Washington has any reason to decide term limits are a good thing as it is something along the lines of career suicide. But when we speak on illegal immigration and why it is so hard to enforce these laws, the answers are almost always political. Politicians are afraid to do anything that might challenge their ability to be reelected. It’s not that there aren’t good reasons to enforce or strengthen the laws or that constituents aren’t demanding change. It’s simply that members of Congress, because they have no limits to their time in power, have few reasons to make an ideological stance in immigration at the expense of a few precious votes.

Where Capitalism Ends and Greed Begins

In our society, prices of goods and services are rising, which is a surprise to no one. This is part of the capitalistic society that we all enjoy and support everyday. As long as the wages continue to rise along with the prices of goods and services we should all be content, right? This is the way capitalism generally works and how the free market system has worked for many years. But, what happens when some of the services are “needs” rather than “wants” and the community that controls these services decides that they as a profession are entitled to greater market share and are more than willing to exploit those that must purchase these needs? This seems to be the case in the United States medical system.

There is no doubt that the United States has the best and most qualified doctors in the world, even if you can’t always afford it. It has come to be by way through the free market system. So getting rid of the free market system and going over to a socialized system would be a disaster for our health care. Unfortunately, costs in our current system are out of control. Out-patient surgery routinely costs $10,000 and more. Some of these costs are pregnancy tests for all women, even if they have gone through menopause and $500.00 charges for light bulbs in the operating rooms. Imagine if you had to stay the night there!

There are a few factors that contribute to the exorbitant costs of health care. One is that everyone who shows up in an emergency room must be taken care of regardless if they can pay for it or not. If they cannot, the bill is then passed on to the consumer that is paying $300.00 a month for insurance, thus the insurance company pays about three times what it should for each patient it insures. The insurance company would rather pay it off than fight it in court and wind up paying a legal team more money to save a couple of bucks. Another is the greed that we see today in the medical community. I am afraid that doctors today go into medicine for the money rather than to help those who need it. Doctors always complain about the high costs of malpractice insurance (which is also out of control) but it isn’t so high that it keeps them from living in million-dollar homes. So, for medical and hospital personnel to say that they have to charge so much to cover their insurance costs and their costs of prior schooling is simply not the whole story.

If they were really interested in what was best for you they would bring home $100,000.00 instead of a cool half million and pass the savings on to the consumer. Would the insurance companies lower their premiums though? Probably not; they’re a bunch of greedy people too! Think of it like this: If a star athlete was really interested in what was good for the team, would that athlete hop all over the place for more money all the time and leave his team high and dry? No, but what happens in the medical community is much worse. Sports are something people want to see, while medical care is something a person must have. To me it is the same as if the water companies collectively pushed the water cost up to $5.00 per gallon. It would break us, but what could we do? We can’t live without water. So we’re stuck being robbed by the medical community and those who battle with the medical community for the money we pump into it.

What’s ironic about the situation is that the medical community’s greed will eventually force prices so high that there will be no choice for the American people but to have a socialized health care system. Nobody will be able to afford health care or simply won’t buy it because of the prices. They’ll take their chances and if something does happen that is catastrophic, there is always the free emergency room to fall back on. This is exactly what the liberal establishment in America wants. Lawyers are part of the problem as well. They’re interested in the 33% they get and making sure that a victim of an accident is then victimized by them. That’s real nice.

So what can be done about it? Well, that’s when morals come into play. Let’s assume socialized medicine is not the solution. People in the United States, mainly professional and white collar America, have to be willing to do for their fellow man and deal with having a Honda Accord rather than a Porsche. The problem is a self-prescribed fix, not a legal or government controlled action. The reward internally to the soul has to be greater than the financial reward. When a person gets into a service industry where that person is providing a need to a client, that person should have the character that dictates their unrelenting want to help those that need it most. That person should have a character that is pleased with providing an affordable service at an affordable price, maybe not making lots of money, but providing lots of change in people’s life. Greed in the medical, legal, and insurance communities is holding America hostage to one of our most basic needs. A health care system that cares for the patients more than it cares about the house they live and the car they drive home.

Ahhhh, The French

Ahhhhh….the French

Every time I look at our country and think how badly things are going for us in terms of our morals and values, I can always look elsewhere to see how bad things really could be. The most recent riots in France (as opposed to the only somewhat recent riots) are over proposed labor laws that would give employers more power to decide who they have working for them. This is intended to help out the younger workers between the ages of 18 and 25, who, by the way, have an unemployment rate of about 25%. (The national unemployment average is about 10%.) But who do we see protesting the passage of such a law? The answer of course is the young French population. Are they aware of what has lead to their unemployment in the first place? Would it be too much to ask the protesters to thank the French government for taking an interest in their future and wanting to promote economic prosperity?

How did the French get themselves into this problem, anyway? The answer is simple: socialism. Socialism has given the French youth a sense of entitlement and the expectation of money and security given them by the French government. This will inevitably make the French economy obsolete. The youth of France expect eight weeks of paid vacation and to only work thirty hours a week. While this sounds great to all of us, we know that it is not a practical idea. When all the people of a country work less, the Gross Domestic Product of that country will fall. Simple concept, right? To us in the free market you would say so, but in a country dominated by Government controlled industry and services, it isn’t so simple. In fact, the French economy has only grown 1.5 % per year over the last five years. The US grew faster than that during its recession. Even their growth does not keep up with rates of inflation and they’re not able to afford as many goods on the world market.

Over the last thirty-five years, the French populace and citizens of other socialist states have become accustomed to being taken care of. The consequences are numerous: people don’t think for themselves; they lose incentive to consider being more successful; ambition leaves and all that is left is grey matter that is not stimulated to produce goods that would make an impact. The worst thing that government can do is give people something for nothing; the end result is often a dependent and bankrupt a country.

I wonder people of France will have to fall into economic depression to realize the mistakes of their past? The people there will have to be hungry, few jobs available, and crime could spread like a cancer. Sound familiar? This rioting is strangely reminiscent of the French Revolution, where it seems that there, too, a large enough group thought they could change the direction of the government. In this case, they protest to keep it from changing. The future here could also be more radical views on how to run the government. We’ll see if these views are accepted. They will either live with their poor socialist form of government or will join the world in the free market.

As social liberalism in America becomes more of culture than a political philosophy, those of us who work for a living must look at France and see the consequences of having a government that spends a majority of its money on entitlement programs. If we do not get those living on entitlement programs people working, entitlement will be an accepted way of life, a virus that will spread throughout our communities. Of course, workers will be the ones left paying for their life failures.

Everyone gets a vote here in the United States. Sometimes I think that this is unfortunate. The larger our entitlement population gets, the closer we move to the tyranny of the minority. Once these people with a sense of entitlement (and the elites who wish to control them) outnumber those of us who have a work ethic, the chance for reform may be too late. To counter this decline into socialism, it is fair to get those who aren’t working to work, to become self-sufficient. Make them earn what they have and understand that working is not a right, it is a privilege. Money isn’t something you’re entitled to, it’s something you earn by providing a service. God did not put people on this earth to be controlled by those who thrive on power, you are here to serve him by work, faith, and good deeds. Did you ever wonder why socialism is not supportive of religion? So will our country follow the example of the French or trail-blaze into the future with values and a free market system that continues to be the envy of the world?

What We Can Still Learn From Babe Ruth

As modern times come and go, new and flashier heroes replace old ones, and PR firms look for the best face to put on their products. Nowhere does this seem more obvious in the world of sports, where heroes are replaced the moment their marketability stumbles. Because sports are huge business for all involved (shoe companies, TV networks and the leagues themselves), the face attached to a product is an important choice for companies/leagues to make. But perhaps more importantly, because sport is an enormous part of our culture, athletes and their antics have a part in shaping our culture, even our values. So in the shadow of juiced slugger Barry Bonds, it’s worth remembering some heroes who should never fade from memory.

George Herman “Babe” Ruth was an icon in every sense of the word. He was the face of baseball for several decades winning several World Series with the high profile Yankees. An imposing physical figure, he was also a charming personality, famously quipping that he should make more money than the president because he “had a better year than Hoover.” On the field, he practically invented the home run, hitting 60 1927; the previous record was his own 54, and before that 29 and 24. And lest we forget, he was traded to the Yankees for his pitching skills, not his bat. He won 65 games in 3 years with the Red Sox. If he had lost 20 pounds, he may have even been able to steal a few bases.

His single season record of 60 home runs should still be the standard, done in only 154 games without the benefit of microbiology. Roger Maris’ 61 came in a season with 8 extra games and McGwire’s 70 and Bonds’ 73 came with the aid of advanced steroids and at the expense of the integrity of baseball. The Babe did it without the tight stitching baseballs have now, and without so much as contact lenses. And to make it all the more impressive, he did it at a time when America desperately needed something to take their mind off the 1919 “Black Sox Scandal” that devastated public confidence in baseball. Towards the end of his career, the popularity of baseball he helped reestablish was a great aid in coping with the Great Depression. Now, I would guess some in the blogosphere doubt the value of sports in society, but looking the role baseball played in American in the 1930s, it is hard to say sports were worthless. This was a time when the fabric of American culture was defined in part by baseball and its titans, when catching a game on the radio was part of everyday life for a vast majority of Americans.

I know that Ruth was no moral role model. A reputed womanizer, Ruth certainly enjoyed life in the worldliest sense. His drinking habits and cigar smoke-filled late nights make his physical accomplishments that much more impressive. But his charisma, his ability to connect with fans, especially children, and his enthusiasm for the game are a breath of fresh air compared to the labor unions and dollar signs that emanate from sports today. Ruth understood the role baseball had in America, and never seemed to have a sense that he was above it. In a sense, Ruth was a servant of the game, unlike the Bonds’ of the world, who see the game as servants of them. Ruth’s whole perspective of the role of sports in culture was one of appreciation and respect, something we have lost with the steroids scandal. These sorts of scandal (just like the 1919 Black Sox scandal) help create an atmosphere of distrust in sports. And if sports is big business, distrust in sports is distrust in business.

What makes an achievement authentic? What makes a sports star worthy of praise? What makes sports even matter at all? The answers to these questions can be found in the unique character of the Babe, a guy who has lost most of his records to modern day heroes, but a guy whose importance is hard to measure in numbers.

Not Buying It: What is Reed Kroloff Thinking?

For those people interested in the nexus between architecture and politics, the post-Katrina aftermath offers much it and more. Since natural disasters are feared for their material destructiveness, buildings being the overwhelmingly biggest material casualty, it’s a given that the politics of recovery is more often than not an architectural question. What should be rebuilt? How should it be rebuilt? Who are we as a community and what relation does our architecture reflect our reality? Charismatic architects and academics have no trouble making their positions on such questions known, and are eager to promote their agenda as vigorously (and sometimes shamelessly) as any politician.

I’ve written on the emerging philosophical rift taking place as the reconstruction of the Gulf coast is underway. The New Urbanists, led by architects and planner Andres Duany of Florida seem to have the upperhand in the Mississippi, as the governor there is all to happy to enlist their advice and design proposals for the afflicted areas of his state. In New Orleans, Reed Kroloff, the dean of the Tulane School of Architecture has taken on the responsibility of acting as the primary opponent of the New Urbanists. He believes that the rebuilding poses an opportunity for the city to completely remake itself by addressing its preexisting social ills with a more ‘progressive’ architecture. The blog Building Big Easy chronicles the contentions of both sides from the New Urbanist point of view, while Progressive Reactionary does a good job in presenting the issue from the modernist perspective. But another blog, The Gutter, links and comments on the Mr. Kroloff’s latest salvo in the defense of his progressive views:

I've been black for four months, one week, and five days. I'm still not used to it, and that's kind of a funny thing since I grew up Jewish in Waco, Texas. Believe me, you know what it means to be different when you grow up Jewish in Waco. But over the last four months I've learned that being black means more than just being different: it means being forgotten. It means being ignored. It means being in-sulted. It means being stripped of your dig-nity repeatedly. It means being the object of mistrust, ignorance, and fear. It means many, many unpleasant things.

Why does a white Jewish man in a relatively privileged position (being Dean of any Architecture School is a pretty plumb position) suddenly declares his solidarity with blacks? If you read Kroloff’s article further, what he is really doing is summarizing the general sense of neglect and resentment New Orleanians feel these days. Beginning with the failure for the government at all levels to competently respond and be accountable for its incompetence, it’s apparent that the people of this great city are in no festive mood but instead are angry at everybody. But I think Kroloff is being patronizingly arrogant in appropriating black identity for his own cause. One can be modest in trying to imagine what a black person feels while also being mindful there are many different points of view that blacks hold beyond Kroloff’s simplistic definition of black identity. He makes assumptions about an entire group of people based not on reality but on his intellectual prejudice. Kroloff is guilty of painting too broad a brush in describing people with which he has little in common, since he is a part of New Orleans’ elite and has been conferred actual power in the city affairs without ever being elected. Waco might not be the most cosmopolitan of environments (from the few visits I’ve made there to see my friendly in-laws), but growing up Jewish in that city can’t compare with the hardships experienced by blacks throughout New Orleans’ history. Little does he understand what many blacks go through than does he understand what blacks want. I can bet you that few blacks are sympathetic to modern design solutions, since they have borne most of the brunt of dealing with the architectural and urban planning experiments of elites similar to Mr. Kroloff.

The truth is that Modernist design solutions are rarely, if ever, the result of a democratic process. Such schemes are often implemented by a bureaucracy that is sympathetic Modernism’s claims of technocratic efficiency. But when it comes to assembling the actual residence within the community, the consensus that emerges is a desire to return to tradition, to a welcoming sense of place, one that is not austere or alienating. New Urbanism has cleverly tapped into these important concerns and has provided a consistent and practical system that ensures what most inhabitants desire in their communities. Progressives like Mr. Kroloff cannot accept the fact that most people will ignore their enlightened prescriptions no matter how practical their proposal is. Many like myself wish that rebuilding the structures in Louisiana would resemble the striking houses of Auburn University’s Rural Studio. New Orleans is by contrast very urban and as steeped in tradition as any other American city. Reinvention is its last priority, while preservation of the historic fabric is of primary concern. There other cities that are open to constant redefinition, that embrace the new and untried, but New Orleans is about the reverence to a certain way of life and the stubborn refusal to make the changes necessary to make the city viable in all kinds of disciplines. Sorry, Mr. Kroloff, but you’re in the wrong place to consider imposing your progressive schemes to the city.

I’m sure the man knows this, but that doesn’t prevent him from wearing the cloak of victimhood to advance his agenda. I often find those who exploit the plight of the most vulnerable to be disingenuous about their real intentions. By making common cause with the suffering of an oppressed group, Kroloff hopes to instill a collective consciousness towards the implementation of his own plan. To accuse his New Urbanist opponents as bringers of Disneyfication is a means of pointing out the false consciousness that grip a whole class of people who should know better. Kroloff borrows his approach straight from the Marxist handbook. My general impression of his article is the author’s sense of desperation. If things don’t go your way, the most drastic response is to simplify the nature of the opposition and generate conflict based on a rationale designed to instigate the passions of the mob. The New Urbanists have been mostly busy at work, diligently generating schemes in response to meeting with the inhabitants, while ingratiating themselves to the powers that be. They have yet to employ Marxist tactics to paint their opponents as they are too busy going about the business of redesigning the Gulf Coast. Maybe there's something to be learned when the whining stops and the work gets underway.

Wanna Be a Revolutionary? Be Orthodox

In “V for Vendetta,” we get the impression that being a revolutionary is on par with being a terrorist. Now, perhaps we could push all sense of decency and morality to the point where we could conceive the elimination of an entire government as proper, if that the government had become both powerful and evil. Perhaps we could imagine a scenario where refusing to play by “moral” rules of the day was the best way to overthrow those who are powerful and immoral. But actually, the ideas behind “V” strike me as immature and reactionary. I don’t find that our culture needs revolutionaries to overthrow governments as much as revolutionaries who define morality in a traditional and orthodox way, and then have the audacity to tell other people about it.

There are those who speak about morality as though it were a fleeting notion, a personal preference, or even a thing of the past. “Old” morality is just that: old. New morality must be put in its place. (A fun examination of this may be found in the “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith, where the protagonist laments the loss of the “old Botswana morality”.) For Hollywood types and self-described philosophers, the “old” standard-bearers of morality seem to be the bad guys. The Church (my area of interest) is particularly lamented, because of its stodginess and irrelevancy. For example, between “V” and the terrible “Ultraviolet,” I’ve noticed that the cross has become a harbinger of the abuse of power more than any actual statement of the Christian faith. It is placed on buildings to signal the evil manipulation of power, nothing sacred or honorable.

Of course, this is nothing new; the Church has been accused of promoting an outdated moral model since the Reformation, certainly the Enlightenment. But it strikes me how boring these accusations still are. The government’s slogan in the movie (“Strength through Unity, Unity through Faith”) displays an immature and propagandistic view the filmmakers have of religion. These are the types of stereotypes that are spoken by people who do not know of the gentle urgings of a life of faith, and castigate it from afar, with great fear and an utter lack of moral courage.

But as it turns out, historic revolutionaries against totalitarianism were exactly what “V” says the dictators are: people of faith. Consider the thousands of martyrs who, over 2,000 years have stood in the way of oppressive governments! It starts with the Holy Innocents who died at the hands of King Herod immediately following the birth of Jesus. We have the apostles in the Roman Empire at the hands of Nero, the victims of the counter-Reformation and Thirty Years War and the pastors who opposed Nazism and Communism. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has garnered a lot of attention n the last 2 decades as the Lutheran pastor and theologian who was one of the first to speak against Hitler (in 1936) who went on to attempt to assassinate him in July, 1944. Bonhoeffer was later hanged at the Flossenbuerg concentration camp. And these orthodox and faithful revolutionaries are by no means limited to the Christian sect, though its understanding of human freedom, private property and the sanctity of life tend to make it an ideal ideology for anti-totalitarianism. (That being said, the churches cooperated with Hitler too early and too often, naïve and outfoxed, and should have resisted earlier.)

It is interesting to me that the very values that the hero in “V” is fighting for have come from a generally theistic, if not specifically Judeo-Christian worldview. The hero’s slogan (“The people should not fear their government; the government should fear their people”) comes from an understanding of sin, power and morality straight out of the Bible (and other sacred texts.) Yet, the bad guy is the one with the cross imagery.

Yes, Hitler used veiled spiritual language and the swastika is a historically religious symbol. Hitler spoke of a god having favor on the German people and favoring their destinies. But did he ever speak of Germany following the example of Jesus Christ? Was that name ever used, or only the vague language of a god? To insinuate in any way that Hitler had real Christian aims is grossly unsupported and intellectually dishonest. Yet, “V” seems to be saying that exactly, and in the process comparing contemporary governments with the Nazi regime. (I wonder if this is also a veiled critique of the faith of President Bush?) Regardless, the historic revolutionaries throughout time have more often than not been people of an orthodox faith, a faith that if proclaimed in social circles today is seen as more of an affront to freedom than any renegade in a mask.

Illegitimacy and the Future of American Education

**This essay was written by civilserviceman

As the federal budget soars to new highs, it's appropriate to take some time to look at domestic policy, even as foreign policy dominates. Recently I have been reading “Scam” by Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. In this book he reveals the truth behind some black leaders in America and how they often exploit black America. He shows how people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the Nation of Islam are detrimental to black society and lead them down a path of destruction that will ensure them being the most poverty stricken ethnic group in the United States. One of the most profound chapters deals with the role of the father in the household.

It should be said that this debate is not about race, as the victim mentality hurts any who go on to live it out. From the mid-1990s and the welfare debate came a greater understanding that too many children are born without a father figure in their lives. This lack of a father figure often leads boys that are feminized, women who abuse their children because they have nobody to help them and the stress is too great for them to handle, and children who don’t have positive role models in their lives. 24% for white children are born out of wedlock while the same is true for 70% of black children.

Unfortunately the problem is a downward spiral, and works in an exponential manner. These numbers for black children have over doubled since the 1970’s and quadrupled for white children since the 70’s. Without positive role models and parents in the house to teach these children that this is unacceptable behavior, these children will have children of their own out of wedlock and leave them to be raised by a single parent or even worse, the state. There will be a generation of children who are raised with few moral principles and a zest for life to be quenched by promiscuous sex, violence, drugs, and alcohol. These people will not pay taxes but instead will need to be taken care of with taxpayer dollars. So, how do we solve the problem?

Clearly the state and federal government alone does not have the capacity to solve this problem. The government has the power to cut out the social programs for those who abuse them. This year, over half of the federal budget will go to social programs and still cries come to cut military spending and help the people that need it most. (What they really mean is that their voting base needs to stay healthy enough so they can get to the polls and pull the lever.) Can the federal government mandate that those who receive social program help should work? Paul writes to the Thessalonians that if a man will not work, he shall not eat. There was an understanding then of the importance of not being a burden on others in society, and we now know that working gives one something to be proud of and develops character. Then we can have a culture where people have too much pride to take from the government. Unless we continue to foster a culture of entitlement.

While we know that accidents do happen and children are born out of wedlock to parents that take care of them, there is no excuse for these women who have three different babies from three different fathers and have never been married. There is also no excuse for a man that plants his seed all over the place never intending to watch his plants sprout. Our immorality and subsequent lack of education at home is part of what is leading us to fall behind the Chinese and Indians in education. Even though we still produce more than them, in time, these education stumbles may lead to a collapse in economic output.

The change has to start in the home. We as people of the United States have to find out a way to help these kids who aren’t being helped by their parents. The answer is not in entitlement programs, it’s not in free education, and not something the government is able to give. The answer is to instill pride in these kids that they can only achieve on their own. This is the pride that comes with hard work, a little discipline, and forming a family around you that a man can be proud of.

Carnival of the Architects and Urbanists, Second Edition

Welcome to the second edition of Carnival of the Architects and Urbanists! Since posting the first edition I have discovered even more blogs writing about the above-mentioned topics and I am still amazed that few have thought of starting similar kinds of carnivals. Anyway, let’s get started:

• As some of you may or may not know, the discipline of architecture is not known to be high-paying. It’s not uncommon to find firms who get away with not paying recent graduates. Partiv explores this case with one up-and-coming international firm, while Progressive Reactionary adds his own thoughts to this practice. My own view is that this is an endemic and abusive practice, but I can’t help thinking that it comes from certain architects’ perception that what they do is more of an art than a paid business service.


• For a fascinating example at the cross between architecture and contemporary philosophy, Pen(-lex/-sieve) is worth your visit. The writer makes an interesting point regarding the role of nostalgia in buildings:

Honesty demands I recognize that my love for certain places and even certain people is really a love for the past, a mnemophilia. Nostalgia assigns value, selecting and coloring "facts". There is, however, a kind of paradox implied by nostalgia -- it is at once a yearning and a denial of time.

• The popular architecture blog “A Daily Dose of Architecture” reports on the latest developments regarding the planned tallest building in Chicago designed by Pritzker winner Santiago Calatrava. Here are some of my additional thoughts on the Fordham Spire.


• Architectnophilia talks about his favorite architects by using the alphabet. Whether O is for is for O’Gorman or M is for Murcutt, it’s a good way for those unfamiliar with the giants of architecture to learn about what influences young designers today.


• Ever seen a building come to life on a chalkboard? Architecture Sketches shows master Swiss designer Mario Botta do just that for his museum for sculptor Jean Tinguely.


• Young Pong provides brief descriptions of wonderful resources on the contemporary avant-garde as well as on the evolving techniques used in the practice.


• The internet is a useful alternative in investigating the history of architecture outside the paradigms set by master historians like Kenneth Frampton, William Curtis, or Spiro Kostof.


• Andrew L Raimist explores in detail the career of the talented but almost forgotten Saint Louis Architect Harris Armstrong.


• Beyond providing a list of many symposia on design in the world’s elite universities, “Do You Want Some Coffee” (probably a reference to architecture students’s sleepless nights at the studio) discusses the reemergence of ornament in contemporary architecture by way of sophisticated curtain-wall systems.


• For a day in the life account of an advanced architecture student in England, check out Amy’s Diary at Slippers, Spearguns + Archilungs.


• World on Paper shows a nifty project of bringing a ruin to life. There’s also a profound statement by leading light Rem Koolhaas as well.


• Kinch at Building Big Easy chronicles the debate going on in his hometown of New Orleans between New Urbanist and avant-garde solutions to rebuilding after Katrina. The Dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture has made a reputation as the primary spokesman of those who seek to reinvent the Crescent City.


• Charlotte Bell, a graduate student in interior design, writes about the difficulty in reconciling the verbal with the visual. It’s easy enough to let the drawings speak for themselves, but words are essential in conveying to the client how one arrived at the solution. This is very well done blog that offers readers deep insights into what goes on in the mind of a designer.


• For those who are Francophiles at heart like (my critical essays on France notwithstanding) Louis La Vache serves up nice big helpings of well-researched essays of France’s most interesting people, places and recipes. In his post about the Grand Palais in Paris, La Vache doesn’t mince his words when mentioning Le Corbusier.


• Lawhawk summarizes the latest happenings with the redevelopment of ground zero. It’s easy to forget about that place since the pace of progress has been extremely slow and marred by protests from every conceivable side. It seems that a potentially great space will be frittered away by bureaucratic indecisiveness.


• It’s well known that Anthropomorphism is really big in contemporary architecture today. But sometimes these anthropomorphic experiments seem to go a bit far.


• Knotted Paths takes a look at planning issues in Melbourne, Australia.


• Tropolism is another premier blog about architecture, and this post may hint at the future of redevelopment of older neighborhoods.k


• And finally, don’t forget to visit BLDGBLOG, where Geoff Manaugh posts about a wide variety of subjects, including Vladimir Tatlin’s Tower for the Third International and Louis Etienne Boulee’s Cenotaphe for Newton.

Reclaiming the Word "Illegal"

Last Friday, Chicago hosted a demonstration for illegal immigration. Yes, a rally in favor of illegal immigration including speeches from both the governor and mayor decrying any attempt to stigmatize illegal immigrants. (Governor Rod Blagojevich even used the old, “I’m the son of an immigrant” line.) The focus was HR 4437, The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, which immigrants say limits their rights. Technically, a rally demanding illegal activity to be overlooked is no different from having demonstrations for any other illegal act, short of capital or violent crimes. Certainly we don’t see many people protesting arrests made of shoplifters, purse-snatchers, or drunk drivers…yet. But, for illegal immigration, 300,000 people will show up to lobby for it. How has the issue of legality come to be so thoroughly muddy?

I admit the issue has many difficult moral questions to answer. Slavery, too, used to be legal; maybe all immigration will be in time as well. And with immigrants, we are dealing with human beings, not cattle, and we naturally want to be as lenient as we reasonably can. Americans are also somewhat humbled given that we are a “nation of immigrants”, and may feel some guilt about saying who has a right to this land. For Christians, it is hard to ignore the commands, “love your neighbor” and “feed your enemy.” Likewise, the example of Jesus healing the Canaanite woman (15:21-28) and the Good Samaritan (non-Jewish neighbors) are hard to ignore. Aren’t those crossing the American border like the Samaritans and Canaanites, people different from ourselves only superficially and in desperate need of love and understanding? Certainly, no one would deny the Church should defend the citizenship and rights of any in this country legally.

Consequentially, the concept of the “illegal” in illegal immigration has become fuzzy, and virtually no lobby will take on the issue. Business won’t; the economic desire for cheap, non-taxed labor is lucrative. Politicians won’t; the political payoff for looking the other way could be enormous in a close race. The Church won’t: no organized church representing the Body of Christ would ever, or could ever, come out against these poor, migrant workers in search of work. And by this point, if any of these groups did, they would be seen as hypocrites who acted too late.

But before we make any headway on the issue, we must reclaim the word “illegal” when it comes to immigration. A nation without borders is no nation at all, and every one of the above lobbies, especially the Church, should see the projected problems coming our way as we refuse to call illegal action illegal. This numbing of language creates an atmosphere of nuance legalese and subsequent distrust of the law. Even those opposed to illegal immigration may very likely begin to live in a way less respective of the law, just by observing the way major institutions ignore it.

So the Church, in fact, has a great responsibility to call any illegal action illegal, even if it is against our neighbor. To not do so undermines the understanding of church and state that has formed over the centuries, which is that they are both ordained of God, and for good order, must both be obeyed. Roman Catholics have the principle of subsidiarity, which understands the individual responsible for himself first, and the federal (or world) government responsible for him last. Reformed churches talk of sphere sovereignty, and Lutheran churches speak of the Two Kingdoms theory. All effectively say that government and the rule of law should be respected, as should the weight the Word and Church carry with them.

Yet, the Church is lobbying against any notion of making illegal immigration a point of conflict, a conflict they say would push immigrants, especially illegal ones, to the margins. This “social gospel”, though, threatens the security of the nation and the basic ability to claim sovereignty as a nation. It doesn’t mean that the church cannot visit all persons who commit crime in prison, attempt to provide better economic opportunities for those in corrupt countries, or provide a visa for those who want to work in the United States. It does mean that to undermine the law is a grave mistake, one that will inevitably lead to a disrespect for the law as a concept first, and a disregard for the law in practice second.

The Visual Boredom of the College Campus

It’s been quite a few years since I stepped into a semi-rural university campus, where the setting felt more like an elegant park carefully framed by pseudo-historic buildings. These campuses can be surrounded by a dense city (such as Rice University in Houston) or within small towns like most small liberal arts colleges. In both instances the sense of isolation from the surrounding urban reality is pervasive—whatever takes place on campus is unimaginable if it happened anywhere outside the boundaries of the campus. The detachment brought about by its serene landscaping and its dignified architecture serve to induce the sense of being an almost utopian environment, disengaged from the chaos, noise, and dynamism of the dense cities that surround them. Even in smaller towns that host small colleges, there is a clear distinction made between the members that belong to the campus and everybody outside (or “townies” as we called during my undergrad years).

These little principalities permit the administrators tremendous freedom to control the environment within, either by policing the leisurely activities of students or by determining in precise detail the look of the campus and how it effects future development. Typical urban entities could never wield the degree of influence these administrators wield on the built environment. Individual property rights, the simultaneous flow of commerce, and the preoccupation in generating centers of job growth prevent city leaders and planners from being too prescriptive on how to plan the city. None of the above factors influence campus design, which therefore offers any observer numerous depictions of what many would build in an ideal world where the selfish pursuit of money and power replaced by the far more ennobling task of education and research.

The United States is therefore a haven for these utopian mini-states, since its abundance of land allowed many institutions to take advantage of free land-grants. The thousands of these picturesque little worlds dot the land and testify clearly the prevailing preferences of the educated elite, the students that choose to attend them and what Americans overall expect of what places dedicated to the enrichment of the mind should look like. The most ambitious architects have always dreamed of having a clean slate to impose their own ideal plan of how to organize human settlement. They also yearn to have singular control on how each piece of the plan is designed at every level of detail. And what could be better for a designer than not to have to worry if the plan encourages vibrant economic life, only to create as poetic an assembly of built forms on a landscape as possible? Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and renowned Texas architect O’Neill Ford had the fortune to do just that with interesting results, revealing the limitations of their style when applied consistently from building to building.

What these Modernist efforts reveal about the drawbacks the built environment on college campus are also applicable to places defined by more historicist styles. Last weekend I found myself at Southern Methodist University north of downtown Dallas attending an even there. I took the time to wander around the campus, to walk into its more notable buildings (e.g. Dallas Hall) and to generally orient myself to a place I had never really known after all these years. SMU is representative of the qualities of American campuses that I listed above: isolated from the reality of the city, beautiful manicured lawns with trees, and carefully maintained buildings that exhibit a singular historicist style (Georgian Colonial) of strict scale and proportion. New academic buildings under construction seemed to faithfully follow the prescriptions set by the university master plan, reinforcing architectural conformity sought by almost every other college campus.

And it was precisely this oppressive architectural conformity typical of campuses that instilled a sense of uneasiness in me during my excursion through SMU. On the one hand architectural coherence is a good thing in that it lends a recognizable identity to the university to people outside the campus. Yet on the other hand this sameness was kind of oppressive, the monotony in the repetition of materials and architectural elements turn the buildings into indistinct massive elements that merely frame the spaces. For someone unfamiliar with the place, finding a particular building from a map becomes a challenge when they all look eerily alike, and one can never tell what function is going on inside (ironically a common complaint against Modernism). The powerful architectural conformity of the Georgian style do indeed endow the campus a sense of timelessness, as if every building had been built together at once. Beyond the few modernist eyesores small colleges indulged in decades ago, time stops in a campus—the passage of time, of changing taste of distinctive built artifacts is suppressed or even demolished for the sake of maintaining conformity and even reestablishing a dignified tradition that wasn’t there in the first place (my alma mater decided to tear down this one-of-a-kind Star-Trek style food commons and build a new building on top more in keeping with the prevailing Richardsonian Romanesque style of the campus.)

My impressions do not imply that the campus is ugly. To the contrary, college campuses are among the most attractive built environments anywhere, a fascinating extrapolation of traditional English campuses into desirable places that successfully pull in many ambitious students to enroll and hoping for an enriching experience in an idyllic setting. Much of the architectural detailing, the execution in employing the vocabulary of the historic styles (e.g. Classical, Gothic, or Romanesque) is well done, while the Beaux-Arts-influenced landscape plan ensure pleasantly proportioned spaces and monumental axes. Yet the mere fact that it is all ‘beautiful’ still leaves out an important aspect that is vital for me to make a place enjoyable to be in—something I would call ‘possessing interest’. What is meant here is that I desire an environment to offer something unexpected, fascinating, ironic, embodying subtle tension. The liveliest urban environments in the city downtowns contain this in droves, in which each street, alley, and building reveals itself in unexpected ways. In such dynamic places, unlike buildings sit side by side, their juxtaposition suggesting all sorts of meanings. The contrasting building style on a busy city street document the passage of time quite vividly, each land plot containing a story of its own unlike those built for college purposes. Far from dissolving into this nondescript mass that serves to enhance the landscape, the heterogeneity of the urban block generate a sculptural cityscape, a hierarchy of masses and surfaces that give a community a unique visual identity. College campuses share these attributes, but usually in a tightly composed plan that borrows heavily on rules of design inherited from baroque and neoclassicist planning principles. The resulting visual austerity contrasts significantly with the un-composed, unplanned, and chaotic liveliness that make urban spaces exciting to be in. Urban university campuses like the University of Texas in Austin share this quality, which makes for more dynamic public spaces within and more architectural ecclecticism which lend the place an aspect of authenticity.

Reflecting on my response to SMU’s architecture led me to realize the futility of having one designer designing an environment as broad and complex as a college campus, much less an entire city. Ceding complete control to one designer for such large scope projects will yield an undesirable monotony to a place that induces an uneasy sense of calm. The quality of the individual design of each building suffers, often revealing the limitations of an architect’s stylistic toolbox across a large group of structures (e.g. Mies at IIT). An environment can only become enriched by the interplay between distinct buildings of various periods, endowing each with its own integrity. The result of encouraging architectural heterogeneity may not necessarily produce the kind of beauty promised by more rigorous design rules, but they are certain to generate interest (at least to an architecture geek like me.)

Family Chic

I know the conservative blogosphere prides itself on its on being above the pop culture frey, leaving that to tabloids and celebrity magazines. We are interested in ideas, cultural trends and political issues, and tire quickly of quips like “splitsville” and “fashion feux pas”. For many of us, the decadence of celebrity culture may be a sign that our culture is, in some sense, sick, infatuated with people of little talent propped up for superficial reasons. But it is hard to deny that pop culture reflects the values and mores that culture deems relevant; after all, it is popular. So I watched with some interest as two pop divas seemed to be in competition over who could create a family life first.

It is interesting to me that Jessica Simpson’s career was successful, but unremarkable until her television show, “Newlyweds.” Here was a show that celebrated marriage and presented an honest approach to what married life was about: moments of joy as well as moments of annoyance. Though the show garnered high ratings in part because of Jessica’s ditzy blonde routine, I also have a suspicion that viewers were glad to see celebrities sharing their own values towards marriage and family, even if it became clear later that this couple might not be the best of role models. The show combined the celebrity lifestyle with the hopes that so many of us have: to be married and contribute to the family tree.

Then there is the Britney Spears pregnancy and subsequent marriage, a career move I am convinced was a rebuttal to Queen Jessica taking over the pop throne. Some say I’m crazy, but I wouldn’t doubt that it was a shrewd professional decision more than a biological clock ticking. Either way, Spears produced a television show of her own, not about her career as much as her love life. The whirlwind of falling in love and starting a family was, again, thought to be wonderful television fodder. Her show happened to flop, and now charges about her being an unsafe mother have made it difficult for her to cash in on any public support she may have earned by being a mom.

But I’m not interested in the details as much as the fact that somewhere along the way, having a family came to be seen as something of a cool thing to do. Granted, celebrity marriages (and divorces) have always captured the public’s attention, but I don’t remember two starlets in the prime of their fragile careers parading the family life to this extent. It’s one thing to be married; it’s something else when that becomes a cornerstone of your career, the plotlines for your television show and sole reason for gracing “People” magazine. Somewhere along the way, traditional values became cool again. Marriage, family, kids and values that accompany them like commitment, sacrifice and honor were prized over independence, selfishness and carelessness. Well, at least they were for a short while.

Now, this does not mean that these values found particularly good vehicles in Simpson and Spears. In fact, the defunct marriage of Simpson suggests that, as many in Middle America might have suggested, traditional values and the celebrity culture lifestyle just can’t be combined. Which, in a way, is my point: the concept of family has become chic, but the actuality of marriage and raising children is still very much at odds with celebrity culture. Marriage and parenting are often unglamorous, thankless and self-sacrificing jobs, three concepts celebrities have little familiarity with.

Something is chic because it is stylish for the moment, but not necessarily any longer than that. Family chic represents a style that says one of the things that’s cool now is the family life, but the real stuff of family life, the hard stuff, seems to be inconvenient. Movies that highlight if not celebrate adultery like “Brokeback Mountain” call into question those old-fashioned values of commitment and self-sacrifice while honoring values like “being true to yourself.” This is not the stuff strong families are made of.