Monthly Archives: July 2011

July 28, 2011

Loved in Hell

By Jer Clifton

Can loved ones be in hell?  I think everyone who believes in hell would say, “Of course.”  But this poses some logical problems for me.

In Veggie Tales’ Jonah, the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything define compassion for us: “Compassion is when you see that someone needs help, and you want to help them.”  It could also be said that you “let someone else’s trouble trouble you.”  But how do the troubles of those in hell not trouble those in heaven who, I assume, tend to be loving, compassionate people?  Is heaven possible in a world with a populated hell?

In The Great Divorce, CS Lewis wants to say it is.  It is possible to love those in hell, which in his grand metaphor is a greytown filled with those determined to hate the world and themselves, and not to be made miserable by that love, even if they are our dearest loved ones.  Lewis wants to say that if there is a hell then the Veggie Tales view of compassionate love does not work, because then hell would hold heaven hostage.

My trouble is that the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything have a good definition.  My understanding of love seems to necessitate letting others hijack your emotions.  As Mr. Holton, my 9th grade English teacher, said about having kids, “It’s like letting your heart walk around outside your body.”  That makes sense to me.  That is how my marriage feels, or having good friends, or having a god you love, or a dog you cherish, or loving anything at all ever.  A true lover cannot care about the self-inflicted emotional distress of those they love without that distress in some way translating into distress for themselves.  Distress is distress even if deserved.

Because love connects us, in a world of hate, all suffering is local.  It’s quarantined.  In a world of love, pain rides veins of sympathy, slowly spreading throughout the world to make us all miserable.  Maybe God made the world that way purposefully.  If we all loved each other, joy and misery would be universal.  That also means that those veins of sympathy would intertwine heaven and hell.

So, is compassion not good, or does it somehow become not good after Judgement Day?  Does compassion need to somehow accommodate corollaries (for example, another’s troubles only bothers you when they are not self-inflicted or deserved)?  How can it?  Will we not have real compassion or love for people in hell?  Or, will hell be empty?  I have no answers.

Maybe God cuts people off from his love because he loves others and must be allowed to be happy for their sake, otherwise the pain of the former will spread.  Maybe hell could mean being completely forgotten.  I cannot have compassion on someone if I do not remember they exist.  But while God can make me forget, can he forget?  I doubt it.  Even if he is the only one who remembers that there are people in hell, wouldn’t his love of people who are getting tortured torture him?  Is heaven good for us and miserable for God?

I think the magnitude of suffering dictates in part how bad we feel for even self-inflicted pain.  Lewis’ “greytown” seems less awful than fiery torment.  Even if fiery torment is self-inflicted, if we love them in any meaningful sense, we will feel bad, right?  Aren’t we called to love our enemies?  Is it a big step from that to love the damned?

But maybe my definition of love is incomplete.  Maybe more central to love is caring about someone else’s wellbeing more than your own.  In doing this, you throw yourself wide to the afflictions of compassion, but misery is avoided, because this sort of love is impossible without something else: a radical humility. You cannot care about someone else more than yourself if you care for yourself an infinite amount.  Have you ever been loved by someone who is not humble?  You haven’t.  It’s impossible.  Humility makes love possible, and part of humility is not taking on cares and woes that are not yours.  You are not responsible for everything if you do not think of yourself as having power over everything.  “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Somehow, maybe, by giving up on yourself, you can care about others, but that care does not pollute your happiness, because you have given up on yourself.  As Tyler Durten says in Fight Club, “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”  As Victor Frankyl notes in Man’s Search for Meaning, you have to give yourself up and devote yourself to some larger purpose to be happy.  As Jesus says in Matthew, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

A radical humility is more central to our faith than anything else (my favorite passage is the Christ Hymn in Philippians).  Maybe radical humility is what saves hell from destroying heaven.  But at times it feels like alot of bullshit.  Christ’s call to die to self is an obnoxiously internal command.  I wish I could just do some hail Mary’s, observe Friday fasts, make a pilgrimage, and do stuff that makes me feel Christian and good.  I long for legalism.  But Christianity is an immensely internal experience.  Humility, love, faith, God…I cannot measure it, see it, record it, or describe it.  I hardly understand it.

So of course it would feel like bullshit, and of course it might be.  It just makes me crazy.

These are ramblings.  Please take them as such.  

13 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in metaphysics, Theology

July 24, 2011

Armrest Wars

By Jer Clifton

I extend my duffel bag awkwardly in front of me, shuffle my feet, and focus on making myself as narrow as possible.  Still, I bump at least two shoulders as I walk down the aisle.  I see my seat, stuff my bag in the overhead bin, and plop down next to an expressionless, somewhat girthy, but still middling middle-aged man whose chest hair protrudes out the stretched neck of a faded blue polo.  He does not move.

Normally I love flying seated next to transfixed automatons.  I am even cool with a little drooling.  No big deal.  But this man is not situated as a man should be when accommodating another paying passenger.  He stares straight ahead, his body centered in the seat, his legs splay wide, his weight forward, his elbows out, his radius and ulna hugging the top of the armrest, and his hand curling over and gripping its end.  He had claimed the land and was not budging.  I lean towards my other armrest.  This was going to be a long flight.

We trundle down the runway, and I get a little angrier.  We take off, and I get even angrier.  He reaches with his far hand to get a bag of Cheetos from his suitcase, opens the bag with one hand, eats it with one hand, wipes his fat face with one hand, stuffs the empty bag into the seat pocket in front of him with one hand, and I feel my blood pressure threatening to blow a hole in my brain.  And what kind of person keeps bags of Cheetos in their briefcase anyway?

I get out a book and try to distract myself, but I immediately notice my elbow grazing his hairy forearm.  I relax my shoulder and our skin touches.  Interesting.  I push down gently.  Nothing happens.  A little more.  Nothing happens.  Over the next 10 minutes I pretend to read while digging increasingly deeper at 30-second intervals.  But the bastard does not move.  Harder, deeper, and into the flesh of his forearm.  I am starting to hurt myself now.  How can he stand this?

I give up, on that tactic at least, and put my book away without finishing a paragraph.  “Bring it on,” I think to myself, “let’s make this real uncomfortable.”  Slowly, I start laying my arm down on his.  It gets weird really quick.  There we are, two strange men staring at the seat backs in front of us, practically holding hands.  I hold out as long as I can before I give up and make for the lavatory.  As I wash my hands vigorously I look in the mirror.  What is up with this guy?

I poke my head out of the bathroom and immediately spy him looking out the window with both arms folded across his chest!  I race towards the seat, but I am too late.  He turns, sees me coming, and re-stakes his claim on the armrest.

I almost lose it.  I almost scream.  I almost grab his neck and break it like a pencil.

Instead I sit, awed at my anger.  Have I ever been this angry?  But why is he doing it?  What a jerk!  I am entitled to the armrest just as much as he is!  Why can’t he just fold his arms like he obviously wants to?  He must enjoy depriving me.  But why do I care?  Why does this man exert so much power over my emotions?  Is my anger simply due to my discomfort?  Probably not.  I had been a missionary kid.  Uncomfortable travelling was my life.  Air conditioning vents had dripped on me for whole flights and then doused me with a cold and muddy liter upon landing.  I had been packed into truck beds under windowless tin covers with dozens of Filipinos in the middle of July.  I had lived in airports for over a day in the eternal limbo of rescheduling.  And I had never been this angry.  Afterall, I could sit in a much narrower seat with no armrest, smashed up against the wall of the plane on one side and a horde of people on the other, with smelly air conditioner water dripping on my head every two seconds, and I know it would not bother me nearly as much as this does.  The problem, I realize, is that somebody else is involved in a specific way; he is selfishly, knowingly, needlessly, and continually, treating me unfairly.

And then something snaps inside of me.  I give up on justice.  What’s the use of it?  It is just stressing me out.  For the rest of the flight the man still does not move, and I maintain a wooden lean and shift of my body weight to accommodate him, but I am happy.  From time to time, I look at him, and barely hold in my laughter as he continues his death grip.  My back starts hurting, but it is no big deal.  It is temporary, and I am happily finishing my book.

Thanks middling man.  You were a marvelous teacher.

This is the rough draft of a new myth I wrote yesterday.  You can see an explanation of the project and a few more myths on the “My Myths” page above.  

15 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Jer's Myths, Random Thoughts

July 21, 2011

The Island of Yap

By Jer Clifton

As I studied economics, I ran across this story a number of times.  Perhaps you have heard it.  It helps me think about the nature of money and valuation.

The indigenous people on the island of Yap developed money that consisted of enormous round slabs of limestone, up to 12 feet in diameter, with holes in the middle.  Limestone was not found on Yap, but on a neighboring island.  Quarry and transport costs accentuated its value.  Of course, nobody owned very many of these huge stones, called rai, but they did change hands for dowries, or as a last resort after a failed crop (though hopefully your crop was the only one that failed, otherwise you might be facing rai inflation).

But rai did not change hands per se.  They were too big.  Instead, when you acquired rai, it was merely acknowledged that the stone now belonged to you.  You left it in the town square, or marking the path, or wherever it lay.  It was yours and everyone knew it.  Now you had enduring stored value, ready for you when you needed it.

Once, while transporting a large rai stone, it fell into a deep part of the sea.  Oh no!  But after some discussion, everyone concluded it must be down there somewhere, and so it continued to be exchanged as if it was regular rai.  It is still traded, though nobody has seen it for over 100 years.

It seems to me that the brilliance of modern finance is to say, “Why are we going through the trouble of mining and transporting these stones (or in our case, precious metals) in the first place?  Seems like a waste of time.  Instead, why don’t we pretend that all our rai are already lying on the bottom of the sea?  We’ll just use banks, accountants, and ledgers to keep track of it all, just like we were doing already, but in order to lessen the impact of cycles of inflation and deflation, let’s create a quasi-governmental organization (the Fed) to control how much fictional rai at the bottom of the sea we are allowed to think exists.”  Brilliant.  If we are all going to play make-believe, we might as well ensure our make-believe world is as stable as possible.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Economics, History, General

July 11, 2011

Adventures in Economics

By Jer Clifton

The realization irritatingly flicked my enormous nose two months ago: in order to realize my full potential as a snob, I need to learn more about economics and develop some stronger opinions.  The context for this realization was a year of Alicia taking the equivalent of intellectual steroids in her masters program–just plain unsportswomanlike.  I used to hold my own with her when debating monetary policy, development economics, and recent global economic history.  Now I’m an infant.  At least I could still play the “well I have some insight because at least I grew up in another economy” card.  But Eric, a friend from Taiwan, moved in and took that tiny advantage from me.  And, before Alicia went to Rwanda, they had impassioned debates that I enjoyed only as a spectator.  That’s just unethical.  All arguments should include me.

Seriously, economics is important, and I know very little.  I can’t pretend to be a well-informed citizen if I don’t have an informed opinion on, for instance, the gold standard.  Therefore, I went on a binge and listened to the following (feel free to skip the list):

Economics.  3rd Edition (36 lectures).  Timothy Taylor does a good job.  He’s managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Principles of Economics (14 lectures) With Peter Navarro (didn’t get all the way through it)

Freakonomics.  By Steven Levitt. Interesting!

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson.  I enjoyed it.  (I understand everything so much better when I understand the story of its development.  However, Ferguson could have been more systematic about it.  The phrase “financial history” makes you think it will be a history.  Its more of a collection of interesting tidbits of history.)

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman.  Ok.

The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell.  Statistics heavy.

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.  Mildly interesting!

Overall I was amazed with how boring economics can be.  I need my intellectual adventures to be a bit more adventurous.  This is why I love ancient Greece!  Nonetheless, I am now a bit more informed.  Here are some of my new positions and some old ones that were confirmed (new positions are in italics):

First, the gold standard is silly.  It takes away our ability to counteract inflation or deflation.  It might make more sense to the public, it might be easier to wrap our heads around, but it’s bad for the economy.

Second, the Fed is the best option we have.  Yes, it’s weird.  They do weird things.  But money is a fiction, and a shadowy quasi-government bank seems to be the best way to make it happen.

Third, the government needs to spend a ton during economic downturns.  It needs to cleverly bail out banks, GM, whoever, in order to ward off catastrophic failure.

Fourth, unions suck.  Sure, it’s a generality, but this is economics.  Formerly essential, currently destructive, unions are hurting us in most sectors (in America) where their presence is strong.

Fifth, any sort of protectionism is a subsidy.  It’s a tax on everyone else.  This does not mean that I am necessarily always against it, but we should call protectionism taxation.  As a corollary, we should generally be for free-ish trade.

Sixth, I am still a huge fan of the fair tax.  Huckabee/Petraeus 2012!

Seventh, I’m thinking more and more that privatizing social security might be a good idea.  The idea behind social security is that the younger generations owe the older generations that can’t work a decent standard of living for raising them.  I have two problems with this.  One, this moral obligation breaks down when so many in the older generation play no role in the creation and maturation of the younger generation.  In other words, those who don’t have kids or contribute to the raising of kids, should not be a forced burden on the kids of others.  This is happening, of course, en masse with the boomer generation.  Now, more than ever, our kids are our retirement plans.  Those who don’t have them need to be expected to make their own plans.  My second problem with social security is that we have proven inept at reforming it.  I would love to help those forced into retirement for health reasons.  But the retirement of able-bodied men and women is an incredible luxury, not a right.  We would need an overhaul of social security even if it was not going belly-up momentarily.

Eighth, tax cuts generally aren’t ideal for stimulating the economy.

Ninth, we need a big gas tax.

Tenth, because the market’s invisible hand will simultaneously give you cookies (progress) and stab you in the back (economic collapse and rising inequality), my general policy is this, as said by Drew Ludwig in response to Random Man’s question:

Random Man: Do you believe in socialism or capitalism?

Drew: I believe in the power of a well-regulated free market economy.

I think this makes me a moderate.


5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Economics

July 6, 2011

Jon Huntsman

By Jer Clifton

Huntsman was a Mormon missionary to Taiwan, where he learned fluent Mandarin and Taiwanese, so obviously he’s going to be of interest to me (I just found out that Bill Clinton also likes him).  After dropping out of high school to play keys in a band with his friends, he got his GED and went to the University of Pennsylvania where he got a BA in international politics, and he served as staff assistant in the Reagan administration.  Under Bush 1 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce focused on trade development in east asia and pacific regions, and then US Ambassador to Singapore.  Under Bush 2 he was the Deputy United States Trade rep.  He also worked in Daddy’s business, the Huntsman Corporation, which allows him to laud his business acumen, but it is also a liability, as he is the son of a billionaire (though first generation) and, like any big business, the corporation seemed to have been involved in some shady things at times.  Governor of Utah from 2005-2009, he won reelection with 77.7% of the vote and had approval ratings in the 80s and 90s.  However, this is Utah we are talking about.  Finally, Obama asked him to be US Ambassador to China, the post he resigned in 2011 to run for president.

His time working for Obama will also be an asset and a liability (see his note to Obama), but I think it will be more of an asset.  For one, in a general election, Obama can’t overly attack Huntsman’s competence or integrity, since he, after all, picked him to be his ambassador to an extremely important nation.  Also, the liability of working for Obama is only a big deal for the crazy wing of the Republican party (the 50% of the party who thought Obama was not born in the US) who aren’t going to be excited about his reasonable and calm demeanor in the first place.  He also is happy to answer when asked why he worked for Obama that he “served his country and would choose to do so again.”  He seems entirely unwilling to cater to the Tea Party element and that is why, of all the Republicans, I like him the most (though I’m still not a rabid fan).  In sum, he has substantial executive experience, kicks everyone’s butts at foreign policy (though a desire to distance himself from Obama is what I fear has affected his statements on Libya), wants to be the candidate of reasonableness and respect, and I love that he recently told Iowans that he’s not going to campaign there because he thinks ethanol subsidies don’t make sense.

So that is why I hope he does not get the nomination.  Though I would love to see some respectful and intelligent Huntsman/Obama debates, I don’t think he can beat Obama in 2012, though he or Romney would be the most likely to, and I don’t want the Republicans to nominate another moderate like John Mccain and lose.  Then the crazies in the Republican party will gain even more legitimacy in their narrative that we need even more ideologically entrenched politicos.

Instead, we need their standard bearer to win.  So, I declare, go Michele Bachman!  If she gets the nomination she’ll get creamed in the general.  Subsequently, that wing of the party will be demoralized and weakened.  Moreover, she is not articulate enough to create long term party transformation, as Goldwater did in the 1964 election in which he lost spectacularly but articulated a call to conservative principles that have lasted more than a generation.  Realistically, her nomination and loss will advance the American cause more than anything I see on the horizon at the moment (which is not saying as much as it sounds).  The national debate will become a little more thoughtful as the Republicans are forced to get a little less ideological.  Bachman, it seems to me, is just good medicine.  It might make you feel a bit nauseous going down, but ultimately it’s for the best.

Finally, what I am saying depends on Obama being quite likely to win.  Some of you have expressed disagreement.  I invite you to articulate how Obama could lose in 2012.  My two biggest reasons are as follows: I think Americans have gotten more negative in how they express opinions.  Therefore, lower than expected approval numbers do not necessarily translate into higher than expected approval numbers for somebody else.  In other words, everyone gets seen more as a cheap hack.  Our political economy is suffering a period of deflation. : )  Also, though Obama’s approval numbers stay hovering in the high 40s, I suspect (I have no evidence) those who are approving of him are centrist democrats and indpendents.  Those disapproving are mostly conservatives, but plenty of liberal democrats are as well.  In other words, the man is hogging the center, which means the only way for the Republicans to expand would be to beat Obama in the center or grab some liberal Democrats.  They could do the latter by being consistent with a libertarian platform by, for example, legalizing drugs.  That’ll get a few liberal democrats singing, but I don’t think it would work.  So, like always, it’s a fight for the center.  Ultimately however, what will likely tip the scale in the center is the state of the economy, which, though improving slowly, is improving.

In personal news, I’m starting to write again.  I miss Alicia.  Eric is in training.  I am housesitting at a friend’s.  Family will be visiting soon.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Politics

July 3, 2011

My Favorite Republican Hopeful

By Jer Clifton

Now that I am done with my Habitat temp job, it’s time to get down to what’s really important: crudely assessing the Republican presidential field.  I tend to think it’s pretty weak, and, to be honest, a bit embarrassing for Republicans.   Three big heavyweights are sitting out this round: Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie.  I think the main reason is that they realize how little of a chance anyone stands of beating Obama in 2012.  Chris Christie and Marco Rubio are young, and despite what Christie recently said to my old pals on Fox & Friends, they both would make great VPs.  However, let’s look at who’s running.

In general, I think that there are three types of candidates.  For the first, it’s a publicity stunt, a way to sell books, raise your profile, and advance your career (think Michelle Bachman and Herman Cain).

In the second group are those that have very little or no chance of achieving the nomination, but they hope to shape the debate.  Ron Paul is the quintessence of this group.  Gary Johnson joins Paul in his love for most things libertarian, and I tend to like him.  He seems interested in solving problems and is refreshingly thoughtful on policy issues.  For example, in the June 13th CNN debate he proposed a kind of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants which centered around making it easy to achieve work VISAs.  I find it sad that it takes guts to suggest this in the Republican world of absolutist solutions (e.g. send everyone back!).  He’s also a fan of legalizing many types of drugs, which I agree with wholeheartedly.  Newt Gingrich has such high negatives that he really has little chance of being president, but he hopes to shape the discussion and be the Republican ideas man.  This hope betrays an intent that indicates a firm footing in the first group as well, as he hopes to sell more of the 21 books he’s published.  Really, the guy has very little chance, and you better believe that he knows it too.  Finally, Rick Santorum is in this group as well.  He wants to shape the debate by bringing the pet issues of the religious right to the forefront.  The problem is that he cannot distinguish himself as everyone seems on board.  There is no front runner like Rudy Guiliani who is pro-choice.  Nonetheless, I do believe that Santorum thinks Santorum has a shot at winning everything.

The third type of presidential candidate is actually running for president.  So far, only three people populate this group: Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Jon Huntsman.  Mitt is the frontrunner I suppose, but these early polls are extremely meaningless.  I think he’s the frontrunner in large part because he is the only one of these three with larger name recognition, a holdover from the last presidential contest.  However, I remember him primarily for conveniently flip-flopping on abortion, viciously attacking John McCain in the primary debates last time around, and spending a shit-ton of money in Iowa and losing to an insurgent, relatively poor, and likable Huckabee.  I am comforted by the fact that even Romney’s supporters don’t really seem to like him, and may easily defect.  These numbers won’t be replaced, because he can’t get much tea party support with his record on health care reform, which is so toxic to the extreme elements in his party.  Tim Pawlenty seems like a serious candidate, but he seems to be continually trying to feign outrage in order to grab some share of the Tea Party.  But he’s not an angry guy, and he’s not really that confrontational, as was shown by how he sidestepped his Obamneycare line at the June 13th debate.  Also, I just disagree with him about most things he says.  So that leaves us with Jon Huntsman, my current fav.  I’ll talk about why in my next post.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Politics