Have Courage and Be Kind

Branagh's Cinderella (2015) was underrated at the time, and I have not rewatched it yet; but I suspect strongly that it holds up well to a second viewing.  The line I remember most vividly is the advice Cinderella's mother gives her, the line that Cinderella hangs on to through everything that happens afterwards: "Have courage and be kind."

That's a tough pair of commands to grasp, especially both together.  It's especially hard when one is afraid of what may happen next--politically, socially, culturally, medically, religiously ...

Nearly everyone I know who pays attention to current events is afraid right now.  It feels a bit like that scene in the Aeneid where the Trojans and Latins stand facing each other, ready for battle, but no one wants to start--and then some random goddess incites a random act of violence; and here we go.

There's not a whole lot one can do to ensure that such a thing won't happen: that we won't see a Selma, or a Tiananmen Square, or whatever your particular nightmare is.

Nonetheless, it's a bit facile to suggest that you stop having your nightmare (though cognitive behavioral therapy, or what one of my spiritual directors liked to call "spiritual jujitsu," works a lot better than some people give it credit for).

So, because it applies no matter how objectively horrible one thinks the present is and fears the future may be, the phrase I keep returning to is the one from Cinderella: "Have courage and be kind."

That pretty much covers it, from a human perspective.  Add in the divine motivation, and you're good to go.

Let the games begin; throw open the gates to the Coliseum.

Have courage, and be kind.

What If This Were Real (II)

But let me take that up a notch.  I think in a deeper sense, the semi-pros in that Princess Ida production aren't actually doing what they would really do.  The entire premise of musical theater relies on the absurd idea that people break into song and dance at moments of high emotion, or really any emotion at all.  That's not our normal universe--that's a fantasy world.  Fantasy worlds operate by different rules.  In a fantasy world like that, people don't sing awesome music while staring at the audience or nodding casually to each other; when they're choristers, they don't pair or trio up at random as people do at parties.  They are always doing what the music does.

Age quod agis.

Breaking news: it may look to you as if you are living an ordinary life, but if you accept--really accept--the Christian message, you're actually in a fantasy land where every single mote and moment is choreographed by a masterful director.  You can, of course, ignore that, and end up getting moved around like a piece of scenery.  Or you could, you know, act.  You could work with the director.  You could actually pay attention to the music of the spheres.

It's tempting to say, "But I am doing what I would do if this were real--see, I gave up X for Lent, and said a nice thing to Y, and refrained from this habitual temptation."

That's fine, mon frères.  But all that is actually still just level one whispers and nods.  If you were really listening to the music, if you really thought this were real--all those little, isolated instances of reality would actually be connected and coordinated and, yes, choreographed (not be you, but obviously with your cooperation, consent, and input) into something much more tremendous.

In other words, if you really believed in God, you would be a saint.

Also, we'd have far more excellent Gilbert and Sullivan productions with which to educate our children.

What If This Were Real? (I)

One of the things I learned from being in, and watching, merely competent musicals (as opposed to truly excellent ones) is the importance of doing what you would really do.

There's obviously a right way and a wrong way to do this.  For instance, in the (competent) production of Princess Ida here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9GRJESLQe4&t=2860s) there is a fair bit of the usual nodding and whispering among principals and chorus to convey the fact that we are Doing Something even when we don't have lines or notes because we are Real Characters--it is an attempt at doing "what you really would do."

In contrast, the (superb) production of Mikado here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbpUzCFCy_8&t=1813s) there is nodding, gesturing, whispering--but it is highly coordinated, stylized, and choreographed, limited to specific moments and places.

Maybe another way to put this is to say that the professional production is thoroughly blocked--the director(s) had a vision that entailed telling the actors (or more likely, determining with them) what they were to do at every single moment.  That overarching, all-determining vision is just not evident in the (I'm guessing) semi-pro production.

In both cases, the actors have been instructed to do "what you really would do," but in the case of the professional production, what one really would do is ordered to the whole.

It's an obvious metaphor for the spiritual life, no?  The capstone, the thing that takes you to the level of sanctity, is to order your doing to the whole.  The prior thing, the thing that gets you to level one, is to do "what you really would do."  You have to persuade yourself that this is important first, important enough not to just go through the motions--stand there and sing, survive your day--but to act as if this life you are in were real.

Disputed Catholic Questions, I

Here's a fun one.

The evil of usury vs. the permissibility of the death penalty.

Did the Church endorse both of these whole-heartedly?  In the same way?  And has the Church now contradicted or allowed to fall into disuse her former teaching on the matter?

I have some very vague thoughts.  But the first and most interesting one is that these are two issues that seem to split orthodox Catholics down the center.

This Is a Bad Argument, III

I do not endorse the last few paragraphs of this article.  But I think it's worth noting that someone on American Greatness--not a commie liberal site by any stretch of the imagination--recognizes excess coronavirus deaths, sweet memes and Johns Hopkins researchers to the contrary notwithstanding.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/06/yes-total-deaths-in-the-u-s-are-up/

By the way, I'm a bit amused by the whole trend of either side in the corona wars holding up an expert and saying "Look, see, they are so highly credentialed their opinion must be true!"

If someone with three PhDs says "wear masks" and someone with four PhDs says "don't wear masks" nothing is actually proven, is it?  Even if a hundred doctors with multiple doctorates say "wear masks" and ten doctors with multiple doctorates say "don't wear masks" (or the reverse) still, nothing is proven.

Smart people can be wrong too; and when smart people disagree (as they currently seem to do) then obviously, some of them are wrong.

It's all about the arguments, mon freres.

Our Post-Christian Culture is Forgetting the Radical Virtue of Forgiveness

 Every pandemic needs a good stack of self-help books, to keep readers entertained and sane. Fortuitously, this March Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer released such a book, based on their popular podcast. That book, How to Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books, is dry, entertaining, but (caveat lector) salted with R-rated language. The coauthors sift through the self-help strategies they attempted to follow, praising some and discommending others. Sometimes their meta-advice seems to be the product of a luminous commonsense that makes one wonder what the original “helpful” authors were thinking. Sometimes it is clearly a product of their own backgrounds, experiences, and ideologies — progressive, feminist, secular. Almost always it is entertaining or at worst innocuous.

There’s one spot, however, that gave me pause. It wasn’t one of the many paeons to gender equality, critical theory, etc. It was Greenberg’s and Meinzer’s unwillingness to countenance forgiveness as a self-help strategy. Meinzer, who wrote most of that section, quotes a friend and fellow podcaster, Cameron Drews, saying that “There are a lot of options between unconditional forgiveness and burdened misery” (144). Meinzer then expands on that idea:

We can choose not to wish any happiness upon the people who’ve done us wrong and live happy lives. We can choose not to feel grateful to the people who’ve hurt us and be grateful for the lives we have. And, we can choose to have some anger in our hearts towards those who’ve abused us and still have hearts that overflow with joy.

The world is filled with in-betweens, and I honestly believe life is better when we don’t force ourselves to live on the extreme ends. If you want to, go ahead. But I, for one, don’t want to. And I feel at peace — unforgiving heart and all (144-5).

It might seem initially that Meinzer and Greenberg and Drews are being inconsistent. Left-leaning people tend to value tolerance and being open to other people and experiences, tend to profess live-and-let-live philosophies, tend to value niceness and kindness highly, and tend to condemn anger, rage and violence. These qualities are, to be clear, not exclusive to progressives; and they are values that people across political and ideological divides — especially Christians — can, do and should recognize. But they remain for all that stereotypically progressive values.

Unwillingness to forgive seems to strike at the heart of such a personal philosophy. So when Meinzer admits to still being angry at those who did terrible things to her as a child, it might seem to be incompatible with the philosophy upheld elsewhere in the same book.

I think, however, the incompatibility is superficial ...

Read the rest at the Register.

I Love You, And ... VII

When a child grows up hearing I love you BUT he or she learns tacitly that unpleasant things are opposed to love.  The parent loves him, but the love is constrained, or conditioned, by good behavior.  The parent may even love him very much—but there’s a limit to that love.

Of course, this is never the parent’s intention.  But that’s the message that comes through if the parent—whether empathetic or authoritarian—habitually contrasts love and discipline.

In contrast, the child who grows up hearing I love you AND learns that unpleasant things can sometimes (not always—cf. abuse) be signs of love.

“I love you, and because I love you I want you to grow strong and not get sick.  Broccoli helps you do that, and that’s why I gave you broccoli.”

“I love you, and so I don’t want you to get hurt.  That’s why I took the toaster away—because you could hurt yourself on it.”

“I love you, and so I put your pants on,* because pants are good for you—they keep you warm, and they make sure we don’t get in trouble with strangers.”

“I love you, and so we are going to [fill in the blank] right now, because it helps us [fill in the blank].”

“I love you, and that’s why I am not letting you scream in the family room, because if you learn to do that, it teaches you to be inconsiderate to others, and that will serve you very poorly later in life.”

A lot of the tough parenting calls actually come down to that last idea.  But really—teaching your children to be considerate to others—yes, that certainly includes their parents!—is one of the most loving things a parents can do, if we want them to grow up to be happy adults with good relationships.

And if many parents today have a hard time with this—maybe that’s because their own parents didn’t quite get it.  Maybe the parents of these modern parents were empathetically permissive, or harshly authoritarian, and taught today’s parents, in one way or another, that love and hard stuff are opposites.

Regardless, that’s one lie that we shouldn’t let stand in our own parenting.  Love and hard stuff have to be integrated, if human beings are to have a chance of dying to self, or living happily ever after, or achieving the happiness they pursue, or … whatever your phrase of the day is, n’est-ce pas?

* The canny reader will discern another True Story.

I Love You, And ... VI

I write this with considerable trepidation, but I suspect* that most people who worry about God’s permission of evil—worry to the point of leaving religion—worry because they do not understand the why of the bad things that have happened to them.  Religious people seem to handle the problem of their personal sufferings in two ways.**

The people who see God’s hand in their own troubles, in the sense of seeing how their sufferings have made them better, keep their faith; and they have confidence that God operates the same way in other people’s lives as in their own—that God somehow ensures that tsunamis, too, shall be well.

The people who do not see God’s hand in their own troubles, who fail to see their sufferings making them better, leave or lose their faith—not because they feel personally injured by God (or not necessarily) but because, not seeing his actions in their own lives, they cannot fathom how God could be acting (except in evil or negligence) when he permits something like a tsunami, or a cancer, or an addiction.

Both of these views are incomplete, I daresay (though obviously I favor the first one; it is closer to my own).  But I suspect each view has its roots less in official philosophy than in something that happens very, very early indeed, something that has (superficially) nothing to do with religion: an approach to discipline that occurs early in childhood: I love you BUT versus I love you AND.

 

* Another question worthy of sociological study.

** Again, this is very anecdotal.

I Love You, And ... V

The story of two parenting styles—I love you BUT and I love you AND—is, I suspect* the story behind why many parents are so uncomfortable disciplining their children—so very, very uncomfortable that they keep on using empathetic discipline even when it isn’t working.  Even when it’s making them and their kids unhappy.

Because yes, I’ve seen this.  I’ve seen kids who are made unhappy by empathetic discipline—some of them are my own.  And part of it comes down to the fact that empathy—while precious and critical in the right time and place—can confuse a lot of kids when they hear it more loudly than they hear the “no” which is also critical in its time and place.

But the other reason that empathetic discipline can fail—and I’m convinced this is the problem a lot of the time—is that the parent is, like many an authoritarian parent, mired in the idea that love and discipline are somehow opposites.

We don’t like this in theology, do we?  Isn’t the whole problem of theodicy, at bottom, the problem of understanding how God can let bad stuff happen to me?  How can God love me and discipline me at the same time?  The Old Testament says something about “whom God loves he chastises”; it is one of those lines that tends to make us squirm.

* I have no data to prove this.  This goes into the category of “sociological questions I would like to study someday.”

As Our Nature Requires

"... I understood that in our Lord's intention we are now on his cross with him in our pains, and in our sufferings we are dying, and with his help and his grace we willingly endure on that same cross until the last moment of life.  Suddenly he will change his appearance for us, and we shall be with him in heaven.  Between the one and the other all will be a single era; and then all will be brought into joy.  And this was what he meant in this revelation: 'Where is there now any instant of your pain or of your grief?'  And we shall be full of joy.  And here I saw truly that if he revealed to us now his countenance of joy, there is not pain on earth or anywhere else which could trouble us, but everything would be joy and bliss for us.  But because he shows us his suffering countenance, as he was in this life as he carried his cross, we are therefore in suffering and labour with him as our nature requires."--Julian of Norwich, Showings (long text), ch.21 (p.215 in the Colledge and Walsh trans., Paulist, 1978--quotation marks added).

This Is a Bad Argument, II

  A friend posted this meme on social media recently.  I'm posting my answer here, unedited, because--well, I'm feeling lazy; and it's a neat illustration of how overly simplified arguments don't really answer much of anything.

I don't know that this is quite so ... encouraging? or discouraging! as it first appears.

I think the numbers are coming from here: https://www.prb.org/usdata/indicator/deaths/chart 

The final number, deaths for 2020, I'm less sure of.  CDC keeps a count here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm.  As of today, November 23, they have 2,551,852 deaths from all causes.

If you do the math, use either of the November figures to calculate total deaths for 2020, you'll come to something similar to previous years: 2,837,145 if you use the number and date from the meme; 2,848,397 if you use the number from the CDC's website today.

Here are the two questions though that throw all that up in the air.  First, there's an ongoing upward trend in deaths as the U.S. population ages.  Given that trend, and how old the population was at the beginning of 2020 (compared to previous years), how much should we have expected the death rate to increase in 2020?

Second, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that deaths do not get tabulated right away.  There's a lag time between when a death occurs, when it's recorded, and when it hits the tables for a big organization like PRB or the CDC.  So the number of deaths suggested by projecting from the meme, or the CDC's current numbers, is definitely too low, perhaps a lot too low.

(That's why elsewhere, the CDC does not publish death counts for recent months--because they know they don't have all the data in yet.  E.g., here are counts for 2019 and the first six months of 2020, suggesting that they're not sure how many people died in July-October: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/provisional-tables.htm.)

Tl:dr, we'd need more data than I can find publicly available online to ACTUALLY know if we're seeing more people die than normal, or about the same, or less.

That's what I wrote.  But here's a thought to close with.  We'll be able to tell, eventually, when all sorts of other numbers come in, whether all this was worth it, or not.  We might even be able to project right now whether it is worth it.  Certainly if we end up with death totals that are similar to what we could have anticipated without COVID, there will be some questions about those "excess COVID deaths" that the media likes to talk about.  Probably the reason for a similar death rate to normal--if it does end up similar--will be that we're seeing fewer deaths from regular flus, etc., most likely due to people avoiding each other more.

But all of that is moot to the larger point, which is this.  Whether you're a COVID believer, or a COVID denier, you can't simply pick up numbers that look like they make your point.  You have to think about the context of the numbers, and consider what other relevant numbers are needed to complete the picture of the truth.

That said, I should note that the totals for the first six months of 2020 (see last link above) are not super encouraging.  They suggest about 200,000 more people died in the first half of the year than died in the previous year.  Wildly extrapolating, let's say 400,000 more people die this year than in 2019.  That would mean this:

That's a pretty sharp uptick compared to previous years, and I have trouble imagining that the U.S. population aged *that* much--suggesting that indeed, the extra deaths are due, directly or indirectly, to COVID and the fears and restrictions it entails.  (Of course, we may then see a corresponding downturn in deaths in 2021, since there will be fewer elderly people and people with preconditions alive, proportionally, than before.)

Will it actually turn out this badly, when all the numbers are in in another eight or nine months?  I don't know.  How bad would it have been if we had done nothing?  I doubt we'll ever know.  How much better could we have done if we had done things "perfectly", whatever that means?  There's no way of knowing that.

Tl;dr (again), and with apologies to Mark Twain: "It's easier to convince people with a little evidence that they're already right than to get them to consider all the evidence, especially when it doesn't give them certainty."

I Love You, And ... IV

But that sort of thing is routine—that’s how a parent communicates in cases where a child already knows the rules.  If your child already knows that we clean up before bed, or dinner, or nap—if they already know they need to take a bit of everything on their plate, and eat their vegetables before desert—if they already know not to hit their sibling, or take their toys—they don’t need a lengthy explanation—at most, they might need a reminder.

But of course, there are always new situations.  I mean, little Gianna didn’t know that stuffing Kleenex in the toaster oven* was wrong—she may have suspected that her parents would not be pleased—but she doesn’t know enough about electricity and fire and paper to understand why her actions with the tissue were an issue.

It’s tempting here to roll out “Sweetheart, I love you, but you can’t do that; you see, the toaster gets very hot sometimes, and it could burn the tissues and that would hurt you.”

And that’s fine; explaining in a context like this is fine—a good idea, even.  This is how preschoolers learn science.**  But there’s a major problem with that phrasing.

I love you, BUT …

That’s not right, is it?  Isn’t the correct formulation, I love you, AND …?

 

* As they used to say on Dragnet: “Ladies and gentlemen: the story you have heard is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

** Another true story.

On Not Pursuing Pain

"This vision [of alternating surety and oppression] was shown to teach me to understand that some souls profit by experiencing this, to be comforted at one time, and at another to fail and to be left to themselves.  God wishes us to know that he keeps us safe all the time, in sorrow and in joy; and sometimes a man is left to himself for the profit of his soul, although his sin is not always the cause.  For in this time I committed no sin for which I ought to have been left to myself, for it was so sudden.  Nor did I deserve these feelings of joy, but our Lord gives it freely when he wills, and sometimes he allows us to be in sorrow, and both are one love.  For it is God's will that we do all in our power to preserve our consolation, for bliss lasts forevermore, and pain is passing, and will be reduced to nothing for those who will be saved.  Therefore it is not God's will that when we feel pain we should pursue it in sorrow and mourning for it, but that suddenly we should pass it over, and preserve ourselves in the endless delight which is God."--Julian of Norwich, Showings (long text), ch.15 (p.205 in the Colledge and Walsh trans., Paulist, 1978).

I Love You, And ... III

Now of course, some kids really do need a light touch.  Some kids are very sensitive, and need all the hugs and kisses after being told that they can’t play with the Ming Dynasty vase or pull their sister’s hair.  If that’s your kid—fine.

That’s not any of my children.  At least, not once they passed about a year old.  My children do not listen if I “sweetie pie” them while saying no.

That does not, of course, mean that I yell to communicate my displeasure.  (Not on purpose, anyway.)  The goal is to be brisk, matter-of-fact, no-nonsense.

Mary Poppins, anyone?

“It’s clean up time, spit-spot!”

And then, if they demur, by running away or ignoring or throwing a temper tantrum, they—or the thing causing the mischief—go(es) into time out.

The Pastoralism Lives Loudly in the Dogma

A friend of mine asked what I thought of this piece: https://dwightlongenecker.com/pope-francis-the-dogma-doesnt-live-loudly-in-him/

It's an interesting one, though I don't know enough about the intellectual history of its bones to say whether it's right or wrong on the central point.  I was more interested, indeed, in some assumptions baked into the language of Fr. Longenecker--assumptions that I doubt he intended, since they are so nearly universal--but ones which are for all that, and precisely because of that, worth drawing out and responding to.

Some of the language in the essay lends itself to the idea that the dogmatic and the pastoral are to be balanced with each other, that there's a certain tension between the two.  It's reminiscent of the notion that Catholics are supposed to be neither conservative nor liberal but somehow to inhabit a tension of views between the two, to be a sort of moderate force, if only in virtue of being extremely liberal on certain things, and extremely conservative on others.

All that I think is profoundly wrong.  Dogma, properly understood, IS pastoral.  It exists not to condemn but to save.  If it is sharp, it's sharp like a scalpel, not like an ax--and likewise, pastoral softness can smother a person to death, or it can warm her like a blanket.  There is no tension here, except for those of us who have failed to integrate truth and charity.  But Jesus had both, perfectly integrated.  That's really one of the most fascinating things about the Gospels ...  God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world ...  But also, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.

(And this goes to the political point too, I think: a really integrated thinker politically is going to realize that people of good will, whether they are conservatives and liberals, agree on a lot of the ends, and the disagreement is one of means.  But that's probably a rabbit hole, and anyway, I'm much less confident that it's accurate.)

I Love You, And ... II

The flaw in many of the usual strategies—whether they are strategies that are more sympathetic, or more authoritative—is that they don’t address the heart of why a parent gives their children the rules that they do.

That flaw is epitomized in the line that I’m tempted to use over and over again: “I love you, but …”

The goal of any parent who says that—whether briefly, as stated, or through the more complex series of words and actions suggested in the previous post—is to communicate affection to the child while disciplining.  But there’s a real problem with this.

In the first place, sometimes, with some children, this can gravely backfire.  I’ve seen it with my own kids: Mama being affectionate while saying “no” can send the message that Mama doesn’t mean what she’s saying.

This is parenting death.

If your child is going to be a functioning adult, words have to mean things.  Words have signification.

Think about our national politics for the last twenty years or so, from “It depends on the meaning of is” to the fights over various tweeters (on both sides of the aisle).

In all seriousness, if you teach your children, even by omission, that your words do not have meaning, you are contributing to the death of the Republic.

No, really, I’m not kidding.

(To be continued, obviously!)

I Don't Think "New Normal" Means What You Think It Means

I hate it when people use the phrase new normal.  It's never a lead in to something nice.

"Teenage pregnancy is the new normal."

"Partisanship is the new normal."

"Hard drugs in college is the new normal."

"Masks and social distancing are the new normal."

Now, I don't mean to suggest that mask-wearing is as horrible a thing as teenagers regularly taking hard drugs.  The thought of my kids potentially getting hooked on cocaine in college is (rightly) far more terrifying than the thought that I might have to wear a mask to the grocery store for the rest of my life.

That doesn't mean the latter thought is agreeable, though.

In fact, every time someone says, vis-a-vis COVID, "Things aren't ever going back to normal"--I want to scream.

They always say it as if it was this epiphany.  Maybe so!  Maybe so.  But if so, it's an epiphany the way "I just discovered that my best friend is a big liar" or "my parents aren't my real parents" or "chickens are cannibals" is an epiphany: not a good one.

It's also, I think, a sign of defeatism.  If, as a society, we can invent the cotton gin and send men to the moon and eradicate polio and clone Dolly the Sheep and build the Empire State Building and create GMO food (whether or not you think these are all good things)--if we can do all that, we can beat a rinky-dink virus.  How?  When?  My guess is that eventually there will be a vaccine for it which, like the flu vaccine, is administered yearly to those who are willing to take it; and that eventually most people will build up immunities to common strains of it through catching mild versions during childhood.  Yes, it will take a while for all of that to come about; yes, some people will die, horribly, in the meantime; yes, some states will be on lockdown for as long as their governors feel they can keep them that way.

But eventually things *will* go back to the old normal.  Or at any rate--things eventually *can* go back to the old normal.  One just has to have the faith to think that human creativity can solve problems, the political will to back candidates who think things can be fixed as opposed to merely managed, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I Love You, And ... I

It's hard as a parent to tell you child no, but every parent knows that sometimes, it has to be done.  No running out in the middle of a crowded street, for instance, is a pretty universal rule, however libertarian or permissive your parenting style may generally be.

These days, though, a lot of parents want to parent more gently and--even though they know that it isn't good for their child to have everything--they want to let him or her down as gently and sympathetically as possible.  Thus strategies like the following:

"I know the street looks fun, Chiara--really, it does, doesn't it?  I can tell how much you want to go there.  But you know, sweetheart, it's a very dangerous place.  Do you remember when you got the booboo on your knee the other day?  Remember how that hurt?  If you run in the street, you could be hurt much worse--or remember when the doctor gave you a shot?  You don't want to have to--Chiara!  Chiara, stop hitting me!  Chiara!!!"

"Moscotti, it's really inventive of you to want to play in the street.  Why don't you come play on the dining room table with your sensory blocks?  That's almost as exciting!!!"

"Acutis, I love you sweetie pie, but--"

Now look, if you're a parent and you've used any of these strategies--please know that I'm laughing with you, not at you.  I've done things along these lines myself.  They all have their place--although parents would do well to notice when a strategy isn't working, either for this kid, or for this kid right now--but I think they're all fatally flawed.

Econ 101.06

Of course, the fact that people oftentimes make bad choices is not a reason not to help them.  Imagine a parent telling their one-year-old, “Theodore, the last time you had dinner you threw your bowl on the floor—and also the previous twenty times.  So no more dinners for you.  From now on, you find your own food.”

Obviously, this is ridiculous—and it’s a little less ridiculous when applied to adults.  But still, one shouldn’t simply say to someone who uses (say) their unemployment benefits to buy (say) the oxytocin* to which they’re addicted, “John Doe, the last time you had these benefits you used them for something which does you no lasting good—and also the previous twenty times.  So no more benefits for you.  From now on, you support yourself.”

But on the other hand, neither does one say to the flailing child, “Theodore, dear, since you keep throwing your food, Mama and Daddy will keep cleaning it up  Lucky you!”  *eyeroll*  No, one takes other measures—for instance, one returns to spoon feeding for a while, or gives the child only a few bites at a time, or waits until they’re really hungry to feed them.  All of these things are more painful and difficult—in the short term—for the parents, but they do keep the floors marginally cleaner and—and this is the really critical point—they teach the child to appreciate his food, and treat it with respect—in other words, they help the child grow up.

Likewise, simply continuing the welfare benefits of someone who routinely uses them for things not in their own best interest is—while sometimes inevitable, and kindly meant—less helpful than determining ways to help people that also help them to become all they can be.

* Come to think of it, I don’t know how feasible that is; but that sort of thing.

Econ 101.05

What is “the main problem” in economics, if it is not one of information?  Hayek implies that it is the social process, or something related to it, and that seems to me to be right.

People will formulate this answer differently, depending on the language they are used to using about human beings; a sociologist will put it differently from an economist who will put it differently from a soi-Aristotelian philosopher.

But here’s one soi-Aristotelian formulation of “the main problem” in economics: because people in general (including the present writer) possess key virtues like temperance and prudence only imperfectly, they are apt to choose things which are attractive in the short term, but which are not ultimately conducive to their long term happiness.

That’s why most forms of social and economic planning, including the (I hasten to add) necessary welfare, oftentimes have bad unintended consequences.