What if society was based on spiritual values, not property?

What if society was based on spiritual values, not property? I finished two books today. When I get to the second one I’ll explain how that happened. They also fit well together. The first book is The Peacekeeper by B. L. Blanchard. What attracted me to this book is the setting – North America (actually the whole world) not colonized by Europe. The time is 2020 (thought the first chapter begins with the date in many calendar systems). Many of our modern conveniences exist in this world with smartphones being the most obvious. There are also high speed trains (cars aren’t mentioned), living skyscrapers, and modern forensic science. The skyscrapers are designed with space for trees on balconies (yes, this is a real thing, see here for an example). The story follows Chibenashi, resident of the small tourist town of Baawitigong (near what we know of as Sault Ste. Marie). When he was seventeen his mother was murdered and his father way too quickly confessed to the crime and asked to be sent to prison. That left him to care for his sister Ashwiyaa, twelve at the time. She didn’t handle the loss of her parents and goes frantic or almost catatonic whenever anyone but Chibenashi cares for her. The one exception is Meoquanee, their mother’s best friend whose own husband and son deserted her. Twenty years later Meoquanee is murdered. Chibenashi is now a peacekeeper, the equivalent of a policeman, though their small community doesn’t need much policing. He is assigned to the case, which brings up ties to the previous murder. To help solve the case Chibenashi must go to the big city, Shikaakwa, on the southwest shore of Ininwewi-gichigami (Lake Michigan). That makes me wonder if the huge city at that location in our world derived its name from a native name. This is the place with the living skyscrapers. It has much more sophisticated police force and forensic tools. It is also where his father is in prison. So, yeah, this is a murder mystery. The author is very good at introducing new information that upends what Chibenashi (and the reader) understood up to that time. Alas, Chibenashi is too emotionally involved in the case. It’s a good mystery. It is also a good way to describe what North America might have been like if natives had kept control. I’ve mentioned the living skyscrapers. There are city layouts that incorporate a great deal more nature. There is a description of an alternate justice system, based on restoring (as much as possible) the victim rather than punishing the perpetrator. Instead of lawyers and judges there are advocates and mediators. One of the characters is an economics professor and he is given a chance to expound on how their economic system differs from capitalism and communism. Their system is based more on community and on the idea that a person or community gives of their surplus with the hope their needs are met by other people or communities giving of their surplus. I very much enjoyed this story and towards the end didn’t want to put it down. I usually don’t like mysteries (the story is about a death), but the description of the society the author created was well worth the read. The mystery, plot, and characters were pretty good too. I recommend it. On to the second book. It is Native Wisdom for White Minds, Daily Reflections Inspired by the Native Peoples of the World by Anne Wilson Shaef. In the past I’ve used Christian daily devotion guides that have a page for each day of the year. Each page has a Bible verse, a writer’s commentary on it, and a prayer. This is similar. Each page has a sentence or more of wisdom from a native community, Shaef’s reflection on it, and her prayer. The wisdom comes from American natives, Hawaiian Kupuna, Australian aborigines, the Maori of New Zealand, South American natives, even the Irish. Yeah, I’m writing about it at the end of January, rather than the beginning, because there were many days I forgot to open it. Even with doubling up towards the end of the year I still didn’t finish it until now. I found the book 18 moths ago in the Indigenous shop in Stratford, Ontario. The title intrigued me, so I bought it (and a couple other books on native themes I’ve since read). During the year I wrote down on an index card the dates and topics of thoughts that intrigued me. By the end of the book I had filled the card. I can’t share all of them, but I will share many. For some I quoted the native speaker, for others I quote Shaef’s reflection, and in a few I wrote a summary. You don’t need to ask me permission to quote something I have written or said. We are both doing the work of the Creator. Our responsibility is to get the information out there. Use whatever you like. – Don Coyhis, Mohican American native. Shaef added: Possession is an illusion. Western society (especially American evangelicals) focus on the family of a man, a woman, and children. Native wisdom says that is too narrow. Children benefit from having a community of aunties, uncles, and siblings. Why is it that right now Western governments are increasingly pushing the isolated nuclear family [rather than the extended family and community] as society’s building blocks? – Shaef Also on the nuclear family: Some of us are even beginning to wonder why our societal structures keep pushing for a model that produces damaged individuals. – Shaef “We” overrides “me.” – Hawaiian proverb. Shaef added that many of the laws in Western culture actually work against community. Everything in the universe is perfect. People and anything else only become less than perfect when compared to someone or something else. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori Too many times we use the word “illiterate” to describe people who are not formally educated in Western science and culture but understand the world and its wisdom much better than Western culture does. Sometimes it’s difficult for “civilized” people of the world to believe that “primitive” people can look at our way of life with all its advantages and not want it. It’s even more difficult to believe that they find our way of life not only undesirable but primitive. – Shaef Earth, water, and sea belong to the gods and people are here to enhance them, not deplete them. – Hawaiian Kupuna When we realize that we are, indeed, one with others, we become less willing to destroy them, because we understand that we are, in essence, destroying ourselves. – Shaef. We work volunteer – you could never get people to work this hard if you paid them for it. – Bruce Stewart, Maori Hawaii works for personal excellence, the West works for money. – Patrick Ka’ano’i, Hawaii One must have a good heart and a good mind and use both. Much of Western culture is built on exclusion. Native culture is built on inclusion. Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly civilized. – Herb Kawainui Kane, Kupuna Only a system that believes it has the right, yea, even the mandate, to dominate and control (and often destroy) would have the arrogance to see a people who live every moment of their lives in deep spirituality as “wicked and unsaved.” – Shaef No one needs help to get into trouble. – Maori proverb. Status is gained by mobilizing and redistributing wealth, not by hoarding capital. – Patricia Kinloch, Health Services researcher in Samoa Many Westerners are too busy trying to impose our culture to let ourselves be happy. How can people say one skin is colored when each has its own coloration? What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is of good design and serves its purpose well? – Elizabeth Q. White, Hopi, American native Only when we have a religion that is a closed system that cannot tolerate the existence of other systems do we have to legislate controls. Closed systems are by nature controlling and are threatened by open systems. Open systems are not threatened by closed systems because all are allowed existence. – Shaef. It seems [white people] have something in their life called gravy. They know truth but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. – Australian aboriginal On missionaries: We cannot read their book – they tell us different stories about what it contains, and we believe they make the book talk to suit themselves. If we had no money, no land and no country to be cheated out of, these black coats would not trouble themselves about our good hereafter. The Great Spirit will not punish us for what we do not know. – Red Jacket, Seneca, American native A good thing sells itself. A bad thing is advertized. – Swahili proverb In the Western world we have capitalism, communism, and socialism, and all are based upon economics. What would a society look like that is based upon spiritual values instead of property? – Schaef In Western culture, we seem to have set up a dualism: I do what is good for the community/I have to deny myself. Native people do not operate out of that dualism. Their worldview moves them from the individual to the community to the whole. – Shaef Each person is known to have a certain gift and certain ability, and is therefore able to make a contribution to the whole. There will be the expert in bone carving; the expert in weaving, but there is in the extended family a place for all. – Hiwi Tauroa, Maori One important belief is that the Creator has given a unique heritage to each and every culture across the world. No culture is more or less important than another – to suggest that there is, is to criticize the Creator. – Rangimarie Turuki Pere, Maori

Trying to turn 61 losses into a win is good strategy?

How well would women do if they were able to run the world? Would they do worse or better than men? Would they able to shed the social hierarchy that produces toxic masculinity? I think women would do better, which is why, when given the choice on a ballot, I frequently vote for the woman. I also came up with the idea for a novel. In my scenario the number of boys being born drops from 50% to 1%. The effect lasts a few generations. I came up with a long list of questions. In that time is toxic masculinity driven out? Will boys see women in leadership roles as natural? Will gay men making frequent donations to sperm banks be enough to allow them to love who they want? Will the small number of boys still be trained to think they’re entitled? Will men be banned from combat and the priesthood so a supply of sperm isn’t lost? Will women still prize motherhood so highly? Since so many women won’t be tied to children what will they accomplish in the business world? What will the shortage of men do to monogamy and marriage? Will the social hierarchy be discarded? Yes, I’ve thought about this a lot. All these and many more questions are intriguing. But I’m quite aware turning these questions into a plot, deciding which characters do what, and figuring out what scenes are necessary to drive the plot and develop the themes is a significant level up from a list of questions. I don’t think I’m equipped to do that. My training is in computers and music. As much as I want to read such a novel and have it out where other can read it I want someone else to write it. So if any one is or knows of a novelist looking for an idea please contact me. My terms for a partnership will be very generous. That’s a log way of introducing the book I just finished. No, someone didn’t write the book I envision, at least not quite. It’s A World of Women by J.D. Beresford. This book was first published in 1913. It is part of the new series Radium Age put out by The MIT Press. It’s goal is to feature science fiction stories from the time of Marie Curie, who discovered radium in 1903 and died of cancer in 1934. This is the time between H.G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback and isn’t remembered my most science fiction fans. The story opens with an approaching plague. Astra Taylor, in her introduction, is well aware of the similarities to what we just went through. This plague is selective – it kills mostly men, to the point where in England there is about one man per thousand women. Before the plague strikes there is the usual dismissal of severity we’ve come to know well. It’s not going to be that bad, people say. One character, Jasper Thrale, says we must close off Britain to the world. Another says if we do that we will have only a month of food – quite ignoring that losing half the population would be much worse. Much of the story is focused on the Gosling family. Father George is an accountant in a prestigious firm, so has a decent salary. His wife (always, “Mrs. Gosling”) keeps house. Their two daughters Blanche and Millie are trying to get more from Dad to keep up with the latest fashions and attract suitors. They fit in their culture quite well but are unprepared for what’s coming. Then comes the day when the citizens of London realize this pandemic thing is real, it will be bad, and it is close. They panic and flee. Pretty soon no gas (this is before most homes have electricity) and no water. Also soon, no trains. Civilization has collapsed. George realizes he is no longer under the constraint of civilization. His family figures he must have been killed by the plague. They realize they can’t stay in London and follow the migration out. Along the way Mrs. Gosling can’t figure out the response she gets when she asks for something and says, “I’ll pay.” A character replies If I can’t eat it, wear it, or start a fire with it I have no use for it. They end up at a community of women where Thrale serves as the guy keeping the machinery (most steam driven) running. He rebuffs so many women I began to wonder if he was gay, though that concept would not have been known in 1913. As the community works to get the harvest in they realize that many social conventions, especially the social hierarchy, don’t matter anymore. Having been the wife of a Peer is useless – if you don’t work you’ll be asked to move on. Yeah, there are hints of what I am proposing with my own novel. But a lot of what I want to explore is just hinted at the end (and the end seems to be a bit of a cop-out). My idea doesn’t deal with the end of civilization, more with how it will have to evolve over the generations. Overall, it was a good read. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy has a defense plan against the charges from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – argue he had a right to overturn the election. That means re-litigating all 61 court decisions that went against him in 2020 and 2021. His lawyers think trying to turn 61 losses into a win is good strategy? And Democrats are saying, sure, bring it on. Go ahead if the nasty guy wants to make this the conversation for the next 16 months.

If Republicans are fretting about being forced to focus on Trump’s lies about his loss again, Democrats are poised between pleasure that an opponent is dragging himself down and concern for the democracy he’s undermining. “Swing voters in a general election are not looking for celebration of an attempt to overturn an election and overthrow a government,” Democratic pollster Geoff Garin told The Washington Post. “Swing voters and voters generally take our democracy very seriously and don’t want their votes to be made irrelevant by politicians that want to overturn elections.”

Hunter of Kos explained that the nasty guy had a terrible, horrible, really bad day when he went into Washington for the arraignment. The judge kept him waiting, which is frequently seen as a power move. The judge, a female, didn’t address him as president, but as mister. And unlike when he was in the White House his motorcade had to weave through traffic with certain fingers waved by other commuters. His jet had to wait in line to take off. And when back in Bedminster he had to wait for goats on the road. I have no sympathy. Media has talking a lot about the nasty guy getting a bump in the polls every time he’s indicted. Perhaps he needs a fourth indictment to guarantee a win. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Matt Robinson of Newsweek:

The indictments aren't helping Trump and they aren't the reason he's increasing his lead. For that, you can thank the fact that Ron DeSantis is a historically terrible candidate. As the second place contender, he's widely viewed as the most likely Trump alternative, and as he has gotten more exposed in the national press, he's dropped half of his support. From March 10 through August 1, DeSantis went from 31.4 percent to 15.6 percent. And where did those voters go? That ain't exactly rocket science either. Surveys show that Trump is the second choice of around 40 percent of DeSantis supporters. Lo and behold, as DeSantis has sunk, about 40 percent of the 15 point evaporation in his support has now shown up in Trump's column.

Of course, in the comments of the roundup Denise Oliver Velez posted several cartoons about the indictment. One by Madeline Horwat shows a flying saucer from “Law Offices of Blorp and Glorg” with two aliens handing out a business card and saying, “Take us to your indicted leader.” And a cartoon by Jimmy Margulies showing a clerk in a paint store saying, “Whitewash? I have regular, extra thick, and Florida school textbook...” Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats have sent Chief Justice John Roberts a letter. It starts by throwing Roberts’ words back at him:

Since 2011, you have argued that the Supreme Court can police its own ethical conduct. Yet, this year has been marked by revelation after revelation of justices receiving lavish gifts that they failed to disclose as required by law or otherwise using their offices and taxpayer-funded resources for personal gain.

Roberts had his colleagues sign a Statement of Ethics. And Alito and Thomas have acted as though it doesn’t apply to them. Which means the Statement of Ethics is not enough. It is more pressure put on Roberts but he also knows while Republicans hold the House and can filibuster in the Senate Congress can’t impose anything stronger.

The most harmful story we’ve told ourselves

My friend and debate partner sent a link to a story in the New York Times Magazine about Dan-el Padilla Peralta. They story was written by Rachel Poser. The reason Padilla was worth a full article is that he is a black man and teaches Classics at Princeton. His primary work is dealing with a contradiction: The Greek and Roman cultures are described as the foundation of Western Civilization and the birthplace of democracy. The same cultures are at the core of white supremacy. Can we untangle the two? Are we misinterpreting the Ancients? Can we rebuild our understanding? As an example of the white supremacy side:

Marchers in Charlottesville, Va., carried flags bearing a symbol of the Roman state; online reactionaries adopted classical pseudonyms; the white-supremacist website Stormfront displayed an image of the Parthenon alongside the tagline “Every month is white history month.”

Poser described Padilla’s view of the field:

Padilla’s vision of classics’ complicity in systemic injustice is uncompromising, even by the standards of some of his allies. He has condemned the field as “equal parts vampire and cannibal” — a dangerous force that has been used to murder, enslave and subjugate. “He’s on record as saying that he’s not sure the discipline deserves a future,” Denis Feeney, a Latinist at Princeton, told me. Padilla believes that classics is so entangled with white supremacy as to be inseparable from it. “Far from being extrinsic to the study of Greco-Roman antiquity,” he has written, “the production of whiteness turns on closer examination to reside in the very marrows of classics.”

In response to another classicist defending the field and traditional understanding Padilla said:

Here’s what I have to say about the vision of classics that you outlined. I want nothing to do with it. I hope the field dies that you’ve outlined, and that it dies as swiftly as possible.

Padilla was born in the Dominican Republic and his early childhood was in the capital Santo Domingo, which was called the “Athens of the New World” for its culture and learning. Even with that lofty title there were racial tensions. He and his family went to New York because his mother had pregnancy complications. Brother Yando was born there. After a bit the father went back to the Dominican Republic and mother and boys went through a series of apartments and finally to a shelter. Yando was a citizen, Dan-el was undocumented. In the shelter’s library Padilla found books on Ancient Greece and Rome and at age 9 was seen reading a history of Napoleon. Padilla acquired a mentor. In college Padilla’s friends asked him why was he studying this white people stuff? How is that going to help people of color? He began to ask himself how could an education and Latin and Greek be Liberatory? By the time Padilla got his doctorate scholars were looking beyond the elite men to those who didn’t appear in the written record: women, lower classes, slaves, and immigrants. The ideas were popular with students, but leaders in the field wanted to go back to what they were doing. Classics were at the core of a liberal arts education, meaning the were liberal. Weren’t they? Most of the time that assumption was not questioned. Though slaves were not in the center of the written record, they were mentioned, and in ways that showed how cruel slavery was. There were also archaeology records, such as slave collars. Since there were no firsthand accounts of Roman slaves, Padilla turned to studying the trans-Atlantic slave trade. That wasn’t enough. He had to begin dismantling the white supremacy framework that displaced the classics and parts of his own identity. Then came the nasty guy and his supporters who claimed symbols of the Ancients.

Padilla argues that exposing untruths about antiquity, while important, is not enough: Explaining that an almighty, lily-white Roman Empire never existed will not stop white nationalists from pining for its return. The job of classicists is not to “point out the howlers,” he said on a 2017 panel. “To simply take the position of the teacher, the qualified classicist who knows things and can point to these mistakes, is not sufficient.” Dismantling structures of power that have been shored up by the classical tradition will require more than fact-checking; it will require writing an entirely new story about antiquity, and about who we are today. To find that story, Padilla is advocating reforms that would “explode the canon” and “overhaul the discipline from nuts to bolts,” including doing away with the label “classics” altogether. Classics was happy to embrace him when he was changing the face of the discipline, but how would the field react when he asked it to change its very being? The way it breathed and moved? “Some students and some colleagues have told me this is either too depressing or it’s sort of menacing in a way,” he said. “My only rejoinder is that I’m not interested in demolition for demolition’s sake. I want to build something.”

Padilla is starting that rebuilding through his teaching. In his introductory Roman history class he had the students role play various people of Roman society to help imagine being subjects in an imperial system. After around of the students trying to forge alliances as various Roman people Padilla returned to the lectern.

“What I want to be thinking about in the next few weeks,” he told them, “is how we can be telling the story of the early Roman Empire not just through a variety of sources but through a variety of persons.” He asked the students to consider the lives behind the identities he had assigned them, and the way those lives had been shaped by the machinery of empire, which, through military conquest, enslavement and trade, creates the conditions for the large-scale movement of human beings.

This exercise excluded slaves, even though it was a major feature of the Roman imperial system. However, leaving them out was an act of care. He wasn’t ready to tell a student, you’re a slave. Though the classics have been used by supremacists, they have also inspired marginalized groups. Modern civil rights movements are inspired by ancient texts. Haitians revolutionaries viewed their leader, Toussaint L’Overture as a Black Spartacus. Medea is a symbol for patriarchal resistance. The poetry of Sappho and the Platonic dialogues give hope to lesbians and gays. Mary Beard, a colleague of Padilla says the classics, like the Bible have no politics. They are a language of authority that can be used for emancipators or oppressors. The study of the classics began in the Enlightenment in the 18th and 19th centuries. European universities emancipated themselves from the church and the classics gave Europe a new, secular origin story. The old writings competed with the Bible in moral authority. Orators proclaimed the way to be great is to imitate the Greeks. And that propagated a hierarchy. Greek and Roman (and white) was at the top. Everything else was lesser. This was in the colonial period and that hierarchy was taken around the world, including to America’s Founding Fathers. It was the Roman republic, including fear of the tyranny of the majority, that was the model for American democracy. The classics served as a model for our culture. Western Civilization considered itself to inherit the greatness of Athens and Rome. And that, Padilla says, is the most harmful story we’ve told ourselves.

Padilla is wary of colleagues who cite the radical uses of classics as a way to forestall change; he believes that such examples have been outmatched by the field’s long alliance with the forces of dominance and oppression. Classics and whiteness are the bones and sinew of the same body; they grew strong together, and they may have to die together.

They want to get to the point when people think of classics they think of people of color. If not, the classics should not exist as an academic field. Making classics departments not exist could be done by reassigning classics faculty to history, archaeology, and language. Or integrate with Ancient Mediterranean studies, including Egypt, Anatolia, Levant, and North Africa. That would return to a Renaissance model of the ancient world as a place of diversity. Others think the classics should be taught because American history is based on the study of the classics. That would, of course, perpetuate the supremacist aspects of the classics. As Padilla watched the January 6th insurrection he saw many symbols inspired by the classics – a Greek helmet, the Roman eagle, the phrase Molon labe adopted by gun advocates which means “Come and take them.” Classicist scholars say that’s not us. But the institutions that incubate the classics also see systemic racism to be foundational. These scholars need to see the many ways racism is a part of what they do. Padilla has begun to have an effect. Others are beginning to see teaching the classics requires exposing its racist history. Otherwise it is just propaganda. When my friend was telling me about this article he commented how Greek and Roman statues were considered quite highly. The marble statues were praised for beauty – and whiteness. Poser’s article linked to another by Sarah Bond on Hyperallergic that discussed that many of those statues had been painted in bright colors when they were made. No, they were not a celebration of whiteness. About 18 months ago (in the Before Time) I traveled in France, Germany, and England with Brother and Niece (see my post entries for August 2019). Several of our discussions, aided by articles on some aspect of history that Niece pulled up on her phone, were about how this or that historical figure (Napoleon comes to mind) who specifically cultivated the image of being a successor to the glories of Rome. It seemed that everyone wanted to make that claim. Now I understand a bit more as to why.