Thoughts on Australian House Prices

Courtesy Reserve Bank of Australia.



Buckle up!

The cause and prospective duration of the current economic crisis.

Net household savings.

It wont get any better till savings rates are between 5-10%. Australia and the U.S. will need all the help they can get, but God help New Zealand.

Postmodern accounting.

H.L Mencken was right, democracy is the greatest show on earth. Yours truly has been following the financial meltdown and political process as a spectacle to behold. This is better than the West Wing.

However the most depressing thing that strikes me about this spectacle, is the intellectual shallowness of most of the leading participants. From the President down to Joe Average, the level of economic idiocy is truly astounding. What is so distressing is that the aforesaid morons, through our political process, determine the economic course of state. Is it any wonder that we are having a meltdown.

I suppose its no suprise, that one of the most 'stupid' solutions to the current crisis should come from the very orginisations that distinguished themselves so well in the regulation of the idiot bankers. Apparently the FASB has now decided that the troubled assets don't have to be marked to market. The wise public servants have determined that we are having a firesale--it's been going on for eighteen months--and the prices that the market is paying for the "troubled securities" are under what they are truly worth. According to wise at the FASB, the current accounting rules significantly understate the value of these assets and hence adversely affect the capital position of the banks. As I understand it, the FASB has implicitly said that the assets should be marked at a value that they would represent in an "orderly market".

What the hell is an orderly market?

I presume it means a market that gives me the price that I want for my asset.

Now Suppose I have a Milli Vanilli Cd which I would like to sell, and that currently, the CD is selling on the open market for 5 cents. I actually think in a few weeks people will be looking back nostalgically at the Eighties and that there will be a demand for Milli Vanilli songs, therefore true value of the CD will be about 30 dollars.

How do I price the value of my asset? What is fair market value? Clearly what the FASB allows is for the holder of an asset to determine the market value of the asset independent of what it has been trading for on the open market. This is just plain dumb and they type of stuff that frightens off intelligent capital. More opacity at a time when no one trusts each other in the banking system.

How the hell do you read a balance sheet when the value of assets is determine by what management thinks is a fair value, as opposed to what the asset is trading for in the open market? Do think there is likely to be a conflict of interest?

I suppose with march of postmodernism through the humanities, it was only a matter of time till it crossed over into the weakest of the "sciences"; economics and its handmaiden, accounting. If various and conflicting readings of the "text" are equally valid, and truth is a construct devoid of any metaphysical basis, it should be no suprise that when reading a balance sheet the numbers put down can mean anything we want them to mean.

It certainly makes investing in this kind of market a very interesting proposition.

How to get a holiday in American Samoa.

Recently I've been reading about the Katyn Forest massacre. For those of you who aren't up to date with your World War Two history, the massacre was perpetrated by the Soviets(Allies) against the Poles(Allies) during the early stages of World War 2. Lots of people seemingly forget that the both the Nazis and the Soviets started the second world war by invading Poland. Russia is still a bit embarrassed about the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. The Polish didn't have a chance.

After taking charge of the eastern half of Poland, those champions of the new world, the Soviets, murdered about 25,000 Polish military officers and intellectuals burying most of them in the Katyn Forrest. It was all hushed up and forgotten. However when the two branchs of socialism (National and Soviet) had their falling out, the graves were discovered by the advancing Nazis. This proved a godsend for Goebbels who used the communist atrocity for Nazi Propaganda advantage. The Nazi's even organised an international commission to verify that the Russians had killed the Poles. The international commission pretty much confirmed that the Russians had done it.

Things changed however when the fortunes of war changed, When they recaptured the area from the Germans they had their own commission set up, however in the interests of "objectivity" only Russians were allowed to be part of the investigative orginisation: can't trust those foreigners. Their commission determined conclusively that the Nazi's did it. The useful idiots on the Left believed them, no one else did.

The political winds by this stage had changed, the Soviet Union previously and enemy, was now an ally and as everyone knows, only Germans did bad things during the Second World War. However the American people were concerned about their Soviet Allies and felt a bit uncomfortable about having a friend who so recently supped with the Nazi's, so FDR sent a certain Naval Commander Earle to investigate the matter. Now Earle it appears, was not your usual fellow. Apparently he personally insulted Hitler by saying:

“I have nothing against the Germans, I just don’t like you.”

Earle had been the Ambassador for Bulgaria, and using his contacts, he was able to determine that the Soviets had committed the crime. Now FDR did not like the conclusion he thought that the Soviets were nice. It appears that a lot of negative publicity with regard to the Soviets was hushed up by the Roosevelt Administration; if your an ally of FDR, you can do no wrong. Earle was reassigned to American Samoa for the duration of the war.

The Russians fessed up in 1990.

May the victims rest in peace.

Human Shields.

I think that many of the moral problems that confound the average person have at their core a confusion between innocence and in culpability. Inculpability is not innocence; one can do wrong and not be deserving of punishment for it.

For there to be culpability there must be an evil act of the will(intent) or evil act; that is, a person's deserts are dependent on their acts An evil act in the absence of an evil will may render that person inculpable of desert evens though not innocent of the act. When we say a person "meant well", it usually means that they did something wrong but that their intent was good. In many cases it is as defence for actions which in themselves were deserving of punishment.

Consider a human shield. How do we evaluate the actions of a such a person even though they may be involuntary? Clearly a human shield is shielding a combatant, the human shield is performing a function even though it may not have been deliberately chosen. In the case of a terrorist advancing behind a human shield, the shield is "protecting" the terrorist and hence is complicit in evil albeit involuntarily. The shield is not innocent, it is inculpable. Armchair moralists please take note.

Now suppose a person is being coerced into an action which is morally wrong, what is the right course of action to take, given that failing to take that action will cost them their life? Traditional moralists have argued that we must not do wrong even at the expense of our careers or our life, we must love the good more than we love life. The proper action of a person finding himself as a human shield is to oppose being one, even if it costs them their life. Now I'm not saying that this is what I would have the courage to do, rather it is what should be done.

From the point of view of the person defending themselves from an attacker hiding behind a human shield, it would appear to be morally permissible to defend oneself from the attacker even though it may injure the human shield. In fact it would appear to be justified to directly attack the human shield in order to get to the attacker. The shield is an involuntary accomplice.
The problem of course is that in attacking the shield, we may be inflicting grievous injury on one that is undeserving and that in itself is an evil.

In choosing the correct course of action we must return back to the principles of double effect. Namely :
1) That our action(defence) is just.
2) That on balance the action will result in more good than evil.

Number (2) of course is the fly in the ointment as it is a prudential judgement and hence open to a wide variety of opinion. Sometimes there are no clear answers and we have to make the best of a bad choice in the fog of war.

The innocence of evil.

Several months ago there was a case over here which raised profoundly disturbing questions.

A local convenience store attendant was attacked by a knife wielding schizophrenic. The attacker was in a psychotic state and proceeded to grab the man in a headlock, soon a hostage type of situation ensued. Local bystanders called the police who arrived quickly. Upon their arrival the attacker became more agitated and started to stab the attendant in the neck, the police yelled at him to stop, which he did not do. At risk to themselves from the knife and under pressure to act immediately, the police shot the schizophrenic man who died at the scene. The attendant survived.

How does one morally evaluate the actions of the policemen and the schizophrenic man?

The schizophrenic man was clearly causing evil, He was actuating it. If innocence or guilt refers to responsibility of causation, then the man was guilty. But clearly the man's mind was diseased, so doesn't it offend reason to say that this poor fellow was as guilty of evil in the same sense that a murderer is? Many people would say that the schizophrenic man was an innocent victim. I would disagree.

Traditional morality would have separated guilt from desert. That is, it recognised that a person may not have been totally free to choose the action taken. Traditional moralists would have argued that while the person was guilty of evil he was inculpable. While he did cause harm, he did not know what he was doing, and therefore this person did not deserve to be shot. Causing death to an undeserving man is evil.

The police on the the other hand had an obligation to protect the life of the service station attendant and their own with the practical means available. They were trying to stop the schizophrenic man from stabbing the attendant, their intent was good. Furthermore one is morally justified in using deadly force if the circumstances permit. This was such a circumstance so the actions the police took were morally justifiable. The police performed a good moral action which had a double effect. It saved the life of an innocent service station attendant while it caused the death of an inculpable schizophrenic.

The bottom line is that situations can arise in which we are forced to do good, but that good may result in evil effects to undeserving people. More on this in the next post.

The wrong stuff.

I like to visit Alias Clio's blog from time to time. Recently she has been running a series of "Nice Guy" posts. There well worth a visit and worthy of some contemplation. As I understand it, she was writing about the "nice guy" from the feminine perspective.

I thought I would like to write my own nice guy story.

Several months ago a young man in his 20's--engaged in a creative profession--presented himself to my rooms with his mother.
He was having difficulty sleeping and had lost his appetite and weight His mother stated that he was moody and irritable, and would lock himself up in his room for hours at a time. She was concerned about his behaviour and was concerned that he may have been taking drugs. She was aware that he has was having problems with his long term girlfriend and that their relationship had recently been shaky. I asked him what the matter was:

"My girlfriend wants to break up"

He started sobbing. "It all began after she went to Europe. When she came back she had changed. She started wanting to go out more by herself. She wouldn't call as often and has been cold. I can't live without her(Gasping sobs), I bought her presents, roses and have done everything she wants me to do. I've even written poetry for her. If she leaves I don't know what I'll do". I asked him if he thought about suicide. He nodded his head and sobbed loudly. His mother looked at me grimly.

"How do I get her back? I'll do anything. I've tried talking to her mother to convince her to stay. Her mother is upset at her because she feels we are a good couple. "

Tears were rolling down his cheeks in a small torrent. I empathised with his situation. I too knew of spurned love and how deeply it hurt. But staring at him I felt nothing but contempt. Here was a man who was in his early 20's and had to be bought in by his mother because he was not coping, he was crying in a whining sort of way because his girl was leaving him, here was a man who was prepared to sacrifice his dignity for the affections of a woman who lost affection for him. In short, crying before me was a mummy's boy who had lost out in love. My response was calculated and said in low growling voice;

"Grow some Balls"

My words struck him as if slapped on his cheek, his mother nodded approvingly. I continued;

"You've have lost her already, she's staying with you because she feels guilty about dumping you but wants to break up the relationship without feeling bad about herself. She's not comfortable about hurting you, but she has lost all respect for you. She has probably got the hots for another man. If she calls you up, you respond in a measured tone. No anger, but let her know that she has let you down, do not whine. Find yourself another woman. If you get the chance, flirt with other women in front of her. Act like a man." His mother continued nodding approvingly.

I counseled him for a while and suggested that the best strategy to deal with his sorrows would be to find a new object for his affections. At the end of the consultation his mood improved considerably. As he was leaving my room he pulled a reflective expression and said:

" You know Doc, You're right. Just before she went to Europe she kept complaining that I was too nice to her and that she wanted me to be a bit rougher with her, I didn't know what she meant then but I guess I now understand."

I have seen him again. He has another girlfriend. He is happier and is now going to the gym.

Breaking up is hard to do.

A former Greenpeace founder gives his opinion on some of his former mates and thir policy ideas. I especially like the comment about policy being made by people who have no idea about what they are talking about. Makes for good reading.

Here.

(Hat tip. Climate Debate Daily)

How to come second in line for the Nobel Peace Prize

See this little old lady. I bet you don't know who she is.


Her name is Irena Sendlerowa. She has just recently passed away, but back in the Second World War she helped rescue over 2500 Jewish Children from the Warsaw Ghetto. To put this into perspective Oscar Schindler managed to save about 1200 people all up. She was captured by the Gestapo,had her legs broken in an effort to betray her cause but she stood firm. She even managed to escape the death sentence. After the war she returned to an ordinary life. You can read more about her here and here. She was nominated by the Polish Government for the Nobel Peace prize. The Nobel Committee awarded it to an environmental windbag, Al Gore.

The Nobel Committee is without honour.

Blessed are the Engineers.

Not many people know who this man is.


His name is David Salonimer, an engineer who worked at the U.S army's Redstone proving ground. He is the father of the modern laser guided bomb. You have probably never heard of him.

His idea, with the collaboration of others has probably done more to reduce human suffering in warfare than any of the peace treaties or political gestures at disarmament since the Second World War. By improving the accuracy of weapons by several orders of magnitude he has spared countless people from becoming collateral damage. He has also probably spared many soldiers and airmen from death and massively increased the military power of his country. In this age of military barbarism he has probably done the most to lessen the miseries of war.

Part of the reason that that area bombing was implemented was because the accuracy of bombing was so low that an inordinate number of large high explosive bombs had to be dropped on a target in order to achieve a probable hit. Given that pinpoint precision is now a real ability of armed forces, military forces have now begun to use the weapon of David, albeit in a smart form. The smart rock.

This guy is an all out legend, yet no one knows of him. As far as I understand it he has won a few engineering awards but that is it. Al Gore gets to win the Nobel peace prize for being an environmental windbag while the man who actually save lives gets passed over. I personally feel he comes second to Henry Dunant in reducing the suffering in war. The world honours its sinners and passes over its saints.

Imprecise precision.

I wish to apologise to all. I have been away rather longer than I expected and I feel I have let duty slip. I will try to post more in the next few weeks.

Carrying on with the theme of double effect, here are a few facts worth pondering. A the end of the Second World War the U.S. conducted a review of the effectiveness of its bombing campaign. The report can be found
here.

During most of the Second World War the U.S pursued a policy of daylight bombing of specific targets of military value. Unlike the British who early on instigated area bombing due to their inability to hit a specific target at all. One of the interesting facts that it presents is that overall only 20% of bombs when aimed at a clear and specific target fell within a 1000 ft radius of the target. Where did the other 80% go?

In fact the average CEP of bombers in the WW2 was approximately 3000 ft.

Now, how do we morally evaluate the actions of the bombardier, who while aiming at a specific target, exposes approximately 5 square miles around the target to the possibility of being bombed? Clearly an attempt at discrimination is being made even if the effects are indiscriminate.

Keeping in touch.

I've been really busy the past few weeks and have also had some writer's block. I hope to have a few posts up in the next week.

Imperfect acting

Before a person performs an action, they must have something in mind--the objective--which they intend to perform. The purpose of acting is to realise the objective. When we perform an act, we set out to achieve what our will wanted us to do. Now this might sound like stating the obvious and in one way it is, the problem is that when we try to achieve our objective we may cause other effects to come into being incidental to the realisation of our immediate objective.

Example: A man is involved in a motor vehicle accident. He has been flung out of his car onto the road in the path of oncoming traffic. He has also broken quite a few bones in his body. We happen upon the accident scene and try to move the man out of the path of oncoming traffic. Now in moving the man we cause him suffering and distress as every movement jostles his broken bones.

Now our objective is to move the man out of the path of danger, however in trying to perform this act we manage to move him out of danger while at the same time causing him considerable amount of pain. In actuating our objective we have also actuated this man’s pain. Now if we are aware that the man has broken bones we clearly foresee that the action of moving the man is going to cause him pain. How do you evaluate the determine the morality of an act when clearly both good and evil is happening at the same time as a result of a specific action?

Now our capacity to actuate our objective is limited to our means and circumstances. A elderly man may want to help our injured motorist but not have the strength to do it. A young lady may drag our motorist across the road, causing more pain than if he was gently lifted by paramedics yet both people have tried to actuate a morally good objective with various degrees of evil resulting as a result of their circumstantial limitations.

The prevalent view amongst a group of quite a few Christians--who should know better--is that the act is evaluated on the consequences, if one of the consequences is a foreseen grave evil then the act’s nature must be intrinsically evil and hence prohibited. The act is judged by its effects. By their reasoning, if a man performs an action in which he foresees his own death he must have intended suicide. If a pilot of a plane bombs a building in which terrorists have used hostages as shields he must have intended to kill the hostages. It is the doctrine of immaculate actuation.

They will of course deny that this is their reasoning and this is because they cannot see their error. All of them can state the principles of double effect and list examples of how they support it; up to a certain point. Once a certain psychological threshold is crossed, double effect is negated. While it is never OK to deliberately actuate pain or maiming to an individual as in torture they will quite happily accept it as a side effect of medical treatment. However once the unintended evil effects of an otherwise morally permissible action include injury to children or death to innocents then the principle of double effect usually is switched off: Double effect is applicable up to a certain threshold of unintended evil after which it is not on.

Now this is basically a repudiation of Veritatis Splendor. The document states that the morality of an act is determined by a moral analysis of the actors corporeal objective, not the effects of the realisation of the objective. The question to be asked is what was the actor trying to achieve by the action which resulted in both good and evil effects? The fact that a good action may have a bad effect does not automatically disqualify the action. St Thomas will back me up on that one.

Veritatis Splendor did not deal with the doctrine of double effect explicitly but its principles are easily applicable to the doctrine. In order for an action to be licit under the principle of double effect:

The actor must have a good moral objective and
A proportional analysis of the effects of actualisation of the action must on balance be good in order for the action to be permitted: The doctrine of double effect is the doctrine of conditional proportionalism.

The doctrine of double effect does not permit an actions which have a morally good objective but which on balance has bad consequences. Likewise double effect does not justify a morally bad objective if the consequences are good. Double effect also implicitly demands that we chose actions which minimise the bad consequences where that choice is available.

Moral Object Solutions.

Apparently My Blog is being read in heaven; no seriously. I got two replies to the Double Effect post from John Paul II (check the comments on the post) I do get an impressive audience. I wonder if it is a wireless link?

I’d thought I’d have another go thinking about moral objects.

What is a moral object?

One of the big problems in understanding morality is an understanding of the concept of the “moral object“. I’ve gone looking around on the web and have been mulling over Veritatis Splendor and most explanations seem to go give a partial understanding of the subject. I also feel that Veritatis Splendor may confuse the terminology a bit. Thinking about the matter a bit more, I feel that the military may have some useful ideas in helping us understand the moral object a bit easier.

The target of a military endeavour is called the objective. The objective is the thing to which military activities are directed. Military endeavours are usually divided into two different types of objectives: The strategic and the tactical.

The strategic objective is the purpose to which all military operations are directed. Principally they are the defeat of the enemy or a lessening of its power. Broadly speaking it is why military operations are constituted in the first place. The tactical objectives and the targets which have to be achieved--either in the form of possession, neutralisation or destruction--that have to be achieved in order to achieve the strategic objective. Now the strategic objective can be thought of analogous to the idea of intent while the tactical objective can be thought of as the objective of an act.

Notice that there are two different types of objectives. Intended objectives and objectives of acts. Both acts and intents have objectives but they are fundamentally different in their natures. The intended objective is a state we wish to achieve, this state may come about passively without us doing anything while an the objective of an act is a state we wish to achieve by our active participation.

This objective can be considered from many different perspective but when considered against a moral standard the objective can be thought of as a moral objective. The moral object can therefore be thought of as the classification of an object with respect to its relation to God’s moral law. Example: Let’s say A wants to murder B. The object of A’s intent is the unjust death of B. As it is never licit to murder, the object of A’s intent can be thought of as contrary to God’s law and therefore is categorically evil. A’s intent has an evil moral object. Broadly speaking bad intentions and bad acts have are bad moral objects, while good intentions and acts have the opposite. Moral theologians have also made the distinction in the following terminology:

The finis operis: the end of the operation , similar to the concept of the tactical objective,
The finis operantis: the end of the agent similar in concept to the strategic objective.

Personally, I think that the terminology doesn’t emphasise the distinction enough, so I ‘m suggesting a different terminology be used. (I’m open to suggestions of a better terminology).

Finis operis: Corporeal object.
Finis operandis: Intended object.

I want to be clear that by corporeal object, I mean human acts including thoughts; for thinking is a human action even though it is not strictly corporeal.

Now human acts can be considered as being directed towards a specific corporeal object. Human action is the ontic realisation of the corporeal object: The thing willed is made real by the act.

Now why does all this matter?

At any given point or place the universe as we know it exists in a certain ontic state. By ontic state I mean the bits and pieces that make up our universe have a specific relation to one another. The universe as it was on June 22nd 3.05pm exactly was in a different ontic state to what it was on Feb 12 1987 at 11.37 am.

Now the intent concerns itself with the nature of the ontic state, or the type of state the particular individual would like to see exist. The object of intent is a particular ontic state; while the corporeal object realised, is an active alteration of the ontic state: the act generates a particular ontic state. The important point being is that the corporeal object and the intended object are not the same. Sometimes the corporeal object is congruent with the intended object sometimes it is not: the corporeal object--with the contingent assistance of circumstance--is a means of attaining the intended object.

I think a change in terminology is important because ill will in discussions on moral matters frequently hinge on definitions, the current definitions are not precise enough. More tomorrow.

Thinking about Hiroshima.

“What guided me in my thinking and guided all our efforts—The reason the 21^st Bomber Command worked like no other command during the war and kept us going—was the million men we were going to loose if we had to invade Japan. That says nothing of the Japanese losses, although we didn’t give a damn about them at the time. We were primarily worried about our own people”

Curtis Le May.

I’ve been watching with dismay the two opposite lines of reasoning evidenced at VFR and WWWtW.

It would appear to me that Laurence Auster is putting forward an argument that the ends justify the means. The Japanese were wicked, tenacious and determined not to give in no matter what the price. The dropping of the bomb instituted events which stopped the war quickly and saved many lives, Japanese and American; this interpretation is consistent with the facts.

The position of WWWtW is that the attack on Hiroshima is wicked because innocent civilians were killed. As I have argued previously the position of the main protagonists on WWWtW leads to functional pacifism. The criteria that they set up for the fighting of just war make it effectively impossible to fight. Furthermore their thinking opens a line of tactical exploitation by wicked people. Tie up an innocent to your tank, plane or whatever and it is immune from attack on the basis of the moral argument put forward by WWWtW.

Both approaches are wrong and both are wicked.

Following my line of reasoning from yesterdays post I would like to make an analysis of the atomic bombings within the Christian tradition.

Auster's argument is quickly dismissed. Christian tradition has always condemned the line of reasoning that wicked means justify good ends. That ends that argument.

Now I feel that the atomic bombings were wrong but not for the reason the people over at WWWtW do.

Firstly the state has authority to bear the sword in defence of the common interest. However the state is allowed only to attack the unjust (aggressors) and their means, it is not allowed to attack the innocent. Now any enemy city is going to contain a mixed bag of the innocent and combatants, the concept of deliberately targeting a city itself, is morally wrong since by definition it would be an intended attack on both the innocent and the guilty.

However, we are allowed to attack the unjust and if in the process, innocent civilians are killed unavoidably, then the action is permitted according to Christian tradition. It would appear therefore that the attack on Hiroshima was justified, as Hiroshima was a major military base as well as Nagasaki.

However double effect is a two edged sword and the mechanism that permits collateral losses also obligates their minimization. The question to be asked then is, did the U.S. have a capacity to destroy the military installations of Hiroshima without using the atomic bomb? The answer to that is unfortunately yes.

The Twentieth Air Force had the capacity to destroy whatever it wanted on the Japanese mainland. Towards the end of the war it was safer in a B-29 flying over Japan than in a training mission over the United States. General Curtis Le May felt at the time that the action--dropping the bomb--was unnecessary, as did Admiral Arleigh Burke; the two men who were putting most of the hurt on Japan. Had the 20^th Air Force gone in to firebomb Hiroshima, perhaps twenty to forty thousand would have been killed, but that means that the sixty thousand extra who died as a result of the atomic bomb would not have been. The option to minimize civilian losses was available and it was not chosen, therein lays the evil.

Had the U.S. no other way of defending itself against attack except by nuclear weapons then I believe it would have been justified in using them, provided they were targeted at military targets only and with an eye to minimizing civilian casualties. The problem was that no one cared about the Japanese, no one gave a damn. In fact Hiroshima was also seen as an experiment, the fact that it had remained deliberately unscathed with a view of it being a test city for nuclear experiments shows just how degraded the concern for the Japanese had become, the citizens of Hiroshima were to be the guinea pigs of atomic warfare.

Truman did agonise over the civilian losses that the bombs were going to produce; I do not stand in judgment of him. He was a fundamentally decent man and I believe that when he made the decision to drop the atomic bomb, he did so with a good and hence binding conscience. I live in a different time and benefit from the freedom his actions provided. Free from the pressures, sorrows and anxiety of war, I and others can dispassionately reflect on the situation with the benefit of hindsight; which by its nature is always crystal clear. Truman did not enjoy that privilege.

Every society should make a moral accounting of its conduct and if it finds itself wanting, ask for forgiveness from the Almighty and determine not to repeat the same mistakes again. Our Christian tradition reasserts that we should choose to suffer death rather than perform evil. Death before dishonour is not just the motto of some fanatical Japanese; it is also the motto of the Christian soldier.

Double trouble with double effect.

I’ve been pondering double effect for a while and thanks to the moral definitions in the previous post, I feel I have a better understanding of the phenomena.

Firstly when one acts one brings something into being: Something is made real through the act of the will. By running I make my intention of going for a run real. The things that are actualized in this world can be good, bad or indifferent.

When one performs a good act one wants to bring something good into the world. When one an evil act they causes an evil in this world. But what happens when one brings about an action which brings about both good and evil at the same time?

How does one form a moral assessment of surgery, in the days prior to anaesthetic? When the knife is put into the flesh, curing the patient (good) begins at the same time pain(evil) and mutilation(evil) is actuated. To deliberately cure someone is good, to deliberately hurt someone is evil, then how do we evaluate the morality of surgery if intrinsic to its actuation, good and evil result?

The Christian tradition stated that the moral species of the act is determined through its moral object: what was the moral quality of the “thing” realized through the act. Example; putting a dent in a brand new car--as in an act of vandalism--is evil, since by denting a car, it is privated in some way. The moral object of an act concerns itself with the moral quality of what is bought about by the act, not why the act was done.

Now according to Aquinas one does good when one actualizes a good, and one sins (peccatum) when one actualizes an evil; now sin in this context is non-pejorative. A man sins and does good when he performs an action with a double effect. So how to determine its permissibility or not?

Christianity has stated that acts which bring about a state with a mixed moral quality are permitted provided:

• That a person may choose to act in a way which results in mixed moral objects provided that the person is choosing the good moral object.
  

• The mixed moral quality of the act must on balance be good. A proportional assessment of the act has to be made and the result must be in favor of the good. In sum, a net good is achieved by the act.
  

Now a man is culpable for the things he has control over not for the things he doesn’t. In choosing an act which actuates mixed moral objects, one cannot be blamed if the evil moral object is bought about, not through any choice of the agent. He is inculpable. However if the evil moral object could be avoided in some way then the agent becomes culpable because he has some choice in what type of evil is bought about. No choice, no culpability. There is a double imperative in Christianity: do good and avoid evil.

The Good Conscience

I thought I would post a link to an interesting speech delivered by Bishop Anthony Fisher of the Catholic Church here in Australia. Bishop Fisher is one of the most conservative Catholic bishops out there and a strong defender of orthodoxy. His comments on conscience are quite nuanced. They can be found here.

An Inconvenient truth

The local paper for right thinking people; The Age, frequently berates outer suburban types for living in high energy consuming McMansions in the outer suburbs. It’s quite funny then that the paper ran an article in its Sunday edition which showed some “surprising results’. It would appear that our affluent inner city environmental types leave the largest eco-footprint in the country. Those berating the community about their inconsiderate use of water and fossil fuels tend are its worst offenders. Reminds me a bit about Al Gore’s energy Bills. Who would have ever thought the Left a bunch of hypocrites?

Yours truly lives in an area that is quite conservative and also has a very low eco footprint. Right wing and environmentally sensitive; now there’s an inconvenient truth. Anyway you can see how much damage you’re doing-in Australia at least-by clicking here.

The Damned.

One of the blogs I like to visit is David Apatoff's, Illustration art. His latest posting deals with Mr James Montgomery Flagg, the illustrator who painted this famous poster.


The fellow's story is tragic; Mr Flagg you see loved beauty, but for the wrong reason. To him the beautiful was something that was valued because of the pleasure it gave to Mr Flagg, but not of the object it represented. The consequences were predictable. Read on.
(Caution, some risque art)

The Verdict.

I've been waiting for my "higher authority" to get back to me, they haven't officially as yet, but Annoymous of 5.58 pm sent me a very interesting post which I think settles the matter.

"I don't know if a Jesuit qualifies as "higher authority" but he's probably more likely to be right than a bunch of guys yakking on the web. One of the instances Father Hardon gives below (in his Pocket Catholic Dictionary), is almost exactly analogous to the discussion at WWWtW...

(Father Hardon then goes on to discuss the principle of double effect and gives the following example)

...the commander of a submarine in wartime who torpedoes an armed merchant vessel of the enemy., although he foresees that several innocent children on board will be killed.

(Father Hardon then states that the action is licit if) All four conditions are fulfilled :

• he intends to merely lessen the power of the enemy by destroying an armed merchant ship. He does not wish to kill the innocent children;
  

• his action of torpedoing the ship is not evil in itself;
  

• the evil effect (the death of the children) is not the cause of the good effect (the lessening of the enemy's strength);
  

• there is sufficient reason for permitting the evil effect to follow, and this reason is administering a damaging blow to those who are unjustly attacking his country.
  

You were right, at least according to Father Hardon, S.J...

Oh, and who was Father Hardon S.J. ?

Click here


The defence rests.


We praise God and not our strength for it.

Btw, Annonymous; good wine shall be drunk in your honour.

Legal terminolgy.

Janet E Smith, of conservative orthodox Roman Catholic fame, gives a little run down on moral terminology. Some people may find it helpful. It can be found here.

The right call

I’ve been away for a while, posting on other blogs. Apparently I can get into trouble anywhere I go so I guess in order to keep the peace, I am staying at home.

Recently I was involved in a rather engaging struggle over at the What’s Wrong with the World site. The site is definitely worth a visit and the topics raised there are treated intelligently and with conviction.

The matter under contention was titled The Right Call? The thread can be found here:

The moral question in essence was: Is it morally permissible to shoot down an civilian aircraft, commandeered by terrorists in flight and intending to use the aircraft as a weapon? Essentially a moral judgment was to be made on Dick Cheney’s decision to shoot down Flight 89 during the September 11 attacks.

Yours truly, took up position as counsel for the defence; arguing that the act was morally permissible under the principle of double effect for the following reasons.

1) The intention was to defend the United States.
2) Shooting down the aircraft was a morally legitimate form of defence.
3) The shooting down of the aircraft would have a double effect:
a. Stopping the attack. (good)
b. Death of the innocent civilian passengers(Evil)
4) Death of the civilians was not wished/intended.
5) A proportionate analysis of the double effect weighed heavily on the side of good.

The action of the Vice President conformed to the principle of double effect and hence was morally licit.

The prosecution argued that the VP’s actions were morally illicit. It was agreed that:

1) The intention was to defend the United States
2) The Vice President did not wish the civilians any harm
3) A proportionate analysis favoured the action but;

4) The action of shooting down the aircraft was morally impermissible since innocent civilians were going to be killed. It was argued that as the death of the innocent civilians was foreseen, and hence must have been intended. As deliberately causing the death of innocent civilians is intrinsically evil, the action was morally forbidden.
5) The principle of double effect is negated if evil means are chosen for good ends.

The Prosecution argued that the defence were proportionalists, justifying any evil act provided good could come of it. The Prosecution argued that the killing of the innocent was always and everywhere a deliberate evil and any other such act in which a deliberate evil was chosen was always and everywhere wrong.

The Defence argued that firstly, the Prosecution's understanding of intention was deficient; just actions could have deliberately foreseen evil consequences which were unintended. What defined the goodness or badness of an act depended on its moral object. The Prosecution argued that a deliberately chosen behaviour which resulted in intrinsic evil was always a sign of an evil moral object, the Defence rejected this proposition. Furthermore the Defence argued that the Prosecution's understand of double effect was flawed, since apparently some intrinsic evils were permissible and others were not. Cutting the flesh is intrinsically evil, yet is permitted for surgery. The Prosecution agreed that surgery was permitted but because cutting the flesh was not intrinsically evil.

At stake for the Defence was more than the question under consideration: At stake was everything.

If the Prosecution’s line of reasoning was correct, then any action in which an intrinsic evil was deliberately bought about would be not permitted. Killing one’s self is an intrinsic evil. One can step in front of fast moving train and afterwards claim that the train killed him, but one cannot say that he did not foresee his death. The Prosecution's line of reasoning would lead to the conclusion that the death was suicide; their early argument illustrated this position. The Defence insisted that why a person did what they did was vitally important. If stepping in front of a train to push a young child off the tracks resulted in the foreseen death of the rescuer, then the act was self sacrifice; not suicide: the highest of motives, as our Master taught.

Indeed; the Defence feels that the line of reasoning pursued is a most evil attack on Christianity, veiled as a defence. It was mentioned in opening argument, that had the passengers of flight 89 deliberately crashed the aircraft to save other Americans on the ground, it would have been collective suicide. Yet; our master would have taught that no greater love man hath, and would have such men supp with him in paradise. Indeed in choosing to have himself killed, Christ would have, by the prosecutions reasoning: committed suicide: The Son of God becomes the Devil himself. It is this foreseen consequence of the Prosecution’s reasoning, that drove the Defence’s vigorous crusade, but as usual argument drew to a stalemate.

The Defence as such has deferred the matter to higher authority and will publish the findings of this authority when it becomes available.

It remains to be seen whether the Prosecution or the Defence made the right call.

Eating your greenies makes you healthier.

I love nuclear power and this article in the Australian is priceless.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21495572-23289,00.html

Doublethink

Orwell was right; Many on the left have a remarkable capacity for doublethink. For those of you who don’t know what doublethink is a definition is in order: Doublethink is the capacity to hold two mutually contradictory thoughts in ones head and not notice the contradiction. It’s almost a prerequisite capacity in order to belong to the Left.
The latest cloning bill bought before the Victorian Parliament would support genetic manipulation of the embryo. But here’s the rub, why are they against genetically modified crops but for genetically modified humans? Beats me.

A McDonalds culture.

I personally don’t mind McDonalds. No body forces you to go there. The food is appropriate if you’re on the run, ravenous and need something to eat. It’s cheap and the kids love it. It’s a bit like chocolate, fine as a treat but unhealthy eaten all the time. One of the things I don’t like about McDonalds is its ubiquity. I am not very traveled. But in New Zealand they are everywhere as they are in Europe. I don’t have a problem with McDonalds chasing economic opportunity rather it’s the cultural damage that it brings with it that bothers me

The last thing I wanted to do in Europe was to eat at a McDonalds, because I can eat at one at home. The whole point of traveling is to experience other cultures; not to relive what is at home. But that was the problem, to my mind Europe was too much like home. Standing in Vienna, it struck me that the faces were the same, the scenery was a bit different: I had traveled around the world to experience another backdrop. The injury that a business like McDonalds does to a country such as France is that it makes the place a bit less French and bit more American. Is it such a great idea that France becomes less French when multinationals set their businesses there?

Now most of my friends on the Left would agree that it’s a bad thing. However I feel that they are being hypocritical, for why is the destruction of economic diversity so much worse than the destruction of cultural diversity? Yet my friends on the left have no problems with multiculturalism. In my mind economic multi-nationalism is just as bad as demographic multi-nationalism; in other words multi-culturalism. Our friends on the left are very keen on keeping biological diversity; they are not so keen on cultural diversity. When cultural diversity becomes universal it simultaneously becomes extinct. Japan is the nature it is because it is full of Japanese. If we were to put large minorities of Europeans, Indians and Africans in Japan it would cease to be Japanese, it would become multicultural.

And that’s the problem, traveling will become pointless because of the world will be the same. It will be one big melting pot; its individual flavours indistinguishable from each other.

Greenies

“The Earth has a skin and that skin has diseases, one of its diseases is called man.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

My mother ran a spotless house and I suppose I have inherited a legacy of enmity towards dirt and mess: I like things clean. I grew up in an industrial part of town and I can still remember as a child, my disgust at dirty walls, industrial rubbish, polluted creeks and smelly air. I always thought that the men who allowed this to happen were somehow deficient in manners. I always imagined their homes as being grubby, with piles of dishes and washing lying around. Little did I realize that the men who owned these factories, left them, to go to nice tree lined streets, in areas zoned to prevent industrial activities when the evening came.

I think it was Chesterton who once remarked that every movement starts with some disputed truth and invariably ends in error. The environmental movement is one such movement.

I have much sympathy to the environmental movement. The way that many of our ancestors treated the environment was simply abysmal. They poured pollutants down the rivers which we drank from, poisoned the air we breathed and generally left their trash out of site. Many of the great capitalists in the past would think nothing of cutting down a whole forest, fouling a river or wiping out a species in the ever relentless pursuit of greater profit. Afterwards retiring to great estates that would maintain nature in its most pristine if not sometimes contrived forms. Hence it was right that this total disregard of our common environment should have been opposed. But what started out as a noble cause has morphed into an ignoble philosophy.

What irks me with regard to the environmental movement is its quasi religious overtone. Walking on elevated bridges through forest canopy is meant to inspire the same religious awe that the relics of the saints were meant to arouse: A trip to Amazon, equivalent to a pilgrimage to Mecca. Somehow, any disturbance of the way things are is the equivalent of sin. Indeed it is this undertone; that mans presence is sacrilegious to the environment, that rubs me the wrong man. In Christianity man was cast out of the Garden of Eden when he ate from the tree of knowledge. In the environmental movement, paradise was lost when God created man. I suppose Nietzsche could be considered a proto-Greenie.

I take the biblical view that man was put in the Garden of Eden to tend it, not worship it. This means that we have a responsibility towards it and not veneration. We are free to use the resources of nature, provided we do so with good husbandry; for we are the stewards of this Earth and not its owners.

Starting out.

The Sunday Age is always good for a laugh. The story that got me thinking, dealt with the tribulations of a young couple who were having difficulty purchasing a first home. Our aspirant homeowners were having difficulty finding a affordable property in their first choice suburbs of East Melbourne and Richmond. Now for those of you who don’t know Melbourne, East Melbourne is one of the most affluent and expensive inner city suburbs. Richmond has its dingy bits, but it too has quite a bit of very expensive housing and amongst our inner city types carries a bit of prestige.

Now in days of Yore, a young couple would scrimp and save and move into a modest home in a modest suburb and slowly move up. But not our young couple; they were starting at the top.

What got me down about this article was the way these young people felt that there was some sense of injustice in their not being able to afford luxury immediately. This sentiment is not isolated and seems to be a growing contagion, especially amongst the younger generation. I was bought up old school: if you wanted luxuries you saved up till you had enough to purchase them, not the current generation though: Luxury and prestige are a “right” and their inability to afford them a “problem”.

Likewise, there has been much talk of rapidly rising rents. I have quite a few real estate agents as patients; they’re finding it difficult to fill vacancies in rental properties. However the suburbs that I serve don’t carry high status. The “problem” our “progressive paper” harps on about is the high expense of high status housing: Big deal.

There is plenty of cheap housing if one is prepared to accept compromises; the problem is that most of our trendy, eco-friendly inner city types are not. With champagne tastes and beer budgets, the bastards are complaining about the price of caviar. Excuse me for not being sympathetic.

The value of tradition

I am at variance with the mainstream conservative movement when it comes to tradition. Most conservatives seem to have a soft spot for tradition. Many conservatives see it as part of the “continuity of life” or a link with their ancestors. American and British conservatives tend to think of the conservative mission as a project to preserve the “old ideas”: The conservative movement as a sort of intellectual ossuary.
I am convinced that there are others though, who are conservative for aesthetic reasons. Fussiness, traditional modes of conduct, titles and formality give them much pleasure. Recently there was an interesting debate on Right Reason on this very matter;

http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/01/objectlevel_and.html

I value tradition simply because the dead sometimes have quite intelligent things to say. The men and women who lived before us were not all stupid. Their circumstances may have been different, but in their dealings with human nature, things have not changed. So when it comes to issues on how we should live I am quite prepared to give a respectful ear to the opinions of my forefathers. I recognize that they were men and prone to the failings of men: They were not infallible. However where I differ from a significant portion of my conservative colleagues is that where as I give them a respectful ear, they worship them; and Idolatry is a sin.
This worshiping of the old I think has done the conservative cause a lot of damage. The old world was full of problems, the modernist approach was to try to fix them up—usually the wrong way—while the conservative approach was either not fix them up at all or to turn the clock back. Traditionalism is the process of allowing dead people to do your thinking for you, hence I believe that it was justified that the conservatives were called the stupid mans party.

http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_02_12/cover.html

For what it’s worth, my conservatism is rooted in a metaphysical view that was until quite recently, common opinion: That there is a right and wrong which is quite independent of my perception of them. My imperative as a conservative is to live the right way, not the old way. The fact that my forefathers were right on so many issues means that I give them a respectful ear, not a bended knee.

Why not pay the protestors to beat the police up?

Several years ago I had the unfortunate experience of treating an ambulance officer who was injured at the S20 protests approximately 7 years ago. The poor fellow had metal objects—nuts and ball bearings—and had urine thrown at him which had splashed him in the eye. He came in anxious with regard to risk of catching certain diseases. The risk was small I explained but still there. While organising his tests we chatted about the days protests and in no uncertain terms he convinced me that the rioters were at fault and the police remarkably restrained.
Several hours later to my surprise one of the rioters came in, wanting me to document his injuries, which consisted of some minor bruising. He regaled me at length of how the police had attacked the innocent rioters, later on that night when I got home and saw the TV news, the pictures on television seemed to support the paramedics’ view.
Today this in the paper;

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,21985,21322057-661,00.html.

Why do the police bother?

Poverty 101

A lot of my professional career has been spent in dealing with the problems of poor people. Indeed for most of my life prior to graduating from university, I shared a practical solidarity with the poor by being one of them. My parents were working class people, who migrated to this country because quite simply, there was nothing for them to eat at home. So when I speak of poverty I feel that I can make statements safely and with some authority, I therefore propose a taxonomy of poverty.

Firstly: the nature of poverty.

There is absolute poverty; this is quite simply not having enough to eat or drink, lacking a roof over your head, clothes to cover yourself with and the like. This is the nature of poverty in third world countries.

Relative poverty; this is quite simply not having as much as the man next door. It used to be called by the old name of envy, though in these politically correct times it could mean living in a society with a high Gini coefficient. This forms the bulk of poverty in modern western countries.

The causes of poverty.

Resource deprivation: This is when one has lack of access to resources to alleviate their predicament. This can happen through theft, denial of work,lack of capital or income. Poverty of this kind is alleviated by directing resources to the deprived. Most kind hearted people feel that the way to fix poverty is through resource access.

This however poses problems, because by and far in Western countries the biggest cause of poverty is:

Resource misallocation: This is where resources are available but are used in ways that maintain relative deprivation. Charity directed towards the poor of this type, tends to buy them little luxuries, which once used, leave the individual in the same state that they were in before. Poverty of this kind is only temporarily ameliorated, it is never cured at all.

It is this-- resource misallocation—type of poverty, that forms the bulk of the Western World's poor. It is indeed the most fascinating type of poverty. I have as one of my patients, a person who won more than $600,000 in the local lottery, and who after two years, and orgy of consumption, is back on social security. Indeed, it seems to be a reasonably common phenomenon. Approximately one third of lottery winners are in the same predicament as my patient. Now if a one off gratuity of $600,000 cannot relieve poverty, how much will?

Rude behaviour

Over coffee this morning, my wife asked if people interrupt their consultations with me when their mobile phone rings. She had been reading an article in the paper about the general level of rudeness in society. She was quite aghast when I replied that it happens all of the time. Most people excuse themselves before answering the phone, however a significant bulk don’t, expecting me to stop the consultation so that they can carry on with their personal life: In a nutshell they are rude.

The point of the newspaper article was that there is a growing problem of rudeness in society, a point which I totally agree with. Rudeness if considered is really a lack of consideration to others. Whereas tolerance aims to put up with disagreeable behaviors, courtesy aims to make one tolerable. In other words, courtesy is an effort to please society.

However pleasing society otherwise known as social conformity has been under cultural attack in the West for most of the last century. Amongst our “creative types” the escape from social conformity has been the hallmark of personal maturity and growth in authenticity of the person. Hollywood and most contemporary literature idolises the rebel and scorns the conformist.

So is it any surprise then that people who have been conditioned to do their own thing without regard to others, do. Also as we keep being reminded standards are arbitrary and who are we to impose standards on others? Good modern multicultural man is tolerant.

In our current society we have reached a situation where we have a synergy between broad tolerance and self assertion which I believe is contributing to the expansion of boorish and rude behaviour. Whereas previously this behaviour was confined to the lower classes--with the better behaved affluent, insulating themselves by postcode and employment type-- now, through the rising level of affluence, these people are increasingly coming in contact with each other.

What this means for the genteel is that their interaction with society is less pleasant. While I do not think that there will be a “war” between the classes on this matter life will become rather less pleasant. The rude and the obnoxious abound.

The coming peril

I live in a leafy part of what is otherwise aesthetically depressing side of town. Property prices around here tend to be more expensive than in the other surrounding areas. In fact the area seems to be a bit aspirational. Why is it then, that when new people move into the area, the first thing they seem to do is wreck it.
Now I am not against development; but I am mystified at change that totally negates the reason for it in the first place. Why move into a leafy area only to chop down all the trees? As far as I can tell, the area I live in has a degree of social status and people are moving in for that reason.
It’s the old problem: boorish but wealthy people think that they can buy class.
In other words these boorish people would spend a fortune to live in a slum if they felt that I would confer on it social status. They are insensitive to the amenity and lack the aesthetic sense to preserve it. Unfortunately they tend to bring their aesthetic choices with them. The car parked out on the lawn, chopping down age old trees while forgetting to mow the grass, the boat in the driveway and the motorbike hooning down the street.
Now before anyone thinks that I am a snob, I would like to reply that I am a snob; but a democratic snob. My exclusive club is open to all who satisfy my moral and aesthetic code: Money or race is irrelevant.
I feel we need to re introduce a certain degree of snobbery back into society if only to reign in those aspirational types without any aesthetic sense. A boor with a chainsaw can totally wreck a suburb. A cultivated man may improve it. However the cultural norms of our society severely punish those who judge by higher aesthetic or moral code. Till we change our societal values our attractive suburbs will be at the mercy of those with cash and not necessarily taste. Several “For Sale” signs have sprung up on My street.
I have a sense of foreboding.

Ivan the terrible.

Ivan the terrible.


Every so often I get a visit from Ivan. Ivan is one of my patients who has had a long and arduous life working as a labourer. Years of manual work have worn away at his hips and knees and now he is the proud recipient of three prosthetic joints. Unlike most of my “disabled” patients, Ivan likes the vigorous life. With his savings he bought himself a small farm, and now in his gentle and measured pace tends his cows, pigs and ducks.
Coming from Eastern European peasant stock he seemed the type that always looked out of place in the city; always more at home on the land
I would see Ivan on a regular basis: repeat scripts of his medications, blood pressure checks and the general medical concerns of a man of his age. During his visits, he would keep me informed of the circle of life on his farm. He would bring his grandchildren with him on the farm and they would have the honour of naming the piglets. He would get up at night on cold winters to make sure all the cows were properly housed and warm. He would fret over sick animals and always ensure that if required; the vet would be summoned. He tended his pastures so that his animals would be fat and happy
A few months ago he was late for his appointment and visibly distressed. One of his calves had wandered off. As he lived close to a rail line, he was concerned that it was a risk of being hit by a train. He searched over his farm without avail for hours till finally the sounds of the anguished beast drew him to a small gully. The animal had fallen down the crevice and was unable to get itself up. Foxes had torn pieces of flesh from its hindquarters and udder. Ivan scared off the foxes; distressed and seeing that the beast was beyond help, got his gun form the farmhouse, and taking great care to get a clean shot, put the animal out of its misery. You see, Ivan cared for his animals.
All his calves had names. One day I enquired of a certain “Daisy” of whom he had talked so fondly about.
“How’s Daisy?” I asked.
“I slaughtered her this morning for meat”, He replied.
“I thought you liked Daisy?”, I asked surprised.
“Yes, I did”
“I could never kill an animal I developed feelings for”, I said.
“Nonsense, that’s what they’re there for”
And with that he uttered a great metaphysical truth: The animals exist for the benefit of man.
Ivan was bought up “old school”. He believed that man stood at the apex of creation and that all other living things served him. However Ivan never took this to mean that it was a one way street. Ivan also believed that it was the obligation of man to look after the living things. Cruelty to his animals was as unimaginable as infanticide; one had the obligation to treat animals well. Unlike Peter Singer, Ivan did not believe that the animals had rights; rather Human beings had obligations. The concept of comparing animals with humans was ridiculous; Ivan’s grandchild was worth infinitely more than any piglet. Ivan wouldn’t have argued with Peter Singer, he would have punched him in the nose. Ivan hated animal rights activists not because they were pro-animal, but anti-human. Equating the animal with the human did not make the animal more human but provided a philosophical justification for the human behave like an animal.
Ivan felt that this was all some sort of intellectual sophistry; a denial of common sense. He felt that that the animal rights activists were “sick”, a diagnosis with which I whole heartedly agree. It seemed to me that one could get a better grasp on metaphysics working on the farm than in a prestigious university. Peter Singer please take note.

Subsidising Luxuries.

A patient came in the other day that was planning to go overseas on a six month holiday. As this was one of these New Age experiences, her journey was going to take her to the more inhospitable bits of the world. After working out what she was going to need we tallied up the cost of the vaccines and it came close to $180. She was indignant. Why did SHE HAVE TO PAY for the vaccines? She huffed. Wasn’t it covered by Medicare? When I explained that it wasn’t she replied with the typical mantra “the Government should pay for this”. When I asked her why should the Government subsidise her holiday with MY taxes, she looked at me totally dumbfounded.
You see, In Australia the overseas holiday seems to be a bit of a birthright. Anything which impairs that birthright is obviously a moral wrong. Flicking through our newspapers one see the story prolonged hospital waiting lists due to a shortage of funds juxtaposed to the soaring monetary value of building renovations. Obviously Australians are happier putting money into their granite kitchen benchtops than they are into the health system. More on this at a later post.

Is secularism a religion?

Secularism is a belief in the separation of the Church and the state. Most conservatives see no problem in this separation. However a more militant branch of secularism seeks to stop religion from making any input into the public debate. The argument being that as religion is not verifiable via the scientific method, it has no place in the discourse of society and in the formation of laws, government policy, etc This view is anchored in the empiricist philosophy which stresses the primacy of knowledge gained through the senses and reason, it dismisses any knowledge not gained by the aforesaid method as superstition or opinion.
Fair enough, but in my experience militant secularists take the next step in stating that as metaphysical truths are unverifiable they do not exist. Their line of reasoning goes along as such. As I cannot prove that metaphysical truths exist, therefore they do not exist. It’s a big call.
Suppose we take a silly example. I have never been to China nor do I read Chinese. Suppose a traveler tells me that there is a book in a library in Beijing that deals with ancient Chinese plumbing. Unless I learn Chinese and go to the library in Beijing there is no way I can verify this. Is it right for me then to dismiss the existence of this book just because I have never seen it? Or should I believe it, even knowing that my traveling friend occasionally makes up tall stories? The point is that the existence of this book is unverifiable by until I take the time an effort to go to the Chinese library.
However clearly the book either does or does not exist. One may be wrong either way but until the question is proved it's fair to have an opinion on the matter.
Clearly we have no way of verifying metaphysical truths via the scientific method, but why a secularist’s view of the metaphysical should take precedence over mine is beyond me. Indeed, a mans religion IS his belief about the metaphysical.
When I make a statement about the metaphysical, i.e. there is a God, I am being religious, when the secularist makes a statement about the metaphysical, i.e. there is no God, why is that not considered religous?
The fundamental difference between the militant secularists and religious is an opposing opinion on the existence of a metaphysical reality. The religious believes that the metaphysical exists while the secularist believes that it does not. The negation of belief in the metaphysical is just as much a statement of faith as an assertion.
So what’s the point of all this? Right now in the West we are in the throws of a good old religious war. Between the Secularists and the Religious, and at the moment the Secularists are winning.

Thoughts on Lathams Diaries

One of the depressing things about the Latham diaries is the picture it paints of the Labor Party in Australia. Throughout the book Latham continually mentions the need for the Labor party to “re invent itself”. I always thought that a party was formed around a core of ideological principles which it aimed to put into practice once in government.  Bereft of an ideology, what exactly does Federal Labor stand for? Reading the diaries it becomes apparent that Labor would put any principle into practice provided it could re elected. Latham talks about the party being a party of “fairness, compassion, equality” without exactly stating how these ideals would be put into practice. The more I read of his book the more I came away with the feeling that it was the party of “nice feelings”.

Gay Marriage

The ethical foundations of Gay marriage begin with the foundation of the Church of England. Henry the VIII’s decision to break with the Catholic Church over its refusal to recognize his subsequent marriages laid the foundation for the current mess. In the West at least till “modern” times, marriage was conceived as a sacrament. In other words the union with man and woman involved a religious dimension which bound the parties together. The joining of the flesh was both physical and metaphysical. The Christian marriage was a Threesome, and God always stuck around. It followed then that the emotional condition of the parties or the social circumstances were irrelevant to the validity of marriage. If both parties fell out of “love” well then, tough. No matter how good the pressing imperative the union remained valid till one of them died. Marriage was not “just a piece of paper”.
With the acceptance of divorce by the Church of England the line of reasoning changed. Now a marriage could be broken if a reason was good enough, and good enough was the product of social consensus. The illusion of Divine blessing was acted out in the ceremony but the logical imperative of Gods participation was sophisted away. As one old wag said “Adultery may be bad morals but divorce was bad metaphysics”. What the King wanted is what the King got. “What God has joined let no man set asunder” was set asunder by the King and his compliant clergy. Marriage was changed from a sacrament to a governmentally recognized living arrangement. It was secularized.
Now clearly under the cultural momentum of The Medieval Church the old definition of a man and woman making up a marriage was not going to change, however as the Church lost its influence on society and other sophistries exerted their effect it was only a matter of time till even this concept was challenged. The Mormons tried by justifying polygamy till it was stamped out by sanction. But the men who challenged the Mormons were governed by the memory of ancient Christian Metaphysics. Secular Metaphysics hold sway now and were the Mormons to revert to the life of the harem I wonder if they could be stopped now.
Herein lays the whole problem of marriage, its theoretical conception. To a secularist marriage is a governmentally sanctioned living arrangement. It is irrelevant whether it is between two people of the opposite or the same sex or even different species. In fact whole communities could be “married” provided they satisfied the requirements of the State. There is no limit on whom or what could be “married”. In a representative democracy the limits will be set on social custom. If polygamy becomes the custom then the demand for it to be recognized as a legal marriage will be demanded.
The Christian response to this state of affairs was that marriage was a metaphysical union under certain conditions. One man, one woman till death do us part. Hence the objection is a metaphysical one. Two men or two women don’t satisfy the criteria. Just as calling your foot a hand does not make it a hand; to Christians legalizing gay marriage does not a marriage make. It doesn’t satisfy the metaphysical criteria.
As usual the social pathology of today is rooted in the metaphysical errors of yesterday. The demand for Gay marriage is really the result of secularization of our society. If we want to get tough with Gay marriage we have got to get tough with divorce and restore the original idea of marriage.

Germain's Daughters

Several years ago, when I first started working in general practice,I began to notice a certain recurring type of patient. She was usually in her mid twenties, charming, intelligent, articulate and usually attractive. Engaged in some form of non-menial type of work, and earning a reasonable income, she came into my rooms with a sassy type of walk and water bottle in hand. As the consultation would proceeded I would be told of how she had been referred to me by a friend, and of how she had seen so many other doctors, naturopaths, osteopaths and other purveyors of wellness. Her symptoms usually clustered around abdominal cramps, tiredness, anxiety and chest pressure. Further questioning would reveal that she had been diagnosed at various times with chronic fatigue, irritable bowel, toxins in her body, candidiasis etc. Various therapies had been tried and large sums spent. All had failed. Could I help?

As she had been extensively investigated previously, there was usually no need for additional tests or examinations. However upon further questioning a certain pattern began to emerge.
Most of these women were by modern western standards, successful. They had a career, money and real freedom. They did not seem repressed in terms of their identity or sexuality and were independent. They were living the western women’s dream, yet were unhappy. Profoundly unhappy. When questioning them about their unhappiness, a litany of loathing and tears, more sincere than any self penitent would erupt. They were fat, they were unintelligent and they couldn't find a partner. They were ugly.

They were unlovable.

At first I was quite shocked at this complete disconnect between reality and self perception. As a young man, I would not have hesitated at once to try to make an acquaintance with any of these women. Indeed, they usually did not have a problem with meeting men at all. What they did have was a problem of meeting men who would treat them like a person instead of a means of sexual satisfaction. They were lonely and depressed; their symptoms were psychosomatic.

The pattern of their personal lives seemed to be the same. They usually had a string of liaisons more than relationships. The male leaving them after he became sexually bored, lured away by a more attractive mate or when “demands” were placed on the man. These “demands” usually usually took the form of a promise of commitment or exclusivity. It was interesting to observe that the many a woman would delay making “demands” on her partner for as long as possible as she was fearful of loosing her mate. The imperative however was the biological clock, demanding that a stable relationship be entered for the good of the offspring. It was at this point that the relationship broke down. Time to start again: all men are Bastards.

Indeed their inability to “keep” a man was interpreted by themselves as a failure of attraction or, in a psychologically negative sense, proof of their ugliness. As the cycle repeated, the ideation was verified. A course of anti-depressant medication usually improved their symptoms if not their mental state. They were sad, not mad. They were suffering from a reactive depression with the consequential psychosomatic symptoms. Their existential situation was the cause of their problems . With these girls, a bit of sympathy and understanding went a long way. Explaining to them that this was a ‘widespread’ phenomenon usually helped. Loneliness is terrible when every one else is paired up, easier when there are ‘fellow travelers’. They left lonely, but feeling symptomatically better. I had helped in a small way.

The more I pondered the phenomena, the more convinced I was that there was something seriously wrong. According to current statistics approximately twenty five percent of single people will not marry. Most of these people will live alone, most of them probably involuntarily so. There has been a boom in online dating and introduction agencies, a commercial industry to satisfy the need to be loved, but no evidence of more marriages. The epidemic of loneliness and hence depression is gigantic. This inability to form permanent relationships seems to be a modern phenomenon and from my observations, I believe its roots lie in modern social mores.

Prior to the sexual revolution of the Sixties courtship was a quite straightforward process. Friendship was easy, physical intimacy was very strictly regulated. Getting sex was difficult. Virginity was held in esteem, sex outside marriage frowned upon and rape until recent times a capital offence. The social mores dictated that a woman was expected to resist till after marriage. Any woman who was sexually permissive was ostracized and regarded as “loose” or “wanton”;a social inferior, a public disgrace.

Consequentially a man would have to invest both time and effort with a woman before things proceeded to a more intimate level. Having to spend more time meant that it was more likely that a relationship would develop. Sex when it did occur was likely to be an act between lovers rather than strangers. The more a time a man invested in a woman the greater the price of leaving and starting again, this in itself was a definite disincentive to leave. Because sex was hard to get, it was worth more. Sex was the carrot, erotic love the eventual glue.

More importantly this system of beliefs actually empowered a woman in the sense that she was the one who dictated the terms upon which intimacy occurred. A man was expected to be considerate and committed to her before he got anywhere. The fact that he didn’t wander off even though he wasn’t getting any sex made it more likely that he would stay for other reasons. When she was secure in the relationship she could be intimate, she held all the cards.
This is not to say that prior to the sexual revolution all was right in that sphere of human relations. Although equality was proclaimed women were still treated as inferiors.
Opportunities for intellectual or business development were socially limited. Strong social pressure demanded that women be homemakers no matter how suited or unsuited to the task they were. A woman could work until she was a mother and then it was her proper place to be at home. This kept the woman economically dependent no matter how unwise or capricious her partner. Aspirations outside of this model were socially frowned upon.

Prudery was practiced as a virtue. Many an older surgeon could recount tales of female patients who would not present until a breast tumor or uterine cancer was inoperable due to excessive modesty. Death was, quite literally, preferred to sexual shame. Good women did not think about sex. The good woman was also seen as there for the sexual satisfaction of her husband, her relationship with sexual pleasure ambivalent. A dysfunctional Puritanism, which thought sex “dirty” had the unique effect of driving the joy out of chaste marriages and raising the pleasure of illicit liaisons. Like the Volstead Act, its consequences honored its intentions in the breach.

Into this climate of repressed sexuality and warped conception of female identity came the sexual revolution. The groundwork had been laid by Kinsey who suddenly made it respectable to talk about sex. Meanwhile, Freud who told us it was wrong to feel any guilt with regard to our sexual actions gave legitimacy to any sexual practice. As the societal sexual repression lifted, the pendulum swung the other way. Sexual liberation meant to be “modern”, not “reactionary”. Copulo ergo sum.

Spotting the double standard with regard to men in matters sexual, feminists, such as Greer, demanded equality. Instead of raising the bar on male behavior, they demanded that the standard be lowered for women. If men can be promiscuous so can we, indeed aggressively so they argued. No longer would the woman resist, she would lead the way. Promiscuity and license would become the sexual morals of the modern era. Apart from the churches, there was certainly very little complaint from men.

However the theory was not well thought out since it shifted the locus of power in the relationship from the female to the male. How ironic then, that it was the feminists who took the lead role in its transformation. Whereas previously a man gave relationship and then woman gave sex, now a woman gave sex hoping the man will give her a relationship. Where previously she dangled the carrot of sex he now dangled the carrot of commitment. The spoils of the sexual revolution were clearly not going to be divided equally.

As predicted men have been the principal beneficiaries of the revolution. This certainly seems the case in my practice. Most of the young men that I see today seem to have no problem finding sex and avoiding permanent relationships. Indeed the more attractive they appear; the more they seem to have an endless supply of sexual relationships. Several of my patients cannot even place a number on their sexual partners. Their relationships are casual and transient. When I ask them do they want to settle down, most don’t see the point. What is there to be gained that they do not have now except a restriction on their freedom and a possible forfeiture of their assets? There is plenty of time, things to do, experiences to have. Until then who wants to settle with one woman when the next one may be more fun. When the time is right he will find someone to settle down with. Men don’t fear commitment, men don’t want commitment. Things are fine the way they are. Men seem quite content.

The situation for women on the other hand seems to be different. While they are quite happy to dabble in the sexual revolution, most eventually want to settle with a permanent partner, get married and have children. These aspirations are present in most women from quite early on, even amongst the professionally educated (much to the chagrin of modern radical feminists). Princess Mary is hugely popular amongst young women because she represents the ideal, a happily married feminine princess with child. Romanticism is still hugely popular. Bridgette Jones, a roaring success.

There however remains a sticky problem.

With virginity and sexual reserve now attracting social opprobrium, the pressure is on to engage in sexual activity from the outset of a relationship. As Roger Scruton so elegantly put it, women have been shamed into being shameful. Everyone else is doing the same and no one wants to be a social leper. Not following the norms increases the chances that her more permissive compatriots are going to attract her mate, and she ages her sexual allure fades and the competition increases. The pressure is on. From the outset, the relationship is a sexual relationship. Indeed sometimes it is only a sexual relationship. As one of my patients succinctly if callously, described his girlfriend, “She is my regular root.”

Such a climate tends to foster the imperative in superficial attraction as opposed to the more lasting and non obvious virtues, which are the foundation of any lasting relationship. Patience and self-denial are scorned, satisfaction of impulse the ideal. Lots of ‘fun’, but ultimately the triumph of short term urge over long term need. A relationship based on appetite is a relationship that is unwanted when the appetite is satiated. As many a sobbing woman has quite rightly put it, “He was only after one thing”.

As I see it, it is this redefinition of the sexual relationship which is at the bottom of my patients' problems. My female patients see sex as a physical and emotional act, an act within a relationship. In the thinking of my patients, these two concepts are intertwined . While sex may be fun, being loved by someone is much more important (more often than not the sex is mediocre but they still enjoy being in a relationship). Indeed this need for being loved leads to women placing themselves in truly terrible and abusive relationships rather than being alone.
In men generally, the sex is an act on its own. It is why a man can have sex with a prostitute but still say he loves his wife, an idea foreign to most women. In the man’s mind, sex is an act separate to the relationship.

The old moral climate was conducive to the development of friendship between man and a woman, the new way, more to the masculine way of thinking. A man does not need to work on the relationship at all in order to get sex, as all the benefits are there already. Indeed our society seems to laud the liaison and not the relationship. There is no need to stick it out when the situation gets tough, as real friends do.

This is not to say that in today’s day and age that people do not meet and fall in love. Extending the length of education, a culture of obligatory self-gratification and economic factors, have all played a role in delaying a stable commitment. Sex is not the only motivator in relationships and good relationships sometimes start with early sexual liaisons. The problem seems to be that it is more difficult and the cultural environment is not conducive to the formation of permanent relationships. A whole genre of literature has developed on the subject of the male who won’t commit. Articles in women’s magazines speak of men’s fear of commitment and have sought to analyse the problem. Movies have regularly showed our heroine passing through useless relationships only to finally meet her mate. Sex in the City was as much about unsatisfactory personal relationships as it was about satisfactory sex.

The feminist movement in the sixties sought to liberate women through a changing the conception of female sexuality essentially by adopting the male standard as the ideal, in effect “masculinising” it. For many of my patients this ideology encourages them to act in a manner that they are not comfortable with. While the traditional conception of womanhood limited women through repression, the current feminist notions essentially mutilates her by trying to change her nature. The perceptive feminists have realized that in order for a woman to be truly liberated she must renounce her need to be loved by a man. By ridding herself of that need she would then be truly independent. The only problem: she would not be herself. The feminist way to happiness is through excision of a woman's heart: a change in her nature. Such is the idiocy of the preached gospel.

Therein lays the paradox of the feminist movement. Sexually in order to be happy, a woman must adopt the behaviors of a man. Imitation of men is the path to Nirvana. In Feminism’s victory, it’s total defeat.

Perhaps this is the reason why modern feminism is loosing its appeal to younger women. The women I see don’t want to be men. They don’t want to be feminists either. They want to be women. They want to be themselves. They want to be desired and cared for. They want the house, the kids, the marriage and if necessary the career. However the feminist program has succeeded and the separation of sex and commitment is now complete: The sisters are doing it to themselves.

Curiously both the Traditionalists and the Feminists are united in the view that a woman’s need to be desired is a weakness. The traditionalists want to exploit the situation; the feminists want to cut off the need. Both views are wrong and both do injury to women. A women’s need for a stable relationship is a virtue, in many ways it is the motive force for people to form the stable unions--families-- which are the fundamental unit of our society. This need to be loved is the glue of our civilization. Until sex outside the context of a permanent commitment is preached as a vice it will be practiced as a virtue.

Even Germaine Greer, who lived the Feminist philosophy with gusto has re examined her Bohemian days in the Sydney Push and come to the conclusion that her early sexual permissiveness served her partners more than herself. She and her colleagues were not equal; her sexual partners the clear beneficiaries. In that dawn of the sexual revolution, the social pathology of the present.

In her later years, Germaine Greer (The ideology of Feminism incarnate.) attempted to have a child without success, due in part, to the medical legacy of her sexual abandon. One is tempted to think of St Thomas Aquinas who thought the good fruitful and evil sterile. Though in a way she was not barren. Germaine Greer as one of the flag bearers of the sexual revolution and her ilk, bequeathed a social legacy that modern women are indeed products of. As they sit opposite to me anxious, fatigued, lonely and miserable I cannot but feel that their pain is, in the main, a product of the current sexual mores. They are the children of the revolution; they have become Germaine’s Daughters.

Solitary pleasures.

Tonight I went to Church at St Patricks in Melbourne

The Sunday 6.30 pm Mass is a treat. Choristers sang exquisite Motets and Chants accompanied by some pretty impressive Organ music. The church is three quarters empty. What a waste. Were Britney Spears or the The Sugar Babes there, the place would have been packed. Yet the music which probably represents the peak of Western Culture goes unlistened to. Still having so few listening to something so beautiful makes one feel as if one is alone in the Church with God.