Party at School

I took this week off work, but my kids are still in school, so I've been hanging out at their school a lot, eating lunch with them, visiting their classrooms for pre-break parties, etc. It has been great. I helped serve hot cocoa to my oldest son's class, I've eaten lunch with all of them, watched one group test how strong their toothpick bridges were, and rocked the house at two class parties. I don't spend a lot of time at their school because of my job, so this week has been really fun for me. It's great to see my kids with all their friends. I even got to meet a pretty little girl who has a crush on one of my sons. :) It makes my son uncomfortable, but it makes me smile every time I think about it.

Partying with my kids this week at school is getting me excited about Christmas. One of the kids' classes put on some Christmas/Hanukkah plays during their party. It was so sweet to watch them. And it was really cool to have them exposed to some Jewish culture. The story of Hanukkah is a great story of faith and liberty.

I LOVE Christmas! I always feel like a kid again around this time of year. I hope you all have a fantastic time this season celebrating some of the coolest stuff that's ever happened. Make sure you play with some new toys, eat lots of good food, eat lots of junk food, and do whatever else makes you happy.

Merry Christmas!

Wealth of Nations

I started reading Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' the other day. I know I have weird tastes, but I love to learn and there are so many classics I haven't had time to read yet. Sometimes I can't get through them (I choked on Aeschylus a few years ago), but if I can get the right perspective on a book and see the beauty of the author's ideas, I usually learn some great things. There's a reason that certain classics endure for centuries.

Adam Smith

One thing that struck me at the very beginning - Smith makes the case that one of the origins of wealth in certain nations derives from the division of labor. When people focus their efforts on a narrower field of study, they can often be much more productive than if they try to master every piece of the process. He looks at several industries (e.g. pin making - who knew?) and cites examples of the productivity achieved by factories that pipeline the process by dividing the labor. Compared to typical production rates achieved by people working alone, the number of products manufactured by the pipeline process per person is hundreds of times greater than the single-person model.

I don't know whether his theory holds up in every industry (I think it does) or if there is some point at which that correlation between increased productivity and narrower fields of study breaks down (I think it may), but according to his studies, that concept makes a big difference in productivity and contributes greatly to the wealth in a nation.

None of that was really new to me, except maybe that pin-making industry :), but then he threw something at me I hadn't thought of before. In order for this division to work, there have to be a large number of people. Towns and cities, for example, would benefit from this model of the division of labor whereas rural settlements can't afford to have 10 people out of a total population of 1,000 specializing to produce thousands of pins a day.

But here's the kicker. Transportation can enable the formation of larger groups of people even if they are spread out geographically. Thus, through trade, groups of people can rationalize even greater degrees of specialization to provide goods and services to people in other places, knowing that other goods and services that they are not producing may be procured from others who are likewise specializing and producing valuable products. So transportation can form larger 'virtual communities' and enable a greater degree of the division of labor, which leads to greater productivity. The advent of cars, trains, and airplanes has probably done more to increase the world's wealth than I had previously thought.

Then I thought that in our age where we place an ever greater emphasis on services, communication may serve as well as transportation when the desired services are based on information. The advent of the internet has probably contributed and will continue to contribute a great deal to our wealth as we seek to provide value through the exchange of information - ideas, solutions, software, etc. These products may have value, but don't require transportation to enable their utility. But they do require communication. And thanks to the internet, we have a pretty large 'virtual community' that continues to grow.

I love it when an idea helps me see things in a new way. As any economist reading this can tell, I'm no economist, but I may know just enough to be dangerous. I've barely started the book, so I look forward to learning more from our friend, Mr. Smith. Maybe I'll share a little more as I get farther along. If you are an economist, or a wannabe like me, please share your thoughts. I like to learn from living people as well as dead ones.

We Are All Karamazovs

I read Dostoyevsky's 'Brother Karamazov' a while ago and wrote some of my thoughts at the time. I recently read it again because ... well, why not? I enjoyed the book and didn't know what else to read. I had a couple more thoughts as I read it this time and I wanted to document them.

Knowing the basic storyline really helped me focus on Dostoyevsky's ideas without getting distracted by wondering how the story would end, how the trial would turn out, whether Dmitri really killed his father, etc. Two things came out clearly that I hadn't quite grasped before.

 Fyodor Dostoyevsky

First, each brother represents an aspect of human nature. The oldest brother represents the physical; the second represents the mental; and the youngest represents the spiritual. Although some wonderfully graphic arguments are brought about contending against God and absolute morality, I think it's clear where Dostoyevsky stood on the question. At the end of the book, the only brother who is truly happy and free is the youngest who represents the spiritual side of man. The oldest brother is in prison with plans to escape, though we never learn whether those plans come to fruition. The second brother is terribly ill and possibly mad and/or dying.

Second, very near the end, a prosecuting attorney is making a speech in which he discusses the nature of the Karamazov family and he talks about each of the brothers in turn. It's a very lucid speech except for the conclusions he draws about the crime he's prosecuting (which I think is pretty ironic) and I get the sense that Dostoyevsky was using this character to share some of his own philosophy with us. Although the prosecutor is wrong about the case, his philosophy is more sound than the philosophy of the defending attorney, who happens to be correct about the case. Among other things, the prosecutor claims, more or less, that we are all Karamazovs. And it occurred to me that that is exactly what Dostoyevsky wanted to do with his work. His story of the three brothers is an analysis, not only of eternal questions including God and the devil, but of human nature. He examines the extremes to which human nature will tend when emphasis is placed upon one of the three aspects of that nature - the body, the mind, or the spirit. His conclusions on the happiness of humans who choose a certain path based on those different elements of our nature are seen in the state of the characters at the end of the story. Though the fates of all three are uncertain at the end of the story - the end is a bit unsettled compared to many books I've read - the state of each character at that point is sufficient to understand Dostoyevsky's view on the ultimate ends of three fundamentally different approaches to life.

Tolstoy, a contemporary of Dostoyevsky and one of my favorite authors, is mentioned in the book and I understand that Tolstoy had a copy of Brothers Karamazov with him when he died. Knowing the circumstances of Tolstoy's death, I believe he must have had a great love for the book. I can understand why. It's a deep and powerful piece of literature.

Great Ideas of Philosophy - American Freedom

I am sorry to plug a product on my blog, but I have to give credit to the author when I quote him and I feel the need to quote because he says it so well.

The product I refer to is a course on CD called "Great Ideas of Philosophy". You can find a summary of the course here. The lecturer is Dr. Robinson and the course is fantastic. He has opened my mind to many new ideas (new to me, at least) and awoken me at times from a kind of dogmatic slumber. Seriously. I'm working through the lectures for a second time and I think I may go for a third someday.

I was impressed recently by one of his lectures entitled "The Federalist Papers and the Great Experiment". He discusses the experiment of the American Republic as a culmination of some of the products of recent European philosophy (e.g. Kant, Reid, Montesquieu) and as a practical implementation of some of the theorizing that had been going on for some time. In spite of its intellectual heritage, Dr. Robinson makes the case that the American experiment was original in certain ways, but that's a topic for another blog post.

He tells us that Montesquieu, among other things, proposes the necessary ingredients for three different types of government. For despotism to flourish, he says, the required disposition among the populace is one of fear. For a monarchy to flourish, the required disposition is honor. And for a republic to flourish, the required disposition is virtue. I'm not prepared to defend that proposal, but I'll let Montesquieu handle that. I just want to focus on the last piece of it.

Montesquieu

I love the United States. I feel so blessed to live here. I've lived abroad and visited other countries and have always enjoyed myself. I love the diversity I see among people, cultures, food, etc. Every land has beautiful scenery, interesting history, and unique ideas. I think all of that is great. But having been born in the US, I have a special love for this land and its people and though I've loved living in and visiting other countries, this is my home.

One of the things I love about the US is our heritage of freedom. And I believe we have become a great country in large part because individual citizens have had the freedom to work hard and succeed. New ideas, inventions, and technologies have often been encouraged and protected and I think the US has helped to raise the standard of living of its own people and, to some extent, the rest of the world. The US is not the only country to have made the world a better place (and it has admittedly done its share of evil), but I love it for the good it has done.

Drawing on Montesquieu's idea, Robinson claims that "power without virtue is a sure path to a life without a point". He later adds (emphasis is mine),

Whatever differences there were among the Founders, there was one thing that united them all. This sort of experiment in self-governance presupposes an instructed population, products of a good education with a point ... and the point being the development of citizens, the use of the resources of the community for the express purpose of creating that most unique of human entities -- the citizen, the responsible, informed, inner-directed, virtuous person. This is quite different from one trailing degrees, having Ph.D.s, enjoying expertise, great celebrity, being able to act in movies, etc. No, it's a matter of character. And the view was that that character was forged chiefly by observing good examples and through education. Jefferson thought public education was the absolute foundation of this. So the answer to the question, "What kind of creature is right for self government?" is one that a worthy government works to create. One doesn't come out of the womb with the status of a virtuous citizen. As Aristotle taught, it's a lifelong labor.

Professor Robinson, Oxford University

Education (and I will add religion) as a path to virtue - and virtue as the necessary ingredient for a successful republic seem to have been ideas behind many of the writings of the Founders around that time period.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will  be." - Thomas Jefferson

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

"Republican governments could be supported only be pure religion or austere morals. Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics." - John Adams

 "A republic must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty." - John Witherspoon

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin

"Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks - no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea." - James Madison

At one point in his lecture, Robinson says, speaking of the chief architect of the Constitution, "Madison knows human nature to be fickle, gullible, foolish. The right kind of government can't rid human nature of its defects, but it can control them long enough for persons to engage in the lifelong mission of self-correction."

I see a correlation between virtue, freedom, personal responsibility, individual growth and development, and so on. I don't completely understand all of the interdependencies, but I'm grateful that our founders had the wisdom to see some of this and offer us a system of government that limited the possibility of tyranny and has often served to encourage the kind of virtue that makes true freedom possible.

When I Grow Up

Today, I asked my youngest what she wants to be when she grows up. Her unhesitating answer was "a mom".

Dad: "Anything else?"
Child: "No."
Dad: "Do you want to be a grandma when you grow up?"
Child: "No thanks."

Recently, I randomly asked her what makes her happy. She's a very decisive child - once again, with NO hesitation and in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice, she replied, "The world."

I love children.

The Flu

It seemed like just another cold last Monday. I was congested and exhausted, but I was also freezing! Especially my legs - I just can't keep them warm enough. I thought that was weird, but every cold is a little different.

I gave it to Emily a few days later because we share everything. She had a massive sore throat and a slight fever. After telling the doctor all of this yesterday ... and remembering that I had had some muscle aches that I didn't really pay attention to, he told me I have the flu. So that's why I feel like I have 10 colds all at once.

He told me the coldness I feel was just a symptom of fever. I had the chills. I guess that made sense, but I've never felt chills like this before. He also told me I could be sick off and on for as long as four months. That was exciting.

I feel like hud, my brain is mostly disconnected, and I'm practically useless at work. I don't feel like moving, so I haven't made it in to work very much in the last week. The good news is my body does know how to kill this thing. The bad news is it may be a long battle.

But I'm enjoying some extra rest, taking some time to read, and spending a little extra time with my kids. None of them have been sick yet and I'm hoping it skips over them. Keeping my fingers crossed.