Labor Day, 2010: An Op-Ed Piece and a Book Review

It’s Labor Day. Time to do this – finally. Time to review Tom Geoghegan's book Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life. I don’t know why it has been so hard. I’ve had this book for a couple of months, and I’ve read it twice, the second time with pen in hand, liberally underlining and starring and making multiple arrows.

Okay, first things first: buy this book and read it. “Read, mark, and inwardly digest.”

Yes, the review is coming, but let’s set the stage first. As we all know, the U.S. economy is NOT doing well, and for many of us in the lower 90% of income and wealth, has not been doing very well for the last 30 years. So read Robert Reich’s op-ed piece before proceding:

"How to End the Great Recession"

Got that? Except for those at the very top, perhaps the top 10%, we’ve all been receiving less and less in real wages while working harder and harder for longer and longer even though our productivity has continued to rise. To make up, we’ve been borrowing, usually against the value of our homes which were continually rising. Then the bubble burst and home prices plummeted. Further, all that capital going to the top has not, for the most part, been reinvested in the United States. Somewhere along the line, it became possible, both legally and electronically, to invest from the U.S. anywhere in the world.

Enter Tom Geoghegan. Tom is a “labor side” labor lawyer from Chicago. He is Irish Catholic (if that weren’t obvious). He ran for Congress in 2009 as a progressive Democrat, trying to win Rahm Emmanuel’s former seat. He lost the primary. He has written other books, including Which Side are You On? Trying to be for Labor When It’s Flat on its Back.

But to the present book: between 1997 and 2009, Geoghegan took several trips to Europe, especially Germany. At some point, he lived in Germany for a few months, teaching an American Labor Law course at university. The book, reminiscent in some ways of James Joyce, intersperses fact with history, travelogue, anecdote. Part of the problem for me has been I frankly didn’t know where to begin in reviewing it. Geoghegan has obviously written this book in order to advocate something in which I am in complete agreement: the ways in which national economies in Europe are structured, and especially in Germany, have much to commend themselves to the United States, especially since the U.S. is in an economic crisis that shows no sign of getting better any time soon, especially for those of us at the bottom.

What to write about this book? What facts to convey?

- Germany, a major player on the world economic stage, is doing better than the United States economically by almost any measure, especially unemployment. Germany always runs a trade surplus. However, forall that, people work little overtime, retire on time or earlier, and get six weeks of vacation each year, not to mention multiple four-day weekends, many of them tied to the Christian calendar, even though few Germans are church-goers.

- The German economic system, featuring worker “co-determination” at both the highest and the lowest levels in large and not-so-large enterprises, was created in the aftermath of World War II by a coalition of predominantly Roman Catholic Christian Democrats (the center-right "pro business" party); American New Dealers, including high-ranking military figures such as General Dwight Eisenhower; and UK Labour Party people. Thus, Germany is where “the New Deal went to live.” At the top, half of the board of directors is elected by rank-and-file workers. At each worksite, a “works council”, also elected by the workers, has a decisive voice in day-to-day matters such as working hours, who gets promoted, how layoffs are handled, etc. Because of the need for consensus, companies may find it harder to make decisions, but once made, they are easier to implement. In the United States, decisions are usually made unilaterally in a top-down fashion, so they are easily made, but much harder to put into effect.

Union membership is high, up to 60% of workers, depending on the industry. Labor organizations, such as IG Metall, focus on big picture issues, for example negotiating wages and benefits with large scale associations of employers. Thus, enterprises within the same industry tend not to compete with each other on the basis of a race to the bottom with regard to labor costs.

- Geoghegan argues convincingly that the system works better than that found in the United States, not only for blue collar working class people, but also for those, say, at the 90th percentile of income. This is the case because, while taxes overall are a bit higher (approximately 40% in the United States vs. 50% in Europe), the services received in return, such as free college education, for example, far outweigh the additional taxes. In making this comparision, Geoghegan writes of the hypothetical American “Barbara” and the European “Isabell”, both of whom are colleged-educated executives. Geoghegan writes:

“Really, Isabel is better off as a consumer because (1) she pays higher taxes and (2) the state controls her spending. It’s because she pays more in taxes that Isabel can save. While this sound paradoxical, it’s obvious in a way. A European-type social democracy is really a form of guided spending. The state taxes Isabel and spends her tax money on what Isabel really needs. Barbara, by contrast, is pretty much on her own. Think of what the state ‘buys’ for Isabel:

Retirement
Health
Education
Transportation
Child care

The state buys for Isabel, in bulk, in the most efficient way. This leaves her plenty of money to spend on her own. Barbara can’t buy these things for herself as cheaply or as efficiently as the state can.”

This comparison harks back to a major point of this book:

“…in a sense, the more we [in the United States] spend, the less socialist we become. For whether it is health care or education, we use the private market to pay for the distribution of public goods. In other words, we pay socialist-type taxes so that the private insurance companies, drug companies, and yes, doctors can profiteer.”

-While American capital has been flying around the world and being invested in derivatives and subprime securitized mortages during a free-for-all that has cost, so far, at least one trillion of American taxpayer dollars to clean up and to keep us from falling off the economic abyss, a system of government-owned banks in Germany kept enough capital in Germany to keep the system going.

-Perhaps the most important point: as Europe unites in the European Union, Germans say that one of their biggest exports, in an economy that is export-driven, is their corporate and economic structure.

In the end, Geoghegan decides that he was, in fact, born on the right continent. If he had been European, all he could do, he says, is “play defense” when it comes to maintaining the European model. Geoghegan wants, he writes, to continue to "play offense" in recreating the American economic system. Personally, I’m not so sure. Being able to play defense would be nice for a while.

Also, I don't care if the preferred label is "socialism," "social democracy," "social capitalism," "European capitalism" or what-have-you. It works. It creates economic justice (remember the Roman Catholic Christian Democrats?), and we need a much greater measure of it here in the United States.

Did I tell you to buy and read the book? Buy and read the book!

Book Review: Fingerprints of God

For some time now, I have been interested in the intersection between science and spirituality. If God in fact exists and is responsible for the existence of the universe, if there is something that transcends what we can see, touch, and measure, then it is reasonable to assume that there would be traces of the Divine, “fingerprints of God”, if you will, to be found within human experience.

Because of this interest, I have sought out and read books such as those by Paul Davies. Mind of God is probably his best known. Other such books and authors which readily come to mind include God: The Evidence by Patrick Glyn, Language of God by Francis Collins, and the work of Gerald Schroeder, an observant Orthodox Jew and scientist who finds no contradiction between a Talmudic reading of Genesis and the standard scientific account of the origin of the universe and the emergence of life on our planet. Schroeder, apparently, had a great deal to do with the conversion of Anthony Flew from convinced atheist to theist – or perhaps deist.

Thus, I was pleased to receive a copy of Barbara Bradley Hegarty’s Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality for Fathers’ Day. Bradley Hegarty is a journalist who, for some years now, has covered religion for National Public Radio. Bradley Hegarty says that in writing this book, she is trying to understand her own experience, having been raised in a devout Christian Science environment and then, by way of a “numinous experience”, discovering the Jesus of the Gospels, leading her to the edge of Evangelicalism and finally, “mainstream Christianity”. What Bradley is looking for, she writes, is scientific confirmation, or at least justification, for her "intuition that God exists", that there is “something more”.

Among others, a major focus of this book is the emerging field of “neurotheology”, the exploration of what happens, both during and after, in a human brain when someone meditates, prays, uses a psychodelic drug such as peyote in a religious ritual, "hits bottom" or otherwise experiences a spontaneous conversion, or has a near death experience. The instruments these researchers use are products of state-of-the- art medical technology: highly sophisticated EEGs and brain scanning machines, such as MRIs and PET scanners.

As it turns out, such practices and experiences do make long term changes in brain activity and even, in the actual physiological structure of the brain itself.

Of course, the evidence in this regard has not yet accumulated to the point where most scientists have been convinced to abandon a materialistic view of the universe, or of life. However, the researchers that Bradley Hegarty interviewed are convinced that the science is about to enter, or has in fact already entered, a “paradigm shift” in this regard.

While this is clearly not a theological book, Bradley Hegarty’s journalistic research clearly has theological implications. From a Christian perspective, perhaps the most interesting is that NDE’s and long term practices of meditation and prayer produce similar results in the brain. This gives a whole new spin to the idea of the spiritual life, specifically the Christian spiritual life, as “dying to self” or “dying with Christ”.

However, for all that, Bradley Hegarty’s book does not touch on several significant areas. First, apparently none of the research subjects are drawn from those pursuing an Orthodox Christian spiritual path: in the book, we encounter Roman Catholic nuns, Pentecostals, Buddhist monks, “spiritual but not religious” types, and others, but no monks from Mount Athos. So I am left wondering: what would their brain function look like?

Another pertinent question has to do with identifying “non-local mind” with God or transcendent spiritual reality. This is reminiscent of Jung’s “collective unconscious”. What if “non-local mind” is simply a product of humanity?

Then there is a related, but more urgent issue. What of the human encounter with spiritual evil? One thinks immediately of Malachi Martin’s Hostage to the Devil in which, for five persons, spiritual encounter has a destructive, not restorative effect. One also thinks of Scott Peck’s People of Lie as well as characters such as Charles Manson, the “Son of Sam”, Alistair Crowley, and various high level Nazis, whose ideology was undergirded by a certain spirituality. One would also note that for many traditions, Chritsian and non-Christian, it is deemed dangerous to undertake sustained spiritual practice apart from the input of someone who is more experienced and even, outside a spiritual community. Further, much spiritual literature is devoted to the matter of dealing with the egotism and evil that one will encounter while pursuing union with God. The closest that Bradley Hegarty gets to dealing with any of this is acknowledging that spirituality and certain psychiatric and neurological disorders exist on a continuum, reminding one of Jung's statement that "mystics are swimming in the same ocean in which psychotics are drowning".

With these shortcomings in mind, Bradley Hegarty’s book is worth the read. In the end, she reaches a common conclusion, one that seems entirely appropriate: while the existence of God and a transcendent realm is not provable, belief in God and another plane is justifiable, at least as reasonable as a purely materialist view of the universe.

Lenten Reading

I have just finished a book by Barbara Tuchman, called A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. A work of popular history (Tuchman was self-educated but, for all that, still won a couple of Pulitzers), the book largely draws upon primary sources to deal with the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, fought intermittently over a century and more, almost entirely on French soil. However, it also casts a spotlight across Western Europe and beyond during the period, extending into the 15th Century. The book’s focus is the life of one French nobleman, Enguerrand VI, the last sire of Coucy, a large holding in the North of France, near the English Channel, and a distant ancestor of a future French monarch. As the title implies, Tuchman is writing with an eye toward viewing the contemporary world through the reflection cast upon it by an era long past.

The period in question is characterized by a number of phenomena which are traumatic by any standard: black death (Tuchman takes the conventional view that this was bubonic plague; others have argued, convincingly to me, that the medieval plagues were rather a form of hemorhagic fever, perhaps caused by Ebola or a close viral relative), which reduced population levels by as much as 50 percent over a century; interminable fighting, not only between England and France or between Christendom and Islam, but also in private wars between various nobles, the results of which, through destruction of crops and other disruptions, disproportionately affected the lives of those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile and therefore least able to cope; openly regressive taxation; popular uprisings; conspicuous consumption by nobles, wealthy merchants, rising bureaucrats, and the upper clergy; widespread sexual profligacy; and so on.

From a Christian point of view, perhaps the most depressing characteristic of this period is the relationship between the Church and the rest of society. While all of society was nominally Christian, few seemed to take the Church's teachings seriously, the only exception perhaps being just prior to death. The Papacy was, for many years, ensconced in the “Babylonian Exile” at Avignon. Since Avignon was in France, and these Popes mostly French, they were largely instruments of French Imperial Policy. On the attempt to return the Papacy to Rome, prompted by St. Catherine of Siena, a longstanding schism was created, resulting in two Popes, one in Avignon, the other in Rome, and all of Western Europe was divided. England and France, of course, were on opposite sides of papal allegiance. From the Pope(s), down to the poorest parish priest, everything the Church had to offer was for sale. This, of course, gave rise to various reform movements, all of them more or less heretical, which prepared the way for Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, and the rest, and, providentially, for the reforms of the Council of Trent, two centuries later.

For all that, however, the era was not without signs of hope, primarily manifested in the careers of Saints. Catherine of Siena was one of them. Joan of Arc was another. Besides these, many man and women, religious and lay, worshiped, celebrated and received the sacraments, prayed, fasted, cared for the sick and helped the poor, motivated by their love for the suffering Christ and His sorrowful Mother, manifested in the sufferings of men and women with whom they lived and worked. Inspired and healed by the Holy Spirit, these men and women, of course, are the hope of the world; they were then, and are now. It is because of their prayers and other activities that societies do not collapse into utter chaos. During Lent, inspired by their examples, let us dedouble our efforts to contribute, in whatever way we can, not only to our own salvation, but to the survival, if not the salvation, of the whole world.

The Shack

Well, so much for agendas. When Advent began, a couple of weeks ago, I had laid out a plan for Advent blogging, focusing on the readings for the Sundays of the season. Life intervened, and here we are. It is almost the Third Sunday and I have yet to complete the post for the Second Sunday, concerning the “Announcement” to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, or Mother of God, of the impending birth of the Messiah. I had also intended to write posts about St. Nicholas (December 6) and perhaps some other Saints and manifestations of Saints, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose commemorations fall during the Advent season.

There is still hope for accomplishing some of this, but it is fading. In the meantime, a little book has come my way, something between a long short story and a novel, called The Shack, and it seems good to me to comment on it.

In The Shack, a middle-aged man, Mack, directly encounters the Triune God, who shows up in order to heal Mack of “The Great Sadness”, a chronic depression which has enveloped his life since his young daughter, Missy, was abducted and presumed killed while Mack and his children were on a camping trip a couple of years before. During this encounter with the Trinity, he experiences much that is healing, including being shown where his daughter’s body lies, and many of his questions are answered. In returning to his normal life, Mack, by revealing the location of his daughter’s body, is able to help the authorities catch the serial killer responsible for his daughter’s death, and he is also able to bring some measure of healing to his family, especially his older daughter, Kate, who feels responsible for Missy’s disappearance and death.

The author, William Paul Young, aka “Willie”, although somewhat younger than me, has a religious background similar to what I experienced as a young man, and some of the causes of pain in his life are apparently very similar to mine, in terms of both the consequences of his own behavior and the behavior of others; therefore, I strongly resonate with his practical understanding of God as Love, God as a Divine Community who always acts in love, even when that Community is angry at humans for the damage they are doing to themselves, each other, and the planet. And I actually know someone, a woman, who had a similar experience, not with the Triune God per se, but with Christ and His Blessed Mother. The results, for this woman, are also very similar to those in Mack’s life: positive both for herself and for those around her. So, even though this book is presented as fiction, this aspect is quite believable to me. There is also much about the theology which is very, well, Orthodox, concerning the nature of God and the Divine desire to be in relationship – communion – with all humans, for humans to share the Divine Life “face to face” and the role that Jesus, both fully God and fully human, plays in making this possible and actual. Given this, and given that this book can be a word of hope to people who are seriously hurting and may even be a salutary wake up call to people coming out of certain religious backgrounds, I am reluctant to critique in any way, but I feel I must.

The book, of course, is a story of an extraordinary encounter with God; thus, it might not be expected to deal so much with the ordinary means by which we experience the Divine. Unfortunately, however, words several times put into the mouths of the Divine Persons specifically reject the cornerstone of these ordinary means of encountering God: “no ritual”. Thus, for example, while there is an incident in the book in which Mack consumes bread and wine given him by the Divine Persons, it is explicitly stated that he eats and drinks “without ritual”. And, under other circumstances, things are purposely changed up, done differently than before, because there is “no ritual”.

For me, this is extremely problemmatic, and not just on an abstract level. You see, I do encounter the Triune God, the God "of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," every time I celebrate the Eucharist, every time I participate in any way, and I know I am not alone in this. The Eucharist – and the other Christian Mysteries – have been healing forces – healing encounters – with “the Great I Am”, for me not only on a routine, theoretical basis, but especially when I have been at my lowest, when, frankly, suicide has presented itself as a viable option. Yes, I’ve been there: it is not simply that I have a professional interest in defending the Mysteries. If I had not encountered the Love which is God in these Mysteries, I would not have embraced the historic, Apostolic Christian Faith, let alone become a priest.

There IS ritual and, as it turns out, the reasons for this have a great deal to do with the way humans are created. Thus, since we are, after all, made in the image and likeness of God, this must also have something to do with the communal love which is the Divine Nature, the eternal dance of mutual submission – kenosis – which the book rightly highlights. We certainly see ritual in created nature which itself “declares the glory of God”. Consider the repetition: day succeeds day; month follows month; season follows season; year follows year. We could also multiply examples from human interaction: however, the basic point is simply that there is no relationship without ritual, and ritual is a means, an extremely basic means, by which we initiate and reinforce relationships. Therefore, I would invite Willie and all of his readers to begin experiencing relationship with the Divine in those rituals which God has given us precisely for that purpose, especially the ritual of the Eucharist, in the context of a Church, a Christian community, where the Apostolic “Rule of Prayer” has been preserved.