Nature of Scripture

This is a religious post. It may or may not have implications for those who are not LDS, but it is addressed primarily to an LDS audience.

The latest controversy in Salt Lake with the policy regarding the children of LGBT couples has highlighted something for me that has long been my opinion, but which I wonder why isn't well understood by LDS members. This concept is "Church Policy is not the same thing as Eternal Truth."

An example of Church Policy is "what night of the week should Family Home Evening be on." An example of Eternal Truth is "I am a child of God." Church Policy is a necessarily pragmatic operational decision, similar to most other policy by most other organization. Eternal Truth is deep spiritual learning God intends for you to get through participation in The Church.

If The Church changes what night of the week Family Home Evening is on, should this become a crisis of faith for you, since "God is Eternal and does not turn from left or right?" Of course not. Church Policy is not supposed to convey deep spiritual meaning.

However with the mass exodus from The Church planned for today in protest of the children of LGBT policy, it is pretty clear that many people are willing to give up deep spiritual meaning they get in The Church in protest of Church Policy, equating the two as one in the same. This is also true of many of the members who are not leaving, LGBTs being spiritual villains they are being protected against via Church Policy. However this Church Policy is NOT supposed to say ANYTHING about the long-term spiritual well being of the children of LGBT, and the policy itself says so explicitly.

It requires you to do very little research to realize that Brigham Young was fond of what black priesthood holders the LDS had, then was put in a situation where he needed to enact a temporary Church Policy to deny the priesthood to blacks, and then proceeded to mistake this Church Policy as being related to Eternal Truth. ("Whites should never marry blacks" for example.) A number of following LDS prophets made a similar mistake with the same policy.

It is my humble opinion, not to say here official church doctrine, that the same thing goes for Polygamy. Jacob chapter 2 is very explicit about how foul polygamy is considered to be by God, and exactly what circumstances God MAY call for polygamy, and suggests those circumstances are rare. In spite of Jacob chapter 2, many LDS and various prophets have suggested polygamy is a very important part of the afterlife.

However I think this inability to separate policy and spirituality is connected to Fundamentalism in LDS culture. "Fundamentalist" in LDS culture means "apostate polygamist." But "Fundamentalist" in religion generally refers to people who take scripture to be taken completely literally. In LDS culture, the most extreme Fundamentalists are indeed our apostate polygamists, but I think Fundamentalism runs otherwise rampant in the LDS community, the common belief that polygamy is an important part of the afterlife derived from a few chapters in the Doctrine and Covenants being just one example.

LDS believe like many other Christians that Jesus was the mortal form of God, who resurrected himself after his death. When Jesus was here, he did not lecture us on deep history, or try to explain to us detailed scientific principles. Instead he taught through parables THAT WERE NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE LITERALLY TRUE. He sought to educate us on matters of personal character, how we can be better people. LDS believe that God's purpose is to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." The LDS also believe that the main barrier standing between any given mortal and their eternal life is their own moral character - the kind of person they are and what kind of person they are becoming.

God's teachings are then to inform you how to be a better person, not to lecture you on science and history. We have some debate in The Church about how literal various stories in the Old Testament should be taken. Should they be taken as "literal" - as a history or science lesson, versus should they be taken "symbolically", meant to convey some secret meaning of great supernatural power. Both are misguided - the "moral of the story" is the point of the story, not the symbols, and certainly not the literal text.

Let's take the Book of Mormon for example. The book itself says that the appropriate way to embrace scripture is to "liken it unto yourself," even if you are unfamiliar the exact geography and politics the original story is based on. The book goes on to say that "only matters of spiritual importance" are recorded in the book - so that regardless of what the most important political and social events of their times are, only the events considered to convey spiritual meaning to us are recorded in the book! "Liken the scriptures unto us" plus "only spiritually important events" means "moral of the story is the point of this book." Therefore it hardly matters at all if the events in the Book of Mormon literally took place - the whole thing could be a work of fiction created by an angel to convey important meaning for us for our own salvation as children of God trying to become more like Him. When I hear people fretting over "DNA evidence and the Book of Mormon," I have to shake my head and think that this person has missed the point of the Book of Mormon entirely.

Mormons like many other Christians essentially believe that the Burning Bush that Moses encountered - the being that gave us the Old Testament up to Moses's point in history - was Jesus in camouflage. It was Jesus's personality to teach real life morals through fictional storytelling. Therefore I have to ask you, how much of the Old Testament before Moses was intended to be parable and not deep history or lectures on the scientific origins of the universe? Answer: it doesn't matter in the slightest, because the point of scripture is to make us better people, not to teach science or history.

Taking Church Policy as Eternal Truth was an understandable mistake for earlier generations of LDS who did not enjoy the hindsight we have now. But we - after all the crow we have eaten on so many controversial issues from the past - have no excuse - we should know better. Doing so is an exercise in Fundamentalism - taking whatever words we can get our hands on and assuming that they are God's own explanation of science and history, instead of asking ourselves what the big picture morality questions are of our current circumstances. It is an Eternal Truth that we need to back up our leaders and be supportive in spite of controversy, it is an act of Fundamentalism to get so deeply offended by a Church Policy that you sacrifice your own spiritual practices in protest.

Religion of Wrestling

Wrestling has been used to build character, body, and self defense skills throughout the ages. The most influential type of wrestling, Mongolian wrestling, has its earliest documentation dating NINE THOUSAND years ago. Since then it has appeared in every major civilization I know of. (See also my post the ubiquity of wrestling:  http://bfgalbraith.blogspot.com/2015/01/ubiquity-of-mongolian-wrestling.html )

At the dawn of Judeo-Christianity, it is said that Jacob wrestled an angel. At the dawn of Islam it is said that Muhammad was a wrestler. Even at the dawn of America's own home-brewed form of Judeo-Christiantiy, Mormonism, it is said that Joseph Smith Jr. was a wrestler. Wrestling has been promoted by many religious and educational institutions because it teaches many moral lessons: sportsmanship, mental focus, will power, reflection/repentance/intentional-personal-improvement, humility, hard work and dedication.

Wrestling is essentially this: the core fighting skills you can spar without striking or submission holds. Wrestling skills are also the most absolutely fundamental self defense skills - explosive physical power, awareness of your body, awareness of your opponents bodies, moving left/right/forward, taking opponents off their feet, sprawling when opponents try to take you down, staying out-from-under/on-top of your opponents, physically manipulating your opponents, and rigorous training:

Wrestling is clearly of massive importance to martial arts in terms of both tradition and technique. In early MMA, wrestling was often overshadowed by more submission oriented grappling styles, though over time it has become considered one of the most important martial arts in MMA. Some of the most sophisticated grappling in the world today is BJJ, but even in that sport it is unwise to neglect wrestling skills:

Full Analysis and Discussion: http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=124723A good example on why takedowns or setting up a solid guard pull is necessary. Notice the Wrestler only disengages after the BJJ player butt flops, the rest of the match he is the one moving forward to engage.
Posted by Bullshido on Saturday, August 1, 2015

Capitalism vs. Socialism: Part 2

(Before reading this post, if you haven't already, read my original Capitalism vs. Socialism post, where I asserted that in a liberal democracy capitalism and socialism are strongly dependent on each other, and that decreasing one also decreases the other.)

The great recession that started around 2008 has been declared a failure of regulation. Deregulation in the decade before led to a massive failure of the economic system. A compromise of socialism (deregulation) led to a compromise of capitalism (market failure.)

My views on this are strongly influenced by one specific book by Jane Jacobs, called "The Nature of Economies." In that book she shows how small communities start off by importing and exporting, but as they grow and their economies diversify, the less and less dependent they become on export and import. A small town might only be able to get microwave Chinese food mailed to them. However as that town grows, its economy will become strong enough to support their own Chinese restaurant. 

Let's consider the Chinese Restaurant Owner and Operator, who we will call "Chang," verses the local food inspector, who we will call "James." Chang doesn't like it when James stops by, sticks his nose in Chang's freezer, runs around talking temperatures of random food items, and slaps a bunch of warnings on the wall in Chang's prep kitchen, and finally sends him a minor fine in the mail. Chang, capitalist extraordinaire, would just assume James stop wasting his tax money and go find another job.

But let's look at the CAPITALIST consequences of not having food inspectors. First word would get out that there were no food inspectors. Now people are going to be far more hesitant to go out, and the more exotic and daring the food, the less likely they will be to try it. Chang's restaurant definitely takes a significant hit on customers. Second all the food inspectors are out of work, and their salary is no longer contributing to the economy. This only results in less customers for Chang.

But what is especially concerning to me is how many progressives I talk to think that Chang's business isn't important. If his business folds, there are two catastrophic consequences: 1) his small town is now back to ordering microwave Chinese food and 2) his business no longer contributes to the tax base of his community. Both outcomes are terrible, even for socialists.

The implication of all this going forward, is that more government involvement to build more business is what you want to do. For example:

• Instead of doing too-big-to-fail business bailouts, you should establish a small-business welfare system that bales out small businesses in hard times, especially considering that they are the USA's foremost source of employment.
• You should be asking for more small business grants and loans - massively more. We do not have enough to go around until the top students in each DECA club in high schools across the country are able to try out entrepreneurship once they graduate. Microloans should not be the exclusive realm of private NPOs!
• You should be asking for more regulations, not less. Every part-time cog in a government bureaucracy is another potential customer for these businesses. Also, a magnifying glass taken to the new industries popping up will make customers have more confidence in trying out the new things these new businesses come up with.

But here's the punchline: I am not pro-capitalism or a socialist. I am a Technocracy Inc./21-hour work week type of guy. I don't think capitalism, socialist dogma, unions, careers, etc. are even a good idea. However IF you want our current system to work, you should be asking for MORE of it, not less. Capitalism vs. Socialism is a false dichotomy in liberal democracies, they are in fact the only things that prop each other up.

Capitalism vs. Socialism

With the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders running for president in 2016, we are going to hear tons about why socialism is better than capitalism and vice versa. What I will explain here is that they are two sides of the same coin, or in other words, that they act as a yin/yang balance where one supports the other; successful capitalism depends on successful socialism, and successful socialism depends on successful capitalism. Together they form the ideal economic bedrock on which to build liberal democracy.

First let's look at how society has evolved:

1. In a primal state of hunter gatherers, we are not at the top of the food chain. With no significant government, issues around starvation and being eaten by apex predators trump all other concerns regarding right and wrong, family relationships, or anything else we might regard as morality.
2. Once we establish permanent villages - even if those villages are mobile - with strong central leadership that can make decisions for large groups in emergencies - right and wrong can now be considered. No longer at the mercy of apex predators and with a variety of adaptions for dealing with food shortages, meaningful family structures can now form. The problem for the primal village is other primal villages - mankind becomes it's own worst enemy.
3. Once we can establish nations with national leadership - traditionally most commonly monarchies, villages now stop warring with each other, and violence over all is massively reduced, death from natural causes now for the first time in this story becoming more common than being murdered. Most feel strong loyalty to the King and Queen, because they provide the stability everyone needs. Sure there are entrepreneurs in a Monarchy, but they are not able to transcend the peace keeping authority of the royal family. The problem now is that the Royal Family has to more or less decide what is right for everyone, and no matter how intelligent and virtuous they are, it is impossible to make the best decisions for other people.
4. Capitalism emerges as the entrepreneurs get enough power and influence that as a community, they can challenge the power of the monarchy. Now we have many more people involved in the decision making process of how everyone lives, with a wider range of products and services to help people live their lives. The problem is that if the people with money are the ones best positioned to make more money - and in capitalism they always are - the rich always get richer, and as a community the rich end up getting more and more control over all of the wealth. This can eventually end in a currency crisis where money only matters to those who have it, while everyone else resorts to bartering. This can massively degrade society throwing it back into Monarchy or even something more primitive.
5. Socialism arises to cure the ills of capitalism. They fix the problem of wealth concentration by seizing the means of production from the rich and making it all government property. The problem is that innovation slows down when all decisions are being made by the same great bureaucracy, and internal politics dictates what products and services are provided more so than what the people actually want or need to have.
6. Liberal Democracy puts the will of the people first. It is focused on balancing Capitalism and Socialism. The people want the goods and services Capitalism provides but they also want the stability Socialism provides. Liberal Democracies thrive far beyond the more primitive Capitalism of the Old West or industrial revolution because they use taxation and regulation to prevent concentration of wealth collapses. Liberal Democracies thrive beyond the old Socialism of the Cold War because the tolerance of Capitalism provides far more goods and services than a single bureaucracy can manage.

The more Capitalism a Liberal Democracy has, the more Socialism it can have, as there is more money to tax to provide universal stability for the people through social safety nets. The more Socialism a Liberal Democracy has, the more Capitalism it can have as taxes and regulations prevent oligarchies and wealth concentration collapses. My warning here is that in a Liberal Democracy, less of either Capitalism or Socialism leads to less Socialism AND less Capitalism, weakening the Liberal Democracy. If an Liberal Democracy is to grow, it should strive for MORE Capitalism AND MORE Socialism.

Contrary to popular belief, high taxes and robust regulations are exactly how we build Capitalism, while allowing people to embrace investment and consumerism is exactly how we build Socialism. Those who advocate for only one side or the other are ignoring how dependent the two rival systems are on each other when practiced within an Liberal Democracy:

Read Capitalism vs. Socialism: Part 2.

Elbows

One of my favorite Tai Chi moves is an elbow to the body. It can be done very discretely with a minimum of telegraphing or announcing "hey everyone look at me I am beating on this guy" in a self defense situation. First let's look at basic elbow strike technique:

Now here is what that basic elbow strike technique looks like in a fight:

Elbows to the body can happen in MMA with ground and pound strategies:

But if standing-up elbows to the body specifically were effective, wouldn't they teach them in Muay Thai? Behold:

But that's Muay Thai, not Tai Chi, how similar could the two arts elbows be to each other? Very:

The Scout Law and Moral Foundations Theory

This I finally read The Righteous Mind concerning morality and politics. At the core of this book is Moral Foundations Theory, and it explains more about national politics and political strategy than any other book I have seen. There at 6 moral foundations that everyone's political values seem to be based on:

• Care (for others) 
• Fairness (using the same rules as everyone else)
• Liberty (to make your own decisions)
• Loyalty (to the groups you belong to)
• Authority (respecting tradition and legitimate institutions) 
• Sanctity (cleanness and purity both physically and conceptually) 

In the USA there are then three political personality types that emerge based what moral foundations speak loudest to that individual person:

• Progressive: primary focus is on Care, believing for example that the government's responsibility is to take care of people.
• Libertarian: primary focus is on Liberty, believing that for example the government's responsibility to protect people from taxes and regulation that could impair people's free will.
• Conservative: compared to progressives and libertarians, conservatives value all six foundations equally. So for example caring about the poor but voting for a politician who does not, because that politician is trying to preserve a traditional definition of marriage, is a very conservative behavior.

(Note: Outside of the USA "liberal" means "Libertarian" and inside the USA it means "Progressive." It serves the agenda of Conservatives well to marginalize both into the same general category meaning "godless heathen." Progressives and Libertarians alike need to wage war on the pejorative "liberal" until it is no longer in political use.)

I noticed a direct correlation between The Scout Law and the Six Moral Foundations. I noticed in the past the virtues of the Scout Law were listed in related pairs. The Six Moral Foundations demonstrate how the pairs are related:

1. Trustworthy: loyalty - confidentiality
2. Loyal: loyalty - definition of loyalty
3. Helpful: fairness - equal access to information
4. Friendly: fairness - sharing values
5. Courteous: care - dignity of downtrodden
6. Kind: care - physical contribution to poor
7. Obedient: authority - obedience is obvious submission to authority
8. Cheerful: authority - attitude that sustains authority
9. Thrifty: liberty - self reliance is a critical assumption liberty depends on
10. Brave: liberty - attitude necessary to sustain liberty 
11. Clean: sanctity - definition of sanctity
12. Reverent: sanctity - definition of sanctity

I see the Scout Law not so much as a moral code, but as a list of virtues ideal for good leadership, which youth can strive for. However I can also see that if the Scout Law is embraced as a moral code, it can lead to a distinctly Conservative perspective, valuing "Loyalty" as much as "Kindness" and "Cheerfulness" as much as "Courteousness" (flying in the face of progressives,) and "Obedience" as much as "Thriftiness" and "Reverence" as much as "Bravery" (flying in the face of Libertarians.) Anyhow, it is interesting that the Six Moral Foundations are comprehensive enough to cover all the virtues in the Scout Law.

Greatest Entitlement Generation

I have an opinion about a specific generation older than me. This is not an ageist rant against the elderly, I do not have this same opinion of those even older than the generation I am referring to.

World War 2 was a time of great peril for the world, when mad men with dreams of world domination took over some of the most powerful countries in the world, waging wars for that world domination they dreamed of. Our poor understanding of genetics at the time justified genocide in the eyes of some of these mad men. Through great sacrifice and a willingness to do literally anything to stop these mad men, a whole generation of Americans and Europeans made massive sacrifices to save the world.

No reasonable people I know of challenge the above narrative. However, if you save the world, there's a certain sense of entitlement that comes with having made that sacrifice. The aftermath of that entitlement - though preferable to what would have happened if they had not made that sacrifice - is still the foundation of many of the problems in our world today.

Our WW2 vets came home ready to fight fascism here in the USA next, and to prevent that revolution they were given "GI Bills" generous enough to not only pay for an ivy league education, but were also sufficient to buy a house with cash outright in addition to pay for that college education. In today's money, depending on how calculated the vet was in using it, the WW2 GI bill was worth about a million dollars.

The WW2 vets also inherited an industrialized economy that was already unionized. The last few generations before them had made great sacrifices to create those unions, but the WW2 generation only had to mutter the a few words including "fascist" and any politician in his right mind would start lecturing on the virtues of organized labor.

They then had the luxury of telling future generations that they were not as hardworking, and that war was good for us economically. This was the generation that categorically threw their unsustainably large number of children ("baby boomers") out on the street on their 18th birthday, convinced that anyone "could make in on their own in this land of great opportunity (where me and half my friends got a million dollar GI bill)."

Their kids, the baby boomers, had to survive in THAT world. They did everything they could to save the world in the face of entitlement that justified wide environmental destruction and massive loss of human life through war. The baby boomers had to take on home-grown racism the greatest generation ignored in the face of the foreign WW2 genocides. Any sense of entitlement the baby boomers had in taking organized labor or other societal advantages for granted was inevitable cultural baggage from the Greatest Generation.

Generation X saw the end of the cold war. We went from living in constant fear of nuclear annihilation to suddenly accepting the reality that "oh wait, no one really wanted to blow us up after all." As we came of age and the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers gave us "the world is your oyster" line they believed so strongly in, we ran into far more hurdles when it came to cost of education, and lack of employment opportunity. Education and organized labor had been severely neglected by these last two generations, and in their deteriorated state we did not encounter the opportunity the two previous generations had.

This instilled a powerful sense of criticism of society's assumptions, and we intentionally looked at the world differently. We started a technology revolution that transformed the way world politics happened. After the internet, no politician could hide what he was doing for long. Just how well you fared financially during this great technological revolution depended primarily on how financially prepared your family was to support you in getting an education or employment under those challenging circumstances, HOWEVER the vast majority of us Generation Xers realize that, unlike the last two previous generations.

The cultural baggage Generation X inherited was the "30 year mortgage" and the "40 hour work week."  When the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers speak of 40 hours, they speak of a labor market dominated by unionized jobs, where if your workplace wasn't unionized, it had to compete to retain employees with workplaces that were unionized. Unions at that time were incredibly powerful, and their members reaped incredible benefits including every holiday known to the culture off with pay, weeks of other payed vacation time, weeks of "sick leave," and protection from being fired even when you took time off from work beyond all that time paid off. In general what they called a "40" hour work week was more like what Generation X, working in the grave yard of unions, would have called a "32" or even perhaps "24" hour work week. By contrast, when Generation Xers were able to take advantage of the technology boom, positions were not protected by unions and 60+ hour work weeks - unheard of in generations - were common place.

The Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers had the luxury of affordable real estate, education, and a labor market driven by high wage unionized jobs. In that world of stable employment, even if you didn't get a million dollar GI bill, going into personal debt for much less expensive education and housing made very good sense. However the jobs and inexpensive housing and education were largely not there for Generation X, and now we largely shoulder the burden of the expectation of previous generations by way of outrageous student loans and mortgages. We have learned the hard way that under normal circumstances, the wealth enjoyed by the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers can not be taken for granted.

If Generation Y or Millennials feel entitled to anything at all, it's simply that they don't expect to be thrown out of the house on their 18th birthday, kicked from the nest before it is even possible to fly. Thanks to the information access created by Generation X, they comprehend that the world isn't what previous generations told themselves it was, and they understand concepts like "three generational house holds" and "it's possible for an opportunity to be too expensive to be rational." They have transformed the technology infrastructure created by Generation X to be socially valuable, and now it's possible to contact long lost friends and family or be connected with far more people simultaneously than anyone could before.

Generation Y and the Millennials have uncovered a long lost secret once held dear by Americans: frugality. Generations before the Greatest Generation held frugality in high regard, and did not see going into debt for several times your annual salary for ANYTHING to be a wise investment. What you may be seeing as entitlement with these new up and coming generations is most likely the opposite: some things are NOT worth sacrificing for, and the world does NOT owe you anything, financial decisions MUST be made carefully, and debt almost always SHOULD be avoided. You only have so many years on this Earth, and if there is no imminent nuclear annihilation that we must all fend off by boosting our nation's GDP, it is possible that there could be more worthwhile ways to spend our days: