happy easter

I went to St. George Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church this morning with an Orthodox friend of mine, which was an interesting experience. Although Orthodox Easter (based on the Julian calendar vs. the Gregorian calendar) isn't until May 5th this year, it was a nice to way to spend the day, especially since today's the feast day of Gregory Palamas, whose approach to prayer was more contemplative and reminds me, at least superficially, of Buddhist meditation, and whose story first led me years ago to become interested in aspects of Orthodox Christianity, seeing in it an extension of the ancient Greek mystery religions mixed with a bit of Eastern mysticism.

The church itself is beautiful, in many ways simpler and more intimate than others I've visited, emitting a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, yet still fully capable of giving rise to feelings of reverence and solemnity. I really like Eastern Orthodox churches, not only because of their beautiful iconography, but because of some of the symbolism underlying them as well. Some of them (like the one depicting Jesus' descent into Hades, for example) are quite philosophically complex, and I find them intriguing to contemplate, not unlike Christian koans in a way. The concept of theosis is also appealing to me, i.e., the idea of trying to emulate the life of Jesus, and genuinely putting into practice his teachings on forgiveness, generosity, renunciation, and unconditional love in order to become more god-like, to become one with the best aspects of our humanity and share a deep sense of communion with one another.

Of course, there are certainly many Christian ideals and theological aspects that I don't like and will probably never agree with; but I respect Christianity and the Christian community for what it is or potentially could be to people. It's a guiding light in times of darkness, and a source of comfort and a place of refuge in difficult ones. It's a journey towards wholeness for those who feel incomplete. It's a celebration of life and happiness in a world filled with sadness and death. It's a philosophy, a riddle, a vehicle for gnosis. And deep down, it can be characterized by one simple commandment, which Jesus gave to his Apostles at the Last Supper: love one another.

It's hard not to appreciate this commandment and the spirit it was given, or the people who sincerely endeavor to follow it. It speaks to the salvific power of love, and reflects the idea that there's something special, something divine, in our interactions with other people—an idea that's mirrored in Bible passages such as, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love," and echoed by Church Fathers like Augustine of Hippo: "Once for all, then, a short precept is given you: Love, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good."

Happy Easter/second week of Lent, everyone.

scalia and same-sex unions: bigotry disguised as reason?

In case we need any more evidence that Justice Scalia's opinions about same-sex unions are based on bigotry rather than reason or facts (as if his comments in defense of anti-sodomy laws back in December weren't enough), he further clarifies the issue for us with his recent comment that "there's considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not" despite the fact that the American Sociological Association's official statement on the matter completely contradicts this:

The claim that same-sex parents produce less positive child outcomes than opposite-sex parents—either because such families lack both a male and female parent or because both parents are not the biological parents of their children—contradicts abundant social science research. Decades of methodologically sound social science research, especially multiple nationally representative studies and the expert evidence introduced in the district courts below, confirm that positive child wellbeing is the product of stability in the relationship between the two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources. Whether a child is raised by same-sex or opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a child's wellbeing.

The clear and consistent consensus in the social science profession is that across a wide range of indicators, children fare just as well when they are raised by same-sex parents when compared to children raised by opposite-sex parents.

While I could personally care less about marriage in and of itself, I think it's worth fighting for anything that chips away at bigotry and discrimination in our society, and against people like Scalia, who'd rather impose their bigotry onto others through the legal system. All the available evidence suggests that gay parents are good parents, and that dissolution rates for same-sex couples are slightly lower on average than divorce rates of different-sex couples. Couple that with the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment, and I honestly don't see how Scalia, or anyone else for that matter, can say that their opposition to same-sex marriage is based on anything but bigotry—a prejudice that more often than not arises out of religious beliefs that, in my opinion, have no place being imposed onto the rest of a secular society, especially when the First Amendment has historically been understood to provide a 'wall of separation between church and state,' protecting the former from the authority of the latter and vice versa.

I believe that a person should have the freedom to practice their religion as they see fit as long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others. In this instance, making same-sex marriage legal and/or getting rid of DOMA wouldn't force churches to conduct/officiate said marriages, and it most certainly wouldn't force opponents from entering into a same-sex union; but upholding DOMA and/or making same-sex marriages illegal affects all same-sex couples and denies them equal rights under the law, which I'd argue is not only unconstitutional but unconscionable. It not even 'separate but equal'; it's 'separate and unequal.'

And the same goes for laws that target and discriminate against transgendered individuals, who often get overlooked in these kinds of debates.

why the rich don't give to charity

Today I read an interesting article from the Atlantic looking at the disparity in charitable giving between the wealthiest Americas (the top 20%) and the poorest (the bottom 20%) in terms of percentage of income—1.3% vs. 3.23% respectively. In particular, the article notes that while lower-income Americans are presumably no more intrinsically generous than anyone else, "some experts have speculated that the wealthy may be less generous—that the personal drive to accumulate wealth may be inconsistent with the idea of communal support."

If true, I think part of the reason may be due to the logic of what Marx called the 'coercive laws of competition,' which compel capitalists to accumulate capital; and this systematic drive, much like the personal drive to accumulate wealth, may be inconsistent with the idea of communal support. The working class and poor, on the other, are not only more exposed to, and familiar with, privation, but they're predominately compelled by the ever-pressing need of acquiring their means of subsistence rather than the drive to accumulate capital/personal wealth, giving them a greater feeling of solidarity with those struggling to get by and encouraging them to give more in terms of percentage of income even though they have less to give.

if only it were mine to give...

I learned today that my friend's mom passed away a few months back. While that in and of itself is bad enough, my friend wasn't able to visit her in her last days, nor was he able to attend her funeral. The reason why? US immigration laws that'd have prevented him from reentering the country, separating him from his wife and three children, as well as preventing him from reapplying for citizenship for up to a decade. I can't tell you how angry that makes me, especially since the same thing happened when his father passed away. My friend is a Mexican immigrant who original came to the US to work and help support his family, and who wants more than anything to stay in order to give his family a better life.

Working with him for 3 years and being friends for about 5, I know how much his mother meant to him, and I know how much it must have killed him to know that leaving to see her in her final days would've cost him everything he's worked so hard to achieve for the past 24 years, making his family's future even more uncertain than it already is. Under current immigration laws, neither he nor his wife can leave the country without forfeiting all the time and money they've spent the last 8 years trying to become citizens.

Because my friend, his wife, and their first daughter initially came to this country 'illegally,' and his first lawyer screwed him over by putting the wrong country of origin on his paperwork because it was easier to immigrate from certain Latin American countries, he was ultimately denied citizenship despite the fact that he's been living, working, and paying taxes in the US for over 24 years, is an asset to his present employer, has no criminal record, has two children under 18 who are legal US citizens, and has been going through the immigration process since 2005. What's worse is that while waiting for his appeal to go through, which he's heard absolutely nothing about for almost 2 years now, he's had to live in limbo, not knowing what's going to happen to him or his family if his request for citizenship is denied a second time. And now this.

Hearing about his life growing up and all the things he went through to get here, as well as the things he's had to endure just to have a chance to stay, it makes me feel ashamed that I take what I have for granted. By the sheer luck of being born on the right side of an imaginary line, I have by chance what he's strived for years to earn. I can't imagine the amount of stress he's been under, and it breaks my heart to see everything he's given up pursuing this dream. There's nobody I know who deserves to be here more than him, and if I could, I'd give him my citizenship in a heartbeat.

will the new pope live up to his name?

The Catholic world has a new pope, and at first glance, Pope Francis (previously Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio) appears to be a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Francis is theologically much like his predecessor, Pope Benedict, being decidedly conservative and adamantly opposed to abortion, contraception, the ordination of women priests, and same-sex marriage, and who publicly asserted in 2010 that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children (definitely no liberation theologian).

On the other, he has a reputation for being humble and rather austere, being more concerned about social outreach and issues like poverty and the effects of globalization than doctrinal battles. He's also known for calling out fellow church leaders for their hypocrisy, such as forgetting about the sick and the poor and for things like refusing to baptize the children of unwed mothers.

In addition, he's the first Jesuit to be elected pope, as well as the first to take the name Francis – reportedly after St. Francis of Assisi, although one can't help but suspect a slight nod towards St. Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Society of Jesus, as well – suggesting that his style may be markedly different from that of Benedict. In fact, his actions on his first day hint that Francis' papacy will be less traditional/flashy and meeker/more hands on than Benedict's.

The new pope isn't entirely free from controversy, though, and has been dogged by allegations that he may have been complicit in, or at least turned a blind-eye towards, some unsavory deeds committed by the 1976–1983 Argentinian military dictatorship, accusations that have been documented by Argentinian journalist Horacio Verbitsky's book, El Silencio: de Paulo VI a Bergoglio: las relaciones secretas de la Iglesia con la ESMA (Silence: from Paulo VI to Bergoglio: secret relations of the Church with the ESMA).

The most prominent allegation seems to be that Bergoglio was complicit in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests, a claim that was made by Orlando Yorio, one of the priests in question. He's also accused of "turning his back on the De la Cuadra family, which lost five relatives to state terror, including Estela’s sister Elena, who was five months' pregnant before she was kidnapped and killed in 1977."

His authorized biographer, however, tells a different story, one in which Bergoglio did everything he could to intervene and save the lives of the priests he's accused of putting into danger by withdrawing his order's protection of the them due to their work in the slums.

Whatever the truth of his alleged involvement in these affairs may be, I think it'll be interesting to see how his papacy will play out, especially considering the continued fallout from the Church's ongoing sex-abuse scandal and the leaked papal documents, which gave the world a peek into a corrupt and dysfunctional Vatican bureaucracy. It definitely looks like Francis is going to have his humble hands full, and it remains to be seen whether he'll live up to his namesake's call to "go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins."

don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

With the imminent election of a new pope just around the corner, some wonder why it even matters, especially atheists and those who have a critical view of religion in general. In the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, however, the pope is important as both the executive and supreme spiritual authority of the Church, overseeing the administration of Church doctrine and other, more mundane ecclesiastical affairs (much like a secular head of state).

And for members of the Catholic Church, this means that the pope represents the will of God on earth, carrying authority from Jesus himself via the line of apostolic succession beginning with Peter, who's considered by Catholics to be the first pope. This might not mean much to someone outside the Church, or even many within it, but the office still carries with it a fair amount of spiritual and administrative authority, particularly for those looking for spiritual guidance.

That said, I can understand that, for critics of religion in general, both religion and religious authorities appear to be archaic and essentially irrelevant in our modern day and age, being relics of a superstitious past. The Catholic Church, in particular, has been opposed to social progress and change, historically as well as presently. However, despite the negatives, I think that religions not only help to give a voice to deep and profoundly moving feelings that are often difficult for us to express, but offer a spiritual and emotional dynamic to our existential suffering. As Marx wrote in his introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

Hence religion in some sense is a type of pain-killer that speaks to real and often materially-unanswered needs, and this is one of the reasons that religion shouldn't be dismissed totally off-hand. To do so is unfair to people who are themselves religious, in my opinion, and it also runs the risk of denying the underlying aspects of religion that touch the very core of our humanity and the miasma of joy, sorrow, and camaraderie that religious beliefs often speak to or find expression in. After all, religion is, among other things, a creative expression of our search for happiness, meaning, and truth in a seemingly infinite universe.

Religion can be a beautiful thing that brings communities together, as well as bring individuals closer to a happiness that transcends much of the suffering and unsatisfactoriness seemingly inherent in this fragile thing we call life. None of this is to say that religion in and of itself is somehow above criticism, of course. As sympathetic towards religion as I am, I'm also quite critical of religion's proclivity to fall into absolutism and dogmatism, not to mention its historical reliance on things like authority and tradition over evidence and rationality.

All in all, though, I'm a firm believer that a person can be both scientifically minded and spiritual at the same time; but unless such a person also tries to remain open-minded and willing to alter or even throw out their religious beliefs when they seemingly conflict with reality and the evidence presented to them, or if they end up harming and oppressing a section of the population, social progress will always be somewhat at odds with religion and religion will lose.

So while I've heard people express their desire to 'kill religion' (e.g., Dawkins et al.), and I can understand some of their reasoning for making such statements — especially when you have people using religion to justify suicide bombings and discrimination against gays, women, etc. — I also can't help but think that doing so would come at a great cost to humanity in that we'd be losing an important part of what makes us, well, human.

wage-slavery and republican liberty

Jacobin's "Wage-Slavery and Republican Liberty" is an interesting article connecting the political emancipation realized via the American Revolution, and the 'neo-Roman' republicanism associated with the Enlightenment ideals of the Founding Fathers underlying it, to the logically consistent extension of those emancipatory ideals and actions into the economic sphere, suggesting that true independence won't be won until we're liberated from the structural and personal forms of dependence that characterize wage-labour under capitalism.

At the very least, I think this look at how segments of the American working class extended these emancipatory ideals and actions into the economic sphere offers present-day socialists, etc. in the US an interesting rhetorical basis from which to argue that both the philosophical and political foundation of US republicanism, championed by conservatives and liberals, are actually more potentially revolutionary than they're willing to admit, limiting the concept of freedom to one small area of civil society. That "To demand that 'there is to be a people in industry, as in government' [is] simply to argue that the cooperative commonwealth [is] nothing more than the culmination and completion of the American Revolution's republican aspirations."

The revolution isn't won yet!

bread and roses

Read an interesting op-ed in this month's edition of Jacobin today about what feminism is and how to orient ourselves towards struggles in that direction, such as the Wages for Housework Campaign and the more recent Domestic Workers United movement in New York, both of which tie into the "invisibility of female labor" and the broader fight for radical compensatory mechanisms like a universal basic income—a demand that's "intrinsically feminist because it recognizes the domestic work vital to the reproduction of labor power."

I think it's especially relevant since today is also International Women's Day, which originated in the US as a massive demonstration in 1909 by tens of thousands women and socialists commemorating the 1857 garment workers' strike in New York — where women protested against poor pay and working conditions — and demanding shorter work hours, better pay, voting rights, and an end to child labour. The slogan 'Bread and Roses' is as relevant now as it was on March 8, 1908. As the old song inspired by the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike goes:

As we go marching, marching, we're standing proud and tall. The rising of the women means the rising of us all. No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes, But a sharing of life's glories, bread and roses, bread and roses.

moral arguments for socialism?

Some people tend to criticize the inclusion of 'moral' terms in discussions about economics on the basis that such terminology is confused and arises out of religious assumptions about market forces or the lack thereof. In my opinion, however, ideas about morality and ethics in the realm of economics don't necessarily arise out of religious assumptions; they can just as easily arise out of a careful analysis that combines human emotions with human rationality, especially if 'moral' = 'for the common good.' Hence my opinion that moral arguments and justifications can have a place in such discussions.

From a socialist perspective, for example, I think the potential exploitation inherent in the capitalist system is one place to start. In the Marxist sense, at least, exploitation refers to the worker's lack of ownership and/or distributive control over the surplus created by their labour. That's why Marx defined slavery, feudalism and capitalism as exploitative systems of production, i.e., in each, the producers/workers have no ownership and/or distributive control over the surplus created by their labour.

From this perspective, exploitation is an inherent part of the capitalist mode of production, which in turn, ties into Marx's theory of alienation. It's rather complicated, and I don't fully understand everything Marx wrote on the subject as much of it is very abstract, but in short, exploitation is the idea that the capitalist profits far more from a worker's labour than the worker does, and it doesn't really matter whether it's voluntary or not due to the structural and personal forms of dependence that characterize wage-labour under capitalism and compel workers to work for others (e.g., see "Wage-Slavery and Republican Liberty").

Adam Smith et al. assumed that labour creates wealth (surplus value). But according to Marx, in a capitalist system, labour itself becomes a commodity, an object that's bought and sold on the market. Moreover, due to private ownership of the means of production, the product of the worker's labour doesn’t legally belong to them (alienation), nor does the surplus value their labour creates (unpaid labour), which is kept by the capitalist.

Consequently, the product of the worker's labour becomes a commodity that's divorced from the labour expended on its production, thereby obscuring the social relationship between producer and consumer (commodity fetishism). Furthermore, the employer has the ability to increase their profit exponentially by reinvesting the surplus value extracted from the worker's labour into their company while the labourer is forced to spend their (more often than not) meager wages on the necessities of life such as food, clothing, shelter, etc.

If one assumes that giving workers more control over the product of their labour is more 'moral' or socially beneficial than, say, giving that control to a capitalist who treats their labour as a commodity and gives them a smaller wage than their labour is truly worth in exchange, that may be one argument based on both a moral and rational basis.

Taking a broader view of history, one can also make the argument that the foundation of capitalism, private property, is ultimately built upon theft, which isn't only viewed as something immoral but something that's harmful to the commonwealth as well (i.e., a community founded for the common good). For example, a modern argument against socialism is the idea that abolishing private property rights and confiscating the 'rightful' property of one person (or persons) and giving it to another, including to the community as a whole, is immoral or harmful to the commonwealth. However, much of the land and natural resources that one may now 'rightfully' exploit for profit may very well have belonged to, or utilized by, another at some point in time, and was forcibly confiscated (e.g., Native American land). As Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in Discourse on Inequality

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

And the question can be raised, What's more moral or socially beneficial from this point of view, communal ownership where all (or at least a majority) have a say in the use of, and share in the profit from, property, whether in the form of land, resources, or machinery, or a private ownership, where only a single individual or select few benefit and/or have a say in the production and distribution of commodities that the reproduction of society depends upon?

Another argument may be how the present system actually creates structural unemployment, which hardly existed on a mass scale before it became the dominant mode of production, leaving many working-class people unable to support themselves or their families. This can be seen to be 'immoral' and socially harmful from a certain point of view.

And then there's the argument that under the present system, opportunity is essentially privatized along with everything else the capitalists and free-market advocates can get their hands on, making it just as concentrated as wealth (and, if you've noticed, income inequality is rising while median family income is lower now that it was 30 years ago). Sure, things have improved since the 1900s, when workers (which included large numbers of children) essentially had no rights whatsoever, and were forced to work over 12 hour days in absolutely appalling conditions, but that's been due to the struggle of workers themselves, not due to the benevolence of capitalism.

Capitalism isn't an immoral system as much as an amoral one, in my opinion, (as I'd argue all economic systems are in that they're essentially ways of organizing production and distribution utilized by people with varying degrees of intention); but I think we've definitely outgrown it, just like we did feudalism. And while socialism isn't going to be a perfect replacement if it ever takes its place, I think it has the potential to revolutionize society much the same way feudalism and capitalism have.

For me, socialism isn't so much about the equality of wealth or outcomes as it is the de-privatization (i.e., socialization) of opportunity and the weakening of class antagonisms and hierarchies arising out of social relations unique to capitalism and other predominately exploitative systems. As Marx wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy, "Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist."

Marx's focus, the bodhisattva that he was, is essentially the same as socialism's, which is primarily the question of how to liberate society from its suffering and alienation by changing the material conditions that support it. In the words of Erich Fromm, "[Marx's] concept of socialism is the emancipation from alienation, the return of man to himself, his self-realization."

The present system, however, due to the way its structured, tends to idealize and promote greed (self-interest) over altruism (common good), competition over cooperation, privatization over public ownership, etc., as well as encourage the accumulation of capital into a smaller and smaller number of hands. This, I suppose, can be argued to be less moral and socially beneficial if we place a higher/greater value on things like altruism, cooperation, etc., and if we conclude that liberty in the economic sphere (as opposed to just within the political sphere) is more in line with/promotes the general welfare of the commonwealth.

Those are some of the tentative arguments for including moral terminology in discussions about economics I can think of off the top of my head, at any rate.