Eve Tushnet writes

"Social science in many ways depends on moral philosophy. In deciding how to measure causation and what to control for you’re making judgments about which causal mechanisms you are willing to consider and which situations you consider equivalent." (emphasis mine, citation below)

That last sentence really captures one of the nuances that I have been pondering for the last several years.  

While the culture in which we find ourselves may shove us in one direction or another regarding such things as 

• what foods are "breakfast foods" or 
• whether or not we think farming or computer coding is a more prestigious job or 
• whether we think spanking is an appropriate form of discipline...
• (to name 3 of a near infinite number of particulars)

How the culture informs us about such things as causal connection and equivalency is much more important, because it is almost undetectable, and therefore more powerful. The fact is that our culture, and indeed our history in many ways dictates what we think is "right" when we are "making judgments about which causal mechanisms you are willing to consider and which situations you consider equivalent".  This puts words to something I have been thinking about, and feeling a bit disturbed about for quite a while.  

Rightly or wrongly, I have settled on, as one of my points of particular interest, 15th-17th century Europe, it's philosophical influence through its writers and events, and it's direct influence on groups of individuals who, in response to diverse stimuli, ended up landing in America and forming our society in response to the old societies which they left. I believe they have been primary influences that dictated to those of us who came after how we would make those judgements about causal mechanisms and equivalencies.

The downside is that I think they got it wrong.  

The upside is that I have begun to see it.  

And that is sobering, but helpful.

Alfred North Whitehead, in Science and the Modern World suggests:

"Do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which controversialists feel it necessary explicitly to defend.  More important and more telling for the deep understanding of a culture are the fundamental assumptions which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose.  Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming.  Indeed, they do not know that they are assuming anything, because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them."

I think that what we perceive as causation, and what we consider equivalent is one of those deeply rooted assumptions that we do not understand as being an assumption.  And I think we should consider them deeply.

Citation: <http://www.theamericanconservative.com/three-kinds-of-argument-on-family-structure/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=three-kinds-of-argument-on-family-structure>. Accessed 8/15/12

Ken Myers on C. S. Lewis' views on Presentism

Ken Myers, author of the "Contours of Culture" column in Touchstone magazine, illuminates C. S. Lewis' thinking on "Presentism": 


"Lewis laments the mentality of "Presentism," of provincialism in time, that plagues modern imaginations.  

"How has it come about that we use the highly emotive word 'stagnation,' with all its malodorous and malarial overtones, for what other ages would have called 'permanence'?...Why does 'latest' in advertisements mean 'best'?" 

"Lewis argued that this preoccupation with the present (and indifference  to or suspicion of the past) was a function of living with so much technology

"I submit that what has imposed this climate of opinion so firmly on the human mind is a new archetypal image.  It is the image of old machines being superseded by new and better ones.  For in the world of machines the new most often really is better and the primitive really is clumsy."

"He went on to argue that our assumption that everything is provisional and soon to be superseded - that we should live for the next thing rather than treasure and honor the permanent things - was the single aspect of modern life that detached us most thoroughly from all previous ages of history." (1)


This view is particularly pithy when cross-referenced with a letter I read recently while reading Letters of C. S. Lewis. Lewis is responding to a letter from (I am not making this up) "The Society For The Prevention Of Progress" in May 1944:

"While feeling that I was born a member of your Society, I am nevertheless honoured to receive the outward seal of membership.  I shall hope by continued orthodoxy and the unremitting practice of Reaction, Obstruction, and Stagnation to give you no reason for repenting your favour..." (2)

Citation: 
(1) Myers, Ken. Touchstone Magazine: Contours of Culture, "No Time Like the Present". May/June, 2011.  Volume 24, Number 3. Pages 11, 12.
(2)  Lewis, W. H., Editor. Letters of C. S. Lewis. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. New York. 1966. Page 204.

J. I. Packer on the place of the Gospel in our culture

Packer:

Our business is to present the Christian faith clothed in modern terms, not to propagate modern thought clothed in Christian terms.

Our business is to interpret and criticize modern thought by the gospel, not vice versa.

Confusion here is fatal.

--J. I. Packer, "Fundamentalism" and the Word of God (Eerdmans, 1958), 136

Citation: <http://dogmadoxa.blogspot.com/2011/12/our-fundamental-loyalty.html>, Accessed December 21, 2011.

Cultural Perspective on Children

We don't allow the culture to instruct us in how to think.

Rather, we do, and we shouldn't.  

As I trust in Christ, He does make me a new type of creation, apparently. At least, that is what I hear.  That new creation is not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, in light of the great mercies of God.

The white European birth rate, which has plummeted below the recoverable line in some countries is pointing out to us one of the ramifications of thinking from an Enlightenment perspective, allowing the culture to instruct our priorities, rather than allowing the King to inform us of his priorities for His beloved sons and daughters.

This quote, from Rachel Jankovic at Desiring God is a sobering way of putting the underlying priorities of the culture around us, and unfortunately the same priorities rule in the church. Click on the link to read the whole article.  It is worthwhile, I think.

"The truth is that years ago, before this generation of mothers was even born, our society decided where children rank in the list of important things. When abortion was legalized, we wrote it into law.

Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out at night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get. In fact, children rate below your desire to sit around and pick your toes, if that is what you want to do. Below everything. Children are the last thing you should ever spend your time doing.

If you grew up in this culture, it is very hard to get a biblical perspective on motherhood, to think like a free Christian woman about your life, your children. How much have we listened to partial truths and half lies? Do we believe that we want children because there is some biological urge, or the phantom “baby itch”? Are we really in this because of cute little clothes and photo opportunities? Is motherhood a rock-bottom job for those who can’t do more, or those who are satisfied with drudgery? If so, what were we thinking?"

Jankovic, Rachel. www.desiringgod.org. "Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank.<http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/motherhood-is-a-calling-and-where-your-children-rank#.Th9FVu89gWY.facebook>. Accessed 16JULY2011.

Make sure you are on the right train

"If you board the wrong train," he said, "it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction."

This was Dietrich Bonhoeffer's comment to those who thought that he should join the "German Christians" (the National Socialists nationalized church) and work as a change agent from within.

When I read a historical account of the West, it makes me wonder what train I am on, and which direction we are headed in.

And I pray.

Wisdom, or knowledge?

Ken Myers, in his book Signs of the Times, makes the following distinction between knowledge and wisdom.

"Literary critic Cleanth Brooks, in an essay on literature and technology, once obverved: "Secretly we may  hunger for wisdom, but our overt craving nowadays is, of course, for information." Later in this article, Brooks later made mention of the famous lines from T.S. Eliot which lament the loss of wisdom in the growing flood of public knowledge, and the loss even of knowledge in a deluge of sheer information.  Mere knowldege can easily be mistaken for wisdom, just as the accumulation of info-bits, factoids, and trivia can replace the pursuit of knowledge . 

Richard Weaver, a thinker committed to the recovery of the tradition of wisdom, wrote in 1948 that, "Having been told by the reeltivists that he cannot have truth, [modern man] now has 'facts'....the acquisition of unrelated details becomes an end in itself and takes the place of the true ideal of education." Weaver believed that our view of reality had become thoroughly fragmented; modern culture had forgotten (or rejects) the context of truth within which individual facts make sense.  Education itself has become an elaborate form of Trivial Pursuit for credit."

Citation: Myers, Ken. Signs of the Times: the Table Talk Columns. Mars Hill Monographs. 

Why the blog has been silent for a few days

It is interesting, being in the middle of an area that is hit by a natural disaster.  While we and our particular location was spared any direct damage, and only were effected by a power outage for several days (power is still off, but we have our generator working now) we were quite cut off because our power, landlines, internet and cell phones were all cut off or severely handicapped, so until a couple of days ago, we had no idea how widespread and devastating the damage was.  Our television and internet news were cut off, so our understanding of what had happened was mainly extrapolating what was being said by the local weather man when the power was cut off.  Then for several days our time was mostly taken up with trying to figure out how and what to cook, working on our generator to (finally) get it working after 3 or 4 days, and moving food from fridge to freezer to our neighbors freezer to try and keep the food.

Then, the news started to shape up for us as we listened to the radio, and the magnitude of the damage became clearer, the loss of life climbed higher and higher and finally, yesterday getting online and Googling to see what was happening in the cities surrounding us, watching video footage of the Tuscaloosa tornado...pretty sobering, especially in light of the fact that I have been having a blast figuring out how to "make do" with what facilities we still have.

Those of you that know me at all, know that I long to figure out how to cultivate community as a way of living that regards highly the kinds of creatures we were created to be.  I have found that having the power out is an excellent way to establish community.  I would say there was at least a 20% increase in "natural" relating with our family and neighbors as we pooled resources and gathered to discuss what was happening, as well as several community-based meals as we figured out how to use the food that was defrosting in the community freezers.

A Cautionary Thought

Peter Kreeft, paraphrasing J.R.R. Tolkien says this in one of his talks:

We have, as a culture, become very efficient at getting to a place very quickly that is not worth getting to. (Emphasis added)

Citation:
From a Peter Kreeft audio found at <http://www.peterkreeft.com/>

Immortals among us

 Taken seriously, this kinda changes things.

"It is a serious thing," says C.S. Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

Citation:

C. S. Lewis. "The Weight of Glory"

The Social Trap

While I certainly don't expect others to adopt "David's way" of living in this cultural soup that we find ourselves in, I do hope to be at least understood.  (I find that even this more modest hope is itself a nearly impossible task.)  And since I tend to make decisions slowly and after lots, and lots, and lots of puzzling over things, it often happens that my reasons for doing things can't be stated in a quick one-liner.  It often takes plenty of conversation to grasp the bolus of my thinking on a topic. (NOTE: I don't pretend to think that I have come to the "One Right Decision", but I have come to a conclusion, which leads to decisions, which then can also be tempered by additional thoughts and concerns of others.)


One of the primary reasons for this blog in particular is a hope that those that may read it (and my Dad in particular) will, by reading the things that I am reading, be able to have productive conversations because we are both speaking in the context of having read or heard the same things.


Thus, I have put a "Forum" page link on the top row of buttons, because ultimately I don't want this to be a monologue, but a dialogue, and the Forum is simply one way of doing that.  (I also occasionally send out hand-written letters as another form...and even (sharp-intake-of-breath) occasionally talk face-to-face with someone.


That being said.  One of my decisions has been to choose not to partake in the Facebook revolution.  I think that there is a potential for me to use it in a disordering way...not interacting with others in a way that is consistent with how I want to participate in the world.


And here are some thoughts that contribute to my general view of relationships.


(Feel free to argue.)


Alan Jacobs posts here on the topic of the nature of human interconnectedness:

"Andrew Keen:

"Today's digital social network is a trap. Today's cult of the social, peddled by an unholy alliance of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and communitarian idealists, is rooted in a misunderstanding of the human condition. The truth is that we aren't naturally social beings. Instead, as Vermeer reminds us in The Woman in Blue, human happiness is really about being left alone. On Liberty, the 1859 essay by Bentham's godson and former acolyte, John Stuart Mill, remains a classic defence of individual rights in the age of the industrial network and its tyranny of the majority. Today, as we struggle to make sense of the impact of the internet revolution, we need an equivalent On Digital Liberty to protect the right to privacy in the social-media age. Tapscott and Williams believe that the age of networked intelligence will be equal to the Renaissance in its significance. But what if they are wrong? What if the digital revolution, because of its disregard for the right of individual privacy, becomes a new dark ages? And what if all that is left of individual privacy by the end of the 21st century exists in museums alongside Vermeer's Woman in Blue? Then what?"

But this is just replacing one untenable generalization with another. As everyone knows, surely, we want and need to be alone sometimes and to be with others sometimes. Mental and spiritual health is found in the proper balance of the two, which must be different for different people. Every the most solitary crave connection sometimes; even the most social need time alone to re-charge. It would be hard to deny that the internet has been a profoundly rich and healing place for many lonely people. The questions are, or should be: What is the right balance for me? and, Have I achieved that balance?

As I commented in a post some months ago, advocates of the Big Social like Steven Johnson think we have been too solitary and too disconnected and need — as a society anyway — to move towards more connection, because connection generates ideas. My response to that was that (a) the generation of ideas is not the only social good, and (b) it’s hard to look at the proliferation of social media that I and my friends are occupied with and think that we don't have enough connections. My suspicion is that we need fewer connections, but (as I suggested in my previous post) more multi-dimensional ones. Keen overstates the value of privacy and under-rates the value of social connection, but he’s surely write to think that solitude is right now the endangered condition."

Citation:

Jacobs, Allan. "The Social Trap". Text Patterns Blog on The New Atlantis website.

<http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2011/03/social-trap.html>

Cook's Illustrated

Few and far between are the cooking magazines that make you more thoughtful because of the well-crafted and point-well-taken editorials of the manager of the magazine.


But such are the thoughts of Christopher Kimball, the editor of "Cook's Illustrated" magazine.  Within the first page or two of each cooking magazine, Mr. Kimball writes out his thoughts on cooking, agriculture, thinking, community.  It is like reading Wendell Berry, if he had become a cook instead of a farmer.


Here is a taste (sorry) of Christopher Kimball's writing from the Editorial on page 1 of the Sept/Oct 1998 edition of Cook's Illustrated.

"Two years ago, my wife Adrienne bought me an unusual birthday present: a beehive filled with 30,000 bees plus a subscription to Bee Culture magazine.  Since then, I hav eadded six additional hives, harvested two crops of honey, endured a few minor stings, and become an avid reader of this odd low-budget publication.  Of most interest to me was a recent article containing a survey of American eating habits.  It contained the following facts:

• The ideal food preparation time is 15 minutes.  It is estimated that it will be five minutes by 2030.

• Only one-third of women over the age of 20 bake for fun, even once per year.

• Seventy-five percent of American do not know at 4 p.m. what they'll eat for dinner.

• Three-quarters of American children do not know how to cook.

• In 1995, restaurant sales were greater than supermarket sales.

• The sources of meals consumed t home are: fast food 41 percent; restaurant takeout 21 percent; and supermarket takeout 22 percent.  This means that only 16 percent of the meals we consume at home are (presumably) home-cooked.

"Another survey, this one reported by the New York Times, found that 75 percent of those polled did not know how to cook broccoli, 50 percent couldn't prepare gravy, and 45 percent didn't know the number of teaspoons in a tablespoon.  The article went on to say that "in the last decade (the '80s), cooking has evolved into an optional activity, like skiing or playing chess." But this trend is not just a recent phenomenon.  Back at the turn of the century, convenience foods were already being cleverly inserted into published recipes, often by magazine food writers who were heavily subsidized by the food industry, a practice that continues to this day.   

"The influence of advertising on food consumption became so enormous that that one Iowa novelist quipped almost 100 years ago that "people in the United States do not eat for pleasure...eating is something done just in response to advertising." Another indication of things to come was that in the 1930s the average distance between growing fields and markets was already 1,500 miles. 

"Given were we find ourselves today (with fewer than 20 percent of the meals we eat at home being home-cooked) and despite relatively minor indications to the contrary (such as this magazine), we might begin to wonder at the meaning of the term "inconvenient." the dictionary states that it is the opposite of convenient, which itself is defined as "suited or favorable to a person's needs, comfort, or proposes." One then might reasonably ask, what is our purpose?  I suspect that recent trends would indicate that our aim is to be comfortable, to have our physical needs fulfilled as easily and quickly as possible.  Yet human history has always been driven by greater purposes than mere comfort, among them religion, spiritual awakening, freedom, and a lust for adventure.  If convenience were truly the measure of life's activities, then Lewis and Clark would never have found a route to the West Coast, Jamestown would never have been settled, men would never have landed on the moon, and Martin Luther King would never have left his congregation.  We would also be at great pains to explain the annual pilgrimage to mecca and why anyone has ever voluntarily joined the armed forces.  Boot camp is the epitome of inconvenience. 

"So why are Americans so lacking in spunk when it comes to the kitchen? After all, the rest of our life is consumed with "inconveniences" - like raising children and commuting to work.  Perhaps we are lazy about our food because, for the first time in history, we don't have to cook to eat.  Or perhaps we no longer find anything enlightening about the process of preparing food.  Going to the moon is worth the effort; making chicken Parmesan is less noble. 

"Recently, as I was checking the hives, I took a moment to watch the bees building the honeycomb, the workers swarming over the beeswax foundation, engaged in an endless series of repetitive tasks.  I began to wonder hoe bees see their short, hard lives.  Maybe they dream about flying through a warm summer evening, laden with nectar, floating weightlessly down to the hive entrance, or perhaps they fall asleep thinking of fields of bright purple clover, orange and yellow Indian paintbrushes, and apple trees bursting with fragile white blossoms.  The buzz and rich moist air of the hive must act as a thick blanket, enveloping them as they sleep.  And at the end of their life cycle, a mere six weeks at the height of the season, they must dream of the work itself, of building a honeycomb and filling it with thick goldenrod honey. 

"These are good thoughts - of hard work, of building a home, of working side by side with others.  these are also the dreams of cooks, of those of us who have traded comfort of hard work and instant gratification for knowledge.  In the kitchen, much like bees, we build foundations an fill them with sweet dreams that will be remembered by the next generation of cooks who will stand in our kitchens, preparing our recipes, long after our work is done." (1)

Citation:
(1) Kimball, Christopher. "Busy Bees". Cook's Illustrated #34. Sept/Oct 1998. Pg. 1.

Loneliness in the chatroom

"The cheeriness of the great big chat room that we are all in at the moment isn't really working.  It is all a battle against loneliness."


Is there another, perhaps better way out of loneliness besides constantly being logged on?  And how can we get [back] there?


Citation:
Thomas, David. Mars Hill Audio Journal 103. "Psycho and American Culture". 2010.

Alduous vs. Huxley

I recently have been looking at the parable of the seed in Luke 8, and this illustrates the seed sown among the thorns...

































Citation:
www.egodialogues.com/words-language/huxley-orwell.php, accessed 1/31/2011.

Introducing Rhett & Link

These guys are funny, and occasionally thought-provoking (though not too often to make it awkward).

By the way, if you want to know why you can't find me on Facebook, it's probably because of the writings of Christine Rosen, among other things.

Of the world, but not in it?

I'm afraid that (consciously or unconsciously) we are allowing the culture of this age to design the floor plan, build the foundation, construct the framing, and install all of the mechanical trades and fixtures in our thinking, and only then do we allow the Unadulterated Truth of Christ and His Word to choose the paint colors and hang a few pictures on the wall, and occasionally do a small repair or a tiny remodel.  I am concerned that this type of surface deep "Christianity" will not withstand when the pressures of life come.

The current divorce rate in the church; the rate at which student-age-church-goers are exiting the faith, never to return are both foils against which I filter this thought, and they leave me more concerned, not less.

We need to start considering how the culture we are inevitably, and even purposefully living in has informed our definitions of life, humanity, marriage, parenting, education, truth, entertainment, friendship...and whether the conclusions the culture has drawn, which we have accepted very deeply, harmonize with a deeply-rooted biblical view of the same topics.

An Example

The currently held definition of marriage, by those who are on the extremely conservative Christian side of our culture appears to me to be:

 "One man and one woman; in partnership; for mutual fulfillment and pleasure; a joint economic venture to cut costs of living; sexually fulfilling; children optional; pleasure non-optional; divorce frowned on but ultimately accepted without much ado besides surprise and chagrin and awkwardness on the part of others within the church."

There is, pragmatically speaking, a very slender, if any, difference between that definition of marriage and a union between two of the same gender.  All you have to do is replace a gender in the first clause of the marriage definition above, and the rest works perfectly.

Not so, a biblically grounded view of marriage.  Not even close.  In fact, you can not get from biblical marriage to same-sex union!  There is no road in between.

Biblical marriage is, for one thing, a demonstration of submission to God's rule and authority in the world to the fallen angels, thus a man by submitting to Christ as his head, and a woman by submitting to her husband acknowledges that Satan is wrong in his posturing lie that God's rules are hindering true fulfillment, (which was his primary lie in the garden and still today).  A woman, by submitting to her husband's authority says "No, Satan, you are wrong!  God is good, and you are not!"

How can a same-sex union do this?  It can not, by it's very nature!

A Biblical marriage is for submitting to the Lord as he allows the bearing of children.  Sex is not for pleasure primarily according to scripture.  Pleasure is a wonderful, fulfilling and important secondary consideration, but it is not its only or even its primary function.  We have allowed the culture to tell us differently, but the Scripture does not.  

How can a same-sex union accomplish this?  It can not, by it's very nature!

A Biblical marriage is an opportunity for a man to love a woman as the weaker vessel.

How can  a same-sex union accomplish this?  It can not, by it's very nature there is no weaker vessel to be honored.

I'm sure this will stir up controversy.  Stir away!


Citation:
Clark, David.  "Some of David's Thoughts on Culture and Living". David's Brain. Gurley, AL.  Accessed: 30 January, 2011.

Be not conformed to this world

This quote is from A Visit to Vanity Fair, by Alan Jacobs.  In fact, it is the very first sentence from the very first essay:  

"In a famous passage from Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead gives this counsel to scholars in the various historical disciplines:

"Do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which controversialists feel it necessary explicitly to defend.  More important and more telling for the deep understanding of a culture are the fundamental assumptions which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose.  Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming.  Indeed, they do not know that they are assuming anything, because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them."

This quote made me want to laugh and cry.  It is this very act of seeking to understand the assumptions that I have in common with all others in this age of the world that has been my quest for the last several years.  It is of particular importance to me as a Christian because Paul tells us in Romans 12.2

"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

It is interesting to note that the Greek word "world" in that verse is "αἰών" or aion...meaning "age" of the world.  Insert the idea of "this world", to which we are not to be conformed, into Alfred North Whitehead's quote, where he uses the word "epoch" and you will see what I am driving at, maybe.


Citation:
Jacobs, Alan. A Visit To Vanity Fair: Moral Essays on the Present Age. Brazos Press, 2001.

Alan Jacobs thoughts on centralization

This is a repost of an Alan Jacobs blog post where he is currently reviewing a book, The Whale and the Reactor, which he is reading:

The Whale and the Reactor (7) by Alan Jacobs 

The idea that Reagan Ruined Everything seems to dominate, silently, the next chapter, “Decentralization Clarified.” I take this passage from its last paragraph to be its central idea: 

'In Kropotkin’s of G. D. H. Cole’s time it was still possible to imagine an entire modern social order based upon small-scale, directly democratic, widely dispersed centers of authority. Industrial society had not yet achieved its mature form; it was thinkable that decentralist alternatives might be feasible alternatives on a broad scale. Today, however, ideas of decentralization usually play a much different role, an expression of the faint hope one may still create institutions here and there that allow ordinary folks some small measure of autonomy.'

A melancholy statement, and one that is truer now than when Winner wrote it. After all, it was about halfway between the writing of this book and out own moment when Scott McNealy told us, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” 

Which in alternate moments makes me want to give up and makes me want to renew my determination to escape from Google. Ah, my early and innocent determination, how beautiful it was — and how distant it now seems. . . ."

Citation
Jacobs, Alan. "Text Patterns." Online Posting. 26 January 2011.
<http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2011/01/whale-and-reactor-7.html>. Accessed 26 January, 2011.

Wisdom in cultural context

Eph 5.15-17 says "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,  Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is" (KJV)

I believe that a part of wisdom is being able to accurately assess to what extent culture has already influenced my thinking, so that I can then ask for wisdom in order to know how I should deal with my conformity to the world, as I seek to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. (See Romans 12.2)

Or something like that.

Anyway.  Ken Myers has been deeply influential in helping me to see the nature of cultures influence through his writings and audio compilations and interviews at the Mars Hill Audio.

Ken influentially (to me) says in his book:

            “Culture is an abstraction.  We cannot isolate for observation three pounds or fourteen centimeters of culture.  These abstract questions of definition are extremely important, just as some amount of abstract thinking about who God is and what man is are necessary if we want to be obedient to God.  But responsible evaluation of culture must always deal with concrete human experience of what has been labeled “culture.” We don’t, after all, encounter culture.  We hear a particular song or see a specific film or read a novel that we have chosen from among all the others available.

            “Not only does cultural analysis require that we look at real cultural experiences, it requires that we look at them in their natural habitat, and that we understand something of their history.  In assessing rock’n’ roll, for example, it’s not enough to read the lyrics and find out on what beat of each measure the accent falls.  We also need to consider what relationship rock has with other aspects of pop culture, what social role it plays for its fans, and how it compares with other musical options available to listeners.  We need to look at the culture of rock, not just the words and the music.

            “Such consideration of the context of a particular cultural expression is important not for the sake of some sort of academic purity, but for the sake of Christian wisdom.  (emphasis mine)  Many of the decisions we make about our involvement in popular culture are not really questions about good and evil.  When I decide not to read a certain book, I am not necessarily saying that to read it would be a sin.  It is much more likely that I believe it to be imprudent to take the time to read that book at this time in my life.  To paraphrase Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 10 (which is, as we shall see, a very significant passage for our thinking about culture), something may be permissible, but it may not be very beneficial or constructive.

            “Each of us arises every morning with, in the providence of God, a number of duties, dilemmas, opportunities, and confusions that stem from living in a particular culture at a particular time.  Our decisions about what sort of involvement with popular culture is prudent does not occur in isolation.  Just as a critic cannot understand a song or a novel or a movie outside of its cultural context, so we cannot anticipate or evaluate the effect popular culture has on our lives without looking at that context.  Do I want to read that book because everyone else is reading it, or because of some intrinsic merit it has? Am I turning on the television because there is something I want to watch, or because I am addicted to distracting titillation?” 

Myers, Ken. All God's Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture.Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1989. 30-31.