Happy Thanksgiving

In her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation of 1863.

Fred Seward recounted the events of one morning in October 1863 when his father [Secretary of State William Seward] called on Lincoln. "They say, Mr. President, that we are stealing away the rights of the States. So I have come to-day to advise you, that there is another State right I think we ought to steal." Raising his head from his pile of papers, Lincoln asked, "Well, Governor, what do you want to steal now?" Seward replied, "The right to name Thanksgiving Day!" He explained that at present, Thanksgiving was celebrated on different days at the discretion of each state's governor. Why not make it a national holiday? Lincoln immediately responded that he supposed a president "had as good a right to thank God as a Governor."

The proclamation itself is below:

Washington, D.C. 

October 3, 1863 

By the President of the United States of America. 

A Proclamation. 

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. 

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth. 

By the President: Abraham Lincoln 

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Answer to Quiz: Who Believed It?

This was originally scheduled for tomorrow morning, but in light of the discussion yesterday I've decided to lift the suspense and reveal the answer early. Yesterday I posted a personal moral code that I recently came across and asked if anyone could guess who said it. As a recap, here's the quote again:

____ attitude to morality consisted of one core, the self, "I," above everything else: "I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one's actions has to be benefiting others. Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others . . . People like me want to . . . satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me." 

____ shunned all constraints of responsibility and duty. "People like me only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people." "I am responsible only for the reality that I know," ___ wrote, "and absolutely not responsible for anything else. I don't know about the past, I don't know about the future. They have nothing to do with the reality of my own self." ____ explicitly rejected any responsibility towards future generations. "Some say one has a responsibility for history. I don't believe it. I am only concerned about developing myself . . . I have my desire and act on it. I am responsible to no one." 

____did not believe in anything unless he could benefit from it personally. A good name after death, __ said, "cannot bring me any joy, because it belongs to the future and not to my own reality." "People like me are not building achievements to leave for future generations." __ did not care what __ left behind. 

* * * 

As conscience always implies some concern for other people, and is not a corollary of hedonism, __ was rejecting the concept. ___ view was: "I do not think these [commands like 'do not kill,' 'do not steal' and 'do not slander'] have to do with conscience. I think they are only out of self-interest for self preservation." All considerations must "be purely calculation for oneself, and absolutely not for obeying external ethical codes, or for so-called feelings of responsibility..."

The answer is not Ayn Rand (who it reminded me, and several readers, of), nor any other libertarian philosopher. It's not an American, or even a Westerner. Yet it is the sort of statement that could have come straight from the mouth of John Galt.

It was Mao Tse-Tung, the Chinese communist revolutionary and dictator. The quote is excerpted from Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang.

At Patrick Henry College I had a professor who asserted in class one day that libertarianism and Marxism were actually ideologically related--they both reduced everything to economics, which in turn reduces everything to self-interest. This quote is just another example of the insightfulness of that observation.

Why I Gave up Reading and Started to Read

I fear I’ve been thinking again. As it turns out, sitting on an airplane gives you a lot of time to think. Especially those 15 minutes of takeoff and landing. The only options then are to think or to sleep because they don’t let you do anything else.

Anyway, the other day I found myself gearing up for a quick power nap while my plane took off, when a Facebook friend of mine invited me to Goodreads. I accepted the invitation since it sounded like an interesting app and because I like good reads.

Little did I know what a mistake I just made. I had to power off my phone for takeoff, but as soon as I landed and switched on the phone, there the app was, waiting for me to start rating books. I figured I’d give it a shot. I eagerly hunted down my favorite books to give them good ratings. But that was not enough for my bibliophilic heart. I had to give bad ratings to the books I most hated (I took especially great pleasure in giving 1 star to the Hunchback of Notre Dame and to the Last of the Mohicans).

That night, not only was I jet lagged, but I also had a hard time falling asleep because whenever I would shut my eyes, I would remember a book that I should rate on Goodreads. Needless to say, I didn't rest much that night.

Now, all of this may have been a little unhealthy. It did, however, make me think of what it is that I love about books. I read books for two reasons:

1. To make me smarter

2. To provide me entertainment

Because of this, I have a personal policy that I rotate the kind of books I read. I take turns reading serious and fun books. Not to say that serious books can’t be fun or that fun books can’t be serious, but I look at a book and make a snap decision as to what category it fits in. This allows me to have a wide variety of books in my reading queue, giving me the ability both to  cover a topics in-depth over-time and to explore new topical areas that I am not well-versed in.

I remember when I was a kid that I was not very good at reading at all. But Pizza Hut had a program where you could get pizza for reading during the summer. I remember the dread I felt when my mom told me that I had to read if I wanted to join the rest of the kids at the pizza party. But she encouraged me to not focus on the size of the book or the seriousness of it, but rather to find what I wanted to read (thick or thin) and enjoy it.

By the end of the year I had read more than I thought I could; and I was surprised and impressed with myself for completing the project.

Pizza was a temporary prize (although I remember that I certainly enjoyed it). The real prize, however, for my summer reading drive was those words my mom implanted in me when she encouraged me to focus on enjoying myself while I read. That has opened far-off lands, complex economic ideas, fun adventures, rich symbolism, theologies, biographies, historical tales, legends, et al. Even when I am busy and only able to read 15 minutes a day, I find it to be rewarding.

In the end, I gave up the painful process of reading of reading without a purpose that could capture my heart and mind and allowed myself to read books that I enjoy. I no longer dread the next book, but look forward to it with excitement because I have learned to enjoy reading. In short, I gave up reading because I had to and started to read because I love to.

So, if you are on Goodreads, look me up, friend me, and start commenting on my reviews. That way we can share with each other both benefits of reading: to become smarter and to have fun. 

Posted By Jeremiah Lorrig

Ayn Rand: Romantic?

Some time ago I came across this critique of Atlas Shrugged, which I just rediscovered while going through my partially-written posts. While the whole thing is good, the following excerpt is particularly striking:

Since I brought up human nature, there is also the matter of the thinness of Rand's anthropology. Rand's basic assertion is the rationality of human beings. (To the extent that a person is irrational, he is regarded as evil, anti-mind and anti-life.) And it is this conception of the human being as a rational, thinking being which leads to her ideal of the productive genius, his happiness, and the political order that would protect and preserve it. For Rand, the state only exists to shield the rational from the irrational, the good and the strong from ravenous desires of the wicked and the weak.

Of course, other rationalists have drawn strikingly different conclusions. In this regard, it useful to note that much serious political philosophy proceeds from a completely different premise -- the imperfect rationality of human beings -- and rightly so. If one considers Hobbes, say, or Spinoza, or Locke, three of the thinkers who inaugurated modern liberalism, one will notice that the fundamental problem of social life is that human beings are driven by their passions and their imaginations, by their hopes and their fears. It is these passions that create the problems and tensions that point to the need for stable political organization. While it is reason that leads them to enter into civil society -- to escape from the inconveniences of the state of nature -- the political order arranged is one that must take human beings as they are and not as the best they could be. This could be an authoritarian state, as it was for Hobbes, or a liberal democracy, as it was for Spinoza. In both cases, however, there is the recognition that human beings are passionate creatures, that the state is needed because of the problems inherent in human nature, that these problems may be alleviated somewhat in civil society but they won't go away.

Ironically, when one mulls it over, one may find that it's Galt and his band of strikers and dropouts who prove to be driven by their passions. Galt especially, who, despite his ultra-handsome looks and heroic self-understanding, can't muster up the gumption to just go up to the woman he has a massive crush on and ask her out for a drink -- or at least just talk to her -- and instead sits around chatting up her poor, love-struck assistant, hoping to catch a glimpse into her life.

Is this rational action, heroic action?

No, I think not. And aside from being somewhat creepy, it underscores the true impotence of Rand's hero. And it's not only with Dagny. When faced with the "communist" takeover of the motor factory, Galt doesn't seek out the banker Midas Mulligan and ask for a loan so that he can develop his motor on his own or attempt a run for political office; he just takes his toys and goes into hiding, hoping by such action to help hasten the apocalypse. This seems to me to be more like the behavior of a petulant adolescent than of the "highest man." Galt longs for a total transformation of human society, a complete victory for his higher morality and the unconditional surrender of those who oppose him, and he is content, indeed happy, to watch everything be destroyed to get there.

And the attempt to flee from reality courses through Rand's novel, from the disappeared and the destructive activities of Francisco D'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjöld to Dangy's fruitless affair with Hank to the libertarian fantasyland of Galt's Gulch. Despite all of their speeches and protestations, these people are not so much stern rationalists but romantics. Such characters make terrible role models for those of us who are forced to reside in the world, which just may not be the stage for the struggle between the looting mystics and heroic individuals, but a place infinitely more complex, and more interesting. (Also, we should keep in mind that it is people convinced of their superior rationality and gnostic insights into the direction of world-historical change that generally pose the greatest challenge to the stability of the political order.)

Thoughts?