Category: Religion
My excellent Conversation with Marilynne Robinson
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary:
Marilynne Robinson is one of America’s best and best-known novelists and essayists, whose award-winning works like Housekeeping and Gilead explore themes of faith, grace, and the intricacies of human nature. Beyond her writing, Robinson’s 25-year tenure at the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop allowed her to shape and inspire the new generations of writers. Her latest book, Reading Genesis, displays her scholarly prowess, analyzing the biblical text not only through the lens of religious doctrine but also appreciating it as a literary masterpiece.
She joined Tyler to discuss betrayal and brotherhood in the Hebrew Bible, the relatable qualities of major biblical figures, how to contend with the Bible’s seeming contradictions, the true purpose of Levitical laws, whether we’ve transcended the need for ritual sacrifice, the role of the Antichrist, the level of biblical knowledge among students, her preferred Bible translation, whether The Winter’s Tale makes sense, the evolution of Calvin’s reputation and influence, why academics are overwhelmingly secular, the success of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, why she wrote a book on nuclear pollution, what she’ll do next, and more.
And an excerpt:
COWEN: As a Calvinist, too, would not, in general, dismiss the Old Testament, what do you make of a book such as Leviticus? It’s highly legalistic, highly ritualistic. Some Christians read Leviticus and become a split Christian Jew almost. Other Christians more or less dismiss the book. How does it fit into your worldview?
ROBINSON: I think that when you read Herodotus, where he describes these little civilizations that are scattered over his world — he describes them in terms of what they eat or prohibit, or they paint themselves red, or they shave half their head. There are all these very arbitrary distinctions that people make in order to identify with one clan over against another.
At the point of Leviticus, which of course, is an accumulation of many texts over a very long time, no doubt, but nevertheless, to think of it as being Moses — he is trying to create a defined, distinctive human community. By making arbitrary distinctions between people so that you’re not simply replicating notions of what is available or feasible or whatever, but actually asking them to adopt prohibitions of food — that’s a very common distinguishing thing in Herodotus and in contemporary life.
So, the arbitrariness of the laws is not a fault. It is a way of establishing identification of one group as separate from other groups.
COWEN: So, you read it as a narrative of how human communities are created, but you still would take a reading of, say, Sermon on the Mount that the Mosaic law has been lifted? Or it’s still in place?
ROBINSON: Oh, it’s not still in place. We’ve been given other means by which to create identity. Moses was doing something distinctive in a certain period of the evolution of Israel as a people. He didn’t want them to be Egyptians. He didn’t want them to subscribe to the prevailing culture, which was idolatrous, and so on. He’s doing Plato in The Republic. He’s saying, “This is how we develop the idea of a community.”
Having said that, then there are certain other things like “Thou shall not kill,” or whatever, that become characterizing laws. Jesus very often says, when someone says to him, “How can I be saved?” He says, “You know the commandments.” It’s not as if God is an alien figure from the point of view of Christ, whom we take to be his son.
Interesting throughout.
LDS principles for AI
Knowing that the proper use of AI will help the Church accomplish God’s work of salvation and exaltation, the Church has issued the following guiding principles for using AI. These were introduced to employees of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, by Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (co-chair of the Church Communication Committee) and Elder John C. Pingree of the Seventy (executive director of the Correlation Department).
Here is the full link, better than most of what is done in this area. For instance:
- The Church will use artificial intelligence to support and not supplant connection between God and His children.
- The Church will use artificial intelligence in positive, helpful, and uplifting ways that maintain the honesty, integrity, ethics, values, and standards of the Church…
- The Church’s use of artificial intelligence will safeguard sacred and personal information.
Worth a ponder. Via Tyler Ransom.
Claims about Iran (from the comments)
My Conversation with the very excellent Masaaki Suzuki
Here is the audio, video, and transcript, we recorded in NYC. Here is the episode summary:
A conductor, harpsichordist, and organist, Masaaki Suzuki stands as a towering figure in Baroque music, renowned for his comprehensive and top-tier recordings of Bach’s works, including all of Bach’s sacred and secular cantatas. Suzuki’s unparalleled dedication extends beyond Bach, with significant contributions to the works of Mozart, Handel, and other 18th-century composers. He is the founder of the Bach Collegium Japan, an artist in residence at Yale, and conducts orchestras and choruses around the world.
Tyler sat down with Suzuki to discuss the innovation and novelty in Bach’s St. John’s Passion, whether Suzuki’s Calvinist background influences his musical interpretation, his initial encounter with Bach through Karl Richter, whether older recordings of Bach have held up, why he trained in the Netherlands, what he looks for in young musicians, how Japanese players appreciate Bach differently, whether Christianity could have ever succeeded in Japan, why Bach’s larger vocal works were neglected for so long, how often Bach heard his masterworks performed, why Suzuki’s favorite organ is in Groningen, what he thinks of Glenn Gould’s interpretations of Bach, what contemporary music he enjoys, what he’ll do next, and more.
Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: You’re from Kobe, right? That was originally a Christian center along with Nagasaki.
SUZUKI: Exactly.
COWEN: Because they were port cities. Is that why?
SUZUKI: Yes, Kobe is one of the most important after the reopening of Japan in 1868. There are probably two, Kobe and Yokohama, and even Sendai — the port places. This was very important to accept any kind of culture from the outside, but Christianity came in. For example, the oldest Protestant church is in Yokohama. That is the end of 19th century. That’s a really interesting history.
COWEN: How do Japanese audiences for classical music, say in Tokyo, differ from New York audiences?
SUZUKI: Hmmm, probably a little different. American audience are more friendly, I think.
[laughter]
More friendly and more easily excited by the performance, and they look more inspired directly from the music, and also musicians. In Japan, Japanese audiences — sometimes they know very well about the repertoire and they are very cooperative, but at the same time, they are a little bit, well, not so excited immediately. Probably on the inside, very excited, but we Japanese people don’t express directly from inside to outside. We were all told in school, for example, that is a rule. That is not the intellectual demeanor — something like that.
Of course most of the conversation is about Bach. Self-recommending, and then some.
Religion and the ideological gender gap
The key insight is that women have always been more [economically] left-wing than men, but that women were also more religious (both vs today and vs men) and that this was a moderating force against those left-wing views.
With religion in retreat, those views now take voice. pic.twitter.com/Ed3GJyHhap
— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) February 2, 2024
What happened in 17th century England (a lot)
East India Company founded — 1600
Shakespeare – Hamlet published 1603
England starting to settle America – 1607 in Virginia, assorted, you could add Harvard here as well
King James Bible – 1611
The beginnings of steady economic growth – 1620 (Greg Clark, JPE)
Rule of law ideas, common law ideas, Sir Edward Coke – 1628-1648, Institutes of the Laws of England, four volumes
Beginnings of libertarian thought – Levellers 1640s
Printing becomes much cheaper, and the rise of pamphlet culture
John Milton, Aeropagitica, defense of free speech, 1644
King Charles I executed – 1649 (leads to a period of “Britain without a King,” ending 1660)
Birth of economic reasoning – second half of 17th century
Royal African Company and a larger slave trade – 1660
General growth of the joint stock corporation
Final subjugation of Ireland, beginnings of British colonialism and empire (throughout, mostly second half of the century)
Discovery of the calculus, Isaac Newton 1665-1666
Great Plague of London, 1665-1666, killed ¼ of city?
Great Fire of London, 1666
John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667
Social contract theories – John Locke 1689
Bill of Rights (rights of Parliament) — 1689
Birth of modern physics – Newton’s Principia 1687
Bank of England — 1694
Scientific Revolution – throughout the 17th century, places empiricism and measurement at the core of science
The establishment of Protestantism as the religion of Britain, both formal and otherwise, throughout the century, culminating in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
London – becomes the largest city in Europe by 1700 at around 585,000 people.
England moves from being a weak nation to perhaps the strongest in Europe and with the strongest navy.
Addendum: Adam Ozimek adds:
…first bank to print banknotes in Europe, 1661
Discovery of the telescope 1608
First patent for a modern steam engine 1602
What should I ask Marilynne Robinson?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with her. Here is from Wikipedia:
Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.
Robinson is best known for her novels Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). Her novels are noted for their thematic depiction of faith and rural life. The subjects of her essays span numerous topics, including the relationship between religion and science, US history, nuclear pollution, John Calvin, and contemporary American politics.
Her next book is Reading Genesis, on the Book of Genesis. So what should I ask her?
The David Network
I am pleased to have spoken at their yearly conference yesterday. If I understand them correctly (here is their web site), it is for elite college students — grad and undergrad — at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and the rest of the Ivies. No other schools. The group is explicitly religious (across religions and denominations) and also right-leaning and explicitly elitist. [Correction: Unlike as previously stated, Robert George of Princeton does not have a leadership role in the group, though he has a speaker role. The Network is run by volunteers.]
Here is the thing — there were about five hundred people at the event. That shocked me. Overall the energy and talent levels in the rooms seemed high.
The group is four years old, and I had never heard of them before, so I am passing this information along. As I’ve said in the past, the most important thinkers of the future will be religious thinkers (and I’m not one of them). Today I am upping my “p” on that prediction.
Addendum: My comments were on higher education, and they were more optimistic than what the other panel members expressed. There is a good chance they will put it on-line.
*Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative*
That is the new memoir from Glenn C. Loury, and I cracked it open right away, here is one excerpt:
But now Harvard is looking to retool its ailing Afro-American Studies department, and Tom [Schelling] serves on the committee whose job it is to recruit new faculty worthy of the institution. The chair of that committee is the distinguished black historian Nathan Huggins, who has recently taken the helm in Afro Studies at Harvard. Apparently my Econometrica paper on intergenerational transfers had gotten their attention, and my writing on the dynamics of racial income differences has piqued their interest. I’m just six years past my PhD and they’re offering a joint appointment as full professor of economics and of Afro-American Studies. The appointment would make me the first black tenured professor in the history of Harvard’s economics department. I like the sound of that. In the past, the timing hadn’t quite felt right for Harvard. But now it does feel right, and I have the sense that if I say no a third time, they won’t be calling again.
You can pre-order the book here, it is self-recommending of course. And here is my earlier Conversation with Glenn Loury.
John Milton as devout Muslim?
When we read Paradise Lost, we feel that Milton is a devout Muslim. This is reflected in his rejection of Prelates and their mediation between God and His Creatures. You also find Milton as a lover of life on earth. He interprets the Bible and practical and personal ways. He advocates divorce and considers man superior to woman. He also hates the rituals of the church and the icons. He draws on the Old Testament, not the New Testament. For these reasons, I have already said that Milton was not a Christian, but rather a pious Muslim.
That is from Louis Awad, the Egyptian literary critic, reproduced in Islam Issa’s quite interesting Milton in the Arab-Muslim World.
Overcoming Baumol
One way to overcome the Baumol effect is to replace labor with capital. AI and robots are making that possible. Here’s a clip of the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming who are building a monastery in the Gothic style using CNC machines:
CNC machines and robots have unlocked the ability to relatively quickly carve the intense details of a Gothic church. Ornate pieces that used to take months for a skilled carver, now can be accomplished in a matter of days. Instead of cutting out the beauty, using the excuse that it takes too long, thus doesn’t fit into the budget, modern technology can be used to make true Gothic in all its beauty a reality again today.
Bring back the beauty!
My excellent Conversation with John Gray
I had been wanting to do this one for a while, and now it exists. Here is the audio and transcript, here is the episode summary:
Tyler and John sat down to discuss his latest book, including who he thinks will carry on his work, what young people should learn if liberalism is dead, whether modern physics allows for true atheism, what in Eastern Orthodoxy attracts him, the benefits of pessimism, what philanthropic cause he’d invest a billion dollars in, under what circumstances he’d sacrifice his life, what he makes of UFOs, the current renaissance in film and books, whether Monty Python is still funny, how Herman Melville influenced him, who first spotted his talent, his most unusual work habit, what he’ll do next, and more.
Excerpt:
COWEN: Do you think that being pessimistic gives you pleasure? Or what’s the return in it from a purely pragmatic point of view?
GRAY: You are well prepared for events. You don’t expect —
COWEN: It’s a preemption, right? You become addicted to preempting bad news with pessimism.
GRAY: No, no. When something comes along which contradicts my expectations, I’m pleasantly surprised. I get pleasant surprises. Whereas, if you are an adamant optimist, you must be in torment every time you turn the news on because the same old follies, the same old crimes, the same old atrocities, the same old hatreds just repeat themselves over and over again. I’m not surprised by that at all. That’s like the weather. It’s like living in a science fiction environment in which it rains nearly all of the time, but from time to time it stops and there’s beautiful sunlight.
If you think that basically there is beautiful sunlight all the time, but you’re just living in a small patch of it, most of your life will be spent in frustration. If you think the other way around, as I do, your life will be peppered, speckled with moments in which what you expect doesn’t happen, but something better happens.
COWEN: Why can’t one just build things and be resiliently optimistic in a pragmatic, cautionary sense, and take comfort in the fact that you would rather have the problems of the world today than, say, the problems of the world in the year 1000? It’s not absolute optimism where you attach to the mood qua mood, but you simply want to do things and draw a positive energy from that, and it’s self-reinforcing. Why isn’t that a better view than what you’re calling pessimism?
And:
COWEN: Under what circumstances would you be willing to sacrifice your life? Or for what?
GRAY: Not for humanity, that’s for sure.
Recommended, interesting throughout. John is one of the smartest and best read thinkers and writers. He even has an answer ready for why he isn’t short the market. And don’t forget John’s new book — I read all of them — New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism.
Same-sex marriage and priestly employment
We study the effect of legalization of same-sex marriage on coming out in the United States. We overcome data limitations by inferring coming out decisions through a revealed preference mechanism. We exploit data on enrollment in seminary studies for the Catholic priesthood, hypothesizing that Catholic priests’ vow of celibacy may lead gay men to self-select as a way to avoid a heterosexual lifestyle. Using a differences-in-differences design that exploits variation in the timing of legalization across states, we find that city-level enrollment in priestly studies fell by about 15% exclusively in states adopting the reform. The celibacy norm appears to be driving our results, since we find no effect on enrollment in deacon or lay ministry studies that do not require celibacy. We also find that coming out decisions, as inferred through enrollment in priestly studies, are primarily affected by the presence of gay communities and by prevailing social attitudes toward gays. We explain our findings with a stylized model of lifestyle choice.
That is from a new working paper by Avner Seror and Tohit Ticku.
Classical liberals are increasingly religious
Not too long ago, I was telling Ezra Klein that I had noticed a relatively new development in classical liberalism. If a meet an intellectual non-Leftist, increasingly they are Nietzschean, compared to days of yore. But if they are classical liberal instead, typically they are religious as well. That could be Catholic or Jewish or LDS or Eastern Orthodox, with some Protestant thrown into the mix, but Protestants coming in last.
The person being religious is now a predictor of that same person having non-crazy political views. Classical liberalism thus, whether you like it or not, has become an essentially religious movement.
Many strands of libertarianism are being left behind, and again this is a positive rather than a normative claim. It is simply how things are.
Aayan Hirsi Ali announces she is now a Christian.
The neo trad movement gets ayaan 🙁 But seriously this seems to be a real trend – lots of otherwise smart, successful, secular people I know have been going religious, but it’s not in the same way people used to go religious. It’s much more *cultural* now, and less about belief
Seconded. You may recall my earlier prophecy that the important thinkers of the future are going to be religious thinkers. I believe that will prove true outside of classical liberalism as well.
That was then, this is now
…the first German pogroms of the modern age, the so-called Hep-Hep riots, took place in 1819. Jews were attacked on the streets and Jewish stores were ransacked. It was a new and as yet unknown phenomenon in the German-speaking lands. The riots were led by students, ostensibly the anti-absolutist and progressive force in German society.
That is from Shlomo Avineri’s Herzl’s Vision: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State. Here is a new bulletin from MIT.
I don’t myself have a good sense of those issues, but I thought this gjk comment was interesting enough to pass along.