We're all familiar with the story, which now carries a bitter irony:
Once there was a flood warning. The pious man heard the warnings, and he said "Ah, but God will save us."
The waters began to fall, and the local authorities ordered people to evacuate. Many did, but the pious man continued with his life, saying, again, "Ah, but God will save us."
The waters rose higher, and emergency forces came, but the pious man refused their assistance, saying, yet again, "Ah, but God will save us."
When the town was nearly totally submerged, a helicopter flew to the pious man, currently perched on the top of his roof, but he declined their assistance with the comment, "Ah, but God will save us."
After the pious man finally expired in the flood, he went to God with the question of why he wasn't saved, and God replied, "I sent you warnings, I sent you emergency forces, and I sent you a helicopter. What more could you want?"
We cannot hold the victims of last week's disaster to blame for their victimhood. But we can observe that God has provided at least a partial solution - all in the form of free enterprise. Dreadful things can happen anywhere, but it is worth noting that sensors in New York were able to pick up indications of the earthquake, and, for that matter, the amazing lack of dead animals also provides at least a hint of other ways for man to pick up insight, and, ultimately control over his environment.
I'm addressing this to the people who are so terribly, terribly concerned over the exaggerated trends of outsourcing, which is only a single example of an opportunity for people to be freed up from tasks that can be accomplished more efficiently elsewhere, allowing the former to utilize the greater tradition of creative thought to advance solutions to the world's remaining problems.
- Moishe Potemkin
I've been engaged in a bit of to-and-fro-ing with eminent (and local) Rabbi Menken over at Cross-Currents. It should not need pointing out that Rabbi Menken is a good and solid leader of our community, and my disagreement is with his comments, not the man himself.
Anyhow, my disagreement with him revolves around the question of whether the Orthodox community experiences indifference to the suffering of others. What I disagreed with most strongly was his attempt to put a positive, or religious, spin on the issue.
When I entered college full-time, fresh out of more than a decade of single-sex, single-mindset education, the idea that shocked me the most was the realization that many character traits that had been described to me as being unique to Orthodox Jews were, in fact, quite commonplace. In base terms, goyim are people, too.
It is difficult to describe how much of a revelation that was to me. I make no claims that this sort of prejudice is widespread, but the anecdotes in my life are numerous: the daughters of a black ger tzedek weretaunted mercilessly by their classmates; another couple actually sat shiva when their child married the child of such a marriage.
Rabbi Menken described the limited Orthodox reaction to what can only be described as a Sudanese holocaust as an efficient economizing of resources that can be best most effectively used elsewhere. He may well be explaining his own reaction (and I mean that only in a respectful tone), but I truly believe that this also illustrates a weakness in our society.
- Moishe Potemkin
I'm still a fan of the war in Iraq, because it's the only way of getting terror to be just a nuisance instead of a hindrance to everyday life. I think, though, that the efforts toward 'electionizing' the country are a mistake, other than perhaps as an attempt to change perceptions that could ultimately evolve into a changed reality.
A premise that many people share is that the fundamental advantage of democracy is that it provides access to the wisdom of crowds on important issues. Unfortunately, anyone who follows the stock market knows that crowds aren't quite as sagacious as might otherwise be hoped. (We could probably make the same point about Red Sox fans, but the timing seems off. Cubs fans? Hockey fans?)
The way I see it, the great civilizing force in the West is free enterprise, which provides an outlet for the aggressive drives that are an intrinsic component of humanity. The fact that the world benefits from the Invisible Hand (because, for example, when otherwise redundant software engineers are freed up to create greater projects for humanity after their relatively dull jobs are shipped off to Bangalore, society obtains the products of these greater projects, besides cheaper software) is not just convenient from a materialistic point of view, it provides people with stuff to do and channels for self-expression that make detonator belts seem quite unattractive.
{That last sentence, by the way, would only register as half of a clause in The Subjection of Women.}
Until there's a beneficial outlet for the frustrated aggression that's been simmering for 35 years, elections will go badly. Not necessarily in January 2005, because there are apparently still all kinds of optimism floating around the Greater Babylonian Metropolis. But in January 2009, if the material world's benefits and costs (which I'm suggesting are themselves actually benefits) remain out of reach, and living sort of sucks anyway, then dying dangerously and destructively becomes increasingly attractive. If we're at that point (and I don't actually even think we're there in Palestine yet, never mind Iraq) and there are elections, then all we've done is legitimize the next fanatic, rather than making things safer.
I think elections are part of that system - competing for votes is as benign a channel as competing for the affections of Trekkie babes at the latest convention - but most people aren't going to be politicians, and other avenues need to be opened as well.
Just stuff to think about. And I was having such a good day, too.
- Moishe Potemkin
First, apologies for my absence, in the unlikely event that anyone has noticed. (Mom doesn't read blogs, of course.)
So the past few days, I've been pondering the bet-this-happens-more-than-you-think travails of the blogress dysphemistically titled Frum Affair.
My reaction actually surprised me, because I'm an innately intolerant sort. Rather than pontificating (to myself, that is - my office has no door, and mutterings aloud would draw far too many raised eyebrows) about the horrendousness of said affair (apparently an "all but" deal, likely cold comfort to the betrayed spice), it seemed plausible to me that - had I not been fortunate enough to land Frau Potemkin when engaging in premature engagement (an all-too-common malady of the jejeune Orthodox) - I myself could have been the subject of some other frustrated Bais Yangster's many postings.
Longwindedness aside, life must really suck when you're stapled to one person and desirous of another.
So, where am I going with this? I think that the current American yeshivishe version of Orthodoxy is so chock-a-block full of stifling rules and protocols that the muscle responsible for common sense is atrophying. All well-intentioned and such, but here's an unintended consequence of some consequence.
Watch her blog, if it dosn't make you weep. Watch the confessionals rack up in the coming days and weeks. If even half of the episodes likely to emerge are true, we've made a horrifying wrong turn somewhere.
Anyhow, that's that. I'll get back to autodidactic misinterpretations of John Stuart Mill soon.
- Moishe Potemkin
Up until the point that my younger brother outgrew me, I would pound him on a regular basis. Still, when we came up against an external threat (the dopey kid down the street, some mean bigger kid named Scotty), such divisions would fall apart. We recognized - even as children - that the things we had in common were more important than our differences.
What the heck is wrong with these guys? More to the point - which of George Bush's conservative positions do the folks at al Qaeda not share?
If all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, and the UN under Annan is committed to doing absolutely nothing in the guise of stability, well, then, what should we expect.
George Bush's key distinction is his belief that just because something seems to be politically impossible, that doesn't mean it is. Stated otherwise - in the old paradox of the immovable object and the irresistable force, he has chosen to interpret the world's sole superpower as the irresistable force, which means that there is no immovable object. Until he actually does something bad with that belief system, it would be nice if the advocates of liberalism would actually stand for humanity and against corruption and tyrrany.
Yeesh.
- Moishe Potemkin