Subsidiarity: a view from fiction

Since some of our esteemed readers have commented on some curious extensions from Subsidiarity (and Law and such things) to big-name people in literature, I hope you will find some delight in my giving you a little taste of Subsidiarity in some modern fantasy fiction from a little-known Chestertonian lunatic. I am saving my long post for next Tuesday, the tenth anniversary of Subsidiarity... I hope you will join us for the celebration. There will be cake.

--Dr. Thursday.

(Yes, that picture is the REAL Control Room, where you could actually WATCH Subsidiarity in action!)

[At Joe's interview at a certain cable TV company, Al is explaining the work done by the Operators in the Control Room...]
Al pulled the tape from the deck. “We get the tapes from Traffic on one of these carts.” He indicated the three-foot long set of shelves on wheels next to him. “Each tape comes with a slip telling us what spot ID they assigned to the tape. That’s how we tell the machinery to store it, once it’s encoded.” He handed Joe a small slip of paper.
Joe glanced at it, nodded, and handed it back.
Al looked at it again, then typed on the keyboard. “Next, we’re supposed to watch the spot through, just to check in case there’s a problem with the tape – but usually we just start the encoding and check everything as it encodes...” He rocked a control back and forth, looking for the “mark-in” point where the spot actually began. “Unless the slip tells you otherwise, they’re all 30 seconds... though we have to adjust a little, but you’ll get all that detail when it’s your turn.” He typed some more, then pressed the Play button. The TV monitor showed rows of SUVs, while rock music played from the headphones. “Sorry,” Al said, flipping a control – the music blasted from speakers hidden within the console, and Al turned down the volume. “It can get noisy in here.”

Joe shrugged, peering curiously at the screens. “I guess so – but that band sounds great... some local group?”
“Yeah; I’ve seen them live,” Al told him, “All the Reamur spots use them – they’re good.”
As the spot finished, the screen read “Reamur Automotive, Route 30 and Lexington.” Standing by one of the SUVs, a cute little girl smiled and waved.
“Anyway – you watch your levels – brightness, color – you said you’ve used this kind of scope? and the audio. We check the skin color – we had ones where it looked like all the actors were from Mars – and the lipsync, so it don’t look like it was a Japanese overdub.”
“OK,” Joe nodded. “Sounds easy enough.”
“It is, until you do a hundred in a row,” Al moaned. “And we’re not done yet. After the encode is done, we play back the MPEG, just to check.” He clicked the mouse a couple of times, and the spot began to play again. “You really get a second chance to see if everything is correct. And I always check the spot ID another time, too – because the machinery records who does the work.”
The spot finished, and Al nodded. “This one looks good.” He clicked the mouse again. “All done; now the computer takes over, and I can mark this one finished.” He initialed the tape slip, and put it back on the cart.
As Joe nodded again, Al leaned over and pointed up at the big screens. “And if you look up there, on the second screen, up near the top – see it says ‘MPEG sending 05081242’ – you can see this spot is already going out to the Field.”
Joe stared up at the screen. His eyes opened wide. “That’s fast. How does it know what it’s supposed to do?”

Al shook his head, chuckling. “They call it subsidiarity... we’ll explain it to you.”
“What’s... sub... what you said?”
“Sub-SID-i-arity. It’s some kind of software. You’ll meet the guy who did it, he’s crazy. He says it was invented by a pope.” Al rolled his eyes.
“And what about those eyes that go back and forth? Did the Pope do that too?”
“No, but that’s from the same guy – he does all our software – but at least that makes sense. He put the Latin up there on the screens, too.”
“Latin?” Joe asked nervously. “What’s that for?”
Al scratched his head, picking up another tape. “Don’t worry about it, Joe. If you had to be bilingual, Jeff would have told you.” He snorted, and put the tape into a deck.

[Joe has started work, and Jeff, the supervisor is explaining things.]

“In each headend we have some machinery – special computers called ‘inserters’ which do all the work of playing the spots, and inserting them into the proper network. They work off of a list of instructions called a ‘schedule’. Traffic sends us the schedules, and calls us when they are ready to be sent out. We go into the computer room, then press a button, and the machinery sends them to the Field – to the inserters of each headend at all those places on the map.”
Joe nodded. “But that’s just the instructions, right? What about the spot?”
“Good question, Joe. Every day, usually in the afternoon, someone from Traffic comes in with a cart full of tapes. That’s where you guys come in. You encode them – Al will go over that later – and the machinery sends the spots out where they’re needed.”

“Oh, yeah,” Joe grimaced, trying to remember that strange word. “Sub-something, right? Al said it was invented by the Pope.”
Jeff laughed. “Subsidiarity. Yeah, I forget how the Pope comes into the picture, but when you meet the Doc, you can ask him about it, if you have a free hour or two. But that is how it happens. We don’t have to do much, just make sure PUMP keeps running. PUMP is the most important part of the system – it pumps the stuff out to the Field.”
“How does it know what it needs?”
“The machines in the Field tell it what they need, and PUMP figures out what to send next, then sends it. Normally you don’t have to worry too much about that. One of the screens will tell you what has to be encoded next...” He clicked with the mouse. “This one – but see, there’s nothing needed at present, except for those two, they’re not due for five days yet.”
“OK, so these headends get the schedules, and ask for what spots they need, and we encode them, and PUMP sends them.”
“That’s most of it. Every hour they send back logs – the record of what was played – for the previous hour. That’s how we do the billing – the logs go to Traffic, and they take it from there. Just about the only other thing to know is how the spots play. The networks send a signal called the ‘cue-tone’ – it’s four beeps, like on a touchtone phone – and a few seconds after that, depending on the schedule, our spots play. That third screen shows the time for the last cue for each network – the newest ones are at the top.”
“Why are there two columns?”
“Redundancy. We have all kinds of checks, and protections, and extra stuff built in to guard against problems. And when things go wrong, we get e-mail – the third computer from the end is usually set to the Control Room e-mail where we get any problem reports, and where we write our own log of activities. Like for example, the portal at WILD went down during the night...”
“The what at where?”
“The portal is the special inserter which talks to us here, over the satellite. WILD is the headend in Wildwood, New Jersey – see over there, W-I-L-D, just off the east coast? Freddy the Field Tech got in early this morning, went into the Tech Shop where Paul does the building and testing of our inserters, got a new portal, and drove down to the headend in Wildwood. He’s out there now, pulling out the old one and installing the replacement. Once he’s got it all connected, he’ll call in, and Al will dial in – he connects to it over the phone lines – to make sure everything is running correctly.”
Al nodded. “Yeah, and more than likely you’ll get to see that subsidiarity at work, because when they put in a new inserter, it’s empty of spots. So once it wakes up, it looks to see what it needs, and then asks for it.”
“So this PUMP has to send out every spot in the schedules? Won’t it take all day?”
“Nope,” Al smirked. “That’s what makes it so great. First it checks with the other inserters in the headend, and gets whatever it can from them. Only if it needs spots that aren’t anywhere at WILD, then it asks PUMP for those.”
“Oh, I see – that is clever. Must be complicated. No wonder it took a Pope to come up with something like that.”

[Many weeks later, Joe finally gets to ask "Doc" about the system...]

The chores were done, everything was green and Doc was still busy. Joe got himself some coffee and sat down at the console. “How are you finding the overnights, Joe?”
“Not bad. Kind of quiet.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been in late, and in early, when I had to prepare, like this,” he pointed to the computer. “About five minutes and we can trigger. You have any questions I can deal with in five minutes?”
Joe smirked; now was the time to ask. “Sure... is that long enough for you to explain this sub-thing that PUMP does?”
“You mean explain Subsidiarity – in five minutes?” the Doctor laughed. “That’s a real challenge. Let’s see.” He grabbed a scrap of paper and started drawing the diagram Joe had seen in the handbook. “Here’s a leaf. As you know, that’s just a computer with some Carina playback cards, and a big hard drive. It’s connected by a little network to two other leaves and a portal. The portal is similar, but it can talk to HOME over the satellite. Sooner or later the engine can’t find a spot it has to play, and so it will...”
“No, I understand that. I’ve seen it work. But what is the idea behind it? And where does the Pope come in?”
The Doctor chuckled. “Oh, that’s what you want to know. Well, the word comes from a division in the ancient Roman army, but even Moses used the idea. The idea started with a document written in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII, and there’s been more since then. The mnemonic is OPAL: order, purpose, ability, limitation. It’s the idea that a collection of people, having a common purpose, works best if it’s arranged in an orderly manner, avoiding interference, according to the various abilities and limitations of its members. Communication is key: when someone needs help, he must know how and where to ask for it, like this: in any given organization, a company or a club or even a system, each individual has a ‘superior’ who is to assist when an appeal is made. So in our system, when the leaf needs a spot, it appeals to its superior, the portal. And when the portal needs a spot, it appeals to PUMP on HOME, and when PUMP needs a spot, it shows up on WATCHER and appeals to you to do the encode. You encode the spot, then PUMP sends it to the portal, then Ferry sends it to the leaf, then the engine gets it, and all is well. There’s more, but that’s the short version. Whew.” He look at his computer. “Good, it’s done now. Just one more task to finish, and then we’ll be ready...” He started typing again.
“Thanks, Doc,” Joe replied. He had a feeling that Doc had barely begun an explanation, but perhaps he’d go into more detail another time.

* * * * * *

[The above was excerpted from Joe the Control Room Guy by Dr. Thursday, soon to be available at any Quayment bookstore. And yes, Doc did go into more detail elsewhere, but the adventure comes when Joe applies Subsidiarity to complications in real life...]

What - you scream - no Chesterton? Oh, I saved that for the end, so you would be sure to read everything. You know, you get your dessert when you eat your vegetables, hee hee. Here you go:

To have such an institution as a Christmas is, I will not say to make an accident inevitable, but I will say to make an adventure recurrent - and therefore, in one sense, to make an adventure everlasting.
[GKC ILN Dec 20 1913 CW29:602]

Yes, Gilbert, I have done so - or at least I have tried. It is, was, and has been, well worth the effort - a real adventure. You think I could keep quiet about it? No - I'd like you to enjoy it too. At least this way you get a taste of it. (The funny thing is that GKC's words apply to things like Christmas and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as well as to the daily tasks of life, even in the real high-tech world. But then we can expect that: "Mythology had many sins; but it had not been wrong in being as carnal as the Incarnation." [GKC TEM CW2:308])

Found! important bit about Laws and Rules

I was in the middle of many things yesterday - I found the most exquisitely relevant quote which explains... well, you'll find out shortly. But I also found the quote I could not find when I wrote my previous Thursday posting - it was in an unexpected place - so I decided to post it now. It is worth adding to your resources, and will suggest a larger, Chestertonian approach to our topic. More on it another time.
--Dr. Thursday

It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create institutions. When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of all the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most trivial parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp. We are never free until some institution frees us, and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by authority. Even the wild authority of the harlequin Smith was still authority, because it produced everywhere a crop of crazy regulations and conditions. He filled everyone with his own half-lunatic life; but it was not expressed in destruction, but rather in a dizzy and toppling construction. Each person with a hobby found it turning into an institution.
[GKC Manalive the beginning of Part I Chapter 3 "The Banner of Beacon"; emphasis added]

Update: As suggested by Maolsheachlann, the parallel reference of GKC on vows:

It is not the fact that young lovers have no desire to swear on the Book. They are always at it. It is not the fact that every young love is born free of traditions about binding and promising, about bonds and signatures and seals. On the contrary, lovers wallow in the wildest pedantry and precision about these matters. They do the craziest things to make their love legal and irrevocable. They tattoo each other with promises; they cut into rocks and oaks with their names and vows; they bury ridiculous things in ridiculous places to be a witness against them; they bind each other with rings, and inscribe each other in Bibles; if they are raving lunatics (which is not untenable), they are mad solely on this idea of binding and on nothing else. It is quite true that the tradition of their fathers and mothers is in favour of fidelity; but it is emphatically not true that the lovers merely follow it; they invent it anew. It is quite true that the lovers feel their love eternal, and independent of oaths; but it is emphatically not true that they do not desire to take the oaths. They have a ravening thirst to take as many oaths as possible. Now this is the paradox; this is the whole problem. It is not true, as Miss Farr would have it, that young people feel free of vows, being confident of constancy; while old people invent vows, having lost that confidence. That would be much too simple; if that were so there would be no problem at all. The startling but quite solid fact is that young people are especially fierce in making fetters and final ties at the very moment when they think them unnecessary. The time when they want the vow is exactly the time when they do not need it. That is worth thinking about.
[GKC ILN July 2 1910 CW28:556-7]

Of course we can summarise all this in a much shorter paraphrase of a famous Gospel verse, which I find I must give you in all its splendid setting so you will grasp its truth. More on all this on Thursday.
--Dr. T.

In the good old days of Victorian rationalism it used to be the conventional habit to scoff at St. Thomas Aquinas and the mediaeval theologians; and especially to repeat perpetually a well-worn joke about the man who discussed how many angels could dance on the point of a needle. The comfortable and commercial Victorians, with their money and merchandise, might well have felt a sharper end of the same needle, even if it was the other end of it. It would have been good for their souls to have looked for that needle, not in the haystack of mediaeval metaphysics, but in the neat needle-case of their own favourite pocket Bible. It would have been better for them to meditate, not on how many angels could go on the point of a needle, but on how many camels could go through the eye of it. But there is another comment on this curious joke or catchword, which is more relevant to our purpose here. If the mediaeval mystic ever did argue about angels standing on a needle, at least he did not argue as if the object of angels was to stand on a needle; as if God had created all the Angels and Archangels, all the Thrones, Virtues, Powers and Principalities, solely in order that there might be something to clothe and decorate the unseemly nakedness of the point of a needle. But that is the way that modern rationalists reason. The mediaeval mystic would not even have said that a needle exists to be a standing-ground for angels. The mediaeval mystic would have been the first to say that a needle exists to make clothes for men. For mediaeval mystics, in their dim transcendental way, were much interested in the real reasons for things and the distinction between the means and the end. They wanted to know what a thing was really for, and what was the dependence of one idea on another. And they might even have suggested, what so many journalists seem to forget, the paradoxical possibility that Tennis was made for Man and not Man for Tennis.
[GKC The Thing CW3:167-8, emphasis added (allusion to Mark 2:27)]

In case you missed the real relevance here, to computing and to cable TV and to Subsidiarity, it is a few words further back. I will write it by itself, and you can think about it until Thursday.... "mediaeval mystics, in their dim transcendental way, were much interested in the real reasons for things and the distinction between the means and the end. They wanted to know what a thing was really for, and what was the dependence of one idea on another."
--Dr. T.

Subsidiarity: More on Laws

Last week a commentor asked a rather curious question, about which law one ought to obey when the law of a smaller organization is precisely opposed to the law of its containing organization. I actually had to laugh, because the first thing that came into my head was the words "Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the coin of the tribute." [Mt 22:18-19] Without implying anything about myself or my questioner, I must state that the answer is the same. But the question is worth examining since it leads us on to the next point of our discussion.

This sort of problem is easy enough to work out once one has read Rerum Novarum - which we all should if we wish to ever begin to understand Subsidiarity, and in fact the whole realm of Catholic Social Teaching. (Not to mention GKC's work on such topics, or my own.)

Anyhow, I mention Rerum Novarum since its section 72 quotes another authority which ought to clarify the unspoken assumption in the question at hand, that is, if one law is precisely opposed to another, one of them must be formally evil or somehow "wrong". So what do we do then? Here is the answer:

Human law is law only in virtue of its accordance with right reason: and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is not law at all, but rather a species of violence...[Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II Q93 A3 ad 2]

Obviously, when a law of one level is in precise contradiction to the law of another, we must first consider whether one or more of them is really a "law" at all. There is a priority to such things, as is well known: human "law" cannot usurp the laws of nature or of God. I am told that Canute commanded the tide not to rise; I was also told that the Legislature of some midwest state adopted 3 as the value of pi. Both were well worth laughing at. Incidentally, it may be worth noting here that the Bible gives the same value - see 3Kings 7:23. Who are you going to believe: God or some mathematician? Hmm. (hee hee)

But presumably we are not considering that sort of matter, or the question would be futile. Let us therefore assume that both laws are just. This is not paradoxical - that group A commands one law, and group B (its parent) commands its precise opposite - it is merely one of those odd human things, as we shall see.

We must therefore contrive a case (I will use the human realm, rather than the cable TV one) which has two levels, each with its own laws, and among which legal code is a law governing the same matter in both levels, and where both laws are fully just in all senses of the term: yet the law of one level is completely opposed to the law of the containing level.

For example:

Let there be an "English Club" somewhere in the United States of America, possessed of several dozen acres, within which is erected a village (with pub, and an Anglican church, which of course had once been a Romish Abbey) and a moor with quicksand and a hound, (oh boy!) and lavender, and many other lovely English things - including the rolling English Roads with Roman milestones. The owners have done what might be called a "Mackinac" (like the island near the northern end of Michigan) to this little enclave - that is, they have made it inaccessible except by water-craft, so that it is impossible to drive there.

Also, since this is an English Club, they have adopted, in utter disregard for the laws of their native America, the curious and quite sinister (!) inversion of chirality which puts the driver's seat on the right, and hence the motor-cars of our enclave all drive on the left. (They have of course forbidden dextrose and only permit levulose in their tea. Subtle chemistry joke there, hee hee!)

Hence we have a perfect example of the issue under discussion, and we can then ask your question: in this example, do we obey the law of the proximal system (the nearby, or inner level) - or the law of the distal system (the further, or outer level)?

I expect that you can finish the argument for yourself, but if you have questions, please see the TA after class.

And now, let us proceed to today's topic, some more about what happens in a system using Subsidiarity when the laws are violated.

No - let us first consider some more about laws, and try to get some more understanding of the idea of how they fit together, and how they can be broken.

In the paper the other day, I read an odd little article about mathematics, by someone who was apparently not a mathematician. The funny thing was not the part about multiplying by 11, though that was funny enough. It started out by telling kids "one way" - which happens to only work for a handful of examples. Then it showed how you can get the wrong answer using that way - amazing enough, but then it showed "another way" - as if it was something not quite kosher, or not suitable for use on the Sundays of Ordinary Time! It was expressed very poorly - again, rather demonstrating that the person was not very familiar with the concept of multiplication - yet, strange to say, it actually was a vague expression of the CORRECT way of performing multiplication! But that wasn't the funny part either.

This article suggested that once one knows the rules, one can decide to ignore them - and gave, as an example, "cooking" of all things! Now I thought this was particularly funny. Not only is this writer not a mathematician (for whom rules are not discardable) but he is not a cook either - nor a philosopher. He suggests that a chocolate chip cookie recipe might be altered by putting in peanut butter - or something, I forget, it's irrelevant anyway. But I don't think he would have made his point if he had suggested powdered soap instead of sugar, crankcase oil instead of butter, or lug nuts instead of walnuts.

There is an exceedingly famous piece of Chesterton about law which is relevant here - and in fact there are two others which apply. Please examine them with care:

A woman cooking may not always cook artistically; still she can cook artistically. She can introduce a personal and imperceptible alteration into the composition of a soup. The clerk is not encouraged to introduce a personal and imperceptible alteration into the figures in a ledger.
[GKC ILN Apr 7 1906 CW27:161]

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely, probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious.
[GKC Thing CW3:157]

The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden. An optimist who insisted on a purely positive morality would have to begin (supposing he knew where to begin) by telling a man that he might pick dandelions on a common, and go on for months before he came to the fact that he might throw pebbles into the sea; and then resume his untiring efforts by issuing a general permission to sneeze, to make snowballs, to blow bubbles, to play marbles, to make toy aeroplanes, to travel on Tooting trams, and everything else he could think of, without ever coming to an end. In comparison with this positive morality, the Ten Commandments rather shine in that brevity which is the soul of wit. It is better to tell a man not to steal than to try to tell him the thousand things that he can enjoy without stealing; especially as he can generally be pretty well trusted to enjoy them.
[GKC ILN Jan 3 1920 CW32:18-19, emphasis added]

Please read them again - but especially note the words in bold. That is another one of the master-quotes you ought to know by heart: It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden. Now, the interesting thing is that when we consider computers, we have almost the precise opposite of the situation, and thereby we can advance into our discussion.

In the computer, like in mathematics, and in the making of musical compositions and bridges and cars and cookies and other recipes of the real world, we must adhere to reality. That is, we compose things which obey rules, of harmony, or of combining power, or of logical combination. We expect things to go exactly as we have indicated - though we of course know that things can go wrong, and often do. (I think they call this Murphy's "law" but of course that is too illogically funny for words.) Now it is just this idea - that things can go wrong, even though we generally plan on them going right - that we need to examine if we want to understand about rule and error and Subsidiarity. And this is where my example helps.

You see, we do not typically write into the recipe what to do when a child dumps a can of tuna fish into our partially complete cookie dough. We do not annotate the score for what to do if the E-string breaks during the solo of our violin concerto. Generally we assume that the cook or violinist knows how to handle such things gracefully. We can, because these are humans, and we assume they are reasonable - that is, rational. They can reason out how to deal with such odd cases.

Ah, but in the writing of software, the programmer must - repeat MUST - give details on what to do when something goes wrong, because the computer is not reasonable, and will proceed to carry out its instructions, regardless of how stupid or dangerous they might be! Please do not get distressed if this is confusing. You do not need to grasp anything technical. I refer you to the famous story of "the Mouse, the Bucket and the Broom(s)", recounted in Disney's "Fantasia" - a very famous error which we study in computer science. Indeed - we call it the "infinite loop", or (in the recursive sense) a lack of terminating condition. What did the mouse do? He appealed to his superior for assistance. He had a lot of mopping to do afterwards, but I am sure he found that was way better than drowning. (It always makes me think of the story of Jesus in the boat asleep...)

But Doctor (you moan) not all errors are so terrible - and there are so many kinds! How can you clarify this without (as GKC told us) listing all of the things permitted - or rather forbidden?

Well, my dear friend... it was just about a year ago that I was asked this very question by an intelligent young woman who had been reading part of my Subsidiarity blogg. She wanted to know what happens when the rules are broken.

Obviously what will happen depends on the exact nature of the rule that is broken, and so we need to consider what rules are actually involved. I am only a computer scientist, and though we proceed like Scholastics in many ways, I have been known to make errors. (Ask my boss, or my co-workers.) But after some "sittin' and thinkin'", I added an entire chapter about this topic, based on a sketch of three layers of rules which must apply to any given case of the use of Subsidiarity.

A. The first layer is the rules (more correctly, the meta-rules) of Subsidiarity, which themselves come in a triplet:
(1) the positive law (a higher layer must assist a lower in time of need)
(2) the negative law (a higher layer must not arrogate to itself, etc)
(3) the hierarchical structure implied since Subsidiarity is complete: it applies throughout the system.

B. The second layer is the rules which govern the system under consideration. In my own case it was the ad insertion system for cable TV, but it could be a company, a club, a sports team, a university, or the government of a city or country. You will note something never suggested by those who love to propose a measure of "independent thought" to apply to education, especially in math and science - these people never suggest that the young athlete apply his "independent thought" and run clockwise around the bases when he hits the ball out of the field, and so forth. I guess it shows how little I understand about problem-solving skills - if I were physically competent to ride a bicycle, I would keep one with me when I go to bat, so I could get around the bases faster - I mean, that's the same logic as giving children calculators, after all! Oh, dear. But then you see this layer compels an adherence to the rules of the game - that is, the precise nature of the system under consideration. A baseball game has certain rules, as regular as those for chess or calculus; if one preferred, one might field his own team of Gype or "Calvinball", both of which delight all Chestertonians - but even those have rules! You may recall what Chesterton said on this:

A wall is like a rule; and the gates are like the exceptions that prove the rule. The man making it has to decide where his rule will run and where his exception shall stand. He cannot have a city that is all gates any more than a house that is all windows; nor is it possible to have a law that consists entirely of liberties.
[GKC The New Jerusalem CW20]

C. The third layer is the underlying laws which govern that system - the laws of the "containing layers", whatever they may be: the Physical, Natural, Moral, Legal, Social laws which are relevant to the system or club or whatever is being discussed.

Obviously, when something goes wrong, we usually do not try to hunt up the precise spec and give the citation of what was violated, as a policeman must when he writes a ticket, or a physician when he summarizes a diagnosis - or writes a death certificate. But when people talk about "problem solving" they really never try to consider how vast the issue can be! It is funny to think about this, and it merely provokes me into writing anecdotes instead of a Scholastic treatise - which is as it should be, since I am not really a Scholastic.

In conclusion, I may not have been clear on very much today, but alas, I have greatly exceeded even my usual long-winded length. Nevertheless I must add one more brief citation, since I am struck by its aptness (even though I wanted something else, and even with AMBER I could not find it, alas!) It is apt, not only for us today, but also for my own larger work - and besides I know you'd rather read Chesterton than me.

The vow is a violent and unique thing; though there have been many besides the marriage vow; vows of chivalry, vows of poverty, vows of celibacy, pagan as well as Christian. But modern fashion has rather fallen out of the habit; and men miss the type for the lack of the parallels. The shortest way of putting the problem is to ask whether being free includes being free to bind oneself. For the vow is a tryst with oneself.
[GKC The Superstition of Divorce CW4:233, emphasis added]

Feria IV Cinerum: GKC on Ash Wednesday

Our esteemed blogg-mistress is in transit, and rather than let this opening of the Forty Days pass by, I thought I would jump in with some comments, still hoping I will be able to handle tomorrow's post - tomorrow.

Of course, the problem with such a subject as "Ash Wednesday" is its size. There are so many profound things upon which we might meditate, and in the usual Chesterton manner, link idea with idea, and thing with thing. And if you have ever seen the Hepburn/Tracey movie "Desk Set" you may recall how Miss Watson explains that she "associates many things with many things" - a very Chestertonian and very Medieval habit.

Ashes are the remnants of burnt wood - we scrape them out of a fireplace and use them as fertilizer or as grit to dump on icy sidewalks, or... Or as I recall from a book I read (or had read to me) very long ago, we boil them to make soap. Yes, for some wood ashes are high in sodium and potassium hydroxide - which when concentrated is the terrible and wonderful common cleaner called "lye". Chemists call this a "base" (the opposite of an acid) and when concentrated it will burn your flesh just as an acid does. When lye is mixed with certain fats it forms sodium stearate or palmitate - which are the chemical foundations of soap! The importance of water is not to be overlooked - but then the priest sprinkles the ashes with holy water too. So are the thoughts of a chemist on Ash Wednesday.

In Latin, ashes are called cinis, cineris; they were used in scouring (cleaning pots &c) and gave rise to a proverb huius sermo cinerem haud quaeritat (from Miles Gloriosus of Plautus). The word is extended to mean a symbol of destruction, ruin, annihilation. So are the thoughts of a Latin student on Ash Wednesday.

In the song called "Presto" the rock group "Rush" writes:

I am made from the dust of the stars...

And in a text on the stars, we learn that:

The space between the stars is not empty. It is filled with rarified but exceedingly filthy gas... Interstellar gas is so filthy because many stars are furnaces of the least environment-friendly type: vast quantities of hot gas stream out of every red giant, and smoke particles condense out of this gas as it streams away from the glowing surface of the star in exactly the same way that smoke particles form in flue gas as they come off a furnace.
[Binney and Merrifield, Galactic Astronomy 131]

Elsewhere in this book these scientists explain how the various chemical elements are formed within these stellar furnaces - thereby validating Rush's lyrics: yes, we are carbon and phosphorus and iron and calcium - the flue rubbish of stellar furnaces. So are the thoughts of a stellar rocker on Ash Wednesday.

Then there are those terrible words - so terrible for almost 50 years they have been forbidden to be pronounced, due to the terror some men have in acknowledging the truth of things. Perhaps they are less fearful when merely read - but you should read them and ponder their meaning:

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.
Remember, Man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.

Yes, that is the Latin homo which means man-as-species. (The word vir means man-the-male, as opposed to mulier=woman.) And yes, pulvis, pulveris is the root of "pulverize". You may be surprised to learn that this has a pagan antecedent which GKC knew of: during the great parade and celebration called a "triumph" part of the ritual to avoid bad luck required that a slave whisper to the conquering general "Hominem te memento": "Remember you are a man!" [see Oxford Classical Dictionary 926] This fact was known to Chesterton who paraphrased it thusly:

A man who calls himself an Imperialist is using a Roman word; but he does not necessarily mean that King George ought to ride through Wembley with a train of captives and a slave perched behind him whispering:
"Remember that you are mortal."
[GKC ILN June 14 1924 CW33:350]

So are the thoughts of a Chestertonian, who remembers that he is Man, made from ashes, the dust of the stars. Let us remember that today and always, while not forgetting this other comforting little warning:

Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows.
[Mt 10:31]

Jaki Day: Roma, April 13

I have just received word that there will be a "Jaki Day" in Roma on Tuesday April 13. For more information, see here. For those of us who cannot go, perhaps we might fittingly read his Chesterton a Seer of Science.

Subsidiarity: Errors, or, Lessons from Another Original Sin

"in viis iustitiae ambulo"
"I walk in the way of justice." [Prov 8:20]

We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong.
[GKC, CCC CW3:111]

If we are all the victims of blind and misleading hereditary prejudices, it is indeed impossible for us to judge, not only in a divine or mystical sense, but even in a practical and normal sense. We have no reason to suppose ourselves right in anything we think; and we have no way of correcting ourselves if we are wrong.
[GKC ILN Oct 19 1929 CW35:185]

I am sure you noticed last week the "comedy of error" I committed by attributing Joyce Kilmer's "only God can make a tree" to Rudyard Kipling. (Don't forget to read how GKC made a similar mistake in "The Real Journalist" in A Miscellany of Men, it's even more hilarious!) This was particularly funny to me since I knew the Kilmer poem long before I knew Kipling existed. Apparently this was due to playing with GKC so much in recent years, and seeing the name "Kipling" (I will not go into the role RK's Kim plays in my fiction; you will have to wait and see.) There was another gaffe I committed recently when I was trying to write of "Brownian motion" but typed BROWNING - a very curious error which crosses all sort of "impassable divides". (That is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a book by Fr. Jaki - us tech guys are so goofy when we play on literary turf!) If the slightly veiled tech humor here escapes you and you are not in the mood to find out what Brownian motion is (or who Browning is) perhaps you would like something of an else. I recall being at work (indeed, the place where we used Subsidiarity) when I heard someone speaking of a movie called "Finding Nemo" and I immediately started laughing. I had not seen it (and still haven't) and knew nothing whatever about it; I laughed merely at that title. Now, my co-workers know (as you also know) that I laugh about all sorts of things - but of course I quickly explained that the Latin word nemo means "nobody" - of course I thought a movie called "Finding Nobody" must be very curious!

Ahem. Let us rather proceed to find something - for today I wish to speak of errors, in particular, such errors as they relate to my larger topic, Subsidiarity.

The word used in medicine is "pathology" - where it means the study of disease, its causes, its treatments and so on. By extension it can be applied to study of failure or error in other fields... but let us not be pedantic. Rather I shall tell you a story.

The very first computer program I wrote - lo, so many years ago now - was our first assignment in the first programming class in my first semester at college. In those days we punched cards - yes, I really AM that old! We were given a sheet of paper which listed that first program, and told to punch cards corresponding to the printed text. We were to check it very carefully, because if we made a mistake we would produce an "ERROR" with a row of asterisks, presumably arising from our mistyping something - then we would have to make a correction to the cards and try again. When it appeared that we had a perfect rendering of the program onto the cards, we would then submit our "deck" to the computer for processing. Ah the thrill of submitting that first program! Yes, it was quite exciting and interesting, but I have no time to recount all the details for you today, as vivid as they remain for me. So I punched the cards, checked them several times, and finally submitted them.

Soon afterwards, I received the "printout" which was produced by my request. I examined it and was very disturbed to see this:


***** ERROR 65: END-OF-FILE ENCOUNTERED *****


Ah, yes... I checked the computer printed version of the program against what we were given in the handout - and they were identical! What's going on? we moaned.

The professor explained when we handed them in. Yes, we had been framed. The interesting thing about the program we were given was that it contained an error! If we did the assignment correctly, we would of necessity encounter this "end-of-file" situation. (There happens to be a good pedagogical reason for this apparent setup, but since we are not talking about software development here I shall omit it; see me after class for details.)

Yes, our first program was wrong - a kind of software original sin. It was a useful point of instruction, and indeed I am still instructing with it all these many years afterwards! For from this lesson we should begin to distinguish two major classes of errors - an important distinction which we need to grasp if we are to understand more about Subsidiarity.

In medical school the future physician learns that there are large classes of anomalies to be found in the health of a human being: situs inversus, sickle-cell anemia, polydactyly; kidney failure, leukemia; malaria, tetanus - all have differing causes and differing treatments - or lack of treatment. Some anomalies (like the first three) are congenital: they are part of the being as inherited or developed. Others arise within an otherwise normal body, either by some failure of the system, or by some invasion by an malignant organism.

These same broad classes might be said to apply to other kinds of errors... I am not going to give a scholastic study of this here, but I wish to give you at least a little introductory guide to the pathology of Subsidiarity. (nice ring to that, hmm.)

This is particularly useful since I have been hearing some vague uses of the term recently, and have become a little concerned. This is a bit tedious, I know, but let us proceed.

One does not weep and moan and say "Ah the problem with our economics today is that we are neglecting the principles of ALGEBRA!"

Maybe we should. I find it suggestive that the words "commutative" (that is, a+b=b+a) and "distributive" (that is, ab+ac=a(b+c)) are important in algebra - even though they can both be found on the "Tree of Virtues" which I posted a few weeks back, where they appear as branches of what the artist terms "IUSTITIA". But then as a Chestertonian I know there is no such thing as a different subject.

However, it would seem a bit more rational, and more in tune with the proper, ah, let us call it the proper "bedside manner" of a physician, to suggest that the problem is not so much the neglect of the rules of algebra, but the rules of justice. A greedy man can work accurate sums which are quite morally wrong. It is greed, not inaccurate sums, which is the disease to be treated. (But I say all this in way of example, and may have it somewhat distorted... except for the rules of algebra. For instruction on the other matter, I might suggest Prümmer's Handbook of Moral Theology or other such authorities.)

Similarly, we hear of people speaking about how government X or society Y is "not applying the rules of Subsidiarity". However, Subsidiarity is rather like Algebra in that it orders its materials at a far lower level, and the error may be somewhat nearer to the surface. Indeed, the error is not so much one of Subsidiarity (or its failure, or its lack of having been resorted to) as much as it is a nearly endemic denial of the far more present and far more relevant Written Laws of the Society. If there was no "constitution" (let us call it, just for an example) for that country, then we would properly appeal to the Laws of Subsidiarity. But since in (let us say) a given country there already exists a well-drawn-up, fair, just, sensible and legal "constitution" which moreover happens to acknowledge Subsidiarity implicitly - well, then the bedside physician ought to instruct the patient to follow his constitution in order to get back into health, and refrain from unhealthy and inaccurate speculations about larger rules he is less familiar with. If, of course, that "constitution" had not properly conformed to Subsidiarity, then it would require adjustment - but one must proceed to correct things in proper order, or one will never be sure whether one has corrected the problem or merely introduced a new illness.

(The exceedingly curious truth is that the error of not abiding by the original spec is given a different name when it occurs in a living being rather than a society. The word is "cancer". In a system of thought the word used is "heresy". See GKC's The Man Who Was Thursday for details.)

Now, this may seem quite insulting to some. People may tell me, Doctor, what gives you any better vision of the rules of Subsidiarity than us? Have we not read Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno and Centesimus Annus? I am not arguing that way - not at all. As of today, February 11, 2010, I have not seen any writing according to the Scholastic manner which studies the nature and principles of Subsidiarity, as true scientists once studied the other branches of such moral and intellectual sciences. If I had the proper training perhaps I would write such a book - but God had other plans, as did - er - a certain cable TV company. Instead, I have done something else. I have studied a system that used Subsidiarity - yes, a simpler one, simpler by far, than most governments or even most clubs - and from it I have learned a little about its principles.

I have recently found a quote which may help clarify this. I was reading The Life of Christ by Giuseppe Ricciotti - a very wonderful book - and found this commentary about the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37:

Note the apparent discrepancy between the doctor's question ("Who is my neighbor?") and Jesus' answer ("Do thou also in like manner!"). It is a discrepancy in form only. The doctor is still within the realm of pure ideas; Jesus comes down to the realm of fact, because the most beautiful ideas in the world are nothing but words if they are not realized in actual life. ... That is why when the doctor wants to know who his neighbor is, Jesus pictures for him one who acts like a neighbor and admonishes him to follow that example.
[GR The Life of Christ §440 p. 445]

In some sense, I am writing a parable - I propose that we might learn what Subsidiarity is by studying the Control Room and HOME and the inserters, CUSTOS and PUMP and FERRY - the things which act, even if merely analogically, according to Subsidiarity.

Now, I must say one more thing, in case you have the impression that Subsidiarity is just "a way" or "a good approach" or "some novel management technique" or something of that kind, like the odd excretions of "style" one finds every few years coming from "graduate schools of management". It is not even "THE" Catholic way, as if it was somehow labeled or bound to the Catholic Church, in some curiously unknown dogmatic or liturgical manner, by vesting appropriately, or eating certain foods, or saying certain prayers.

Subsidiarity is not Catholic in that sense - though it is catholic, meaning universal. It is not "a" way - it is THE way, the only way, of properly structuring systems of any complexity. Any system, any method of management or of ordering, succeeds to the extent it conforms to Subsidiarity, and fails to the extent it rejects or distorts Subsidiarity. I know that it seems too simple to be true, but then there are lots of things which are like that - algebra for example.

Now that we have made our Scholastic distinguo and began to have a glimpse of that first error (which is, in some fashion an original sin) next time we shall actually consider several of the particular errors which occur in a system using Subsidiarity. This will be fun, because even when these examples sound abstract and theoretical and far-fetched, I can mention real experiences of those errors, and show how to deal with them. It will be instructive. Cable TV never had it so good. Hee hee!

ChesterTen Airport?

I'm starting to think about my conference travel and wondering if anyone can tell me what airport you fly in to that's near Mount St. Mary's, and after you fly in, how do you get to the college campus?

If you know, let me (and anyone else planning the same trip) in on your local secrets. Thanks.

Frances and Nancy

You may already know I'm doing a talk on Frances Chesterton in August at ChesterTen. Right now, I live, eat, and breathe Frances. Here are some strange coincidences about the two of us.

Frances changed her name from a B to a C. (Blogg to Chesterton)
I changed my name from a C to a B. (Carpentier to Brown)

Frances started with a one syllable B name and changed to a three syllable C name.
I changed from a three syllable C name to a one syllable B name.

Frances started with a five letter name and changed to a ten letter name.
I started with a ten letter name and changed to a five letter name.

Francis is my confirmation name. Chesterton took Francis as his confirmation name. I cannot find out anywhere what Frances took as her confirmation name.

More to come.

West Akron Ohio Chesterton Society Welcomes YOU

The West Akron Chesterton Society has a blog!  First meeting on Feb. 15th, 2010.
This should draw Cleveland folks in the area also.
At long last, hooray!

This information provided by: Ellen Finan of the Warren Chesterton Society--Thank You!

Dale wants to know who's in charge of East Akron. Anyone?

Subsidiarity: Seeing Things As They Are

...the object of my school is to show how many extraordinary things even a lazy and ordinary man may see if he can spur himself to the single activity of seeing.
[GKC "Tremendous Trifles" in Tremendous Trifles 6]

As we have already seen (pun intended) Subsidiarity is tam antiqua - so ancient - since the term comes from ancient Roman military vocabulary (see Lewis & Short or other Latin dictionary), and the idea from Moses' father-in-law, Jethro (see Exodus 18:13-26). It is tam nova - so new - since almost ten years ago its principles enabled the development of a spot transport system for cable television: real software running on x86-based computers followed the principles, both positive and negative, as set forth by Pius IX and John Paul II. Just to save your having to double-click here, I will now specify those principles:

Negative: It is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher organization to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies.
[Pius IX, Quadragesimo Anno (1931) 5]

Positive: A community of a higher order ... should support a community of a lower order in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.
[John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (1991) 48]

Now you may think it takes somebody with a doctorate in computer science to convert such esoteric and abstract statements into IFs and WHILEs and STRUCTs and I/O control function calls and all the rest which make software. Since I was the one who did it, and I do have a doctorate in computer science, I can't really comment (as we say in "C", /**/ - pronounced "no comment" - hee hee!) But actually I think the essential power here is the ability to SEE DEEPLY - that is, to approach this in the way Chesterton did: to see more than just the matters of the surface.

For example, as soon as I begin to explain what it was we did, the typical person says, "oh, this is just some sort of fancy way of transferring files from one computer to another." And I nod and say, "very good" and go on to the next topic...

Ahem! The point I am making is NOT a technical one. I am not preaching some sophisticated insight into a complex technical thing called file transport. No - rather like the famous line in Father Brown, I am trying to call attention to something which is "too big to be noticed." [see "The Three Tools of Death"] In fact, I am trying to call attention to one of the fundamental requirements of subsidiarity: communication. Our system was not "cool" because it sent a file from the computer called "HOME" to another called "3CHES" - even though it sent the file by bouncing it off a satellite (which is really cool, no matter what else you can say!) The cool thing, the thing that makes our process an example of Subsidiarity, is that 3CHES "asked" HOME for that file, because 2CHES didn't have it, and needed it: an "individual" requested its "superior" for assistance.

Now, you see, this is NOT about 3CHES meddling in the work of 2CHES, nor HOME meddling in the work of 3CHES. It was a very simple thing, a simple request (we called it a PSR - portal spot request) which is quite as simple as a request to pass the mustard - which Chesterton refers to as an essential trait in human society:

Logically, it [determinism] would stop a man in the act of saying "Thank you" to somebody for passing the mustard. For how could he be praised for passing the mustard, if he could not be blamed for not passing the mustard?
[GKC Autobiography CW16:174]

A beggar is a man who asks help from another man solely in the name of something extraneous but common - as kinship or charity, the Fatherhood of God, or the brotherhood of man. He does not ask for the bread because he can at once give you the money, as in commerce. He does not ask for the bread because he will soon be able to pass you the mustard, as in Society. He asks you for the bread because you are supposed to be under an ancient law of pity, by which (as it is written) if a man ask you for bread you will not give him a stone. [See Luke 11:11] That is what a beggar is. He is a man who begs - that is, he is a man who asks without any clear power of return, except the opportunity he offers you to fulfil your own ideals.
[GKC ILN Feb 25 1911 CW29:44]

Or, as someone far greater than Chesterton once said, "Ask and you shall receive." [see Mt 7:7] But behold - this is merely the principle of action by which PUMP and FERRY (the transport programs) were built! It is a matter of communication.

Communication - making a request, an appeal. Asking for help. All very clear and easy to grasp, right? But this idea brings up a somewhat more delicate point, tied to the negative form of Subsidiarity, the idea which goes back to the 1891 encyclical of Leo XIII called Rerum Novarum (referred to directly and indirectly by GKC) - the point that a superior must not interfere with an inferior - somehow "arrogating" or intruding where he has no right to enter.

You may laugh here - how, you think, can a system of machines be managed if its superiors (the humans) are not to "intrude" into their activities? Is it not rather the case (as we have read in stories about that famous "Control Room") that there were programs called "WATCHER" and "CUSTOS" (the Latin for "guardian") which monitored the doings of those computers?





Oh, yes, that is quite correct. But just as we learn of the Trinity from the shamrock in the hand of St. Patrick, a simple little green bit of plant matter hinting at some unfathomable characteristic of He Who Is - so too we can learn something about the mystery of social communication from the work of this merely mechanical and electronic system. WATCHER and the rest must be seen in the form of a parable - a kind of extended analogy. And in fact, in my book (yet to be published) I turn to one of the parables to help clarify the issue of monitoring (which is part of communication) and its place in the discussion of Subsidiarity.

Specifically, the parable in Luke 16:19-31 about Lazarus and the Rich Man. You know it, and have no doubt heard it many times before, but I think there are two things about it which may have been overlooked - perhaps they were too big to be noticed. First: Recall that Lazarus was the beggar "who lay at the rich man's gate" (Lk 16:20). That is, the rich man could hardly go out of his home without nearly stumbling over the poor man! Second: and this one is quite tricky - the rich man actually knew who he was, for when he calls on Abraham for help, he mentions Lazarus by name! (Lk 16:24) Now, I don't think we are talking about intrusion here, or a violation of privacy or whatever: the rich man didn't have to have security cameras or detailed financial records about Lazarus. He didn't need "WATCHER" or such tools; Lazarus "lay at his gate" and so he could see him frequently. This is all the more "monitoring" I mean. We don't need detailed reports about things which are right under our noses – but neither dare we close our eyes to them! Yes, the monitoring we require of machinery might be considered intrusive if we were applying it to humans. But there are a variety of techniques for gathering details, and many are not "intrusive" at all. In the end, we must remember, as the rich man didn't: it's not intrusive monitoring to notice something you all but trip over, just outside your front door. And in many cases this natural awareness is all that is required.

The eye - especially the human eye - is a great mystery. It was cursed by a Darwinian, Garrett Hardin [see Jaki The Savior of Science 132 quoting Hardin's G. Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate,] because his vision of reality was distorted by the diseased philosophy of Darwin. (Note to whiners and some careless readers of this blogg: I did not say science of Darwin. There is a huge difference.) Chesterton warned against such things in a very famous Thomistic parable:

A brilliant Victorian scientist delighted in declaring that the child does not see any grass at all; but only a sort of green mist reflected in a tiny mirror of the human eye. This piece of rationalism has always struck me as almost insanely irrational. If he is not sure of the existence of the grass, which he sees through the glass of a window, how on earth can he be sure of the existence of the retina, which he sees through the glass of a microscope? If sight deceives, why can it not go on deceiving?
[GKC St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:528]

But when we know and understand, when we believe in reality, be it the reality of retinas or grass or stars, we can proceed since "Reason is itself a matter of faith." (Orthodoxy CW1:236) In the retina, there are about 150 million light-detecting cells, the information of which is "pre-processed" by a whole array of co-processing machinery (the bipolar, horizontal and amacrine cells) before the partial messages of color and tone and edge are sent by the million or so cells of the optic nerve to the brain. You note that there is an amazing reduction of information here - in some cases the information from more than a hundred cells is coordinated and summarized into a single line of information. Yes indeed - and you must not overlook the fact that all those millions of cells are all working simultaneously! No this is NOT "multitasking" which refers to the method by which one single processor can accomplish several tasks by dividing its energy - the correct term is "highly parallel processing". But this is not a course in computing, sorry. Nor is it a course in ophthalmology, or a critical study of Darwinism, etc. I bring up the marvels (and the curses) because the eye, like our spot transport system, is complex, and requires careful attention to detail. This is the "thing too large to be noticed" when we study Subsidiarity, and many other things. We must proceed slowly and carefully and attentively, lest we trip over a needy man at our own gate. We must be as ready to render assistance when such is requested, as we would wish others to assist us when we need it. [That, of course, is the "Golden Rule" of Subsidiarity.]

Postscript: It ought to come as no surprise that God enters into such a technical topic - nor will any authentic medievalist be surprised. We've heard this many times: "You cannot evade the issue of God; whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him." [GKC Daily News Dec 12 1903 quoted in Maycock] but we also need to recall that famous line from "The Oracle of the Dog" which is the foundation stone of Science (writ large as Fr. Jaki puts it):

"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."

Let us therefore pray with the blind man: Kyrie, hina anablepso. Lord, that I may see again! [see Lk 18:41]

Uncommon Sense New Podcast

New podcast, talking about Chesterton's newest biography by William Oddie, I talk about James O'Keefe, and other Chestertonian news.

Continuing discussion of William Oddie's biography of Chesterton, The Romance of Orthodoxy, chapter four

Web sites:
http://www.gilbertmagazine.com
http://chesterton.org/acs/oddie.htm
http://Chesterton.org
http://americanchestertonsociety.blogspot.com
@amchestertonsoc
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-American-Chesterton-Society/127651102300?created
http://music.mevio.com