Sunday Sermonette: Lost in translation

Chapter 11 is  noteworthy because it is on the one hand often quoted, but on the other hand highly ambiguous in meaning. The translators of the NIV have taken it upon themselves to choose among various meanings that have been proposed, but the choices are highly dubious. Let me offer the more famous KJV of the opening verses.

¹Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.

²Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.

People have interpreted these lines in various ways. The most popular is basically a version of karma: give generously to others and good things will come your way in return. However, since as Weber said, the protestant ethic is the spirit of capitalism, the NIV translators have decided that this is an exhortation to invest in foreign ventures. What the heck the subsequent verses are supposed to mean is anybody's guess. Of course, nowadays we do know how the body is formed in the mother's womb. Again, the suggestion the NIV translators make that this is really about ensoulment is completely fanciful, there is nothing in the Hebrew to suggest that, it just comports with their (very recently formed) religious beliefs. So, what I'm telling you is that this translation is tendentious. We don't really know what the author was trying to say.

11 Ship your grain across the sea;
    after many days you may receive a return.
² Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight;
    you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.

³ If clouds are full of water,
    they pour rain on the earth.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
    in the place where it falls, there it will lie.
⁴ Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
    whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

⁵ As you do not know the path of the wind,
    or how the body is formed^[a] in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
    the Maker of all things.

⁶ Sow your seed in the morning,
    and at evening let your hands not be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
    whether this or that,
    or whether both will do equally well.

Remember Your Creator While Young

⁷ Light is sweet,
    and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.
⁸ However many years anyone may live,
    let them enjoy them all.
But let them remember the days of darkness,
    for there will be many.
    Everything to come is meaningless.

⁹ You who are young, be happy while you are young,
    and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
    and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
    God will bring you into judgment.
¹⁰ So then, banish anxiety from your heart
    and cast off the troubles of your body,
    for youth and vigor are meaningless.

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 11:5 Or know how life (or the spirit) / enters the body being formed

 

I am not a journalist . . .

for a major media organization. Nor could I be, because I have a modicum of responsibility and self-respect. However, were I a <s>stenographer</s> reporter for Corporate Monstrosity News, and I had the opportunity to interview Ron DeSantis, I would stick a microphone in the little shit's face and address him thusly:

 

Governor, you have repeatedly said that human caused climate change is a hoax, and you have promoted and signed legislation to forbid Florida state agencies from referring to it in official reports and documents. Do you believe that the scientific consensus that warmer ocean temperatures, resulting from humans burning fossil fuels, are causing tropical cyclones to become more powerful and produce more rain, is wrong? If so, what is your basis for that belief? 

 

I might ask him about sea level rise as well, and whether he'll miss Miami when it's gone. 

Wednesday Bible Study: Huh?

In Chapter 10, Koholet reverts to the two-liner proverb format. Perhaps this is intended as satire, because most of it makes no sense. I mean, what the heck is this supposed to mean: "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." If you break through a wall, you might be bitten by a snake? I suppose that's possible but if I have a good reason to break through a wall I'm still going to do it. I can imagine doing a standup routine with this material, maybe mocking Deepak Chopra type deepitudes. Anyway, if you can extract some meaning from this gibberish, let me know.

10 As dead flies give perfume a bad smell,
    so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.
² The heart of the wise inclines to the right,
    but the heart of the fool to the left.
³ Even as fools walk along the road,
    they lack sense
    and show everyone how stupid they are.
⁴ If a ruler’s anger rises against you,
    do not leave your post;
    calmness can lay great offenses to rest.

⁵ There is an evil I have seen under the sun,
    the sort of error that arises from a ruler:
⁶ Fools are put in many high positions,
    while the rich occupy the low ones.
⁷ I have seen slaves on horseback,
    while princes go on foot like slaves.

⁸ Whoever digs a pit may fall into it;
    whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake.
⁹ Whoever quarries stones may be injured by them;
    whoever splits logs may be endangered by them.

¹⁰ If the ax is dull
    and its edge unsharpened,
more strength is needed,
    but skill will bring success.

¹¹ If a snake bites before it is charmed,
    the charmer receives no fee.

¹² Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious,
    but fools are consumed by their own lips.
¹³ At the beginning their words are folly;
    at the end they are wicked madness—
¹⁴     and fools multiply words.

No one knows what is coming—
    who can tell someone else what will happen after them?

¹⁵ The toil of fools wearies them;
    they do not know the way to town.

¹⁶ Woe to the land whose king was a servant^[a]
    and whose princes feast in the morning.
¹⁷ Blessed is the land whose king is of noble birth
    and whose princes eat at a proper time—
    for strength and not for drunkenness.

¹⁸ Through laziness, the rafters sag;
    because of idle hands, the house leaks.

¹⁹ A feast is made for laughter,
    wine makes life merry,
    and money is the answer for everything.

²⁰ Do not revile the king even in your thoughts,
    or curse the rich in your bedroom,
because a bird in the sky may carry your words,
    and a bird on the wing may report what you say.

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 10:16 Or king is a child

More on epistemology: The etiology of science denial

Last time, I discussed religion, tribalism, and epistemic closure. But many scientific conclusions don't directly challenge religious doctrine. So why has science denialism become strongly associated with the far right and the Republican party (same thing), even when we aren't talking about evolution or cosmology?As a most salient example, the Florida Department of Health, led by Ron DeSantis Stooge Joseph Ladapo, is telling people not to get the Covid-19 vaccine, pushing utterly false claims including that it threatens “the integrity of the human genome,”that "the shots pose a risk of infections, autoimmune disease, and other condition," that "the shots could cause elevated levels of spike protein and foreign genetic material in the blood," and that "Americans face “unknown risk” from too many booster shots." This is all 100%, Grade A, made up and totally false bullshit.

The cited article in KFF Health News notes that "Several critics of Ladapo’s bulletin said it read like a tryout for a job in a Trump administration advised by longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said Trump wants him to help vet senior health officials." Well okay, but why are the dumpster and the MAGA movement getting on the RFK bandwagon? Or more accurately, why have they been there before Wormbrain joined forces with them?

 

Edsall's differential diagnosis, which I share, is that conservative science denialism, beyond evolution and other conflicts with religion, cites Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, in From Anti-Government to Anti-Science, who wrote that conservative rejection of science "took strong hold during the Reagan administration, largely in response to scientific evidence of environmental crises that invited governmental response. Thus, science — particularly environmental and public health science — became the target of conservative anti-regulatory attitudes."

 

In other words, if anthropogenic climate change is real, then we need to do something about it, which means government intervention to reduce and ultimately eliminate fossil fuel consumption and develop sustainable energy. That conflicts with the ideology of the Free Market™, the actual purpose of which is to protect the profits of plutocrats. Billionaires formed an alliance with religious fanatics to reject scientific conclusions that conflicted with each of their interests, even those they didn't have in common, and that meant undermining all of scientific authority. That's it in a nutshell. Edsall goes on at much greater length and brings in many other discussants, but I think I've captured the main idea. 

The problem with this is that it's likely to kill you. So maybe you should do something about it.

 

Thomas B. Edsall has the diagnosis.

Sunday Sermonette: Blasphemy

Chapter 9 is actually much quoted. The little poem beginning "The race is not to the siwft," I would venture to say is famous. However, this is unequivocally contradictory of Christian theology. There is no afterlife and no lasting reward for the virtuous or punishment for the wicked. Whatever you do in life, once you ain't got no red corpuscles, Jack you dead. In fact, you don't even get good Karma. This concludes with a poor man who save a city, gets no credit, and is forgotten. This is also contradictory to the "just world" tenor of most of the Tanakh and really to any common concept of religion. But, here it is. The literal and infallible word of God.

 

9 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. ² All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,^[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good,
    so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
    so with those who are afraid to take them.

³ This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. ⁴ Anyone who is among the living has hope^[b]—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

⁵ For the living know that they will die,
    but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
    and even their name is forgotten.
⁶ Their love, their hate
    and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
    in anything that happens under the sun.

⁷ Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. ⁸ Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. ⁹ Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

¹¹ I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift
    or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
    or wealth to the brilliant
    or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.

¹² Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:

As fish are caught in a cruel net,
    or birds are taken in a snare,
so people are trapped by evil times
    that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Wisdom Better Than Folly

¹³ I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: ¹⁴ There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it. ¹⁵ Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man. ¹⁶ So I said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” But the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.

¹⁷ The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
    than the shouts of a ruler of fools.
¹⁸ Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
    but one sinner destroys much good.

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 9:2 Septuagint (Aquila), Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew does not have and the bad.
2. Ecclesiastes 9:4 Or What then is to be chosen? With all who live, there is hope

 

Epistemology

This post is basically a thumb sucker, but I need to get past it before I can write anything substantive. Many have observed that the U.S. seems to be divided into epistemic silos -- maybe two main divisions, with subdivisions and maybe a few fragments off to the side. The people in each silo get most of their information from different sources, and they use different rules of inference. This means it's nearly impossible for them to communicate about the issues that divide them.

I think this is largely true, although I'm not sure its accurate to say that my side is actually in its own silo. I think a better analogy is that a lot of people are in a silo, and a lot of other people, like me, are outside of it and free to explore reality and find truth wherever and whatever it may be. That requires us to decide what is true based on what we observe "out there," in reality, along with the application of logic and rules of inference. This requires a certain amount of work, and it also requires accepting pain, disappointment, disillusionment, and sometimes arguing or parting ways with people. 

One example of the discomfort and disappointment that comes with being an open-minded empiricist is the so-called Problem of Evil, which our current interlocutor Ecclesiastes rubs up against but can't fully engage. The modus tollens* version of this is: If an omnipotent, omniscient, good god exists, there is no evil. Evil exists. Therefore that sort of God does not exist. (Hat tip to Tony Pasquarello.) Religious apologists have struggled for centuries to find a way around this but they have failed. The absurdity of their efforts is demonstrated every day by the people whose houses are destroyed and neighbors killed by a natural disaster who are shown on television saying "I thank merciful God for saving me and my cat." I guess that's a little less offensive than the athletes who thank God for causing them to win a race. Think about it

Anyway, belief in a just and merciful God, like libertarianism, is internally logically inconsistent, and inconsistent with observable reality. So why are so many people unshakeably committed to it. (I'll leave the question of libertarianism for another time, although it does in part depend on the just world fallacy.) Part of the explanation obviously is that they have been indoctrinated from earliest childhood. We take it for granted that people who are born into Catholic families are Catholics, people born into Baptist families are Baptists, and so on with Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Zoroastrians. Of course some people convert to other faiths or become secular, but most do not. 

A second reason is community. Belonging to a faith also means being part of a supportive group, and denying faith means shunning, expulsion, condemnation by the people one is connected with most strongly. A third is comfort, immersion in denial of the most painful truths about existence. Sadly, the comforts of tribalism also require disdaining or condemning people who are outside of the tribe. That, I think, is at the heart of our troubles.

* A syllogism of the form "If P then Q: Not Q: Therefore Not P."

Wednesday Bible Study: Disordered Thinking

Chapter 8 consists of a series of assertions which seem largely disconnected. The first is obscure -- actually it seems self-contradictory. It seems to question whether any one is wise, then it says wisdom makes you better looking. The next assertion is to obey the king (i.e., me) without question. Okay pal, let's say I don't. Then we get some further expressions of fatalism,  rather muddled I would say, and some further muddled musings about crime and punishment. I'm not sure what he's saying here -- the wicked should be punished but often they aren't, is my best interpretation, but even so they'll feel better if they revere God? 

Then he seems to commend amorality: "¹⁴ There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. ¹⁵ So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun." So, it doesn't matter that there is no justice, have a good time!

Finally, he claims that we can't learn anything about how the world really works, so don't bother. That obviously seemed true at the time but since the Enlightenment we have discovered that it is not. There may be more to know than we will ever discover, but we've learned one hell of a lot that this guy never could have imagined. 

 

8 Who is like the wise?
    Who knows the explanation of things?
A person’s wisdom brightens their face
    and changes its hard appearance.

Obey the King

² Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God. ³ Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. ⁴ Since a king’s word is supreme, who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

⁵ Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm,
    and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.
⁶ For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter,
    though a person may be weighed down by misery.

⁷ Since no one knows the future,
    who can tell someone else what is to come?
⁸ As no one has power over the wind to contain it,
    so^[a] no one has power over the time of their death.
As no one is discharged in time of war,
    so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

⁹ All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own^[b] hurt. ¹⁰ Then too, I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise^[c] in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

¹¹ When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. ¹² Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. ¹³ Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.

¹⁴ There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. ¹⁵ So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

¹⁶ When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— ¹⁷ then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 8:8 Or over the human spirit to retain it, / and so
2. Ecclesiastes 8:9 Or to their
3. Ecclesiastes 8:10 Some Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint (Aquila); most Hebrew manuscripts and are forgotten

 

I'm taking this personally

When I lived in Boston, before I got shanghaied into academia, I had a consulting business working with community based organizations. Two of my clients were Haitian organizations, that did public health promotion and case management services for people living with HIV, among other programs. Later, when I worked at Latino Health Institute, we collaborated with those agencies and I also did research and wrote a paper with a Haitian-American colleague. Today, I'm again working with a Haitian community leader in Boston. The Haitian-American community in Boston and Somerville goes back at least 30 years, and I believe it is one of the largest in the U.S., after Miami.

So it is actually not new that there are a lot of people of Haitian ethnicity in the U.S. Many are citizens or legal permanent residents. We also have a Temporary Protected Status for many people, which was granted after natural disasters but remains in effect because conditions in the country are simply untenable. There is a long history behind how matters got to this point, but in a nutshell, the nation of Haiti was born in the first successful rebellion of enslaved Africans in the Americas, and the U.S. never forgave them for that.

The Haitian refugees in Springfield, Ohio, are hard working, law abiding people who have brought the city back to life. Here's what the Republican governor of Ohio has to say about the repeated claims by Donald Trump and H.D. Vance that they are abducting and eating people's pet cats and dogs:

 

There’s a lot of garbage on the internet and, you know, this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true. There’s no evidence of this at all. Let me tell you what we do know, though. What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies. What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them there. And, frankly, that’s helped the economy.

 

Now let me tell you what I think about people who invent disgusting, racist lies to smear an entire community. You know, lies such as Jews kidnap Christian babies to incorporate their blood in Passover matzoh. That sort of thing, that can lead to serious violence. I think people who do that are evil and dangerous and downright terrifying. The idea that anyone would even consider voting for such people for high office is difficult to believe. It proves that there is a profound rot at the heart of our culture. But that's what the Republican party is all about. Moral depravity.

 

Sunday Sermonette: Not wise

Chapter 7 gets even gloomier, and it also gets misogynistic. It's structured in short aphorisms, rather like much of Proverbs, and it doesn't really cohere. Our sad sack friend first asserts that death is better than birth, and sadness is apparently to be preferred to happiness. At least he denies the just world fallacy we have seen in much of proverbs and elsewhere in the Tanakh. (Verse 15), and he then makes the rather odd suggestion that we would destroy ourselves by being overrighteous or overwise. Not sure where that's coming from with that exactly, but he goes on to say that being perfectly righteous or perfectly wise is impossible, which I am down with, although he seems to contradict himself at the very end.

Then he starts hating on women. First we get the woman who is a trap, who we encountered in proverbs. Then he says he has found one upright man in 1,000 -- the contradiction, not quite impossible after all -- but never an upright woman. I really could do without this guy.

7 A good name is better than fine perfume,
    and the day of death better than the day of birth.
² It is better to go to a house of mourning
    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart.
³ Frustration is better than laughter,
    because a sad face is good for the heart.
⁴ The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
    but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
⁵ It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person
    than to listen to the song of fools.
⁶ Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,
    so is the laughter of fools.
    This too is meaningless.

⁷ Extortion turns a wise person into a fool,
    and a bribe corrupts the heart.

⁸ The end of a matter is better than its beginning,
    and patience is better than pride.
⁹ Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
    for anger resides in the lap of fools.

¹⁰ Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
    For it is not wise to ask such questions.

¹¹ Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing
    and benefits those who see the sun.
¹² Wisdom is a shelter
    as money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is this:
    Wisdom preserves those who have it.

¹³ Consider what God has done:

Who can straighten
    what he has made crooked?
¹⁴ When times are good, be happy;
    but when times are bad, consider this:
God has made the one
    as well as the other.
Therefore, no one can discover
    anything about their future.

¹⁵ In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:

the righteous perishing in their righteousness,
    and the wicked living long in their wickedness.
¹⁶ Do not be overrighteous,
    neither be overwise—
    why destroy yourself?
¹⁷ Do not be overwicked,
    and do not be a fool—
    why die before your time?
¹⁸ It is good to grasp the one
    and not let go of the other.
    Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.^[a]

¹⁹ Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful
    than ten rulers in a city.

²⁰ Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous,
    no one who does what is right and never sins.

²¹ Do not pay attention to every word people say,
    or you may hear your servant cursing you—
²² for you know in your heart
    that many times you yourself have cursed others.

²³ All this I tested by wisdom and I said,

“I am determined to be wise”—
    but this was beyond me.
²⁴ Whatever exists is far off and most profound—
    who can discover it?
²⁵ So I turned my mind to understand,
    to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things
and to understand the stupidity of wickedness
    and the madness of folly.

²⁶ I find more bitter than death
    the woman who is a snare,
whose heart is a trap
    and whose hands are chains.
The man who pleases God will escape her,
    but the sinner she will ensnare.

²⁷ “Look,” says the Teacher,^[b] “this is what I have discovered:

“Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—
²⁸     while I was still searching
    but not finding—
I found one upright man among a thousand,
    but not one upright woman among them all.
²⁹ This only have I found:
    God created mankind upright,
    but they have gone in search of many schemes.”

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 7:18 Or will follow them both
2. Ecclesiastes 7:27 Or the leader of the assembly

Truth and Consequences

Thomas Edsall (gift link!) discusses the Republican War on Science  with the help of many thoughtful informants. People who identify as Democrats mostly have high regard for science and scientific conclusions, whereas Republicans do not. This is hardly news. Edsall traces it to the establishment of environmental and workplace safety regulation back in the 1970s. 

 

He writes "These pillars of the regulatory state were, and still are, deeply dependent on scientific research to set rules and guidelines. All would soon be seen as adversaries of the sections of the business community that are closely allied with the Republican Party . . ." This is of course the basic reason for climate change denial as it emerged a bit later, but it actually goes back earlier, to corporate denial of the dangers of lead in the environment, of tobacco, and of excessive sugar consumption. Plutocrats want to make money, and they won't let the truth get in the way. 

Edsall cites Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway of Harvard, who "argue that the strength of the anti-science movement was driven by the alliance in the Reagan years between corporate interests and the ascendant religious right, which became an arm of the Republican Party as it supported creationism (which attributes life to a supernatural creator) over evolution (which explains life through natural processes). He quotes them directly:

As the Republican Party has become identified with conservative religiosity — in particular, evangelical Protestantism — religious and political skepticism of science have become mutually constitutive and self-reinforcing.

Meanwhile, individuals who are comfortable with secularism, and thus secular science, concentrate in the Democratic Party. The process of party-sorting along religious lines has helped turn an ideological divide over science into a partisan one.

 

But the rot has spread beyond corporate greed and religious fanaticism to become utter disregard for truth of any kind. There is no particular corporate interest or religious motive behind totally bogus claims about vaccines, 5G wireless, hydroxychloroquine, or the dietary habits of Haitian immigrants, among innumerable other examples I could give. But once a cult has abandoned regard for reality, anything can be true, or rather, truth doesn't matter. And that is the very dangerous situation in which we find ourselves.

Wednesday Bible Study: Our boy is still bummed out

Again, he seems to be referring to some specific people or incidents, but he's quite vague. In any case, there seems to be a contradiction in his philosophy. In the first place, it's really unfortunate when some people can't enjoy their prosperity. They'd be better off stillborn. on the other hand, the second part of this says that nobody can ever be satisfied, and that nothing has any value or meaning. Oh yeah, again he says "the more the words, the less the meaning," but he does rather go on.

 

 

6 I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on mankind: ² God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.

³ A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. ⁴ It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. ⁵ Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man— ⁶ even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place?

⁷ Everyone’s toil is for their mouth,
    yet their appetite is never satisfied.
⁸ What advantage have the wise over fools?
What do the poor gain
    by knowing how to conduct themselves before others?
⁹ Better what the eye sees
    than the roving of the appetite.
This too is meaningless,
    a chasing after the wind.

¹⁰ Whatever exists has already been named,
    and what humanity is has been known;
no one can contend
    with someone who is stronger.
¹¹ The more the words,
    the less the meaning,
    and how does that profit anyone?

¹² For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

 

Sunday Sermonette: Maybe take your own advice

In chapter 5 Koholet starts to talk in the manner of the proverbs, with brief aphorisms, followed by more of the same musings on the transience of existence and the futility of material wealth. His first words of advice are to "let your words be few," and that "many words mark the speech of a fool." So maybe he should stop repeating himself?

Yes, the meaning of much of this is obscure, which would also seem to violate the principle of parsimony of words.

5 ^[a]Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

² Do not be quick with your mouth,
    do not be hasty in your heart
    to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
    and you are on earth,
    so let your words be few.
³ A dream comes when there are many cares,
    and many words mark the speech of a fool.

⁴ When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. ⁵ It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it. ⁶ Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, “My vow was a mistake.” Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? ⁷ Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.

Riches Are Meaningless

⁸ If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. ⁹ The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields.

¹⁰ Whoever loves money never has enough;
    whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
    This too is meaningless.

¹¹ As goods increase,
    so do those who consume them.
And what benefit are they to the owners
    except to feast their eyes on them?

¹² The sleep of a laborer is sweet,
    whether they eat little or much,
but as for the rich, their abundance
    permits them no sleep.

¹³ I have seen a grievous evil under the sun:

wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners,
¹⁴     or wealth lost through some misfortune,
so that when they have children
    there is nothing left for them to inherit.
¹⁵ Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb,
    and as everyone comes, so they depart.
They take nothing from their toil
    that they can carry in their hands.

¹⁶ This too is a grievous evil:

As everyone comes, so they depart,
    and what do they gain,
    since they toil for the wind?
¹⁷ All their days they eat in darkness,
    with great frustration, affliction and anger.

¹⁸ This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot. ¹⁹ Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. ²⁰ They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 5:1 In Hebrew texts 5:1 is numbered 4:17, and 5:2-20 is numbered 5:1-19.

Smart people can be pretty dumb

I'm reading Postwar, Tony Judt's history of Europe since 1945. There's a lot in there that sheds light on the present day. For instance, Britain was always reluctant about European integration. But Judt's account of Stalinism and the absorption of Eastern Europe by the USSR got me to thinking about the political culture of my youth. Communist parties never got any substantial political traction in Western Europe or North America, but communism in some form (small c intentional) was attractive to some intellectuals and committed political activists. 

Or I should probably say the label communism, or some conception of how Karl Marx's theories of history and political economy were applicable to our present situation, because in fact people in what we call the West* had no idea what was really going on in the U.S.S.R. and its puppet states. I would expect that hardly any one who adopted the label of communism or Marxism in the academy, or joined the Communist Party of the U.S.A. actually wanted to create a society that looked anything like actually existing Stalinism. By the way, neither did Marx. He was a better diagnostician than a clinician. His critique of 19th Century capitalism was astute and provided a useful framework for social analysis. However, his very confident predictions of the future were very wrong, and he was always more than a little vague about how his imagined utopia would actually work. He would have been appalled had he been able to know what would be done in his name.

As the true nature of the Soviet Union became better understood in the West, communism lost its allure. Stalin died a year before I was born. His successor Nikita Khrushchev secretly denounced him to the Congress of the Communist Party in 1956, and his speech was leaked by the Israeli security service Shin Bet. As Wikipedi tells the tale:

 The speech was shocking in its day.^[2] There are reports that some of those present suffered heart attacks and that the speech even inspired suicides, due to the shock with all of Khrushchev's accusations and defamations against the government and the figure of Stalin.^{[3][failed verification]} The ensuing confusion among many Soviet citizens, raised on panegyrics and permanent praise of the "genius" of Stalin, was especially apparent in Georgia, Stalin's homeland, where days of protests and rioting ended with a Soviet army crackdown on 9 March 1956.^[4] In the West, the speech politically devastated organised communists; the Communist Party USA alone lost more than 30,000 members within weeks of its publication.^[5]

Nevertheless, Khrushchev made very limited changes to the Soviet system. The regime no longer practiced large scale terror, but it remained oppressive and economically backward. As the Soviet sphere became more transparent to outsiders, it lost more and more of its allure. Still, even in the 1980s I would occasionally meet people who thought the soviet state had something exemplary to offer us. I also met some former members of the CPUSA from whose eyes the scales had fallen. They had become communists because they truly believed that was the path to end oppression, injustice and inequality. That was still their passionate desire, but they knew they had been duped about how to get there. 

I bring this up because it's instructive in general, but also to emphasize how utterly ridiculous and indeed offensive the Republicans are to be calling Kamala Harris a communist. There is absolutely no prospect that the United State will become anything remotely resembling a communist nation at any time in the imaginable future, and there is nothing whatsoever in the Democratic Party program that resembles communism in any way. If people need a primer about what Soviet Communism actually was, and how it worked, I can provide one. But I'd recommend that if you don't know, or only think you know, you should educate yourself.

*Russia is actually west of the U.S., obviously, but the division between East and West is a European construction of the world.

Michelle Goldberg tells it like it is

Here's a gift link to her latest in TFN. She takes as her departure point Tucker Carlson's recent two hour podcast featuring Darryl Cooper, a fan of Adolf Hitler. 

Cooper proceeded, in a soft-spoken, faux-reasonable way, to lay out an alternative history in which Hitler tried mightily to avoid war with Western Europe, Churchill was a “psychopath” propped up by Zionist interests, and millions of people in concentration camps “ended up dead” because the overwhelmed Nazis didn’t have the resources to care for them. Elon Musk promoted the conversation as “very interesting” on his platform X, though he later deleted the tweet.

 

Some right wingers were nonplussed by Carlson's embrace of Nazism -- although apparently not JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr., who are both scheduled to appear on his show soon. However, as Goldberg goes on to argue, holocaust denial and other alternative histories are the inevitable result of what has become standard denialism on the right of historical consensus and even fundamental consensual reality. 

Cooper is, in fact, correct that abhorrence of Nazism has helped structure Western societies. If we could agree on nothing else, we could agree that part of the job of liberal democracy was to erect bulwarks against the emergence of Hitler-like figures.

For parts of the contemporary right, however, the social consensuses undergirding liberalism are artificial and even tyrannical. After all, the “Matrix”-derived metaphor of being “red-pilled” implies a realization that all you’ve been told about the nature of reality is a lie, and thus everything is up for grabs. And once you discard all epistemological and moral guardrails, it’s easy to descend into barbarous nonsense.

Candace Owens, another anti-woke right-wing celebrity who has lately become Hitler-curious, has also come to question received wisdom about the shape of the earth. “I’m not a flat-earther,” she said in July. “I’m not a round-earther. Actually, what I am is I am somebody who has left the cult of science.”

 

This is what we are confronting, folks. This is for real.

 

Wednesday Bible Study: Give this man some Prozac

In Chapter 4, our gloomy friend descends into the Marianas trench of despair, then he decides at least it's worth having a friend, even if we'd be better off never having been born. Then he refers to some unspecified historical incident, apparently involving a person of low station who ascended to the kingship, with some vague outcome that was apparently not great, but we can't tell what the heck he's talking about. So that's it.

4 Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:

I saw the tears of the oppressed—
    and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
    and they have no comforter.
² And I declared that the dead,
    who had already died,
are happier than the living,
    who are still alive.
³ But better than both
    is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
    that is done under the sun.

⁴ And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

⁵ Fools fold their hands
    and ruin themselves.
⁶ Better one handful with tranquillity
    than two handfuls with toil
    and chasing after the wind.

⁷ Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:

⁸ There was a man all alone;
    he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
    yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
    “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
    a miserable business!

⁹ Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
¹⁰ If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.
¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?
¹² Though one may be overpowered,
    two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Advancement Is Meaningless

¹³ Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning. ¹⁴ The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty within his kingdom. ¹⁵ I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth, the king’s successor. ¹⁶ There was no end to all the people who were before them. But those who came later were not pleased with the successor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

One of the weirdest fads ever

One detail I had forgotten from Epidemics and Society is that in the 19th Century, tuberculosis actually became fashionable. People came to associate it with refinement of character and sentiment, and with artistic creativity.  Yes, many creative people such as Keats and Byron had it, but so did a lot of other people who weren't known as aesthetes. 

 

Nevertheless the idea became so strongly embedded in western European culture that women would cover their faces with rice powder in order to achieve a pallor, and starve themselves so as to appear consumptive. I'm reminded of the heroin chic fad of the 1990s, "characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, emaciated features, androgyny and stringy hair—all traits associated with abuse of heroin or other drugs," although that was largely created by parasitic commercial interests. I am also reminded of the phenomenon of gay men who deliberately tried to get infected with HIV, known as "bug chasing." Being HIV+ apparently seemed like the thing to do for some people. 

Anyway, I don't really have much to say about this except that it seems really weird. Having TB, especially back in the day when there was no effective treatment, being addicted to heroin, and being HIV+ are not desirable states and should not be emulated.

Sunday Sermonette: There are no conspiracies and there are no coincidences

Or maybe there are? Yesterday I was channel surfing between foobaw games and I came upon Roger McGuinn, starting to perform Mr. Tambourine Man as a fundraiser for PBS. I thought I knew what was coming next, and sure enough I was right. For you kiddies, Pete Seeger set the first 8 verses of chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes to music. He embellished it slightly with the refrain "Turn, turn, turn," which became the title of the song, and with the phrase "I swear it's not too late" after "A time for peace." McGuinn later recorded it, far more lucratively, with The Byrds. It became a huge and lasting hit for them.

 

This poem is a rather incongruous interpolation. It is radically different in literary style and voice from the rest of the book, and it also seems opposite in sentiment. It is a celebration of purpose and meaning. Immediately after the author reverts to bewailing the pointlessness of life. I'm not sure whether a scribe inserted this from a different source, or perhaps the author kept a notebook to jot down ideas, just happened to be in a different mood at one time, and inserted this here.  

Because Seeger used the King James Version, I'll give you the poem first in that translation, then the whole thing in the NIV. Note that Kohelet here denies any after life, saying that lives of humans and beasts alike come to an end.

KJV as adopted by Pete Seeger:

 To every thing [turn, turn, turn] there is a season [turn,turn,turn], and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

² A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

³ A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

⁵ A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶ A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

⁷ A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸ A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace [I swear it's not too late].

 

New International Version:

 

3 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. ¹⁴ I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

¹⁵ Whatever is has already been,
    and what will be has been before;
    and God will call the past to account.^[b]

¹⁶ And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
    in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

¹⁷ I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment
    both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
    a time to judge every deed.”

¹⁸ I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. ¹⁹ Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath^[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. ²⁰ All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. ²¹ Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

²² So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 3:11 Or also placed ignorance in the human heart, so that
2. Ecclesiastes 3:15 Or God calls back the past
3. Ecclesiastes 3:19 Or spirit