Heliotropium and the Election
I could break down this upcoming election by examining the isues from my provincial point of view. My American mind would focus solely upon what Americans have said or written. I would include serious American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote in his introduction to The Scarlet Letter that when one
leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportion to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capacity of self-support....He forever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. His pervading and continual hope--a hallucination which, in the face of all discouragement, and making light of all impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the compulsive throes of cholera, torments him for a brief space after death--is, that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to pick himself out of the mud, when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his Uncle [Sam] will raise and support him?
Given Hawthorne's views on how having a bureaucratic job within the government drains one's vitality and creativity, imagine how severely Hawthorne would have criticized young, able-bodied individuals receiving welfare!
My American mind would also base my examination upon American pop culture, includind Hollywood. For example, I would recall how on one episode of Hogan's Heroes, Colonel Hogan was ordered to "silence" a prominent, Berlin-Betty-like radio propagandist. Because Colonel Hogan did not want to kill a female, he went on her show as a prisoner of war and praised the socialist government for making things easier for the German people by thinking for them. This infuriated the Gestapo, who came into the radio studio and shut down the program due to Hogan's mocking of the government. [I am not quite sure why the Gestapo got upset; there are plenty of people within and outside of government agencies today who do believe that it is the government's job to think for the rest of us.]
However, one of our major presidential candidates complained in Germany that we Americans cannot speak fluent French and thus need to be studying Spanish. [Yeah, I don't quite get the logic of that argument, either.] Therefore, I will view this election campaign from a more international vantage point. No, I will not delve deeply into how the old rich of ancient Athens aligned themselves with the poor by giving the poor stuff so that they could fight the politics of the new and emerging rich [the merchants, artisans, and plumbers of their world], resulting in higher taxes and an overall economic decline. Likewise, I will not concentrate my focus on culturally-rich foreign texts such as Aristophenes's The Congresswomen or Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, both of which analyze how to fight wars and the effects of centralized governments with communist/socialist forms of economies. Instead, I will base my evaluation upon one influential text that was written in the same country, Germany, where the aforementioned speech was held.
Fr. Jeremias Dreschel [also spelled "Drexel" or "Drexelius"] published The Heliotropium, or Conformity of the Human Will with the Divine Will in 1627. [This is almost one and a half centuries before The Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, two documents which Milton and Rose Friedman link together as key reasons for America's political and economic success in their own masterpiece, Free to Choose.] Heliotropium, just one of Dreschel's many popular religious works, examines how one can go about ascertaining the Will of God in one's own life and then follow It the same way some flowers follow the path of the sun as it crosses the sky during the day, as well as reasons why one should do so.
Okay, so something written four centuries ago probably is not going to address all of today's political issues. Nonetheless, this theological dissertation deals with many of the issues being discussed in this election: government assistance, mankind's fight against global warming and other things beyond our control, protecting ourselves against foreign and domestic enemies, the sanctity of human life, and the accuracy of the Bible.
On Government Assistance
Some people think that the federal government should play a greater role in monitoring and improving the physical and financial health of its citizenry, especially the elderly. Dreschel argues against this reliance upon government--or anyone else other than God:
Because the sound man trusts in his health, the wise in his wisdom, and because the poor man hopes to be supported by the rich, and the weak by the powerful, therefore God, in the perfection of His wisdom, frequently removes all these, that, when the props on which we used to rest are gone, we may learn to rest on God alone. [Heliotropium, Book 5, Chapter 10]
Obviously, Dreschel is not arguing against helping others; he is not against charity. What Dreschel does argue against is the expectation of some to expect their government or anyone else to provide for their needs. Instead, people must "learn to rest on God alone."
Furthermore Dreschel suggests that it is often not in the best interest of the poor or of the country to give assistance to the poor. As he points out,
If the necessities of life were supplied to all in abundance, what would follow? The destruction of all trades, mechanics' works and crafts of all kinds. Building, navigation, bird-catching, fishing, and trading of all sorts would go to ruin; and who would be the masters, if there were none to offer themselves as servants? Poverty, therefore, preserves the human race and adorns it. Poverty makes men diligent and industrious. Poverty stimulates the arts. Let Poverty be banished from the world, and at the same time good manners, and nearly all virtues will be banished with it. To eat, drink, sport, act the glutton, or the wanton, and more than act the wanton, will be the chief business of life; riot will attend upon extravagance, vice upon riches. Where there is abundance of all things, there is generally no lack of vices also. Years of plenty prove this, in which the taverns are full of drunkards and overflow with all kinds of filthiness and infamy. The Deluge is an evidence of this; its beginnings were ease and luxury; and so the life of all men was lost to every feeling of shame, and was brimming over with lusts. See, then, how great is the Providence of God, which by means of poverty draws men from wantonness to toil. Labour stimulates the best of men. Whatever object of beauty we anywhere behold was laboriously fashioned by those who were ill supplied with money, and who therefore were obliged to sell their labours. (Book 5, Chapter 7)
This is a point which Adam Smith understood, but Karl Marx did not. This is also one reason why Johnson's Great Society programs have led to a collapse of American society, especially within the inner cities. If people know that government will provide an income--or, as in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a house--, why work? Why not stay at home or at the bar instead? Why try and repeatedly fail, as Edison so famously did, to invent the light bulb if the government is willing to provide everyone with candles? Why exercise and monitor one's own diet if the government is going to pay for the hospital visits? Why strive to excel at anything if the government is going to enable one to scrape by? Clearly, Dreschel is in favor of very limited assistance by the government.
On Global Warming and Other Things Possibly Beyond Human Control
Because Europe was in a mini ice age from around 1400 to 1800 A.D., Dreschel probably would have welcomed global warming, regardless of its cause. Nevertheless, I suspect that Dreschel would have agreed with the many scientists who believe that the Earth's temperature is not being significantly affected by human activity. Many scientists today cite multiple, non-human factors such as volanic eruptions and sun spots as causes of temperature change, and they note past cycles of heating and cooling which occurred long before the Industrial Revolution as further evidence that human activity [such as emitting carbon dioxide into the air] has little to do with the Earth's changing temperatures.
Dreschel offers an appropriate illustration of how foolishly we are behaving when we try to alter those aspects of God's plan which are beyond our control:
But why do we wretched mortals strive in vain? The Divine Will stands, and will for ever stand, like an immovable rock. We shall not draw that to us, but that will draw us to itself. We should laugh if a man, who has fastened his boat to a rock, were to continue pulling at the rope, and fancying that the rock was approaching him, when all the while he himself was drawing nearer and nearer to the rock. And is not our folly greater? since, although bound to that rock of the Divine Will, we desire, by our dragging and struggling, that it should follow us, and not we follow it. [Book 4, Chapter 6]
On National Security Issues
Dreschel was not a pacifist, nor was he a warmonger. Dreschel praised some aspects of soldiers and compared them several times in his book to followers of Christ. For example, he writes:
But it is fitting that a soldier should wait for an order either from the tongue or the hand of his general, holding himself in readiness to execute whatever command is given him, in the same way it is also right that the Christian should so hang, as it were, on the Tongue or Hand of God, that whatever He wills, says, commands, or in whatever direction He gives a sign, he [the Christian] should immediately will the same, and that he should instantly go in that direction, yea, run, or rather fly. [Book 1, Chapter 4]
Dreschel goes on to cite times in which leaders of armies acted honorably and wisely, but he emphasizes that they were victorious because they trusted not their own abilities or the abilities of those around them; they trusted God. Dreschel recounts how, in the Bible, Josaphat sent a band of singers ahead of his army. These singers were charged with singing psalms praising God. When the much larger enemy army heard these psalms, its soldiers slew one another until not a single one of them remained alive to fight Josaphat's soldiers.
Dreschel also tells the story of Frederick II, Duke of Saxony, and his short-lived feud with Frederick, Bishop of Magdeburg. The duke decided against attacking the bishop and the land under the bishop's jurisdiction because the duke's spy had informed him that the bishop had made "no precautions at all for war, and that not even a single soldier had been called out, and furthermore that the Bishop had said that he should commend his cause to God, Who would take up arms for His servant." [Book 5, Chapter 4]
Given these examples, it seems clear that Dreschel would today say that it is okay for us to have a fully prepared army in case we are attacked or are called upon by God to attack, but that we must as a nation trust in God, not in guns or treaties, to protect us against our enemies.
On the Second Amendment and the Sanctity of Life, or Further Evidence on Why Not To Rely on Government
The Second Amendment, that is, our right to keep and bear arms, is not just about being allowed to hunt. First and foremost, the Second Amendment is about us being able to protect ourselves and our loved ones. The government can not always prevent criminals or foreign armies from attacking its citizens. Its people must be able to protect themselves. Additionally, the Second Amendment is designed to keep people within the government from abusing their own power over the citizenry. Although Dreschel is dealing with another topic when he recounts the following story about an ancient Median king, he nevertheless provides an excellent example of someone in power grossly abusing his power:
When Harpagus had dined off the flesh of his own son, and King Astyages (who had prepared the banquet) ordered the remaining limbs, such as the head, and arms, and feet, to be brought forward, and inquired,--"How do you like it?" He replied,--"Whatever the King does I like." Ah! miserable wretch! is it so great a matter to you to throw off the man so that you may please a beast? [Book 3, Chapter 5]
As revolting as Harpagus's response is to King Astages's question, what would getting angry with the king have accomplished? I suspect that the king and his guards had the greater weaponry, and quite likely the only weaponry.
Dreschel's written response to this story is probably also among the best examples in Heliotropium of Dreschel's opinion regarding the sanctity of human life. Obviously, Dreschel does not approve of Harpagus's or the king's actions here for neither of them condemned the murder of the son, nor did either of them condemn the subsequent abuse of his corpse.
Furthermore, Dreschel's strongly-worded condemnation of these two men is important because it shows that Dreschel treats the story as relevant even though it may be ancient. After all, how many fetuses will be discarded; how many elderly, sick, or handicapped individuals will undergo mercy killings; how many girls will undergo honor killings; how many ethnic groups will be cleansed from their societies; how many opposing viewpoints will be silenced; how many opposing gang members will be shot; how many women and children will be strapped with bombs today simply so that someone else can continue on and not significantly change the daily actions of his or her own life, much as Harpagus accepted the sacrifice of his own son in order remain in favor with King Astyages?
On Darwinism and the Bible
During this election campaign, questions have been asked by at least one debate moderator as well as by several interviewers and Hollywood elites as to what the candidates believe in regards to when and how life on Earth was created. Did life evolve, as Darwin claimed, over millions of years, or did dinosaurs roam the Earth five thousand years ago? Essentially, these people in the media were asking the candidates if they believed that the universe and all life as we know it was created in one week as the Bible describes, or if they believed that the Bible was unreliable as a source for truth.
Now despite the facts that Drescel lived two centuries before Darwin and that this text of his was not meant to be used for science class, Dreschel indirectly addresses this issue as well. No, he does not point out that each "day" in the Genesis story of creation might represent a step or stage in the process, but he does rebuke the premise of random selection/survival-of-the-fittest/luck-and-chance as the sole basis upon which life developed. After all, he writes that "God is not an architech who when he has built a house leaves it. He is not only present with His work every moment, but dwells in it continually." [Book 5, Chapter 6]
Furthermore, Dreschel implicitly argues that the Bible is completely reliable by citing hundreds of Bible passages to support what he writes in Heliotropium, as well as numerous quotes from religious leaders which interpret sections of the Bible. He uses Bible quotes like scientific data, accepting them as reliable and verifiable. Yes, Dreshel uses some other sources such as the ancient writers Cicero and Pliny to offer secondary supports for his work. Nonetheless, the majority of Dreschel's quotes and examples come from the Bible, and nowhere in his book does Dreschel question the validity of the Bible.
Concluding Thoughts
I could go into even greater depth as to where Dreschel's Heliotropium falls in the spectrum of today's political issues, but I will not. Instead, I will ask the reader to recognize that this upcoming election, important though it may be, is just an election. It, like everything else in this world, is just one more step in God's overall plan. Just as we are not to rely upon our government for our physical salvation, we are not to rely upon it for our spiritual salvation, either. In the end, we are to do God's work regardless of who is running our country and how our country is changed. Therefore, I will end this essay by quoting the final words of Fr. Dreschel's text, which remain quite relevant yet today:
In all afflictions, however grievous they may be, Thy most just Will will be my chief consolation. This I set before myself as tr\he one and only rule both of living and dying, The Will of the Lord be done! Let the universe be destroyed by tempests from every quarter, let fleets be crippled and destroyed by fleets, let the law courts ring with endless litigation, and still this is my chief business in life, to conform myself entirely to the one and only Will of God. And now I embrace and store in my inmost heart that most holy and divine saying,--"The world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof: but he that doth the Will of God abideth forever." [1 John 2.17]
Deo gratias.