Reading: Capitalism and Progress by Bob Goudzwaard.

The book traces the foundations of capitalism through the philosophical trends beginning with the Renaissance. I’m not through the book yet, so:

a) don’t ruin it for me.
b) if I assume too much on the part of Goudzwaard, don’t be too upset at me.

What has been most interesting so far is the case Goudzwaard makes for the distinctly humanist roots of capitalism. Many people like to associate the rise of capitalism with the rise of Calvinism, but Goudzwaard makes his case against that by tracing the gradual shift from a God-centered philosophy/society in the Middle Ages to a human-centered society by the end of the Enlightenment. While the fathers of modern free market economics, most notably Adam Smith, were deists, Goudzwaard points out that their watchmaker God was a not a direct influence on the rise of the free market economy. What was a greater influence was the increasing shift to faith not in God, but in human progress.

His points are well-taken. The Enlightenment was about throwing off the mantle of the Church, and belief in God, and embracing the power of humanity, and the promise of the progress humanity could achieve. While Calvin has done much in the redemption of labor, to claim that Calvinism and Puritanism have been driving forces in the development of the free market economy does seem to ignore history. But if Goudzwaard is right, what claim do we have for redeeming the institution of capitalism? Remember that I haven’t the book yet, and Goudzwaard suggests he has an alternative solution for the ills that capitalism has brought with it. But, at the moment, based on his survey on the philosophical foundations of capitalism, how do we seek to redeem an institution that was the offshoot of a movement to marginalize Christianity?

Posted on 26 December 2004

I’ve always enjoyed reading Ludwig Wittgenstein. I spent several years at school focusing on him and his theories (and how they related to theology) — due mostly to my advisor’s interest in him — and I read and re-read his work periodically. Today I found this entry on a Crooked Timber contributor’s site, and realized it’s been some time since I’ve read anything. Perhaps I’ll dust off Culture and Value over the holidays.

I’ve always admired Wittgenstein as a philosopher, primarily because he always saw philosophy as merely a part of his life and world. Read through the Wikipedia entry, and you’ll see that his list of accomplishments spans many disciplines. And his only work published during his lifetime was written while serving as a soldier during World War I.

Posted on 23 December 2004

GridBag

If you’ve never done Java GUI programming circa 1999, don’t even bother clicking on the link — you won’t get it. Otherwise, enjoy.

Posted on 22 December 2004

Lately I’ve been unmotivated to write in the space. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about things (there’s been plenty of fodder provided by Gideon Strauss), it’s that I haven’t had the time or motivation to write coherent responses to those things. I have been collecting a reading list, however, and hopefully I’ll make some progress on it during the holidays. Here’s what’s in the hopper:

* The Executed God. A Christian perspective on the lock-down culture in America.
* A long list of articles and books about the relationship between Christianity and Evolution (and specifically Darwinism). Lots of historical perspectives, too, tracing the development of Darwinism and the Christians responses to it. As a side note, this list was given to me by a friend who is a philosophy of science doctoral candidate at Pitt, with an emphasis on evolutionary/developmental theory.
* A book of essays by Herman Dooyeweerd.

That should keep me busy, and hopefully I’ll be prodded into writing a bit more.

Posted on 21 December 2004

It’s rather chilly here in Pittsburgh this morning (temperatures hovering around 0 degrees fahrenheit without wind chill), and we had a fair amount of snow yesterday. So, out of respect for my Steamroller, I fixed up the old singlespeed mountain bike this weekend and rode it to work through the snow and slush. The bike is currently geared at 32×16 (the traditional SS mountain bike gearing), so I wasn’t exactly moving quickly. Hopefully the roads will clear up tomorrow and I can ride the Steamroller again. Perhaps I should sell the mountain bike and buy a beater fixie…

Posted on 20 December 2004

Saturday afternoon was the Iron City Icepick, the year’s last alleycat. The winter storm held off for a few hours, and the weather was actually quite nice for a ride around the city — temperatures around 40 degrees with little wind. The clouds even parted for a bit for a nice little sunset. The race wasn’t as well attended as the previous one — there were perhaps 25 people who started — but a group of messengers made the trip from Philadelphia, and there were some new faces in the crowd of usual suspects.

The format was simple, and very messenger-like: you got one of two manifests when you registered, describing two pickups and deliveries. Once those were finished, you headed back to the start area (Duke’s bar in Oakland) to get the other manifest. I started (as did most people) with the black manifest — two pickups in Bloomfield, with deliveries in South Oakland and East Liberty. I was hanging with the lead group until the mayhem at the second pickup. I fell off the back of the first group, but stayed well ahead of the second group, meaning I’d probably spend most of the race alone. I lost time when I had some problems finding the South Oakland delivery — the best reason to stay with the lead group, but I think I made some of that up when I swung back into East Liberty. After the delivery it was back to Duke’s to get the pink manifest.

It wasn’t much different than the black — a pickup and delivery in Bloomfield, a pickup in South Oakland, and delivery at Dee’s Cafe in the South Side. Bloomfield went quickly, and at the South Oakland pickup quickly as well, but I knew I’d lose some time getting to the South Side, just because I wasn’t sure of the most efficient path. The trip there did provide one of the nicest moments ofthe race — riding across the mostly dark Birmingham Bridge after dark, with the city glowing all around. The ride back to Duke’s was hard, as expected, but I survived and was soon on my way back to Duke’s.

Final score? I finished eleventh, which has been my best finish so far. I know I could have cracked the top ten had I stayed with the lead group, but, oh well, and at least I managed to keep the second group behind me.

Posted on 20 December 2004

I jumped the gun a bit when I listed Subaru’s WRC team for next season — Mikko Hirvonen had yet to be signed, and today, Subaru announced that Chris Atkinson would share the second works car with Stephane Sarrazin. Atkinson will drive the loose surface events, with Sarrazin piloting the Impreza on the sealed surface events. Hirvonen will likely sign a one-off deal with Ford/M-Sport, driving a 2003 spec WRC Focus for most of the season.

Posted on 17 December 2004

Antithesis has an interesting splash page at the moment, and I love their warning at the very bottom.

Posted on 15 December 2004

Gideon Strauss has opened a great discussion about the current crop of public intellectuals and his desire to see three (!) neocalvinists on the list in the very near future. The discussion is well worth a look.

Posted on 15 December 2004

Derek Melleby has started a series on necalvinism, and that got me thinking. Neocalvinism seems to be a distinctly academic adventure, with the loudest voices being professors and other involved in higher education. In fact, Derek quotes Byron Borger’s thoughts on the subject, and he hammers home one of the goals of neocalvinism:

we need to re-think the inner structures of each academic discipline which shape each area of life.

So then, does this mean that I’ve missed the boat? I’ve got no access to those academic, or, should I say, I’ve got no access to change them. So where does that leave me? Am I not a neocalvinist because I’m in the private sector? Am I something else entirely? But Borger also describes the reformational aspects of neocalvinism this way:

A word coined to describe a new brand of Calvinists who take the ideas of the Protestant Reformation beyond theology and abstract debates about the nature of the atonement and church life and rather seek to bring about Christian cultural change and social transformation.

While philosophical change does often come from the ivory tower, it’s also easy for the debate to become abstract, even when the topic is transforming culture. Utlimately, culture has to be changed, and that takes more than academicians to bring about that change. And, of course, one of the founders of neocalvinism, Abraham Kuyper, was more than just an academic — as Derek points out, he was a pastor, the president of a university, the editor/publisher of a national newspaper, and the prime minister of the Netherlands. While Kuyper was a brilliant intellectual who’s lectures and papers did brings about a change in the philosophical landscape of his country, he was also out in culture, applying his thought to his actions.

This, of course, opens a whole different discussion — what should neocalvinism look like, out in the wild? We like to see the great Christian struggle with the secular world as some sort of battle, and while sometimes it is, it doesn’t always need to be. Often though, the battle involves nothing more than being there, doing our thing, being a part of culture in a positive way (much like Kuyper was). Philosophical change without postive action will result in nothing more than interesting reading for future generations.

Posted on 15 December 2004