Is Figure Skating a Sport? - George

The question of wether or not figure skating or other similar competitive events should be considered a sport often stirs up strong emotions.  But this need not be so.

On both sides of the issue "sport" is usually viewed as being the top of the food chain within the category of labels of types of competition. So questioning the sport-ness of figure skating is a questioning of its value. But if the hierarchy of labels is where the error lies then we need not be so hasty to get emotional about figure skating not being a sport. If sport and whatever figure skating actually belongs to can be considered on equal grounds, then we can talk about these issues with our motions and check, and maybe find out that figure skating is better off as something else.

This is not a place for a detailed breakdown of different categories, but for the sake of discussion I will suggest a few categories to illustrate where I think the answer to this question is best found.  First, the broadest category might be called games. The Olympic Games are called and include examples from several sub-categories of games.  Baseball and figure skating are both games.  So are ping pong and curling.  Within the category of games I see three (at least) ways of dividing games into sub-categories.  The first (and by first I don't mean first in order of value), is sport. I would define sport as competition between two parties decided by the outcome of the actions of each party against each other.  The second sub-category I would call competitive performance.  Competitive performance involves a subjective element decided on by judges outside of the action. I don't have a good name for the third category but it includes games where the performers compete against their personal best, and that score or time is put against the other competitors.  This would include things like golf and downhill skiing.

If these categories are agreed upon then it is clear that figure skating is not a sport, rather it is a competitive performance.  And I would argue that making this distinction does not denigrate figure skating but rather, by naming it more accurately, allows it to be valued properly.  Figure skating can't compare to sports because it is not a sport.  It will always have an inferiority complex when it is considered in a category it doesn't belong in.  Considered properly it can be admired properly. Competitive performance is a serious category with a serious audience. Games within competitive performance require serious and admirable commitment from its participants. Competitive performance as a category should be proud of itself, and figure skating is a prince among competitive performance games.

So no, figure skating is not a sport. But that is a good thing for figure skating.

What is a Fair Tax System? - George

There is a lot about taxes that we are in no position to have a good opinion on.  I don't know what a fair tax system would be. We are too far off the ranch to have any bearings to build a square foundation. But there are a few things we could change about how we pay taxes that would put us in a better position to eventually develop strong views about a fair tax system.

Taxes have been around forever. Commissions are like a tax. Tips are too. It makes sense for the one who is doing the work to be compensated for it. But the way taxes are normally done these days is a problem.  Consider how we are taxed for our own labor, and for the things we already own.  Here the government gets a commission on something it doesn't play any direct role it.  Some will argue that the government makes it possible for us to work and to maintain our property so they have right to tax.  But this misses the point.  If the government is rightly managing and protecting the things that keep us free to earn and own, then tax those things.  Put up till booths on the roads and bridges and stuff like that, tax real things. If you can't make the money back to fund the stuff that government is doing, then let a private business try it.  We would feel better about taxes if they were associated with something we experience a return of value from. This is the place where we will be in a position to figure out the best system.

In a similar way, there is value in paying taxes with cash in an experience-able moment.  Siphoning taxes out of paychecks, adding sales taxes to our total bill, these things train us to be disengaged from our government. When the transaction is obscured, the parties involved are obscured. It is a pain to have to give up the convenience, but the convenience is the pot brought slowly to a boil, and we are the frog inside.

Taxes aren't really taxes until the transaction becomes more concrete.  Because of how far off the trail we have travelled it won't be until we are handing over physical money as tax for a real good or service we won't understand taxes enough to build a fair tax system.

Should College Football Players Be Paid? - George

College football player should not get paid, but college-age football players should.

NCAA football wants things to keep going as they are. The money being made from college football is at an all time high, and getting higher. The issue of paying players is a hot topic right now because NCAA football’s lucrative success has doomed them by demonstrating that there is a substantial market for 18-22 year old football entertainment. There is no going forward as things have always been. A law suit will eventually wear a hole in the walls of arbitrary amateurism laws and antitrust exemptions. A free market league will eventually exist.  The question is, will it be run by the NCAA.

The two choices before the NCAA will be to A) keep going after the money by attempting to run the quasi-free market league, or B) risk losing the big money by letting the blue chip talent go to a free market league unaffiliated with colleges.  

It is clear that they will eventually morph into option A (unless a new league beats them to it and forces them to option B).  There is too much money involved for them to risk the unknown of B.  But option A is shortsighted. Individual schools will suffer. And the game will suffer. This road will further polarize the football landscape with haves and have-nots. Many schools will shut down their football programs. The few schools that have a piece of the pie will look no different than a lesser version of the NFL. Yikes!

I think option B is the better strategy. The quality of college football can and will survive and thrive on the 3 star talent they can buy with their scholarships. We see the powers-that-be in college basketball scrambling to keep free market athletics from happening (with their one-and-done rulings). But we also see that even with the mass defection of talented freshman to the NBA college basketball remains very popular, perhaps more popular than ever (and a case can be made that forcing kids to play a year of college basketball is a bad thing for the game). The same will be true for football. We may even see a better overall product without the top recruits.

But I not only think that B is a better option, I think it will eventually be the only option for true college football. If universities remain in the “business” of football (paying for play) it will also mean that they remain committed to the current school business model. And the school business model, as it stands, is coming to an end. The education bubble has burst.  A college degree is not worth the investment, not even close (a big reason college football players are looking to get paid is because of inflation on their current payroll dollar - the education. No one is talking about this). Universities have shot themselves in the foot by watering down their product to maximize their enrollees and streamline their athletic recruiting. If schools don’t change their model they will fail as universities and take their football programs with them. But if they do change their model and make their education valuable again, then they won’t be able to exploit the best football talent. The only way forward is to reform their schools and return to the older version of compensating athletes - with an education that will be valuable to them.

The NCAA will feel that the top option will preserve what they have.  And they will think that is where the money is (and it will be in the short term). The landscape of college football has been shifting in that direction for years. But the best thing for colleges and the college football product is to stay in the football game but get out of the business of football.  There will still plenty cash to be made.  Let the market exist. Let kids earn what they are worth. Players should be paid, but not by schools, not if we want to keep a semblance of the college football that we love.

Does Fiction Writing Have Value? - George

In Dorothy Sayers’ book, The Mind of the Maker, she writes,

“All language about God must necessarily be analogical. We need not be surprised at this, still less suppose that because it is analogical it is therefore valueless or without any relation to the truth. The fact is, that all language about everything is analogical; we think in a series of metaphors, We can explain nothing in terms of itself, but only in terms of other things. Even mathematics can express itself in terms of itself only so long as it deals with an ideal system of pure numbers; the moment it begins to deal with numbers of things it is forced back into the language of analogy. In particular, when we speak about something of which we have no direct experience, we must think by analogy or refrain from thought. It may be perilous, as it must be inadequate, to interpret God by analogy with ourselves, but we are compelled to do so; we have no other means of interpreting anything.”

Sayers is not inventing a new theory here. Language and understanding have been described this way for centuries. And if it is true that we think in metaphors and can only explain things in terms of other things, then stories are not only valuable, but invaluable.

This does not necessarily validate fictional stories. Metaphors and stories also come in non-fiction varieties. Some might argue that non-fiction stories are the only useful stories. They would say only true stories are valuable and only non-fiction can be considered true. I agree that only true stories are valuable. But I would disagree that only non-fiction stories can be true stories.

All non-fiction stories are edited. The narrative is interpreted and then shaped from a infinite harvest field of facts. The teller of the story selects moments and orchestrates the narrative to communicate a particular agenda. The truth of the story depends on how faithfully he tells it. What classifies the story non-fiction is that the elements of the story are selected from history, not because of its truthfulness. In other words, non-fiction stories are not necessarily true stories. True stories are defined by other terms.

In Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, Carpenter describes a conversation between Tolkien and Lewis before Lewis became a Christian. Lewis is struggling with the falsehood of the myths that he loves. Tolkien contradicts this characterization of myth and says,

“You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it is just a ball of matter moving on a mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only inventing your own terms about them. And just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth. We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour.”

This quote from Tolkien is consistent with Sayers' quote above. If we are those who understand via analogy and metaphor, then true stories are what is needed most for us to grow in understanding. True stories train us and lead us toward wisdom. The truth of stories depends upon its analogical accuracy and usefulness for understanding. Just like non-fiction, not all fiction literature is true story. And (also like non-fiction) fiction will contain error. But as Tolkien says of myth, “they steer however shakily toward the true harbour.”

Is fiction valuable? True fiction is of the highest value.

What Is Liberty? - George

A friend from church posted an interesting quote from Thomas Aquinas on facebook the other day. I tracked down the reference and found it in Pope Leo XII's Encyclical on Capital and Labor from 1891.

It rests on the principle that it is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one wills. Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right of man, and to exercise that right, especially as members of society, is not only lawful, but absolutely necessary. "It is lawful," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "for a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human existence."" But if the question be asked: How must one's possessions be used? - the Church replies without hesitation in the words of the same holy Doctor: "Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need. 

I was intrigued by the last part in particular, where Thomas mentions the purpose and sphere associated with owning property.  I tend to think of ownership in an abstract way, or at least in a way that is contained to an individual disconnected form time and space.  But the above quote says the universal idea of ownership does not exist without an account for purpose and neighbors.  To take it to its extreme, there would be no such thing as private ownership without others - and not to keep from, but to use as common to all.  In way you might say their is no ownership, only ruled user-ship (or stewardship).

In the same way, we tend to think about Liberty in the abstract or ego-centric way, or at least in terms of Liberty from X (often another abstraction like Tyranny).  But what is the purpose and sphere of Liberty? The time and space of it? How do we take into account the fundamental corporate-ness of our humanity and thereby see Liberty first in communal terms?  Following line of thinking from the earlier paragraph, there is no such thing as individual liberty, at least not as it pertains only to an individual. Freedom is freedom with others, a freedom to do things for others, as well as a freedom from others.

Man is about loving God with all his heart, and loving his neighbor as himself. This is the sum of the Torah and Prophets.  In the Gospel According to John, chapter 8, Jesus says that he has freed us from sin, from a world of bondage, a world where humanity struggled to be what they were created for. And now Jesus brings freedom.  And this is not a freedom to neutrality, or an invitation to autonomy, it is a freedom to follow him, to become Christ-like, to grow into our truer selves, as a community and as individuals.

Ironically, true Liberty is the freedom to love, to serve, and to die-to-self for God and neighbor.

Is Instant Replay Good for Baseball? - George

I can't remember where I first heard it, but there is an old philosophy joke about umpires that goes something like this:

Three umpires are discussing how they call balls and strikes.

The first umpire says, "Some are balls and some are strikes, and I call them as they are."

The second umpire says, "Some are balls and some are strikes, and I call them as I see 'em."

The third umpire says, "Some are balls and some are strikes, but they ain't nothin' 'til I call 'em."

One could argue that the calls of a game involve all three of these perspectives. The umpires are deemed good by how well their subjective calls (2nd umpire) match up to the objective strike and ball (1st umpire). But neither strike nor ball exists until the verdict is delivered in history by the umpire (3rd umpire). We experience this as we watch a close play and wait expectantly for the hands to go up with the signal. We see this play out comedically in The Naked Gun when Lt. Frank Drebin goes undercover as an umpire and the whole stadium waits for Frank to give his judgement on the first pitch of the game.

The rising interest in adding instant replay to the MLB experience comes, in part, because of a belief in an accessible objective truth. It is an effort to remove subjectivity from the game. It is tempting to critique the temptation toward a so-called-objectivity. And even though the quest to access and apply pure objective truth is an impossibility, practically speaking, that critique doesn't matter because what really is happening here is that people want the calls to match what they see. We want the ump's subjective call to match the subjective call of us, the technically assisted home viewers. They might frame it, erroneously, in terms of objectivity, but what everyone really wants is unanimity. And careful use of instant replay assures greater unanimity.

Famous umpire, Bill Klem, said, "The best umpired game is the game in which the fans cannot recall the umpires who worked it." This was in reference to the fact that a memorable umpire is almost always memorable for bad reasons. It is easy to go from a sentiment like this to a view that umpires are unimportant, that they are accidental to the game, that there should be a way to do this without them. I don't think MLB officials think this way, but I do see it from the wider public. Pretty soon there will be a call for sensors to be sewn into the fabric of the uniforms, into the baseball, the foul lines, the bags, and home plate. The whole environment will be digitally measurable and give instant reads and there will be no need for the human element. And this will be viewed as allowing for the purest of competition. And maybe it would. But I don't know if that would qualify as an improvement. 

MLB umpires are the best in the business. Observing and judging plays is what they do. The game is fast and sometimes umpires are blocked out from seeing the details. Tools like instant reply can be helpful to them. But instant replay or not, the call is the call, the umpire judges.  The players strive to make a play that will be judged in their favor.  There is no removing the judge. We might replace him with camera and computer version, but the judge is still there, and ultimately it is still subjective.  Yes we'd have greater unanimity, but what do will we lose when we dehumanize the judge? How does our game change when the players strive for a judgement from soul-less technology?  What kind of world are we heading toward?

Does Our Penal System Administer Justice? - George

fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. (Leviticus 24:20, ESV)

I get the impression that most people think eye for an eye Old Testament justice is primitive and severe. But the lex talionis, as it is called, comes to us in a complex narrative that provides a strong foundation for equitable justice for all.

Part of what drives the story in Leviticus is the guilty man's mixed ethnicity. He is only half-Israelite. The implied question from the camp is, "what kind of justice does this guy get, a guy that doesn't fit into the categories we have?" God tells them justice is the same. Even a sojourner in the land should get the same treatment as the Israelite. This is important because human nature has a tendency to want to exact more from the guilty than the guilty have done, especially if they are different from us. And eye for an eye explains that NO MORE than x shall be done. On the flip side we also see a human tendency to judge on behalf of the powerful over the weak. Eye for an eye reserves justice for the weak against the powerful. The elite don’t get a free pass, NO LESS than x shall be done.

We don’t see this kind of justice in our day and age. Our penal system is a mess. And most efforts in recent years to fix it have only made it worse.

We tend to ignore this problem because the system does, by-and-large, remove undesirables from the camp of the power class. Our system protects our day-to-day experience. We consider this justice. And we will probably continue to do so as long as it works for us.

Keeping the camp safe and pure is a key part of justice. This is in the Leviticus story too. Injustice isn’t only between the guilty and the victim, the camp is also an interested party. But we have made the camp into an idol, the other parties of injustice get sacrificed at its altar.

A victim’s hope for equal justice is reduced to how much jail time the guilty receives. And even then it isn’t the sentence of a work-free life of medical benefits, education, libraries, 3 meals a day, and gym membership that satisfies the victim. Victims can hope for no real justice. They are only left with the disturbing temptation to hope new crimes are visited upon the guilty during their stay.

Which brings us to the criminals. All sentences are the same - incarceration. The only difference between eye justice and tooth justice is time (and sentences are inconsistent). Again, unofficially, “justice” is served at the depraved hands of the community of the incarcerated. This, of course, is no true justice.

Our current system only serves one element. The guilty party and the victim are run through a disturbing charade so that the power class can pat itself on the back for its well ordered and clean society. It praises itself for its humane system - evolved beyond the primitive nature of yesteryear. Yet righteousness is not to be found here. We hate to punish so we pretend to rehabilitate. But we know pseudo-rehabilitation doesn’t serve justice so we punish anyway (with our hands clean) by quarantining criminals in a sub-human thunderdome. We end up doing none of the things we say we prize and all of the things we say we loathe, and we do it with a smile because it works for us.

What is Money? - George

In Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy's, The Origin of Speech, Rosenstock postulates a significant difference between pre-formal, informal, and formal speech.

He calls pre-formal speech the type of speech along the lines of "showing a man the direction to the next farm on the road, or stopping a child from crying." Pre-formal speech is the same as animal speech, the human version.

Of informal and formal speech he says, "Informality is a rebellion against formality. Never can 'informal"be called pre:-formal. To be informal means to neglect forms which exist." He illuminates these differences to show that the progression of language is NOT pre-formal to informal to formal. Rather, pre-formal is a different thing altogether, and formal speech must exist before informal.

So what does language have to do with money? Maybe nothing. But maybe money works the same way. What if currency is the formal language of exchange? Language itself is an exchange between multiple parties through a shared context. So it is not so far-fetched to see money belonging to the same category.

The Native American tribes did not have money. They valued things, they had trade, but they did not have money. For century upon century their economy would be described as pre-formal. We might wonder why they never developed a formal currency. But if Rosenstock is right then pre-formal cannot develop into formal. Formal comes first. The history of wampum currency in northeast America suggests a formalization upon the arrival of Westerners in the 1600s.

Rosenstock asserts that for formal speech to exist first, as he contends it must, formal speech must be spoken into the world that doesn’t have it from outside. He would contend that formal speech was initiated and taught to humans by God, and I would agree. If formal money works the same way then this too would have to be initiated and taught to humans by God. The Bible doesn’t explicitly describe this moment. Money isn’t referenced until after the flood. But Genesis 2 does mention lands of precious metals and stone in a curious way.

Speech is not static. It evolves and transforms over time. Yet it would be without meaning if it also wasn’t fixed. Formal speech is much more fixed than informal speech. Two ways of guarding speech is through ritual and through the written word. Ritual speech and writing makes speech exists in history in a tangible and reference-able way. These become the foundations upon which more formal speech, and the other forms of speech develop.

What is money then? What are the formal foundations that formal money exchange, and the other forms of exchange develop upon? We know that money, like speech is not static, that it evolves and transforms over time. There has always been inflation and deflation. But what is the formal money that exists in history behind it all, the thing that keeps it stable, the tangible money that exists in time and space and is the foundation for economies?

Modern economies have developed a formal currency upon mutual agreement. The elastic nature of money is artificially (and some would say nefariously) managed by authorities and institutions so that the everyone keeps to the mutual agreement. It is tempting to deny this as being true money. It might be best described as an informal currency masquerading as formal. As such it is true money, but fundamentally temporary. Our money today is much like a language once rich in the written word that has burned all its books. Eventually it will become meaningless and smaller groups will rebuild formal structures upon new foundations.