Church of the Advent again
I went to worship at the Anglo-Catholic Church of the Advent today again, and had brunch afterwards with my new friend and long-time parishioner John and some other parishioners. It was a good experience. I've been a big fan of hymn (hymn, mind you, not songs) singing for quite a while, and especially loved the 17th-19th century hymns they use. The theology and liturgy are both quite Catholic, though strangely enough I've always found Quaker faith and practice to be more Catholic than Protestant in nature and consequently I'm quite at home in either a Roman Catholic or High Church Anglican congregation.
So much about my love for God, Christ and J.S. Bach. Here's something really troubling. I don't know whether to cry or laugh. It's perverse, yet it's perverse in a bizarre and borderline-comic way. I shouldn't have called it comic, since it's a tragic situation, but every now and then you get something tragic that is at the same time hilarious...
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1231684&page=1
(about 13 y.o. twin sisters singing white-supremacist propaganda songs...)
Maine again
Writing up our memo has been a pain in the neck. Nevertheless, there's been some good news--I will be visiting Maine with my friend Jonathan again on November 5, to attend Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting session. This is going to be gorgeous. I can't wait to visit folks up there amidst all the New England autumn leaves...
According to Jonathan, we might be able to visit a pastoral Friends Meeting. This should be an eye-opening experience for me, since despite having been a Quaker for a little while, I have never been to a pastoral meeting, with hymn singing, preaching, and Scripture-reading, etc.
academic work
Our second closed memo in the legal writing class is considerably more complicated than our first. But I think it should be fine.
Aside from course readings, I've finally finished Fried's "Contract as Promise." The book I'm currently reading is Edward H. Levi's "An Introduction to Legal Reasoning." Dr. Levi's basic thesis is that legal reasoning is neither inductive nor deductive, regardless of whether one is dealing with case law or statutory interpretation; and is highly problematic in that parties, in suing one another, effectively place themselves under the case law they themselves had participated in creating. In the first half of the book, he carefully traces the various difficulties in creating case law doctrines and in interpreting legislative 'intent' (as though in most cases there is one...)
The first Jewish president of a major nonsectarian research university (University of Chicago, 1968-1975), Edward Levi was a distinguished man in many respects. He was also the Attorney General who brought the Justice Department out of disrepute following the Watergate scandel (1975-1977) as well as Dean of the Law School and Provost at U of C (1950-1962, 1962-1968). My only complaint about him is that he didn't quite provide George Anastaplo with enough support when the latter was denied bar license in 1950 (see my previous post on Anastplo.)
In the meantime, my torts hornbook should be arriving at any time. I'm looking forward to it, since we pretty much focus exclusively on legal theory, rather than doctrines, in class.
Liberalism v. Democracy
I have increasingly noticed the rift and tensions between the notions of liberalism and democracy. Hayek saw it, and mentioned the cult of democracy in his "Road to Serfdom." Leo Strauss saw it, and noted how democracies could only bring down a liberal society, and that the Republic the American Founders had in mind were really "a Republic in which all members are Aristocratic," not a "Democracy." Carl Schmidt certainly saw it, when he noted how a truly unfettered Democracy (or "Parliamentarism") usually, if not always, lead to an illiberal body politic.
A liberal polity is one that promotes create such an environment in which its citizens may pursue virtue as they see fit in a truly free and unfettered fashion within the confines the citizenry had previously set forth. The body politic, by creating such an environment and not directly involve itself in setting collective goals, foster a virtuous citizenry.
A democratic polity, on the other hand, focuses obsessively on its pursuit of vulgar egalitarianism and homogenous great society, in which individual members enjoy various unqualified freedoms that were granted them by the big brother state that doesn't come with strings. Freedom that doesn't come with responsibility, so to speak. In a sense, these are no freedom at all. They are candies handed out by brother Democracy.
Or, compare a constitutional republic and a democracy. What do you see in the former? A citizenry that, according to Rousseau, is forced by its own previously declared will to be free. Yes, forced to be free! Free to bound one's own future conduct without knowing where fate will lead it to! (i.e. establishment of a Constitution) What do you see in a Democracy? Weimar Republic? 1st and 2nd Republics of France? The United States throughout history (Marred before WW2 by slavery, lynchings and segregation and after by various New Deal/Fair Deal/Great Society programs)?
tightly-knit intellectual community
As mentioned in my last post, I am increasingly convinced of the necessity for scholars and aspiring young students as well to form closely knit communities, in which ideas could be freely exchanged, and more importantly, debated. Plato's Symposium came immediately to mind. No less illustrious was the tiny faction of neo-liberal (mostly monetarists) economists at the University of Chicago (and later its law school too) which eventually launced the law and economics movement...
Dinner club
Last night I went with a group of law school buddies to watch the Solomon Amendment debate, and we had dinner together afterwards at Cambridge Commons. I think we should perhaps make this dinner thing (which has been going on between Ben and I for several weeks, with different other people joining us each time) a weekly event. Having a close group of buddies who could exchange ideas is always good.
In the meantime, I also met some very interesting people in school. On Thuesday morning, after working out with Andy, we went to Harkness Commons for breakfast. There we met Prof. Weimin Zuo, a professor of law from Sichuan University School of Law who's currently a visiting scholar at Harvard. We had breakfast together, and Prof. Zuo mentioned to us how he will be delivering a paper on criminal procedure and judicial process in China this November. I'm definitely looking forward to that. This is very interesting.
Last but by no means the least, I met my former political science TA at Penn, Yanbo Wang, who's since then transferred to MIT Sloan School to pursue a Ph.D. in international management, at the Harvard Coop. I'm thinking how the two of us and Andy should get together maybe next Thursday for dinner. A former Penn kid, Andy went to his recitation session too...
Hayek, Schumpeter and the monopolistic players
One thing that many libertarians do tend to overlook as we study the history of economic thought is that both F.A. Hayek and Joseph A. Schumpeter, two of the most vehement defenders of the market order when it was under Socialist assaults in the 30s, was that both men tend to view oligarchic enterprises as quasi-governmental entities, which means that their domination is just as harmful, if not more so, than government dictatorship over the individual's ultimate choice of his own end of life.
Schumpeter mentioned how it was precisely the mega-capitalists' vast successes that will eventually lead to their demise. This works on the following way. As capital accumualte and accumulate and these enterprises grow disproportionately, they become increasingly run not be entrepreneurs (who are prone to pursue Creative Destruction) but by bureaucrat-like managers. And lack of creative destruction in turn lead to impediment to new inventions, etc., and the whole system will eventually be bogged down the same way our federal government is.
Hayek on the other hand mentioned repeatedly the mammoth enterprise's domination in the market as some kind of half-way-house to complete government control over the economic life (and later the entire social life, for what are economic choices but choices to best utilize scarce resources to achieve ultimate, non-economic ends?) of the citizens. He did this by noting how most monopolies were in fact either set up by the government (East Indian Co.) or encouraged by the government. And this universal "struggle against competition promises to produce in the first instance something in many respects even worse...a sort of syndicalist or 'corporative' organization of industry, in which competition is more or less suppressed but planning is left in the hands of the independent monopolies of the separate industries." How very interesting. So in a sense the government that encourage monopolistic behavior is even worse, in the eyes of thie chief classical liberal thinker of the 20th century, than the statist government that promotes social programs such as the Great Society...
I wonder how many classical liberals and libertarians out there are happy to face this ugly reality. Whereas it is true that there is not many monopolies out there, there are plenty of oligarchic players, which are a little less harmful, but still...
In a nutshell, shouldn't modern liberals also start to realize that many early libertarians are not just "anti-government" (a favorite pet charge they love to make against classical liberals, libertarians, etc.) but "anti big businesses" as well?
Some progress in school
I got to work on Benjamin Liebman's article on the development of defamation laws in China, which is to appear in the coming issue of the International Law Journal. This should be fun since the editors-in-charge have announced that they need someone who reads and writes Chinese to work on this project...
In the meantime, I am working on F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfdom," which curiously is a book that I've never read in its entirety...it is very thought-provocative, and although the scenarios Hayek posted are a little bit dated, one could see how many of his prophecies, etc. still pertain to the various social problem we are facing today. Another book that I'm half-done with is Charles Fried's "Contract as Promise," which sought to defend the classical views on the moral foundations of the Law of Contracts, namely, that a promisor's obligation to live up to his promise is the fulfillment of the general covenant of "promise," which moral force lies on the Kantian principles of trust and individuals-as-ends. Interesting read, though Prof. Fried seems to himself admit that there are too many occassions (gaps in the promise-making process, etc.) that may force courts to render judgments basing on some other premise external to the promise the parties have made, such as the notions of restitution and reliance, which are in some sense tortious (restitution in particular has its roots in the general law of remedies.)
F.A. vs. Salma Hayek
Friedrich A. von Hayek and Salma Hayek are probably the two most celebrated Hayeks in recent history. The former a Nobel Laureate in Economics (1973) and the latter an Oscar-nominated actress (2003). Any relations here? Unfortunately no.
The older Hayek's last name comes from the Czech name Hajek. And it's not even surprising, since Czech, or Bohemia, as it was then known, was long part of the Autro-Hungarian Empire, where F.A. Hayek grew up.
On the other hand, Salma Hayek is a half Lebanese-Arab/half Mexican born in Mexico. Her last name came from the Arabic Ha'ik (correct me on this.)
Amazing, isn't it? One would think of "Hayek" as a rather unique name but apparently we've got different roots for it...
Northern New England
Gee...it was such a stunning experience. I went with my friend Jonathan from Cambridge to visit some friends of ours in Maine and Vermont. It was quite a long, and leisurely trip. We drove 570 miles in two days, and travelled through various cities, including North St. Johnsbury, the northern-most city in Vermont.
The scene was breathtaking. As we drove northward, we noticed that more and more trees had turned orange and red. One could only imagine what it would be like in a month's time! The air was crisp and the people very friendly and hospitable. It was such a paradise.
It also reminds us the importance of switching our attention away from our daily work, no matter how interested we are in them. A short, daily "retreat" from the labors in life is quite necessary, I am convinced. Some meditation and devotional reading and silent periods would be good.
Just back!!!
Just got back from the northern part of New England! Jonathan and I travelled 570 miles in two days, from Cambridge to Auburn (Maine) to North St. Johnsbury (Vermont) to South Starksboro (Vermont) to Concord (New Hampshire). We spent last night in a F/friend's house in S. Starksboro.
It is such a gorgeous country. The leaves have already been turning red in the northern parts of Vermont and one could only imagine how dazzling a whole valley of red maple leaves could be! Our hosts are very warm and hospitable too, and the New Englanders in general seem to be very nice. This is such a wonderful trip!
More importantly, the fellowship meal and worship sharing last night and the morning worship today were both very Spirit-filled, and almost everyone felt the presence of the Spirit of God, and came out refreshed.
My friend and mentor Jonathan Vogel-Borne will email me some pictures we have taken, and I will post them on this page later tonight or tomorrow.
