tdaxp

Two years ago, at about 1:00 PM, I met my wife for the first time.

There has never been a more perfect day.

I've criticized the goonish Group of 88, but at least one of the lynch-mob professors, Dr. Hardt, nonetheless is correct in his view of love as politically transformational. I got the video from Durham in Wonderland, a normally great blog, whose dismissal of Dr, Hardt for using jargon is off-base and unprofessional.

To quote from Michael Hardt's lecture on love:

"It seems to me that what love does, rather than solidarity, is that love extends beyond our standard conceptions of rationality. Beyond the rational calculus of interest... But I understand solidarity as essentially a calculation of interest in which we aid each other or unite with each other because of mutual interests.

I've written about love and the extending embrace as central to the Rise of Christianity.

Tom Barnett, the grand strategist, said it without the jargon:

Embrace.

Love.

Connect.

Embarrass yourself.

A final thought: How is it that someone who knows so much about love, as Mike Hardt seems to -- nonetheless acts out of hate and fear in the persecution of innocent youths?

Simple: we are rational. Speaking well does not correlate with acting well. We do what we do, we say what we say, and these activities tend not to influence each other much.

"Public goods" is the economics idea of something that benefits everyone and can't be denied to anyone. The schoolbook example of a public good is a lighthouse, by some scary rocks in the sea. When the lighthouse is working, every captain, and not just those who helped pay for the lighthouse, enjoy the benefits of seeing in the nights. All boats become safe, and not only those ships whose owners have paid.

Another example of a public good is national defense. Everyone, common citizens, soldiers, and criminals, enjoy the military's protection from foreign armies. Sure, the government can come after you in other ways if you don't pay your taxes, but there is no way for the government to allow the barbarian horde to enter your home without allowing it to enter our national borders, as well.

Interesting, the Bible describes hatred as destroying public goods. In Malachi when God famously loves Jacob but hates Esau, hatred is operationalized by destroying things that all of Esau's people would have enjoyed...

And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Whereas Edom saith, "We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places"; thus saith the LORD of hosts, "They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. "

Pretty heavy stuff.

Esau's people lose the public good of collective security -- they experience hate.

And so you don't think this is just part of the Old Testament forgotten by the kinder, gentler Christians, Paul repeats the story in his Letter to the Romans. Yes, the same Paul who emphasized Love as the core of Christianity.

God's providing us with a clue on the meaning of love and hate. Hatred means, among ohter things, destroying public goods. Love means, in part, building public goods. A loving, Christian government would thus build infrastructure, such as lighthouses. A loving, Christian government would thus bring security to the people with an army. But both lighthouses and armies fall short of a true love, because both involve taking things away from others in order to provide it to the public. Thus, true love by the community would involve generating public goods without the use of taxes -- without police powers. "Forced love" is called rape.

A more loving public good are the open-source word processes and document formats. These are free, universally available, tools that allow professional word processing, spreadsheet calculation, and presentations. They have no marginal cost and no fixed cost. They are available to all people in all places, weather students or lawyers, Rwandans or Americans. OpenDocument is a public good. OpenSource OpenDocument is a public good. Encouragint the widespread adoption of the open source OpenDocument technology is as simple as using OpenDocument-compatible tools, such as free-as-in-speech OpenOffice and free-for-use Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Quiet evangelism, such as making your originals in ODT and sending those alongside Microsoft Word DOC files, helps.

But the government can help the people -- all people -- too. Recently, California became the fourth state to consider requiring that "all documents, including, but not limited to, text, spreadsheets, and presentations, produced by any state agency shall be created, exchanged, and preserved in an open extensible markup language-based, XML-based file format." For little or no extra cost, California may liberate millions of Californians from the rentiers (ron-tyays) at Microsoft. Even better, the spread of this technology in California would have viral effects, ultimately making everyone's information easier to make, easier to store, and easier to read.

"All The Way Up to Heaven," by Guster, Lost and Gone Forever, 28 September 1999, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00001SIEW/002-8053330-8680837?v=glance (lyrics).

Why is monotheism positively correlated with violence?

Because when God loves you this much, you can do anything for Him.

He said to only look up
He said to never look down
Down is where he came from
He said to hope for the best and take a load off my chest
Soon I could be happy
And go all the way up to heaven
And go all the way back home
(whistles)
He thought I might need his help
No one gets high on themselves
I just seem so lonely
He's just trying to be nice
And spread around his advice
I could be that happy
And go all the way up to heaven
And go all the way back home
Stay the way I am today and serve to more disaster
He could tell a fairy tale that's happy ever after
Just relax and green of grass will grow here for a change
Maybe then we'll last a million years or more..or more..or more
And go all the way up to heaven
And go all the way back home
Yes, I do believe what he says
I want to be happy
I could show you this hell
No one gets by on themselves
He can make me happy
(It's a long silent peace)
And I will only love him
(It's a weakness in your knees)
And I will never look down
Down is where we came from
(It's a perfect place to go for everlasting love)
Because it's all in the past
(Nothing to fear, nothing to hide)
He took a load off my chest
(You just say what's on your mind)
(Needn't think before you speak)
Ooh cause it's not happy
(This is how it's meant to be)
Cause I had needed his help
(Never high, never fall)
No matter how by myself
(You can do no wrong at all)
I am going nowhere
(In this heaven up above filled with everlasting love)
And now I'm changing my plans
Because we only live once
Ooh could be this happy
Once, I could live by his side

It might be the theme of Saint Paul and Heavan.
It might be the theme of Mohammad Atta and Paradise.

It's the theme of any super-empowered monotheist faith-warrior.

No wonder the polytheist Romans were spooked.

No wonder the faithful can embrace struggle and pain.

The founders of Christianity knew how they would win

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Jesus (Luke 6:27-31)

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Paul (Romans 13:9)

Generally, there are two means to use against an enemy -- violence and politics -- and two strategies -- take-over and take-down. To put it in a 2x2 matrix