Mathematics After The Fall

Many Americans have this idea about exceptionalism. America doesn’t have the problems that other places do. We read about Zimbabwe and Darfur and Pakistan, and we often say that those things couldn’t happen here. America’s too good for places where government, the community and state, doesn’t work. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Some of those failings are behind the scenes, like how young women turn to violent, brutal, vicious monologues that barely support them, because nothing else is available. (See the last entry.) Many of the others, the lost communities, are generally in places most Americans never see. That’s why we are amazed by descriptions like those in Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day. Over Spring Break, I picked this book up, having heard about it on NPR. I finished it in a day and a half. It’s the first book in the Musings to get the highest rating, 5 out of 5. If you are mature, and at all interested in communities (and I think you should be), this is a vital book. You should read it. I will warn you that the language that Dr. Venkatesh uses is quite brutal. It’s appropriate, because the life is brutal. The book is not for the squeamish. Then again, this blog has never been for the squeamish, either.

I thought for a while before awarding a 5, because that level of importance needs to be rare. It’s like giving A grades; if they’re common they lose value. For a while, I thought I was being generous because I had knowledge of the topology. When I arrived in Chicago in August 2000, some of the Lake Park infrastructure was still visible. When the 47th street entrance to Lake Shore Drive was under construction, I sometimes drove up to 39th street, passing the project on the right. I’ve seen the Robert Taylor Homes, the setting for most of the book, and driven through from time to time. I’ve personally seen the brutalist architecture of large, raw concrete buildings. I’ve seen the unprotected motel-style outside corridors that are completely inappropriate for windy, cold Chicago. I’ve seen mostly boarded up buildings. By 2000, many of the 28 original high-rises had been knocked down, leaving strangely open blocks of territory on State Street. These homes were several blocks from the subway, blocked on the west by the expressway. As even the CHA now states, “By containing a large low-income population on an isolated site, the Robert Taylor Homes property became a national symbol for the errant philosophy of post-war public housing.” They were miserable to view. It’s not hard, retrospectively, to see the problem. Take large numbers of relatively poor people. Choose sites far away from services and public transportation, because those are naturally undervalued. (As has been admitted, the projects didn’t even have the standard Chicago rectangular street grid, to further the isolation. Stack them in ugly buildings - the name brutalist actually comes from the french word for concrete, not how the buildings looked, but it works completely. Fail to maintain the buildings. Remove services and support, like police, banks, and medical services. Watch civil society disappear, and alternative forms of government develop. This means Gangs. After a few years, you get what’s described in this manuscript.

Dr. Venkatesh did the sort of naive idiotic dangerous thing graduate students are warned about. He went to the Lake Park homes to conduct a multiple choice survey. He should have been robbed, beaten, or killed. It happens every so often, even in the better neighborhood of Hyde Park. Instead, the leader J. T. adopts him, for reasons never fully explained. The author gains access, and over time, trust. He documents the world of the failed state, both in academic papers and the book. He worries about ethics and getting too close, even as that closeness furthers his career. (Navel-gazing I’ve never enjoyed reading, and that tradition continues here; these parts can easily be skipped.) In the end, the author gets the top-tier academic job, at Columbia; he has a happy ending. J. T. does pretty well; he gets to retire to the suburbs. The community, on the other hand, gets destroyed, razed with the buildings. The Robert Taylor Homes are like Ben Tre; “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

This might be right; given the errors made in location, construction, and support, I don’t know if the community could ever have survived. It’s an utter embarrassment. You should read about it. As I did, I often cringed. I was also often amazed by J. T.’s skills. He is the best businessman I have ever seen, including the billionaires. With his skills, if he had my childhood, let alone the privilege one of many of my undergraduate compatriots, he would likely have two homes in the Hamptons. Instead, he’s got a stable middle-class life. If I were a business leader, I would read this book then try to hire J. T. After all, you can steal a lot more with a briefcase than a gun, right? If I were anyone else, even with the small flaws I have mentioned, I would read this book. It’s not happy, but it is revealing.

It’s rare to find a single thing that encapsulates both what I appreciate and what I disdain about a subject. The last minute and a half of this Colbert Report clip. In it, Philip Zimbardo tries to suggest that Lucifer was right, showing incomplete knowledge of theology. Stephen Colbert takes 30 seconds of national cable show time to provide proper perspective. And he gets cheered! When Dr. Zimbardo notes that the host learned well in Sunday School, the response is above: “I teach Sunday School, M—–F—–!” It’s funny. It’s also true, as Colbert notes in this Parade interview. There’s even a blog about Catholic Colbert, which contains clips and information on elements of faith in the show. I didn’t find the time where Colbert recited the Creed, but for an excellent example of Catholic social teaching, I recommend the segments on the 1969 South Carolina nurses’ strike.

The problem, though, is that last word. The juxtaposition of gentle church instruction and a vicious profanity causes us to laugh. It’s strange and unexpected. But, somewhere, I know Mr. Colbert can do better. Lots of comics rely on profanity to get a reaction, beginning about as soon as a kid understands why certain words are uncommon. Like sesquipedalian. That’s incongruous and funny, right? Ultimately, though, we move towards better ideas of irony and atypical situations and strange events, and only the mediocre comedians rely on shock. Because he’s not mediocre, I get frustrated when Stephen drops to that level.

That’s true about his show, and that’s true of his book, I Am America (and so can you!) Lots of parts are quite funny, like how all the figures are of him, and the fake Ordinary People, and the pre-annotated pages. That’s great. So why do he and his writers have to resort to vulgarity? They’re better than that. Without the f-bombs and bad innuendo, this book would be highly recommended. As it is, it drops to a 2 out of 5.

Bellarmine has an Easter Break, which allows me a little time to post reviews of books I’ve read this winter. The first is What Paul Meant, by Garry Wills. Dr. Wills doesn’t appear to have a Web page, because he’s of an older generation. This is part of his series that look at the early Church from a different perspective, which also includes perspectives on Jesus and the Gospels. This book is average on my scale, and receives a 2 out of 5. This book, and many books, would benefit by better use of white space, chapter sub-headings, and such. The other person I knew who read this book agreed. In parts, it’s too easy to get lost. The points look all the same, and just go on and on and on. Isn’t that weird for me to say? I’ve been changed by the visual generation, too.

In those long plain chapters, there are plenty of interesting things. Dr. Wills properly points out that we see Paul through the lens of 20 centuries of Church history. Paul’s viewpoint of the early Church had different context, and the words we use are not correct. In our context, there are better translations. With no fixed, written Gospel, Revelation is a better, less loaded term. Similarly, for ekklesia, “Church” brings to mind pews and big buildings, thus “Gathering” runs closer to what really happened. Reading this book forced me to consider what Paul was thinking when he wrote his notes, and what the early communities were thinking, and that Luke in Acts did not have the same first-person perspective. Historical perspective is good for a historical-psychological theologian.

Nevertheless, this book fails, and it fails because the author is still not fully detached from modern perspective. Many conservatives have this idea of “Founders’ Intent”, whether in the first-century Church or the first-decade US Constitution. I’ve long felt that determining true intent from short documents like letters or declarations is impossible; there just isn’t enough context. Invariably, one’s reading of intent is contaminated by one’s own perspective. For instance, a Justice that invokes “originalism” usually winds up serving modern interests, like those of corporations which did not exist during the “original” period. It’s amazing how often “originalism” looks new, and fails to see the multiple opinions that formed compromises for a document. It’s biased unbiasness.

Dr. Wills does that here. His anger at the Institutional Catholic Church, documented in earlier books like Papal Sin and Why I am a Catholic, comes forward here. The hierarchy in Jerusalem (as in today’s Vatican City) is almost never right. The key quote, from the end, I read as “Religion took over the legacy of Paul as it did that of Jesus - because they both opposed it.” Well then, why was Paul trying to assist the leaders of city communities? Why organize? Why standardize? The writer has his own biased unbiasness. That’s not an evil thing; it’s very difficult to remove personal feelings. I can’t all the time. Plus, exposing other biases is a great help. Nevertheless, what makes this book only average, besides the droning, is the reality of unclear founders’ intent.

Compared to my last few selections, the two books today target a different audience. The first book is Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. It’s rhythmic, gentle, classic, and well worth a 60th anniversary edition. It even made me laugh once. As a way to help a child of 2 or 3 to sleep each night, Ms. Brown wrote well. It gets a 3 out of 5.

The second book has an even better title, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, a tale that one reviewer described as “onomatopoetic elegance.” The target audience is a little older, I think, children who are beginning to understand shape and letter. Mr. Martin has chosen bright bold colors; grey and muted blue make no appearance, and brown is restricted to tree trunks and coconuts. Instead, we get purple, pink, green, orange, and yellow. In the text, we get excellent rhyme, lyrics begging for music I wish I could write. The words want to be read aloud, “skit skat skoodle doot flip flop flee.” The small letters receive no permanent damage, as their mamas and papas and uncles and aunts hugged their little dears. The injuries are only stubbed toes and loose teeth and the like. This book is adorable. As a bonus, I really want to work the first line of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom into a test, “A told B, and B told C, I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree.” This book gets a 4 out of 5.

Why was I reading books for children under four? I received recommendations for gifts for a couple I know, who had their first child on the 14th. I may just keep these, and add a few Dr. Seuss books, so when couples with young children come to visit, they’ll have options for their kids. The Loop trains are no longer outside my window. That’s good for guests. It wasn’t supposed to be illuminating. I saw something in these books, despite my intentions. I just wanted to throw this little aside into a serious set of reviews. Sigh. I overthink everything.

So, what did I see? I saw the difference between how Americans view children and adults. The children’s section was bright and colorful, while the other sections, well, were not. Adults treat children with gentility and kindness, trying to be lively and optimistic. Changes are dramatic. Why don’t the people that treat children, and even animals (watch some people around dogs and cats), treat grown ups with the same liveliness and promise?

It might be the idea of promise, that children have possibilities, while adults are locked into patterns. But that doesn’t make sense for animals. There’s a possibility about innocence, well displayed by the legendary Britney Spears in “Baby One More Time”. That might be right, but instead, what if it’s about vulnerability? Young children and animals generally don’t cause harm. Well, unless you’re a young boy recovering from Legg Perthes, still learning to walk, and the neighbor’s dog is larger and faster than you, and likes to charge a lot. That might be terrifying. Hypothetically, you know. Like that ever could happen.

What I mean is that children are not competition. Without the need for defense, women and men can be encouraging. That’s bright and hopeful and colorful. Why can’t that be true everywhere? Maybe we read Paul in 1st Corinthians 13 too strictly when he recalls that “when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” Though immaturity and impulsiveness should be put away, Encouragement isn’t childish! Brightness and cheer aren’t childish!

Or maybe they are and I live in an unreal world. Tough.

Goodnight nobody.