Idealism and Pragmatism in Animal Farm

If you haven't read Animal Farm recently, pick it up. It only takes about 3 hours to read. I always find out how long a book is on an audio CD recording and tell my students it should take you no longer to read a book than x hours. I know reading is different from comprehension, but I have some slow readers. If a speaker can read a book to someone else in 3 hours, you can read the book in that time too. But I digress.
I was reading Richard Weaver's classic Ideas Have Consequences recently and was reminded of how pragmatic we have become. The realm of the Ideal has no meaning for us anymore. Everything must have real, tangible value for us to even consider it. I noticed this even in Animal Farm. The only reason the animals are roped into Old Major's plan is that he promises them material gain for their effort. They are not idealists. They are materialists. They want their stuff. They want their eggs and milk. They don't want Jones to have it, they want to keep it.
Just a few thoughts from the reading list this week.

The Titanic (April 15, 1912)

It is funny to me how much of my love of history actually was spawned by Heavy Metal music. I learned of Coleridge's great poem, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, from the Iron Maiden song of the same name. My interest in the Titanic actually came through a song by the band Metal Church who did a song called Rest in Pieces (April 15, 1912) about the Titanic.
Today marks the 96th anniversary of the sinking of the poor ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. I remember watching James Cameron's Marxist film about the boat and hating all the social commentary and the ridiculous love story, but loving the imagery of the ship and the collision and sinking of the boat.
I also listened relatively recently to George Grant's stunning lecture "Why the Scots?" from his Modernity lectures done by Gileskirk. In it he explained that the men who staffed the boat had a solid grounding in the legend and history of seamanship inherited from Scotland. The rule of the sea, "Women and children first" was a lived commitment to them. How utterly ridiculous such a notion would sound to us today. I teach young girls who are offended when chivalry rears its head in the school. They feel looked down upon, not elevated. How backwards we have become. Over 1,500 people died in the wee hours of the morning.
This post feels a little rambled to me, but I just wanted to commemorate the Titanic today. There are very few times in history where chivalry and Christian virtue are able to show themselves so objectively as on the deck of the Titanic as men watched their beloved wives and children float to safety while they sunk into the icy Atlantic ocean.

Recession, Depression, and our Stimulus Package.

I was listening to Dr. George Grant's Gileskirk lecture on the Great Depression the other day (the 2001 edition, available from WordMP3.com) and was struck by his list of the steps taken by the Federal government to avoid or stave off depression.
According to Grant, first the Federal Reserve expanded the money supply in the US 62 times from 1920 to 1929. When the inflation caused a downturn in the market, Hoover tried some interference strategies to hold off the stock market crash. This was designed to prop up the market. It resulted in a massive loss of confidence in the market and sped up the depression instead of thwarting it. In 1931 Hoover launched a massive spending program to try to "outspend" the depression. Finally, when all this caught up with the treasury, Hoover had to put a very large tax hike in place to stop the bleeding. This obviously did not help, as we all know from our parents, grandparents, and the history books.
I wonder how much inflation has been happening in the last decade. The reason this concerns me is that our current stimulus package reminds me an awful lot of Hoover's spending program to try to revitalize the economy in the 1930's.
We apparently learned nothing from the Great Depression. But then, when do we?

Liberty in Livy

Titus Livius (59 BC - AD 17), perhaps most famous for his history of Rome is a must-read for the student of ancient history. His treatment of the stories of the kings of Rome and the beginning of the republic is really entertaining reading. I teach it every year to Antiquity students.
At the beginning of book two, he has a short discourse on the nature of liberty that is invaluable to the modern mind. Livy exclaims that the preceding 244 years of Roman history (years spent under kings) were necessary to prepare men for liberty. Liberty, the essential freeness of men, is not to be understood as something that can granted by anyone, it must be earned. Livy understands that had the Romans achieved the liberty of self-government earlier, it would have been disastrous. Men need to learn how to be free before they can be free.
The root of liberty in the state, is liberty in the individual. However, the examples that Livy uses to showcase that prove that he understands liberty in the individual to refer to self-discipline rather than political freedom. A self-controlled man is a man in possession of liberty. Only a man who knows how to control himself is able to choose the right thing and avoid the wrong thing. Only such a man is truly free and at liberty.
Our nation was founded by self-disciplined men of great character. If we want to know what is wrong with our country today, we need only look at the level of self control in our elected officials. If our nation's leaders cannot control themselves, and do not place a high premium on such a virtue (by example), how can we expect the people to cultivate this virtue in themselves.? It does not appear to be the way to get ahead.
Livy understood better. May we cultivate self-discipline and liberty in our own lives that we may take back the culture that has ignored this basic Christian virtue for far too long.