A story that came out of the Vatican a couple of days ago has left me a bit shocked. I first noticed it in a CNN crawl that said something like, “Vatican approves psychological testing for priest candidates.” A thorough and sober story from the Catholic News Service is headlined Vatican recommends some use of psychological testing in seminaries.
As that story, written by John Thavis, explains, a document released by the Vatican on Oct. 30 says “seminary candidates should undergo psychological evaluations whenever there is a suspicion of personality disturbances or serious doubts about their ability to live a celibate life.” The document, “Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood,” doesn’t sanction routine psychological testing for all seminarians; rather, it says, “the use of psychological consultation and testing [is] appropriate in ‘exceptional cases that present particular difficulties’ in seminary admission and formation,” according to Thavis.
However, during a press conference announcing the policy document, Thavis writes, “Archbishop Jean-Louis Brugues, secretary of the congregation, said that, in fact, many dioceses currently have mandatory psychological evaluations for candidates to seminaries.”
Naturally, all of this is linked to the scandal of sexual abuse by priests that has been widely reported over the past several years, and much of the coverage of this week’s announcement has assumed that the new policy is meant to stop homosexuals from being ordained. (“Vatican: Screen for possible gay priests” was the headline on the Seattle Times online story.)
That’s not what I find perplexing. Here’s where I’m having problems:
The word “psychology” is of course Greek in origin and derives from “psyche,” meaning “soul” and “logos,” meaning “word” but also, as I’ve discussed previously, “description,” “explanation,” and so on. So the literal meaning can be taken as “study of the soul.”
As we all know, the Catholic Church has held itself out for almost two millennia as the authority par excellence on the soul and matters pertaining thereto. And it has a long-established “psychology,” largely adapted – through such church fathers as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, Ambrose and Augustine, and pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite – from Platonism.
But while the “psychological consultation and testing” now being proposed, and the “mandatory psychological evaluations” already being practiced aren’t specified, it does sound rather like the church is now conceding that the modern materialistic-mechanistic psychiatric/psychological establishment is a better evaluator than it is of men’s souls. (Not women’s, because of course the Vatican still refuses to countenance the ordination of women.)
The Catholic Church has, for about a century now, been relatively accommodating toward science, unlike the more fundamentalist sects that, for example, deny the reality of the evolution of species by natural selection. Some of that may be a result of lingering embarrassment over its despicable treatment of Galileo and Giordano Bruno and so on. But this latest concession may be going too far.
Psychology these days pretty much has discarded the psyche. In fact, many practitioners have dropped that term and prefer to be called behaviorists. The consensus (leaving out Jungians, who are widely derided as “mystical”) seems to be that the mind is nothing but a sort of secretion of the brain, and any abnormal behaviors – the “disorders” that seem so numerous these days – can easily be fixed through chemical modification. So “psychological evaluation” consists basically of seeing which set of symptoms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual a person matches, and treatment consists of selecting the right medication to “control” it – because no “cure” is possible.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the church shouldn’t do something to prevent pedophiles from becoming priests. I’m just saying there may be better ways to solve this problem. One rather obvious example: Until about the 12th century, priests were allowed to be married and have families; it was only with the reform movement led by Bernard of Clairvaux and others that a monastic-type celibacy was universally prescribed for parish priests. Other religions allow, and even encourage, their clergy to marry, and don’t seem to have such widespread problems with sexual misconduct.
There’s also a very long-standing system of what one might call “vetting” that might be more harmonious with the church’s mission as a spiritual organization. This system was practiced in the Greek philosophical schools and the early Christian monasteries, and it continues to be practiced today in Eastern Orthodox and Buddhist monasticism, and the Sufi schools.
In all these traditions, students or aspirants or candidates for initiation or whatever must undergo a lengthy period of what one might call “spiritual apprenticeship” under the watchful eyes of a community of aspirants who are undertaking the same struggle. The emphasis from the outset is on ethics: the cultivation of virtue and the eradication of vice; only when the school’s leaders are satisfied with the genuineness of the aspirant’s progress is he or she led to the next level of practice.
While there are still some vestiges of this tradition in Catholic monasticism (reflected to a degree in the works of Thomas Merton), the church doesn't especially encourage either its clergy or its laity to undertake this sort of inner conquest of the Self. Instead, like other Christian sects, it turns its energies, and those of its members, toward worldly affairs and outer victories.
Viewed that way, this announcement about psychological testing makes perfect sense: In a world obsessed with appearances, it gives the appearance that the church is doing something decisive about a festering problem. But from another perspective, one might conclude that the church itself is failing a test and paying the price for neglecting its own soul.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Still Here
I’ve been inexcusably lax in posting here the past week or so, mainly because I’ve been tied up with pesky errands and projects resulting from my recent relocation back to Virginia from South Carolina. The dust is finally settling on that move, however, so I hope to be more diligent from now on.
It has occurred to me that anyone who was drawn to this blog by my philosophical divagations might find it a little startling when I suddenly post a stock market chart and analyze it. So I thought I’d mention that this isn’t my first blog. From last April until mid-September, I maintained a finance blog for The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., where I was assistant business editor the past five years.
That blog is still archived there, and anyone who’s interested can browse the postings. For example, I expressed some thoughts back in July on the unfolding financial crisis, the bear market in stocks and the fundamental inadequacy of the U.S. government’s response. And for anyone who thinks U.S. corporations are too heavily taxed, there’s this entry.
I'll be back with some fresh stuff soon.
It has occurred to me that anyone who was drawn to this blog by my philosophical divagations might find it a little startling when I suddenly post a stock market chart and analyze it. So I thought I’d mention that this isn’t my first blog. From last April until mid-September, I maintained a finance blog for The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., where I was assistant business editor the past five years.
That blog is still archived there, and anyone who’s interested can browse the postings. For example, I expressed some thoughts back in July on the unfolding financial crisis, the bear market in stocks and the fundamental inadequacy of the U.S. government’s response. And for anyone who thinks U.S. corporations are too heavily taxed, there’s this entry.
I'll be back with some fresh stuff soon.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
No Bull
Observers have been comparing stock market dynamics with Taoist concepts for many years now; Bennett W. Goodspeed’s book, “The Tao Jones Averages,” was published in 1984, for example. It’s a reasonable idea; the longstanding bull and bear symbolism lends itself readily to analogy with the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy.
In the Wall Street mainstream, unfortunately, the current understanding of what constitutes a bull or bear market is pretty superficial. Many analysts and financial journalists insist that a bear market is a decline of 20 percent or more, which is an arbitrary, meaningless and ultimately useless way of looking at the market.
If bull/bear really is equivalent to yin/yang, then there must be fundamental qualitative differences between bull and bear markets; it isn’t just a matter of whether the market is going up or going down. And there are a number of technical analysts who have said just that for many years, arguing that bull markets are structurally different from bear markets, and noting that, for example, a rally can occur within an ongoing bear market without reversing the overall trend.
One example that has been noted fairly widely: Bear markets tend to move faster than bull markets; that is, the market falls by larger increments and in less time than it rises in bull markets. And even a fairly superficial look at the data supplies some confirmation of this view. Using a database of daily closing prices for the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1896 to the present, the average percentage change on up days has been 0.750 percent, while the average change on down days has been 0.774 percent. On the other hand, 52 percent of all trading days have seen advances, while 47 percent have seen declines, with about a half-percent showing no change.
It occurred to me that there might be a way to use this information as a sort of trend indicator. What I did was compare the 20-day median percent change in the index with the overall average of up days (i.e., 0.750 percent) and the equivalent average for all down days (0.774 percent). Then I plotted all days when the current 20-day median was above the up average or below the down average. Here’s the result, along with the Dow for comparison:
I'm sorry the dates aren't clearer; I'm just learning to use the image upload on this site. But two things jump out from this chart. First, periods when the 20-day average change is above or below the long-term up or down average are fairly rare. Second, we’re in one of those periods right now.
That’s right: Starting on Oct. 10, the 20-day median percent change in the Dow fell below the 118-year average for down days, and it has continued to fall further below it, as of Monday’s close. It’s now about a full percentage point below the long-term average and is at the lowest level since early 1932, during the worst of the fierce 1929-32 bear market.
I don’t know whether this bull/bear indicator has any predictive value, but there is one thing that might be worth noting: In general, the lowest readings on this indicator have coincided with the steepest phases of bear-market declines – NOT with the end of the decline. So even if we were to take an optimistic view that this indicator has reached its lowest point, it still wouldn’t preclude the Dow from falling significantly lower.
Update 4:35 p.m.:
Today's 889-point jump in the Dow had no effect on the bull/bear indicator described above. In general, all it did was carry it back toward the upper end of the downward-tending trading range it has been in for the past three weeks.
Also, a little more explanation about the chart above: Ostensibly bullish moves are those above the zero line, shown in red to represent "fiery yang energy," as they say; bearish moves are those below the zero line and are shown in blue, representing "cool, watery yin energy."
In the Wall Street mainstream, unfortunately, the current understanding of what constitutes a bull or bear market is pretty superficial. Many analysts and financial journalists insist that a bear market is a decline of 20 percent or more, which is an arbitrary, meaningless and ultimately useless way of looking at the market.
If bull/bear really is equivalent to yin/yang, then there must be fundamental qualitative differences between bull and bear markets; it isn’t just a matter of whether the market is going up or going down. And there are a number of technical analysts who have said just that for many years, arguing that bull markets are structurally different from bear markets, and noting that, for example, a rally can occur within an ongoing bear market without reversing the overall trend.
One example that has been noted fairly widely: Bear markets tend to move faster than bull markets; that is, the market falls by larger increments and in less time than it rises in bull markets. And even a fairly superficial look at the data supplies some confirmation of this view. Using a database of daily closing prices for the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1896 to the present, the average percentage change on up days has been 0.750 percent, while the average change on down days has been 0.774 percent. On the other hand, 52 percent of all trading days have seen advances, while 47 percent have seen declines, with about a half-percent showing no change.
It occurred to me that there might be a way to use this information as a sort of trend indicator. What I did was compare the 20-day median percent change in the index with the overall average of up days (i.e., 0.750 percent) and the equivalent average for all down days (0.774 percent). Then I plotted all days when the current 20-day median was above the up average or below the down average. Here’s the result, along with the Dow for comparison:
I'm sorry the dates aren't clearer; I'm just learning to use the image upload on this site. But two things jump out from this chart. First, periods when the 20-day average change is above or below the long-term up or down average are fairly rare. Second, we’re in one of those periods right now.
That’s right: Starting on Oct. 10, the 20-day median percent change in the Dow fell below the 118-year average for down days, and it has continued to fall further below it, as of Monday’s close. It’s now about a full percentage point below the long-term average and is at the lowest level since early 1932, during the worst of the fierce 1929-32 bear market.
I don’t know whether this bull/bear indicator has any predictive value, but there is one thing that might be worth noting: In general, the lowest readings on this indicator have coincided with the steepest phases of bear-market declines – NOT with the end of the decline. So even if we were to take an optimistic view that this indicator has reached its lowest point, it still wouldn’t preclude the Dow from falling significantly lower.
Update 4:35 p.m.:
Today's 889-point jump in the Dow had no effect on the bull/bear indicator described above. In general, all it did was carry it back toward the upper end of the downward-tending trading range it has been in for the past three weeks.
Also, a little more explanation about the chart above: Ostensibly bullish moves are those above the zero line, shown in red to represent "fiery yang energy," as they say; bearish moves are those below the zero line and are shown in blue, representing "cool, watery yin energy."
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Loose Morals
So far in this blog, I’ve done a lot of ranting about the role of randomness in the prevailing Western worldview and the resulting lack of “focus,” as defined in my first posting here. As I’ve indicated, I think it’s a wrong view of things, an inaccurate description, account or narrative.
But what difference does it make? What does it matter if scientists and economists and so on are working from a faulty conception of the overall cause and meaning of the cosmos? As long as they get the lower-level details right, and the electricity still makes my lights work and I can still click a link and look at stuff on the Internet, is there any reason to care about overarching theoretical stuff that may not be provable anyway?
Well, certainly in the case of economics, we’re seeing what happens when a wrong theory holds sway: Vast sums of money vanish in the blink of an eye, people lose their jobs, and political consequences follow.
In physics, there’s apparently some possibility that we might see even more disastrous results in a few months, when the big new CERN supercollider is fired up again, after it blew a fuse on the first try several weeks ago. Some physicists have expressed concerns that when their colleagues start smashing tiny bits of matter together, it might possibly cause the end of the world. Others scoff at that idea, though; I guess we’ll find out who’s right eventually.
However, I think we’re already living every day with almost equally disastrous results from this materialist-atomist worldview, because it leaves us with no “higher good,” no center-of-the-universe, no focus. What we’re left with is an absurdist value-neutral universe in which every action is pretty much as valid as any other. If, as Nietzsche proclaimed, “God is dead,” then by what standard do we judge our own or others’ words and actions?
The answer for Nietzsche and many others: the individual will, or what a lot of people might prefer to call the personal ego. From that perspective, “good” is what’s good for me, “bad” is what’s bad for me.
Amazingly enough, this position is in fact the stance of orthodox economics, though in that discipline the concept is sugar-coated with the notion of “rational agency,” which in essence claims that people (or at least those who make economic decisions such as whether to buy or sell stuff) act out of what some refer to as “enlightened self-interest.” Meaning that people are generally aware that the effect of their decisions on other people is something they need to keep in mind; for example, if you’re stealing food from others, you need to leave them enough so they don’t starve to death, if you want to be able to keep stealing from them.
But as we’ve seen in the banking industry, some people don’t get that part of the theory; instead, in their egotistical greed, they’re willing to burn their own house down to keep the fires lit. “Rationality” wouldn’t seem to have much to do with it, except in the sense that some of them were able to find plausible-sounding rationalizations for what they were doing.
Now, I’m not aligning with those upholders of religious orthodoxy who decry “situational ethics” and “moral relativism.” I think any ethics that doesn’t vary somewhat depending on the situation is too limited to be valid, and I think all morality is relative – relative to the true, final good.
I don’t agree, either, with those who claim it’s possible to establish a valid ethical system on a purely materialistic-scientistic basis. Any moral system that posits the “highest good” as some physical thing – prosperity, social order, the pursuit of scientific knowledge – will lead eventually to immoral results. For example, if you suppose that the highest human good is social order, you’ll inevitably end up making utilitarian compromises, seeking “the greatest good for the greatest number,” which means some “lesser number” will be hauled off to prison whenever it’s convenient, without violating your moral rules.
As for “scientific knowledge” as a “highest good,” it sounds nice and noble, but of course in the real world, research gets done when someone – the Pentagon, the pharmaceutical companies, the cigarette makers, etc. etc. – is willing to fund it.
So is there a way to find the true “highest good,” and to do so objectively, without recourse to traditional authority, such as religious dogma? I believe there is, and I’ll go into detail in a posting in the next few days.
Right now, I’d like to make a brief comment about reader comments. I’m delighted anytime anyone wants to leave a comment here. I’ve set it up so you don’t have to register or anything like that. I do say things from time to time that I think are fairly provocative, and I don’t mind anyone disagreeing or criticizing or challenging any of it. However, I won’t allow obscenity, libel or hate speech. So please feel free to critique, but please be grown-up about it.
But what difference does it make? What does it matter if scientists and economists and so on are working from a faulty conception of the overall cause and meaning of the cosmos? As long as they get the lower-level details right, and the electricity still makes my lights work and I can still click a link and look at stuff on the Internet, is there any reason to care about overarching theoretical stuff that may not be provable anyway?
Well, certainly in the case of economics, we’re seeing what happens when a wrong theory holds sway: Vast sums of money vanish in the blink of an eye, people lose their jobs, and political consequences follow.
In physics, there’s apparently some possibility that we might see even more disastrous results in a few months, when the big new CERN supercollider is fired up again, after it blew a fuse on the first try several weeks ago. Some physicists have expressed concerns that when their colleagues start smashing tiny bits of matter together, it might possibly cause the end of the world. Others scoff at that idea, though; I guess we’ll find out who’s right eventually.
However, I think we’re already living every day with almost equally disastrous results from this materialist-atomist worldview, because it leaves us with no “higher good,” no center-of-the-universe, no focus. What we’re left with is an absurdist value-neutral universe in which every action is pretty much as valid as any other. If, as Nietzsche proclaimed, “God is dead,” then by what standard do we judge our own or others’ words and actions?
The answer for Nietzsche and many others: the individual will, or what a lot of people might prefer to call the personal ego. From that perspective, “good” is what’s good for me, “bad” is what’s bad for me.
Amazingly enough, this position is in fact the stance of orthodox economics, though in that discipline the concept is sugar-coated with the notion of “rational agency,” which in essence claims that people (or at least those who make economic decisions such as whether to buy or sell stuff) act out of what some refer to as “enlightened self-interest.” Meaning that people are generally aware that the effect of their decisions on other people is something they need to keep in mind; for example, if you’re stealing food from others, you need to leave them enough so they don’t starve to death, if you want to be able to keep stealing from them.
But as we’ve seen in the banking industry, some people don’t get that part of the theory; instead, in their egotistical greed, they’re willing to burn their own house down to keep the fires lit. “Rationality” wouldn’t seem to have much to do with it, except in the sense that some of them were able to find plausible-sounding rationalizations for what they were doing.
Now, I’m not aligning with those upholders of religious orthodoxy who decry “situational ethics” and “moral relativism.” I think any ethics that doesn’t vary somewhat depending on the situation is too limited to be valid, and I think all morality is relative – relative to the true, final good.
I don’t agree, either, with those who claim it’s possible to establish a valid ethical system on a purely materialistic-scientistic basis. Any moral system that posits the “highest good” as some physical thing – prosperity, social order, the pursuit of scientific knowledge – will lead eventually to immoral results. For example, if you suppose that the highest human good is social order, you’ll inevitably end up making utilitarian compromises, seeking “the greatest good for the greatest number,” which means some “lesser number” will be hauled off to prison whenever it’s convenient, without violating your moral rules.
As for “scientific knowledge” as a “highest good,” it sounds nice and noble, but of course in the real world, research gets done when someone – the Pentagon, the pharmaceutical companies, the cigarette makers, etc. etc. – is willing to fund it.
So is there a way to find the true “highest good,” and to do so objectively, without recourse to traditional authority, such as religious dogma? I believe there is, and I’ll go into detail in a posting in the next few days.
Right now, I’d like to make a brief comment about reader comments. I’m delighted anytime anyone wants to leave a comment here. I’ve set it up so you don’t have to register or anything like that. I do say things from time to time that I think are fairly provocative, and I don’t mind anyone disagreeing or criticizing or challenging any of it. However, I won’t allow obscenity, libel or hate speech. So please feel free to critique, but please be grown-up about it.
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