Another with the comment “I was wondering how long it would take for someone to step up to BP’s defense” exposes some congressional idiocy.

A reply to the above states “LOL this lady is fucking retarded.”

The reply is all the more profound because of information found in a post by the Heritage Foundation, that, while “conservative,” may have some significant disagreements with the Republican Ms. Bachmann. The post also refers to President  Carter’s speech linked above.

Says the Heritage foundation on Facebook:

Jimmy Carter once spoke of America’s “crisis of confidence.” In reality, there was a crisis of leadership. Last night, President Obama revealed a crisis of competence. Read about it in The Morning Bell. What do you think of the President’s leadership on the oil spill?

More to the point (especially re: Ms. Bachmann’s idiocy) is this last post with the comment “BP is getting exactly what it paid for. Best not let the opportunity to increase big oil’s profits go to waste.”

And more in the Washington Examiner.

Our energy policy (amongst many other things) will continue to be a “hamster wheel” so long as Big Government and Big Business collude.

The purpose of “judicial activism” is perhaps most famously explained by Alexis de Tocqueville in chapter 15 of his Democracy in America, wherein he discusses the power of the American legislatures, and the “tyranny of the majority.”

I’ll quote a bit of it, but the entire thing is worth keeping in mind when reading Mr. Root’s article.

“A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.

“I do not think that, for the sake of preserving liberty, it is possible to combine several principles in the same government so as really to oppose them to one another. The form of government that is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me a mere chimera. Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixed government in the sense usually given to that word, because in all communities some one principle of action may be discovered which preponderates over the others. England in the last century, which has been especially cited as an example of this sort of government, was essentially an aristocratic state, although it comprised some great elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the long run and direct public affairs according to its own will. The error arose from seeing the interests of the nobles perpetually contending with those of the people, without considering the issue of the contest, which was really the important point. When a community actually has a mixed government–that is to say, when it is equally divided between adverse principles–it must either experience a revolution or fall into anarchy.

“I am therefore of the opinion that social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere; but I think that liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its course and give it time to moderate its own vehemence.

“Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself or clothed with rights so sacred that I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws.

“In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.

“If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the other two powers, a government would be formed which would still be democratic while incurring scarcely any risk of tyranny.”

At the end of Chapter 15, de Toqueville quotes both Madison and Jefferson. I’ll quote that bit too, because it’s short and I wouldn’t be able to paraphrase it for any added benefit.

“If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.

“Mr. Madison expresses the same opinion in The Federalist, No. 51. ‘It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger: and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of their condition to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves, so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted, that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of right under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of the factious majorities, that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it.’

“Jefferson also said: ‘The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.’

“I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson upon this subject rather than that of any other, because I consider him the most powerful advocate democracy has ever had.”

When I was in grade school I was taught that we had a system of checks and balances. There are Three (3) branches of government, said teachers at my public school in Massachusetts. They “check” each other. The implication was not that one of those branches bends its will completely to another one of those branches.

Democracy requires majority opinion. Liberty requires respect for (I said “respect for,” not “complete surrender to”) the free choice of individuals within the democracy. The “founding fathers” were very cognizant of this issue, and eventually wrote a Constitution which they hoped would recognize, and ameliorate the inherent democratic deficiency which de Tocqueville styles the “tyranny of the majority.”

Who if not the Supreme Court? It is to the Court that the people, or individuals, bring their grievances against Congress. A Court that allows Congress to do what it will is being as willfully active as a Court that checks Congress.

As a side note, the title of this post is a vague reference to the songs “Moral Majority” by the Dead Kennedys, and its grandchild “Minority” by Green Day. Both “Liberals” and “Conservatives” suffer when the “majority,” moral or otherwise, is given too much power.

An individual’s choice is the individual’s morality. In law we sometimes call that mens rea.  In the Common Law, the law of historically individualist societies, one must have a “guilty mind” in order to be held criminally liable. That doesn’t mean you have to know, fo example, that murder is illegal to be guilty of murder. That means you have to have wanted to do the action that led to the death of another. If one suffers an epileptic fit (a complete surprise, having never suffered one before) and crashes one’s car into a crosswalk full of people, one will not be guilty of manslaughter. If one chooses to drink while in control of a vehicle, gets drunk and crashes into people, one will probably be guilty of manslaughter, but not murder (depending on ones local rules). If one thinks to oneself “I’m gonna drive my car through all those people cause I really hate people!” and then does so one will probably be guilty of murder.

One’s choices determine one’s judgment. One’s choices determine one’s God (or Gods!). One’s choices determines one’s career (if any). One’s choices determine everything of meaning in an individualist society.  Without choice there is no individualism. “Freedom” is the freedom to choose. “Liberty” is free will, unencumbered by the will of others (with the exception that one may not then encumber the will of others).”Equality,” in an individualistic society, is the equal ability of all individuals to engage in the process of choosing, of being an individual (whether or not the consequences of those choices are the same for different people).

The “free market” is something that has yet to be defined by anybody. People like to use the term. They use it to get what they want, either for or against what they describe as “free market” systems that may be bad or good depending on how one chooses to look at them. It’s not that hard to define though. The Free Market is simply the choices of many individuals engaged in trade with each other. To regulate the “Free Market” therefore, is to regulate the free will of people who are trading. That’s ok to some extent, even for a libertarian or classical liberal. “Ordered Liberty” (that exception to free will I mentioned earlier), requires that people exercise their freedom to choose to the extent that  their choices do not hurt the freedom to choose of others. Therefore lying/fraud is bad (snake oil salesmen who sell a product that doesn’t do what they say it will), and stealing (using other people’s money for purposes other people did not intend it for) is bad.

People often make choices without knowing what the consequences will be. Sometimes they are lied to. Sometimes they’re simply ignorant. One can ask for protection from liars by banding together with others who are trusted. But people can never escape ignorance. Can you really trust anyone? Even if you can trust others, how can they be sure of what you are not? If knowledge is infinite (and it could be, for all we know), they’re probably about as ignorant, on average, as you are. You don’t know what you don’t know.

Economists use “rational” to describe a choice maker who knows . . . something. Economists call not really knowing something and making a choice about it anyway “risk.” That’s deep. They try to come up with numbers, or models, that approximate “reason” or “risk” or the consequences of choices, reasoned or risky (aka “externalities”). Usually they get so stuck in models that have little in common with actual human behavior that they come up with conclusions that are morally frightening, if not disgusting and repulsive. They forget that the freedom to choose is a moral imperative in our society, and instead talk about “efficiency” (aka more people making more money . . . at least on average).

Note for those who are still here: If an economist says “reason” is a “myth” they are lying to you. Modern economics relies on the notion that people make choices for a reason (it’s an empirical study, even if not scientific, with observable cause and effect). It doesn’t have to be a good reason. All economists these days claim to be empiricists (see Locke, Kant, etc.). That is to say, they believe in an empirical “model” of human action. Critiquing “pure reason” is not the same as saying “rational choice” is a “myth.” On that note, saying that people always make “good” choices, given a certain model (aka “rational choice”), is meaningless.

(Time for some hyperbole!) At the end of the day, all economists are people who believe that structuring society a certain way will cause people to behave a certain way. Therefore, all economists ignore/disrespect/hate individual choice and are collectivists who can rot in hell. If “Free Market” economists hold any appeal to me it’s that their models, sometimes intentionally, but usually by accident, allow for the most free individual choice (which, again, is a moral imperative, not a matter of efficiency).

That was all introduction to the point of this post (which follows)!

Justin Fox recently published a book called The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward and Delusion on Wall Street. I think the title is a reference to a book by Bryan Caplan called The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. I don’t think the authors share much in the way of economic opinion (other than “pop economics” is a good way to make money).

I haven’t read The Myth of the Rational Market, so I can’t comment on it. It was brought to my attention because this op-ed (“Drilling for Uncertainty”) by David Brooks was posted by a friend of mine on Facebook. I wanted to respond to the comment with some “further reading,” and in Google searching for some Bryan Caplan (as a starting point for some discussion on the difficulties of making choices about, well, anything), I came across the Justin Fox book, and then  this interview with Justin Fox on the Daily Show (apparently from almost a year ago on July 1st 2009).

You really need to watch the entire thing for my commentary to make sense (it’s only 6 minutes), but I’ll quote the bit that encouraged this post:

Stewart: “What if we did just have a Free Market? Would it be the Wild West? Would we go back to the 1900′s where the company then owned the town you live in and also the store and there’d be no…you know…what would be the repercussions of an actual Free Market?

Fox: “I mean there’s definitely an element now in American intellectual life. Minority bit getting a lot of attention, who are sort of saying if only we didn’t have all of this government interference things would be better. You look back at the 19th century and we had these bubbles and crashes all the time lime every 10 or 15 years. And because they were more frequent they were perhaps less shocking and maybe in some way less damaging but you also had less of a financial system.”

Less of a Financial System. What does that mean? Does Mr. Fox mean to say that with less regulators we have less regulators? Hmmm . . . lets assume no. Does he mean to say that with less regulators we have less money being made? Fewer banks? Fewer stock exchangers? Fewer mortgage lenders? Fewer risk takers? There was lots of risk taking going on in the 19th century. Why didn’t it result in horrible crashes? Jon Stewart, probably the best interviewer on TV today (not saying much), fails to ask the most important question. What is “less of a financial system?” EDIT: Does he mean people traded less with each other?

Earlier in the interview Jon Stewart asks if the market is not rational, how can we bring a rational force to bear on this irrational monster. Mr. Fox says that regulators get “caught up in the same nonsense as markets do.” So regulators can’t help. According to Mr Fox, the best solution is “simple, dumb rules” which don’t “quite make sense.” The reason they work is that maybe they “slow things down a little.”

Slow what down a little? Does he mean they temper the huge crashes? Like in the 19th century, when there weren’t as many rules, but “things” didn’t cause as much damage? EDIT (for clarity): Isn’t Mr. Fox saying the same things “free market” economists say, but with the added apology for massive government spending (involvement in the market) in the 30′s (aka “regulation”), which is the exact opposite of “simple dumb rules.”

Economists out there, please explain this to me. I don’t want to read Justin Fox’s book.

“We’re trying to do it without the world war, just with the spending,” says the fantastic Mr. Fox. Actually, we are doing it with the world war. Hooray for Jon Stewart’s “social democracy.”  Oops, I libertaranted a bit there. I apologize

“Learning and virtue are inextricably linked. An increase in both throughout your life will require, however, that you jettison a common wisdom of our day, which tells you to “be yourself” or “be who you are”. A weirder tautology man has never made—and its meaning is a far cry from the Socratic “Know yourself.” It’s also a bunch of baloney. Do yourself and me a huge favor and scrub the Romantic pablum about identity from your brain. Throw away those god awful books by Emerson your lit teachers made you buy. The search for who you are is a fool’s errand. Literally. . .

As someone who is built to learn throughout your life, your identity will necessarily be a moving target. What I mean is best explained by way of example. Think of Ben Franklin, who lived at a time of unimaginable uncertainty, stress—and opportunity. He aspired to two things: to know and to be a patriot. Every day he woke up with his list of “things he was working on”, “self-improvements,” and new “learnings”. His daily regimen would force him to engage every part of his being and his becoming with the world. The “learning” in the Learning, Virtue, Piety motto should mean for you “Don’t seek who you are—quite simply, strive to be better than you are today and everyday.”

Which brings us to Virtue: Again, urging you to leave the navel-gazing of Romanticism to others, I’d ask you to consider the following assertion: The narrative of human life is only meaningful in terms of how much you have lived up to your principles. You are your principles, and your principles are you. Focus on them, because they are the only thing that remains constant throughout the vicissitudes of life, the successes and failures, the loves and the losses. The strength of your principles will serve you well in the days ahead, which will be some of the toughest we will face as a nation.

Which brings us to Piety. Piety, from the Latin Pietas, is following through on your responsibilities to other people, to the gods and to your society. During the fight to create a home free from tyranny, our founders’ piety quickly took the form of a commitment to a fledgling nation. Two and a half centuries later, with our institutions in shambles, I ask you to re-commit to that patriotism – to rebuild our institutions.”

Jim’s work, improving education, government and economic opportunity in Massachusetts, can be found here, at the Pioneer Institute’s website.

The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy[1] is a short story detailing the moral life of a lawyer. As such it is obviously interesting for a student of law and literature. Morality and law are closely related. Some may say that law and morality are synonymous. At least American law purports to uphold morality, and American legal ideas originate in American moral ideas. Or perhaps legal ideas are based around moral ideas, like scaffolding, or buttresses supporting a building. A quick reading of Ivan Ilych presents complications to one holding these views (law as morality, or law as supporting morality). Ivan Ilych is a “good” lawyer, and yet seems to have led an immoral life. However, though he has led an immoral life, he is saved at its end. He certainly was not saved because he followed the law. That is to say, The Death of Ivan Ilych does not suggest that a good life is a lawful one. It also does not suggest that a lawful life is a bad one.

I believe, and I hope this paper will show, that The Death of Ivan Ilych describes a morality in which law has no place, either as a good or bad thing. This morality is inherently different than the one in which an American practices law. I believe Leo Tolstoy was attempting to tell a moral tale, not necessarily to besmirch other moral ideologies, but to teach us what he thought of as the true moral ideology. To begin, I will look closely at those passages in the story that describe the morality of Ivan Ilych in particular (with some bits describing others), in order to understand exactly on what aspects of human action Leo Tolstoy was attempting to focus (and therefore which actions, if any, are expressions of right and wrong).

In the second chapter of the story, Tolstoy describes Ivan’s early life. In relation to his siblings, “[he] was neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them—an intelligent, polished, lively, and agreeable man.” At first it seems Ivan represents the Aristotelian Golden Mean, suggesting that he is at least more moral than his brothers. However, Aristotelian ethics soon appear to be unrelated to Tolstoy’s description of Ivan. Tolstoy continues:

“He had studied with his younger brother at the School of Law, but the latter had failed to complete the course and was expelled when he was in the fifth class. Ivan Ilych finished the course well. Even when he was at the School of Law he was just what he remained for the rest of his life: a capable, cheerful, good-natured, and sociable man, though strict in the fulfillment of what he considered to be his duty: and he considered his duty to be what was so considered by those in authority. Neither as a boy nor as a man was he a toady, but from early youth was by nature attracted to people of high station as a fly is drawn to the light, assimilating their ways and views of life and establishing friendly relations with them. All the enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him; he succumbed to sensuality, to vanity, and latterly among the highest classes to liberalism, but always within limits which his instinct unfailingly indicated to him as correct.”

Ivan is “capable,” “cheerful,” “good natured,” “sociable,” all seemingly positive traits. He is dutiful. In American morality, “rights” supposedly define the law. They are balanced by “duties,” or actions that may violate ones rights, but are required if one is to live harmoniously amongst others in a society of rights. “Dutiful” suggests not only lawful, but extra moral. A dutiful person goes beyond that required by law, and adheres to personal or social moral codes that require positive action on the part of the individual. A dutiful person does what one is supposed to do, not just what one has to do. To be dutiful, therefore, is a good thing.

Sensuality and vanity are often considered bad. That is, as base motivations, they deter one from proper duties. In Ivan’s case, these “enthusiasms of childhood and youth” did not have much effect on him, and not only did they pass, but when he experienced them they were limited to that expression which was “correct.” Tolstoy classes liberalism among these other “enthusiasms.” It is our first hint at a significant moral discrepancy between American law and whatever Tolstoy is aiming at. It may be easy to assume that sensuality and vanity are treated here in the cliché fashion I described, but liberalism’s relationship to those other “enthusiasms” is as yet unclear.

Despite Ivan’s apparent exemplary self-control and mediation, all is not necessarily peachy in his moral universe. In the previous quoted passage, Ivan is shown to base his actions on those in “high society,” and as Tolstoy continues his description:

“At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at remembering them.”

Ivan apparently has a personal moral code. For some reason he sees some actions as wrong, and yet he ignores those personal reasons, and instead relies on the actions of those “people of good position” that Ivan aspires to imitate. He does not think of those actions as right. He may even think those actions are wrong, but he does not care. Therefore, Ivan is willing to do what he thinks is wrong, as long as high society thinks it’s ok. Tolstoy does not tell us if Ivan’s morality, or that of high society is the true morality. So far, we cannot judge either according to Tolstoy. All we know is that Ivan is willing to do relative to his own morality. Examples of some of these actions are given by Tolstoy:

“In the province he had an affair with a lady who made advances to the elegant young lawyer, and there was also a milliner; and there were carousals with aides-de-camp who visited the district, and after-supper visits to a certain outlying street of doubtful reputation; and there was too some obsequiousness to his chief and even to his chief’s wife, but all this was done with such a tone of good breeding that no hard names could be applied to it. It all came under the heading of the French saying: “Il faut que jeunesse se passé.” It was all done with clean hands, in clean linen, with French phrases, and above all among people of the best society and consequently with the approval of people of rank.”

Ivan is doing decidedly un-Christian things. Again, Tolstoy suggests these are just the follies of youth, but perhaps something more sinister lies beneath. Why else mention them? Tolstoy does not want to answer this question, at least not yet. For now, he simply gives us the pertinent details, and their pertinence will hopefully reveal itself in good time. Good and bad actions often require time, because good and bad actions are often defend by their consequences. Tolstoy understands this, and makes note of it:

“But not many people had then been directly dependent on him—only police officials and the sectarians when he went on special missions—and he liked to treat them politely, almost as comrades, as if he were letting them feel that he who had the power to crush them was treating them in this simple, friendly way. There were then but few such people. But now, as an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilych felt that everyone without exception, even the most important and self-satisfied, was in his power, and that he need only write a few words on a sheet of paper with a certain heading, and this or that important, self- satisfied person would be brought before him in the role of an accused person or a witness, and if he did not choose to allow him to sit down, would have to stand before him and answer his questions. Ivan Ilych never abused his power; he tried on the contrary to soften its expression, but the consciousness of it and the possibility of softening its effect, supplied the chief interest and attraction of his office.”

The passage begins with an insinuation that Ivan has lacked, up to this point, any real responsibility. Therefore, the consequences of his actions would be minimal if they existed at all. Without consequences, and with power, another aspect of Ivan’s personality presents itself. He not only tries to emulate the powerful, as he did in the past, but now he assumes the role of a powerful person. In this role he expects others to be responsible to him. He is the master of consequences. To sum up, negative consequences come in two forms in Ivan’s estimation: he will suffer them if he acts against the norms of high society (regardless of what his personal morals may be), and he can inflict them on others if they act against his wishes.

Life changes significantly for Ivan after he creates a family. He marries well, both from a personal and public perspective. In this important decision, Tolstoy describes Ivan as completely balanced. He weighs his personal qualifications for a mate as heavily as what he views the public’s qualifications are. His wife has all the qualifications necessary for both. She seems perfection in every way.  “But from the first months of his wife’s pregnancy, something new, unpleasant, depressing, and unseemly, and from which there was no way of escape, unexpectedly showed itself. . .”

“His wife, without any reason—de gaiete de coeur, as Ivan Ilych expressed it to himself—began to disturb the pleasure and propriety of their life. She began to be jealous without any cause, expected him to devote his whole attention to her, found fault with everything, and made coarse and ill-mannered scenes.

At first Ivan Ilych hoped to escape from the unpleasantness of this state of affairs by the same easy and decorous relation to life that had served him heretofore: he tried to ignore his wife’s disagreeable moods, continued to live in his usual easy and pleasant way, invited friends to his house for a game of cards, and also tried going out to his club or spending his evenings with friends. But one day his wife began upbraiding him so vigorously, using such coarse words, and continued to abuse him every time he did not fulfill her demands, so resolutely and with such evident determination not to give way till he submitted—that is, till he stayed at home and was bored just as she was—that he became alarmed. He now realized that matrimony—at any rate with Praskovya Fedorovna—was not always conducive to the pleasures and amenities of life, but on the contrary often infringed both comfort and propriety, and that he must therefore entrench himself against such infringement.”

Ivan’s marriage is the first negative consequence he suffers. Clearly, from Ivan’s point of view, the marriage is not ideal. He is suffering because of it. He is suffering because of his wife. One may assume that it is a lack of character on his part that has created this situation. He is a bad husband, because of his immorality, and therefore his wife is acting out against him. His reaction to his wife certainly suggests this:

“As his wife grew more irritable and exacting and Ivan Ilych transferred the center of gravity of his life more and more to his official work, so did he grow to like his work better and became more ambitious than before . . .

His aim was to free himself more and more from those unpleasantnesses and to give them a semblance of harmlessness and propriety. He attained this by spending less and less time with his family, and when obliged to be at home he tried to safeguard his position by the presence of outsiders. The chief thing however was that he had his official duties. The whole interest of his life now centered in the official world and that interest absorbed him. The consciousness of his power, being able to ruin anybody he wished to ruin, the importance, even the external dignity of his entry into court, or meetings with his subordinates, his success with superiors and inferiors, and above all his masterly handling of cases, of which he was conscious—all this gave him pleasure and filled his life, together with chats with his colleagues, dinners, and bridge. So that on the whole Ivan Ilych’s life continued to flow as he considered it should do—pleasantly and properly.”

Ivan takes comfort in his power, and ignores his wife. To some, this may be immoral behavior. I do not believe that it is immoral to Tolstoy. Ivan’s relationship with his wife is another big clue to solving the mystery of Ivan’s moral lesson.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that Tolstoy is not writing between the lines, but that what he describes is true as written. Ivan is not causing his wife’s disagreeable attitude because he is a bad man. Rather, what Ivan believes is true; his wife is disagreeable. She pesters him, and requires attention from him, and upsets his otherwise productive life and contentment. She is, in fact, the root cause of his dissatisfaction with the way things are going.

Evidence of the truth of this supposition is perhaps available from other sources, for instance biographies of Tolstoy, or his other works, wherein women are often the cause of a man’s discontent. For the purposes of this paper, I’ll do my best to make an argument from within Ivan Ilych itself. In chapter 4 Tolstoy gives us a little of Ivan’s wife’s point of view (emphasis mine):

“But this discomfort increased and, though not exactly painful, grew into a sense of pressure in his side accompanied by ill humour. And his irritability became worse and worse and began to mar the agreeable, easy, and correct life that had established itself in the Golovin family. Quarrels between husband and wife became more and more frequent, and soon the ease and amenity disappeared and even the decorum was barely maintained. Scenes again became frequent, and very few of those islets remained on which husband and wife could meet without an explosion. Praskovya Fedorovna now had good reason to say that her husband’s temper was trying. With characteristic exaggeration she said he had always had a dreadful temper, and that it had needed all her good nature to put up with it for twenty years. It was true that now the quarrels were started by him. His bursts of temper always came just before dinner, often just as he began to eat his soup. Sometimes he noticed that a plate or dish was chipped, or the food was not right, or his son put his elbow on the table, or his daughter’s hair was not done as he liked it, and for all this he blamed Praskovya Fedorovna. At first she retorted and said disagreeable things to him, but once or twice he fell into such a rage at the beginning of dinner that she realized it was due to some physical derangement brought on by taking food, and so she restrained herself and did not answer, but only hurried to get the dinner over. She regarded this self-restraint as highly praiseworthy. Having come to the conclusion that her husband had a dreadful temper and made her life miserable, she began to feel sorry for herself, and the more she pitied herself the more she hated her husband. She began to wish he would die; yet she did not want him to die because then his salary would cease. And this irritated her against him still more. She considered herself dreadfully unhappy just because not even his death could save her, and though she concealed her exasperation, that hidden exasperation of hers increased his irritation also.”

Here it is said that “it was true now the quarrels were started by him.” This suggests that earlier the quarrels were not started by him. Here, his fault in the matter is acknowledged. Before, no fault was attributed to him. Regardless of actual fault, only now is it important enough to write about. That is, only now is the experience of fault one of concern. Here is a clear consequence of Ivan’s actions. His actions are a consequence of his pain. Furthermore, his wife is no peach, as we continue to see in chapter 4:

“Those about him did not understand or would not understand it, but thought everything in the world was going on as usual. That tormented Ivan Ilych more than anything. He saw that his household, especially his wife and daughter who were in a perfect whirl of visiting, did not understand anything of it and were annoyed that he was so depressed and so exacting, as if he were to blame for it. Though they tried to disguise it he saw that he was an obstacle in their path, and that his wife had adopted a definite line in regard to his illness and kept to it regardless of anything he said or did . . .

Praskovya Fedorovna’s attitude to Ivan Ilych’s illness, as she expressed it both to others and to him, was that it was his own fault and was another of the annoyances he caused her. Ivan Ilych felt that this opinion escaped her involuntarily—but that did not make it easier for him.”

She is as materialistic, as much of a social climber, as he is. One cannot say that she is innocent when he is not. She does nothing to improve her own position. She leeches off of him, consciously. Throughout the story she shares his vanities and pretentions. Most importantly, she is not dutiful. She exasperates him and is exasperated by him. She hates him, and lets her hatred cause both him and herself further pain. The significant point is that Ivan’s most important relationship is morally unimportant. What is important is that the relationship, for whatever reason, causes him pain.

Back to the story of Ivan’s life, chapter 3 shows us Ivan’s other difficulties.

“This was in 1880, the hardest year of Ivan Ilych’s life. It was then that it became evident on the one hand that his salary was insufficient for them to live on, and on the other that he had been forgotten, and not only this, but that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite ordinary occurrence. Even his father did not consider it his duty to help him. Ivan Ilych felt himself abandoned by everyone, and that they regarded his position with a salary of 3,500 rubles as quite normal and even fortunate. He alone knew that with the consciousness of the injustices done him, with his wife’s incessant nagging, and with the debts he had contracted by living beyond his means, his position was far from normal.”

This is perhaps the only passage in the story where Ivan’s perception is acknowledged by Tolstoy to be different from those around him. It is Ivan’s perception that others disagree with him about the welfare of his position. However, it cannot be denied that others disagree with him that he requires help, and both needs and deserves more.

Ivan’s motivations turn from doing that which is expected in high society to focusing only on money:

“All he now wanted was an appointment to another post with a salary of five thousand rubles, either in the administration, in the banks, with the railways, in one of the Empress Marya’s Institutions, or even in the customs—but it had to carry with it a salary of five thousand rubles and be in a ministry other than that in which they had failed to appreciate him.”

Again he deserves more, and recognition of his just deserts will come in the form of money. It is worth noting that his wife thinks the same thing (as do others in his life). When his fortunes turn to the better, so does his family life.

“Now that everything had happened so fortunately, and that he and his wife were at one in their aims and moreover saw so little of one another, they got on together better than they had done since the first years of marriage. Ivan Ilych had thought of taking his family away with him at once, but the insistence of his wife’s brother and her sister-in-law, who had suddenly become particularly amiable and friendly to him and his family, induced him to depart alone.”

With all of this good fortune, Tolstoy gives us a completely objective description of Ivan’s motivations: “The pleasures connected with his work were pleasures of ambition; his social pleasures were those of vanity; but Ivan Ilych’s greatest pleasure was playing bridge.”

Ambition, vanity, and . . . bridge? Like liberalism, bridge is lumped in with the usual vices. But what relationship can bridge have to ambition and vanity? One cannot make a political argument against bridge. One cannot make much of a moral argument in any way. Bridge, for Ivan, is an experience. Money possibly related to bridge does not concern Ivan. What concerns him is the appropriate play of the game. The experience of bridge is what is important. This is a third hint as to the lines between right and wrong in the moral universe of The Death of Ivan Ilych.

When Ivan realizes he is going to die he panics. He tries to put a reason to all of his pain and sorrow. Try as he might to make sense of his plight and his life, he is left with nothing but questions. The following passage from chapter 9 sums up his central difficulty:

“Then what do you want now? To live? Live how? Live as you lived in the law courts when the usher proclaimed ‘The judge is coming!’ The judge is coming, the judge!” he repeated to himself. “Here he is, the judge. But I am not guilty!” he exclaimed angrily. “What is it for?” And he ceased crying, but turning his face to the wall continued to ponder on the same question: Why, and for what purpose, is there all this horror? But however much he pondered he found no answer. And whenever the thought occurred to him, as it often did, that it all resulted from his not having lived as he ought to have done, he at once recalled the correctness of his whole life and dismissed so strange an idea.”

Is Ivan wrong to assume that his life was correct? Was it the wrongness in his life that caused his suffering? In chapter 11, he wrestles with that possibility:

“It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend.”

The conclusion is not that his life was wrong. The conclusion is that there is nothing to defend. If a wrong action or choice was made on Ivan’s part, he would be able to attempt to defend it. In Ivan’s case, there is simply nothing. This at first seems difficult to comprehend. The reader was given a description of Ivan’s life. If there was nothing in his life, and this is indeed, as I have so far assumed, a moral tale, why is there nothing to defend? The question is troubling, especially to Ivan.

“”This is wrong, it is not as it should be. All you have lived for and still live for is falsehood and deception, hiding life and death from you.” And as soon as he admitted that thought, his hatred and his agonizing physical suffering again sprang up, and with that suffering a consciousness of the unavoidable, approaching end.”

The idea that Ivan’s life is false causes him more pain. It can be assumed that pain is a signifier of a bad deed, a punishment. If that is so, then he should not be punished for recognizing his bad deeds. This is yet another conundrum to add to the list. In the final chapter, Ivan continues this line of reasoning, and it becomes circular.

“He felt that his agony was due to his being thrust into that black hole and still more to his not being able to get right into it. He was hindered from getting into it by his conviction that his life had been a good one. That very justification of his life held him fast and prevented his moving forward, and it caused him most torment of all.”

The “black hole” is a metaphor for where Ivan believes he needs to go to not suffer. He believes that he can’t get into it because he doesn’t want to. So, to Ivan, he both wants to admit that his life, his choices, his motivations, were horrible, and he cannot.

The difficulty is resolved abruptly:

“And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. “How good and how simple!” he thought. “And the pain?” he asked himself. “What has become of it? Where are you, pain?””

We are not told, however, what exactly became clear to Ivan. It was not that his life was false, or wrong. He already tried that, and it didn’t work. What we do see is Ivan’s action, and its consequences. Accepting death, and dying was what Ivan did in order to “release” his family from the pain he was causing them, and get rid of his own pain. The consequence of accepting death and the act of dying, for Ivan, was to go into the light, to be at peace, and to lose suffering.

Is the moral lesson therefore that dying is the only good action? A look back at the hints dropped throughout the story help answer this question. Sensuality, vanity, ambition, liberalism, and the difficulties of his marriage are all presented as natural. They are not things Ivan can or should control. They are just the way of things. Liberalism is a belief in the human life. Marriage is a social construction, and only a ridiculous duty of the living. Sensuality, vanity, ambition and materialism are all the result of life’s impulses. They are experiences, like bridge. They are all worthless.

The Death of Ivan Ilych presents us with the central difficulty of the human condition: death. However, to Tolstoy, death is the only thing that is not difficult about the human condition. This is the polar opposite of the morality that underlies what American law students, or Russian lawyers like Ivan Ilych, consider to be law. Perhaps Tolstoy made Ivan Ilych a lawyer to drive this point home. There is nothing good about law because it avoids the most important moral truth, that life is meaningless. To Tolstoy it seems that law is a sham, putting a fake morality over the inherent evil of life. It is a construction that supports nothing.

Read carefully, this article offers a good definition of American Conservatism (and exposes the uselessness of the label). Like many conservative articles/blogs these days, this one primarily defines conservatism by pointing out the flaws and failings of the “neo-con” movement (started, depending on who you talk to, during the Reagan or W. Bush administrations–the above article picks Reagan as the culprit), and also, more interestingly, by contrasting Burke (the accepted godfather of the Anglo/American/individualist/liberal conservative movement) and Locke. This method of definition is not effective. Knowing that something is not a few things, does not explain what something is, unless one lives in a world of very few variables. Unlike those many articles, however, in this one Mr. Ryn does provide enough to come up with a workable starting definition:

“As the ideology of freedom wholly misunderstands the origins of freedom, it comes as no surprise to a Burkean conservative that such ideas should produce disastrous practical consequences. Real freedom grows out of historically evolved character traits and institutions. It cannot strike roots in inhospitable soil. This is as true in the market place as in politics. You want maximum economic freedom? Then make sure that there is morality and culture that foster a maximum of individual responsibility. In an economy manned increasingly by gamblers and crooks and dominated by greed and short-sightedness the line between honesty and crime dissolves, and the misuse of economic freedom invites the imposition of external controls.”

The quoted paragraph essentially defines Conservatism as simply the recognition that values are born of cultural history, and they are not/can not be intentionally created where they do not exist by historical accident.  That is, according to the article, “Conservatives” recognize this truth, and “Neo-cons,” and “Progressives,” believe that human kind has some sort of true nature that is revealed by dismantling unnatural institutions, and/or imposing institutions that encourage human nature (whatever that may be). A couple of paragraphs contrasting Burke and Locke illustrate this point well:

“Unlike Burke, Locke has little or no awareness of what ordered liberty owes to history. He explains the existence of freedom in the state of nature by conveniently reading back into that state personality traits and ideas that could have evolved only in an advanced society. Locke is a liberal dreamer, an ideologue. He takes his bearings not from actual, historical experience but from purely hypothetical theorizing, naive theorizing at that. His ideas could be interpreted more charitably, but a fondness for Locke is not indicative of conservative leanings.

Locke has been a major source for the idea that freedom will flourish if only external impediments to it are removed. Just get rid of bad government! As combined with American nationalistic conceit, this kind of romantic dreaming formed what I call the new Jacobinism. This ideology assigned to America the task of ushering in freedom and democracy everywhere. In the words of one conservative hero: “The American dream lives—not only in the hearts and minds of our own countrymen but in the hearts and minds of millions of the world’s people in both free and oppressed societies who look to us for leadership.” “Human freedom is on the march.” The ideology of freedom does not ask whether the preconditions for freedom are present in a society. It simply assumes that freedom will blossom once the dictators have been kicked out. This kind of utopianism used to be a monopoly of the left. In recent decades it has been the stock-in-trade of putative “conservatives.””

Mr. Ryn then points out that the last quote is from President Ronald Reagan, and condemns his speeches as “filled with the romantic rhetoric of freedom” and his admirers as people whose “wishful thinking and lack of intellectual discernment made them swallow the sentimental dreaming.”

(An aside: a term that we can use to describe “Conservatives,” as understood by Mr. Ryn, is “cultural relativists.” Cultural relativism is distinguishable from “moral relativism.”  The distinction is well worth exploring, perhaps even necessary in a broader discussion, but I don’t think it is necessary to do so now. That will be for another post.)

Earlier in the article, Mr. Ryn talks of perhaps another “lack of intellectual discernment.” He says:

“To understand the predicament of the so-called conservative movement, it is important to realize that it originated as a largely political alliance. It was cobbled together out of diverse intellectual currents. Some of these were philosophically remote from each other, but could agree on a limited range of political objectives, particularly opposing communism and defending limited government. But not even those objectives were understood in the same way by all. With the fall of communism the lack of intellectual coherence became more glaring than ever.”

Basically, the article is making the claim that the threat of Communism kept Conservatives together, and, even though Reagan was a “wishful thinker,” “[o]peration global freedom was constrained in Reagan’s case by the Cold War.” If I understand him correctly, what he means is that the Soviet Union, and other Communists limited the machinations of Reagan and his cohorts. Essentially, the Communists were so prevalent and powerful that they provided a world with very few variables, and a negative definition (a definition of the type discussed at the beginning of this post), was sufficient.

I don’t want to comment on this interpretation of recent history. It is not what interests me here. Rather, what interests me are the problems inherent in a recognition of cultural history in a liberal, individualistic society. We can understand liberal individualism as “not Communism” (as apparently the Reagan era Conservatives did). Neither are Monarchy, or Anarchy (however defined), Liberalism. In order to understand what liberal individualism is we have to look at its history. I think Mr. Ryn would agree with that.

(The story of liberal thought is best told in Liah Greenfeld’s Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Any understanding of history requires quite a lot of study, and I suggest reading the entirety of this work, because, amongst other reasons, I can not repeat it here. However, understanding what liberalism is is not the purpose of this post.)

If we are to understand liberal thought, we must trace the history of liberal thinkers. The first person to set down in writing, and therefore institutionalize, what would come to be known as liberal philosophy, was John Locke. Though Locke’s application of liberal philosophy to society may have been different than Burke’s, Locke’s epistemology, his conception of human action, is the foundation of all liberal moral value. Conservatives can claim that one must be British (or strongly influenced by the English), as Burke did, to be liberal. The exact definition of what constitutes “English” in this case is pretty hard to grasp. One can say that the primary reason that one must be English is that it is England’s history that birthed the philosophy. This history includes Shakespeare, the King James Bible (which is not to say Christianity, but rather an English translation/reconstruction of Christianity), and Queen Elizabeth, amongst others. The philosophy was defined and promoted by English writers, starting with Locke. To use Mr. Ryn’s language, Locke is a liberal institution, he is part of the hospitable soil from which liberalism grows. The claim that Conservatism both recognizes this history, and rejects the principles of its primary member, is hard for me to comprehend. Locke, and Progressives, as products of liberal history, are as liberal as Conservatives. They must be, as creators/products of the same history.

The Burkian argument basically goes like this: There are traditions or institutions that promote certain values (for example God, Family and Republic, as espoused by The American View), and ignoring those institutions will cause the destruction of liberal society. However, a primary tenet of Liberalism, is “freedom of choice.” That is, in a liberal society, people are allowed, or even encouraged, to choose what they believe. This provides a slippery slope (one of many; “ordered liberty” is another significant example) for any liberal, Conservative or Progressive. If, as Ryn says, Conservatism “was cobbled together out of diverse intellectual currents . . . philosophically remote from each other,” then we can assume that Conservatives could find themselves at different points along the slippery slope. Much as Mr. Ryn compares Neo-cons to Progressives as a whole, one could, I believe, define any diverse number of “conservatives” and “progressives” as identical depending on where one draws/conceives of the line(s) of demarcation. At some point one has to decide exactly what “morality and culture” is necessary for liberal society to exist.  Mr. Ryn describes this slippery slope thusly: “[h]uman nature being torn between higher and lower potentialities, the latter have to be reined in. Without this self-restraint, no freedom. To the extent that order does not come from within, it has to be imposed externally. This was the moral-spiritual ethos of the American constitutional republic.” Progressives do this as much as Conservatives do. There is no inherent difference.

I don’t think he, or most people in general (conservative or progressive), recognize these inconsistencies. They are content to define their views as against the views of others. The contradictions and inconsistencies were always there, but they were only revealed to contemporary Conservatives (for instance) when the imagined threat of Communism became more difficult to imagine.

The confusion in this discourse between “Conservative” and “Progressive” and whatever else, is well illustrated in this recent article by well known Libertarian David Boaz. The article discusses how many Conservatives complain about deteriorating freedoms. According to Mr. Boaz, however, when one looks at the history of law in the United States, it is hard to argue that freedoms as a whole have deteriorated. Rather, just the opposite has occurred, at least in sum. Libertarians should arguably be happy, therefore, with the progress this country has made (even if imperfect, and filled with inconsistency). The United States has “progressed” towards, that is to say it has imposed on itself, increased “freedom” in many ways, contrary to the wishes/proclivities/traditions of many of its members.

In politics and law, Conservatives are no less “progressive” than Progressives. At the very least, Conservatism, as I have defined it here (using Mr. Ryn’s work as a foundation), does not provide adequate motivation for any sort 0f action. Recognizing an empirical fact does not tell you what to do about it. “Conservative” and “Progressive,” as labels of political choice/action, are just political fiction, useful only to politicians wishing to capitalize on emotional sentiment (the good ol’ days, or the bad ol’ days, depending), or to gain political advantage by siding with more well established members of the label (“the enemy of my enemy will at least help me out a little,” so to speak, as I think Libertarians try to do when they call themselves Conservative). To suggest that a political idea or a moral value is one or the other creates division where there may be none at all (for example, there is much common ground between contemporary Democrats and Libertarians).

One must define what one believes first, and then contrast it with other beliefs. One will always end up disappointed with ones allies if the alliance is understood by what one is not.  The enemy of my enemy may also be my enemy. I think that is the point Mr. Ryn is making, but in sticking to the Conservative label he is doing nothing more than excluding Neo-cons from it, and perpetuating the problem.

Harriet is a retired middle school teacher, well liked by her previous students, many of whom I was to meet in my new high school. She lives on her small pension and occasional tutoring.  A defiant Democrat, who talks constantly of the unfairness in society due to the immense disparity between rich and poor, Harriet is a devoted Episcopalian, working and baking for her church. She is also the closest friend of the preacher and his wife. Her husband died of alcoholism when her two children, Sam and Margaret, were very young.  Harriet claims a fierce dislike of alcohol, and drugs and drug users. All the same, she drinks an occasional glass of sherry in the evening. Harriet opposes gay marriage, although she has nothing against homosexuals. She is pro-choice, but thinks abortion is wrong.

Harriet’s son, Sam, lives in Chicago, with his female life partner. They do not believe in marriage. Harriet respects this choice. Sam is a Communist, poet, student. His bikes are often stolen, at night, from outside their apartment. Sam listens to much of the same rock and roll that I listen to. In fact, he gave me most of his tape collection.

Margaret, Harriet’s daughter, lives in a town near Harriet. She is married to a Catholic working-class Republican. Harriet respects this choice. Margaret’s husband has a son from a previous relationship with a cheerleader for the New England Patriots. He has full custody of this son, who is ten and likes to play football. Margaret, her husband, and her stepson live in a one room, trailer-style house behind her husband’s parents’ larger house. When I go to visit I see: on the walls, paintings of Jesus on the cross; beside the VCR, heavy metal CD’s, and a forgotten adult film; on the new computer, evidence of internet pornography. When the ten-year-old is not talking about football, he is often reciting his catechism.

Harriet has a brother and two sisters, one of whom I met. The other sister I only heard of in stories. She had suffered, since early childhood, from chronic, severe depression, caused, Harriet says, by chemical imbalances. It may be that I was told these stories in order to make me understand that my own depression was somehow not real, that it was a matter of choice, not as significant or uncontrollable as the depression of the sister.

Harriet’s brother was often away, sailing tropical waters.  He was an extremely wealthy businessman. Harriet talked of this brother with disdain. She told of a trip, by her brother’s family and her own, to New York. Her brother had handed a crisp one hundred dollar bill to each of the children, including Harriet’s, and told them to go have fun. Harriet was proud to say that her children chose to save the money. They had never seen so much before.

Harriet lives in a very small red house on a relatively unpopulated stretch of road. Her address is a rural route and post -box number. She has an impressive garden. Gardening is the primary subject of discussion with her close friend, the preachers’ wife. Harriet also likes bird watching, as most retired women in New Hampshire seem to. I found myself unable to resist bird watching.

I was staying in a small room upstairs in that small red house, which used to belong to her children, across from Harriet’s even smaller room. I woke up at five every morning to catch the bus, for the long ride to high school in another town.

When I came home from school, Harriet could be found knitting in her chair, or planting exotic flowers in her garden, depending on the season. She would greet me and ask about my day. I would spend the afternoon doing homework, and she would cook us dinner. Sometimes she would have me help her with dinner, so that she could teach me to cook a sauce or some other dish. After dinner we would play Scrabble, or watch TV, and talk.

One night, after dinner, we were having a discussion about ethics. There had, no doubt, been something on the news or at school that I responded to with a moral statement of some kind. Perhaps I began talking about human morality in general terms. Perhaps I asked a question about why people do some things that I would find wrong. I can’t remember what exactly spurred her to ask the question she asked. “How can you have morality without God?  Where else can your morals come from?”

Harriet, as I have said, was a devoted Episcopalian. She was not, however, an evangelical, and she never took to preaching about religious matters (political ones yes, but not religious ones), so the question was not delivered from the mountain, but asked in polite confusion. Her own morals, according to her, were derived from her belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, His words, and His words alone.

How could I have a firm moral center without having such a belief in God to guide me? I answered something like “I don’t know, I just do.” I wanted to politely avoid a confrontation. Also, though I knew I didn’t need a God to speak truths to me, I didn’t know exactly why this was so. Wherefrom did my morality truly come? Why did I believe what I believed, if I had no religion, and no clear guide? I thought about this for a while, and an answer came to me. I remembered another conversation I had with Harriet, in which she told me of her personal journey through life thus far.

Harriet was brought up on a bean farm in the Midwest. Life was hard. Her parents were strict but kind. When asked if they were religious, Harriet could not recall. If they were, their spirituality certainly did not find its way into Harriet’s life. When Harriet’s childhood ended she set forth to find her way. She had a few tales I believe she now considers heroic. After graduating from college, a feat in and of itself for a girl at the time, she fell in love with a black man. She took part in protest demonstrations and parades. She also, either before or after college, actively looked for a church to call her own. According to her, she chose the church with a doctrine most closely matching her moral beliefs.

I never compared these two conversations in her presence, respecting her own beliefs about her beliefs. The truth, however, as it seemed to me, was that Harriet did not get her morality from her religion any more than I did. It must have been there already for her to choose a church that matched it. There was a desire for a house of worship to call home (or perhaps just a place to seek shelter from some storm) but she clearly had not acquired, for example, her strong political views from the Episcopal, or any, church.

I stayed with Harriet, in New Hampshire, for two years, until I finished high school. By the end of those two years I stopped taking my prescribed medication, for no reason other than I didn’t want to any longer. I also stopped being depressed, I believe for the same reason.