Balance (Response #9)

I am definitely happy that I did not try to be productive and write this blog before our Thursday class. I figured we would just be talking about the chapter in the book, and what I would be writing about would be the same (if still influenced somewhat by the daily conversation). I was quite excited when I heard we had an outside expert coming into to talk to us about capitalism and was grateful I had waited to compose my blog. Also, the relevance the two ideas had with each other caught me unexpected.

            The interweaving theme between these two discussions was, for me, balance. Now this idea goes way back into our first semester of honors. (I really enjoy how this is all beginning to interconnect) As Aristotle so sagaciously pointed out, virtue is only a mean between vices of two polarities. Bouma-Prediger tinkers with this particular definition with a few of his virtues that only have vices of deficiency (i.e. love and justice). Prior to our original honors class I had never perceived virtue as a balance, a scale really. This scale measures the vileness of two vices while extracting the good root that God planted while Darkness distorted. Earlier in my life I would (most likely) have disagreed with this and heralded a complete divide between right and wrong. Now, I feel like God has primed me through life experiences and teachers’ teaching that that might not be the case necessarily. Bouma-Prediger converses about the “ethical principle of intrinsic value.” (p. 136) This area, I think, is most pertinent to our conversations this semester. “All species, like humanity, count morally. Not all species count the same.” Assuming this is true (without getting into the why and who gets to decide for that would be an entire other book), how are we to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad, best and second best when there are tiers of value instead of black and white? What happens when color is involved? What about when hues, shades, and tints litter the field of controversy instead of black and white? Where is the balance? This steer has a life and value due to that, but this child really would like special steak for her birthday. This farmer in Nigeria desperately needs his crop production to increase, but the local watershed cannot counter the influx of the only pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that are available to the man.

            Back to economics, Dr. Cook, I believe, really championed the ideal of balance. Dr. Cook’s discussion of settling for the second best option is what initially bridged the gap in my mind between our readings and economics. Once my eyes were opened to the bridge, I saw balance woven into the themes of economics. When Dr. Cook taught us about the three-legged stool of society he really was just describing a giant three ended scale. This scale should be properly balanced, and when it is not economies, governments, and morals go awry. Markets. They are a system of balance, a system of judgment between two parties. If one party puts two much weight on their goods then a transaction will not occur. Even the questions raised in class were answered with balance from Dr. Cook. Rachel asked how a (necessary?) change in diet would affect the economy, and I implied from her question that whether or not and/or how we should do that is part of the dilemma. Dr. Cook answered with a compromise of sorts. A compromise, in my view, is an outflow of a balancing act. He realistically said that our food consumption will not in totality decrease (unfortunately for the earth) while on the other hand; our consumption of food might change. Maybe we will tend towards more fruits and vegetables or maybe towards fish which require substantially less feed than other some other sources of meat (like we talked about earlier). Maybe we can even hone in our knowledge and skill to create a system where waste of animal production is utilized efficiently. However, this all leads to another negative aspect of our compromise. This walks us right up to “creative destruction” that Dr. Cook talked about. A surge a new direction, albeit wholesome, still leaves behind the old way of doing things and the people who lead them back in the dust of bankruptcy and unproductiveness. Where should the balance be?

            To summarize and personalize, where is our balance? How can we be virtuous? This is neither easy nor straightforward. For like Bouma-Prediger said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” (p. 132) “Knowing,” I believe, has to do with our God given conscience paired with the Holy Spirit to be optimally perceptive of virtues. And, each person’s balance will be different. This makes things so hard sometimes and was something I struggled with a lot for a while. So, I challenge you. Seek virtue. Seek His voice for virtue and for the balance that you have been called to in your life whether that is heralding the cause of our precious earth and her systems or responsibly stewarding a corporation or loving your own child, raising them in the way they should go or even providing Wi-Fi to a campus to sustain the sanity of every student. “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (I Cor. 10:31)