Change and Decay

There's an interesting article in today's Houston Chronicle. More than twenty auto dealerships have gone bankrupt in the Houston area during the recent downturn in the economy. Most of the lots are still vacant. They are very difficult to sell. So, gone are the tacky trimmings, the metallic ribbons and the inflatable gorillas. Gone, also, are the oceans of steel and polished chrome. Instead, formerly mammoth stores like Bill Heard Chevrolet are home to drifters and drug dealers; grass pushes up between the cracks on acres of concrete.

Realtors have been trying to sell expensive frontage to commercial customers, but no one is biting. Larger areas, further away from the roads, would be ideal for new hotel developments, but there are many hotels in Houston at less than full occupancy, so no one is building new ones. The huge, 40 acre site in Hempstead, formerly home to Lawrence Marshall Chevrolet ("We clobber big city prices") is 90% unoccupied. Only one small parcel has been taken over by a country store, which moved out from the town center. The remainder is a stark reminder of what was, once, the largest volume Chevy truck dealer in the nation.

What is so upsetting about empty car dealerships? Obviously, they can quickly become an eyesore, and they do attract crime. Many of the vacant dealerships have been stripped bare. But the problem is deeper than appearance. Cars represent something ingrained in the American psyche. They represent freedom, the mobility we all need to succeed in our fast paced world. An empty car lot seems to spell failure, not only for an individual entrepreneur, but for the entrepreneurial culture. An abandoned car lot seems to say "Our culture has failed. Capitalism has failed. No more Chevys by the levy. No more American pie."

So, what do abandoned churches say? That God has left the room? That Christianity no longer has a place in our modern society? And where are the articles bemoaning the loss of something precious in our culture? Or, do we value Chevrolets more than the Savior?

Book Burning

A disturbing story has come out of the UK in the last few days. Apparently, British pensioners, hard hit by an exceptionally cold winter, and a 40% increase in the price of natural gas, have taken to burning books to keep warm. With a 20kg bag of coal costing over $8, and a decent sized hard back book selling for about 8c, some people have been raiding used bookstores to find cheap fuel. According to a report on Metro.co.uk a charity shop in South Wales has seen senior citizens snapping up volumes of old encyclopedias to keep their fires lit overnight, because they burn slowly and are cheaper than coal.

I see two issues here: First, it is an abomination that the elderly should be driven to such straits. If a society is to be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members then this is a terrible indictment of modern Britain. I have a recurring vision of octogenarians struggling through the snow and ice in order to carry home heavy loads of obsolete Encyclopaedia Britannicas. Either the structure of family life has broken down to such an extent that the elderly are left to fend for themselves, or socialism, the substitute for the family, has failed. This should not happen, especially in one of the most prosperous and advanced countries in the world.

There is, however, a second isuue, which probably should not concern me, but it does. What on earth are they burning? Some of the most valuable books in my collection came from charity shops. For example, I have a full set of the works of G. Campbell Morgan, in about a dozen volumes, that is one of my treasures. I bought the lot for five pounds in a jumble sale in Newcastle. I have a 1630 Thomas Buck Bible, printed in Cambridge, which I also picked up for five pounds. I wonder how many old family Bibles are going up in flames? I wonder how many priceless volumes are being sacrificed in order to keep people warm?

People are more valuable than books, of course. But I can't help remembering how the fall of great civilizations has often been accompanied by the burning of books. To burn a library is to destroy a symbol of the accumulated wisdom of the society that is passing away. Maybe that image is just a little too close to the truth?

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/807821-pensioners-burn-books-for-warmth

Image credit: maddogfargo.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

Freud's Unfinished Business

Here's an interesting snippet about everyone's favorite psycho-analyst, Sigmund Freud. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Freudian psycho-analysis. There are hidden meanings in just about everything. Indeed, many of our adult malaises are caused by the suppression of childhood memories, particularly if the memories we choose not to remember are of events that were traumatic. Freud's treatment often involved the uncovering of suppressed memories (some would say the invention of false memories), allowing the analyst to help the patient to deal with unfinished business.
Freud was brought up as an orthodox Jew. As a child, his father would often read to young Sigmund from a Philippson Hebrew Bible, illustrated with woodcuts. In Freud's father's Bible, the illustrations had been colored in by a child's hand, presumably by Sigmund. It was this Hebrew Bible that Freud's father presented to his son on his 35th birthday.


For all of his adult life, Freud was a militant atheist. He rejected Judaism. Even though his wife was Jewish, he refused to allow her to light Sabbath candles in their home. On one occasion, he threatened to become a Protestant rather than partcipate in a Jewish wedding ceremony. It was an empty threat. His philosophy would no more allow him to be a Protestant than a Jew. It was a position Freud held until the end of his life.
Ana-Maria Rizzuto writes that, when his father died, Freud began to collect small antique figurines. His study contained many; his desk always had a number of statuettes upon it. Freud spoke of his collection with great fondness; he even bequeathed it to his daughter, Anna.
Here's the interesting aspect of this story. Rizzuto tells us that the figures bore a striking resemblance to the woodcut illustrations in his father's Hebrew Bible.


Is it possible that Freud was using them as substitutes for religious devotion? Was the father of psycho-analysis suppressing his impulses? Did Freud have unfinished business? Perhaps the figurines represent the pleasure he had once experienced while hearing the stories of the people of Israel at his father's knee? Who knows! But, Freud taught a great deal about the human capacity for self-deception. It seems at least possible that Freud was deceiving himself. In his professional life he denied the possibility of God; but he surrounded himself with objects that reminded him of his religious upbringing. Did the arch-atheist have, deep down, a heart that longed for God?

The Signs of the Times

Michael Fitzgerald has written an interesting study of a man who made an enormous impression upon the twentieth century. Adolf Hitler - A Portrait contains a series of essays upon aspects of Hitler's life and work. For example, Fitzgerald includes subjects such as Hitler the Artist, the Politician, the Messiah, the Warlord, and the Murderer. A fascinating chapter looks at Hitler the 'Green' leader and sees, in National Socialism, the first shoots of modern environmentalism. There were, apparently, many ways in which Germans were better off under Hitler than they had been under the Weimar Republic. Hitler made great strides in overcoming poverty, and in improving diet and general health. Nazism aslso swept away many if not all of the old class distinctions. Advancement on the basis of merit became the norm. Of course, such improvements were costly. The rapid, wholesale restructuring of society was only achieved because it was, largely, imposed by an authoritarian regime. That regime was, fundamentally, socialist. In this, Hitler was not a conservative, he was a radical. If his program had not been tainted by extreme anti-semitism, then he may have been remembered as a great innovator. Tragically, however, Hitler was driven by an anger that consumed millions of lives including, eventually, his own.

I recommend this book. Fitzgerald does not avoid the hard questions. He does not fail to denounce Hitler as a mass murderer on a truly horrific scale. He does, however, move beyond the rhetoric to capture more than a caricature. An important question deserves our attention: Why did the German people elect to office a man who had already demonstrated a tendency to use violence? Did they not realize that, by voting for the National Socialists, they were condemning their nation to yet another war?

Various reasons have been suggested for the short-sightedness of the German people. Some have argued that the Second World War was a necessary postscript to World War One, and that the injustices perpetrated by the victors at Versailles led to the re-assertion of a militaristic Germany, bent on revenge. Others have drawn attention to the failures of the proportional representative electoral system, which allowed government to be manipulated by those at the extremes. Some commentators have noted the threat of communism and the reactionary forces that propelled Hitler into power. For others, the weakness of Weimar, the vacillations of its leaders, and the senility of Hindenberg seem to explain the rise of Nazism's star. Still others have blamed the policy of appeasement adopted by Europe's grand old men, allowing the jackboot to swagger its way past every obstacle.

Whatever the reason, the fact of the matter is that the German people, voters and politicians, allowed a psychotic meglamaniac to gain the reins of power. If there is a lesson for us it is surely the importance of vigilance. Within a relatively short space of time, the new German Chancellor had outlawed all associations other than those of which he approved. He came to dominate every aspect of national life, including those that had, initially, vigorously opposed him, including the army. Is it not possible that a modern Hitler could dupe us in just the same way?

Hitler benefitted from weak government, fear of foreign power (Soviet communism), and the financial havoc caused by the Great Depression. Many people either supported him, or failed to oppose him, because he was strong and confident, and because they believed that they would be better off with Hitler at the helm. It is the cancer of self-interest that allows charlatans and despots to claim authority to which they have no right. One could argue that six million Jews perished because ordinary people were more concerned about their standard of living than about doing what was right.