Justice, Temperance, and Unearned Income

In Aristotle’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, he details the roles of currency and exchange in the Greek commercial economy of his time, while exploring the virtues necessary to live a good life. He explores their intersections—how people’s financial responsibilities are rooted in virtues, and vice versa. One must keep in mind, however, that his analysis is contemporary to a commercial state with fundamentally different economic circumstances, when compared to the modern, complex, global, capitalist economy. Thus, his ideations are impacted by different constraints: Aristotle did not, for example, factor in the ethical ramifications of stock exchanges, as those just didn’t exist in the fourth century before Jesus Christ. So, the repercussions of his conclusions about wealth acquisition and usury may also be different when considering the modern economy. Thus, in today’s world, a reasonable, intensive planning of one’s own wealth acquisition may not necessarily be detestable, from an Aristotelian perspective. Indeed, saving and investing one’s excess income may lead to capital gains that would allow one more financial resources to effect positive social change. However, such behavior only works with a disciplined attempt at temperance and material satiability.

On the Democratic Value of a Supposedly Egalitarian Experience

To Daniel Boorstein, we face an era of advancement like no other, comparable only in name to the renaissance, featuring an updated epithet: Rather than the “Republic of Letters,” whose citizens shared knowledge, we wake up to creation’s next revelation, the “Republic of Technology” (3). Following from this change, he argues that such an epoch is “not only more democratic, but also more in the American mode” (3) touting universal opportunity for entrance and engagement as its most critical feature. And yet, to Boorstein, those two supposed values of early America are in absence of a third, crucial to the new Republic: a “shared experience,” the foremost enabler of total democracy (3). And yet, whereas Boorstein’s contention that the Republic of Technology will ultimately yield a wholly democratic experience for the United States—if not the whole world—based on the egalitarian nature of technological advances that often make imprints across the entire national community, he fails to acknowledge the potentially catastrophic repercussions of the social forces leveraging that very technology. In prizing universal knowledge, the real and dramatic possibility of manipulation by higher forces is left untouched. As such, while the Republic of Technology may lead to a future of similar, comparable lifestyles for people across the nation, their experiences might be trodden upon by a misuse of power on the side of the informants, who hold the value of communal democracy in their very hands.

Comparing Germany and France’s Transitions to Renewable Energy

Summary

Germany and France’s transitions to renewable energy have been vastly different over the past few decades. To understand why this has been the case, I first clarify their dramatic similarities in GDP, electricity cost and usage, and household size, to illuminate their similar needs in infrastructure and electricity. Then, I refute three possible explanations for the difference in their energy transition, regarding their access to renewable resources, nuclear energy technology, and fossil fuel imports. I conclude by arguing that such a difference in their transitions is likely external to the above variables.

“Dad Used to Call Me Kaddish, So I Wouldn’t Forget”

Prior to his passing away just after my first year of high school, on June 13, 2012, my brothers, aunt, and I begged my dad to record his elongated, story-based answers to a series of questions from the book, To Our Children’s Children: Preserving Family Histories for Generations to Come, written by Bob Greene and D. G. Fulford. Just over four years later, I finally began to listen to it all, and in my search for memories, I discovered old text messages, interviews, photographs and more.

The following is the fruition of my own experience in listening, reading, reflecting, and believing:

The Birds and the Bees of Congress: The Real Story of Congressional Action and the Forces Behind Its Success

Introduction

Aside from the original shock of nearly omnipresent WiFi, women and people of color who may not necessarily own land, and cell phones, a detailed look at the modern state of Capitol Hill would leave the founders of our nation utterly bewildered. Scampering along its grounds, dodging groups of tourists on their ways to and from meetings, are lawyers, lobbyists, union representatives, and congressional staffers, among other unelected citizens who, perhaps even more than those chosen by the American populace, play a grandiose role in advancing nearly every bill, personal or ideological statement, and vote on the floors of Congress. Given that the first article of the Constitution fails to enumerate any roles or powers for these unelected political figures, their integral role within the American legislative branch merits the following questions: What underlying forces, outside of our elected representatives, are at work in fostering congressional success, whatever success may be? And, what are the practical and ideological repercussions of both their persistence as outside figures within our legislative process and their increasingly extensive impact on the laws and the beginnings of national political conversations that emerge from Capitol Hill?

In this paper, I attempt to divine the ultimate sources of congressional success, analyzing the forces behind every Congress member, as well as what a successful Congress might look like, when considering its progress via a non-ideologically based lens. This includes, especially relevant for the contemporary Congress, a discussion of the functionality and even the potential wisdom of a Congress that fails to pass much of any legislation. After defining congressional success and studying the factors in its formulation, I discuss the grand implications of a Congress distinctively run by people other than those elected by the American populace, in which our elected officials often only control the ideological direction of their influence in the House of Representatives and the Senate—what many overconfident elected officials dub the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” <1> lexically escaping its reputation as the worst of its kind.