Hyvejohtajuus Published

Alexandre Havard's Virtuous Leadership (New York: Scepter Publishers 2007) was finally published in Finnish as Hyvejohtajuus (Providentia 2009).

The book publishing event took place at the legendary and elegant Cafe Aalto, downtown Helsinki. Approximately 100 people followed the panel discussion. Among the panelists were Alexandre Havard himself, who flew in from Moscow, the Finnish MEPs Timo Soini and Sari Essayah (from Brussels), and Providentia's economist Oskari Juurikkala. Jan Ahonen, as the interviewer and host, did an excellent job.

The topic of the discussion -- virtues, leadership, and their interplay in the modern society -- is very serious. Yet the panelists were able to discuss it in a very encouraging and positive way: not unfrequently were there roars of laughter. The host read exerts (is that the word I'm looking for?) from the book and asked a follow-up question, often a very pointed one, say, about the differences of men and women in leadership.

The panelists (from left to right): Oskari Juurikkala, Jan Ahonen, Timo Soini, Alexandre Havard, and Sari Essayah.

The contents pages and the introduction can be read online here. It can be ordered here. For those who pre-order the book, the price is 29,00 € (norm. 39,00 €), this includes delivery in Finland. I saw some people who ordered five copies. I wonder what they'll do with them?

Hyvejohtajuus: Alexandre Havard (Providentia/Otava 2009)

The book I translated is finally being published. The publishing event is on September 7th (Monday) at 2.00pm downtown Helsinki at Cafe Aalto, the cafeteria designed by Alvar Aalto.

For those of you who understand Finnish, below is the relevant information that I copy-pasted from the invite.

Among the panelists are Mr. Alexandre Havard himself (flying in from Moscow), the Finnish MEPs Mr. Timo Soini and Mrs. Sari Essayah (flying in from Brussels) and representing Providentia is the economist Mr. Oskari Juurikkala.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

KIRJANJULKISTAMISTILAISUUS

Alexandre Havardin Virtuous Leadership (New York: Scepter Publishers 2007) julkaistaan 9. käännöksenä suomeksi Hyvejohtajuus viikolla 37. Sitä ennen pidetään kirjan tiimoilta paneelikeskustelu.

Julkaisia: Providentia
Painotalo: Otava
Design ja taitto: Nordenswan & Siirilä
Suomentaja: Jason Lepojärvi
Myyntiin: viikolla 37

Tervetuloa aistillisen eleganttiin, Alvar Aallon sisustamaan Cafe Aaltoon kirjanjulkistamistilaisuuteen maanantaina 7. syyskuuta klo 14--15.30.

PANEELIKESKUSTELU

Mukana: johtajuuskirjoittaja Alexandre Havard, europarlamentaarikot Timo Soini (PS) ja Sari Essayah (KD) sekä taloustieteilijä Oskari Juurikkala (Providentia). Tilaisuuden juontaa toimittaja Jan Ahonen.

Teemana on johtajuus, hyveet ja niiden yhteispeli nykymaailmassa -- ts. "hyvejohtajuus". Aihe on äärimmäisen ajankohtainen myös Suomessa (vaalirahasotku, talouspetokset).

Yleisöllä ja lehdistöllä mahdollisuus esittää kysymyksiä. Tilaisuuden kieli on suomi.

ALEXANDRE HAVARD

Alexandre Havard (s. 1962, Pariisi) on johtajuuskouluttaja ja Havard Virtuous Leadership Instituten (HVLI) perustaja. Hänen kehittämänsä hyveisiin perustuva hyvejohtajuusmalli soveltaa klassista näkemystä ihmispersoonasta nykyajan organisaatioiden tarpeisiin.

Havard itse luennoi englanniksi, ranskaksi, espanjaksi, venäjäksi -- ja Suomessa asuneena jopa suomeksi.

KIRJASTA POIMITTUA

"Talousskandaaleja seuraa poikkeuksetta vaatimuksia valtiollisen sääntelyn vahvistamisesta, kaupan hallinnon reformista ja eettisten sääntöjen uudistamisesta. Näillä kaikilla on hyötynsä, mutta ne unohtavat jotain olennaista. Talouspetosten kyhäilijät ja muut lainrikkojat tietävät varsin hyvin, että se, mitä he tekevät, on väärin. Kyse on luonteenviasta." (JOHDANTO s. ix.)

TAKAKANNESTA

"Johtajuus on ensisijaisesti luonteen asia -- ei sen, mitä ihminen tietää tai osaa, vaan mitä hän on. Ihmisen luonnetta voidaan vahvistaa, sillä se on vapaan tahdon aluetta, toisin kuin temperamentti, joka on pitkälti jotakin synnynnäistä. Luonteen ytimessä ovat hyveet, toisin sanoen hyvät luonteenpiirteet, jotka näkyvät teoissa.

Hyvejohtajuus tarjoaa hyveissä kasvamisen metodologian jokaiselle. Johtajuus ei ole varattu vain jollekin eliitille, vaan se on monien kutsumus. Kirja sisältää esimerkkejä hyveiden ja johtajuuden yhteispelistä yhteiskunnan joka alalta: liike-elämästä, politiikasta, journalismista, koulutusalalta, uskonnosta, lääketieteestä ja myös vanhemmuudesta. Suomessakin asunut Havard mainitsee mm. saunan, Mannerheimin ja Helsingin Sinebrychoffin puiston."


KIRJASTA SANOTTUA

"Pidin kirjaa äärimmäisen kiehtovana, sillä se meni suoraan asian ytimeen: meidän tulee perustaa päätöksemme todellisuudelle, ja se taas vaatii todellisen käsityksen ihmispersoonasta."
--Francois Michelin, CEO emeritus, Group Michelin

LINKIT

Johtamisblogi hyvejohtajuus.fi.
Hyvejohtajuus Facebookissa.

Sleeping Guards

(This is a Virtuous Leadership article originally published in Finnish here.)

A story about sleeping guards reveals a fundamental problem in society. What’s to be done when control and security measures fail? Character is making a comeback.


A friend of mine who works for the Finnish Embassy in Tanzania built a real sauna in his backyard with a view of the Indian Ocean. One morning he found footprints, dark boot-size stains, on the wall at the end of the long sauna bench. He figured that the night guards had been sleeping in the sauna, so he decided to inspect the following night.

He was right: he found not only a guard in the sauna, but two guards in fact. But he recognized neither of them. Why was this? It turned out that the men were the security firm’s internal inspectors whose job was to visit locations to make sure the guards were present – and preferably awake too. In other words, the guards whose obligation was to make sure the night guards weren’t sleeping, were themselves sound asleep in a Finnish Embassy sauna.

The morale of the story is quite significant. It reveals a certain societal problem that pertains to families, schools, jobs, entire states – and not only in Africa, but also in Western countries.

Control mechanisms fail

The guards are sleeping, and the guards guarding the guards are sleeping. What can one do in this situation? Send more guards patrols to inspect the guards guarding the guards? And what about when these, too, find a comfortable sleeping place, say, the Swedish Embassy sauna? Send another higher patrol to inspect the inspectors of the guards guarding the guards? Clearly this would be an absurd, ineffective waste of resources. Sooner or later we reach a limit.

What should we conclude from this? That security and control mechanisms and procedures are all a waste of time? Certainly not. But alone they do not suffice. There must be another way.

We must understand that the root of many problems in society is not a technical one, something that can be fixed or cured “technically”. The root is, in many cases, fundamentally a moral one. If leaders and people in charge are not people of good character, no level of security and control measures suffice. Everything can be bypassed. There will always be an “inspector” of some sort who will decide to go to sleep – or look elsewhere as others are sleeping.

Alexandre Havard explains: “The business scandals of our time invariably give rise to calls for increased government oversight, reform of corporate government, and revision of codes of ethical conduct. These things may have their place, but they miss the essential point. The perpetrators of corporate wrongdoing invariably know that what they are doing is wrong. And yet they do it anyway. This is a failure of character.” (Virtuous Leadership, New York: Scepter, 2007, p. xiv.)

Competing anthropologies

If we neglect our inbuilt pull towards evil – towards “sleeping” – we will try to fix our societal problems and dysfunctional human behaviour by social engineering and various control mechanisms. We forget a fact humanity has always known to be true: evil is intrinsic to human nature – as is goodness.

T. S. Eliot said that some people “dream of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good” (The Rock, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1934).

Nicholas Capaldi is right: a most alarming problem of modern Western societies is the widespread presence of the “failed or incomplete individual”. He writes:

“What really inhibits these people is a character defect, a moral inadequacy… What they end up with are leaders who are their mirror image: leaders who are themselves incomplete individuals and who seek to control others because they cannot control themselves.” (Decadence: The Passing of Personal Virtues and its Replacement by Political and Psychological Slogans, London: Social Affairs Unit 2005, p. 145.)

Back to character

Havard explains that these kind of societies and people replace virtues with political slogans and psychobabble:

“Tolerance, understood as moral relativism, replaces the virtue of justice, statistics and probability theory replace prudence, avoidance of nicotine and trans fats and other dietary fads replaces self-control, self-esteem replaces magnanimity, self-criticism replaces humility – and democracy replaces God” (Virtuous Leadership, p. 51).

The result is a pervasive boredom – to quote George Weigel, “not simply boredom of the day-in, day-out, quotidian sort but boredom on a transcendent, even metaphysical plane: a kind of boredom with the mystery of life itself”. A boredom that, in D. B. Hart’s words, “renders the imagination inert and desire torpid” (Virtuous Leadership, p. 51).

The homes, schools, companies and states that focus and invest in character building (without forgetting control mechanisms) exercise prudence and are the major players of the future. They have understood the reality of things and made decisions accordingly. Others still live and function in an illusion, and over and over again, will be surprised to find failing mechanisms and sleeping guards.

School Massacre Prayer

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule.
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple or orange or green,
That's no offense, it's the freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise,
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the State.
We're allowed to cuss & dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues & cheeks.
They've outlawed guns; but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the unwed daddy, our Senior King.
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.
We can get our condoms, & birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires & totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No Word of God must reach this crowd.
It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot, My soul please take.

[Written by a student from Columbine High]

Discussion Continues...

The first of my three political theory questions that I posted some time ago has received several new comments.

Do contribute to the discussion, everybody! This is a joint venture.

Click here.

Virtuous Leadership

Updates on two Virtuous Leadership related projects:

(1) Virtuous Leadership blog

The blog Hyvejohtajuus (Virtuous Leadership in Finnish) a couple of good friends and I launched a little over a half a year ago is doing great. We can see from the visit statistics that readership is steadily growing. At start it was mostly our friends and acquaintances. Now, more and more people are finding it, and, what is important and encouraging, they are returning to it every week (the articles are published weekly).

We have four regular contributors - an economist/lawyer, an engineer, a political scientist/business major, and a theologian - and a monthly Guestbook-article is written by specialists of various fields. The articles, both the regular articles and the Guestbook-articles, deal with leadership and ethics in various fields like economics, family, education, politics, religion, and - perhaps most importantly - the ordinary life.

The articles are in Finnish because we want to promote discussion in Finland and in Finnish (virtue ethics, though ancient wisdom, is not familiar to the Finnish society at least as far as terminology goes).

Here's a few published topics: "Marketing - Virtue or Vice?", "On Forgiveness", "Disturbing Fatherhood", "The Secret and Gift of Joy", "The Profile of the Healed", "How To Strengthen Virtues?" etc.

We have some extremely interesting Guestbook-articles coming up. I personally can't wait.

(2) Virtuous Leadership translation project

Alexandre Havard's Virtuous Leadership is being translated into a dozen or so languages, Finnish included. I've been lucky to be a part of the Finnish translation team.

The translation has been ready for some time, but we want to make it perfect so we've been proof-reading it over and over again.

Let's see how things take off. I'm very optimistic. Virtuous Leadership is a jewel, but we want to pass the blessing around so that everyone can benefit from it.

Media Hypocricy?

Does the media reflect popular sentiment or produce it?

The question of the media's relationship with reality, whether it is reality's faithful mirror or one of its chief architects, resurfaces every now and then, especially after tragedies that are human in nature. The question is posed as a simple either/or question, but the truth, one suspects, is much more subtle and complicated. The answer to the question is certainly: both. But the more precise in and outs of the relationship remains unexpressible, at least for me.

However, one curious phenomenom can be detected.

When the question is asked in a frustrated or angry manner, as in -- "Do you not realize that your yellow journalism, your conflict-seeking headlines etc., cause strife in society and undermine public wellbeing, especially that of the young?" -- the media responds by denying responsibility and seeking refuge in the "the media reflects reality" answer.

This is a half-truth, which is to say it is a lie. The media does, indeed, reflect reality, but it also creates it.

On the other hand, when the question is asked in a sympathetic and praising manner, as in -- "What role did you have in exposing the misuse of public funding?" or "The media has helped to advocate tolerance, hasn't it?" -- the media responds by "humbly" accepting responsibility and concurs with the "the media effects reality" assertion.

So by alternating between two part-truths, two sides of a greater truth, the media can avoid blame -- yet attain praise.

But you cannot have one and not the other, because blame and praise are interdependent, and they both imply freedom, freedom to act in a proper or improper way. If you are nothing but a faithful mirror, you can earn neither praise nor blame. But if you are something more than a simple mirror, if you wield responsibility, it is possible to praise you. But if you can be praised, you can be blamed too.

Political Theory - Q#3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

The third and final theoretical question concerning politics I have labeled as the "Christian Politician's Dilemma". In truth, it is a universal dilemma pertaining to everybody, Christian or not, but Christians, I suspect, may be more aware of it.

As noted earlier, democracy does not guarantee just legislation, just as legislation does not weild the authority to say what is wrong or right objectively. It is the job of democracy and legislation to attempt to protect objective truth. But objective truth remains objective truth whether or not democracy has succeeded in enshrining it in legislation or not.

Now, there are two levels to morality in relation to legislation. The first level constitutes both what is morally wrong and what is legally wrong. Here morality and legislation meet. Examples of such are, for instance, theft, murder, and the like. Theft and murder are objectively wrong, and all countries acknowledge them as legally wrong too. The second level of morality, however, constitutes what is wrong morally, but not legally. Here morality and legislation may not meet. Examples of these are, for example, adultery (in Western societies) and hurting another person's feelings. Cheating and malevolent insults are both morally wrong, but you don't go to jail for them.

My question is: How is one to decide what things should belong to the first (both morality and legislation) and what to the second (only morality) levels? On what basis is something made illegal and another not, though both are wrong?

This distinction is a "Western" one, I think. As far as I understand Muslim theology, it makes little or no distinction between religion and society. Sharia law is the perfect integration of Islamic Quranic precepts into the legislation of the society. Thus, our example of adultery, among many other things, would be punishable by law too. This was quite common in ancient Judaism, and in Christianity not long ago.

Politics, as we know, is all about morality. Taking care of the common good. Rarely does one hear the naive call to "Keep morality out of politics!" anymore. However, "Keep religion out of politics!" and "Keep the Bible out of politics!" are still trendy accusations. These two can be stated in a more satisfactory way. What is meant by them is: Keep those parts of your religion or your holy book out of politics which we disagree with. For, of course, no one would say we need to legalize theft because it is forbidden in the Bible.

The reason I mused about the Christians being, perhaps, more aware of this question (two levels of morality) in society is that Christians follow the Bible. The two levels become more apparent to them because of this. The Christian Politician, as s/he pursues to uphold justice in the society, has to decide the criteria for judging whether a certain niche of morality ought to be "elevated" to the level of legislation too.

I once put this question to the ex-Chairman of the Christian Democratic Party in Finland. He acknowledged the two levels after he understood that making, say, adultery illegal would be problematic. But he admitted to me that he had never thought about this question before. "Well think about it, and I might vote for you," I said with a smile. A friend of mine told me St. Thomas of Aquinas has given this question some thought, but I haven't been able to locate where.

Political Theory - Q#2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

It is no secret that democracies don't always work by majority vote and are no secure defense against error or wickedness. As regards the first, influential lobbyists and the "court of public opinion" can so affect government that its laws and decisions do not, as they ought to, faithfully reflect the thoughts and beliefs of the people. As regards the latter, even when the first danger has been avoided, in other words even when the outcome of a vote is a true depiction of the people's will, it may still be blatantly erroneous or downright evil. Slavery was legal in the U.S. over the period of several consecutive presidencies, Hitler rose to power by majority vote, and so on. Examples of both vacuous prohibitions and wicked liberties are easy to come by even in today's societies.

This does not mean that democracy is not a good form of government. It does mean that it has its own hangups and defects. One (neutral) difference is that the responsibility of serious blunders is more evenly distributed than in, say, dictatorial monarchies. This is because more people exercise freedom and take part in the decision making.

One could argue, based on what has been said, that to improve a democracy is to minimize the risk of these two problems: (1) the misrepresentation of collective beliefs, and (2) the sanctioning of misguided (evil) collective beliefs.

The second of the three political dilemmas that bother me relates to (2) above. How does one contribute to the defense of truth in a democratic society? What role does law, private/public conscience, and their interplay have in this?

These are huge questions, and an exhaustive answer is beyond my powers. I take it for granted that, as the building blocks of society are individual human persons, change must begin there - here, within ourselves. It has become a platitude (at least among Christians) to say that the quickest and surest way to better the world is to better oneself. But surely this is the case. To live by virtue (whether this takes a conscious religious dimension or not), to raise one's children to recognize truth, beauty, and goodness, and to live a life that requires an answer -- i.e. inspires onlookers to think, "I want what s/he has." Over time, many would catch this "good infection" and goodness would permeate human life collectively as well.

Now, when private beliefs change, public belief changes - and when public belief/opinion changes, a pressure builds to bring legislation on par with the new situation. Initiatives are made, individuals rally and speak in unison, and once all the appropriate procedures (bureaucracy or revolution) is dealt with new laws are passed and reinforced. They must be reinforced because, as we remember, a minority - perhaps a considerable number - voted against it.

But then something happens. Often, over time, the critical voices disappear one by one. Public opinion changed and changed the law, but now a changed law changes public opinion. For unreflective people, the mere fact that something is officially illegal is enough to convince them that that's how it should be. Many Finns, for instance, think a 3-month-old fetus is not a human person because the law says it is not. Or consider the law prohibiting the physical discipline of your children. This has been illegal only a few years, yet the number of people who think this is an excellent law has grown considerably since it was passed. When a moral obligation or what is considered a fact is expressed, defended, and reinforced publicly, public opinion tends to conform.

In a nutshell, both - public opinion and legislation - affect the other.

What more can be said of this interplay? How far can we elaborate? What can be learned from it? How ought it affect the thought and work of a politician, Christian or not? For example, if there is danger of a bad law being passed, should the "wiser" politician use all means necessary, even overriding public opinion (see (1) obove), to defend reason and goodness, while trusting that eventually public opinion will catch up, as it were? Etc.

Political Theory - Q#1: Matter vs. Spirit

(or Externality vs. Internality)

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

My thoughts are still very muddled, but I thought I'd anyways give it a go and try to communicate the first of the three theoretical problems in politics as I see them. I'm hoping that even a semi-successful formulation of the issue will help me proceed a few steps towards its solution.

The dilemma arises out of two truths that, taken separately, seem intuitively quite solid but that, taken together, seem contradictory. If it's a real contradiction one of the truths is a fallacy. If it's only an apparent contradiction - that is to say, a paradox - my anxiety is lessened but I'd still very much like to get to depths of it.

The first truth is this. A perfect society shall never come about by simply making some adjustments, rearranging society here and there, or fixing other external factors. The other side of this truth is that the problems of society can never be reduced to (explained by) simply societal maladjustments, disorganization, or some other superficial factors. The belief that they can is a key fallacy of all secular world-views, be they Marxist or western democratic utopias that stem from Enlightenment ideas.

T. S. Eliot expressed it this way: "Some dream of a such a perfect society, that it is no longer necessary for us to be good." Herein lies the wisdom that counterbalances secular thinking's folly. The problems of life are not ultimately technical, they are moral. They stem from the heart of man, the disorder from within, not the disorder from without. Christian tradition calls it the Original Sin. No matter how great the structure, no matter how educated, wealthy or cultured the society, everything comes tumbling down eventually. And the corrupt people make it to the top, or the top corrupts the people that make it there, whichever way it is.

The second truth is this. Taken the fact that the ultimate source of human misery, both on the individual and collective level, is a fundamental flaw in us, it is yet true that in some societies it is easier to be a "good person" than in others. Some have expressed it this way: a good society is a society in which the good man finds it easy to be good, and a bad society is a society in which the good man finds it difficult to be good.

Take, for instance, a country where a given vice is prohibited. I would suspect that in this country it is easier to avoid the vice and practice the virtue opposite to it. Or take a wealthy country - chances are that there is less social unrest or war in that country than in its poor neighboring country. Poverty is a cause of other social problems. Take away poverty and various blessings will follow. All this, however, seems to suggest that there is an element of truth in Marxist etc. ideas.

Now, at first the first truth - that perfecting society on the structural level won't erase wickedness from life - seems to present the legislator or politician (or any good willed person, for that matter) a problem. If it won't work, what's the point in trying to perfect society then? I have explained here why I think we ought to do our best to work for a better society and why a certain form of "perfect society" does, in fact, exist logically and potentially in practice too. But this is not the point I'm trying to make here.

The first truth - perfecting society won't erase wickedness - seems to be in contradiction with the second truth - perfecting society will lessen wickedness (make it easier to be good).

What's up with this? Is one mistaken? If not, can their interplay be explained more satisfactorily? What constitutes the apparent contradiction? Is there a level to this paradox that simply must be accepted by faith, or can we by making qualifications weaken the aura of mystery? What effect (if any) ought it have on the politician's thinking and acting?

I find this whole question very difficult. I'm not even sure that I nailed it. Hopefully I'll do a better job with the two other dilemmas to which I'll return later.

Political Theory

In theory, if I were to venture into the world of politics one day, say in twenty years or so, some questions concerning politics would have to be clear by then. In addition to the one hundred and one questions I have concerning specific concrete legislations, there are some theoretical - that is to say, more profound and urgent - questions to be answered first. Three general questions (or dilemmas), to be precise. I could not even contemplate a role in politics before I had settled them.

And as it will become clear in the following posts, there are some high ranking politicians whom not only do not have an answer to the questions - they haven't even asked the questions in the first place. To me that's mind-boggling. It's like sailing without a map when the destiny of so many people depend on your seamanship.

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

I will try to formulate my thoughts and write separate posts on each. The first is blank because I find it difficult to even formulate a topic that would capture the heart of the subtle problem. Working on it. Posts forthcoming.

Edit: Title added to first.

Timo Soini, an After-thought

In my post about Timo Soini, the only Catholic MP in Finland, I mentioned that I almost voted for him during the previous elections. I mean the city council elections, not precidential, although he did run for precidency too receiving 103,000 votes. I agreed with all of his values and missions except one, I am not a vehement opposer of the European Union.

Eventually I voted for another candidate (who wasn't elected) because Timo Soini, I thought, wasn't global enough. He is not multilingual, and I felt that he may not see the human race as one big family or not emphasise this enough.

After reading his political biography, Maisterisjätkä - meaning 'Master-dude', referring to both his academic dimension and modest suburban soul - my opinion of his global thinking has slightly shifted to the better. I will be following his political and personal life more acutely in the future. He combines many admirable traits, and the future of his political party, Perussuomalaiset (Traditional Finns), looks very bright indeed.

Papal Infallibility and Timo Soini

Timo Soini, Finland's only Catholic parliament member (the rest are Lutherans or atheists), has given some invigorating interviews in the Finnish media during the last few years. He is open about his Christian faith, and is a refreshing solitary voice in this moral fiberless “land of one truth”. The secular media finds him interesting because he is intelligent, a patriot, and somewhat of a populist (populists tend to offer wonderful material).

Otherwise exceptionally orthodox in his views, at least as far as I understand the Catholic teaching, he said something in the interview in the latest Nyt-liite of Helsingin Sanomat that caught my eye. In addition to mentioning going to confession (only*) once a year, he called the doctrine of papal infallibility “a legend”. By legend I take it he meant something to not take too seriously.

Now, I may not know much about that doctrine, but I do know that most people know nothing. The most common misrepresentation of it takes the form “the Pope's supposedly always right”. Most objections to the doctrine are answered here and in Finnish here. After the doctine has been (over the years) successfully clarified to me, I've lost most my prejudices. The remaining problems are quite subtle and hard to formulate, I will not attempt an elaboration here.

Back to Timo Soini. Being neither a professing Catholic nor a media figure makes it difficult for me to foresee whether anyone will notice his obvious deviation from the official Catholic teaching. Come what may, I hope he succeeds in inspiring a few other Christians to “come out of their religious closet”. I almost voted for the man during the last elections, but thought his social beliefs were not global (or catholic) enough.

* I guess I shouldn't say only. I know two types of Catholics: the first group, that encompasses probably most parishioners, hasn't seen a confessional since their first communion, and the second group, a small number I presume, confess on a weekly or monthly basis and would probably be labeled “fundamentalists” by the first group.

Christianity and Politics

For some time now, I've been thinking about the relationship between Christianity and politics. What effect should a Christian politician's faith have on his work as a politician? One thing that I'm hoping this blog will help me with the numerous questions that trouble me. Perhaps every now and then an enlightened reader will shed some light on this or that problem.

I'll begin with the first problem concerning “Christian politics” (horrible word, invites misunderstanding, I know). What can a Christian politician expect to accomplish? Is “utopia on earth” attainable?

There seems to me to be two kinds of “ideal states”. The first kind is the absolutely perfect kind: no crime, perfect equality, etc. In Christian terms, this would be a state that was not invaded by sin and its results. Now, this kind of “ideal state” is utopia, quite literally a place that does not exist and cannot (it seems) be attained on earth.

But there is also another way of interpreting the concept “ideal state”. Given the fact that human nature is fallen, that there is sin and sin’s terrible consequences on earth, it is still true that in some societies it is easier to “be good” that in others. So, sin’s consequences can be minimized to a certain extent. That’s why we have the police force, the education system, law courts and what not. In addition to concrete institutions, there are movements, or “forces” at work in the society, that encourage positive behavior, that help in the cultivation and implementation of virtues. Some societies do this better than others and, it may be that in a certain historical context one system works well, but in another era that system does not work well.

Thus, the second way of interpreting the “ideal state” is: an ideal state with qualifications. We cannot attain perfection due to sin, but we can attain a certain level of perfection, the best possible level. By definition, this level is attainable - and can be called the “ideal state”.

The irony is, it seems to be that this is not utopia, but realism.

Now, of course this logical conclusion - a truth in itself - does not help us in figuring out the details, in understanding what ought to be encouraged and what systems built in a given country at a given time.

However, this realization that an “ideal state” (in the second sense) is in fact attainable, can, for the Christian politician, function as a strong motivation to work out the “how”. (Similarly, in his personal life, knowing that there is a perfect example of “what it is to be man” (and His name is Jesus), he can be encouraged to imitate him.) How this perfection can be attained is another matter. But I think that Christian politicians and educationists could perhaps benefit from this realization in their work.