Two Things on Tuesday

Thing One

This is pretty interesting. Wonder is good, of course, but not at the expense of truth and rationality. Gibbs explains:

Students brought up in fundamentalist homes and churches may find college a place where— at last— the world is not constantly reduced to purely moral concerns. As Lewis argues in “Man or Rabbit,” morality is indispensable, and yet Christianity’s greatest concern has never been mere morality, but piety, holiness, and theosis. Students who encounter the idea that there is something beyond right and wrong in college will intuitively feel the claim is true, although secularists are apt to tell Christians that the thing beyond right and wrong is simply power, which is a soul-crushing idea that leads to a life of constant bitter resentment.

At the same time, students brought up in self-styled sensitive, artistic homes and churches may find college a place where their free creative spirits first encounter the inflexible spines of dogmatists who teach all manner of fundamentals and creeds, albeit Marxist ones. Students must be raised to believe that some things are up for debate and that some things are not. Creativity and orthodoxy need one another like body and soul need one another.

And also:

A good life demands both dogma and wonder, work and leisure, fences and freedom. Every school ought to assess its curriculum, architecture, décor, pedagogy, and staff along these lines. By itself, inspiring wonder is not enough. By itself, teaching dogma is not enough.

The piece is about educating children, which should be, of course, of deep concern to me—though not at the end of the school year when I finally managed to turn in all of my reports. I thought it was quite interesting in a broader way. It’s so difficult, all of us trying to say ‘no’ to each other, but without any agreed-upon parameters for the discussion, so that any “No” feels personal, even when it isn’t intended that way. When you encounter a whole generation of people who have always been told they are special and lovely, and then try, however meekly, to say that not everything about the human person is special and lovely, the rage is telling. I think one of the greatest gifts a child can be given is to be able to hear a cheerful “No” about something essential and discover that the experience is actually life-giving, rather than soul-crushing. It’s counterintuitive, of course, but so much happiness is there for the person with self-control and forgiveness right at the fingertips.

Thing Two

If you were wandering around wondering what to do with yourself today, and thought you might like to knock over a monument, here’s how you could do it using science and stuff:

Holland says your average statue of a person tops out at around 3,500 pounds. (FYI: A horse statue is approximately 7,000 pounds.) Meanwhile, the OSHA-mandated upper force limit for horizontal pulling per person is 50 pounds of force—“but that’s for working every day,” he says, “so you could probably do twice that.”

At 100 pounds of force, then, we’re talking about a 35-person job to drag the statue, Holland says. But to pull it down, “let’s assume twice the force—so you’ll need twice as many people.” So before you start toppling, you’d better recruit 70 buddies with a bit of muscle.

If you’re warry of using force, you could try using chemicals:

Maybe you’re operating with an even smaller team—or toppling the statue all by yourself. In that case, your best bet is melting the damn thing. So let’s make a thermite reaction.

“The formula is very simple,” says Chris Harrison, a chemistry professor at San Diego State University. “It’s 3:1 by mass of rust and aluminum powder. You mix those together and use a piece of magnesium to use as a high temperature fuse. And if you don’t have one, you could use a sparkler.”

I’m not going to be knocking down any statues or anything. I’m still trying to understand the French government reshuffle or whatever it’s called, and I’m hoping to haul my children to some place with water so that they won’t die from the heat. Have a lovely day storming the castle or whatever is on your to-do list!