Mark Cooper started his work day on a recent morning cleaning the door handles of an office building with a rag, vigorously shaking out a rug at a back entrance and pushing a dust mop down a long hallway.
Nine months ago he lost his job as the security manager for the western United States for a Fortune 500 company, overseeing a budget of $1.2 million and earning about $70,000 a year. Now he is grateful for the $12 an hour he makes in what is known in unemployment circles as a “survival job” at a friend’s janitorial services company. But that does not make the work any easier.
“You’re fighting despair, discouragement, depression every day,” Mr. Cooper said.
Working five days a week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mr. Cooper is not counted by traditional measures as among the recession’s casualties at this point. But his tumble down the economic ladder is among the more disquieting and often hidden aspects of the downturn.
This IS America! Anything is possible.
I do not say that with anything other than the profound meaning of the two brief sentences. I know that for myself there has been twice in my life that I came very close to being what most men would call “rich” and both times I lost nearly everything. That’s fine. Wealth is like a particularly scenic view along a fine journey. It is good to have had the view but it is not the reason for the trip. Teddy roosevelt said it well in a speech in 1902:
Exactly as infinitely the happiest woman is she who has borne and brought up many healthy children, so infinitely the happiest man is he who has toiled hard and successfully in his life-work. The work may be done in a thousand different ways —with the brain or the hands, in the study, the field, or the workshop—if it is honest work, honestly done and well worth doing, that is all we have a right to ask. Every father and mother here, if they are wise, will bring up their children not to shirk difficulties, but to meet them and overcome them; not to strive after a life of ignoble ease, but to strive to do their duty, first to themselves and their families, and then to the whole state; and this duty must inevitably take the shape of work in some form or other.
^^^^^^^^^^
Honest work has its own rewards. I hope that the “new” janitor knows that as I do.
Don
There was a time in our life that my husband was jobless for several months. Unlike Mr. & Mrs. Cooper, we had the comfort of my having a good teaching job with excellent benefits. But I know the burden the lack of work placed on my husband and the effort he–like Mr. Cooper–put into “part-time” jobs and searching for full-time work. I also know the amount of time he and we spent praying.
I am grateful that we are now both retired with good pensions. I am also grateful that our single daughter is employed–and safely so–and that our married daughter and her family are well cared for.
But I know others are not so well off. Our church is mostly a “blue collar” congregation. To date we have few unemployed–but many worried. I know our pastor (Lutheran, M.S.) prays for us all and that, too, is a comfort. I will add Mr. Cooper and his family to our prayers.
Victor Davis Hansen has a good column in our local paper reminding us that this is a bad time but it is NOT the GREAT DEPRESSION.
When will we see a story on a person who has made lemonade out of lemons? There are many people struggling to be sure, there are also some who have made other kinds of choices in order to move ahead in life. There are folk who have developed a whole new career or gone back to school or started their own business after being forced out of a high paying job in a large company. We will not see these stories, however, as long as it is important for Pres. Obama to convince the country that we are worse off than ever before in our history, even tho statistics do not bear that out. His desire to completely change the way this country works, and his program of wealth re-distribution may succed temporarily, but his desire to punish those who are successful will eventually come back to haunt him. The spirit of America is too strong to allow permanent damage to the dream. If those who succeed are punished for doing so, eventually they will rebel. It certainly is an interesting time to be an American. Prayer does seem to be in order.
[i] When will we see a story on a person who has made lemonade out of lemons? [/i]
I’ll give Mark Cooper credit for doing that.
[i] What interested me most about this story was the picture. Make sure not to miss it. Pretty unusual for a front page NY Times story above the fold [/i] —Kendall
The reporter, Michael Luo, is a Christian. You may recall his articles about Redeemer Presbyterian Church and All Angels’ Church, both evangelical congregations in Manhattan.
#1 – it’s easy to say when someone else is feeling the pain. It is what the rich and entitled tell the poor all the time: at least you’re working, and not a slacker, so be happy with what you’ve got, chumps. Your kids won’t be able to go to college, but they’ll be better people for it.
And we won’t need to pay them much for it, or give them health insurance. Security, Insurance and education just makes people disrespect an honest day’s labor.
Meanwhile, AIG gets another 60 billion dollars in a bailout.
The grovelingly grateful, utterly desperate, frightened employee pool is capitalism’s Garden of Eden. And there’s nothing sentimental or laudable about it. And there’s even less Christian about it.
7. Albany+ wrote:
“The grovelingly grateful, utterly desperate, frightened employee pool is capitalism’s Garden of Eden.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^
You judge your fellow man’s thoughts and desires with astounding ease and then relate to we, the judged, that it is also unchristian.
But I think you might be using a bit of sarcasm.
Please clarify.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
6. John Wilkins wrote:
“#1 – it’s easy to say when someone else is feeling the pain. It is what the rich and entitled tell the poor all the time: at least you’re working, and not a slacker, so be happy with what you’ve got, chumps.”
No, John, I have felt the pain and I know the good that it did me. I will ever be greatful to my family, friends, and the Church who did not spare me the pain. I, and many others, have seen the good of it.
You, too, judge with boldness those who provide work for others. I know several who employ many. I know them closely, and none have any of the moral failures that you aim at but rather than condemning moral failures you, instead, damn a whole class of people who give many cups of water in Jesus name. Please find some shame, for Jesus’ sake.
Don
And socialism is the worker’s friend?
[blockquote]Meanwhile, AIG gets another 60 billion dollars in a bailout. [/blockquote]
For the record, I’m against bailing out AIG and, by extension, the European banks that made stupid investments with them. And just how did that happen, with those European banks so expertly regulated and all, not a drop of Reaganite Kool-Aid in the barrel?
[i]”You judge your fellow man’s thoughts and desires with astounding ease and then relate to we, the judged, that it is also unchristian.”[/i]
DonGander,
I do think that people learn valuable lessons from hardships, although I refuse to sentimentalize others’ suffering which seems to be abounding these days. I do think that there are wonderful, compassionate, struggling-to-do-the-best-they-can, staying-up-late-worrying-how-to-be-decent-and-helpful employers. I meet them everyday. So my judgment is unchristian in its sweepingness, and has my repentance.
I do unfortunately have growing experience in dealing with the newly unemployed/under-employed. It is not inaccurate about most corporate settings that they are quick to exploit market employment forces, tend to want to push the suffering down and not up the ladder in my experience. I have little patience for those who insulate themselves at all costs while preaching the virtues of the hard economy to others for moral formation. Clearly, that was not your intent or personal experience. Sorry for even the appearance of anything to the contrary.
Through a job I once had, I was doing pretty well–until I wrenched my back and ended up on long-term disability, and went through $84,000 of a 401(k) because of medical bills and to pay rent and other necessities. I am still disabled, but God called me into the ministry, and am in the process of going to seminary. Through all of that time, I asked God, “Why me?” God asked me, “Do you trust me?” He would ask me that question every time I would question Him or if my faith would be weak. God never fails, and I will never cease to call on His name.
Erik Cowand
Spring, TX
RE: “The grovelingly grateful, utterly desperate, frightened employee pool is capitalism’s Garden of Eden.”
Well, no, actually the grovelingly grateful, utterly desperate, frightened employee pool is the liberal’s oft-propagated fantasy that aids them in promoting larger State control, and also incidentally illustrates their intrinsic contempt for the freedom and competence of individuals.
It also reveals the vast sea of difference between the conservative and the liberal vision of human beings and why it’s essentially impossible to agree on the policies that flow from that vision.
[i]”…is the liberal’s oft-propagated fantasy that aids them in promoting larger State control, and also incidentally illustrates their intrinsic contempt for the freedom and competence of individuals.”[/i]
Yes, Sarah, I think both views of human nature, conservative and liberal, are inaccurate, incomplete, smug, self-serving, and belligerently held by those who promote them.
Sarah,
I assume your point is that the “cure” is worse than the “disease,” but do you also mean to imply that the disease exists only in the figment of fevered liberal imagination?
One of the things that I’ve learned from hunger/homeless ministry in Washington DC and Pittsburgh is that a significant number of those one serves are seeking to exploit the system and/or in their present condition for reasons other than purely economic ones, but there are still some on the street for the reasons about which liberals tend to most vociferous. What holds for that social subset might actually be true for those in other parts of the economy.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Sarah, you might want to study the history of liberal thought someday. It began precisely with a skepticism of statism and its handmaiden, the church. As my evangelical professor once stated, there was a time when all evangelicals were liberals.
Jefferson, did Europe regulate credit swaps? Evidence, please.
Dongander, I have no doubt you have anecdotal evidence about delightful employers. I’m an employer myself, and am glad for them. I am thankful for their hard work.
But I do wish I could offer them health care, a pension. In fact, I’m fortunate because they are getting them from outside my company.
As far as being glad for “pain,” I admit, while I’m really glad that it did you good, I hear the same from people who had cancer. They learned from it.
But I still wouldn’t want to wish it upon anyone else.
[blockquote]Jefferson, did Europe regulate credit swaps? Evidence, please. [/blockquote]
No idea. You’d think they would, being good social democracies.
RE: “I think both views of human nature, conservative and liberal, are inaccurate, incomplete, smug, self-serving, and belligerently held by those who promote them.”
Well, if you think that — and certainly you’re entitled to do so — than perhaps you should change your stated belief that “the grovelingly grateful, utterly desperate, frightened employee pool is capitalism’s Garden of Eden.” I mean . . . maybe you shouldn’t believe something which you believe to be “inaccurate, incomplete, smug, self-serving, and belligerently held by those who promote them.” Your choice, of course — but it is somewhat odd.
Jeremy Bonner,
RE: “do you also mean to imply that the disease exists only in the figment of fevered liberal imagination?”
As the disease was described by Albany+, absolutely. And what a tragedy, as one cannot treat a figment. One can only treat reality.
John Wilkins,
RE: “Sarah, you might want to study the history of liberal thought someday . . . ”
You might want to consider that I did not address your assertions — and did not address your assertions for good reason. You might want to come to some better understanding of how little I consider anything that you say at all, based on your deconstructionist philosophy and practice. I do not accept one, single word that you utter, recognizing that in that philosophy and practice words and their meanings are written in water, that language does not describe truth, because truth is not absolute and thus does not exist to be described, and that truth is lie and lie is truth. Nothing has changed over the past four years of your thoroughly and repeatedly and completely demonstrating on this blog your foundational worldview, one for which I have zero respect.
[i] Ad hominem comment deleted by elf. [/i]
Eric,
I’m saving this quote:
[i]Through all of that time, I asked God, “Why me?†God asked me, “Do you trust me?†He would ask me that question every time I would question Him or if my faith would be weak. God never fails, and I will never cease to call on His name. [/i]
Being one of the many unemployed who does not support the Obama/Democratic Party non-stimulus plan, I put my trust in God, not human systems, although I favor one over all others (Democracy with Capitalism). You have put it into words beautifully. Thank you.
My unemployment (since mid-September) comes from an uncaring County Commission (most of them Democrats, as it turned out), not the corporate world, but the end result is the same:
I am out of work. And because so many others are too, and with this being a college town where student labor is plentiful, I’m having a very hard time of getting even a part-time job. (I’ll not go into details of how I got here.)
But my help is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Because of this, we will come through it. He has something out there for me. I just wish He wasn’t taking so long to bring it to pass — but that’s human impatience.
May God bless you and bring you peace!
Jim Elliott <>< Florida
Sarah, heh – I’m fully aware that you don’t consider much of what I say.
I stated, broadly, the history of liberalism. You can disagree if you like. My understanding is that a critique of the state and an elevation of personal moral authority is what exemplifies liberals. What unites conservatives is an understanding of tradition and human fallibility. They are not perfect opposites. I tend to find both world-views appealing.
I’m also skeptical about grand cultural normative claims. I have a conservative temperament when it comes to such things. And like Burke, I’m not a radical egalitarian.
Deconstructionism is different than skepticism. And I willingly agree that I have skeptical and empirical inclinations. As far as the deconstructionist “school” of thought, I rejected it about 18 years ago. I’ve always thought that deconstructionism is a fraud. Perhaps, however, you’ve discovered that I still find Donna Haraway intriguing. Yes, I do. Unless you’re of the sort who has conflated deconstructionists with their enemies, the Marxists.
And yes, I don’t think you know what “deconstructionism” is. Can you name a single deconstructionist philosopher? I do seek understanding of texts in multiple fashions; and I do think capitalism has shifted cultures.
I do think we’re different. For example, I’m skeptical of Manicheanism in its secular and religious forms. You are quite comfortable in it. I see it more as a matter of attitude than of understanding. I’m quite comfortable agreeing with you sometimes, because I don’t have a dualistic worldview. Nor would it surprise me. I think, for example, that your understanding of scripture and God is suitable, lovely and possibly true. I’m fine being in error.
You mention “truth” and As far as language describing truth, do you mean Quine, Davidson, Rorty or Wittgenstein? For I’m a bit more of an absolutist than you might have understood. As Augustine said, “all truth is one.”
I have a foundational worldview? What might that be, aside from the only necessary one, that Jesus is Lord? I didn’t know I had a foundational worldview. And if I were a deconstructionist, I wouldn’t believe a foundational worldview is possible.
JW: Re: “My understanding is that a critique of the state and an elevation of personal moral authority is what exemplifies liberals.” Today’s economic “conservatives” most nearly represent classical (18th/19th century) liberals, and this statement applies in general. Today’s “liberals” are the direct inheritors of the early twentieth-century Progressives, whose driving ideology was the action of the state to alleviate all ills and improve society. We can see this ideology at work in today’s liberal politicians, pushing more and greater statist solutions to problems of all types. Conservatives don’t deny the problems; they simply believe that the aggregation of power in the state is likely to exacerbate, not solve, problems.
RE: “And yes, I don’t think you know what “deconstructionism†is. Can you name a single deconstructionist philosopher?”
For John Wilkins? I’m not at all interested in impressing someone who is not only a deconstructionist, but also wishes others to think him well-read through his name dropping from Wikipedia.
Thankfully, over the years, JW has amply demonstrated that when he name-drops authors, he also muddles and bungles their theories or simply entirely misquotes them — he’s been called on claiming authors support his . . . theories and worldview . . . numerous times here at T19. But, you know . . . deconstructionism again. What the authors say needs to be shaped and formed to affirm what JW has decided he believes.
RE: “You can disagree if you like.”
Or simply choose not to respond to the laughably stated “history of liberalism.” Much better to do that when the writer’s views about words and truth are so infinitely malleable.
RE: “And if I were a deconstructionist, I wouldn’t believe a foundational worldview is possible.”
Everyone has a foundational worldview. JW has confused that with “foundationalism” which is quite a different matter.
Typical.
ELVES:
And this kind of stuff from Sarah isn’t [i]ad hominem[/i]?
“…John Wilkins? I’m not at all interested in impressing someone who is not only a deconstructionist, but also wishes others to think him well-read through his name dropping from Wikipedia.
“I do not accept one, single word that you utter, recognizing that in that philosophy and practice words and their meanings are written in water, that language does not describe truth, because truth is not absolute and thus does not exist to be described, and that truth is lie and lie is truth. Nothing has changed over the past four years of your thoroughly and repeatedly and completely demonstrating on this blog your foundational worldview, one for which I have zero respect.”
Sarah,
There are two ways to approach T19. One I call “discourse,” which involves give and take, understanding that the other person is attempting to make an offering and move a conversation along and deeper. The other approach is what I call “lawyering.” It looks for quick advantage, conceals the personal weaknesses in one’s arguments at all costs, never admits an error or need to modify a point, and likes a good kidney punch. One is honest discourse, the other just causes a lot of flames and goes nowhere.
25. Albany+ wrote:
“There are two ways to approach T19.”
I tend to agree. The problem is that I do not see the two ways in your explanation. I suspect that at least one of your two ways is a straw dog.
I see little advantage to “give and take” as though we were debating the best color for the carpeting in the parlor. One of the reasons that I post here is so that I can test the truth of my positions and determine the effectiveness of my communication. I suppose that I, too, could be accused by you of “lawyering”. Fine. I have no prejudices against lawyers. My only prejudices are against falsehood and error.
Don
John Wilkins,
Yes, the “traditional” liberal was skeptical of state power. The “traditional” liberal today is known as a political conservative. Ronald Regan was a “traditional liberal.” Barak Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party are not “liberals.” They are statists who want to enhance state power, not limit it. By making government the answer to all problems (and particuarly the federal government), today’s political “liberals” (actually statists), show their true colors as people who distrust “personal moral authority.”
As for the AiG bailout, I am against it as well. I am against almost all government bailouts and excessive government involvment in the economy. Government is run by politicians who desire nothing but more power for themselves. At least I have a choice of where to spend my money in the private sector. If I don’t like the policies or products of Home Depot, there is a Lowes not far away. If I dislike Walmart, Target is close at hand. I don’t have that choice when it comes to the Federal Government.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
[i]I suppose that I, too, could be accused by you of “lawyeringâ€. Fine. I have no prejudices against lawyers. My only prejudices are against falsehood and error.[/i]
I don’t think you’re “lawyering.” We completely agree here and have the exactly same end in mind. Plato would probably call what I call “lawyering” “sophistry.”
It’s exactly getting at the truth through honest exchanges that actually build on one another that’s my point. You can’t do that with point scorers and weakness concealers.
[We would encourage all commenters to turn down the heat of their responses on this thread and to bear in mind the need to maintain Christian discourse. Thank you – Elf]
Sarah: Huzzah!
Sarah,
It’s a bit presumptive to assume you know what I’ve read or not. But I honor your self-description. I’ve learned not to expect the same sort of magnanimity from you. You are, however, sharp.
I didn’t quite use Wikipedia. I’ve got the books. I’m fully willing to admit that I don’t get everything right. I’m pretty confident about my general knowledge in the area, although I’m sure its a little rusty sometimes. Wikipedia is less interesting than the Stanford encyclopedia, besides.
But I really don’t think you know what deconstructionism is. Everyone might have a foundational worldview, but then: it would be hard to truly be a deconstructionist.
Most deconstructionists are skeptical about “foundational” worldviews. I think you’re getting your continental and analytic schools confused. The nature of deconstructionism is a suspicion of metanarratives – am I wrong?
Foundationalism is a school of philosophy that has to do with epistemology. I’m not sure what it has to do with deconstructionism, but I would guess that coherentism would fit neatly in with a deconstructionist world-view. But I’m sure others have studied this more completely.
Phil you write: “Barack Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party are not “liberals.†They are statists who want to enhance state power, not limit it. By making government the answer to all problems (and particuarly the federal government), today’s political “liberals†(actually statists), show their true colors as people who distrust “personal moral authority.â€
I admit some confusion about how you use the word “statist.” I don’t think there is a notable difference between Bush and Obama. The patriot act, for example, expanded the state a bit. I’m not sure where you got the idea people think that the government is the answer to all problems – or the state. And Barack obama does seem to talk about personal morality: like it is your responsibility – as an American – to care for other Americans. You don’t like it, and its coercive, but it is a moral stance. Keynesianism does not believe in government: it simply states the government’s money is as good as anybody else’s, and in difficult times, it should spend to get businesses off the ground.