Cultural Value And Inequality A Critical Literature Review: Fill & Download for Free

EDIT: I have expanded my initial Quora response to the following, which I have also reproduced on Medium:Is majoring in liberal arts a mistake for students?Critical Thinking and the Scientific Process First — Humanities LaterIf luck favors the prepared mind, as Louis Pasteur is credited with saying, we’re in danger of becoming a very unlucky nation. Little of the material taught in Liberal Arts programs today is relevant to the future.Consider all the science and economics that has been updated, the shifting theories of psychology, the programming languages and political theories that have been developed, and even how many planets our solar system has. Much, like literature and history, should be evaluated against updated, relevant priorities in the 21st century.I feel that liberal arts education in the United States is a minor evolution of 18th century European education. The world needs something more than that. Non-professional undergraduate education needs a new system that teaches students how to learn and judge using the scientific process on issues relating to science, society, and business.Though Jane Austen and Shakespeare might be important, they are far less important than many other things that are more relevant to make an intelligent, continuously learning citizen, and a more adaptable human being in our increasingly more complex, diverse and dynamic world.I would coin a new term, “the liberal sciences,” as this basic education, the test for which would be quite simple: at the end of an undergraduate education, is a student roughly able to understand and discuss the Economist, end-to-end, every week. This modern, non-professional education would meet the original “Greek life purpose” of a liberal arts education, updated for today’s world.The most important things for a general, non-professional or vocational education are critical thinking and problem-solving skills, familiarity with logic and the scientific process, and the ability to use these in forming opinions, discourse, and in making decisions. Other general skills that are also important include — but are not limited to — interpersonal skills and communication skills .So what is wrong with today’s typical liberal arts degree?Neither the old definition of liberal arts nor the current implementation of it is the best use of four years of somebody’s education (if it is to be non-professional). The hardest (and most lucrative) problems to solve are non-technical problems. In my opinion, getting a STEM degree gives you the tools to think about those problems more effectively than a liberal arts degree today; though it is far from a complete way of thinking, and a liberal science degree will do this in an even more complete form.Some of you will point to very successful people who’ve gone to Yale and done well, but you don’t understand statistics. A lot of successful people have started out as liberal arts majors. A lot haven’t. If you’re very driven and intelligent or lucky, you’ll probably be successful in life, even with today’s liberal arts degree. Then again, if you’re that driven and intelligent, you could probably find success with any degree, or even no degree. Apple’s Steve Jobs and Joi Ito (Director of the MIT media lab) are both college dropouts. Joi is a largely self-taught computer scientist, disc jockey, nightclub entrepreneur and technology investor. The top 20% of people in any cohort will do well independent of what curriculum their education follows, or if they had any education at all. If we want to maximize the potential of the other 80%, then we need a new Liberal Sciences curriculum.Yale just decided that Computer Science was important and I like to ask, “if you live in France, shouldn’t you learn French? If you live in the computer world, shouldn’t you learn Computer Science?” What should be the second required language in schools today if we live in a computer world? And if you live in a technology world what must you understand? Traditional education is far behind and the old world tenured professors at our universities with their parochial views and interests will keep dragging them back. My disagreement is not with the goals of a liberal arts education but its implementation and evolution (or lack thereof) from 18th century European education and its purpose. There is too little emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills in schools, even though that was the original goal of such education. Many adults have little understanding of important science and technology issues or, more importantly, how to approach them, which leaves them open to poor decision-making on matters that will affect both their families and society in general.Connections matter and many Ivy League colleges are worth it just to be an alumnus. There are people with the view that liberal arts broadened their vision and gave them great conversational topics. There are those who argue that the humanities are there to teach us what to do with knowledge. As one observer commented: “They should get lawyers to think whether an unjust law is still law. An engineer could contemplate whether Artificial Intelligence is morally good. An architect could pause to think on the merit of building a house fit for purpose. A doctor could be taught whether and how to justify using scarce medical resources for the benefit of one patient and not another. This is the role of humanities — a supplement to STEM and the professions.”In my view creativity, humanism, and ethics are very hard to teach, whereas worldliness and many other skills supposedly taught through the liberal arts are more easily self-taught in a continuously updating fashion if one has a good quantitative, logical and scientific process-oriented base education.The argument goes that a scientific/engineering education lacks enough training in critical thinking skills, creativity, inspiration, innovation and holistic thinking . On the contrary, I argue that the scientific and logical basis of a better liberal sciences education would allow some or all of this — and in a more consistent way. The argument that being logical makes one a linear problem solver and ill prepared for professions that require truly creative problem solving has no merit in my view. The old version of the Liberal Arts curriculum was reasonable in a world of the far less complex 18th century Euro-centric world and an elitist education focused on thinking and leisure. Since the 20th century, despite it’s goals, it has evolved as the “easier curriculum” to get through college and may now be the single biggest reason students pursue it.I do not believe that today’s typical liberal arts degree turns you into a more complete thinker; rather, I believe they limit the dimensionality of your thinking since you have less familiarity with mathematical models (to me it’s the dimensionality of thinking that I find deficient in many people without a rigorous education), and worse statistical understanding of anecdotes and data (which liberal arts was supposedly good at preparing students for but is actually highly deficient at). People in the humanities fields are told that they get taught analytical skills, including how to digest large volumes of information, but I find that by and large such education is poor at imparting these skills. Maybe, that was the intent but the reality is very far from this idealization (again, excluding the top 20%).There is a failing in many college programs that are not pragmatic enough to align and relate liberal arts program to the life of a working adult. From finance to media to management and administration jobs, necessary skills like strategic-thinking, finding trends, and big-picture problem-solving have all evolved in my view to need the more quantitative preparation than today’s degrees provide.Such skills, supposedly the purview of liberal arts education, are best learnt through more quantitative methods today. Many vocational programs from engineering to medicine also need these same skills and need to evolve and broaden to add to their training. But if I could only have one of a liberal arts or an engineering/science education, I’d pick the engineering even if I never intended to work as an engineer and did not know what career I wanted to pursue.I have in fact almost never worked as an engineer but deal exclusively with risk, evolution of capability, innovation, people evaluation, creativity and vision formulation. That is not to say that goal setting, design, and creativity are not important or even critical. In fact these need to be added to most professional and vocational degrees, which are also deficient for today’s practical careers.More and more fields are becoming very quantitative, and it’s becoming harder and harder to go from majoring in English or history to having optionality on various future careers and being an intelligent citizen in a democracy. Math, statistics and science are hard, and school is a great time to learn those areas, whereas many of the liberal arts courses can be pursued after college on the base of a broad education. But without training in the scientific process, logic and critical thinking, discourse and understanding are both made far more difficult.A good illustrative example of the problems of today’s liberal arts education can be found in the writing of well-known author, Malcolm Gladwell, a history major and a one-time writer for The New Yorker. Gladwell famously argued that stories were more important that accuracy or validity without even realizing it. The New Republic called the final chapter of Gladwell’sOutliers, “impervious to all forms of critical thinking” and said that Gladwell believes “a perfect anecdote proves a fatuous rule.” Referencing a Gladwell reporting mistake in which Gladwell refers to “eigenvalue” as “Igon Value,” Harvard professor and author Steven Pinker criticizes his lack of expertise: “I will call this the Igon Value Problem: when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong.” Unfortunately too many in today’s media are similarly “uneducated” in their interpretation of experts. Storytelling and quotes become a misleading factor instead of being an aid to communicating the accurate facts more easily. His assertions around “10,000 hours” may or may not be true but his arguments for it carry very little weight with me because of the quality of his thinking.Though one example of Malcolm Gladwell does not prove the invalidity of arguments for a Liberal Arts degree, I find this kind of erroneous thinking (anecdotally) true of many humanities and liberal arts graduates. In fact I see the inconsistencies that Gladwell failed to understand (giving him the benefit of the doubt that these were unintentional) in the writings of many authors of articles in supposedly elite publications like The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Again this is not a statistically valid conclusion but the impression across hundreds or thousands of examples of one person. When I do occasionally read articles from these publications, I make a sport of judging the quality of thinking of the writers as I read, based on false arguments, unsupported conclusions, confusion of story telling with factual assertions, mistaking quotes from interviews as facts, misinterpreting statistics, etc. Similar lack of cogent thinking leads to bad decisions, uninformed rhetoric, and lack of critical thinking around topics like nuclear power and GMOs.Unfortunately in an increasingly complex world, all these topics skills that many liberal arts majors even at elite universities fail to muster. The topic of risk and risk assessment from simple personal financial planning to societal topics like income inequality is so poorly understood and considered by most liberal arts majors as to make me pessimistic. I am not arguing that engineering or STEM education is good at these topics but rather that this is not its intent of STEM or professional education. The intent of Liberal Arts education is what Steven Pinker called a “building a self” and I would add “for the technological and dynamically evolving 21st century”.Learning new areas as career paths and interests evolve becomes harder. Traditional European liberal arts education was for the few and the elite. Is that still the goal today? People spend years and a small fortune or lifelong indebtedness to obtain it and employability should be a criterion in addition to an educations’ contribution to intelligent citizenry.Wikipedia defines “the liberal arts as those subjects or skills that in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free person to know in order to take an active part in civic life, something that (for Ancient Greece) included participating in public debate, defending oneself in court, serving on juries, and most importantly, military service. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were the core liberal arts, while arithmetic, geometry, the theory of music, and astronomy also played a (somewhat lesser) part in education.” Today’s ideal list, not anchored in “classical antiquity”would be more expansive and more prioritized in my view.Idealists and those who perceive liberal arts education today as meeting these goals are wrong not in it’s intent but in assessing how well it does this function (and that is an assertion/opinion). I agree that we need a more humanistic education but it is hard to agree or disagree with the current curriculum without defining what humanistic means. Does it really teach critical thinking, logic or the scientific process, things every citizen should know in order to participate in society? Does it allow for intelligent discourse or decision-making across a diverse set of beliefs, situations, preferences, and assumptions?Should we teach our students what we already know, or prepare them to discover more? Memorizing the Gettysburg address is admirable but ultimately worthless; understanding history is interesting, even useful, but not as relevant as topics from the Economist. A student who can apply the scientific process or employ critical thinking skills to solve a big problem has the potential to change the world (or at minimum get a better-paying job). They can actually debate a topic like #blacklivesmatter, income inequality or Climate Change without being subject to “Trumpism” or emotion and biases-based distortions. No wonder half the college graduates who fill jobs as some studies indicate, actually fill jobs that don’t need a college degree! Their degree is not relevant to adding value to an employer (though that is not the only purpose of a degree).Further, even if an ideal curriculum can be stitched together, most liberal arts majors infrequently do it. If the goal is not professional education then it must be general education, which requires many more must-have requirements for me to consider a university degree respectable. Of course others are entitled to their own opinion, though the right answer is testable if one agrees that the goals of such an education are intelligent citizenry and/or employability.For now I am mostly leaving aside matters related to professional, vocational or technical curriculum. I’m also ignoring the not irrelevant and pragmatic issues of education affordability and the burden of student debt, which would argue for a more employment-enabling type of education. The failure I am referring to are two-fold: (1) the failure of curriculums to keep up with the changing needs of modern society and (2) liberal arts becoming the “easy curriculum” for those who shy away from the more demanding majors and prefer an easier, often (but not always) more socially-oriented college life. Ease, not value, or interest instead of value become key criteria in designing a curriculum for many students today. And for those of you who think this is not true, I am asserting based on my experience this is true for the majority of today’s students, but not for every liberal arts student.Not every course is for every student but the criteria need to match the needs of the student and not their indulgences, taking interests and capability into account. “Pursue your passion” even if it increases the probability of getting you into unemployment or homelessness later is advice I have seldom agreed with (yes there are occasions this is warranted, especially for the top or the bottom 20% of students). More on passions later but I’m not saying passions are unimportant. What I am saying is with today’s implementation of a liberal arts curriculum, even at elite universities like Stanford and Yale, I find that many liberal arts majors (excluding roughly the top 20% of students) lack the ability to rigorously defend ideas, make compelling, persuasive arguments, or discourse logically.Steven Pinker — in addition to refuting Gladwell — has a brilliant, clarion opinion on what education ought to be, writing in The New Republic, “It seems to me that educated people should know something about the 13-billion-year prehistory of our species and the basic laws governing the physical and living world, including our bodies and brains. They should grasp the timeline of human history from the dawn of agriculture to the present. They should be exposed to the diversity of human cultures, and the major systems of belief and value with which they have made sense of their lives. They should know about the formative events in human history, including the blunders we can hope not to repeat. They should understand the principles behind democratic governance and the rule of law. They should know how to appreciate works of fiction and art as sources of aesthetic pleasure and as impetuses to reflect on the human condition.”Though I agree, I am not sure this curriculum is more important than the ideas below. Based on the skills defined below any gaps in the above education can be filled in by students post graduation.So what should non-professional elite education entail?If we had enough time in school, I would suggest we do everything. Sadly that is not realistic, so we need a prioritized list of basic requirements because every subject we do cover excludes some other subject given the fixed time we have available. We must decide what is better taught during the limited teaching time we have, and what subjects are easier learnt during personal time or as post-education or graduate pursuits.In the new Liberal Science curriculum I propose, students would master:1. The fundamental tools of learning and analysis, primarily critical thinking, the scientific process or methodology, and approaches to problem solving and diversity.2. Knowledge of a few generally applicable topics and knowledge of the basics such as logic, mathematics, and statistics to judge and model conceptually almost anything one might run into over the next few decades.3. The skills to “dig deep” into their areas of interest in order to understand how these tools can be applied to one domain and to be equipped to change domains every so often4. Preparation for jobs in a competitive and evolving global economy or preparation for uncertainty about one’s future direction, interest, or areas where opportunities will exist.5. Preparation to continuously evolve and stay current as informed and intelligent citizens of a democracyCritical subject matter should include economics, statistics, mathematics, logic and systems modeling, psychology, computer programming, and current (not historical) cultural evolution (Why rap? Why ISIS? Why suicide bombers? Why the Kardasians and Trump? Why environmentalism and what matters and what does not? And of course the question, are the answers to these questions expert opinions or have some other validity?).Furthermore, certain humanities disciplines such as literature and history should become optional subjects, in much the same way that physics is today (and, of course, I advocate mandatory basic physics study along with the other sciences). And one needs the ability to think through many, if not most, of the social issues we face (which the softer liberal arts subjects ill-prepare one for in my view).Imagine a required course each semester where every student is asked to analyze and debate topics from every issue of a broad publication such as The Economist or Technology Review. And imagine a core curriculum that teaches the core skills to have the discussions above. Such a curriculum would not only provide a platform for understanding in a more relevant context how the physical, political, cultural and technical worlds function, but would also impart instincts for interpreting the world, and prepare students to become active participants in the economy.It would be essential to understand psychology because human behavior and human interaction are important and will continue to be so. I’d like people who are immune to the fallacies and agendas of the media, politicians, advertisers, and marketers because these professions have learned to hack the human brain’s biases (a good description of which are described in Dan Kannehman’s Thinking Fast & Slow and in Dan Gardner’s The Science of Fear). I’d like to teach people how to understand history but not to spend time getting the knowledge of history, which can be done after graduation.I’d like people to read a New York Times article and understand what is an assumption, what’s an assertion by the writer, what are facts, and what are opinions, and maybe even find the biases and contradictions inherent in many articles. We are far beyond the days of the media simply reporting news, shown by the different versions of the “news” that liberal and conservative newspapers in the US report, all as different “truths” of the same event. Learning to parse this media is critical. I’d like people to understand what is statistically valid and what is not. What is a bias or the color of the writer’s point of view.Students should learn the scientific method, and most importantly how to apply its mental model to the world. The scientific method requires that hypotheses be tested in controlled conditions; this can diminish the effects of randomness and, often, personal bias. This is very valuable in a world where too many students fall victim to confirmation biases (people observe what they expect to observe), appeal to new and surprising things, and narrative fallacies (once a narrative has been built, it’s individual elements are more accepted). There are many, many types of human biases defined in psychology that people fall victim to. Failure to understand mathematical models and statistics makes it substantially more difficult to understand critical questions in daily life, from social sciences to science and technology, political issues, health claims and much more.I’d also suggest tackling several general and currently relevant topic areas such as genetics, computer science, systems modeling, econometrics, linguistics modeling, traditional and behavioral economics, and genomics/bioinformatics (not an exhaustive list) which are quickly becoming critical issues for everyday decisions from personal medical decisions to understanding minimum pay, economics of taxes and inequality, immigration, or climate change. E.O. Wilson argues in his book “The Meaning of Human Existence” that it is hard to understand social behavior without understanding multi-level selection theory and the mathematical optimization that nature performed through years of evolutionary iterations. I am not arguing that every educated person should be able to build such a model but rather that they should be able to “think” such a model qualitatively.Not only do these topics expose students to a lot of useful and current information, theories, and algorithms, they may in fact become platforms to teach the scientific process — a process that applies to (and is desperately needed for) logical discourse as much as it applies to science. The scientific process critically needs to be applied to all the issues we discuss socially in order to have intelligent dialog. Even if the specific information becomes irrelevant within a decade (who knows where technology will head next; hugely important cultural phenomena and technologies like Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone didn’t exist before 2004, after all), it’s incredibly useful to understand the current frontiers of science and technology as building blocks for the future.It’s not that history or Kafka are not important, but rather it is even more critical to understand if we change the assumptions, environmental conditions and rules that applied to historical events, that would alter the conclusions we draw from historical events today. Every time a student takes one subject they exclude the possibility of taking something else. I find it ironic that those who rely on “history repeating itself” often fail to understand the assumptions that might cause “this time” to be different. The experts we rely on for predictions have about the same accuracy as dart-throwing monkeys according to at least one very exhaustive study by Prof Phil Tetlock. So it is important to understand how to rely on “more likely to be right” experts, as defined in the book Superforecasters. We make a lot of judgments in everyday life and we should be prepared to make them intelligently.Students can use this broad knowledge base to build mental models that will aid them in both further studies and vocations. Charlie Munger, the famous investor from Berkshire Hathaway, speaks about mental models and what he calls “elementary, worldly wisdom.” Munger believes a person can combine models from a wide range of disciplines (economics, mathematics, physics, biology, history, and psychology, among others) into something that is more valuable than the sum of its parts. I have to agree that this cross-disciplinary thinking is becoming an essential skill in today’s increasingly complex world.“The models have to come from multiple disciplines because all the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department,” Munger explains. “That’s why poetry professors, by and large, are so unwise in a worldly sense. They don’t have enough models in their heads. So you’ve got to have models across a fair array of disciplines… These models generally fall into two categories: (1) ones that help us simulate time (and predict the future) and better understand how the world works (e.g. understanding a useful idea from like autocatalysis), and (2) ones that help us better understand how our mental processes lead us astray (e.g., availability bias).” I would add that they provide the “common truth” in discussions where the well educated discussants disagree.After grasping the fundamental tools of learning and some broad topical exposure, it’s valuable to “dig deep” in one or two topic areas of interest. For this, I prefer some subject in science or engineering rather than literature or history (bear with me before you have an emotional reaction; I’ll explain in a minute). Obviously, it’s best if students are passionate about a specific topic, but it’s not critical as the passion may develop as they dig in (some students will have passions, but many won’t have any at all). The real value for digging deep is to learn how to dig in; it serves a person for the duration of their life: in school, work, and leisure. As Thomas Huxley said, “learn something about everything and everything about something,” though his saying that does not make it true. Too often, students don’t learn that a quote is not a fact.If students choose options from traditional liberal-education subjects, they should be taught in the context of the critical tools mentioned above. If students want jobs, they should be taught skills where future jobs will exist. If we want them as intelligent citizens, we need to have them understand critical thinking, statistics, economics, how to interpret technology and science developments, and how global game theory applies to local interests. Traditional majors like international relations and political science are passé as base skills and can easily be acquired once a student has the basic tools of understanding. And they and many other traditional liberal arts subjects like history or art will be well served in graduate level work. I want to repeat that this is not to claim those “other subjects” are not valuable. I think they are very appropriate for graduate level study.Back to history and literature for a moment — these are great to wrestle with once a student has learned to think critically. My contention is not that these subjects are unimportant, but rather that they are not basic or broad enough “tools for developing learning skills” as they were in the 1800s, because the set of skills needed today has changed. Furthermore, they are topics easily learned by someone trained in the basic disciplines of thinking and learning that I’ve defined above. This isn’t as easy the other way around. A scientist can more easily become a philosopher or writer than a writer or philosopher can become a scientist.If subjects like history and literature are focused on too early, it is easy for someone not to learn to think for themselves and not to question assumptions, conclusions, and expert philosophies. This can do a lot of damage.Separating the aspirational claims by universities from the reality of today’s typical liberal arts education I tend to agree with the views of William Deresiewicz. He was an English professor at Yale from 1998–2008 and recently published the book “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life.” Deresiewicz writes on the current state of liberal arts, “At least the classes at elite schools are academically rigorous, demanding on their own terms, no? Not necessarily. In the sciences, usually; in other disciplines, not so much. There are exceptions, of course, but professors and students have largely entered into what one observer called a ‘nonaggression pact.’” Easy is often the reason students pick liberal arts subjects today.Lots of things are important but what are the most important goals of an education?To repeat, school is a place where every student should have the opportunity to become a potential participant in whatever they might want to tackle in the future, with an appropriate focus not only on what they want to pursue but also, pragmatically, what they will need to do to be productively employed or productive and thinking member of society. By embracing thinking and learning skills, and adding a dash of irreverence and confidence that comes from being able to tackle new arenas (creative writing as a vocational skill, not a liberal arts education, may have a role here, but Macbeth does not make my priority list; we can agree to disagree but if we discourse I want to understand the assumptions that cause us to disagree, something many students are unable to do), hopefully they will be lucky enough to help shape the next few decades or at least be intelligent voters in a democracy and productive participants in their jobs .With the right critical lens, history, philosophy, and literature can help creativity and breadth by opening the mind to new perspectives and ideas. Still, learning about them is secondary to learning the tools of learning except possibly the right approach to philosophy education. Again I want to remind you that none of this applies to the top 20% of students who learn all these skills independent of their education or major. Passions like music or literature (leaving aside the top few students who clearly excel at music or literature) and its history may be best left to self-pursuit, while exploring the structure and theory of music or literature may be a way to teach the right kind of thinking about music and literature!For some small subset of the student body, pursuing passions and developing skills in subjects such as music or sports can be valuable, and I am a fan of schools like Juilliard, but in my view this must be in addition to a required general education especially for the “other 80%”. It’s the lack of balance in general education which I am suggesting needs to be addressed (including for engineering, science and technology subjects’ students. Setting music and sports aside, with the critical thinking tools and exposure to the up-and-coming areas mentioned above, students should be positioned to discover their first passion and begin to understand themselves, or at the least be able to keep up with the changes to come, get (and maintain) productive jobs, and be intelligent citizens.At the very least they should be able to evaluate how much confidence to place in a New York Times study of 11 patients on a new cancer treatment from Mexico or a health supplement from China and to assess the study’s statistical validity and whether the treatment’s economics make sense. And they should understand the relationship between taxes, spending, balanced budgets, and growth better than they understand 15th century English history in preparation for “civic life” to quote the original purpose of a liberal arts education. And if they are to study language or music, Dan Levitin’s book “This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession” should be first reading or its equivalent in linguistics. It can teach you about a human obsession but also teach you how to build a mathematical model in your head and why and how Indian music is different than Latin music. In fact, these should be required for all education, not just liberal arts education, along with the other books mentioned above.The role of passion and emotion in life is best epitomized by a quote (unknown source) I once saw that says the most important things in life are best decided by the heart and not logic. For the rest we need logic and consistency. The “what” may be emotion and passion based but the “how” often (yes, sometimes the journey is the reward) needs a different approach that intelligent citizens should possess and education should teach.I am sure I have missed some points of view, so I look forward to starting a valuable dialogue on this important topic.

People who have little experience with power–those who are far from it–tend to regard politics as mysterious and exciting. But I look past the superficialities, the power, the flowers, the glory, the applause. I see the detention houses, the fickleness of human relationships. I understand politics on a deeper level.–Xi Jinping.Kevin Rudd’s analysis is deficient in several respects, mostly having to do with Kevin Rudd’s personal experience and proclivities. Mr. Rudd’s first handicap is that he studied Chinese at ANU, Australia National University, which has always been overtly hostile to, and ignorant about, China’s form of government and acted as an extension of the US Department of State. Rudd's clueless thesis on Chinese democracy activist Wei Jingsheng, (supervised by politically clueless Pierre Ryckmans) neglected the fact that China is more democratic than Australia–because China refused to copy Australia’s fake democracy.Rudd was extremely condescending towards China, imagining that, since he spoke Mandarin, he was qualified to lecture its government on how they should govern. His most notorious gaffe occurred when visiting Beijing before the Olympics there and told Xi Jinping (who was organizing the Games) and others how they should improve their human rights: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd angered Beijing with his stance on Tibet and has urged Beijing to tackle "significant" human rights problems in Tibet, in a speech to Peking University students at the start of his first official visit to the country. [Australian PM speaks out on Tibet].Chinese officials were not amused and cancelled his special tour of the new facilities (which, until then, no-one had seen) and sent him home, where his own party kicked him out of office for being incompetent, divisive and self-centered.In this recent speech at West Point, he analyzed Chinese politics as though they were Western politics which, of course, they’re not. Here are some direct quotes, in boldface, followed by my comments:Xi “cleaned up” all of his political opponents on the way through. ... None of this is for the faint-hearted. He has succeeded in pre-empting, outflanking, outmanoeuvring, and then removing each of his political adversaries. The polite term for this is power consolidation. Anyone who knows how busy officials like Xi are knows that they have neither the time nor the power to play such games. Unlike Western politicians who advance their careers through empty rhetoric and backbiting, the only way people like Xi advance is by being extremely cooperative and creating a 25-year track record of extraordinary accomplishments–which he did.A further manifestation of Xi Jinping’s extraordinary political power has been the concentration of the policy machinery of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi now chairs six top-level “leading small groups” as well as a number of central committees and commissions covering every major area of policy. This is very amusing, coming from Kevin Rudd because one of the reasons his party gave for firing him was that he would not share power! The CCP is Constitutionally required to ‘concentrate the political machinery’. Has Kevin never read China’s Constitution? Xi’s chairing of leading small groups reduces his power, as any experienced Chairman will tell you. Chairmen only do that if things are stuck and they need to intervene and kick asses, which is why Xi did it: some things were stuck in 2012 when he took power.A third expression of Xi’s power has been the selection of candidates for the seven-man Standing Committee of the Politburo, the 20-person wider Politburo, and the 209-member Central Committee. Kevin Rudd obviously doesn’t have a clue how candidates for the seven-man Standing Committee of the Politburo, the 20-person wider Politburo, and the 209-member Central Committee are selected. That’s the job of the Organization Department and they’re very, very good at it. Xi was far too busy to select anyone and didn’t even get to choose his own Prime Minister–who was his chief rival for the Presidency.A fifth manifestation of Xi Jinping’s accumulation of unchallenged personal power has been the decision to remove the provision of the 1982 Chinese State Constitution. Rudd misunderstands the nature of Chinese governance and the titles that Mr. Xi holds. The title of 'President' is of largely symbolic value and confers little power (unlike the American President, whose title empowers him to kidnap, torture and assassinate enemies and, singlehandedly, to take the country to war). Mr. Xi's significant positions, Party Secretary and Chairman of the Military Commission (he was Assistant to the Secretary of Defense at 23, BTW) are positions of power and carry no term limits. The current amendments to the Constitution simply bring all three titles into alignment and confer no more power than Xi had when he was elected.If you have become, in effect, “Chairman of Everything”, then it is easy for your political opponents to hold you responsible for anything and everything that could go wrong. Nonsense. Even if he had political opponents (people who disagree with some of his policies) they would not change the fact that, as Party Secretary and Chairman of the Military Commission every Chinese holds him responsible for everything that goes wrong. That comes with the top job in every country.We should never forget that the Chinese Communist Party is a revolutionary party which makes no bones about the fact that it obtained power through the barrel of a gun, and will sustain power through the barrel of a gun if necessary. Rather it should be seen as a definition of the particular form of authoritarianism that China’s new leadership now seeks to entrench. All countries are run by oligarchies–permanent political classes made up of elected and unelected officials, the military and the very wealthy. China’s oligarchy has a name (the CCP) and a face (Xi) and takes responsibility for everything that happens. America’s oligarchy does not have a name or a face and takes no responsibility for anything. Australia’s oligarchy does not take responsibility for ten years of falling wages in the midst of a growing economy–but try replacing any oligarchy with one like the CCP that is genuinely dedicated to workers’ wellbeing and you will find yourself looking down the barrels of many guns.I see this emerging political system as having three defining characteristics. First, the unapologetic assertion of the power, prestige and prerogatives of the Party apparatus over the administrative machinery of the state. Again, a Western, power-based interpretation of affairs. The CCP has always been a genuine vanguard party and has always led by example and self-sacrifice–a notion that notoriously self-centered Kevin Rudd cannot comprehend.A second defining feature of this “new authoritarian” period is the role of political ideology over pragmatic policy. This one’s a hoot! Have you ever heard the CCP spouting nonsense about being the greatest country on earth. The CCP is the most pragmatic political party (perhaps the only one) on Planet Earth! That’s how they earned public trust:For the previous forty years, we’ve been told that China’s governing ideology was “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”. As the decades rolled by, at least in the economy, there was much less “socialism” than there were “Chinese characteristics”. In this sense, “Chinese characteristics” became the accepted domestic political euphemism for good old capitalism. Rubbish. The Chinese people still own the commanding heights (and commanding profits from) all the key industries, they have the strongest labor laws on earth and enjoy far greater employment benefits and protections than most rich countries.Both he and the rest of the central leadership know what the international literature says: that demands for political liberalisation almost universally arise once per capita income passes a certain threshold. They are therefore deeply aware of the profound “contradiction” which exists between China’s national development priority of escaping the “middle income trap” on the one hand, and unleashing parallel demands for political liberalisation once incomes continue to rise on the other. Xi Jinping’s response to this dilemma has been a reassertion of ideology. This has meant a reassertion of Marxist-Leninist ideology. This is precisely the kind of blind arrogance Rudd displayed during his Olympic visit. The ‘international literature’ was written by dummies like Rudd who parrot the views of their employers. They have zero validity and today, a majority of educated young Americans reject their country’s failed form of ‘democracy’.On top of this, we’ve also seen a rehabilitation of Chinese Confucianism as part of the restoration of Chinese historical narratives about, and the continuing resonance of, China’s “unique” national political forms. According to the official line, this historical, authoritarian, hierarchical continuity is what has differentiated China from the rest of the world. This Chinese “neo-Confucianism” is regarded by the party as a comfortable historical accompaniment to the current imperatives for a strong, modern Chinese state, necessary to manage the complex processes of the “Great Chinese Renaissance” of the future. As anyone who’s read the Dàtóng shu* (Book on the Great Community) knows, Confucianism is potentially far more radical than Marxism. Mao memorized it for that reason.The Asia Society Policy Institute, of which I am President, in collaboration with the Rhodium Group, has been producing over the last six months the “China Economic Dashboard”:..in five of ten areas, we’ve seen China at best marking time: investment, trade, finance, SOE and land reform. Just shoot me! Rudd, who made little legislative impact on his own country, speaks condescendingly of China’s. In reality, China’s investment and trade are hugely up; SOEs’ profits rose 17% last year, outpacing the world’s stock markets; land use reform is unlocking $23 trillion of rural wealth; China’s finance sector is the safest, most solvent and best-regulated on earth; the environment is making enormous progress and, as for innovation, China leads the world in patents filed and, according to the Japan Science and Technology Agency, China now ranks as the most influential country in four of eight core scientific fields, tying with the U.S. The JSTA took the top 10% of the most referenced studies in each field, and determined the number of authors who were affiliated with the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, China or Japan. China ranked first in computer science, mathematics, materials science and engineering. The U.S., on the other hand, led the way in physics, environmental and earth sciences, basic life science and clinical medicine, though China is rapidly catching up in physics and is spending $6 billion building the world's largest particle accelerator, which could put it at the forefront of particle physics. China joins US as top influencer in science- Nikkei Asian Review.In the wake of the anti-corruption campaign and other compliance irregularities, we now see a number of prominent Chinese private firms in real political difficulty, and in one case, Anbang, the temporary “assumption of state control” of the company’s assets after its Chairman and CEO was taken into custody. Crooked businessmen taken into custody!!!?? Noooo!! Imagine America today if, after the GFC, its government had the courage to throw those crooks in jail!Compounding all of the above is still a continuing lack of truly independent commercial courts and arbitration mechanisms. Again, Rudd is oblivious to the fact that, in China, nothing and nobody is independent–everyone is part of the national family. In the Chinese cosmos, where all aspects of being are organically connected, “the spontaneously self-generating life process exhibits three basic elements: continuity, wholeness and dynamism”. To me, Xi’s China exhibits more continuity, wholeness and dynamism than any country on earth.[Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation. Tu Wei-ming, 1985].There are many more criticisms that could be leveled at Kevin but you get the picture: he was a failure in his own country which itself is failing its working people yet he has the effrontery to criticize a government that does things like this:*Although this has never been officially recognized, there is in fact a surprising degree of convergence between some important ingredients of Kang Youwei’s datong thought and the official ideology currently propagated by the Chinese Communist Party. According to this ideology, the Marxist vision of the communist society is still the highest ideal pursued by the Party and the Chinese people. However, this ideal can only be realized after socialist society has reached a high level of development. “The development and perfection of socialism is a long historical process.”10 China is, and will remain for a long time, in the “preliminary stage of socialism,” because China, as an “economically and culturally backward” nation, needs to undergo “socialist modernization.” The theory of the preliminary stage of socialism implies that full socialism cannot be practiced yet, and China may legitimately borrow capitalist techniques from the West. Not all means of pro- duction will be socialized and subject to public ownership, and there will still be economic inequality among the Chinese people. The idea that the ideals of socialism and communism will be realized, and will only be realized, in the course of a long process of historical development and social evolution thus converges with Kang’s idea of historical progress and his vision of the datong world in which socialist or communist principles will be applicable in economic life.The official view of the current level of economic development in Chinese society is that it has just reached the xiaokang level. It is hoped that by the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (2021), China will have reached a “higher level of xiaokang society,” and by the centenary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (2049), it will have reached the level of a middle-level developed country and will have “basically completed its modernization”. Thus the term xiaokang, which dates back more than two millennia ago to Liyun, is still being used today to refer to the second-best level of development. The concept of “harmonious society” advocated in recent years by the Chinese Communist Party also draws on traditional Chinese thought, particularly the Confucian vision of social harmony and amicable social relationships.In the final analysis, the datong philosophy in Liyun and in Datong shu speaks not only to the Chinese people but to the whole of humankind. It is a philosophy that is universalist in nature rather than particularistic and dependent on a particular culture or religion. As a philosophy of the common good, it is a valuable contribution to the common heritage of mankind. Though ancient in origin, it still speaks to the needs, circumstances, and challenges faced by the contemporary world. Though Chinese in origin, datong is capable, as Kang Youwei has demonstrated,of entering into dialogue with the utilitarian, socialist, and liberal traditions of the West. It is to be hoped that datong thinking will continue to develop and contribute to the Chinese social and political philosophy of the twenty first century.The Concept of “Datong” in Chinese Philosophy as an Expression of the Idea of the Common Good. Albert H.Y. Chen. The Common Good: Chinese and American Perspectives.

God’s original intent for Christianity? To spread throughout the earth and save as many as possible.How did Christianity change the world forever? That is a very long list. Most of Christianity’s impact are things we take for granted now, here in the West, as part of our cultural heritage. But they weren’t always part of culture. As the article says, the world Christianity came into was a very different place.Here is something I wrote on Wikipedia that surveys some of that long list of how Christianity changed the world forever. (Since I wrote it, I felt free to steal it accordingly. :-) )Christianity has deeply impacted our belief in Human ValueThe world's first civilizations were Mesopotamian sacred states ruled in the name of a divinity or by rulers who were themselves seen as divine. Rulers, and the priests, soldiers, and bureaucrats who carried out their will, were a small minority who kept power by exploiting the many.If we turn to the roots of our western tradition, we find that in Greek and Roman times not all human life was regarded as inviolable and worthy of protection. Slaves and 'barbarians' did not have a full right to life and human sacrifices and gladiatorial combat were acceptable... Spartan Law required that deformed infants be put to death; for Plato, infanticide is one of the regular institutions of the ideal State; Aristotle regards abortion as a desirable option; and the Stoic philosopher Seneca writes unapologetically: "Unnatural progeny we destroy; we drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal... And whilst there were deviations from these views..., it is probably correct to say that such practices...were less proscribed in ancient times. Most historians of western morals agree that the rise of ...Christianity contributed greatly to the general feeling that human life is valuable and worthy of respect.This value extended to everyone—including women and children. Women were not simply second class but were seen by many in ancient Greece and Rome as a kind of sub-species—not fully human in the way of men. It was common in the Greco-Roman world to expose female infants because of the low status of women in society. The church forbade its members to do so.Greco-Roman society saw no value in an unmarried woman, and therefore it was illegal for a widow to go more than two years without remarrying. Christianity did not force widows to marry and supported them financially.Pagan widows lost all control of their husband's estate when they remarried, but the church allowed widows to maintain their husband's estate.Christians did not believe in cohabitation. If a Christian man wanted to live with a woman, the church required marriage, and this gave women legal rights and far greater security.Finally, the pagan double standard of allowing married men to have extramarital sex and mistresses was forbidden. Jesus' teachings on divorce and Paul's advocacy of monogamy began the process of elevating the status of women so that Christian women tended to enjoy greater security and equality than did women in surrounding cultures.Christianity embeds a presumption in favor of preserving life, but concedes that there are circumstances in which life should not be preserved “at all costs", and it is this which provides the solid foundation for law concerning end of life issues.Christianity saved civilization after the Fall of RomeThe period between 500 and 700, often referred to as the "Dark Ages," could also be designated the "Age of the Monk". After the Fall of Rome in 476, (which had nothing to do with Christianity), culture in the West returned to a subsistence, agrarian, form of life. What little security there was in this world was provided by the Christian church.Western civilization suffered a collapse of literacy as well as economics and order. Following the collapse of Empire, small monastic communities were practically the only outposts of literacy in all of Western Europe. Disciplined Christian scholarship carried on in monasteries by literate monks became some of the last preservers in Western Europe of the poetic and philosophical works of Western antiquity.The “Rule of Benedict” became the foundation of thousands of monasteries that spread across what is modern day Europe;"...certainly there will be no demur in recognizing that St.Benedict's Rule —(poverty, simplicity, generosity: “work and pray”)—has been one of the great facts in the history of western Europe, and that its influence and effects are with us to this day."Monasteries were models of productivity and economic resourcefulness teaching their local communities animal husbandry, cheese making, wine making and various valuable skills. They were havens for the poor, hospitals, hospices for the dying, and schools. For centuries, nearly all secular leaders were trained by monks. These monks preserved classical craft and artistic skills while maintaining intellectual culture. By 800 AD, these monasteries were producing illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, by which old learning was re-communicated to Western Europe.Christian monasteries and nunneries changed social power foreverThe formation of these organized bodies of believers—distinctly separate from traditional power centers and behavioral controls such as political authority and familial authority—especially for women, gradually carved out a series of social spaces with some amount of independence. People could be responsible for themselves and their own choices—within reason. This revolutionized social history in ways we take for granted today.Christianity prevented Europe from becoming Islamic.Whatever else might be thought of the crusades, they did keep the Muslims from taking over much of the European continent. If they had not, the world would be a very different place now. My feeling is that the Enlightenment, and all that it brought, including the scientific revolution and many of the advances of Western civilization, would not have occurred otherwise.Christianity influenced sex and marriage more positively than most knowChristianity changed sexual mores forever, and while many disagree now, the sexual ethical structures of Roman society were built on status and inequality and what we perceive now as terrific injustices.Slaves had no status, therefore, it was not thought that they had any internal ethical life at all. Abusing them was therefore acceptable. Sexual ethics meant something different for men than it did for women, and for the well-born, than it did for the poor, and for the free citizen, than it did for the slave—for whom the concepts of honor, shame and sexual modesty could be said to have no meaning at all. Christianity sought to establish equal sexual standards for men and women and to protect all the young whether slave or free. This was a transformation in the deep logic of sexual morality. Paul made the body into a consecrated space, a point of mediation between the individual and the divine. Status and wealth became meaningless in this new view.The Greeks and Romans said our deepest moralities depend on our social position which is given to us by fate. Christianity "preached a liberating message of freedom. It was a revolution in the rules of behavior, but also in the very image of the human being as a sexual being, free, frail and awesomely responsible for one's own self to God alone.”During the Gregorian Reform, the Church developed and codified a view of marriage as a sacrament. In a departure from societal norms, Church law required the consent of both parties before a marriage could be performed, and established a minimum age for marriage, protecting “child brides” from being forced into unwanted marriages.Christianity influenced science and educationThe influence of the Christian Church on Western “letters and learning” has been formidable.One view against this idea is that the Church's doctrines are entirely superstitious and have hindered the progress of civilization through holding to its irrational thinking. The most famous incidents cited by such critics are the Church's condemnations of Copernicus, Galileo and Johannes Kepler.The evidence for the other side of that view overwhelmingly outweighs that argument. Not only did monks save the remnants of ancient Greco-Roman civilization during the barbarian invasions, but the Church actively promoted learning and science for hundreds of years throughout its history (even with those three notable exceptions).It is not unreasonable to claim the scientific revolution would not have happened without the Christian church. It did not happen elsewhere, anywhere in the world, in quite the same way as it did under the influence of Christianity.Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Johannes Kepler all considered themselves Christian. St.Thomas Aquinas argued in the 12th century that reason is in harmony with faith, and that reason can contribute to a deeper understanding of revelation. The church adopted his views.The Church's priest-scientists, many of whom were Jesuits, have been among the leading lights in astronomy, genetics, geomagnetism, meteorology, seismology, and solar physics, many becoming some of the "fathers" of these sciences.Examples include important churchmen such as the Augustinian abbot Gregor Mendel (pioneer in the study of genetics), the monk William of Ockham who developed Ockham's Razor, Roger Bacon (a Franciscan friar who was one of the early advocates of the scientific method), and Belgian priest Georges Lemaître (the first to propose the Big Bang theory).Other notable priest scientists have included Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Nicholas Steno, Francesco Grimaldi, Giambattista Riccioli, Roger Boscovich, and Athanasius Kircher. Even more numerous are Catholic laity involved in science: Henri Becquerel who discovered radioactivity; Galvani, Volta, Ampere, Marconi, pioneers in electricity and telecommunications; Lavoisier, "father of modern chemistry"; Vesalius, founder of modern human anatomy; and Cauchy, one of the mathematicians who laid the rigorous foundations of calculus.Many well-known historical figures who influenced Western science considered themselves Christian such as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Boyle.According to 100 Years of Nobel Prize (2005), a review of Nobel prizes awarded between 1901 and 2000, 65.4% of Nobel Prize Laureates, have identified Christianity in its various forms as their religious preference (423 prizes). Overall, Christians have won a total of 78.3% of all the Nobel Prizes in Peace, 72.5% in Chemistry, 65.3% in Physics, 62% in Medicine, 54% in Economics and 49.5% of all Literature awards.The church is responsible for beginning the University system and is responsible for directly founding most of them. The Reformation is largely responsible for our modern commitment to literacy and the concept of public education. It was based on the idea every man should be able to read the Bible for themselves.A Pew Center study about religion and education around the world in 2016, found that Christians ranked as the second most educated religious group around the world after Jews.Christianity influenced art and architectureSeveral historians credit the Church for what they consider to be the brilliance and magnificence of Western art. "Even though the church dominated art and architecture, it did not prevent architects and artists from experimenting…” Important contributions include its cultivation and patronage of individual artists, as well as development of the Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance styles of art and architecture. In the late Middle ages, in name of Christianity, monumental abbeys and cathedrals were constructed and decorated with sculptures, hangings, mosaics and works belonging to one of the greatest epochs of art in all of history.Christianity impacted music and literatureIn music, Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical notation, leading to the emergence and development of European classical music, and its many derivatives. Without that invention there would be no modern music. An enormous body of religious music has been composed for God and church through the ages. The list of Christian composers and sacred music which have a prominent place in Western culture is extensive. Similarly, the list of Christian authors and literary works is also vast.Christianity affected politics and economicsCharlemagne instituted political and judicial reform that led to many modern concepts and practices.Christianity influenced economic theory through Scholasticism and the Protestant work ethic.Calvin resisted political absolutism and paved the way for the rise of modern democracy.Among several influences, it is still fair to say Protestants created both the English and the American democracies.Christianity developed the concept of human rightsThe philosophical foundation of the liberal concept of human rights is Christian. It is most specifically connected to Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius."...one cannot and need not deny that Human Rights are of Western Origin. It cannot be denied, because they are morally based on the Judeo-Christian tradition and Graeco-Roman philosophy; they were codified in the West over many centuries, they have secured an established position in the national declarations of western democracies, and they have been enshrined in the constitutions of those democracies."David Gushee says Christianity has a "tragically mixed legacy" when it comes to the application of some of its own ethics. He examines three cases of "Christendom divided against itself": the crusades and Pope Frances' attempt at peacemaking with Muslims; Spanish conquerors and the killing of indigenous peoples and the protests against it; and the on-again off-again persecution and protection of Jews.Christianity founded hospitals and the practice of charityHistorians record that, prior to Christianity, the ancient world left little trace of any organized charitable effort. Christian charity and the practice of feeding and clothing the poor, visiting prisoners, supporting widows and orphan children has had sweeping impact.Albert Jonsen, University of Washington historian of medicine, says “the second great sweep of medical history begins at the end of the fourth century, with the founding of the first Christian hospital at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and concludes at the end of the fourteenth century, with medicine well ensconced in the universities and in the public life of the emerging nations of Europe.”Basil, as bishop of Caesarea, established the first formal soup kitchen and hospital. It was a homeless shelter, hospice, poorhouse, orphanage, reform center for thieves, women’s center for those leaving prostitution and more. Basil was personally involved and invested in the projects and process giving all of his personal wealth to fund the ministries. Basil himself would put on an apron and work in the soup kitchen. These ministries were given freely regardless of religious affiliation. Basil refused to make any discrimination when it came to people who needed help saying that “the digestive systems of the Jew and the Christian are indistinguishable.”The Catholic Church established a hospital system in Medieval Europe to cater to "particular social groups marginalized by poverty, sickness, and age." During the Middle Ages, the church “conducted hospitals for the old and orphanages for the young; hospices for the sick of all ages; places for the lepers; and hostels or inns where pilgrims could buy a cheap bed and meal". It supplied food to the population during famine and distributed food to the poor.The Industrial Revolution brought many urban workers deteriorating working and living conditions. Christianity responded by building hospitals, universities, orphanages, soup kitchens, and schools, in order to follow Jesus' command to spread the Good News and serve all people.In Western nations, governments have increasingly taken up funding and organization of health services for the poor, but the Church still maintains a massive network of health care providers across the world. In the West, these institutions are increasingly run by lay-people after centuries of being run by priests, nuns, brothers and Christian others. In 1968, nuns or priests were the chief executives of 770 of America's 796 Catholic hospitals. By 2011, they presided over 8 of 636 hospitals.In 2009, Catholic hospitals in the USA still received approximately one of every six patients.Christianity spread the Word of God and HopeThe impact of Christian missions throughout the world is immeasurable. According to a PEW study, "there is a large and pervasive gap in educational attainment between Muslims and Christians in sub-Saharan Africa." Muslim adults in this region are far less educated than their Christian counterparts, with scholars suggesting that this gap is due to the educational facilities created by Christian missionaries.Christianity has done more for gender equality than most realizeAccording to the same PEW study, Christians have a significant amount of gender equality in educational attainment, and the study suggests that one of the reasons is the encouragement of the Protestant Reformers in promoting the education of women, which led to the eradication of illiteracy among females in Protestant communities. Female literacy is still relatively low in the world outside the West.That’s how Christianity changed the world forever.Every now and then I contemplate what the world would have looked like without Christianity—with all its failures and all its problems and all its inadequacies—and I see that overall, Christianity has done substantively more good than harm. I wonder if perhaps that is the best that can be said of any venture involving humans.Would Europe have become Muslim and would that have prevented the scientific revolution? The Muslims built a great civilization but they repressed the kind of development that led the West. They never had a scientific revolution of their own. Colonialism was driven by economics and most certainly would have occurred even without Christianity, but without Christian missionaries to speak up for the rights of the conquered, how much worse would things have been? We like to think things such as charity and the founding of hospitals were inevitable, but world history doesn’t support that comfortable notion.It’s a completely fruitless exercise of course. But I look back in response to all those who advocate eliminating Christianity as we go forward, and I know without doubt—if the past is any clue— it would not make the world a better place.