9 comments on “Puritan praise & pride – a legacy of conflated piety”

1. 

   Pondering the question “How to live a meaningful life” … does this ask even arise for those dealing with “How to have a life?” – a life at all, to survive.

   Whatever view one takes, it is useful to engage anew with Franklin, for in doing so we are grappling with a fundamental issue: How does one live a life that is useful, virtuous, worthy, moral, and spiritually meaningful? – Isaacson, Walter (2003). Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

   To ask about meaning begs the context of choices, of having had choices – options in the journey. Or instances of grace (as noted in “The Rookie” below). And likely related to some type of merit, within a wider meritocracy. So as to obtain some degree of standing, both private & public.

   In which case, one might indeed find public service a path to living a meaningful life. And as noted by W. Kamau Bell below: “We don’t need that for their sake. We need it for the rest of us.”

   • Washington Post > The Week in Ideas > Opinion > “Who is government?” by David Shipley (Nov 3, 2024) – How to live a meaningful life – career options in “the factory of the federal government” – public service.

   “Who is government?,” our series in which seven writers dove deep into the federal government and came back with extraordinary stories about public service, ends with a beginning — a beginning of a new life, a new career.

   As a reader, what I admired most about “Who is government?” was its positive cast. Each story offered a lesson on how to live a meaningful life.

   … “Who Is Government?” will be a book, to be published in March [2025] by Riverhead.

   One of the articles in that book profiles a graduate of Smith College at her first job – working at the U.S. Department of Justice, the antitrust division, as a paralegal – and her theory that “antitrust can be a part of delivering equity to this nation” (a career path which depends on her student loan debt).

   • The Washington Post > “THE ROOKIE” by W. Kamau Bell on Olivia Rynberg-Going of the Department of Justice (October 29, 2024) – We need young people who are excited about the possibilities of making the government work better for everyone.

   “The antitrust laws are here to preserve and protect competition, …. It’s also really part of the ethos here in the United States. As a country, there’s this idea that America is a meritocracy; that people can come, they can work hard, they can build a better mousetrap and they can succeed; and that consumers can benefit from that hard work, those innovative products, the lower-priced products …” – Kathy O’Neill, a partner in the law firm Cooley (D.C.), which specializes in antitrust.

2. 
   I’m still pondering the interplay of individual and collective ethics. How that aligns identities (or not). Conformity and compliance. Confluence and contention. Social merit and meaning. Faith and finance. Interdependency and incentive – “the gods help those who help themselves.” [1]

   Plutarch’s heroes, like Bunyan’s Christian, are honorable men who believe that their personal strivings are intertwined with the progress of humanity. – Isaacson, Walter (2003). Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

   Notes

   [1] Is this concept taught by the Bible?

   • Wiki > God helps those who help themselves

   The belief that this is a phrase that occurs in the Bible, or is even one of the Ten Commandments, is common in the United States. … Despite not appearing in the Bible, the phrase topped a poll of the most widely known Bible verses.

   Barna see this as evidence of Americans’ growing unfamiliarity with the Bible and believes that it reflects a shift to values conflicting with the doctrine of Grace in Christianity and “suggests a spiritual self-reliance inconsistent with Christianity“.

3. 

   The “greed is good” of the 1980’s is characterized also as the “Glengarry Glen Ross” culture:

   Glengarry Glen Ross (play) 1984

   Glengarry Glen Ross (film) 1992 [what a cast!]

   AI Overview

   Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet is a play that critiques the culture of capitalism and the American Dream:

   Capitalism

   The play depicts a cutthroat sales office where the top salesman receives a Cadillac, while the bottom man is fired. The play shows how the system is brutal and compassionless, where success is rewarded with more opportunities for success, and failure is punished with more failure.

   The American Dream

   The play shows how the American system of capitalism is divisive, dishonest, and destructive. The play is set in the world of real estate, where the ultimate capitalist ideal is that money equates success and happiness.

   Machismo

   The play is filled with misogyny and racism, which is emblematic of the 1980s.

   Hustle culture

   The play is an incisive critique of the hustle culture promoted by the laissez-faire capitalism of the 1970s.

   Other aspects of the play’s culture include:

   • The blurring of the lines between business and pleasure
   • The use of language that remains unchanged between the settings and within the context of the conversations
   • The inclusion of the quote from the real life business book, Practical Sales Maxim: “Always Be Closing”
   • The men’s values being twisted by a world in which they must lie, cheat, and even steal in order to survive

   Generative AI is experimental.

4. 

   So, this LA Times article (noted below) clarifies something that I’ve wondered about: the retreat by evangelicals from progressive causes in the 20th century and evangelicals’ politicization in the 21st century.

   Terms

   • Millennialism – a religious belief that a Messianic Age will be established on Earth

   • Premillennialism – a “belief that Jesus will physically return to the Earth (the Second Coming) BEFORE the Millennium, heralding a literal thousand-year messianic age of peace.”

   • Post millennialism – an interpretation “which sees Christ’s second coming as occurring AFTER the “Millennium”, a messianic age in which Christian ethics prosper. … Postmillennialism was a dominant theological belief among American Protestants who promoted reform movements in the 19th and 20th centuries such as abolitionism and the Social Gospel.”

   • The Late Great Planet Earth – a 1970 book by Hal Lindsey. The book is “a treatment of dispensational premillennialism.”

   • Randall Balmer – professor of Arts & Sciences, Episcopal priest, professor of church history, author & writer, …

   In various books and articles, Balmer has criticized the politicization of the American Christian evangelical movement. In an article titled “Jesus is not a Republican” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Balmer writes:

   Indeed, the most effective and vigorous religious movements in American history have identified with the downtrodden and have positioned themselves on the fringes of society rather than at the centers of power. The Methodists of the 19th century come to mind, as do the Mormons. In the 20th century, Pentecostalism, which initially appealed to the lower classes and made room for women and people of color, became perhaps the most significant religious movement of the century.

   The leaders of the religious right have led their sheep astray from the gospel of Jesus Christ to the false gospel of neoconservative ideology and into the maw of the Republican Party. And yet my regard for the flock and my respect for their integrity is undiminished. Ultimately it is they who must reclaim the gospel and rescue us from the distortions of the religious right.

   The Bible I read tells of freedom for captives and deliverance from oppression. It teaches that those who refuse to act with justice or who neglect the plight of those less fortunate have some explaining to do. But the Bible is also about good news. It promises redemption and forgiveness, a chance to start anew and, with divine help, to get it right. My evangelical theology assures me that no one, not even Karl Rove or James Dobson, lies beyond the reach of redemption, and that even a people led astray can find their way home.

   The title of Balmer’s book about the religious right, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right (2021), was used for the documentary film of the same name.

   The article

   • LA Times > Op Ed > “What happened to all the lefty evangelicals?” by Randall Balmer, religion professor at Dartmouth College (12-11-2024) – A bestseller’s take on Revelation explains what led many away from progressive causes.

   … evangelical understandings of premillennialism and postmillennialism have had a profound effect on American history.

   In the early decades of the 19th century, evangelicals by and large were post millennialists — that is, they believed that Jesus would return after the faithful had reformed society according to the norms of godliness. This doctrine in turn animated a variety of social reforms — peace crusades, public schooling (called common schools in the 1800s), prison reform, women’s equality, opposition to slavery (in the North) — all aimed at bringing about the kingdom of God on Earth, and more particularly in America. The Rev. Charles Grandison Finney, the most influential evangelical — a Presbyterian, by the way — of the era excoriated free-market capitalism because commerce elevated avarice over altruism.

   By the late 1800s, however, evangelicals were becoming disillusioned. …

   To the rescue came a theologian from Britain, John Nelson Darby [18 November 1800 – 29 April 1882]. He told American evangelicals that they had it all wrong. Jesus would return before not after Revelation’s thousand-year utopia kicked in [premillennialism].

   As Darby’s interpretation became popular, American evangelicals’ attitudes toward society changed radically. They had been activists trying to reform society, to make the world a better place. But if Jesus was going to return at any moment, why bother? This world was doomed and transitory, they believed, so why worry about social amelioration?

   Lindsey’s book [in 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth] popularized an approach to biblical interpretation called premillennialism, which posits that the world as we know it will come imminently to an end, as predicted in both the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible and in the Book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament.

   Theologically, the emphasis shifted from social reform to an individual reckoning — accepting Jesus as your personal savior. Premillennialism stoked political apathy; it absolved evangelical Christians of the task of social reform.

   … white evangelicals since the rise of the religious right have embraced an agenda that exalts capitalism and cares little for “the least of these.”

5. 

   In a recent discussion about storycraft, a friend shared his copy of the book Wicked (1995), which he’d started to read. I’d followed articles about the play (2003) and film (2024); and downloaded the Kindle sample. That’s connected with threads on Daniel Defoe, Puritan praise & pride, Robinson Crusoe, History of the Black Art, …

   • Wiki > Wicked (musical)

   The novel … is designed to set the reader thinking about what it really is to be “Wicked”, and whether good intentions with bad results are the same as bad intentions with bad results.

   • Dedication (Wicked)

   This book is for Betty Levin and for all those who taught me to love and fear goodness. – Maguire, Gregory (2009). Wicked: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture (Wicked Years Book 1). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

   • Epigraphs (Wicked)

   ‘Tis very strange Men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are. — Daniel Defoe, A System of Magick [1727] – ibid.

   • Wiki > Robinson Crusoe (book 1719 by Daniel Defoe)

   Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television, and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade.

   “He is the true prototype of the British colonist. … The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity.” – Irish novelist James Joyce

   Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was a Puritan moralist and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing books on how to be a good Puritan Christian, such as The New Family Instructor (1727) and Religious Courtship (1722). While Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide, it shares many of the themes and theological and moral points of view.

   • Wiki > Daniel Defoe

   Defoe is known to have used at least 198 pen names.

   From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is famous (see below). In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726) and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published a number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody’s Business is Nobody’s Business (1725) and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1727) and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727).

   • Defoe’s System of Magick (1727)

   Overview of Defoe’s book (available on: Internet Archive; Amazon as expensive, high-quality digital copy of original 18th century manuscript)

   (quote)
   AI Overview

   “A System of Magick” (also known as “A History of the Black Art”) is a book published in 1727 that explores the history of magic and witchcraft, particularly focusing on the concept of “black magic” and detailing how people throughout history have supposedly interacted with the devil, essentially acting as a historical account of mankind’s early dealings with the demonic realm.

   Key points about the book:

   Author:
   Generally attributed to Daniel Defoe, a famous English writer known for “Robinson Crusoe.”

   Focus on the “Black Art”:

   The book delves deeply into the practice of black magic, examining different historical figures and practices considered to be related to demonic forces.

   Historical Perspective:

   It aims to provide a historical overview of magic, discussing how ancient Magi evolved into modern wizards and sorcerers, and the various forms the devil might take when appearing to practitioners.

   Controversial Content:

   Due to its subject matter, the book was considered controversial at the time of publication, as it explored the darker aspects of magic and the belief in demonic entities.

   Generative AI is experimental.
   (end quote)

6. 

   “the American dream and nightmare”

   This book [1] review reminded me of another cardinal characterization of the American psyche, another homage to Ben Franklin’s influence on our culture. Namely, a singular shared ideology (mythic common ground) that hard work (sweat equity) warrants “getting ahead,” and earns merit and place in a society (ideally) governed by meritocracy.

   So, what happens when that expectation of reward (“can-do spirit”) is thwarted? When “relying on ‘perspiration’ as a strategy” no longer is tenable. Whence comes a path of hope?

   • LA Times > Opinion > Books & Ideas > “American way of work reflects our history and current realities” by Chris Vognar (12-29-2024) – Adam Chandler’s book ‘99% Perspiration’ unpacks “the roots and consequences of a very American dilemma: the belief that old-fashioned elbow grease will get you anywhere you want to go.”

   “99% Perspiration,” which takes its title from a quote attributed to Thomas Edison — “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” [2] — is more than a mere diagnosis. It’s also a far-reaching study of how and why national myths are propagated and a ground-level account of the way we live and work now. It is, as they say, a good read, wrung from troubling realities.

   He [Adam Chandler] dips into the country’s origins, and how foundational American thinkers like Benjamin Franklin saw hard work as a shared trait in a collection of colonies with little else in common. As Chandler writes, “America’s industry-obsessed, kite-in-a-thunderstorm lifestyle was one of the few things that united the various divided factions of America’s founding set.”

   Facts and figures go a long way toward illustrating America’s long-standing obsession with the virtues of hard work, and “99% Perspiration,” Adam Chandler’s mischievous mix of travelogue and social analysis, has plenty of both. For instance: A 2023 economic opportunity poll by Gallup found that 39% of Americans believed that they were failing to get ahead despite working hard.

   99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life by Adam Chandler [available January 2025]

   Notes

   [1] Book promo

   

   “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This phrase, arguably Thomas Edison’s most famous quote [3], has been drilled into the minds of generations of Americans. A fairly straightforward iteration of the idea that innovation, discovery, and ingenuity are the result of drive and grit above all, it has also come to represent much darker myths: that hard work always leads to success and that achievement is the product of individuals and not communities. In this model, those who come out on top are there because they earned it, and everyone else needs to buckle down, glove up, and, maybe one day, they’ll get there too.

   As the wealth gap widens, communities crumble, and Americans work more for less, Adam Chandler raises the question: What happens when perspiration isn’t enough? … He also delves into America’s past to reveal how our government, education system, and culture at large have woven the idea of meritocracy deep into the fabric of American society and how some of history’s most famous so-called bootstrappers really built their wealth

   [2] AI Overview “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”

   “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” is a quote attributed to Thomas Edison [see Wikiquote note below] that highlights the importance of hard work and experimentation in the process of innovation. The quote conveys that great ideas alone are not enough to achieve success, and that hard work and dedication are essential to bring those ideas to life.

   Here are some insights from the quote:

   Hard work is important: Edison’s inventions, like the lightbulb and the phonograph, were the result of thousands of attempts and trial-and-error experimentation.

   Inspiration and perspiration are both needed: While inspiration is important, hard work is even more important.

   Perspiration can be a group effort: Perspiration doesn’t have to be the work of one person alone, but can involve working with others.

   However, some say that Edison never actually said or wrote these words, and that the credit should go to a woman named Kate Sanborn. Sanborn gave a lecture around 1890 that said genius was a combination of inspiration and perspiration, and that “talent is perspiration”.

   Generative AI is experimental.

   [3] The maxim is specfically Edison’s definition of genius. So, …

   • Wikiquote lists an extended history of attribution: 1901, 1927, 1932, with some precursors from: 1881, 1891 (Sanborn in 1891 and 1893 newspaper articles), 1893, 1897, 1898, …

   Examples:

   Edison claimed authorship of this statement in a 1927 letter: “it is quite true I once made the statement that genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, and I am still of the same opinion”.

   He repeated the claim in a 1932 interview with Harper’s Monthly: “You may have heard people repeat what I have said. ‘Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration'”

7. 

   Here’s another perspective on praise, pride, and purpose in the achievement-driven American dream.

   • Psychology Today > “Choosing Wonder Over Achievements: A New Year’s Mindset Shift” by Jessica Del Pozo, Ph.D. (Being Awake Better), reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Ph.D. (December 30, 2024) – Wonder and awe [when it is not threat or fear-based] may offer more health benefits than an achievement-driven life.

   Have you watched or read something that inspired you to pursue your passions only to be left feeling lost regarding what your purpose actually is? When it comes to finding purpose, there is often a lot of pressure and attention put on achievements and accomplishments. … Too often, purpose isn’t valued as much if it isn’t seen, tracked, rewarded, or admired by others.

   Research supporting wonder and awe [often defined as reverential respect] as complex emotional experiences in adults [vs. children], in the modern scientific sense, has been on the radar only in the past decade and a half. The general focus of emotional research up to that point had been on understanding and managing difficult emotions … Recent strides have attempted to describe formerly ineffable experiences – using language to describe what is transcendent and often indescribable — and to measure them.

   There is some evidence that there is a reduction in Default Mode Network activity, an area of the brain currently being studied for its self-reflective processes. Along with these neurophysiological patterns, there is a measurable reduction in self-focus, an increased prosocial relational connection, and more social integration which can trigger a sense of belonging. Meaning-making can increase, which is also connected to our sense of being part of something beyond our day-to-day. In sum, awe is described as a reparative experience that leads to better well-being.

   Entering each moment or task with curiosity, a slower pace, and a sense of humility can help set us up for more moments of awe.

8. 

   Regarding my statement that: We need a renewed sense of common purpose, an overarching social ethic highlighting interdependence rather than ascendance.

   • LA Times > Opinion > “Where does resilience come from?” by Lucy Jones (1-11-2025) – We need ‘social capital‘ — strong community bonds that are the reason and the way we work to rebuild.

   Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a disaster. Research into how recovery happens has shown that the most important factor in a resilient community is the level of what social scientists call “social capital,” the value derived from positive connections between people. The rest of us call this “relationships.” How connected are you to others in your business community? Or your kids’ schools or your faith community? How strong are your family connections? These bonds create community and are the reason and the way we work to rebuild.

   Our social bonds do more than just motivate and sustain us in the long process of recovery. They give us purpose during this difficult time of response. We are wired to avoid risk, but we are more willing to face risk when we are helping others. We stop focusing on our fear or loss and take pride in helping the community.

   For many in Southern California, these 2025 fires won’t be why they need to be resilient. But we will have other extreme weather events to contend with, and at some point, we will have an earthquake that will affect all of us. Those who are connected to each other will recover faster and have a reason to thrive again.

   Lucy Jones is the founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society and the author of “The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them).”

9. 

   So, more legacy of Benjamin Franklin, the myth of the ‘self-made’ man.

   This article (below) traces the conflation of piety & profit, faith & finance, into the late 20th century in the tech industry, particularly Silicon Valley culture.

   This is something which I personally saw while working as a software engineer in those heady years: The wedding of private entrepreneurship with moral ascendancy and the deprecation of social inclusion. Essentially “trickle down” economics, albeit claiming Christian context. A specific vision of business and cultural values:

   It was often the most enthusiastically pro-entrepreneurial voices who were also the biggest anti-diversity fighters. … [an] approach … that prioritized masculine traits like fighting, risk-taking, and being “blunt” and “tough”. … The Silicon Valley titans of 2025 are following the same blueprint.

   Looking back, as the article discusses, entrepreneurship was cast as a modern mythology of stars – the worship of “Golden Geeks” as heroic risk-takers. A narrative of makers vs. takers, where ready wealth equaled sanctity, and (software) code was a covenant for human progress.

   Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, other media outlets took up Gilder’s [George Gilder, a Silicon Valley evangelist and popular futurist] framing: tech entrepreneurs offered a hopeful way forward for the American economy, for masculinity, and for human progress writ large.

   • The Guardian > “‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley” by Becca Lewis (Jan 29, 2025) – The industry’s liberal reputation is misleading – the celebration of wealth, power and traditional masculinity have been clear since the dotcom mania of the 1990s.

   Gilder was also a longtime social conservative who brought his politics to Silicon Valley. He had first made his name in the 1970s as an anti-feminist provocateur and a mentee of the conservative stalwart William F Buckley. At a time when women were entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers, he wrote books that argued that traditional gender roles needed to be restored, and he blamed social issues such as poverty on the breakdown of the nuclear family.

   He claimed that entrepreneurs were the most moral and benevolent people in society, because they put products into the world without a guarantee of return – and then reinvested the profit back into the economy. … Drawing on religious language (Gilder himself was a devout Christian), he wrote that entrepreneurs are the humans who “know the rules of the world and the laws of God”.

   … Gilder helped revitalize a fervor for entrepreneurship and a belief in the moral power of entrepreneurs over industrial workers and company men.

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