Uh, no, Nathaniel, I don’t think that’s it at all. Our disagreement was about your overly-simplistic approach to this question, an approach you continue to take in your most recent post. You said the answers to these questions were “obvious;” I said they weren’t. I posed a series of questions about why and how the government could regulate universities and their endowments; you ignored them and haven’t really replied at all to the thrust of my post.

You most recent claim is just another example of your using over-the-top rhetoric to set up straw-men:

At its core, this is all about the envy of wealth. No one is asking whether it’s okay for a university to have an endowment. But some people see schools with large endowments, and that makes them mad. Are we supposed to suspend the principles behind non-profit taxation because of straightforward resentment?

Could it be that at its core this is all about how to structure the government’s regulation of academic non-profits and their endowments so as to best serve the common good? Maybe the common good would be served best if academic non-profits were subject to the same five percent annual pay-out requirements that other non-profits are subjected to. I don’t know, but it seems a reasonable position. You’ll say that the real proposed measures will only apply to elite schools. Fine. Is there any a priori reason, or, in your terms, any “obvious” reason, why the government can’t treat wealthy and poor colleges differently—you know, the way they treat wealthy and poor individuals differently?

I don’t claim to be an expert on any of this but when I see the rigorous–and serious–debate of competing sides of the issue on conservative websites like NRO’s Phi Beta Cons blog and the Pope Center for Higher Education, and then I see our coverage, I feel bad–because we’re short-changing the merits of the arguments on the other side.

. . . as well as four other Olivier Award thingees.

Who knew it would make for anything but a ludicrous musical? They must put on one heck of a pyrotechnical miracle over at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Go figure . . .

Although, almost as staggering, Hairspray has broken an Olivier Award nomination record, with 11 across 10 categories.

If only J.R.R. Tolkien had lived long enough to team up with John Waters. What a musical that would have made! And then . . . the Eschaton . . .

Ryan, you’re certainly right about one thing, namely my misuse of the term “rights.” I don’t actually believe that we have a right, under natural or constitutional law, to receive tax breaks for donations to non-profit organizations. My primary assertion was that the endowment debate is, at its core, a debate over private property—as Rep. Tierney demonstrated when he implied that what the tax payer donates to a non-profit is not his, but a gift from the government that refrains from taxing it.

You and I both agree that individuals have a right to private property. And, I think we also have to agree, private property belongs to institutions in the same way that it belongs to individuals.

Now, what happens if an individual gives money to an institution? Surely it belongs to that institution in the same way that it belonged to him. And if he gives more because he receives a tax break from the government, how can the government claim that some of that money was theirs, that they are somehow donating it to the institution? The government may have encouraged the donation, but it has no claim of ownership over that donation. With or without tax-based incentives, the property rests in the hands of those exchanging it.

That’s my answer to the question of private property: Money donated to a university belongs to that university, no matter how much money that university ends up with. I think it’s your answer, too—just as we can agree that if Congress decides to tax non-profits the way it taxes for-profit corporations, that is not a violation of any natural or constitutional rights.

Our real disagreement, Ryan, begins here: You think higher taxation on non-profits might be a good idea. But the debate isn’t whether Harvard and Yale are or are not acting the way non-profits should. Everyone agrees that educational institutions should continue to receive tax breaks for the work they do. The debate is over what to do now—when a few universities have a lot more money than the other non-profit universities with which they compete.

At its core, this is all about the envy of wealth. No one is asking whether it’s okay for a university to have an endowment. But some people see schools with large endowments, and that makes them mad. Are we supposed to suspend the principles behind non-profit taxation because of straightforward resentment?

We saw this line of thinking yesterday on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. The top Republican on the House Education Committee, Buck McKeon of California, said “that he did support the principle of requiring colleges to spend more of their endowment assets. But the rule should apply only to the wealthiest institutions.”

Some of this talk this talk against schools with large endowments demonstrates a valid concern with rising tuitions. Many wonder whether rich universities are hoarding their wealth like for-profit enterprises or using it for their non-profit educational activities, like the lowering of tuition. The short answer to that is that schools are doing this, and that the budgets of private colleges are not under the management of any Congressional committee.

Rep. Tierney is definitely wrong when he says that part of Harvard and Yale’s money from private donations really belongs to the state. Should we rework the non-profit status for some institutions just because they managed their money well—money that will allow them to continue their approved, non-profit mission? That would be equally wrong, and an equally bad idea.

Art, Virgil says in Dante’s Divine Comedy, is the grandchild of God: God forms man in his own image, and we imitate this creative act. To put it differently, art reflects creation and creation reflects God. But literary critic Terry Eagleton isn’t so sure. Did God create the artist, or did the artist create God? Reviewing Peter Conrad’s new book, Eagleton begins his intriguing ramble:

Most aesthetic concepts are theological ones in disguise. The Romantics saw works of art as mysteriously autonomous, conjuring themselves up from their own unfathomable depths. They were self-originating, self-determining, carrying their ends and raisons d’être within themselves. As such, art was a secular version of the Almighty. Both God and art belonged to that rare category of objects which existed entirely for their own sake, free of the vulgar taint of utility. The third member of this category was the human being. In their freedom, independence and glorious pointlessness, works of art were images of men and women – or at least of what they could become under transformed political conditions. In this sense, art was a politics all of its own, pointing to a future society in which human beings would be treated as ends in themselves. It was a foretaste of utopia in its very uselessness.

He does the Marxist thing for a while, exploring how art, like a quasi-Incarnation of time and eternity, takes the place of God as a powerful ideological force. Read Shelley’s “To a Skylark” or Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist and you’ll know what he’s getting at. The question, though, is whether this is desirable or even possible:

The aesthetic was the last refuge of mystery in a drably rationalist world. Perhaps the artwork was the one thing left that had a value rather than a price, and didn’t exist for the sake of something else. Like God, poems and symphonies existed just for the hell of it. As the idea of God was gradually ousted, art was on hand to fill his shoes.

I’d rather like to think that art exists just for the heaven of it, and heaven exists for God, but I won’t quibble with the words. (And imagining God’s shoes, much less anyone filling them, is beyond me.) What is striking, though, is Eagleton’s reaction to the recognition that the mystery of divine creation is, indeed, a mystery: “Existence is gift, not fate. . . . God is not a celestial engineer but an artist, for whom fashioning the world is an end in itself.” For him, this is “dismal truth”; after all, how can one who is dependent upon God’s love really exhibit the “transcendent artistic spirit,” fashioning the world and fashioning himself? Does God need to be dethroned for us to be supreme? Or, is the creative spirit an awe-inspiring gift—a sharing in God’s own nature?

“To reign is worth ambition though in Hell,” said Milton’s Satan; “Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.” I wish he were alone.

Over at The Campaign Standard, Jody seems to think that the Super Tuesday numbers on the Catholic vote leave his thesis that there is no distinct Catholic vote in tatters. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that Jody is being overly harsh on his own thesis. There’s actually much in the data that seems to confirm it, although enough contrary evidence to make it worth examining anew. All in all, it’s an interesting question and one which I’m looking forward to Jody revisiting.

In other political news, the great George Will has a classic line today: He notes that “the Republican Party’s not-so-secret weapon always is the Democratic Party.”

And if you’re looking for still more to read on the election, don’t miss Michael Barone’s astute analysis in the WSJ.

In the May 2006 issue of First Things, Thomas Farr argued that the US needed to pay attention to religion in its foreign policy decisions in order for those decisions to have any lasting effect:

In other words, there is evidence that liberal democracy in religious cultures will not emerge without a suitable compact that regulates the overlapping authorities of religion and state, a relationship Stepan dubs the “twin tolerations.” This is one way of looking at the task of American diplomacy in Iraq. The democratic experiment there remains in play not only because of the heroic sacrifices of Americans and Iraqis but also because the dominant cultural force—Iraqi Shiism—remains open to liberal democracy and religious freedom as a political arrangement consistent with its teachings. Should sectarian violence reverse that openness, the prospects for success will be dim. U.S. diplomacy must help convince all Iraqis, but especially majority Shiites, that a liberal democracy grounded in religious freedom is in their fundamental interests, not simply in economic and political terms, but religiously as well.

Farr will have an extension of this argument appear in the forthcoming March issue of Foreign Affairs. He will also serve as the moderator for part of a symposium at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs. The symposium itself is entitled “Why Religious Freedom? The Origins and Promise of US International Religious Freedom Policy,” and Farr’s session is called “The Social, Economic, and Political Impact of Religious Liberty Worldwide.” The event is free and open to the public. First Things readers are encouraged to attend.

1. North Korea
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Iran
4. Maldives
5. Bhutan
6. Yemen
7. Afghanistan
8. Laos
9. Uzbekistan
10. China

At least according to something called the Open Doors’ 2008 World Watch List.

How much business do we do with China? And isn’t Saudi Arabia a kinda/sorta ally?

Needless to say, unless you’re willing to hide your light under a bushel, avoid communist/atheist, Muslim, and now even Buddhist (Bhutan) countries. I would also consider staying out of certain parts of the Upper West Side of Manhattan during fashion week . . .

So says the Archbishop of Canterbury . . .

And he’s not all that upset about it:

“There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.”

Well, if you’ve failed to convince a significant number of your fellow countrymen—even churchmen—of the truth of the law of the gospel, I guess you’ll settle for what you can get.

By way of TitusOneNine.

Update: Looks like Archbishop Rowan has some splainin’ to do . . .

The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good—that’s the title of a 2006 book by NYU economics professor William Easterly. Fr. Neuhaus commented on the book in The Public Square back then (scroll down to the second item). And today, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Easterly explains “Why Bill Gates Hates My Book.” A taste:

The parts of the world that are still poor are suffering from too little capitalism. Foreign direct investment in Africa today, although rising, amounts to only 1% of global flows. That’s because the environment for private business in Africa is still hostile. There are some industry and country success stories in Africa, but not enough.

This may help explain why “Bono Still Hasn’t Found What He’s Looking For.”