Into the Wardrobe

I would like to recommend a little volume by Dorothy Sayers entitled Are Women Human? I don't believe that the female and male minds are really alien to each other. For the most part, we all have the same basic human reactions and tendencies. We can make generalities about "more women than men" and "more men than women" but the fact that you will find members of the "oposite" sex in each group should tell you that we are only talking about tendencies, not hard and fast categories.

Completely different, Iris? That would be very surprising. Certainly we are not completely different physically. After all, we have pretty much the same equipment with some modification. You do realize that men and women have the same hormones in our bodies - simply in different balance. Each gender even has the same organs, only in different balance.

And I'm not so sure that there's not some way to communicate "alien" experiences.

Also, there are ways of approximating to a large degree of accuracy where the differences are real. For one, you can watch. and where the behaviors are constantly the same across individuals, you can make a first assumption that those are the commonalities. Also, you can study the physiology and predict what the behavioral results of the material differences. The places where the predictions are correct, you can make a first assumption that those are accurately percieved differences. Combine all the observations over time and you should get a fairly accurate view of the real (noncultural) differences. Add in observational information from bridging individuals (in the case of genders - true hermaphrodites and other medial individuals - in the case of nonhuman animals, Therians) and empthically gifted individuals (ever heard of sympathetic labor pains?), and you can really start building up an accurate picture.

Actually, what I consider "alien" is this sense of a "great gulf" between people. I think that's a result of modern (and I us that in a very broad sense - say the mindset beginning when we started living in walled cities) culture. I don't believe that people were meant to be separated by any such gulf. Because, if men and women are alien to each other because one can't perfectly communicate their feelings to the other, the same is true of any two individuals.

I'll try to clarify the distinction.

First, I agree with your Aquinian analogy. Renting an asset is different from charging interest on loaned money.

Second, I agree that it's hard to land on a solidly usable definition of usury. Is it any interest? Only exploitative interest? Only interest when the lender sets the rate (as opposed to the incidental and borrower-defined rate for something like an interest-bearing checking account)? Not clear.

Third, I think you're missing my point about ownership. When I say that Coyote is making an ownership-based investment, I mean that you're using your own money to purchase something -- not getting a loan to make that purchase.

Some quickie definitions and examples:
Borrowing: Taking a loan of money, usually with a promise to pay interest. Maybe it's a loan for a vehicle, or a mortgage, or an operating loan for a business. None of this is prohibited by Scripture, but all of them are unwise, are strongly warned against (see concerns about surety in Proverbs), and should be avoided at virtually all cost.

Usury: Loaning money at interest -- see my second paragraph for discussion of fuzziness.

Ownership-based Investment: Using your own money to purchase assets or goods for the purpose of wealth creation. Some examples might be:
- Coyote has some money and would like to be productive with it. Coyote buys a lathe or a printing press or a tractor and uses it to produce things that other people want to pay for.
- Coyote has some money and would like to be productive with it. Coyote buys some goods, goes to a place where those goods are desired but not available, and sells them.
- Coyote has some money and would like to be productive with it, but Coyote is so actively busy with other things as to have no incremental time or talents to combine with this money. So Coyote finds another business that is being productive and buys part of it (a share). When that business creates wealth (cash or intrinsic value), Coyote owns part of it. If things go badly, then just like in the lathe or goods examples, Coyote stands a chance of losing some or all of it.

Now, it's of course quite possible and very, very common to make investments with borrowed money, but then in the big picture you don't really own it.

That's what I mean. To be ownership-based, I mean that for your particular transaction, lending and loans and things are out of it entirely.

Pine