Non licet omnibus adire Luxemburgum

“Not everyone is entitled to go to Luxembourg.“ Just like Corinth in the ancient Roman time, Luxembourg enjoys a more than average prestige among the European countries/ cities today. The Luxembourgers themselves would totally disagree with this. They are convinced their country is on the contrary very accessible and open to foreigners. We don’t want to deny that; yet the Luxembourgers seem to ignore they attract a privileged class of immigrants, who contribute to and benefit from the abundant wealth in Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a country of the happy few and this attracts the happy few. The presence of this class impedes less privileged classes to find easy settlement in Luxembourg.

On this March 3^rd, we spend some time to reflect on this beautiful low country in the light of Saint Cunegondis, patroness of Luxembourg. The protection she offers to Luxembourg is clearly based on a positive geographical Matthew effect. Rather than begrudge this, the surrounding countries have usually contributed to this positive evolution. Luxembourg has always promoted international cooperation in the Benelux and in Europe. Interesting is also the good internal collaboration between the political and economic actors, which led to a remarkable national industrial policy embedded in the cultural history of the country.

The language Luxembourgish is also worth mentioning. You find a famous example on the façade of a house in the old town: “Mir wëllen bleiwen wat mir sinn“. It means “We want to stay what we are”. It sounds very conservative, yet one should interpret this sentence correctly. The preparedness to change is also considered part of the Luxembourgish identity.

I refer to my earlier blog about Luxembourg.

Picture 1: Saint Cunegondis stained glass window in Luxembourg cathedral 6/12/2024 ©Wim Lahaye
Picture 2: „Mir wëllen bleiwen wat mir sinn“, house in the Luxembourg old town 6/12/2024 ©Wim Lahaye

Could the clock be ticking backwards?

Are we living in a so-called society regression, an era of social decline? Twenty years ago, we could not imagine that the United States of America would adopt a "back-to-the-middle-ages" policy: elimination of vaccinations - promotion of meat and fat - promotion of household weapons - denial of climate change – blocking of accessible health insurance. Politics is not only directed against scientists, but also against science itself. Virtue is dismissed as weakness. Nobody cares about blatant lies anymore, as is customary in dictatorships. On the international stage, too, we see a regression to the law of the strongest.

Looking into the eye of the snake can have a paralyzing effect. The democratic forces have so far reacted with disbelief and immobilism. Europe is slowly but certainly getting back on its feet. I refer to my blog The Re-Emergence of the West.

Picture: Galileo clock source ESA Navipedia.

The Hubble-Lemaître Effect at Work

On this Blue Tuesday, we may observe an awkward phenomenon at work. No matter how much we love our colleagues, our colleagues seem to drift away from us. If we consider our cubicle as an island and our manageable individual work as the perimeter of that island, we notice ‘our’ island doesn’t touch our colleagues’ islands. Due to the incredible employment costs, efficiency is essential and we will surely not have overlapping land to manage. On the contrary, there is a lot of sea between us, to be interpreted as a lot of work that is not covered by any colleague. Moreover, due to the multiplication of work, our islands seem to be drifting apart, with a risk of alienation from our colleagues.

Astronomers will recognise this. The resemblance with the Hubble-Lemaître effect is striking. The Hubble-Lemaître effect describes the observation that the celestial bodies around us show a red Doppler shift proportional to their distance from us. The conclusion was that all celestial bodies are therefore moving away from each other and the universe must be expanding. Replace ‘celestial bodies’ by ‘colleagues’ and ‘distance’ by amount of work lying between you and your colleague, and you get the point. No matter how hard we work, the amount of work ‘not done’ is always getting larger and we are not getting closer to our colleagues, on the contrary. There is always more work coming in. No matter how many colleagues we can recruit to fill the gaps, work between us multiplies faster than we can execute it. We see our dear colleagues drifting away from us and they may observe the same phenomenon.

The redshift observed may be an analogy to the red cheeks we show by leaving so much work undone. If our colleagues are a bit shameless and pay only attention to our personal shortcomings, our relationships may deteriorate and we may even become disconnected workers.

The solution to the Hubble-Lemaître effect at work is halting the multiplication of work. Throw at least 50% of new actions into the oblivion pit! Looking back in the past, you will notice a lot of actions never led to any progress. I agree we don’t always know this in advance. We could have guessed, however. We should create new actions with a sense of responsibility. Actions which simplify should be preferred over actions which make life more complex. In the long term, there is more work disappearing through sound oblivion than through proper execution.

Last year on Blue Tuesday, we discussed the Yerkes - Dodson Law.

Image by Rizve Joarder from Pixabay 

Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen

On this 6^th of January we celebrate the feast of Epiphany, more widely known as Three Kings’ Day. It marks the end of Christmas time. Many of us go back to work after a nice Christmas break, and in a certain way, we feel catapulted into a deep cold darkness, including work, stress and uncertainty about the future. We may recognise ourselves in the three magi, as they face many risks on their unpredictable journey, yet we may also find relief in their courage and steadfastness when they follow the star, convinced that it will lead them to their destiny.

This is a great time to listen to this German song Von guten Mächten wunderbar geborgen (By good forces wonderfully protected).  The song is well-known in Germany, and I plead it should be better known in our Low Countries and in the rest of the world. I found this excellent performance by Siegfried Fietz. The text has been written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a spiritual man. He did what was right, irrespective of what other people believed or did. The irony of his destiny is that he was not wonderfully protected by good forces at all; you may even argue he was terribly attacked by evil forces. The fact that he found the incredible strength to resist these evil powers, is due to his strong faith and steadfastness. His spiritual consistency with his writings made him embody the good forces in himself. Let us resist to the temptation of supporting inhuman solutions to difficult problems. Let us draw poise, bravery, hope, courage and steadfastness from Bonhoeffer’s words. May the good forces be with you!

I refer to my blog Dunameis and to my Dutch blog Driekoningen 2018.

Image: The Three Magi, Hendrik Van Balen, Sint-Andrieskerk Antwerpen, artinflanders.be, photographer Hugo Maertens (public domain)

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord

You may feel relieved after having defied the dangers of professional life and you may cherish hope for a peaceful Christmas time with family and friends. Peace on Earth, however, seems beyond reach in these awkward times.

The sad news is that peace at your family’s Christmas table is equally threatened. In this time, everybody tends to have a strong opinion on political matters and even within families, we tend to have polarised viewpoints on almost everything. We may have academics and populists around the table. The only thing we could agree upon, is the decline of the West, and it looks like this drives our concern about everything else.

On the left-right axis, we have different viewpoints on almost everything: treatment of refugees, social security, property taxes, war in Palestine, deforestation in Brazil, etc. The left-right divide is essentially a socio-economical divide: do you promote the interests of the stronger or the interests of the weaker? The problem would be easy if the stronger felt strong. In times of upheaval and economic decline however, the strong feel threatened by the weak and opt for solutions that keep the weak away.

On the conservative – progressive axis, we have different viewpoints on immaterial values. The conservative viewpoint is that our ancestors have worked hard to establish immaterial values and that we should honour these. The progressive viewpoint is we need progress as the status quo proves our inherited values are not adequate to establish a fair society. Consider gay rights, abortion, the use of obligatory vaccination, the quality of education, the tolerance for life philosophies and the treatment of animals. Very often, conservative viewpoints resonate well with the right, and progressive viewpoints resonate with the left. The reason is our social order is based on possession, not on needs. Therefore, the protection of possession has a somewhat conservative character, whereas the standing up for the needs of the weak tends to have a progressive character.

The discussions are often not based on rational arguments, rather on belly feeling, sometimes even admiration or disgust for famous representatives of each side. Whatever you want to discuss at the Christmas table, keep in mind two things. First, the people at your table mean well, they are of good will, and they are concerned about you and about the entire planet.

Secondly, and this is the most important: resist cynicism. Don’t give in to the temptation of claiming everyone is stupid or selfish. Let there be peace on Earth. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, like Saint Joseph in his dream.

I also refer to my blog Why Do the People Imagine a Vain Thing?

Picture: Joseph’s Dream, Gerard Seghers, MSK Gent, artinflanders.be, photographer Hugo Maertens (public domain)

Science and Belief in Lucky Charm

On this commemoration day of Niels Bohr, we reflect on an anecdote about the famous scientist receiving a colleague* in his log cabin at the Danish coast. The fellow visitor noticed Niels Bohr had put a horseshoe in the cabin as a talisman – lucky charm. He asked Bohr if he, as a scholar, could believe that his horseshoe could bring good luck. Niels Bohr is said to have replied: "I don't believe it, but they tell me that it brings good luck, even if you don't believe it!".

This anecdote says a lot about what faith is. Faith is not scientific certainty, not perfect control. Rather, faith is a humble attitude of surrender. It is acknowledging that others could know more about the theme, something that does not suit us very well in this time of strong opinions. It is letting go of all certainty, leaving the truth open and trusting others while remaining open to the possible positive effect of your faith practice.

That doesn't mean we can believe everything. At the very least, there must be confidence that our faith and our faith practice are good and healthy for us. And this confidence can only grow with the help of fellow human beings who have grown up in that same faith. There must also be respect for the faith of others.

The anecdote also reveals something about science, or at least about the wise attitude of Niels Bohr as a scientist. Niels Bohr starts from an attitude of humility. He makes a clear distinction between what he believes is true and what is actually true. He recognises there may be a difference, with a certain non-zero probability. Probabilities are popular in quantum mechanics. Moreover, even though he doesn’t really believe it, Bohr opens the door to the possibility of the workings of lucky charm, an interesting viewpoint for the world of quantum mechanics, where the observer may influence the actual outcome of a measurement. According to some, this may explain the evolution of the universe.

I refer to my blog Bigger than my faith and to Belief Creates the Actual Fact.

(*) Probably not Albert Einstein. The frequent scientific dialogues between the two have suggested Einstein as a visitor, but that is an apocryphal story, a so-called urban legend.

Image by Bernhard Rauch from Pixabay

Brothers in Arms

One of the most touching monuments in Flanders’ fields is the Brothers in Arms Memorial Park near the Polygon woods of Zonnebeke, in the vicinity of Ypres. It shows Australian soldier John Hunter dying in the arms of his younger brother James. James buried John carefully in the forest in September 1917, survived the war but could not find back his brother's grave after the war. In 2006 however, the remains of five Australian soldiers were found in the forest. One of the five soldiers was identified by DNA research as being the lost John Hunter.

Touching as this monument may be, I feel an inner resistance to attend public praise events to fallen victims, especially when political powers are present, claiming the boys had given their lives for their country. What the officials should say is: “We failed in diplomacy and have taken the lives of these young people to uphold our doubtful reputation…”. What on Earth is worth more in a country than the lives of young people? Abstract principles like ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’ are of no use for people who have died already, nor for the numerous family members who stay behind, dead from sorrow.

In these times of belligerent talk, we prefer silence or the wonderful Brothers in Arms song of Dire Straits.

I refer to my earlier blog Pray for peace.

Dedication: I dedicate this blog to ir. Marc De Jonghe († 15 November 2025), friend and brother in arms.

Picture: Brothers in Arms monument Zonnebeke, Ypres 2025 ©Wim Lahaye