You or God? You will worship either, so choose rightly.

Joseph Pearce has written a good essay on the key difference between the relativist and realist approach to truth (Nazissism: The Totalitarianism of the Self). In it, Mr. Pearce tracks the relativist's collapse into a realism about relativism.

If I may attempt humbly to summarize Mr. Pearce's argument, the relativist's collapse proceeds as follows:

"1. The only truth is that there is no truth. [Relativism about truth]
2. If truth is as such, then the only correct moral statement is that there are no correct moral statements. [Relativism about morality]
3. If morality is as such, then the only correct approach to legislation is that which prohibits legislating morality. [Modern-day legal philosophy, as best outlined in the Supreme Court's majority opinion on Casey v. Planned Parenthood]."

The contradictions of relativism are blatant; those who propound them will, eventually and inevitably, become violent. This is borne out by history, both ancient and recent, and, more importantly, by common sense. It does not take a scholar of American history to discern a key principle of modern American history: traditional collections of people into families, communities (nearly exclusively religious), towns, townships, debating societies, etc. have been increasingly under attack by an approach to public policy founded on the belief that the larger a government is, both in scope and in size, the more fit it will be to secure freedom and autonomy for its citizens.

The pornographic revolution (I will not strip sex of its dignity by referring to the modern world's collapse into immorality as a "sexual" revolution) which undergirds the spirit of the modern age has led us to the very denial of the existence of male and female forms altogether. The pornographic revolution did not arise from a vacuum; it arose from relativism.

For those who are disgusted by the latest escalation of the war against traditional sexual morality, it is critical that they understand the root of the belligerents' cause. However, while that is definitely an interesting question, far keener minds and far clearer writers than myself have written on the topic.

In this short essay, I want to discuss what many consider to be a third option to the question of relativism or realism. I wish to discuss this option because many see it as the option of lasting peace (if actually lived out). However, this option is not an option of lasting peace, but rather an option which inevitably collapses into relativism. In other words, on the questions of truth, morality, beauty, goodness, and legislation, there only really do exist two options: realtivism and realism. Relativism leads to tyranny. Realism leads to true freedom, for true freedom can only come from knowing, living, and glorifying the truth. Since, then, this third option will itself inevitably collapse into relativism, it is as dangerous as relativism. Indeed, it may be even more dangerous, for it lulls those who hold it into a false sense of complacency.

All Around the World

All around the world, all throughout history, men, women, and children have asked the great questions of life. Who am I? Why am I here? How should I live? What is the good life? What is love? How do I love? Why is there beauty? Why is there evil? Why is there suffering? What is eternity? What is time? What happens to me when I die? 

I am reminded of the commercials for the U.S. Marine Corps. They are usually variants on this theme: a man dressed in street clothes walking amongst a crowd. Then, he hears a call, and he changes direction to walk against the crowd. This theme is an archetype of one possible journey in human life: a radical, countercultural adventure. It is a powerful archetype, and its power is reflected in its popularity throughout history, cultures, and religions. That the U.S. government uses it for military recruitment is no surprise.

In that theme, there are two fundamental tenets. First, the person hears a call. Perhaps there is an even more fundamental tenet; to hear the call, the person must first want to hear the call. After all, the man could have decided to be obstinate, to not listen for the call, and so decide to, say, wear headphones and listen to something that makes him comfortable. Indeed, this is probably the attitude of those with whom he was first walking.

I have a theory about this call, and a theory about why we may not want to heed it. First, this call is the call of our conscience. I have faith that I am not alone in stating the following: a man cannot deny that gazing at the night sky, lost in the wonder produced by the heavenly beauty, makes him a better man. It may be a small change and it may last for a small period of time: perhaps he is more patient with his friend who can be annoying, or he is more charitable to his friend who disagrees with vehemently on politics. However, there is some change. And in this phenomenon lies a truly fascinating truth: beautiful things seem to make us better people.

Let us return to the theme, and let us now consider the second fundamental tenet. I have tried to make the case that the call we hear is the call of our conscience, and, furthermore, that the call of our conscience is intimately tied to the call of the beautiful and to the call of the true. Now, I want to consider what happens after the call. Surely, the man who hears the call is not alone. Indeed, surely, there is not only man in the world with a conscience; we all hear its call, its beckoning. And yet, while we all surely hear it, we all surely do not heed it.

Why is this so? Why is it so hard to do good, to tell the truth, to create and appreciate beauty? It seems to me that there is only one reason: we are too afraid to let go of our lives. 

A Dialogue on the Meaning of Life: Is it Increasing Technological Prowess?

What exactly is a man to live for? Consider the first possibility: technological improvement. Kevin is an engineer who firmly believes that the meaning of life is to increase one's and one's society's technological prowess. Sean is a lone, wayfaring stranger who annoys people to no end in asking them about their worldview as they sit down to drink their overpriced cappuccinos at Starbucks. And yet, people can't seem to get enough of his zeal for conversation. 

Sean saw Kevin rapidly tapping away at his computer and came over to introduce himself. After exchanging pleasantries, Sean popped the big question, "What, sir, is the meaning of life?". Kevin responded as follows. 

Kevin: Man is to live for technological improvement. Technology is the sum total of the processes, sciences, and mechanics by which we can harness the powers inherent in nature to better serve the ends of mankind. If technological improvement is to be man's ultimate end, then it follows that man's life should be ordered towards improving the technological prowess of mankind, the technological prowess of his society, the technological prowess of his family, and his personal allotment of technological prowess. 

Sean: While certainly a powerful driver of human action, choosing technological improvement as the purpose of life simply pushes the original question back a question. Technology is only the means to an end; man can use technology for good or for evil. Therefore, without solidifying what is good and what is evil, technological improvement, of its own accord, does not give us a meaning of life, since it can only be used as a means by which to attain the end of life. 

Kevin: Yes, it is true that technology is a means to an end, and thus cannot be considered the end of life in and of itself. However, is it really intelligible to speak of good and evil as existing, as objective entities in the world which we can know? Rather than "good" and "evil", which are old-fashioned terms which we sophisticated modern people no longer use, why not use "pleasure" and "pain"? Thus, the end of life could then be stated as acquiring pleasure. Since, in man's primeval condition, man is very often in pain, it stands to reason that the process that brings man away from his primeval condition – that is, technology – is what man must improve. In other words, man must pursue technological improvement so that he can decrease the probability of pain and increase the probability of pleasure. 

Sean: Sir, I must say, I don't understand why we should discard the concepts of objective good and objective evil simply because they were used in the past. Anyways, this is an interesting conversation, so for its sake, I'll grant your wish: we shall replace objective good and objective evil with pain and pleasure. Now, is pain and pleasure also objective, or are they subjective? 

Kevin: My girlfriend is a doctor. She tells me that we have neural circuits which make us feel pain and neural circuits which make us feel pleasure. Therefore, since neural circuits are empirically verifiable, pain and pleasure are empirically verifiable. Empirically verifiable entities are objective entities. Therefore, pain and pleasure are objective entities. 

Sean: Sir, that's an airtight syllogism, but there seems to be a problem. 

Kevin: What is that?

Sean: Pain and pleasure are states of something, correct? Meaning, that pain is not something such as, say, color. Whereas you and I can both look at a basketball and see that it is orange, you and I cannot look, touch, feel, taste, or smell pain. Pain isn't something that any of our five senses can interact with, but rather seems to be entirely dependent on the subject.  

Great Persons of the Past

 We lionize great persons of the past because we seek embodiments of wisdom who can function as sagacious advisors. But in doing so, we imperil the greater project of finding wisdom out for ourselves – a project which is, I think, plainly evident to be superior to that of adopting, simply and naively, the hard-won wisdom of others. This is, to my understanding, one of the Kant’s primary thrusts of argument in his essay What is Enlightenment?

Running out of Time (Inspired by "Hamilton")

I need to write like I’m running out of time – because I am. I need to study like I’m running out of time – because I am. I need to research like I’m running out of time – because I am. I need to love like I’m running out of time. I am running out of time: I am dying. And so too are all those I know and love. 

From Beauty to Goodness to Truth to Goodness to Beauty (Part I: From Beauty to Goodness)

A Glimpse of Beauty

            Consider a popular phrase: “He (or she) really has his (or her) life together.” This is said in a spirit of admiration. Why? What is so admirable about a person having his or her life together? Further, what exactly does it mean to have one’s life together?

            Before analyzing that question, let us, first, consider the reason for our saying it so often. Perhaps here an intuition will be useful: we human beings seem to first be enraptured by the beauty of something, rather than its intrinsic truth or goodness. We seek to do the good, yes, and we also seek the truth, yes, but we, first, seek the beautiful.

            What does this mean in concrete human actions? It means that what first motivates us is the vision of something which possesses clarity, integrity, and proportionality – in other words, that which is beautiful. The following are examples of such visions:

            “I am standing on top of a mountain, after a grueling two-day climb, 20,000 feet, with clouds under my feet. I have achieved something.”

            “I am married to a woman who deeply loves me, who loves me uniquely in the special way of marital love. We have children for whom we work together to care for, to nourish, to cherish, and to teach how to live life in all of its reality.”

            “I wake up daily to go perform work which I am deeply passionate about. I lose myself in my work. It brings me great joy to complete my tasks, and it also brings positive change to society. God’s grace permeates my work: even in the most trying of circumstances, I can feel a palpable sense, sometimes so deeply integrated that it can be missed, of peace – a peace which brings forth, from the deepest depths of my being, a resolve to perform my work well.”

            Let me, here, be vulnerable: these are my own visions of beauty – and they are, most likely, the strongest visions I have ever had.

A Will to Do Good

            It is now after this glimpse of beauty – this glimpse of, in some apophatic sense, eternity – that our wills feel drawn to reforming our lives in order to pursue that vision.

            “I need to build a life of discipline and training so that I can successfully scale that mountain.”

            “I need to build, in myself, the virtues of chastity, purity, masculinity, strength, romance, spontaneity, discipline, self-sacrifice, and industriousness (that is, I must be a fully actualized man), in order that I find a woman worthy of my hand in marriage, and a woman who herself desires such a man as that who I wish to be. If I want a woman who herself seeks to build, in her character, chastity, purity, femininity, strength, romance, spontaneity, discipline, self-sacrifice, and industriousness (that is, a fully actualized woman), then I must myself seek to build those virtues. Therefore, I must improve. The stakes are too great if I fail to do so. The culture of complacency, of mediocrity, and, ultimately, of death, are too powerful and they will only be beaten back by authentic virtue.”

            “If I want to daily perform work through which I find deep, authentic meaning, then I have to build discipline and hold myself accountable to a high standard of excellence. This accountability must also be consistent, for excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

            The key is that the pursuit of the beautiful ultimately will, if we really have found the beautiful and if we really have surrendered ourselves to its calling and beckoning, reform us. Consider that word – “reform”. We shed our current form (our current dispositions, habits, likes, and dislikes) and, in its place, build a renewed form (with new dispositions, habits, likes, and dislikes). Now, for the hard truth – the truth we all know and despise, yet also the truth which ultimately gives us hope in making moral progress: this reformation is painful and difficult.

A Digression on Music, Beauty, and the Good

            Let me, for a second, focus on a rather bizarre cultural phenomenon of modern times: the rise of ugly, disgusting, boring, banal, and degrading-to-the-dignity-of-the-human-person music. One of the most ironic sights of modern times is seeing those who claim to be for the advancement of woman’s rights listen (with pleasure) to completely pointless music which explicitly degrades women. There is, of course, no better example than (most of) rap; but the likes of Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj are no better.

            Now, let’s say that I’m a man, and I wish to find a woman of the virtues listed above (that is, a fully actual woman, or, perhaps more aptly put, a woman who is conscious of her potential and actively striving and struggling to fulfill it). It is rather obvious that listening to music which consistently degrades the dignity of men, women, and relationships between them – that is, by trivializing sex, by glorifying banal and boring binge drinking, and by turning each other into narcissists – well, it is rather obvious that listening to such music is not going to help build the virtue necessary to find a woman of that caliber. Now, the man here has a clear choice: either elevate one’s musical taste, to that of real excellence and beauty, to that which stirs the soul to climb great heights, or continue with the mediocrity of the moderns. He could become pusillanimous in making this decision, with various excuses, the most base of which is, “Does it really matter what music I listen to?”. To such a man, nothing can really be said: there is a reason Plato and Aristotle devoted significant majorities of their writings on education to the cultivation of good musical ability and taste in the young.

Music is a uniquely human activity – a gift from God to men, to express the inexpressible in song. Just as with sex, if we get music wrong, we get life wrong. What we feel uncomfortable speaking about in prose, we feel liberated to sing about in song. Thus, if we turn our (good and natural) desire for music into something which glorifies that which brings us away from the beautiful life, then we have become connoisseurs of ugliness – and, ultimately, our lives will reflect what we consume. Our lives will be ugly, but since we were made to live beautiful lives, we will be deeply dissatified with them. 

The Unborn: A Defense

"The unborn are not potential humans; they are humans with potential." 

This is the clearest expression of this simple, yet critical, truth. Whether or not someone is a person is dependent on only one attribute: whether or not they are a human. There has been much mischief wrought by people who, for various motives, have sought to dehumanize the unborn: one of the methods they have used is to argue that there is a moment in time when the biological unity which came into being at the moment of conception now becomes a "person". Certainly, an embryo does not yet have power of sentience; a baby does not yet have power of intellect; a toddler does not yet have power of will; a child does not yet have power of reproduction; an adolescent does not yet have power of emotional control; a college student does not yet have power of financial independence; and so on, and so forth. The adventure of life, in which various potencies are actualized – some by ourselves, others by other persons, all ultimately by Pure Actuality Himself – is precisely that: an adventure. But an adventure cannot happen without the adventurer. I, and every other human person in history, came from a specific biological unity: an embryo. A human person's moral worth does not derive from the subjective opinion of another human person, or a collective opinion of such human persons, but rather the objective fact of his or her *existence*. To argue that "moral worth is contingent on sentience" is to miss the very essence of moral thought, and perhaps the very essence of all rational thinking itself: causality. For if there is moral worth tied to sentience, how could there not also be moral worth tied to that biological unity which has a potency, grounded in the already existing life itself, for sentience? If, in fact, a person will not allow the harming of a little girl because he marvels at the little girl's capacity for joy, laughter, sorrow, and – that most human attribute – wonder, how could he not also desire to protect that little girl when she has not yet actualized her built-in potency for such capacities for joy, laughter, sorrow, and wonder?

The great irony, or, perhaps, the great tragedy, of this abuse of the word "person", is the mockery it attempts to make of that noble and dignified word. For the meaning of the word "person" itself developed out of Christian meditation on the Trinity. The Church Fathers asked: how could there be one divine nature, yet three distinct entities within that divine nature? The Church wrestled with that question – and still does – but progress was, slowly but surely, made: the entities were persons. And so, when it is said that the human is made in the image and likeness of God, the revolution which the Gospel spread to those it baptized was powered by the fundamental belief that the human being was a person, made for relationality, made for love, in the same way that God Himself is a relationality, in the same way that God Himself is Love.

If children are to be accepted not as burdens but as gifts, then so too should the unborn. If, in fact, we are to treat, individually, in our own spiritualities, human life as a gift – we must also recognize in other human lives, no matter how small or how weak, the same rights which we trust we have ourselves.