Virtue Quest

• Woke about 7:45, before my alarm – maybe I’m finally catching up on sleep?
• Some reading
• About 20 minutes in prayer
• Neglected to make my bed
• Made it to mass just on time
• Work for about 5 hours
• Caught the 4th quarter of the SuperBowl
• Hung out with family at the SuperBowl party
• Some fiction writing
• Bed around 11pm

• Woke at 8-ish
• 20 minutes or so of prayer
• Some reading
• Chores around the house (Bowl party tomorrow, ya know)
• Worked for 8 hours
• Watched the rest of “Lost”
• Heading for bed by 11pm

Distinct, though not divorced

Aristotle says that the point of his book on ethics is to lay the groundwork for politics. He, like most of the Greeks from what I can tell, had a very State-centered view of the world.

But I think there are a couple important points here.

First, personal ethics really does have public implications. How I act in private cannot be separated from how I act in public and how the rest of society acts.

Second, Aristotle’s insight isn’t quite so anti-individual as it seems; after all, he sees that the human person is a social creature, that no man is an island, that it is not good to be alone. So, looking for the good life, he necessarily has to look at the life of the community.

Government and society

The poster I’m using to illustrate this post comes from a Conservative Party campaign in Great Britain. It’s a kind of retraction of a saying of Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Prime Minister in the 1980’s. She once said, “There is no such thing as society.”

This poster turns that statement on its head by pointing out a distinction that we tend to blur in the 21st century – at least, in the English-speaking world. I can’t count the number of times when, in conversation, I’ve mentioned that “society” or “the whole community” has responsibility for some aspect of life – health care, to take a current example.

My interlocutors often would jump in with either, “No! The government should stay out of health care!” or “Yes! That’s exactly why we need a single-payer program!”

But government is not the same thing as the community.

Instead, it seems to me that people assume government will take responsibility for the problems and duties of the community. I’m not convinced that’s the case.

Neither right nor left

Here’s the thing: the so-called political right has a point in saying that a big government or “nanny state” tends to encourage irresponsible behavior by citizens by absolving them of personal responsibility for themselves and for one another.

And the so-called political left has a point in saying that government is the only entity which really comprehends the entire populace, and so can serve those who fall through the gaps in other social structures.

But while both of these “sides” see a real problem, neither seems to know where the solution lies. The right tends to want government to serve the “private sector”, meaning business; and the left tends to want the private sector to become a branch of government. But neither focus on the truly personal.

Personal virtue

It seems to me that any system, whether in government or business or anything else, is doomed to failure if it bases itself on a fantasy rather than on a reality. And one fantasy is that a system, in and of itself, will make the world better – no matter what quality of people are in the system.

But the fact is, human nature tends to find loopholes and gaps and ways to “work” any and every system it encounters. The answer is not a new system. The answer is to encourage each and every person to strive for excellence, for goodness, for virtue. The answer is to focus on the person.

Well, I managed some reading today, but no writing. As I said yesterday, I had to go into work. This past couple weeks has been “peak” season, and my hours should return to something more normal next week. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Also took an unplanned nap today, after getting home from work. So it’s after midnight, and I’m hoping to get to sleep by one am. Sleep, for me anyway, is critical for having the right amount of energy and focus at the right time.

On to the list:

• Woke about 8am
• Good conversation with an east-coast friend on the phone
• Worked about five hours
• That darned unplanned nap!
• Some good reading time
• Less than 2000 steps today – noticed I’d been forgetting to put my walking on the list
• As above, aiming for bed before 1am

Technical difficulties have been somewhat persistent, but I think I’ve got them all fixed now. Here’s hoping.

Also, I was hoping for a day off tomorrow to focus on some reading and writing, but I’ve been called in to work. Such is life. And I’m not in a position to turn down a paycheck.

On to the list you’ve all been waiting for!

• Woke around 8-ish, normal morning routine
• Worked about seven hours
• Puttered around Barnes & Noble to avoid rush hour traffic
• Watched a little bit of “Lost” – about twenty minutes of the season premiere
• Played my bass for about half an hour
• Got some reading in
• Reinstalled the new version of Thunderbird
• Aiming for bed around 11:30

Strange day. Ended up not having to go into work, because I had a doctor’s appointment right in the middle of the day. Anyway…

• Woke around 8am
• Prayed for about twenty minutes
• Went back to bed after breakfast; rose again around 11
• Sent out some applications for jobs
• Went to doctor’s appointment
• Watched some TV with dad (“Men of a Certain Age” and “NCIS”)
• Good conversation with a friend
• Some good reading time
• Short post for this blog
• Should make it to bed by 11pm, asleep soon thereafter

The other day, I received in the mail The Sources of Christian Ethics, by the world-renowned Servais Pinckaers.

What do you mean, you’ve never heard of him?

Okay, so I’m more of a nerd than a geek, and I’m big on dudes in ethics circles. Sue me.

Anyway, I’m only about fifty pages in, but I already have so many reasons to love it:

1. He puts ethical and moral ideas into historical context – so you get a sense of why different people said the things they did
2. He sorts through the relationship between human ethics, which in theory can be known and applied by all people everywhere, and specifically Christian ethics, which is based on the revelation of Jesus Christ; this is a big question for me, since I’m after an ethical approach that can be applied universally
3. He takes head on the relationship between Greek philosophical virtue ethics and Judeo-Christian scriptural ethics, and specifically how Thomas Aquinas works with them both
4. I just love saying the name “Pinckaers” because it sounds exactly like “pink hairs” and makes me think of some Beverly Hills poodle

More to come on this, of course. But for now, I just want to cite his definition of Christian ethics:

Christian ethics is that branch of theological wisdom that studies human actions so as to direct them to the loving vision of God, which is complete happiness and our final end. This is done under the impulse of the theological and moral virtues, especially charity and justice, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is effected through experiences of the human condition such as suffering and sin, and is implemented by laws of behavior and commandments, which reveal God’s ways to us.

While surfing the internet, I stumbled across this:
Australia is the most sinful nation on earth!

Hat tip to Mark, who is currently in Australia, to the envy of us all!

I’m having problems with my netbook, so I’m posting this from another computer.

I apologize to anyone who has sent me an email, or who expected an email from me, in the past couple days. Also, I don’t think I’ll be able to post regularly till I get this sorted out.

Hopefully, today or tomorrow! Meanwhile, pray for me and my microchips!

UPDATE!
Everything seems to be up and running again. Thanks for the prayers and the patience!

Open me!

I had a great conversation with a friend this morning. She pointed out to me that none of us choose to be here – either in the sense of being born in the first place, or where we happen to be in a job or family or what not. My situation in life is not something I have much control over, and most of it I have absolutely no control over.

And I realized that, till recently anyway, I have been harboring resentment about that. It made me feel powerless and frustrated. I wanted more control. I wanted to be where I chose to be, rather than where I was.

But there’s another way of looking at it: my life, and my situation in life is a gift. It’s both a gift to me, in that there is a great deal of good – comfort, love, friendship, and so on – in my life; and it’s a gift to others, in that I have good things to give to the people I encounter every day.

Yep, I’m God’s gift to the world.

But then again, so is everyone else. You’re God’s gift to me, for example. So it’s not that big a deal.

Anyway, I just realize that I need to shift my attitude from resentment, which is focused on what I don’t have, to gratitude, which is focused on what I do have. And that’s more realistic anyway: what I do have is real, but what I don’t have is a product of my imagination.