Virtue Quest

The view from the top makes it look so easy!

More goodness from Pinckaers’ The Sources of Christian Ethics!

Following St. Thomas Aquinas, Pinckaers gives three basic stages of growth in virtue:

1. Beginner / childhood
2. Proficient / adolescent
3. Perfect / mature adult

Each of these stages essentially follows the growth in freedom of a person, and challenges the person to become more free in his or her life. Here’s how each stage works:

Beginning in virtue

The beginner needs to learn how the world works. This is the stage of getting to know – to know oneself, to know one’s abilities, and to know the world and the moral basis of one’s life in the world. The primary work of this stage is learning or, to use a more traditional word, discipline.

Now, it strikes us that discipline is something opposed to freedom, but when the freedom we seek is to live a fully human life, we start out in need of knowledge and in need of practice. Human beings need to be raised and trained and taught.

The goal of education is to lead the child to understand (and the educator must first understand this himself) that discipline, law, and rules are not meant to destroy his freedom, still less to crush or enslave him. Their purpose is rather to develop his ability to perform actions of real excellence by removing dangerous excesses, which can proliferate in the human person like weeds stifling good grain, and by guarding him against unhealthy errors that could turn him aside and jeopardize his interior freedom.

Moreover, this is only the initial stage of growth, just as practicing scales is the beginning and not the end of playing the piano.

Progress in virtue

The second stage involves internalizing the rules by seeing and acting on the reason the rules exist in the first place. It involves a certain testing of the rules – not to destroy them, but to understand them, just as a pianist might try out different formations of a chord or ask what happens when you add this note to it. This is the stage where virtues become, not actions that one follows because they’re imposed, but a kind of “second nature,” an ability that really is one’s own.

Virtue is not a habitual way of acting, formed by the repetition of material acts and engendering in us a psychological mechanism. It is a personal capacity for action, the fruit of a series of fine cations, a power for progress and perfection.

In other words, freedom and goodness cease to be mechanical exercises and become organic parts of us.

Perfect virtue

First off, Pinckaers warns (and I warn with him) that “perfect” here doesn’t mean the end of the road; rather, it means the fulfillment, and the completion of development. Probably a better word for today would be “mature” but St. Thomas used “perfect” so Pinckaers explains what he meant by it.

We can characterize this stage by two features: mastery of excellent actions and creative fruitfulness.

This is the ultimate goal: to be able to do whatever we do well, and to do it creatively. This is what Thomas Edison meant by saying that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” The virtuous person has gained the freedom and the ability to bring inspiration to reality in spite of the difficulty or obstacles in the way.

This does not mean the end of learning or of growth; rather it means that learning and growth continue almost naturally, without great effort – because the virtuous person has learned how to learn, and has rooted him- or herself in good soil for growth. Virtue has become a stable foundation for the freedom to do what really leads to happiness.

And that’s a goal worth striving for!

Yesterday was not so much overly busy as just plain draining. So I didn’t get to the computer much at all. It’s actually kind of a relief not to be on line. The feel of a book is just plain more satisfying than the feel of a keyboard; and there’s something sort of compulsive, for me, anyway, about staring at a screen. I have similar problems with the telly.

Anyway, here’s a rough, not very complete list:

• 8 March:
• Don’t remember exactly when I woke, but it must’ve been around 8
• Morning prayer
• Worked an 8-hr shift
• Made some major revisions to the outline of my novel
• Renewed some library books
• I’m sure I did other things on Monday, but my memory’s a bit blurry at present; don’t even remember just what time I got to bed!
• 9 March
• Woke around 8, with my alarm
• Had a doctor’s appointment in the morning
• Mom and I picked up my brother at the airport; had lunch together, then Mom went back to work and I took my brother home
• Went to the library to pick up some new books
• Pretty much just hung out with my brother most of the evening: some shopping, played some cribbage, chatted, and so on
• Actually watched “Lost” more or less at its scheduled time, for once
• Bed around 11

Quick link to a BBC story on how the EU and various other national and international bodies are considering internet access a fundamental human right.

In the fourth paragraph comes a crucial distinction:

“The right to communicate cannot be ignored,” Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told BBC News.

Now, the right to communicate, I think, can be argued as a fundamental human right. And, as a correllary, the right to ordinary means of communication. But much of the article blurs this distinction, and speaks of internet access as if it was a human right in and of itself.

So, anyone living before the late 1980s was deprived of a fundamental human right? One cannot be fully human without the internet?

I don’t think so.

The original effect

Tim Burton appears to have lost his imagination.

He’s come a long way since the joy of “Beetlejuice” and the genius of “Edward Scissorhands.” Even his adaptation of “Batman” brought an originality to the superhero movie that had been sorely lacking.

But at least since “Sleepy Hollow” his films have followed a steady trend away from character and plot and toward a desperate attempt to recreate the curlicue atmosphere of the classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. He hasn’t bothered coming up with interesting stories, relying instead on twisting other people’s tales to suit his vertiginous vision. He’s put Johnny Depp in all sorts of white makeup (none of which matches the beauty of Edward) and he’s papier-mached or CGI-ed trees imitating the Mandelbrot set or the Golden Ratio (depending on his mood). And he’s sacrificed some truly beautiful stories to these visual allusions to his own better work.

“Alice in Wonderland” is no exception. Naturally, he had to start by making Alice older – nineteen – in order to add a touch of sex appeal and to develop a loose and unconvincing coming-of-age story in an attempt to add depth. (As if a story about a girl falling down a mile-deep rabbit hole needed to go any deeper!) He then gives Depp some erratic antics, and his muse Helena Bonham Carter (does anyone else cast her anymore?) her standard sneer-pout-sneer-pout, and his special effects department a blank check to put as many curlicues as they can into the set dressing.

To their credit, Depp as the Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as Alice turn in solid performances, almost covering over the unwarranted shifts in character and the gaping plot holes. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, was unable to transcend the absurd role of the White Queen with humanity or believability. Or maybe it was just frustration with Burton’s demand that she keep her hands constantly in the air.

Ultimately, the film fails on the level of imagination. (And yes, this is where I make the virtue connection.) Imagination requires a freedom of mind, as well as a solid grounding in reality – neither of which Burton seems able to muster any more. The closest to reality he comes is the idea that international trade is a way to get rich. But his grasp of courtship, of the tension between social expectation and personal expression, and of the nature of authority all fail to consider the human person anything other than a plot-point to be manipulated into a special-effects sequence.

Ultimately, he has no notion of the difference between good and evil. The Red Queen is arbitrary and unpleasant. The White Queen is arbitrary and (so we’re told) pleasant. But the White Queen also brews a witch’s potion without moral qualm – though she’s made some vague vow against taking life; and she shows no virtue or reason she should merit Alice’s loyalty any more than the Red Queen. Well, except that she is albino and her body is not distended by CGI.

Mr. Burton would have done much better had he taken the time to meditate on Lewis Carroll’s works, rather than mutilating them.

Quick note about today: I know much of the U.S. has suffered from interminable blizzarding, but here in the balmy Pacific Northwest, the weather has hardly dared dip below 40F. Till today. Indeed, even as I speak, it snoweth! God be praised! It snoweth!

Yes, I know it has nothing whatsoever to do with virtue – except the virtue of joy!

Right. Onto the list:

• Woke without my alarm because I’d left my phone (AKA, my alarm clock) upstairs. Still, it was 8:05, so I was basically on schedule
• Morning prayer, and mass, but no evening prayer
• Helped my mom out a bit, since she was totally wiped out from a long day on Saturday
• Worked a 5-hr shift
• Realized en route to work that I’d left my wallet at home; continued driving anyway with flagrant disregard for my criminal status
• Had dinner and a movie (the new “Alice”) with some good friends
• Home around 11pm; asleep by midnight

Back to ye olde daily grind! What could be better?

• Woke with my alarm at 8am
• Paid some bills
• Some reading, some writing – including a post for this blog!
• Prayed in the morning, but not in the evening
• Neglected to call a friend when I told her I would
• Went to work for about six hours
• Cooked dinner for my mom
• Some planning for next week, while Dad’s away and Brother’s in town
• Got to bed early, about 10pm

"But I shot a man in Reno..." or did I?

Have I mentioned how much I love the book I’m reading? The Sources of Christian Ethics by Servais Pinckaers. And it’s not just because the author’s last name sounds just like “pink hairs,” either!

A history lesson

The middle section of the book gives a quick history of major ideas in morality from Plato to the present. The very short version is that in the fourteenth century (that’s AD 1301-1400) an English Franciscan named William of Ockham (famous for “Ockham’s razor”) began pushing the theory that the will was more important than the intellect, and that freedom was the greatest of all goods – greater even than truth.

Ockham’s ideas caught on, and in the next couple hundred years transformed the way people thought about ethics and morality.

Instead of being about the pursuit of goodness, happiness, and excellence, morality became a struggle between freedom and law, between choice and obligation.

Don’t impose your morality on me!

There’s a lot packed into that history, but something that struck me very personally was that law is something imposed on me from outside, whereas virtue is something I develop from within myself.

Now, being a basically lazy man, I’ve spent vast portions of my life waiting for somebody else to make me do things. I’d put off homework till the teacher sat me down and watched me do it. At work, I would only get things done if the boss was around to make me look busy. Heck, even at home, I only bother to pick the place up if there’s company coming over.

In other words, I’ve been defining my freedom as avoiding the imposition of law – and I associated doing anything at all with the obligation of law. Even things I know are good for me, I need someone to “make” me do them.

The approach of virtue is altogether different. It recognizes that freedom is at the service of a person’s ability to act, to do stuff. And it is a person’s mind that figures out what’s good to do. The will follows the mind and moves us into action.

Right, totally abstract. Let me see if I can give an example.

An example

So I’m sitting on my bed looking at the mess that is my bedroom. Papers piling up on the desk. Clothes strewn all over the chairs and the corner of the bed – not yet on the floor, but that’ll come soon if I don’t do anything about it. A bowl and a glass from when I ate lunch in my room a week and a half ago.

But something in me says, I don’t have to clean my room. Nobody’s going to make me. You’re not the mom of me!

So, instead of cleaning my room, I read a book. Yep, The Sources of Christian Ethics. And it occured to me that I could choose to clean my room – not because someone was forcing me to, but because it was good to. I could clean my room simply because I enjoy having a clean room.

So I stood up and started clearing off my desk.

Those who cling to freedom will lose it

It’s ironic that, by clinging to a false freedom – refusing to let anybody “make” me clean my room – I actually lost a true freedom: the ability to clean my room and to enjoy it. But that’s what happens when a good thing gets put in the wrong place.

Freedom is not the highest good, and is not something to be grasped with both hands. If we hold it lightly, and use it to grow in virtue, then it blossoms itself and makes everything we do truly free.

Feeling better now, I’m glad to report! But my dad headed off this morning to help my aunt and uncle deal with some health issues, so I get to help my mom take care of the house. And next week, my brother is coming into town just to hang out with us. So I hope to post a few times next week, but please forgive me if I’m a little slack!

Anyway, here’s yesterday, as best I remember it:

• Woke up on time for the first time in three days
• Normal Friday conversation with a friend on the east coast
• A little reading
• Sorted out some details about Dad’s trip with him and Mom
• Worked an 8-hr shift
• Turned in another job application; had a fun little banter with the manager
• Watched a little telly (finally saw the new episode of “Lost”)
• Scribbled some notes for a new take on an old story idea
• Posted a couple final notes to the Catholic Writer’s Conference
• I don’t remember if I spent any time in prayer – mea culpa!
• Got to bed a little after ten
• 

I’m just plain tuckered, these days. My nose keeps running and I’m tired of chasing it. I was almost late to work today because I just couldn’t manage to get out of bed. Still having trouble keeping my eyes open.

Even so, I’m not contagious and I am able to keep working, so virtue demands I do what good I’m able to do. Just doesn’t leave much energy for blogging.

So I’ve taken a day or so off. I’ll get back to the keyboard when I have a little more ability to think clearly. Thanks for your patience!

Here I come to save the day!

I’m reading Servais Pinckaers’ The Sources of Christian Ethics, and, well, it’s full of rich material. Very thought provoking.

Something that struck me last night was the following:

The action of the Holy Spirit goes still further. Not limited to forming within us personal capacities for action, or virtues, it also engenders dispositions for receiving the spiritual inspirations and impulses needed for producing perfect works.

Obviously, he’s in the middle of relating natural morality, and the cardinal virtues that go with it, to the supernatural morality that comes with Christian grace. But almost as an aside, a throwaway, he gives a definition of virtue that I haven’t seen before:

personal capacities for action, or virtues

Now, as soon as I read it, I thought, of course! It just seems so obvious that a virtue is a person’s ability to do something well. And the only thing I would add, in order to make it a complete definition, is that a virtue properly is about living a human life well.

Now, the reason I’m so excited about this is that I’ve been struggling to articulate virtue in a positive or intriguing manner, and all the definitions that spoke of “habits” and “dispositions” and “forming character” and so on just fed into the idea that virtue is somehow dreary.

But looking at virtue as an ability, a capacity for action – that’s like Napoleon Dynamite’s bo-staff skilz. It’s like Luke Skywalker’s Jedi powers. It is, to use a word from my youth, AWESOME!

That said, I’m now off to my secret lair to defend the world against the forces of evil. Excelsior! (which is olde-tyme speak for “up, up, and away!”)