Virtue Quest

I’ve been in San Francisco this past week, and it’s been impossible to ignore the preparations for “Pride!” this weekend. Trust me, I’ve tried to ignore it. But one reason I can’t is that the whole thing is deeply problematic, right at the root.

I’m not talking about homosexuality. That’s another topic entirely. I’m talking about pride.

Pride has been growing for a while: “I’m proud to be an American” and “proud parent of an honor student” and “say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud” and so on. Even the brand of hand soap where I’m staying is “Pro Pride.” The LGBTQWERTY movement has simply capitalized on it to a greater extent than anyone else, and maybe has cornered the market at this point.

But pride is not a virtue. It’s a vice. It’s the foundational vice, the root of the seven deadly sins.

Not “pride” but joy

Now, I don’t think all the advocates of pride are aiming to “overstep beyond” what they are, which is how Thomas Aquinas defines pride. (more…)

I’m a firm believer that the virtues are helpful to everybody. Any random Jane or Joe can benefit from growing in Prudence and Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. You don’t have to be smart, or strong, or rich, or anything like that.

You don’t even have to be Christian.

Huh?

So, at this point, I expect there are two groups of reactions to that sentence. First, from the Christians, I expect some flavor of “What do you mean you don’t have to be Christian?” And from the non-Christians (whether atheist or adherents of other religious traditions), “Why would you even ask that question? What does Christianity have to do with it?”

Here’s the thing. The virtues I’ve been studying arose in what’s called the Western philosophical tradition. Greeks like Plato and Aristotle wrote about them, and the early Christians picked up their ideas and ran with them. In developing the older, pagan ideas of virtue – ideas, by the way, which don’t fit neatly with the Jewish heritage of Christianity – they connected them to their theological notions, and significantly added three new virtues that were mentioned in the Bible: Faith, Hope, and Love.

The original Greek virtues were called Cardinal Virtues, since (like the cardinal directions on a compass) they point you in the right direction. The new ones were called Theological Virtues, because they are seen as gifts of God.

So I’m a Catholic myself, and I have no problem with some virtues being gifts from God. But I have big questions about how it works. (more…)

I know it’s horribly late notice, but it also serves as an explanation (not an excuse) for why I haven’t blogged much lately.

Tomorrow, that is, Friday the 10th of June, I’ll be presenting at the Northwest Catholic Family Education Conference.

I’ll actually be appearing several times during the day. I’ll give a talk on practical approaches to virtue in everyday life. Then I’ll sit on a panel with such luminaries as Mark Shea and Dawn Eden. And between, I’ll be providing one-on-one consultation with people, sorting out exactly what each one can do to begin the quest for virtue in his or her life.

This whole “virtue consult” thing is a new development. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow, and pay close attention to the feedback. But if it goes well, I’m thinking of offering ongoing “virtue consultation” as a regular service.

If you are at the conference tomorrow, please let me know what you think of the talk and of the consult idea. If you’re in the greater Seattle area, and are interested in trying out a consult, please let me know! I’d love to talk with you.

I know some people who don’t get started on a task or deal with a problem until it becomes a crisis. They wait and procrastinate and put off until further inaction will result in disaster. Then, most of the time, they scramble everything together and get done what needs doing.

They say, “I thrive under pressure.”

Maybe this is true for them. For me, the pressure, the anxiety and the fear, can become overwhelming. I get paralyzed. I drop the ball.

That doesn’t stop me from procrastinating. It just means my threshold for crisis is much lower. A deadline a week or a month away produces as much urgency in me as a tomorrow morning deadline provides for them. I know (from sad experience) that if I put it off any longer, I’ll freeze up and utterly fail.

This gives me the reputation as someone who is responsible, who plans ahead, who is organized. If only.

I’m just as crisis-driven as anybody else. The only difference is my tolerance for anxiety. I hate the stuff. And it’s taken a while for me to learn how to get moving before the pressure crushes me.

Currently, my goal is to head off anxiety at the pass. (more…)

I post on this over at Coalition for Clarity.

Short answer: if everyone was virtuous, none of us would be vicious. Sadly, that’s easier said than done.

I’m giving a talk at my parish tomorrow night (7:00 in the parish hall, if you’re in the neighborhood!) on usury and the morality of economics.

Usury has become a popular word, at least in some circles, for what’s wrong with our current economy. Too many people getting too greedy, and getting bailed out when their greed comes home to roost.

I think usury is one part of the problem, but it’s bigger than that. The other problem is straight up greed, which is not exactly the same as usury. Now, I’m not an economist, and I don’t understand the ins and outs of the whole system. My approach has been to take hold of the basic moral issues involved in economic life. And in my reading and thinking, these two themes have jumped out to center stage.

Reality

It’s no surprise to you who read this blog that I’m a big fan of reality. I think 99% of our problems come from a mismatch between what I think or what I want and what is actually the case.

Usury is an excellent example of this. (more…)

Posted over at Coalition for Clarity.

I am my own arch-enemy.

I have this outrageous expectation that I should be super-awesome at everything I attempt, as if I’d been born on Krypton or some such thing. And if I can’t excel – or even if I could excel, but it would take, you know, effort – well, it’s easier to give up. It’s easier to fail in a way that I control, an intentional and deliberate failure, than to strive for success and risk falling short.

Stupid. I know. Or I know it in my head, anyway. Somehow my gut remains convinced of that little piece of insanity.

In other words, I know intellectually that I’m just an ordinary guy, a mere mortal, just like everyone else. But there are a couple obstacles to acting on that knowledge.

Lies I tell myself

First, there’s a part of me that’s convinced that everybody else around me really is entirely competent, brilliant, strong, and has X-ray vision. (more…)

So, way back when, I promised a friend that I’d post the notes to the talk I gave on “Virtue in Everyday Life.”

I’m not quite ready to post those notes yet. There are two reasons.

The first reason is that I’ve been asked to present a similar talk to the Northwest Catholic Family Education Conference. So I’m revising my notes a bit, and I’ll post the notes (and maybe the talk itself) after that.

The other reason is that, after the talk, I got into a great debate with a friend over the way I presented Courage and Temperance. I said that (more…)

BBC: Laser gun fired from US ship.

But I’m still waiting for my jet pack!