Virtue Quest

Ah, if only it were that simple and clear-cut.

I’ve mentioned before some of the principles I wish were more prevalent in political conversation. Here’s the list again, for those who hate clicking on links:

• Common good
• Subsidiarity
• Interdependence, aka, Solidarity

Many more good things worth talking about certainly belong on the list, but this is as far as I’ve gotten in trying to articulate some essential political principles.

However, while I generally like to focus on the positive, it’s important to recognize the genuine evils out there which undermine any possibility of real human life, liberty, and community.

Recognizing evil

A quick reminder: evil is not any thing in itself. Evil is the distortion or destruction of something good. So when my anger starts rising up, I have to remind myself to look for the good that’s being distorted. I have to remind myself that whoever is committing or supporting evil is actually trying to accomplish something good, albeit in a twisted way.

In other words, (more…)

Some days I just have trouble rolling out of bed in the morning. It’s not just laziness – though that’s one chunk of the problem; it’s wondering what in the world is worth getting out of bed for. It’s a deep-seated pessimism about life, the universe, and even God that has earned me the nickname “Mr. Cranky.”

In more classical terms, it’s the deadly sin of sloth, or tristitia.

What it really is, the foundation, the root of it all, is a lie: the lie that bad things are real and good things are not.

Shutting my eyes to reality

The fact is, the only real things in the world are good. Food is good; friends are good; work is good. It’s only when something is missing, or damaged, or twisted that we call anything bad. Bad, or evil, is just the fact that something good isn’t where it ought to be.

It takes a certain blindness, or at least a distorting squint, to see only the bad – the thing that isn’t really there at all – and to overlook the good thing that is there.

For example, I’m currently writing a book about my grandmother. Every time I sit down to work on it, I keep thinking about how stupid my words are, how clumsy the phrasing, how inadequate they are to capture her personality and story.

What I’m missing are (at least) three fundamental goods:

1. I have a fascinating grandmother to write a book about
2. I put words on the page, that really convey some meaning
3. I have an idea of what this book could be, of the good story that it could convey

And maybe there are more goods than these that I’m overlooking.

The point is, I’m in the rotten habit of ignoring what’s good and focusing on what’s missing; then I take what’s missing and call that reality. That’s a lie, and a sin, and a vice.

Prying my eyes open

I find, for myself, the best antidote is a good slap in the face, or a kick in the butt. (As a friend pointed out, God gave us butts so he’d have somewhere to kick us.) I need a sharp encounter with reality.

Even a real evil will do: hunger is a great motivator to get out of bed. It’s a great motivator to put inadequate words on a page, or to hand in that imperfect resume, or to produce that good-enough widget. And it’s the least of all the possible motivators in the world.

A real good is an even better reason to live and to act. My book may not be a Pulitzer winner, but it will tell something of Grandma’s story, it will convey something of her goodness to people who wouldn’t otherwise know anything about her. And that’s better than nothing. Something is always better than nothing.

The mistake of sloth

Sloth, on the other hand, thinks that nothing is better than something. It’s the illusion that nothing is something easy and comfortable, like sleep. But sleep is a positive good; it’s a real act that restores and refreshes.

Nothing is like hunger: it’s a great void, a need without fulfillment. Nothing is a hellish wretchedness; but sloth denies this truth until it’s too late – until I’ve missed that appointment or bungled that opportunity; until the good that was there is damaged or lost.

The English journalist G.K. Chesterton quipped, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” In other words, something is always – always! – better than nothing. That’s partly why I write this blog; because even if it’s bad, it’s at least words written. And I’m no kind of writer if I’m not writing words, even bad words. Even bad words are better than no words at all.

In a comment on a previous post, Paul writes:

I looked up a contemporary definition to establish a framework as to what is virtue. Then I had to wonder “is virtue, in the ‘doing good easily and often’ practicable and important?”. Morality yes but virtue, I’m undecided. Can one use virtue to navigate the world as it exists? There are a lot of instances in business, social interactions, maintaining or improving ones place within a civilization in which a virtuous person would be vulnerable to all kinds of abuse, deception and repression. Is virtue a weakness?

This is a great question. But in order to answer it well, I’ll have to ask Paul a question right back.

What, in your mind, is the difference between morality and virtue?

I ask this because you seem to place them in very different categories. In the tradition I’m writing from, Thomist Catholicism, that difference doesn’t make much sense. Morality is the theory, and virtue is the practice. “Morality” is the word for how we recognize good (and evil) and “virtue” is the word for how we do what is good (and avoid what is evil). So, when you say, Morality yes but virtue, I’m undecided, I’m not sure I follow your meaning.

Virtue and vulnerability

That said, I think I can speak to the question of whether virtue (or moral behavior) makes a person weak or vulnerable. The short answer is: Yes.

But yes only in a sort of tunnel-visioned way. Virtue opens someone to attack or harm from one small and specific direction: injustice.

In chess or poker, in love or war, if you play fair and others cheat you will suffer harm. You will probably lose the game. But you will save your dignity.

One of the oldest sayings of philosophers is that it is better to suffer evil than to commit evil. And that’s what’s really going on here: if you refuse to commit evil, if you cling to what is good, then odds are that someone will try to commit some evil against you. It might be as small as a white lie or as big as theft, adultery, or murder. And it’s possible they’ll succeed.

Strength to endure whatever may come

However, from the broader perspective of a whole human life, virtue is exactly what gives a person the strength to endure injustice rather than to be broken by it. After all, one of the first lessons of virtue is that life ain’t fair. We’re confronted by all the same “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that tempted Hamlet to suicide and that tempt me to sloth, but that motivate the truly virtuous to rise to the challenge and stand fast in their humanity.

Whether those challenges come from a natural disaster or from the unjust acts of another person, virtue enables a person to prudently sort out the real dangers and the genuine options; to respond in a just and even loving manner; to take those actions courageously despite the hardship or danger; and to temperately refrain from the easy escapes that tempt us (well, me, at least) to avoid facing the sea of troubles in our lives.

Those easy escapes are the sorts of thing that work well for a moment, but have lasting consequences: the quarter-by-quarter greed of Wall Street, the comfort of vegging with a bowl of ice cream or a TV show, the awkward dodge of a white lie. As far as I can see, it’s only virtue, which endures suffering and injustice in the short term, that enables a person to remain true to him-/herself and to avoid the even worse consequences of vice.

First off, I just want to say, “Thank you!” to readers Jeana and bob, who in the past week or so have helped me fulfill one of my goals for this blog: to generate provocative and intriguing conversation. Thanks!

So, in continuing the question of whether there’s any such thing as “natural rights” – or, more generally, what Thomists call “natural law” – the next step is to consider … the Order of the Universe!

Actually, I’m serious. By “order,” I mean specifically teleological order. In non-techno-babble, that means, whether things are in and of themselves directed to an end beyond themselves. The classic example is the eye: the eye is ordered toward the sense of sight, and so an eye that does not see is a “bad” eye.

Order and morality

Now, someone might object that you can’t blame the eye for being blind. And that’s true. So it’s important to distinguish between what’s called “ontological evil” and “moral evil.” “Ontological evil,” or evil in “being,” is simply the lack of full existence or perfection in a thing. A diseased tree, or a collapsed bridge, or a blind eye is “bad” because it lacks the fullness of what it is to BE a tree, or a bridge, or an eye.

“Moral evil,” on the other hand, involves the freedom of the will. Without personal freedom, there can be no “bad” or “evil” except in the ontological sense. For something to be evil in a moral sense, it must be a bad choice

Now, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and those who follow their tradition, the mind has several major parts, two of which are the intellect and the will. The purpose of the intellect is to understand things abstractly. The purpose of the will is to choose freely. If the intellect has a problem – for example, my intellect has great difficulty grasping poetry and metaphor, but thrives on mathematics – then we recognize that as a problem in the mind. I tell people that I’m “bad” with poetry, and they know what I mean.

If the will has a problem, it affects a person’s ability to choose freely. Sometimes this is a mental illness; for example, a psychopath is not free to act empathetically, or even responsibly. But often, we limit our own freedom by our very choices themselves. If I choose to insult you, I am no longer free to be your friend.

The slavery of vice

Now, part of the nature of the will is to develop habits. Habits are to the will what memory is to the intellect: they keep us from having to re-invent the wheel every time we hit the road. So, a virtuous habit is one that protects, or even extends the freedom of the will. Vice, on the other hand, increasingly limits the will’s freedom.

But this freedom is not freedom to do anything at any time; it is freedom to fulfill the nature of the person. It is freedom to pursue the good.

The best image I’ve found is that of a piano keyboard. Anyone at any time is free to hit any key or combination of keys on the keyboard. (This is what Pinckaers calls “freedom of indifference.”) But only someone who has practiced a great deal is free to play Debussy, or to compose an original work of music.

Now, every moment of every day, our will faces at least 88 possible choices of what to do next. If we practice making those choices well, with an idea of harmony or rhythm or beauty in mind, then we will develop habits that allow us to make more interesting and more complex and more, well, good choices. The will really does become more free, more fulfilled in achieving its purpose.

But if we simply hammer away at life according to mood or blind emotion, like a piano student who refuses to adopt proper posture or fingering, then we limit our freedom and risk hurting both ourselves and the instrument – that is, everybody around us.

Natural morality

This view of the human person, one who has a purpose or an end in both being and acting, and whose purpose is to pursue greater and greater goods, is the foundation of any theory of natural rights, or natural law, or natural morality of any kind.

Some thinkers have tried to do away with “human nature” without losing universal morality, but I haven’t found any of them (that I’ve read) to be convincing.

Others have noted that it’s incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what’s involved in “human nature” and have accepted that rejecting nature also means rejecting any universal morality. But then why do even they act as if moral questions remained vital? Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment is a brilliant exploration of the problems with this way of thinking.

So that’s largely why I’m convinced that there really is such a thing as human nature, and that the nature of the will is to choose freely, and that virtue is the true path to freedom and fulfillment and happiness.

But I’ve been talking too much. Looking forward to continuing the conversation.

I have this strange fear that I’ll never be able to overcome my failures – that every time I fail at anything, it’s a sort of ultimate failure of myself as a human person. So if I screw something up, even if it’s something that nobody else knows or cares about, suddenly I’m paralyzed and can’t face it. It’s like facing my own demise.

Which is to say I’ve been in a real slump the past few weeks.

I planned to write a post for this site one day, and didn’t. I don’t even remember if I had a legit reason or not. I wanted to again the next day, and didn’t again. At that point, I began thinking that anyone who actually reads the blog would be disappointed in me. And I didn’t want to issue yet another apology for my irregular posting. I really didn’t want to check the site stats and see the drop in readership that happens when I don’t post anything new.

And the days began to pile up. Each day was yet another confirmation of my inability to write, my incapacity for discipline, my utter lack of virtue and therefore my disqualification from writing on this blog at all.

My shrink calls this “all-or-nothing thinking.” My friends call it “perfectionism.” I’m learning to call it a lie.

After all, this blog is a quest for virtue. I wouldn’t be questing for it if I already had it.

The blog isn’t the only thing that’s fallen behind. I’ve blown off phone calls and emails. My bedroom is a pigsty. The laundry needs doing in a bad way. I don’t have any bills late yet, but I will if I wait much longer.

But the obstacles are entirely in my own mind. I simply need to start doing something – pretty much anything even vaguely productive – and 90% of the difficulty vanishes in less than a minute. I just need to face my fear/anxiety/depression/whatever about being normal, being limited, and having a life that doesn’t conform to my fantasies or desires.

I write a lot about knowing reality. Well, more than knowing it, I think I need to accept it. Accept that reality is there, it’s not going away, and it’s not a bad thing. Sure, it’s difficult at times. But it’s also the source of every true love I’ve ever encountered. It’s the only place genuine happiness can exist.

Wallowing in fantasy and wishing and spinning out impossible possibilities leads only to disappointment. I’ve got plenty of experience with that.

[A historical note: I started writing this post over a week ago... and have only now got round to finishing it. Urp!]

I think I mentioned that I’d given up computer games for Lent. I’m not much of a gamer, as gamers go. Spider solitaire and a third-party version of Risk are my favorites. Never got into the MMOGs. But I’ll be honest, those games can waste hours at a time. That’s plural hours. As in, way too many.

So, that’s a big reason I’ve been slowly growing sleep deprived since Easter Sunday. End of day comes, and I think, hey, I’m allowed my games. And next thing I know it’s 1am (or later), and I have to be up for work the next morning.

Run away! Run away!

Sure, I play games to relax. But it often becomes something more than that. It turns into an attempt to escape from my life.

Not that my life is all that rough. But I am, as I’ve said, a lazy man and I resist any intrusion on my comforts. It quickly becomes a matter of principle: if work takes time away from leisure, then play takes time away from sleep.

Sleep, of course, ultimately takes its time back … usually at the least convenient moment.

All of this could have been avoided if only I’d been a little more disciplined, a little more realistic. I just don’t have all the time I’d like to play and relax and make a fool of myself. None of us do. There’s lots of good in life, but some parts of life are just plain tough, and that’s normal.

Penance and parties

I think that’s one of the lessons of Lent: that part of life is hard work, is difficult, even painful. But the penance leads to a celebration: our work bears fruit, and there’s a greater joy than the mere escape of vegging out with a computer game.

So I’m trying to remind myself of the good things that arise from giving up computer games and other distractions – good things like a full night’s sleep and the ability to enjoy life the next day.

And when I restrict my game playing to times when I really have nothing better to do, I find I actually enjoy the game more. Who’d have thought it?

These past few days have been, well, difficult for me. It’s mostly stuff involving family and friends and colleagues that really doesn’t belong on the internet, so I won’t give details. The result is, basically, I’m stressed and emotionally wiped out.

Taking my emotional state as an excuse, I’ve let go of any number of virtuous habits I’ve been trying to build up. Some examples: keeping my room clean – out; putting work before pleasure – out; writing (both for this blog and for my novel) on a consistent and disciplined schedule – out; getting to bed at a reasonable hour – out.

I’m reminded once again of a phrase from a grade-school play based on “Alice in Wonderland”: I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.

As I look at the wreckage of the past couple days, I’m tempted to think that I’m an absolute idiot and that I know nothing about living well or virtuously. I have no business writing about it here, putting on airs as if I were some sort of authority.

That sort of thinking leads me to: I have no business even attempting a virtuous life, since I’m doomed to failure.

At this point, I hope the lie is clear. The fact is, the only authority I’m claiming is my own experience and the fact that I’ve read some interesting books that some of you may not have read. The fact is, the theory of virtue itself acknowledges that perfection is not a reasonable goal in this life; rather, growth, and progress, and improvement are the goals.

The fact is, failure is no reason to give up. Rather, it’s a call to re-focus. So: my first priority is to get my sleep schedule back on track. When I’m tired, I’m incapable of thinking clearly. Second, start picking up my bedroom, so that my physical environment is less of an obstacle.

And third, (which, oddly, appears first,) I’m putting words on the screen. Maybe they’re stupid words, or simple words; but a writer is one who writes, so the words must come out. As Chesterton says, a thing worth doing is worth doing poorly.

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.

Friday, my dad hosted a poker party at his house. A couple uncles were there, and some other friends. Just nickel and dime stuff, but real money on the table. We drank. We swore. We laughed an awful lot. A good guy’s night.

Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’ve been looking for a good day job. I have a solid gig for the moment, but it’s seasonal work and in April I’ll be “unemployed” again. So I’m sending out resumes and making calls and hoping for something to materialize before May arrives.

Now, there are two strong possibilities at present. One is in sales: I’m going in for a third interview later this week. But I’m not a natural salesman, and the company is looking for somebody “hungry”. I know that I could do the work, but I don’t think I’d like myself coming home each day from asking people to buy something that they didn’t necessarily want.

The other possibility is to be a dealer at a local casino. The wage isn’t much above minimum, but the tips can add up to a decent living. I’d enjoy it. I’d meet a wide variety of people, and hear some great stories, I’m sure. But I’m not sure that gambling is necessarily a good job for someone trying to pursue a life of virtue, and trying to encourage others to do so as well.

These aren’t the only options. I’m applying to various other places, including retail; but these are the only responses I’ve had, and I’m fairly sure that both these places are willing to hire me. Now, both would require me to go through some training up front that I would have to pay for. That’s fine; it’s not much training, I have enough cash in the bank, and the hire is guaranteed afterward.

The other night, a friend suggested that I make a list of pros and cons to help me figure it out. As I was thinking it through, I realized a few things:

• I don’t want a sales job
• I do want the dealer job
• But I’m afraid that dealing casino games would be a temptation against virtue

So, what “pros” means is, dealing cards would not be a temptation against virtue, and “cons” means dealing cards would be a temptation.

Here’s the list I’m starting. It’s an open list: I’ll update it as new ideas or suggestions come to me. So please feel free to make suggestions or give advice in the comments box!

PROS – not an occasion of sin:

• It’s not in-and-of-itself immoral, and the work is flexible enough to allow me to focus on writing and research in my off hours
• I’d be get to know a cross-section of society that I wouldn’t normally meet
• I might have the opportunity to reach out to someone who is reluctant to ask for the help he or she needs
• I would have the fun of gambling games without having to risk my own money
• …

CONS – a near occasion of sin:

• I’d be constantly surrounded by different kinds of temptation: to gamble with my own money, especially when I can’t afford it; to drink to excess; to lust after the provocatively dressed cocktail waitresses
• Secondhand smoke; ’nuff said
• Would I be enabling those who are gambling beyond their means, or are compulsive/addictive gamblers?
• Would it compromise my efforts to write about and encourage people toward virtue?
• …

Again, please comment and offer any advice you’re willing to part with! Thanks!

I’d been having a pretty good month, till about the middle of this past week. I’ve been waking up on time, getting work done, keeping in touch with friends, praying regularly, and so on … but little things slowly began to slip. So, I haven’t really made my bed since Wednesday. I came in late to work a couple days this week – only a couple minutes late, but definitely late. And these past couple days off, I’ve spent more time watching telly and playing computer games than reading or writing, which is what I had planned to do.

The demon despair

Now, my tendency when I find myself slipping into bad habits is just to give up the fight.

That’s because I’m (first) lazy and (second) a coward and (third) prone to depression. Big whoop. I know plenty of people who can identify with those vices, and I know I’m not alone. But that doesn’t make it okay.

So, the question is, what to do about it. How can I overcome the temptation to despair?

I think the first step is to recognize that this isn’t just a minor foible. This is self-destructive behavior in a very literal sense. Despair is just a non-committal form of suicide, and I need to recognize it as a real and present attack on my life and happiness.

Doesn’t matter that the attack comes from within. I need to recognize it as a threat, or else I won’t meet it with the right attitude.

The monk’s solution

I heard a story once about a guy who walked past a monastery every day, always longing to be like the monks inside but thinking he wasn’t holy enough. One day, he met a monk who was sweeping the sidewalk. He asked the monk what he did in the monastery.

The monk said, “We fall down, then get back up. We fall down, then get back up.”

I always thought of that as a smarmy way of saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But I’m starting to take it a little more literally: think of a boxing match. If you get knocked down, you stand back up. You struggle to your feet by whatever means necessary. If you don’t the fight is over. You’ve lost.

I’ve read enough works by mystics to know that “spiritual warfare” is not just a metaphor for them. I think it can’t just be a metaphor for me, either.

A declaration of war

Therefore I’m declaring war on my vices. I may not win, but my plan is, like Galadriel, to “fight the long defeat.” Or like Rocky, to “go the distance.”

After all, virtue is not about perfection. It is about excellence. It is about settling for nothing less than one’s best.