But only among “millenials,” that is (I think) people who “came of age” around 2000. So, don’t trust anyone over 30 … to rank social networking over porn.

And he’s only basing his data on searches, not on actual traffic. Because, well, until the government mandates tracking, accurate appraisals of real internet traffic are slightly impossible to achieve.

Even so, more searches for social network stuff than for naked people is a good thing, right?

I guess, in the way that eating deep-fried Twinkies is better for you than eating deep-fried shards of used petri dishes.

These are not my friends' dogs.

Last week, I did a little housesitting for some friends. These friends have two boys, two dogs, and two cats. They took the boys with them on their vacation.

My own family didn’t keep pets. We had a short-lived experiment with gerbils. Then a little grey kitty hung around for a little while. But we never sought pets, nor strove to keep them.

Frankly, I’ve never seen the point of pets. I mean, on a farm, sure: you need some help with guarding the cattle and depopulating the rodents. But in a city, in a suburb, what purpose do they serve?

Still, I know how much my friends love these animals, so I did my best to take good care of them. Food, water, opportunities to fertilize the lawn, etc.

They repaid me with presents, always surprises, in the least expected places. I know they were left for me, because no sooner had I cleaned them up than they left more for me, sometimes in exactly the same spot. Such affectionate creatures.

I admit that my canicidal impulses arose far too quickly. The poor dogs probably just missed their masters. Still, violence tempted me constantly in the couple days I watched their house.

What held me back was the memory of a few months ago, when my friends were teaching their youngest how to pet the dogs.

“Gently,” they said, holding his hand and stroking it softly across the longhair’s furry belly.

“Gently,” my godson repeated. “Gently.”

This little boy was learning that his actions were capable of harming others, even when he didn’t mean them to. He learned that he had to control himself in relating to the world around him, to touch, but gently, lest he provoke violence in return.

He was learning the first gestures of charity.

Meanwhile, my own meditations had revolved solely around the inconvenience to myself that these animals caused.

But what if, I thought, I used these creatures as my own teachers in charity? What if I took this opportunity to practice doing good for them, and for my friends through them?

I can’t say I’ve become a lover of pets, but if I ever have children, I might get one or two, because I think they’ll be better instructors in virtue than I will.

Do you trust me?

James Chastek has been noodling questions of epistemology, that is, how do we know what we know. He’s been examining the basis of scientific evidence and certainty, which is fascinating stuff, but much of it is over my head. Again, this guy is a real professional philosopher.

But he recently had a post on belief and faith that caught my attention. His basic point is that the word “belief” has a very broad range of meaning, and that the word “faith” should be kept distinct from it. Some snippets:

There are certain beliefs that, though reasons can be given for them, do not need to be believed for those reasons; and/ or which should be believed before the reasons are known. Good reasons can be given for why a child must listen to his parents or a tribesman should love his tribe, but the virtues of piety, patriotism, obedience, etc. do not require that the one with the virtue know the reasons for his action. A child who listens perfectly to his parents or teachers would be viewed as having a virtue even if we did not know if the child had a reason for what he was doing; and you can love your family or children even apart from any evidence that they are lovable.

And so there is a sort of belief that gives a certain perfection to a person (a virtue), even apart from his believing it for a reason. The virtue of faith is this sort of belief. Faith adds to this idea that we believe the thing unconditionally.

Now, Mr. Chastek* is a very suggestive sort of writer. That’s my polite way of saying he doesn’t draw out all the conclusions I wish he would, so I have to think through them myself.

So, thinking through it, I notice that belief (and faith specifically) is about actions more than about ideas or propositions. He speaks of children obeying parents, of citizens loving their country, and so on; these are all actions in response to something which calls for belief. It is not fully belief unless it leads to action.

However, some of the actions he mentions are a little bewildering to me. For example,

There would be something perverse in a mother who waited to love her children until she saw a reason to love them more than the other persons she loved;

Who is believing whom or what, in this case? Is the mother “believing” that her child is lovable? I suppose so, in the sense that the mother acts “as if” her child is lovable, even before seeing any evidence of it. (Indeed, seeing some evidence to the contrary, in the diapers and so on.) But is this a matter of belief? Or is it a matter of will: I love my child.

But suddenly I find myself in the trap I’ve been warning others of: the will always follows on the intellect. I can’t love something or someone until I know it/him/her.

Still, belief (or faith specifically) is not the only kind of knowledge. It seems Mr. Chastek takes belief as acting as if there are reasons for doing something without know what those reasons are. And faith specifically is unconditional belief. I’m not sure I buy that.

It seems to me that the distinguishing feature of belief is that it is personal: I believe (in) a person; and therefore I accept what they say is true, and I act accordingly. This is even true of a child. If you ask, “Why did you do that?” most children would reasonably answer, “Because Mommy said so.” The relationship, the trust in another person, is the source of the belief.

Faith, it seems to me, adds not that the belief is unconditional, but that the relationship is unconditional. I can have faith in my spouse – so I am faithful to her and she to me – because only death can part us. I can have faith in my friend, insofar as our friendship does not depend on any conditions or requirements. I can have faith in God, because God is infinite and beyond any conditions I can place on him. There is no limit to the relationship, so there is no limit to what I will believe and act on.

But it is the relationship that is primary, not the propositions I am asked to accept, or even the particular actions I am led to. The knowledge of belief and faith is, first and foremost, that this person is worthy of my trust, calls forth my love. Based on this knowledge, I place my trust in this person, and I offer him or her my love. Specific “beliefs” and actions follow on the knowledge of the person, and of the relationship.

* His About page notes that he is a Ph.D. candidate, but also notes that he “plans to defend [his] dissertation in late 2009.” So, if he has attained his doctorate, I apologize for using the wrong title.

Ought is ought; but it comes from is.

… on some reading. I want to point out a very interesting post by Dr. Edward Feser, who is a real professional philosopher, on the question whether morality depends on God. As he puts it, yes, but

Not the way many people think it does.

To expand a little:

Now, natural law theory as understood in the Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) tradition presupposes this understanding of natural objects. Human beings, like every other natural substance, have a nature or substantial form, and what is good for them — what constitutes their flourishing — is determined by the ends or final causes that follow upon having that sort of nature or substantial form. But just as we can normally determine the efficient causes of things without making reference to God, so too can we normally determine the final causes of things without making reference to God. And thus, just as we can do physics, chemistry, and the like without making reference to God, so too can we do ethics without making reference to God, at least to a large extent. For we can know what is good for a thing if we can know its nature, and we can know its nature by empirical investigation guided by sound (A-T) metaphysics. At least to a large extent, then, we can know what the natural law says just from the study of human nature and apart from any sort of divine revelation. That’s why it’s the natural law.

But this pushes back to the question where human nature comes from, which is where God comes in as the creator of human (and every) nature.

Dr. Feser also wrote another post in which he assures me that I am not alone: when faced with the multitudinous problems of modern society, the best policy is blame William of Ockham.

The rockets' red glare - an appropriate symbol for the beginning of the USA

I can be cranky about really miniscule things. For example, Americans generally refer to yesterday’s celebration as “The Fourth of July,” as if the calender date were explanation enough for the holiday. I’ve been rather obstinate in calling the holiday by its proper name, “Independence Day.”

So, in reflecting upon my own crankiness, I stumbled upon something I’d never seen before.

I thought, if I were a Russian, for example, or an Egyptian, or a Chinese person, I would not have a foundation date of my nation to celebrate. My patriotism would be rooted in some vague confluence of ethnicity, geography, and language. As an American, however, my nationality is based in a very distinct and deliberate confluence of political and military action. As one historian I heard on the radio put it, our nation was founded by an ideological movement. America began in a war of rebellion.

And suddenly it made sense to me why patriotism in America is synonymous with some kind of militarism: because we were founded as a nation at war. We have continued to define our responses to change both within and without in military terms and often with military action. The Civil War stands, next to the Revolutionary War itself, as the most significant defining event for America.

For other nations, sure, wars and battles are important parts of their history; but only rarely do military engagements define what it is to be a citizen, a patriot. The Spanish, for example, did not fight the Moors in order to become Spanish, but because they already were Spanish; the Moors were seen as foreign invaders.

Now, I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from this. I’m neither a warmonger nor a pacifist; I believe war must be conducted according to the principles generally known as Just War Theory. With regard to ethic or cultural heritage, I’m ambivalent: it gives individuals a concrete community to belong to, but it also gives rise to us-versus-them ways of thought. I see pluses and minuses to the way America has defined itself as a nation, and to the ways other nations have done so throughout history.

But it is clear to me, in a way it never has been before, that the American Revolution really did start something new in the world. And this insight is helping me to see my nation and my own cultural heritage more fully.

Disconnected from reality, pride always takes a fall

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. I think most of them are simply asserting that they are good people. They’re opposing some social stigma, or outright oppression; they’re fighting against depression; they’re demonstrating their competitive advantage or their unity as a group. Whatever it is, they’re trying to say that who and what they are is good.

And they’re right to do so. To forget that it is good to exist, that it is good to be myself, is to neglect the truth and believe a lie.

But pride neglects one important fact: as good as I am, I am neither the source nor the perfection of goodness. I have faults, and I make mistakes, and I even do things I know are wrong. Even if I didn’t, I’m not as capable a mechanic as my uncle, and not as gifted a musician as my friend, and I don’t have the magnetic personality of my cousin – nothing wrong with me, but just limits on what is good. I have gifts that they don’t have, for example, the compulsion to read philosophy, which really is a gift. Really. It is. But that doesn’t make me better than they are, or make them better than I am. It means we are good in different ways.

My response to recognizing my gift in study is not (or shouldn’t be, anyway) pride, but joy.

After all, it really is a gift. Sure, I’ve put some effort into it myself; Thomas Aquinas isn’t always easy to understand, and Hegel is nearly incomprehensible. But neither the desire nor the ability are things I’ve created for myself any more than my friend created her sense of rhythm and melody, or (for that matter) another friend created his own tin ear. There’s the gift of nature, and then there’s what we do with it.

And the first thing to do with a gift is to be happy I’ve been given it. Any child knows this: it’s why birthdays and Christmas are joyful occasions. A gift is worth celebrating.

The thing not to do with a gift is to reject the giver. Thomas follows Pope Gregory I in listing four kinds of pride:

There are four marks by which every kind of pride of the arrogant betrays itself; either when they think that their good is from themselves, or if they believe it to be from above, yet they think that it is due to their own merits; or when they boast of having what they have not, or despise others and wish to appear the exclusive possessors of what they have.

In other words, pride claims control over the gift, whereas joy simply claims the gift is good.

Gifts and giving

So, for example, “Black is Beautiful” makes lots of sense: it’s a simple truth, and counters a prejudicial lie. “I’m Black and I’m Proud” doesn’t make sense, because the color of one’s skin is a gift, just like any other. It’s not something someone can control.

For that matter, even gifts that we can develop, like musical talent or academic smarts, are not ours to command, and they don’t give the authority to command others. I can’t make myself any smarter than I am; I can either use the intelligence I’ve been given to learn, or I can make myself stupid by misusing that intelligence; but I can’t give myself the ability to understand something that’s beyond me. I also can’t make myself smarter than the people around me; if I try, sooner or later, one of them will show me the error of my ways.

But if I simply acknowledge that I’ve been given a gift, then I can use that gift to make my life better … and to help improve the world around me. I can shed a little light from what I’ve learned in the confusion of the world around me. My friend can sing a song that lifts spirits. My uncle can help me fix my car when it’s busted. And we all can be confident that it’s good to be who we are, even if someone calls me a backwards idiot for reading medieval philosophers, or calls my friend a sentimental twit for singing, or my uncle a neanderthal for being mechanical. We know it’s not true. We can rejoice in the truth, and support one another in joy. Because the gift we all share in common is the basic dignity of being human. And that is a gift well worth celebrating.

Virtue, according to the Greeks

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.

To start with, the virtues seem to overlap one another, or even replace one another. The obvious example is Charity trumping Justice: do you really need duty if you’re always going above and beyond duty?

At a slightly deeper level, it’s a little hard to see what’s particularly “theological” about the new virtues. After all, the goal is the same, isn’t it? All the virtues aim at making our lives more fully human, at helping us become who and what we’re meant to be. And you don’t have to believe in Jesus or have the life of the Holy Spirit in your heart to see that love is a good thing, that hope is important, even that faith – in the sense of trust and faithfulness – is central to living a properly human life.

And since I’m trying to build a career as a teacher of this stuff, shouldn’t I be able to explain it in some crystal clear way?

So here’s what I came up with.

The perfect cup

Maybe a royal Greek's coffee mug?

Now the goldsmith takes the cup to the king’s steward, who admires the cup. And the goldsmith is proud, and says, “It’s the perfect cup. You can’t get a better cup than this.”

But the steward says, “It’s excellent, no doubt. But it’s not perfect yet.”

The goldsmith is, understandably, heartbroken. “I can’t do anything more to improve it!” he cries.

“Of course you can’t,” says the steward. “But come with me.” And the steward leads the goldsmith to the palace’s cellars, where the royal vintner is maintaining the casks of wine. The steward hands the chalice to the vintner, and commands him to fill it with wine.

“Now,” says the steward, “it is a perfect cup.”

But the vintner laughs. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not perfect yet!” And he hands the cup full of wine to the steward, and tells him to drink. And as the steward tastes the wine, the vintner says, “Now that is a perfect cup!”

Perfection pointing to further perfection

So the cup itself has a kind of perfection in itself, but that perfection is directed toward the further perfections of being filled up, and being drunk from, even though it cannot achieve those perfections without something beyond itself.

Likewise, I can become a good human being in myself and by my own power; but being a good human individual is directed toward being a member of a community, toward receiving from others and giving to others. But these are not things I can accomplish without those others.

To go further, from the Catholic point of view, this shows how theologians can say that we are both created to share God’s life in heaven, and also utterly incapable of achieving that communion by our own power. A cup can’t be full unless wine is poured in from outside; but it first has to be a good cup, so that it will hold the wine that is poured in.

I hope this image is useful to someone else. It’s certainly been useful to me.

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.

This is not how I want to face every day.

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. Deal with life before it reaches the crisis stage. This means real planning, and real organization. But that’s stuff I’ve known all my life. There are lots of books, and I’ve read a bunch of them.

None of that does any good, though, if I don’t take responsibility for my own actions.

After all, that’s really the root of my procrastination: I don’t want to move myself, I want something else to move me. My great temptation is passivity. I don’t want to be responsible.

If I’m not really responsible, then maybe I can’t be blamed if something goes sideways.

So I’ve started making some changes. I don’t know if they’re perfect changes, or the best decisions in the world. But they’re mine. I am making these choices, and if something goes wrong it’s my fault. There’s no one else to blame.

The big surprise, to me anyway, is that I’m not feeling all that anxious about it. Or rather, my anxiety is all on the surface, and it’s in proportion to the actual risks or dangers. I’m thinking about how much lasagna I need to make to feed my guests; I’m not worried about whether I’ll be alone forever and hated by all if I disappoint my guests. My fears have become realistic and, therefore, manageable.

And the bonus is, I’m actually getting more done than I planned, in less time. It doesn’t take three hours to clean my kitchen, as my imagination fears. It takes about half an hour, or forty-five minutes if I have some scrubbing to do. Likewise, it doesn’t take all my time and resources to pound out a thousand words on my novel; it takes about an hour of putting my butt in the seat and my fingers on the keyboard.

In philosophical terms: good does not require evil to be good. I don’t need a crisis to drive my life. I can find a real good, and drive myself toward it.