I'm a yellow-bellied, lily-livered, card-carrying scaredy cat!

At some point in my schooling, I learned about the “fight or flight” response, to which I gather a “freeze” response was later added. These describe the three basic ways most of us respond to fear. Myself, I tend either to paralysis or to escape. I have a friend who rejects fear and becomes downright reckless. But what’s noteworthy is that we share all of these responses with animals. They are physical and emotional responses.

None of them reach our rational ability as human beings. So these responses are literally sub-human.

A human response to fear is prudence. But that requires us to step back from mere instinct and to deliberately use our reason. Being a geek, this is how I remind myself to be rational:

Prudent fear

Thomas Aquinas says that “fear regards a future evil which surpasses the power of him that fears, so that it is irresistible.” It is a passion, or emotion, that seeks to avoid this anticipated evil insofar as it can. But, like all the passions, it depends on our senses and imagination. In other words, we have to perceive something to be evil, and to be coming in the future, before we can feel fear about it.

That means, we can be wrong about the object of fear.

So the first step in dealing with fear is to check it against reality. Let’s say I’m afraid of being mugged in a dark alley. Some questions I should ask are:

• Am I going into a dark alley?
• Is this neighborhood known for muggings?
• Have I noticed any actual muggers, or even anyone scoping out my shiny new Rolex?
• Have I neglected any common precautions – e.g., am I alone, is my cell phone dead, have I dismissed my Secret Service escort, and so on?

What I want to sort out is whether there is a realistic basis for my fear. If my fear is based on an over-active imagination (for example, if it’s broad daylight and I’m in a well-policed neighborhood,) then I simply have to dismiss my fear.

But if my fear is based in reality, then I have another question to ask:

• Is there any way to avoid what I fear?

Can I walk another block and avoid that dark alley from which I can see three thuggish individuals glaring greedily at me? There is no virtue in stepping into a dangerous situation without good reason. That is called folly.

The virtue of courage

Sometimes, though, there is no way to avoid that evil. Maybe that dark alley is the only way to get home, or maybe my heedless child has just run down that alley. Courage recognizes the danger, and refuses to be conquered by it. But in order to step forward, in order to face the fear, courage has to draw on hope.

We fear because something “surpasses the power of him that fears;” that thing we fear, whether it’s the judgment of an audience or the thugs in the alley, is bigger, stronger, more powerful than we are. It will defeat us. But hope shines light on the possibility that we might defeat that powerful evil thing. It can be a very slender possibility – hope that the mugger might have a glass jaw, or hope that they aren’t actually muggers after all – but it must be a real possibility.

Drawing on that hopeful possibility leads to another passion, that Thomas calls daring. It is that surge of emotion at the thought of doing something heroic. It gives the energy and determination to push through in spite of danger or even intense suffering. As the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother says, “A human can resist any pain.”

But this courage – this resistance to pain and danger – is founded on prudence, on an accurate perception and understanding of reality, and on the rational decision to endure a possible evil for the sake of a greater good.

Note: both scales and sword - my kind of gal!

(For the record, I acknowledge the problem of the opposite extreme: that law would try to legislate virtue. The law can only encourage virtue and punish public vice; it cannot enforce every virtue or repress vice altogether. But I don’t see that as a real danger in our current cultural and legal climate.)

Though the task is difficult, it seems like one worth trying. I think one of the great dangers to the U.S. is the loss of a connection between law and reality. Many seem to want the law simply to reflect their own subjective beliefs, which essentially eliminates both the effectiveness and the purpose of law. John Breen notes some problems that arise with health care legislation when “health” is defined subjectively rather than scientifically and philosophically.

This is not how I sounded

Anyway, the drummer and I were waiting for the others to arrive, and he laid down this jazzy beat with just a touch of swing in it. It sounded like something I’d heard eons ago, when I had tried (and failed) to join my high school’s jazz band. The bass line that fit with that beat was not so much a walking bass, as a wandering one, jumping around the scale and finding odd half-steps shuffling in here and there to avoid being too melodic. It is the sort of bass line that had always defeated me in the past. But what the heck, it was just my chum and me.

So I played along. And it came out more or less as I wanted it to.

Now, this is the really remarkable thing: I’ve noodled around some scales, and I’ve learned a few rock songs, and some bluesy improvisation. But I haven’t even thought of trying this style of bass play in well over a decade. I had zero practice at it, zero experience.

But my experience of playing other music stepped into the gap, and supported my attempt to stretch beyond my ability. I discovered that I was a better musician than I thought. Not quite ready for Carnegie Hall, maybe, but not the inept clutz I thought I was.

I’ve used learning a musical instrument many times as an analogy for growing in virtue. But this was the first time in my own experience that I’d seen that growth manifest, exactly as Aristotle and Thomas and the rest said it does. It gives me hope. If I can become a better bassman, maybe I can also become a better man. If the often tedious practice of the bass can develop into something like real jazz, then maybe the tedious practice of self-discipline and deliberate action can develop into something like real virtue.

But now I am seeking a higher standard of living. I want to grow up, to take on adult responsibilities. And it’s hard.

It’s hard for everybody. It’s no surprise that it’s hard. The difficulty is the reason I’ve developed habits of avoiding it over the years.

But now I have the added difficulty of bad habits: procrastination, giving in to fear, seeking escapes, running away from reality. So there’s the natural difficulty of everyday life, and the artificial difficulty of my own vices.

So I realize: the rest of my life will be hard. Every day will be a struggle, and I will probably fail more often than I succeed. That is normal. That is to be expected. And it is no reason to give up the struggle. After all, the goal of a life fully lived is one worth striving for.

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.