Virtue Quest

I don’t like to talk much about sex, partly because I’m ashamed of my own weaknesses in this area, and partly because any restriction on sexual “expression” or activity is seen as “backward” (and I’m vain enough to want to be seen as progressive), and partly because sex is just plain everywhere already and I don’t particularly want to add to the mess.

But what with the foolish hooplah over Pope Benedict’s out-of-context statement on condoms, and in light of some personal questions from a few different friends, and considering a fascinating conversation over at Just Thomism, I thought I’d toss my tuppence into the ring.

Human nature

The human person is made for love.

That sentence has many meanings, because “love” has many meanings. Love could mean, broadly, (more…)

I had been hearing about the Christmas Tree bomber in Portland all weekend, and was very glad to finally hear somebody mention the word “entrapment.” But it’s not just Mohamed Osman Mohamud I’m concerned about.

I’m worried about an FBI team who contacts an isolated individual who’s failing to make contact with jihadist radicals, teaches him how to make a bomb, helps him to plan and carry out an attack, and chooses a large and public venue to arrest him.

I’m worried about an Attorney General who claims “that if Mohamud hadn’t come in contact with the FBI, he ‘would have made his plans tragically real.’”

And I’m worried about mass media outlets that just repeat the line that this is a plot that has been “thwarted” or “foiled.”

For the record, it sounds to me like this Mohamud fellow may actually have become a threat on his own someday. He very well may have warranted observation by the FBI. But the way the Bureau pursued this investigation sounds very much like entrapment for Mohamud and fear-mongering for the rest of us.

“Look!” says the FBI & co., “here’s a home-grown terrorist you should be afraid of! It could be anybody! What’s a little inappropriate pat-down compared to the risk of being bombed while lighting a Christmas Tree? What’s a little warrantless wiretapping or email surveillance next to, you know, a west coast 9-11?”

What would have been wrong with just watching this kid, and seeing what he does on his own? At least then, he might have actually led investigators to a real terrorist cell, and could have led to some genuine intelligence of real plots to commit terrorist acts. And, when arrested, he might have been guilty of a real crime.

As it is, he’s just become the solitary target of an FBI plot to … to what? boost their own ratings? I hope not. To foil and thwart terrorist attacks? Not very effectively.

I want good security and I want active intelligence gathering on terrorist activities. But that’s not what this was. At best, this was a colossal mistake. If anyone in the FBI is reading this, please, don’t make the same mistake again.

So there are a couple people in my life that make lots of bad decisions. (I don’t think they read this blog, but I won’t name names anyway.)

I’m not talking about decisions I disagree with, like choosing the creme brulee when there’s chocolate mousse on the menu. I’m talking about undeniably bad decisions, like burning bridges and painting yourself into a corner.

It’s hard to love someone in that situation, for two reasons. First, their bad decisions put up obstacles to receiving love; and second, I just stop wanting to love that person.

The limits of love

To love is to will the good of the one you love. (more…)

Anyone who plays guitar (or, as I do, bass guitar,) develops calluses on their fingers where they hold down the strings. It doesn’t take long, maybe a week of playing a little every day; but that can be a painful week, and the strings feel like they’re cutting into the soft flesh at the tips of your fingers. It’s especially bad if you only play occasionally, because any calluses you develop fade away when you’re not playing, so they have to develop all over again.

Whenever I pick up the bass again after neglecting it for a month or so, it’s not just the physical pain I feel. I feel a kind of moral pain, that “I should’ve been practicing all this time.”

But when I do practice regularly, (more…)

I was talking with a friend this weekend, and she said that she was a little confused when she first visited my blog because it wasn’t clear what kind of virtue I was talking about. So I took another look at the page, and I realize that the words “classical” and “cardinal” are entirely missing from the page.

I’ll rectify that soon, but in the meantime I realized that it never hurts to take another look at the big picture.

The classical virtues

The main reason I’m writing this blog is as a kind of public self-improvement exercise. I’ve found that the classical philosophy of virtue describes my strengths, my faults, and my potential. It also gives a very practical structure to work on overcoming my weaknesses and to work toward my potential.

These virtues are traditionally grouped under the four “cardinal” virtues and the three “theological” virtues: (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.

The following is the article I mentioned below, originally printed in Gleanings in their September 2010 issue (.pdf). They’ve been kind enough to let me reprint it here. Legal notices at the bottom.

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A friend of mine loves to delve into the roots of words. She loves discovering distant relations between words that reveal their deeper meanings. For example, the other day we explored the relationships between words like “lector” and “election” and “collect” — all of which have descended from the Latin verb legere, which means to gather, or to choose, or to read (because reading is about choosing the correct meaning of the word on the page).

In the same way, phrases have “family histories” as well. The phrase, “strike while the iron is hot” comes from the fact that a blacksmith had to watch for the iron to turn just the right color — red hot, or white hot, or somewhere between — so that his hammer could have just the right effect. The phrase doesn’t mean just to take action; it means to take the right kind of action at the right time.

“Strike while the iron is hot” advises us to be diligent in all areas of life. And diligence, oddly enough, is another legere word: it means to collect information and select the right action in response. But it means even more than that.

Holy Diligence

St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian of the medieval Church, teaches that “diligence” refers to the same virtue as “solicitude,” which also refers to the same virtue as “vigilance.” To be diligent is to be watchful, to be attentive, to be careful about matters that are important. But there is even more meaning than that in this word. The Latin word Thomas uses, diligere, means “to prize, love, esteem highly.” So, when he explains why “diligence” is the same as “solicitude” (meaning attentive care or concern) he says, “the more we love (diligimus) a thing the more solicitous are we about it.”

In other words, diligence is a form of love: it is the kind of love that chooses something to be our own, and takes care of it. It is the love that pays attention to what we love, because we have taken responsibility for it.

This is, of course, one of the ways that God loves us: he chooses each one of us to be his own. He watches over us, and attends to our needs. He provides what is important to keep us safe and to show our value to him.

He gives us his Son, who chose to join himself to us “in the fullness of time” – that is to say, when the iron was hot – in our journeys and in our labors and even, ultimately, in agony and death. He did this because he prized us and chose us to be his own.

He gives us his Spirit, his very life, his own power of love, to watch over each one of us and to guide each of us toward the joy he has prepared for us.

How to Be Diligent

Because we have his Spirit, we also have his love. That means that, just as he does, we can love with diligence. We can choose someone to be our own — as we do in friendship, or in marriage. We can collect all those things good and necessary for the one we love — as we do for our children. We can watch for the right moment, for the opportunity to demonstrate our love — as we do when someone needs help or wants company.

And, as much as we love one another diligently, God calls us to love him diligently as well.

Of course, God doesn’t need anything from us; we don’t have to take care of him. But we do have to take care of our relationship; that’s how we choose him to be our own.

For example, I sometimes go to daily Mass after work. In the evening I’m usually tired and I have developed a bad habit of nodding off during the readings or the homily. But I’ve discovered that if I’m diligent, if I make sure I get a good night’s sleep and eat a snack in the mid-afternoon, I’m able to stay awake. I’m able to be attentive and present to my God, who is making himself available and present to me. And I keep from distracting the rest of the congregation with my snoring.

I’m a naturally lazy man, and I know I won’t find time to pray unless I set aside time in my daily planner, just as I would for any other important appointment. And, just like an important appointment, there’s some preparation that goes into getting ready for the meeting. So I remind myself to take time for spiritual reading — usually the Bible or some spiritual master. I know that if I want to see clearly what God is doing in my prayer and in my life, I’d better set up some reminders to be careful and attentive, to keep watchful, to make my choice active in every moment of my life.

The Danger of Negligence

The opposite of diligence is negligence. If “diligence” means “to choose for one’s own,” then “negligence” is the “neg”-ative of choice. Negligence is the refusal to choose, and therefore the refusal to love. Negligence says, “You are not worth my attention.”

Jesus tells many parables warning us against negligence. In the parable of the sower, what is the problem with the rocky or the thorny soil? They both neglect to fully receive Christ. Or, what would happen to the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price if the merchant neglected them? Their value and worth would never be found. And of course, what is the difference between the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom? The foolish ones neglected to prepare their lamps with oil.

What is the point of all these parables? That if we treat God with negligence, if we refuse to put time and care into our relationship with him, we will miss him when he comes. We will not recognize him because we have neglected to get to know him. This means that we will neglect to enter eternal life with him in Heaven, as some of the parables make clear; but it also means that we will miss out on the gifts and joys and blessings he offers us every day. If we neglect the foretaste of Heaven now, we will not be able to taste and see his goodness then.

The Joy of Diligence

On the other hand, the time put into preparation and the effort of watching attentively pays off abundantly in those life-changing moments, those times when we must make a decision and make it now — to change a career, to enter a relationship with someone, to follow a call to priesthood or religious life — and we find ourselves ready. We have chosen God as our greatest good, we have collected the gifts and blessings he has given us, and we recognize the shape and color of his love in this moment. Like the blacksmith, we know when the iron is ready to be shaped, and we have the tools at hand to shape it according to God’s glorious design.

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Copyright © 2010 WWCCR, reprinted with permission.

The 1967 film version of “Camelot” formed a great deal of my childhood, and still stands close by me today. Indeed, I remember in the 1980′s seeing Vanessa Redgrave in a contemporary film and being shocked because I knew her as the lithe young Guenevere. And I dearly loved the hyper-emotional Richard Harris in every role he played (he was magnificent in “Gladiator” in part because of the resonance between young Arthur and ancient Marcus Aurelius).

But perhaps the most powerful scene, for me, is the one where Arthur goes hunting in the woods, and reminisces of his youthful training under Merlyn (played by Laurence Naismith). Arthur asks Merlyn, “What’s the best thing for being sad?” and Merlyn replies, “The best thing for being sad is to learn something!”

Now, I’ve discovered a number of other things that are good for being sad, and, although things like sitting and talking with a close friend and doing something productive are also very good when I’m sad, I’ve never found anything that would definitively displace Merlyn’s advice about the very best thing for sadness.

Sadness and learning

I’ve had to rely on all these methods over the past week or so. The cause of my sadness has been a number of small, personal events that don’t really need talking about (though it began with that car accident I wrote about last week). But when friends were not available and work was just too difficult, I could always learn something.

I’ve been reading voraciously in Thomas Aquinas’ First Part of the Summa Theologica, specifically what is known as his “Treatise on Man” in which he describes human nature.

What is wonderful about this is, not only was it good learning, but it helped me understand why learning is a solution to sadness.

According to Thomas, humanity stands at a crossroads of creation: we are both material and spiritual beings. That is, we are physical (like stones and shrubs and squirrels) and also intellectual (like angels and God). This puts us at a unique place in the universe, and this uniqueness extends to how we understand (intellegere, in Latin) and how we act.

We do not act in the same way that other animals do, because they are guided by sense and instinct, while we are guided by reason. And we do not understand in the way that pure spirits do, because they apprehend truths directly, while we move from known to unknown by reason. Reason is the unique feature of human nature that sets us apart from everything else in creation.

Sadness (as an emotion, not as the vice of sloth) is an indicator that something is missing from our nature. So when an animal is sad, it seeks something to heal or restore its body (including its emotions). I’m not sure if an angel can be sad, but if it were it would seek something to return it to its direct apprehension of truth and goodness and beauty.

If a human being is sad, the answer lies (at least in part) in reason. The core, the “heart” as it were, of being human is to understand things by coming to know what is unknown. So in sadness, we seek to understand why we are sad, and then to know what we can do about it.

In other words, we learn something.

Even when knowing the source of some particular sadness eludes us, even then learning something brings a kind of healing and restoration and even growth. This is because our nature is (in part) to learn, and any time we learn anything we are fulfilling our nature. We become more happy when we learn because we become more ourselves.

Beyond learning

I said that our nature is in part to learn; that’s because our nature is also to act on what we have learned, to put our knowledge into deeds.

That’s partly what I’m doing here: I’m attempting to share something that I’ve learned with others. But it also means taking action to work better, to play better, to love our friends and family and neighbors better. The more we learn, the better we can act toward others. And, as if in reward, the more we can learn from those we love.

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.