Virtue Quest

The view from the top makes it look so easy!

More goodness from Pinckaers’ The Sources of Christian Ethics!

Following St. Thomas Aquinas, Pinckaers gives three basic stages of growth in virtue:

1. Beginner / childhood
2. Proficient / adolescent
3. Perfect / mature adult

Each of these stages essentially follows the growth in freedom of a person, and challenges the person to become more free in his or her life. Here’s how each stage works:

Beginning in virtue

The beginner needs to learn how the world works. This is the stage of getting to know – to know oneself, to know one’s abilities, and to know the world and the moral basis of one’s life in the world. The primary work of this stage is learning or, to use a more traditional word, discipline.

Now, it strikes us that discipline is something opposed to freedom, but when the freedom we seek is to live a fully human life, we start out in need of knowledge and in need of practice. Human beings need to be raised and trained and taught.

The goal of education is to lead the child to understand (and the educator must first understand this himself) that discipline, law, and rules are not meant to destroy his freedom, still less to crush or enslave him. Their purpose is rather to develop his ability to perform actions of real excellence by removing dangerous excesses, which can proliferate in the human person like weeds stifling good grain, and by guarding him against unhealthy errors that could turn him aside and jeopardize his interior freedom.

Moreover, this is only the initial stage of growth, just as practicing scales is the beginning and not the end of playing the piano.

Progress in virtue

The second stage involves internalizing the rules by seeing and acting on the reason the rules exist in the first place. It involves a certain testing of the rules – not to destroy them, but to understand them, just as a pianist might try out different formations of a chord or ask what happens when you add this note to it. This is the stage where virtues become, not actions that one follows because they’re imposed, but a kind of “second nature,” an ability that really is one’s own.

Virtue is not a habitual way of acting, formed by the repetition of material acts and engendering in us a psychological mechanism. It is a personal capacity for action, the fruit of a series of fine cations, a power for progress and perfection.

In other words, freedom and goodness cease to be mechanical exercises and become organic parts of us.

Perfect virtue

First off, Pinckaers warns (and I warn with him) that “perfect” here doesn’t mean the end of the road; rather, it means the fulfillment, and the completion of development. Probably a better word for today would be “mature” but St. Thomas used “perfect” so Pinckaers explains what he meant by it.

We can characterize this stage by two features: mastery of excellent actions and creative fruitfulness.

This is the ultimate goal: to be able to do whatever we do well, and to do it creatively. This is what Thomas Edison meant by saying that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” The virtuous person has gained the freedom and the ability to bring inspiration to reality in spite of the difficulty or obstacles in the way.

This does not mean the end of learning or of growth; rather it means that learning and growth continue almost naturally, without great effort – because the virtuous person has learned how to learn, and has rooted him- or herself in good soil for growth. Virtue has become a stable foundation for the freedom to do what really leads to happiness.

And that’s a goal worth striving for!

The original effect

Tim Burton appears to have lost his imagination.

He’s come a long way since the joy of “Beetlejuice” and the genius of “Edward Scissorhands.” Even his adaptation of “Batman” brought an originality to the superhero movie that had been sorely lacking.

But at least since “Sleepy Hollow” his films have followed a steady trend away from character and plot and toward a desperate attempt to recreate the curlicue atmosphere of the classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. He hasn’t bothered coming up with interesting stories, relying instead on twisting other people’s tales to suit his vertiginous vision. He’s put Johnny Depp in all sorts of white makeup (none of which matches the beauty of Edward) and he’s papier-mached or CGI-ed trees imitating the Mandelbrot set or the Golden Ratio (depending on his mood). And he’s sacrificed some truly beautiful stories to these visual allusions to his own better work.

“Alice in Wonderland” is no exception. Naturally, he had to start by making Alice older – nineteen – in order to add a touch of sex appeal and to develop a loose and unconvincing coming-of-age story in an attempt to add depth. (As if a story about a girl falling down a mile-deep rabbit hole needed to go any deeper!) He then gives Depp some erratic antics, and his muse Helena Bonham Carter (does anyone else cast her anymore?) her standard sneer-pout-sneer-pout, and his special effects department a blank check to put as many curlicues as they can into the set dressing.

To their credit, Depp as the Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as Alice turn in solid performances, almost covering over the unwarranted shifts in character and the gaping plot holes. Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, was unable to transcend the absurd role of the White Queen with humanity or believability. Or maybe it was just frustration with Burton’s demand that she keep her hands constantly in the air.

Ultimately, the film fails on the level of imagination. (And yes, this is where I make the virtue connection.) Imagination requires a freedom of mind, as well as a solid grounding in reality – neither of which Burton seems able to muster any more. The closest to reality he comes is the idea that international trade is a way to get rich. But his grasp of courtship, of the tension between social expectation and personal expression, and of the nature of authority all fail to consider the human person anything other than a plot-point to be manipulated into a special-effects sequence.

Ultimately, he has no notion of the difference between good and evil. The Red Queen is arbitrary and unpleasant. The White Queen is arbitrary and (so we’re told) pleasant. But the White Queen also brews a witch’s potion without moral qualm – though she’s made some vague vow against taking life; and she shows no virtue or reason she should merit Alice’s loyalty any more than the Red Queen. Well, except that she is albino and her body is not distended by CGI.

Mr. Burton would have done much better had he taken the time to meditate on Lewis Carroll’s works, rather than mutilating them.

"But I shot a man in Reno..." or did I?

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.

Here I come to save the day!

I’m reading Servais Pinckaers’ The Sources of Christian Ethics, and, well, it’s full of rich material. Very thought provoking.

Something that struck me last night was the following:

The action of the Holy Spirit goes still further. Not limited to forming within us personal capacities for action, or virtues, it also engenders dispositions for receiving the spiritual inspirations and impulses needed for producing perfect works.

Obviously, he’s in the middle of relating natural morality, and the cardinal virtues that go with it, to the supernatural morality that comes with Christian grace. But almost as an aside, a throwaway, he gives a definition of virtue that I haven’t seen before:

personal capacities for action, or virtues

Now, as soon as I read it, I thought, of course! It just seems so obvious that a virtue is a person’s ability to do something well. And the only thing I would add, in order to make it a complete definition, is that a virtue properly is about living a human life well.

Now, the reason I’m so excited about this is that I’ve been struggling to articulate virtue in a positive or intriguing manner, and all the definitions that spoke of “habits” and “dispositions” and “forming character” and so on just fed into the idea that virtue is somehow dreary.

But looking at virtue as an ability, a capacity for action – that’s like Napoleon Dynamite’s bo-staff skilz. It’s like Luke Skywalker’s Jedi powers. It is, to use a word from my youth, AWESOME!

That said, I’m now off to my secret lair to defend the world against the forces of evil. Excelsior! (which is olde-tyme speak for “up, up, and away!”)

I'm all in! Or am I?

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!

What seems to be the problem?

A cop pulled me over the other evening as I was driving home from work.

I had to move into a turn lane so that I could make it to the freeway onramp, and there were a couple cars in the lane with just enough room for me to squeeze in between them. So I flicked my turn signal, checked my blind spot, and moved over.

Immediately, the car behind me – a black, unmarked sedan – flashed police lights and a spotlight right in my rear-view mirror. There was no shoulder, so I turned into a parking lot and the police car pulls behind me.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked. “You failed to signal for one hundred feet before changing lanes, and you cut me off so that I had to apply my brake to avoid a collision.”

After he let me go, I cruised on home. Driving along the freeway, I kept thinking how I’ve done the same maneuver a thousand times without an accident, and I was pretty sure he was actually accelerating to close the gap I had moved into, and didn’t this guy have anything better to do than pull me over?

But at some point it occurred to me that the officer was in fact correct. I had broken the traffic law. And he had every right, even an obligation, to pull me over.

For the record – or, thankfully, the lack of one – he let me off with a warning.

Now, this didn’t stop me from driving about five over the speed limit on my way home. And it didn’t make me call the police station to confess my every traffic violation. But it did remind me that I am not the standard by which the law should be set. I’m an ordinary schmoe, and I make mistakes, and I cut corners when I think I can get away with it.

Even so, the law reminded me that the road is a dangerous place, where I’m skimming the concrete at sixty-five, surrounded by two-ton juggernauts of aluminum and steel that are flying by at least as fast as I’m going. So I did drive a little more carefully.

And, meanwhile, I’m trying to be more open to correction in every part of my life. Because, just as on the road, I’m not always right. I make mistakes. I cut corners. I don’t always get away with it – and thank God! If there were never any consequences, I’d never learn from my mistakes, and I would hurt my friends much more often than I already do.

A many-splendored thing

I suppose Valentine’s day is as good a time as any to talk about lust.

The other day, I was working with a client who happened to be a good-looking woman about my age, and I found myself tripping over my words trying to be witty, trying to impress her, wondering how I could shift the conversation away from professional topics and toward more … intimate sharing.

I also made a greater-than-average number of typos. And I completely forgot about the main question she’d come to resolve. So I had to scramble to correct a fairly major error. And she walked away, doubtless thinking me a fool.

Such are the wages of lust.

The difference between love and lust

The thing about my actions and reactions is that they really had nothing to do with her. They had to do with my response to her physical appearance. That’s the core of lust: it clings to the surface and cannot survive at any depth at all. This is because lust is all about pleasing the senses – both the physical senses, like sight and touch, and the psychological senses, like self-esteem and emotions.

Love, on the other hand, considers the other person first and foremost as a person. It doesn’t disregard the surface or the appearance, but it seeks the fulness of life that animates that surface, that expresses that appearance. Love also recognizes that the other person is looking back, is seeing the appearance that I show. So love reflects the beauty and goodness it sees back to the beloved. Love treats the other person as someone to be served, not as an object that serves my desires.

Love as a virtue

Love has many levels and kinds and degrees. I love my friends. I love my mother. I love my neighbor. If I had a sweetheart, I would love her. These all are different kinds of love, and some loves are “greater” or “stronger” than others.

But what they all have in common is that they seek what is good in the one I love. When love finds something good in someone, it rejoices. When it finds a lack of good, it tries to help or remedy that lack. But love always focuses on the good of the other.

And that takes practice: sometimes, the good in another is not all that obvious. My brother and I are so different, that I spent several years just trying to avoid him, because I couldn’t see anything good in him. For that matter, a spouse’s annoying habit, or a friend’s inconvenient imposition, or even just one’s own bad mood can blind us to what is good in those we love.

At times like that, I’ve found the best thing to do is stop, look at the person, and look specifically for any little thing to appreciate. It will always be there, if you’re willing to search for it.

Now, if only they were topped with bacon....

One of my friends is a young priest at my parish, Fr. Raphael Mary. He preached the homily this morning on the Beatitudes – Luke’s version, with the “woes” as well as the “blesseds”.

He started with Krispy Kreme donuts. (No, I won’t link to their site!) He described an occasion on which he thought such a donut too good to pass up. Repeatedly. At least seven times. And as he lay on a sofa with a stomach-ache, seven donuts congealing into a blob of greasy sugar in his belly, a friend asked him, “Why did you do that?”

Temporary and permanet goods

Fr. Raphael Mary’s answer was, basically, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” In other words, he chased after the immediate pleasure rather than the long-term good.

He then used TV as another example. While you’re actively watching a show, he said, it gives you pleasure. But when the show is over, that pleasure doesn’t last. In fact, it leaves you feeling rather empty.

Now, this is where I have to disagree with my friend.

No, I don’t disagree that television is all-too-often a superficial pleasure – if it’s a pleasure at all. Actually, I disagree that it’s something that disappears as soon as it’s over, or as soon as one leaves it behind.

Those images, those thoughts, those repetative themes from the soundtrack all stay with me long after the show is gone. They sit in my mind like the remnants of those donuts sat in Fr. Raphael Mary’s gut.

And, to some extent or other, so does everything else. At a bare minimum, the time spent on an activity – whether skiing or feeding the poor or napping in front of a “Gilmore Girls” marathon – has fixed itself permanently in one’s past. It has become part of one’s history, and no one can undo what has been done.

There may be other effects that last beyond the event as well: one can never not cheat on that one test, or take back those words to one’s mother, or not eat those seven donuts. We can’t change the past, and we have to deal with the ramifications of the past in the present and the future.

Real and apparent goods

Our actions and choices don’t just change the world around us; they change our very selves. They form habits. I become accustomed to eating lots of donuts, or to watching telly for three straight hours, or to lying to my friends, or to ….

This is why the real question is not, How long will the pleasure last? The question is, Is this pleasure really good?

Maybe more accurately, the question is, What kind of good is this thing that I desire? Is it an important good? Is it something that will help me be more myself? Or is it only good for a part of me – my tongue, or my eyes, or my self-image? Is it good for a part, but bad for the whole of me?

These are the questions that lead to virtue.

Time to get up

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.

Just get it done

One of my friends describes her life as “the daily grind.” She’s worried that she doesn’t have the joy or enthusiasm for things that she used to. She feels tied down, restricted by the work of just maintaining stuff in her life: job, home, relationships, and so on.

My experience is totally different: I’ve been bouncing all over the place so much in the past few years that I’m soaking up stability and regularity wherever I can find it. It’s comforting to me to punch the clock at work, to have a morning routine, to do things like fill the car with gas or hit the grocery store on the way home.

But I have some distance from the chaos of the last couple years, well, I’ll probably get tired of the daily grind myself. And maybe my friend will find some new inspiration in her life.

The only constant is change

The trick is to find some way to happiness, some way to excellence, regardless of mood or life circumstances or whatever. And this is where virtue comes in.

Virtue is constancy in the midst of change.

Virtue holds up the goal, the ideal, the good, and shows the path to strive for it. The good, happiness, never changes; even though the way to pursue it often does.

Sometimes it takes courage; sometimes it takes self-restraint. Sometimes it means stepping back to a more objective distance; and sometimes it means jumping into immediate action.

Sometimes virtue is sticking with a person through thick and thin, even when you don’t feel like it. And other times, virtue is making a change, even when you’re overwhelmed by fear.

How to know the right thing to do

It’s easiest to see right and wrong in the rear-view mirror: hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. But there are a few things we can do in the moment to make better decisions – even if they’re not always the best:

1. Know the goal: take some time regularly to sort through your priorities. Check your list with someone you trust. Give yourself a clear, concrete image of what you’re aiming for
2. Take inventory: before making a difficult decision, look around and double-check the facts of the situation. Ask if there’s anything you’re missing. Ask if you’re assuming something that isn’t really there.
3. Listen to your heart: if something feels very right, or very wrong, there’s got to be a reason for it. Look for that reason. Don’t dismiss it.
4. Follow your head: your heart can give you good information, but it makes lousy decisions. Leave the actual decision to your reason. Ask yourself how you can move toward your goal, toward happiness, toward excellence, in this situation here and now. And, if you’ve gathered all the facts, trust your reasoning. Do what you have concluded is good, no matter how you feel about it.

For me, it’s the last two that always are the hardest. My feelings cloud my thinking; or my thinking pushes down my feelings. But I keep trying to learn from my mistakes, to go back and try to do better next time. Even small progress is better than no progress at all.