We humans seem inclined to bemoan the depravity of our times at all times. We revel in the evil we perceive in our fellows, and enjoy doing so as we do so many things, in groups. Cicero took advantage of this tendency to great effect in one of his orations against Catalina. And like Cicero we generally indulge in this somewhat Pharisaical practice with a purpose in mind. It may be simply to assure ourselves we are better than most others. It may be to urge change, usually in conduct, sometimes in thought. It is when the powerful, or the zealous, engage in this inclination that we should be concerned.
There seems to be nothing extraordinarily perverse about these times to prompt prophecies of doom. Nor was this the case in the past. The Roman Empire is the quintessential exemplar of depravity in the Christian West--that is to say the Empire before it became politically Christian. This was to be expected, as the growing Church found it expedient to portray pagan civilization as evil, and itself as the antidote to that evil. Combine this with the tendency of the Romans themselves to look back in admiration on their stern, virtuous ancestors, supposed to have been simple, patriotic, pious and grave, and their wonderful talent for spiteful, prurient gossip and malicious invective as seen in Suetonius, Martial and Juvenal to name a few, and you have a civilization seemingly wallowing in decadence, which Hollywood and its customers delight in to this day.
However there was a great resurgence of interest in the moral and spiritual in the first centuries of the Empire, and not merely due to Christianity. It can be seen in the later Stoics and in the mystery cults, and in the interest in figures like Appollonius of Tyana, who was often compared to Jesus (and has even been claimed to have been Jesus) to the fury of the Church Fathers. Those times may be said to be one of the "Great Awakenings" of religious fervor our history indicates takes place every now and then.
Of course depravity is bad, decadence is bad. And we certainly can see examples of them in our times. But there is no reason to think their levels are greater today than they have been in the past. Nor is there any reason to think that the means unsuccessfully employed in the past to eradicate them will be successful in doing so now. In other words, neither religion nor government will do anything to curb our excesses if they act as they have in the past, and in attempting to do so they will merely succeed in oppressing us all. So, do we simply go on as we have?
It isn't that we have become more depraved. The problem lies in that there are more of us than ever and our numbers are growing, and we have fewer resources. Our times, our morals, are more of a concern than in the past for these reasons, and we have good reason for concern.
We must learn how to control ourselves, unfortunately, and I confess I see no way to bring that about that can be imposed on us without our full cooperation. If that won't be forthcoming, we have to find some way to balance our liberty with our need to survive, and it is to be hoped survive in such a fashion that we may flourish.
We have to impose limits on ourselves. We can't live our lives as though we are participants in a Randian wet-dream of selfishness in a world of dwindling resources. These limits shouldn't be religious; they shouldn't be on our thoughts or on our conduct unless our conduct causes direct harm to others. But, unless we find a way to exercise self-restraint, these limits may of necessity have to be imposed on the quantity of what we may possess and consume.
To impose limits on ourselves we likely have to change the way we think. How do we change the way we think, as a people? Through the education system?
These are grim considerations for any lover of liberty. How do we achieve this without legislating morality, something which always has adverse results?
Can we control ourselves, or must we be forced to do so?
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Mere Responsibility
We who are privileged to be United Statesians will soon be exposed once more to the grotesqueries which accompany a presidential election, and already there is forming a rogues gallery of pretenders to what we continue to insist is not a throne. As we have a Democratic president who intends to run for reelection, we are being spared a procession of the ridiculously ambitious of that party, but we must tolerate those of the Republican variety. There may be one or two others not affiliated with the ruling oligarchy who will participate in the farce, but either a Democrat or a Republican will be chosen, of course, if that is indeed the word.
Sanctimony is particularly prevalent in our politics (an alliteration, forsooth) these days, though it has of course always been a factor. Now, though, it appears to be expected, and is even anticipated. As the powerful among us are still largely white and Protestant (not for long, I think) there is a vague feeling among some that we have been profligate and are now suffering, justly, for our depravities; suffering being almost always just. WASPS tend to get excited when they feel this way, and are likely to do things like legislate morality. Catholics are so used to being told what to do by authority figures that such an idea seems to them entirely natural. As I think morality can never be effectively imposed by law, I feel a certain concern.
We are also being told we are in financial trouble so often that we have even come to believe it, and feel that there is something that needs to be done, but disagree regarding just what that might be. But, most feel that we spend too much, and this is likely correct. So, most feel we must spend less. The questions then become--what should what money we have be spent on, and where do we get more money?
I tend to agree that we have handled our financial affairs stupidly. For my part, I think that the current crisis primarily results from the fact that we spend far too much of our money in efforts to impose our military power throughout the world, and generally seem to do so unwisely. We do other silly things with our money as well, of course, and as we have come to consider government to be the means by which virtually everything must be done it follows that government will spend and spend whatever money there may be. Combine these tendencies with our inexplicable urge to glorify and cosset the assorted gluttons and hoarders we call the very wealthy, and we have a real problem. So, I welcome any effort to require the government and the citizens of this great land to be more responsible.
But there is a danger present, I think, and that danger is that those who purport to lead us and we sometimes foolishly allow to do so will conclude that something more than responsible conduct is required. They may conclude that we must actively seek the assistance of the God they worship, or at least be compelled to act in such a fashion that the God they worship will find acceptable, which generally means what they find acceptable, which generally means an attempt to legislate morality.
There are too many at large in this country who seem unaware of the fact that great and admirable ethical systems and codes of conduct were developed and actually adhered to long before the traditional religions which prevail today ever sought to impose themselves on the world. Some of these systems had their basis in the idea of a divine force immanent in the universe, or divinities of some kind, and some did not. In fact, the institutional religions of our time to the extent they advocate particular kinds of conduct which may be called moral "borrowed" liberally from those systems though they generally don't care to acknowledge their debt to them. Those systems differ from these religions, though, in that they don't involve the need to engage in various religious rites nor do they impose constraints on conduct which have nothing to do with living responsibly, but which happen to be sanctioned by certain holy books or words said to have been spoken by someone claimed to be holy, somewhere, sometime, usually long ago.
There are ways to be responsible, and moral, without requiring that others behave in accordance with our sense of what is appropriate. Indeed, requiring that others behave in a particular manner, unless it is in a manner which does not cause harm to others, would seem clearly irresponsible.
Responsible government may be limited government, and a responsible citizenry may be one which seeks limited government. The problem with those who currently claim to seek limited government, however, is that it is not at all clear that is what they truly seek. They seem to desire social and cultural change as much as those they claim to oppose. They seem to have the same confidence in the righteousness of their desires as do those they oppose. I think it is inevitable that they will use the power of government to impose their desires if they obtain the power to do so.
Sanctimony is particularly prevalent in our politics (an alliteration, forsooth) these days, though it has of course always been a factor. Now, though, it appears to be expected, and is even anticipated. As the powerful among us are still largely white and Protestant (not for long, I think) there is a vague feeling among some that we have been profligate and are now suffering, justly, for our depravities; suffering being almost always just. WASPS tend to get excited when they feel this way, and are likely to do things like legislate morality. Catholics are so used to being told what to do by authority figures that such an idea seems to them entirely natural. As I think morality can never be effectively imposed by law, I feel a certain concern.
We are also being told we are in financial trouble so often that we have even come to believe it, and feel that there is something that needs to be done, but disagree regarding just what that might be. But, most feel that we spend too much, and this is likely correct. So, most feel we must spend less. The questions then become--what should what money we have be spent on, and where do we get more money?
I tend to agree that we have handled our financial affairs stupidly. For my part, I think that the current crisis primarily results from the fact that we spend far too much of our money in efforts to impose our military power throughout the world, and generally seem to do so unwisely. We do other silly things with our money as well, of course, and as we have come to consider government to be the means by which virtually everything must be done it follows that government will spend and spend whatever money there may be. Combine these tendencies with our inexplicable urge to glorify and cosset the assorted gluttons and hoarders we call the very wealthy, and we have a real problem. So, I welcome any effort to require the government and the citizens of this great land to be more responsible.
But there is a danger present, I think, and that danger is that those who purport to lead us and we sometimes foolishly allow to do so will conclude that something more than responsible conduct is required. They may conclude that we must actively seek the assistance of the God they worship, or at least be compelled to act in such a fashion that the God they worship will find acceptable, which generally means what they find acceptable, which generally means an attempt to legislate morality.
There are too many at large in this country who seem unaware of the fact that great and admirable ethical systems and codes of conduct were developed and actually adhered to long before the traditional religions which prevail today ever sought to impose themselves on the world. Some of these systems had their basis in the idea of a divine force immanent in the universe, or divinities of some kind, and some did not. In fact, the institutional religions of our time to the extent they advocate particular kinds of conduct which may be called moral "borrowed" liberally from those systems though they generally don't care to acknowledge their debt to them. Those systems differ from these religions, though, in that they don't involve the need to engage in various religious rites nor do they impose constraints on conduct which have nothing to do with living responsibly, but which happen to be sanctioned by certain holy books or words said to have been spoken by someone claimed to be holy, somewhere, sometime, usually long ago.
There are ways to be responsible, and moral, without requiring that others behave in accordance with our sense of what is appropriate. Indeed, requiring that others behave in a particular manner, unless it is in a manner which does not cause harm to others, would seem clearly irresponsible.
Responsible government may be limited government, and a responsible citizenry may be one which seeks limited government. The problem with those who currently claim to seek limited government, however, is that it is not at all clear that is what they truly seek. They seem to desire social and cultural change as much as those they claim to oppose. They seem to have the same confidence in the righteousness of their desires as do those they oppose. I think it is inevitable that they will use the power of government to impose their desires if they obtain the power to do so.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Charged with the Grandeur of God: Some Preliminary Thoughts
These words appear in a sentence I've always admired, in a poem I've always liked. "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." Hopkins' reference here is presumably electricity, the only characteristic of the real world through which he could make his point; there is a charge running through the world, a force which as Dylan Thomas wrote (meaning something different, one would think) drives through the green fuse of the universe, which is caused by God's grandeur or perhaps is God's grandeur. It "flames out" at us, "like shining from shook foil"--these are magnificent words. Magnificent words for a magnificent idea.
Though he was a Catholic, there are times when I suspect based on his poetry that Hopkins was a pantheist or had pantheist leanings, and I wonder sometimes whether intelligent believers in God must necessarily be pantheists if any kind of believer at all. We can say we believe in a transcendent God, but we cannot know of what we speak when we do so. Too often the transcendent God we refer to seems to have disturbingly human characteristics, or at least characteristics which are all too present in the universe God supposedly transcends. So we are left with asserting God transcends the universe because he created it, an assertion which seems at best unsatisfying.
Ascribing human characteristics to God seems to impose limits which immediately strike one as absurd. We know the universe to be almost unimaginably vast, and that we exist on one planet in one solar system that is an almost unimaginably tiny part of the universe. It seems a laughable conceit to think of God as merely a kind of super-human. The Church was right to fear the death of the Earth-centered view of the cosmos.
A super-human may inspire fear and dread, may even inspire love, as that is a fundamentally human emotion. But the universe itself rightly inspires awe and wonder; it has grandeur, and may be said to be charged with grandeur. Why long for something more, why insist the God must be more than that grandeur, particularly when one does not know and can't even begin to say what that "more" must be?
I'm content to follow the Stoics in this as well in other things; a God immanent in the universe is good enough for me, so to speak.
Of course, an immanent God is one that need not be proved to exist in the sense that the universe need not be proved to exist (except, of course, to such as those unfortunates who purport to believe it necessary to prove the existence of the universe, other minds, themselves, etc.). However, it can legitimately be argued that if an immanent God is "merely" the universe, why insist there is a God in the first place? Why isn't the universe "just" the universe? Where does God come into the picture?
If you are someone like me, you find yourself inclined to reply God is the grandeur Hopkins refers to in his poem. That is nothing like a proof of course, and I think the honest believer, not to say the reasonable believer, must acknowledge that there is no proof. Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. Seeking to prove God's existence as one would prove the Earth is roughly a sphere, or that light travels at a certain speed, is essentially a vain exercise. At best one can be persuaded, or may suspect, or feel.
Perhaps that grandeur has always been there, or perhaps Peirce's "guess at the riddle" was a good one, and what started out, if it started at some point, as chaos has become progressively more organized and rational and will continue to do so. I wonder whether it matters. The universe is what it is even as we are what we are, and we are parts of a universe charged with grandeur, and as parts of the universe we share in its grandeur.
This is a kind of mysticism, but it is what may be called an informed mysticism. It has its basis in what we can observe and test and experience; it does not pretend to manufacture a transcendent entity nor is it conditioned on anthropomorphism in the blatant sense needed to support the idea of a personal God. It allows for a certain kind of communion, though not of the kind relied on by Christianity and its various predecessors which it would rather not acknowledge, and even a kind of existence after death. I suppose it may be said to provide comfort of a sort, and we are creatures in need of comfort. Our needs always take precedence over our reason, and this way of looking at God may merely be less objectionable to atheists than others.
Ultimately, though, the issue of God is one that cannot usefully be debated (note the qualification). It's like taste in that respect. Nonetheless, we speak of good taste and poor taste, and I think there are senses is which certain ideas of God may be said to be preferable to others. Here is one version.
Though he was a Catholic, there are times when I suspect based on his poetry that Hopkins was a pantheist or had pantheist leanings, and I wonder sometimes whether intelligent believers in God must necessarily be pantheists if any kind of believer at all. We can say we believe in a transcendent God, but we cannot know of what we speak when we do so. Too often the transcendent God we refer to seems to have disturbingly human characteristics, or at least characteristics which are all too present in the universe God supposedly transcends. So we are left with asserting God transcends the universe because he created it, an assertion which seems at best unsatisfying.
Ascribing human characteristics to God seems to impose limits which immediately strike one as absurd. We know the universe to be almost unimaginably vast, and that we exist on one planet in one solar system that is an almost unimaginably tiny part of the universe. It seems a laughable conceit to think of God as merely a kind of super-human. The Church was right to fear the death of the Earth-centered view of the cosmos.
A super-human may inspire fear and dread, may even inspire love, as that is a fundamentally human emotion. But the universe itself rightly inspires awe and wonder; it has grandeur, and may be said to be charged with grandeur. Why long for something more, why insist the God must be more than that grandeur, particularly when one does not know and can't even begin to say what that "more" must be?
I'm content to follow the Stoics in this as well in other things; a God immanent in the universe is good enough for me, so to speak.
Of course, an immanent God is one that need not be proved to exist in the sense that the universe need not be proved to exist (except, of course, to such as those unfortunates who purport to believe it necessary to prove the existence of the universe, other minds, themselves, etc.). However, it can legitimately be argued that if an immanent God is "merely" the universe, why insist there is a God in the first place? Why isn't the universe "just" the universe? Where does God come into the picture?
If you are someone like me, you find yourself inclined to reply God is the grandeur Hopkins refers to in his poem. That is nothing like a proof of course, and I think the honest believer, not to say the reasonable believer, must acknowledge that there is no proof. Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. Seeking to prove God's existence as one would prove the Earth is roughly a sphere, or that light travels at a certain speed, is essentially a vain exercise. At best one can be persuaded, or may suspect, or feel.
Perhaps that grandeur has always been there, or perhaps Peirce's "guess at the riddle" was a good one, and what started out, if it started at some point, as chaos has become progressively more organized and rational and will continue to do so. I wonder whether it matters. The universe is what it is even as we are what we are, and we are parts of a universe charged with grandeur, and as parts of the universe we share in its grandeur.
This is a kind of mysticism, but it is what may be called an informed mysticism. It has its basis in what we can observe and test and experience; it does not pretend to manufacture a transcendent entity nor is it conditioned on anthropomorphism in the blatant sense needed to support the idea of a personal God. It allows for a certain kind of communion, though not of the kind relied on by Christianity and its various predecessors which it would rather not acknowledge, and even a kind of existence after death. I suppose it may be said to provide comfort of a sort, and we are creatures in need of comfort. Our needs always take precedence over our reason, and this way of looking at God may merely be less objectionable to atheists than others.
Ultimately, though, the issue of God is one that cannot usefully be debated (note the qualification). It's like taste in that respect. Nonetheless, we speak of good taste and poor taste, and I think there are senses is which certain ideas of God may be said to be preferable to others. Here is one version.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Homage to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
One finds him lauded often enough by people worthy of respect that it should not matter, and it certainly would not matter to a true Stoic, but I find myself disturbed and baffled by those who denigrate Marcus Aurelius.
I've noted before those Christian apologists, Chesterton and Lewis, who with others seem to have found him to be "unmanly." It has always amused me that that they in particular, and Christian thinkers in general, should assert that "manliness" is somehow significant in philosophy or religion.
Chesterton with his fond recollections of his nanny and his charming reliance on the enlightening effects of fairy tales cannot be said to be manly in any impressive sense; his doubtless glad times in his nursery linger uncomfortably about his writings. Lewis, who at times seems to be deliberately as well as predominantly gullible in his thoughts, is not exactly a paragon of stern fortitude (one might say Roman fortitude) in the face of the facts which he strove to ignore in his "arguments" regarding Christ's divinity. And the Christian ethic as it appears in the gospels is not overwhelmingly "manly" either, I would say, as that word is commonly understood--the Stoic sage and the Stoic ethics seem far more "manly" than Christ and the Christian ethics, even though Christian ethics is based so much on Stoicism. I suspect Chesterton, Lewis, and others had in mind the largely mythic figure of the Christian knight (as described to them by their nannys or Thomas Malory, perhaps) when they thought of manliness and Christianity, but the relation of the knight of history to Christianity is at best tenuous.
But there are also those who criticize the emperor as being "self-consciously good" (e.g.Gore Vidal speaking through Priscus in his wonderful novel Julian). Sometimes his Meditations are criticized as being lacking in style. Sometimes, he is criticized because his Meditations betray uncertainty.
I think his critics forget that what he wrote was not meant for reading by any but himself. He wasn't propounding anything, as philosophers who write for others do. Naturally, therefore, what he wrote is unpolished, and there is no real argument. He wasn't trying to convince or impress anyone. Perhaps more significant in this respect is the fact that he wrote his thoughts in those rare moments when he was not being an emperor--an emperor on campaign in a military camp ("Among the Quadi"). It's likely he was exhausted and worn down by his duties and responsibilities when he took up his pen.
He was not an idle man, indulging in philosophy as one would indulge in luxury. There's no question he was an industrious and hard working ruler. He angered the crowds at the games because he insisted on working during them. His reign was filled with disturbances; wars, rebellion, plague typified his principate, and he spent most of his time as emperor engaged in campaigns against barbarians, which is appropriate enough given the title imperator is a military title, but the fact is that many Roman emperors never had to be military men in any significant sense.
It's not surprising that the Meditations often seem sad. Sadness was to be expected, I think. Nor is it surprising under the circumstances that they sometimes express doubt regarding the existence of Providence. But he clearly states that regardless of whether there is a benign purpose guiding the universe or all is "atoms and chance" as he puts it, it's necessary to continue with one's task and do the best one can. Although I'm not very fond of the word, as I think it's been overused and misused, I can think of nothing more "manly" than such an attitude.
He made mistakes. He may justly be criticized for failing to follow the example of his immediate predecessors in office and adopting a good man to follow him as emperor. Because he didn't, the empire was compelled to endure Commodus. The Christians were persecuted during his rule, and one wonders why he could not bring himself to address that problem in another matter. Although he despised the gladiatorial contests and the games, he tolerated them and sanctioned them through his attendance. He was no Stoic sage.
I suppose he couldn't be, though, and be an emperor of Rome, or even be a good emperor. For the times, he was indeed good. In his Meditations we see what he felt and thought while ruling the Roman world. It can be sad and even grim reading, at times. We see him struggling to be good, and urging himself to be good, in a cruel world. It's not so different now. But I think if any current ruler wrote his/her thoughts at the end of the day, without knowing they would be read by others, and these were somehow disclosed to the world at large, they would seem puny, petty, venal creatures indeed when compared to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
I've noted before those Christian apologists, Chesterton and Lewis, who with others seem to have found him to be "unmanly." It has always amused me that that they in particular, and Christian thinkers in general, should assert that "manliness" is somehow significant in philosophy or religion.
Chesterton with his fond recollections of his nanny and his charming reliance on the enlightening effects of fairy tales cannot be said to be manly in any impressive sense; his doubtless glad times in his nursery linger uncomfortably about his writings. Lewis, who at times seems to be deliberately as well as predominantly gullible in his thoughts, is not exactly a paragon of stern fortitude (one might say Roman fortitude) in the face of the facts which he strove to ignore in his "arguments" regarding Christ's divinity. And the Christian ethic as it appears in the gospels is not overwhelmingly "manly" either, I would say, as that word is commonly understood--the Stoic sage and the Stoic ethics seem far more "manly" than Christ and the Christian ethics, even though Christian ethics is based so much on Stoicism. I suspect Chesterton, Lewis, and others had in mind the largely mythic figure of the Christian knight (as described to them by their nannys or Thomas Malory, perhaps) when they thought of manliness and Christianity, but the relation of the knight of history to Christianity is at best tenuous.
But there are also those who criticize the emperor as being "self-consciously good" (e.g.Gore Vidal speaking through Priscus in his wonderful novel Julian). Sometimes his Meditations are criticized as being lacking in style. Sometimes, he is criticized because his Meditations betray uncertainty.
I think his critics forget that what he wrote was not meant for reading by any but himself. He wasn't propounding anything, as philosophers who write for others do. Naturally, therefore, what he wrote is unpolished, and there is no real argument. He wasn't trying to convince or impress anyone. Perhaps more significant in this respect is the fact that he wrote his thoughts in those rare moments when he was not being an emperor--an emperor on campaign in a military camp ("Among the Quadi"). It's likely he was exhausted and worn down by his duties and responsibilities when he took up his pen.
He was not an idle man, indulging in philosophy as one would indulge in luxury. There's no question he was an industrious and hard working ruler. He angered the crowds at the games because he insisted on working during them. His reign was filled with disturbances; wars, rebellion, plague typified his principate, and he spent most of his time as emperor engaged in campaigns against barbarians, which is appropriate enough given the title imperator is a military title, but the fact is that many Roman emperors never had to be military men in any significant sense.
It's not surprising that the Meditations often seem sad. Sadness was to be expected, I think. Nor is it surprising under the circumstances that they sometimes express doubt regarding the existence of Providence. But he clearly states that regardless of whether there is a benign purpose guiding the universe or all is "atoms and chance" as he puts it, it's necessary to continue with one's task and do the best one can. Although I'm not very fond of the word, as I think it's been overused and misused, I can think of nothing more "manly" than such an attitude.
He made mistakes. He may justly be criticized for failing to follow the example of his immediate predecessors in office and adopting a good man to follow him as emperor. Because he didn't, the empire was compelled to endure Commodus. The Christians were persecuted during his rule, and one wonders why he could not bring himself to address that problem in another matter. Although he despised the gladiatorial contests and the games, he tolerated them and sanctioned them through his attendance. He was no Stoic sage.
I suppose he couldn't be, though, and be an emperor of Rome, or even be a good emperor. For the times, he was indeed good. In his Meditations we see what he felt and thought while ruling the Roman world. It can be sad and even grim reading, at times. We see him struggling to be good, and urging himself to be good, in a cruel world. It's not so different now. But I think if any current ruler wrote his/her thoughts at the end of the day, without knowing they would be read by others, and these were somehow disclosed to the world at large, they would seem puny, petty, venal creatures indeed when compared to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
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