Truth, fidelity, freedom, progress

From "Caritas in veritate" (para. 9), my translation:

"Without truth, one falls into empiricist and sceptical views of life, which lack the power to go beyond merely doing something, and wherein there is no concern for grasping the real values — or sometimes even the basic meanings — with which to judge and direct life. Fidelity to man* implies fidelity to the truth, which is the one thing which is a guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32), and which also can provide for integrated human development."

*Or the fidelity *of* man, i.e., human fidelity.

[Absque veritate in vitae empiristicas scepticasque opinationes deciditur, quae ex praxi exsistere non valet, cuius non interest bona percipere – interdum nec significationes – quibus ea est iudicanda dirigendaque. Hominis fidelitas secum fert fidelitatem veritati, quae una est sponsio libertatis (cfr Io 8, 32) atque humanum omnibus ex partibus progressum praestare potest.]

Official English (mis-)translation:
"Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and sceptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development."

Value positivism and religious neutrality: "La charte des valeurs québécoises"

The principle goal of the Charte des valeurs québécoises (the Charter of Quebecois Values) is supposedly the following: "to affirm Quebecois values and the religious neutrality of the state." In other words, the Quebecois state wants to affirm Quebecois values while remaining religiously neutral. So the implication here - that is, in the view of Pauline Marois, Bernard Drainville, and a majority of Qwee-beckers (in particular most of the ones who are francophone) - is apparently that there is no contradiction between the Quebecois state's affirmation of Quebecois values, on the one hand, and the religious neutrality of the Quebecois state, on the other. But this means that 'Quebecois values' (i.e., the values that the Quebecois state wants to affirm) must be 'religiously neutral' - otherwise the supposedly 'religiously neutral' Quebecois state couldn't affirm them.

So are they? Are 'Quebecois values' actually 'religiously neutral'? Is that really a difficult question to answer? If they were neutral, then the levels of support/abhorrence for the Charter affirming these values would be found to be uniform across all of the diverse religious/irreligious communities that exist in Quebec. Is anyone - Marois, Drainville, anyone - daft enough to think that this is actually the case? That people's religious views are in fact irrelevant to whether or not they support the Charter and its 'values'? Not likely.

So what is the real problem then? Is it that the Quebecois state has no right to affirm Quebecois values? No, that's not it: it is simply not possible for a state to be value-neutral. No society could possibly exist without affirming some set or other of values. And since no particular set of values is truly 'religiously neutral,' no state and no society can ever be truly 'religiously neutral' either. (In fact, 'religious neutrality' is itself a value, and indeed, a 'Quebecois value,' but it is a value that is not religiously neutral - you clearly can't value and advocate for religious neutrality and at the same time remain religiously neutral! - so in reality this 'value' simply doesn't make sense.)

So the problem with the Charte of 'Quebecois values' is first of all that it pretends to incarnate a contradiction. The truth is that it attempts to affirm Quebecois values, and in so doing makes manifest certain ways in which the Quebecois state is not religiously neutral. So why do Marois, Drainville, and all those French-speaking Quebeckers want to pretend otherwise? Why would they want to pretend to be religiously neutral? That's a trickier question.

I suppose that some of them are not stupid, and in the purely political machinations of their devious minds they simply feel no compunction about abusing their electorate with straight-up doses of double-speak whenever it suits them. I suspect that most of them, however, are not in this category. I think that most of them are just very confused. They sincerely embrace a view of themselves as morally progressive beings who are quite enlightened when it comes to values: values, they believe, are merely subjective things, and so, they reason, no one has the right to impose his values on anyone else, and certainly not by means of the state. Therefore the state must be value-neutral; value-neutrality is in fact valuable; in other words, value-neutrality is not value-neutral. But of course if you are trying to be value-neutral, then you can't show favor to the value of value-neutrality. And that is exactly what they want to do!

So they come to a compromise: "We can't possibly embrace genuine value-neutrality: that is psychologically and socially impossible. But fundamentally our values are merely subjective constructs, so we have no real right to impose them on anyone. We believe quite fervently in individualism, in the right of every individual to define him-/her-/it-self and the world around him/her/it however he/she/it sees fit. We recognize the wrongness of arbitrary exercises of power as a means to constrain the individual's right to self-expression. But as a practical matter we can't possibly live in a society that has no shared values. So we will impose our values; but as a salve to our conflicted liberal consciences we will declare ourselves to be religiously neutral, even though we evidently are not; which is to say that those among us who are not stupid are simply lying. But our lie is a noble one, because it at least expresses our noble liberal intention to respect the individual; and it is a useful one, because it makes us feel better about ourselves, gives us an ideological tale to spin to those who are less intelligent, and facilitates our ability to exercise power over those who disagree with us."

And the bonus: they are spared from ever having to call into question the basic liberal, 'progressive' premises - about the essential, metaphysical nature of man and of values - which produce their confusion and necessitate their lies in the first place.

"...and in honour of the saints"

I went to mass this morning at St. Clement's. In the Latin mass they have this prayer as part of the Offertory (Preparation of the Gifts) (it was removed from the 1970 Missal, so you don't get it in the Novus Ordo mass):

"Accept, holy Trinity, this oblation (offering) which we offer to you in memory of the passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; and in honour of blessed Mary ever Virgin and of blessed John the Baptist, and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of these (whose relics rest here in the altar), and of all the Saints. To them may it bring honour, and to us salvation; and may they, whose memory we keep on earth, be pleased to intercede for us in heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen"

I really like it. It reminds us that the ultimate point of the cross is to bring honour to the saints and at every mass we not only participate in the memorial of Christ's suffering, resurrection, and ascension, but also in the act of bringing honour to all those who have been saved through Christ's cross and resurrection (including my own blessed daughter, Naomi Therese).


[Here is the Latin text:

Suscipe, sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem, quam tibi offerimus ob memoriam passionis, resurrectionis, et ascensionis Jesu Christi Domini nostri: et in honorem beatae Mariae semper Virginis, et beati Joannis Baptistae, et sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, et istorum, et omnium Sanctorum: ut illis proficiat ad honorem, nobis autem ad salutem: et illi pro nobis intercedere dignentur in caelis, quorum memoriam agimus in terris. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.]

Believe!

It is a mistake to believe something just because you want it to be true.

It is a worse mistake to disbelieve something just because you want it to be true.

Frosh week! Chanting is fun!

I was shocked by this when I saw it. Shocked and appalled. A bunch of 'student leaders' at St. Mary's University in Halifax chanting about what St. Mary's boys like in the way of sex: Y - your sister, O - o so tight, U - underage, N - no consent, G - grab that ass. But the reaction to it has been predictably silly and shallow: People are shocked, disappointed, offended by the U and the N, sometimes even the Y, while the O and the G generally seem to get a pass.

First of all, I’d love to know who came up with this chant (fricking dumbass ‘student leaders’ – these are the same kind of 'bro-choice' morons who somehow figure they have the moral authority to ban pro-life groups from campus), but the reality here is that even if what they’re chanting is evil – not ‘inappropriate’ or ‘sexist’; evil – we should understand that they’re mostly just sheep who would chant pretty much anything they were told to chant, just because that’s what the others are doing. (Some have criticized the chant as mindless behaviour, which is correct, but keep in mind that most frosh week activities consist of mindless behaviour.) As for the chant itself, people who think that this is a matter of sexism are not thinking clearly. If someone thinks it is okay to rape women, his (or her) problem is not that he (or she) thinks it is okay to discriminate against women. Using that kind of (stupid) reasoning, you could just as well say that someone who thought that consensual sex with women was okay was sexist. The problem is with the attitude towards rape; the sex of the victim is not morally relevant. If someone who raped only women was thereby sexist, then someone who raped only men – or even just mostly men – would likewise thereby be sexist, and the non-sexist course of action would be to ensure that half of one's rape victims were male and half female (and one should very occasionally rape an inter-sex person, if possible). Which is, of course, utter nonsense. (Think about it, if you need to. Some (many? - most?) feminists seem to think that the main evil in the world is sexism, so whenever they see some evil they instinctively try to classify it as a form of sexism. If you’re interested in understanding the truth and living in reality, this is a stupid thing to do.)

Secondly, this kind of disgusting, brain-dead trash – this chant, that is – is precisely what our wonderful public education system naturally gives rise to. I’ve had perfectly nice, ordinary, not-racist-or-homophobic kids – i.e., high school graduates, university students – in  my moral reasoning class who can quite blandly say stuff like, “The Holocaust was wrong from our perspective; but maybe it was right for them, for the Germans seventy years ago – who are we to judge?” Does anybody think that kids are just NATURALLY that dumb? No, that kind of stupidity is the result of indoctrination – that is, a corrupt education. These masses of publicly-educated – i.e., semi-educated – moral imbeciles are simply the wretched products of the massive influence of the education system – including the mass media, and especially entertainment media – that produced them. They’re not awful people. They’ve just been constantly taught that there is no truth in questions of morality; that sex is fun and healthy, so go ahead be creative, do whatever feels good – just wear a condom, you’ll be fine; that we all know you’ll have sex anyway, regardless of what anyone says, so again, have some more condoms. Of course the truth about such matters is also readily available (if not equally so to all), at least to anyone who actually cares to look for it (which is to say, very few people). But when you’ve got this army of clever, cool, progressive, rich, beautiful, sexy, successful adults telling teenagers, go for it, there are no moral issues here; just do what you want, whatever feels good to you; remember: it’s bad to judge others’ behaviour – progressive, fun, tolerant, GOOD people don’t judge; well, isn’t it a big surprise when some kids – in fact, most of them – actually decide to buy into the lies? Is it a surprise when they end up thinking, “No one has a right to judge me, I can do, think, say whatever I want if it makes me feel good... (oh, also: vote for me! – next mayor of NY!)”? Once you get kids (who do become adults, even if they never become mature) to start thinking like that, guess what? It doesn’t really matter what politically correct lines you try to draw in the sand after the fact; you have already so destroyed their basic powers of judging the truth that such ‘relatively-moral’ lines can never exercise any genuine – that is, moral, rational, properly human – constraint upon their thinking, saying, and acting. All you’re left with to constrain behaviour are arbitrary exercises of techniques of social coercion – public shaming, enforced ‘sensitivity training’ (i.e., more BS ideological indoctrination) – which always ignore and sometimes exacerbate the roots of the problem.

Feminism and 'Rhetorical Force'

I had a friend try to explain to me yesterday that women – especially ‘feminist’ women – have suffered so much from sexism that they are justified in using extreme levels of ‘rhetorical force’ in responding to people who question their claims (see, for example, this piece from Jezebel). Here’s a very simple point that feminists and other fundamentalists need to consider: when you defend a point of view by acting like an absurdly arrogant, irrational, violent, etc. ignoramus, the rhetorical force of such behaviour is to establish the following fact: that it is absurdly arrogant, ignorant, etc. people who defend that point of view. So it seems that either (1) you’re actually proud to be an absurdly arrogant ignoramus, in which case you’d do yourself and the rest of the world a favour if you’d just shut up; or (2) you really hate feminism (or whatever pseudo-sophisticated ideology you feign to embrace), in which case, please be honest about that; or (3) your ideology actually includes the doctrine that it's cool to be stupid, rude, violent, or whatever, in which case, really? - don't you think it might be worth checking out some alternative ways of thinking about who you are and what you are meant to be?

Divine Adoption

The gospel message of adoption:
 

“He, through whom the world was made, was in the world, and the world treated him as a stranger. He came to what was his own, and they who were his own gave him no welcome. But all those who did welcome him, he empowered to become the children of God, all those who believe in his name.” (John 1:10)

 

The sign of adoption:

“When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" (Galatians 4:4-6)

"The spirit you have now received is not, as of old, a spirit of slavery, to govern you by fear; it is the spirit of adoption, which makes us cry out, Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)

 

The means of adoption:

 “Ask, and the gift will come, seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you. Everyone that asks, will receive, that seeks, will find, that knocks, will have the door opened to him. Among yourselves, if a father is asked by his son for bread, will he give him a stone? Or for a fish, will he give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he is asked for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? Why then, if you, evil as you are, know well enough how to give your children what is good for them, is not your Father much more ready to give, from heaven, his gracious Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:9)