Yesterday, the Sci-Fi Channel featured a Star Trek marathon for Memorial Day as it typically runs marathons during holidays. One of my favorite episodes is Mirror, Mirror. It is the episode in which Spock sported a beard. The Enterprise landing party is involved in a transporter accident in which they cross over into a parallel universe. In this universe the Federation is substituted by the Empire, and rather than an orderly USS Enterprise governed by higher principles such as the Prime Directive, the ISS Enterprise is run like a pirate ship plundering the galaxy. So while Kirk, Bones, Scotty and Uhura are desperately trying to get back to their universe, we get to see a glimpse of a different culture and philosophy at work. It's interesting, and kind of like a Twilight Zone episode.
And of course, on some holidays, a Twilight Zone marathon is featured. My favorite episode here is The Obsolete Man. It's about a future fascist state that is run to maximize efficiency. Libraries are no longer necessary in a future where literature is deemed inefficient. Therefore librarians are obsolete. It is thus that the episode begins by condemning a man to death because he serves no useful purpose and is "obsolete".
Now we need not peer into the future to witness this cold management style. In a dog eat dog, cut throat business world, the bottom line, the almighty buck can demand that efficiency be maximized in much the same way. This is not a screed against capitalism, but there is more to life than worshiping Mammon and behaving like Ebenezer Scrooge before the visitation of the three ghosts. A free market is the best way to get food and goods into homes throughout the land, but an eye should always be kept toward the Permanent Things, the First Things. Western civilization is much more than just the free market.
No government, no entity, nobody can determine one to be obsolete, or even to be of lesser worth than others. The Declaration of Independence states, "All men are created equal." Now some rail against this as an extreme egalitarian statement. They will say that we moderns read too much into the Declaration, which was merely written to divorce America from Great Britain. But no one has forgotten that the people who wrote the Declaration were the elite. It does not claim that there cannot be leaders and followers, but it claims that all men have a right to a certain dignity.
It is worthwhile to remind ourselves that we cannot be obsolete. In the show, the obsolete man opens the Bible before sentence is carried out. He finds comfort in it. In a homily, Father Raymond Suriani shows the proof of the worth of all men by referencing the twelfth chapter of St. Paul's first letter to Corinthians. (And I recommend that all read Father Ray's homily, for I am only lightly touching on the topic in which he gives the greater exposition.)
Saint Paul explains to the Corinthians that we are all members of the body of Christ; "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." (1Cor12:13) We can not deem ourselves to be less than others because of function; "If the foot says, 'Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,' it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body." (1Cor12:15) Nor can anyone else make that determination; "And the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'; or again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'" (1Cor12:21)
It is at times the lessons of life hit so forcefully and painfully that we cannot forget the Truth that we are all connected. It is the experience of life that proves these meanings: "And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it." (1Cor12:26) Father Ray tells us, "You can't even make yourself obsolete. God says you're worth something, even if you feel like you're worth nothing."
Father Ray was kind enough to repeat Rod Sterling's moral of this story (which I repeat in turn):
The chancellor -- the late chancellor -- was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the state, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for mankind . . . in the Twilight Zone.Now Star Trek did not have this sort of morallizing, but at least in the Federation's universe the dignity of man is still recognized. Before Kirk returns to that universe, Kirk tries to convince the Empire's Spock of the illogic of empire. Spock demurs, "One man cannot summon the future."
Kirk presses, "But one man can change the present." He asks Spock, "What will it be? Past or future? Tyranny or freedom? It's up to you."
And just before leaving, Kirk flourishes, "In every revolution, there's one man with a vision."
In one man, we were shown that God so loved the world.
Blows against the Empire
- GIGO-Soapbox
GIGO I: Right to Privacy: Suicide
Re: Welsey Smith on assisted suicide at NRO in Dying Cause.
There are many people who believe that the rights of the individual reign supreme. For example, a mother's right to her body gives her the right to destroy the living human being in her womb. A natural extension of this privacy right would be -- and this holds true as far as I've observed -- the right to kill oneself. Thus the logic goes: a man should able to partake in a "medical" procedure on his body that will result in death (his), just as a woman is able to partake in a "medical" procedure on her body that will result in death (her unborn human child).
I don't put individual rights on the same high pedestal as others do. I'm not a libertarian. I've never pretended to be a libertarian. I instantly recognized libertarianism as flawed as modern liberalism as soon as I became aware of that term and understood what it meant. It's a simple ideology that will fail in a complex world. I don't hate libertarians (I consider them to be on the Right, not the Left side of the aisle), but they will fail to capture my imagination because their ideology is not anchored -- however much they might claim to be the heirs of classical liberalism.
I believe there are Transcendent Laws that place boundaries on the Rights of the Individual. As such the Right to Death does not spring forth from the Right to Life.
In the Star Trek episode The Conscience of the King, Capt. James T. Kirk meets a fellow survivor of the Earth colony, Tarsus IV. A fungus attacked the food supply of that planet. The governor of the colony declared martial law and he separated the 8000 colonists into two groups: those who would live and those who would put to death. Four thousand colonists were killed. The governor came to be known as Kodos the Executioner.
The survivor, who has lost half his face as a remembrance of that dark time twenty years earlier, has recognized the voice of Kodos in Anton Karidian, a Shakespearean actor. The episode is about a search for justice, as Kirk attempts to prove that Karidian is Kodos.
Yes, it is a fictional tale and a morality play. The episode clearly intended to invoke the shade of the Holocaust during World War II. When the episode aired, it was a time when the lines between good and evil were sharper and more distinct. It was obvious that whatever excuse Kodos could use, it would fail to justify the horrendous action taken.
Kodos did offer that excuse, "Kodos made a decision of life and death. Some had to die that others might live." But twenty years earlier he was more verbose:
"The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives means slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus 4."
The lines were clearer in 1966 when the episode aired, but I have my doubts about 40 years later. "Some had to die that others might live" has a seductive raw utilitarian logic to it. It's not hard for me to imagine that quite a few would take up Kodos's banner.
Yesterday I wrote of the Right to Privacy and compared suicide with abortion: "For example, a mother's right to her body gives her the right to destroy the living human being in her womb. A natural extension of this privacy right would be -- and this holds true as far as I've observed -- the right to kill oneself." I also posted a variant of this essay at Right Minds Forum. I had a hunch about a member's views there, and it turns out that I guessed correctly. That member supports a woman's right to an abortion in limited circumstances, but believes that suicide is sinful.
Without addressing the apparent contradiction between the two views, that member of Right Minds detailed a case in Florida about a severely mentally retard woman who is a ward of the state. Additionally, she is pregnant and allegedly the pregnancy will be difficult, possibly life threatening. The challenge is made: choose!
I may appear to be contradictory here, but that choice is Hobson's choice. The very idea that I must choose is Hobsonian; the avenue of not choosing is closed.
The whole of the abortion debate -- as the pro-choice side seeks to leverage the pro-life side -- centers about the hard cases. It's been largely successful. The common exceptions to the pro-life position are abortions in the cases of rape or incest or in the case of the mother's health. Yet, the raison d'être of the pro-life position is to protect the life of the unborn. Once exceptions are made, the full effect of the pro-life position is lost. Do you really mean to protect the unborn when you make exceptions? Pro-life with exceptions is a subjective position.
It's easy enough to address the cases of incest or rape. They are common enough, and can be found easily on the Internet. While all may regret the victimization created by the first event (the incest or rape), we cannot allow a second victim, the unborn child, to suffer the loss of his or her life.
The exception for a mother's health is more difficult to deal with.
If I must choose between mother and child, then I should ask which value system is to be used in making that choice. We've disregarded the traditional Christian position of pro-life, and it seems disingenuous to depend on it for other values. Perhaps a utilitarian value system would suffice: a severely mentally retarded person is of dubious value to society and it is a definite drain to society's resources; perhaps we should take a chance on the child. I doubt that Planned Parenthood or NOW would enjoy this line of reasoning, but they've no defense against it. Lucky for them, pro-lifers don't use it, but that won't stop someone else from using it. The day will come.
Or I might decide that the Christian Tradition is flawed in only this case -- a dubious proposition, it calls the entire Tradition into re-evaluation -- and if I make an exception, then perhaps I can call up a more compassionate example than the previous paragraph. Although killing is considered morally wrong, killing in self-defense is acceptable. Appealing to self-defense is seductive, I admit, but it is flawed. It presumes the unborn child is an attacker and it presumes that the attack is likely to be successful.
And here's the salient point. It pits mother against child as much as it pits four thousand against four thousand on Tarsus IV. It's easy to miss the subtle point I'm making here and I rely on Evangelium Vitae cover the nuance:
There is an even more profound aspect which needs to be emphasized: freedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth. When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim.This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail. Still, in the face of other people's analogous interests, some kind of compromise must be found, if one wants a society in which the maximum possible freedom is guaranteed to each individual. In this way, any reference to common values and to a truth absolutely binding on everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism. At that point, everything is negotiable, everything is open to bargaining: even the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life.
Thus brother is pitted against brother. Much as the poor are pitted against rich, the stronger (the mother) is pitted against the weaker (the unborn). It is three wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch. It is might makes right. And it appears after all, that the excuse of "self-defense" is really a utilitarian argument (a wolf in sheep's clothing). "Some had to die that others might live."
The social bonds disappear once the weak become legitimate targets. The compact is broken. Democracy becomes a mob, and gives way to authoritarianism.
The answer to the challenge is that the choice cannot be made. I am not willing to set myself up as Governor Kodos and decide who must live and who must die. No one can -- no matter what subjective value system one decides to use.
It is better to decide that both must live and direct societal and medical efforts to that end.
Mark Shea is on a rant against machine guns. If Mark has not updated his archive then go to his main blog page and scroll down looking for the paragragh that includes "MACHINE FRICKIN' GUNS!"
Earth to gun freaks: no civilian needs a machine gun. If you are Catholic who disagrees with that, I submit it's because you really believe the Constitution to be more sacred than the normal Catholic teaching about morality ordered toward the common good. In short, you are wrong and are helping to make such crimes possible by your disordered intellect.
This must be one of those Catholic either/or arguments rather than a Catholic both/and argument. It's impossible to make any real pro-gun right argument to satisfy an emotional requirement of "need." To prove that "need" one must first overcome an emotional bias. A gauntlet has been thrown down, demanding an emotional counter response. In fact, Mark seems to have intended it that way. He has equated second amendment supporters with those who oppose a ban on machine guns (although the NFA of 1934 regulated machine guns). Yes, Mark said "some" to highlight the extremists, but he also barred the door to any slippery slope arguments -- which it is plausible to argue in light of the history of gun control laws -- by arguing that it is a question of need. I don't intend to argue that any gun is necessary.
On the same day, this was reported: A picture with the caption: "Jail escaper Karen Lynn Lovell holding a gun to her son's head yesterday."
A mother with a pistol to her child's head. I find it difficult to construct an argument that anyone needs a pistol.
Perhaps that's just so much hyperbole. The Bible provides examples of the use of swords; St. Peter carried a sword and drew blood during the Passion (John18:10). Yet, even then, Peter was rebuked. "Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?" (John 18:11) "Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matt 26:52). Pacifists might believe that Jesus was questioning the need for the sword... but still, the Church has allowed for self-defense. So if Scripture is silent about guns, we can make allowances for technological advance of pistols and machine guns. We can weigh the dangers against the rights and needs.
From personnal experience, I find it difficult to construct an argument that anyone needs alcohol (except priests for the Blessed Sacrament). Sure, there's biblical evidence that alcohol was licit, but that's before the industrial age and before big heavy machinery. In my lifetime, I've had two uncles succumb to alcoholism. Dead. Literally, puking up blood sort of dead. But more than the individual destruction, there is the harm of those around them. And the dangers involve more than the immediate family. The second uncle to fall to this temptation drove heavy equipment such as snow ploughs and construction vehicles. Before he died, he was fired for drinking on the job.
But however fortunate it is that we have bosses who can fire employees for unrepentent drinking, anyone has access to heavy machinery: they're called automobiles. There were no automobiles during biblical times, and I wonder if alcohol would have been licit if alcohol and automobiles could have been combined then as guns and bullets are now. Could we weigh the dangers against the needs?
Of course, Prohibition didn't work. It was then that the machine gun was used to assist rumrunners in breaking the law. It was then that machine guns were regulated (The National Firearms Act of 1934 following Al Capone and the Valentine's Day massacre).
So even though I cannot see the need for alcohol, I cannot bring myself to say, "In short, you are wrong and are helping to make such crimes possible by your disordered intellect."
I don't need alcohol. I don't need guns. I have neither in my home. But I don't make arguments on the basis of a lack of need. There are very few things that I need (I could go so far as to say that I don't need a home). Such things as self-defense are based in the context of time and place. Surely Israeli citizens have a need for deadly looking assault weapons against cowardly terrorists who seek to prey on the defenseless. Surely British citizens have a need for self-defense against burglars (if you are not aware, crime in Britain has increased even as their government has tightened the screws on firearms -- the unarmed bobbies of old now see the necessity of arms -- is there a correlation?).
The disordered minds are not the law-abiding citizens who would responsibly and safely use these weapons, but the criminals who would not. Criminals have no need to promote gun rights -- such things are foreign to their thinking. Indeed, if they were rational, they would argue for a more defenseless population.
No one needs alcohol. But we don't argue that drunk driving -- something that is illegal -- provides the rational for a complete ban on alcohol. Not many argue that the availability of alcohol encourages drunk driving.
Certainly, we can argue that our society is disordered, that our citizens are like children whom we cannot trust with alcohol or guns. But perhaps the solution is form the children into adults rather than assume they can never be trusted as adults.
None but a fringe minority will argue that criminals should be allowed guns, or that alcoholics should be allowed to drink and drive. But by making guns and alcohol legally available, are we in fact making these abuses possible? Non sequitur. Those truly disordered minds will find a way to obtain these items whether they are freely available or not. History and current events prove the verity of this statement.
And finally, I am not arguing against any regulation of firearms or alcohol. There are arguments for prudent regulation of any sort of "right." Most reasonable arguments will be over where the line should be drawn. But I am most put off by the argument of Pope Mark Shea, who with the full force of the Magisterium, declares that the line is drawn here, no dissent beyond here is permissible. Well. *That* should piss off a few people.
I Sent the following to John Derbyshire (of course, the mail bounced) and CC'd the Corner regarding the following:
RE: DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT BIOLOGY
MORE DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT BIOLOGY
I applaud you on your comments regarding Creationism in the Corner. I'm letting you know that I'm in your corner (so to speak). In this matter, I think you are correct, and you have stated your case well. However (you probably saw that 'however' coming, didn't you?), I think you don't realize how contentious the religious debate in this country is. It's been a long slow decent into secularism in schools. Denying, even a moment silence for fear that a child might think of God during school hours.
Creationism is more than an article of faith, it is also a political movement seeking to reassert some religious value back into schools. I realize that as an Anglican, you're probably not too concerned about Scientism (and I am speaking of an ideology here, not a collection of facts). But there is a strong feeling among our fundamentalist and evangelical brethren that our schools are hostile to Christianity. I have to admit that this assessment is not so far from the real truth.
Evolution is seen as a weapon that will puncture the Truth that God exists. I have found that argument will not budge anyone from the articles of faith, and persistence will merely raise the level of shouting. You have written a fine piece about the faith of Dubya, and you have presented the your case on the creation/evolution debate. Time to smile now, and love your brother.
Pax Vobiscum,
a hermit from Hudson
Not much of a set up is needed here, since the quotes and replies provide most of the context. John, a friend at Zillas, is attempting to support the proposition that ordered liberty can exist without the spiritual foundations mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. He took to an uncharacteristic pessimism, where he also declared that the DoI would not have meant much without the successful conclusion to the American Revolution. He actually used the phrase that might makes right. As I said, this appears uncharacteristic for John. John's quotes are indented.
My first post:
1. Can a society accept ordered liberty without western religion, much less a monotheistic religion?
Yes and no.
Japan was able to graft many Western traditions while keeping its unique culture. It is something Japan has been able to do so well (i.e. grafting cultures) over the centuries. Yet, let's not lose sight of the fact that this was imposed from above, after losing a war.
India is much like Japan, although the process was considerably longer.
Meanwhile, a culture with a monotheistic religion, namely Islam, has proved to be very resistant to the concept. You might be tempted to point out the early years, especially in Spain, but after a fresh conquest it is most rational to start a rule with a light touch (as Hilter learned too late on the eastern front). Eventually, the light touch gave way to the heavy hand, and the enlightenment turned to darkness. The reconquest of Spain had as much to do with the petty infighting and oppression of the muslim rulers as with the "brutal" reconquest by Christians.
2. Can a non-western religion accept ordered liberty at all, given its non-liberal (19th Century Western) prejudice?
It's hard to place the oriental religions as religion in the western sense. They are much more like philosophies with religious rituals. These seem to more easily acquiesce to these ideas.
The heresy that is Islam will not be able to do so.
But there is an underlying theme here, but I will address this in your follow up post (where it is more natural to do so).
My second post:
So in a way I am looking for a totally secular definition of American Liberty. I choose my trusted friends and occassional fencing partners over mumbling to myself...
Good luck.
In a nutshell, here is the fatal flaw in all you've written over the weekend. It's not new John. Pope Pius X called it "modernism" (he was not the first BTW) but in the philosophical world it is called logical positivism. In my e-mail to John Derbyshire, I called it scientism. It's all pretty much the same thing.
There are some truths that will not submit to the empirical formulas of the scientific method.
The Declaration of Independence was a statement of Transcendent Truths revealed in large measure by a Transcendent Being who goes by the name I Am (sorry TEE). It's not entirely true that He revealed all these Truths, but He nudged Mankind into a process of rational discovery of these Truths. The fact that Man was able to rationally discover some of these Truths does not make these Truths any less Transcendent.
And that's the point. The Declaration of Independence did not depend on victory at Yorktown. It never did. If American falls into empire and later to barbarism, it will not take away from these Truths. The Truth remains the truth. It is Transcendent. It is Eternal.
There is a reason why the French Revolution, a revolution based on Reason, Man's reason, was such an insane affair. Man's reason lies on quicksand if it is based on anything else but the solid foundation of Transcendent Truth.
Any other translation of "We hold these truths to be self-evident... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." is to deny the very foundation of those rights.
Rights given by Man or by Governments are rights that can be defined away. It is a truism as described by Orwell in Animal Farm (this is a paraphrase from memory): All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
The Arthurian legends were very much at heart a denial that Might makes Right. It is very much a story that Might must bend to Right. The concepts of limited government are based on the same types of ideas. That we, as Fallen Men, might stumble or fumble about does not detract from the basic Truths. We are imperfect Men with an imperfect government. Arthur failed. Logres faded. But the Truth did not.