Virtue

12-11-2020

William J Bennett, who was Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, wrote a book some years ago titled The Book of Virtues. It was corny – a collection of classics, poems, and short stories – but my kids were young so I bought it and bored them a few times, reading stories from it that I had heard orally as a child myself. More importantly, there are a plethora of short stories for adults in that collection too. Over the years I have occasionally browsed a select number of them and rarely did I think it a waste of time.

However I did get the same impression each time – that these stories of courage and honor were from days gone by, no longer relevant in our modern world. The nostalgia saddened me.

The older generation inevitably questions the younger generation when it comes to acceptable behavior and moral judgement. The younger doubts the elder. I remember well my younger self questioning the wisdom of my elders, sighting their hypocrisy as reason not to give in or relinquish my rebellion. I suppose this is a timeless situation, unsolvable.

Notwithstanding, if ever there was a time and place for virtue to make a comeback, 2020 is it. And not with our younger folk, but the adults who are supposed to be the responsible ones. The role models are the problem. We have misled at least two generations with a radical departure from standard education and merit based accomplishment. Our elites have led us to believe that technology will solve our ills, that we need toil no more. When did dishonesty become not only acceptable, but expected? How did the seven virtues (temperance, wisdom, justice, courage, faith, hope, and charity) survive for thousands of years as noble goals, only to be thrown out during the 20th century like rubbish to the dust bin of history?

Immanuel Kant said, “Virtue is the moral strength of the will in obeying the dictates of duty”. Duty?

We can blame the incremental nature of change or the fostering of new ideas and concepts. We can make excuses and call them reasons. But we cannot change our slide into total dishonesty and moral bankruptcy until we decide that virtue is once again virtuous. The momentum is all headed the wrong way, has been; so it will require a herculean effort to reverse.

Was our founding document written by men of virtue? This is the first question, one that has been debated over the years and most recently been answered unequivocally, “NO” by the radical left. But I disagree. I think that given our current condition it is obvious that the founding fathers were by Kant’s definition much more disposed to integrity and honesty than the vast majority of our current leaders. In fact, it’s not even close.

The founders debated endlessly on the principles that they believed a government should be established by. If you have read my post on the Great Debate, you can see how the sovereignty of the state was weighed against the sovereignty of the individual. How the individual came out ahead in a counter initiative proposition that sided with Aristotle, yet admonished the free person to obey the law lest he be subject to due process and possibly the loss of his rights. That those rights were God given, not awarded by the state. These were the principles that were to be applied to the laws yet to come. Thus the purpose of the constitution was to form a union of states into a new country and a legal framework for a “limited” federal government. https://imigrasiranai.com/

If you don’t like the constitution, please find another country to live in. Since I was a teenager I have heard the “living document” theory. For a while I even thought it had merit. As with all liberal ideology, it sounds good, looks pretty, but upon deeper inspection — is shallow and convenient only for the speaker to make his point. There is no substance there. You cannot change the rules of the game at half time. But I suppose you can quit the game if you don’t like the rules. Move to Cuba. No, the living document theory is actually an attempt to kill the document.

The living document theory allows for temporal conditions to dictate terms rather than universal principles. It defines the “good” in one way one day, and a different way the next. This is a path of least resistance, not “progress” at all. Our principles have always been “freedom” and “liberty”. Freedom and liberty are difficult. They are uphill, against the wind, against centuries of opposing systems. Virtue is a prerequisite to difficult work. Ask a factory worker with a callous that is 40 years old. Ask a farmer who rolls the dice against whether and insects. Ask a soldier who walks into a mine field. Or a fire fighter on a ladder. Or a cop who knows there’s a hidden gun or a hidden bad guy, both. No, it’s easy to sit back and let the government feed you and inform you. To participate, to contribute, to pay attention, to reason …. these things insist upon concentration, a clear mind, a call to duty.

The constitution is a living document in one sense. It’s moral principles are timeless and for all appearances, after 245 years or more, seem to be intrinsic to truth. Or, intrinsic to reality. Or, intrinsic to humanity. Obviously, the single sin of slavery was corrected. Here the left will beat you to death, even after you agree. “Yes” is never good enough. So I will say the obvious truth. The inclusion and acceptance of slavery at the time of our founding was sinful. Therefore we can agree that we are seeking truth and further see the truth that virtue is not some corny, outdated ideal; but a requirement for the “good” to overwhelm the “evil”.

During the 20th century, however, truth became relative and flexible. Reality was no longer objective, but subject to every individual’s perception. So a chair is not necessarily a chair? Maybe a chair is a dog. This is a Marxist lever. Now a discussion of relativity and individual perception is not a bad idea. It’s how we decide on what reality really is. We vote on it every day more or less. It’s the ageless conversation, half empty, half full, half in the bag, partly pregnant. We revel in it because it makes us think, causes debate, and hopefully, leads us to higher thoughts than we started with.

In the end, unless you’re discussing particle theory, humanity lives day to day in a closed system of self survival where said survival is not assured for any length of time. We must cooperate. We must agree – at least upon terms – lest we destroy ourselves. Which is what is happening this very moment.

It is one thing to honestly struggle over what is true. It is quite another to gas light some ridiculous proposition you very well know is not.

A country cannot survive where laws do not matter. A nation will not stand when it’s core principles are ignored repeatedly. It will inevitably deteriorate by “virtue” (words eh?) of entropy.

So why is virtue necessary? Again, Kant’s definition is “to answer the call of duty”. Duty implies allegiance to an ideal. That ideal is stated to give individuals a “road map” so to speak for their behavior. Military personnel, judges, politicians, all swear an oath. The oath is not sworn to a president or a dictator or a party. The oath is sworn to uphold the constitution! Yet today we see our leaders preaching expediency based on acquisition of power. For all practical purposes the constitution is dead, not living at all.

Why is honesty not one of the seven virtues? Here they are again: (temperance, wisdom, justice, courage, faith, hope, and charity) I submit that honesty is a priori, or assumed. Can you imagine such a thing? The ancients assumed we were all being honest as we debated and argued over morality.

We are no longer in a debate over what our country should be, what our government should do, or who should govern. We are locked in a war over power and ideology. The communists are not even interested in morality. To them it is all relativistic garbage. They have no faith, only the desire to control. They adhere to no principle, only the art of war. They feel no guilt, only bitterness.

We little people can only make a difference to the degree we practice virtue. Our silence and compliance only emboldens those who would lie to us. The momentum is against us, yet what do we have to lose? Only our freedom.

Today the Supreme Court decided NOT to hear the constitutional arguments from the state of Texas. I submit that as a country, we no longer have a constitution. We have no courage. We have no virtue. But that does not mean the war is over with. We are a good people under the rule of tyranny.