Tag Archives: philosophy

Toward a More Peaceful World

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I do not think we can get there by passing laws or instituting government programs. I think there is better hope through building virtue and changing culture. Culture makes a big difference in how people behave, and we naturally pick up behaviors and attitudes from the people around us. Some cultures emphasize cleanliness, and others throw garbage in the streets. Some cultures embody great emotional expressiveness, while others are very reserved (when those people come together it can get awkward). I think the growth in violence in our society is not because guns have been suddenly introduced, but because the culture has shifted, and encourages attitudes and behaviors that feed a violent society.

I think a great deal of the problem is our culture does not do a good enough job nurturing peaceful people. If we build certain kinds of habits, and encourage each other in these habits, I think that can make a more profound difference, and there are things we can all do to help shift things. We can strive to grow in these virtues ourselves and encourage and support others in doing so as well. We can elevate celebrities that embody theses virtues and chose to give no attention to those who undermine them.

So what are these virtues? I think there needs to be a lot of conversations about that, but I have some initial offerings.

Boundaries, principles, and virtues: There is right and there is wrong, and it is bigger than we are. The goodness of our cause does not eliminate but increases our responsibility for staying in bounds. We need an objective sense of right and wrong and need the same standards to hold for ourselves and our opponents. We need to send clear, con- sistent messages that we value and admire growing in virtue more than following desire.

It is essential and more effective that we put more effort in holding ourselves accountable and calling out our allies more than calling out our opponents. I recommend C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man.” Eighty years ago he warned about a society in which “we laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. William Kilpatrick’s “Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong” talks about the importance of teaching clear right and wrong to children and explains the power of stories to shape our moral imaginations.

Connections: Family, friends, Church or civic organizations that encourage personal virtue and diversity of thought. How can we strengthen these precious institutions? I rec-

ommend David Brooks’ “How to Know a Person.” The more we see each other as con-

nected to us, the harder to decide to commit violence against them. This is connected to: Growing in empathy: Not allow our anger or disagreement to make us objectify others.

Working hard to see things from others’ point of view. The tendency of sinful humans is to see others as objects, focusing only on how they affect us. Pornography is intense training in objectifying other people. See Fightthenewdrug.org. It would help to keep smart phones out of children’s hands until they reach a certain age. I recommend Jona- than Haight’s book “The Anxious Generation.”

Support the vocation of family, the foundation of civilizing influences. Many have made a case that a case that the union of one man and one woman, joined for life, ordered toward generating and nurturing children is most effective, and a society that privileges and encourages such unions does better. Prioritize what makes the best environment for the children over what these two people want. I recommend “Getting the Marriage Conversation Right” by William B. May, “Defending Marriage” by Anthony Esolen, and “What is Marriage?” by Sherif Girgis et al. to reflect on what marriage is (a society that is not clear on what marriage is will be on shaky ground indeed). John G. Gottman’s “Making Marriage Work” brings scientific data around practices that help couples to succeed.

More on this later.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

HEY!!! “CAR

Weaving Together Our Picture of Reality

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Dear Folks,

We all take in bits of information and weave them into a story that makes sense to us. Sometimes we can take the same set of information and come up with different narratives, and that

can make all the difference. I notice Democrats and Republicans can look at the same event and come up with wildly different narratives about what happened. It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

At some of the Masses this Sunday, we are doing the cycle C readings, including the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15). Where we are doing scrutinies, we are using the cycle A readings with

the story of the man born blind (John 9). I suggest it would be a good exercise to look at those stories and ask, at each point what narrative is each character believing about what is happening?

Stepping back, there are different narratives about fundamental reality.

One is the atheist materialist view. The universe is self-existing, though it seems to be made entirely of contingent beings. The ultimate reality is impersonal, and personhood and consciousness are blips in the interplay of matter and energy. Love, in this view, is just a byproduct of the drive for chromosomes to replicate themselves. Moral right and wrong do not exist, and the only value is making me feel good. When I die, I will cease to exist, and it will not matter what I believed or what I did.

The Christian view is that the ultimate reality is love in the deepest sense. The Father is eternally giving Himself in love to the Son, who is eternally receiving and returning that love to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love that passes between them. God is not one contingent being among many, but Being Himself, the source of all being. Love is by nature fruitful, and so God, though not needing anyone or anything, created the universe out of pure love. We were made to receive and give ourselves in love, and hence are made in the image and likeness of God. There is goodness, which is what serves giving ourselves in love, and there is evil, which is counterfeiting giving ourselves in love or refusing the invite all together. The things of the world pass away, but that which is love lasts forever.

One might object that that many atheists do much good and many Christians are less than moral. This, I suggest, is because we do not always act consistently with our professed beliefs.

There is one more narrative that I find interesting, and that is the Boltzmann brain theory. Ludwig Boltzmann was a physicist, who proposed that if a universe produced a self-aware brain, it

was more likely to produce one brain that hallucinated experiences than produce many brains that have real experiences. That means I am the only one who really exists, and you are all a figment of my imagination. There was once a Dilbert comic strip about this. I reject this theory, fun though it is, because it makes life trivial, and goes against my deep sense that life, the universe and everything have deep meaning. I reject the atheist, materialist view for similar reasons. We have a deep sense that personhood, consciousness, and love mean more than blips in the motion of matter and energy as the mindless universe unfolds. That’s my story and I’m

sticking to it.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Martian potatoes

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marspotato

Dear Folks,

While on vacation, I saw the movie, “The Martian” and then read the book.  Some have praised the story for showing the importance of learning science and technology. Bishop Robert Barron wrote a very nice article for the Boston Pilot on how it was a statement of the importance of each and every human life.  What struck me the most is how the hero faced some insurmountable obstacles, amazing obstacles, and worked to get over them. Some things that are easy for us were huge tasks for him.  Sometimes things would go very wrong, and what he tried didn’t work.  He kept going, figuring out solutions to the problems, and moving forward.  His goal was to survive, and he was determined that Mars was not going to kill him. It was also important that he had skills in botany and mechanical engineering, which meant also knowing some chemistry and some math. In the book, he was described as being “particularly resourceful and a good problem-solver.”

This means he had both the will and the skill to deal with his situation.

When there was a problem he focused his energies toward solving it.  Of course, since there was no one else on the planet that he could expect to do anything, and that made it very clear that it was up to him.  How often is the temptation to put our best energy in to complaining and blaming about the problem, rather than channeling that energy into a solution?

He would face problems with no immediate solution, but he worked at it until he found the solution, and sometimes that made another problem for which he had to find a solution. He just kept problem solving.

Of course, this was only possible because he had spent many years building the tools to make this happen.  Without all his knowledge of science, he could not have done what he did.  He also had the habit of working at a problem until he could come up with a solution. There are many people who, when seeing a problem and not immediately seeing a solution with simply give up. What we do again and again throughout our lives becomes deeply ingrained.  Our hero had a lifetime of tackling problems and persevering. Therefore, he was determined to grow potatoes on a planet where nothing grows.

When we face a problem, how much energy and time is expended uselessly in complaining and blaming, and how much is spend in working toward a solution to the problem? I find it can be easy to lose track of the distinction between complaining about a problem and working to fix the problem. This has challenged me to try to channel as much energy and possible into what will really help, and be wary of wasting it.