Virtue, Discipline and Self-Control
September 20th, 2008 by Vicki BakerReductive religion is just as objectionable as reductive science, and for the same reason: Reality is large, and our minds are small
-Wendell Berry, The Burden of the Gospels
Regulars know that our particular corner of the blogosphere, already hazardous enough (see name), has recently been hit by a juggernaut of rhetoric whose driver is under the influence of a kind of intoxication of certainty. While I understand that almost everyone is tired of the debate, I’d like to say that in some ways I recognize the embattled feeling he communicates so vividly.
I think any of us who are parents and who try to instill in our children skills of self-control, responsibility, and compassion, feel that we are swimming against the tide of the whole culture. I want my daughter to realize that she has value and worth beyond sexual attractiveness, but I face a culture that glorifies pimps and hos and pornstars - a culture, in short that views sex as a commodity. I want her to have self-control and the ability to delay gratification, but the culture says “Grab it now. You deserve it!”
The normalization of the doctrine of limitlessness has produced a sort of moral minimalism: the desire to be efficient at any cost, to be unencumbered by complexity. The minimization of neighborliness, respect, reverence, responsibility, accountability, and self-subordination—this is the culture of which our present leaders and heroes are the spoiled children…We will keep on consuming, spending, wasting, and driving, as before, at any cost to anything and everybody but ourselves.
–Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limit
I want her to be responsible and accountable, but we our leaders refuse to be held accountable for their mistakes. CEO’s feel no qualms about drawing large salaries while running their countries into the ground. I live in a country where politicians feel no compunction about repeating what they know to be lies and distortion about Iraq’s connection with 9/11.
…our cultural tradition is in large part the record of our continuing effort to understand ourselves as beings specifically human: to say that, as humans, we must do certain things and we must not do certain things. We must have limits or we will cease to exist as humans; perhaps we will cease to exist, period. At times, for example, some of us humans have thought that human beings, properly so called, did not make war against civilian populations, or hold prisoners without a fair trial, or use torture for any reason…
-Wendell Berry, Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limit
I want her to have compassion, and the courage to fight for justice, but again, these are qualities not often found in those our culture rewards with money and power.
The first thing we must begin to teach our children (and learn ourselves) is that we cannot spend and consume endlessly.. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product.
Wendell Berry, Thoughts in the Presence of Fear
In short, while I feel with Erik that a moral indictment of society is in order, I think we need to get beyond obsessing with what goes on in other people’s bedrooms and really look at society as a whole. We say that we want our children to have ethics, responsibility, compassion and critical thinking skills. These values are hard to teach when all around them children see adults rewarded for the opposite qualities.
Finally, I would like to speak in favor of discipline. Not discipline as punishment, but discipline as developing the habit of turning away from the path of least resistance. We speak of academic or scientific disciplines: to be effective in science, the mind must be disciplined to avoid assumptions and to demand evidence. There are also spiritual disciplines which can help develop compassion and develop what the Buddhists call “skillfulness” in personal relationships. Mental and emotional discipline both require a certain skepticism to our own deeply held certainties. For in the end, while the universe is infinite, our minds are finite.
[I have interspersed some quotes of Wendell Berry with my thoughts, as an example of a Christian and conservative (in the classic sense of the word, one who conserves) writer whose thinking I respect, though I don't always agree with it.]
September 20th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Vicki: Thank you for the link to Berry’s writing. It’s really engaging stuff, quite comforting, even though I too don’t agree with everything Berry writes. His open-minded world view is such a change of pace from the know-it-all exterior that hides so many insecure fundamentalists. Writing this, I’ve reminded myself of Eric Hoffer, who speaks of the Believer as usually being a person who lacks true confidence.
I thought Berry’s definition of literalist is another noteworthy passage:
And, yes, I am intrigued by his question: What are we to make of Luke 14:26?: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
I agree with you that we live in a society that is filled with incontinence. There’s little discipline to be seen, little reason to think that we Americans still have that critical mass of intelligence and intellectual courage necessary to dig out of the hole we’ve made for ourselves. There are so few public figures willing to say “I don’t know,” for example. There are so few people willing to acknowledge the contradictions in their own deeply held beliefs. Or better yet, there are very few of us willing to admit that we believe many important things that we can’t prove.
It would seem that even a modest dose of self-questioning would cause enough humility to well up in ourselves that we could all make that humility a place where we could connect to all other people. But we’re blocked out by the people of certitude. We really should all be willing to look up at the stars together and wonder. But we can’t do that, because there are just too many of us that would ruin the majesty of the moment by shouting “answers.” I’m not talking about Dan Klarmann (who truly does know a lot about the stars), but about the many people who are uncomfortable with not-completely-knowing, those people who are bristled by those of us who ask rhetorical questions like “What are we supposed to do with our lives?”
“No!” We repeatedly need to warn the know-it-alls: questioners are not always asking for answers! Often, we are using questions as an especially serious way of acknowledging a sense of wonder and humility. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that they have “humbition.” The bottom line is that people who are more thoroughly tuned to their universe are usually less comfortable with answers than with questions. A short and certain answer to a big question is always wrong to them. As you suggest, it’s because the universe is infinite and our minds are finite.