The real nihilism....

A few days ago, my wife was perusing Facebook and came across a story about a waiter in Texas who heroically asked a family to leave his restaurant because they were complaining about a child with mental disabilities.  The story went that, a family with a young child that is mentally challenged, was at the restaurant to eat, and another family began complaining about the behavior of the child.  The waiter told the complainers that he would not be able to serve them.  Bravo.

I reiterate this story, not because it is a feel good story of a man behaving virtuously, but because of some of the comments that were left after the fact on the Facebook page.  There were a number of posts that read to the like of "These mongoloids are dragging down our species," "This is why Hitler had his eugenics right. No one should have to put up with these apes."  "Maybe I should bring my chimp to restaurants with me, I garuantee they are more intelligent than this child that these people had to put up with."  They were, quite frankly, some of the most offensive things I've read in a long time.  It angered me because of the injustice of it, but it shows you where the intellectual trajectory of our culture has gone post Darwin; nihilistic atheism.

As I tried to root out the philosophy that would praise Hitler, as disgusting as that is, my thought turned to Nietzsche as well as the introlocuter Thrasymachus, who makes his appearance in the first book of Plato's Republic.  Will to power is an intriguing philosophy, and it has tricked minds for millennia. It perhaps was never so well articulated as it was by Nietzsche, but we shall in the future check on a) Whether it is fair to say Nietzsche is the represtantive of modern culture, and b) after showing this we will challenge his thinking with the aid of classical philosophy.  In my mind, the whole debate comes down to Aquinas vs Nietzsche. Whose philosophy is more commensurate with reality?  Aquinas is the fulfillment, or the last great page in the classical tradition, and Nietzsche, unlike most modern philosophers was actually a philosopher.  I read geniuses like Hegel, or Kant, and think of them as creative geniuses, not interpretive ones.  Nietzsche, like Aquinas, was more of an interpreter of reality, i.e. more of a philosopher than a poet.  But the question comes down to, whose philosophy explains reality better?  We'll put them up against each other regularly here.

So what is this truly nihilistic philosophy we face with the downgoers, the arguers for non-human dignity?  Nietzsche accused the "ascetic ideal" as a nihilism of his day; he accused Judaism, and the Cross, of being Europe's disease; its nihilism.  This imagined nihilism has given way to a real bloody nihilism, in an age that is everything Nietzsche envisioned, one of a will to power ethic, where justice is what Thrasymachus called it, "justice is simply what is good for the stronger."  These eugenics proponents, are just the voice of a nihilistic relativism that destroys humanity; drugs women to eliminate children; murders children; chooses the barren desert of homosexuality; experiments on human beings; de-humanizes women and children; in short, a bloody philosophy, an ideology of evil that tends to nothingness - which is the essence of evil!

The eugenicists may question the idea that they are Nietzscheans. They may say that I am unfairly classifying them.  But in stating that we have to destroy mentally challenged human beings, they bury themselves deep in the will to power ethic.  And, if they are going to be consistent in such an ideology, they must accept all of the precepts laid down by Nietzsche.  Basically, if the eugenicists want to be at their best philosophically, they need to be in the Nietzschean catalogue.  In fact, if we parsed it out, we could place them firmly there.  I'd be happy to have that conversation with them.

My first question for the nihilists who threw epithets at this defenseless child, would be, "where do we define human dignity, according to you?  At what point is the threshold?  Where is the line in the sand?"  Obviously, according to them, being mentally challenged is below the threshold of holding intrinsic worth as a human being, although, we might ask them to define human being; I'm not sure you can define a mentally challenged person as anything other than human. If we look to "science", we will be given a definition that will lead us to human being. Ultimately, a biological human can only be defined as a human being, and ought to be afforded the dignity of intrinsic worth.

What if, we decided, the eugenicists themselves were below the threshold, say, for being too short, or being too fat, or being too tall, or having the wrong color eyes, or wrong color skin, or wrong religion, etc.  Suddenly, the idea that justice is what is good for the stronger does not look so appealing. Suddenly, like lightening the natural law strikes at the heart; bursting onto the scene is the inevitable self-preservation.  Those who would define the human based on mental capacity, ought to be ready if they were ever the weaker, to accept the same conclusions.  The fact is, they never consider themselves the weaker.  These same haters are probably the first to shun racism or sexism (rightly so), but based on their eugenic principles they cannot define a proper threshold except that which those in power make it.  As such, do not shun sexism or racism if you like eugenics, because arguments can, and have been made for women or certain races to be less human.  Simply put, the principle of justice being what is good for the stronger, means hoping that you are always in the class of the stronger, which at bottom means you really don't trust your principles.

These folks, praising Hitler, are your neighbors; your godless neighbors; your nihilistic neighbors.  What they miss in their eugenics is that power is the outcome of justice; the political, military, and economic strength of the West has been the result of the recognition of human dignity. Our great inheritance from Greek philosophy, and upgraded to infinite levels through Christ, is that every human being has dignity.  That one idea has given rise to the idea of natural rights, to natural justice, to national democracy.  That one idea was a gift from heaven, a gift that Christianity gave to the socio-political world; a gift that the human dignity deniers use to defeat human dignity.  After all, their opinion wouldn't matter if we did not think human beings were willed for their own sake.  See the contradiction?  They affirm human dignity in one breath, and deny it in the other if they are held to their principles. Affirm it for themselves based on self-preservation, but deny it for others.  Seems like a check-mate, except that Nietzsche says that existence is contradiction.  So to be contradictory in statements is ok.  You can't argue with someone who denies non-contradiction, but you need to decide if you can live with the idea that there is no truth, that everything you argue for is simply a chimera in a cosmic game.  Do you have an opinion on something? Well, on Nietzsche's philosophy that is nothing but a mask for a will to power.  Can you live with the idea that all of your thoughts are meaningless, that opinions are meaningless, that arguing is meaningless?  Then you can be Nietzschean.  I would like to ask Nietzsche why arguments at all?  A biological process for survival?  Ok, then why do thought processes help us survive?  Why does reality correspond to our thought?  Perhaps truth is layered in reality?  Herr Nietzsche, why did you spend so much time arguing if they are pointless?  Ultimately, the question  we face is, truth or no?  Nietzsche or Aquinas?

Socrates does well in defeating the arguments of Thrasymachus and shows that, no matter outcomes, to be just means to do good to those under your power.  The just soul is the happy soul.  We need really to question the dominant thought process of our culture, which is a will to power relativism that leaves tyrants in charge of us.  The failed pagan ideas that we are reinventing in the guise of secularism, will of course destroy the good thing we've had going, where the rule of law reigned triumphant.  We will suffer through it, remake the bloody mistakes, come back to God, and then fade away again.  The slaves already rule the herd; the nihilists are everywhere in their anti-God psuedo-sophistication. We could hope these eugenicists return to reason, but to do so would mean returning to God. Unfortunately, to understand God's power, we have to experience His absence.  We are a sickly bunch.

The unexamined Life....

Socrates, in the apology he made before Athens prior to his sentence to death, made the claim that the unexamined life is a life that is not worth living. Born and raised in a culture enslaved by lower desires, I used to think it was particular to post-modern existence to be surrounded by non-inquirers and non seekers; to be surrounded by slave moralists pursuing death.  The words of Socrates, shine light on the fact that it is an entirely human condition to avoid thought to allow for perversion of the will. The classical philosophical tradition repeatedly and forcefully laments the sophistical and rhetorical relativism that accompanies every human epoch; it is easier to wallow in the mire than to think and challenge the lower desires.  Hence, why philosophers, priests, and saints tend to be the most hated of men.  They offer a very distinct challenge to run of the mill humanity.

Of course, if we are going to examine life, as Socrates bids, then we ought to ask whether the life of base pleasure is the truly human way of living.  We ought to ask if relativism, rhetoric, and sophism are the truth?

First, though, we must preface this.  You all know that I shun relativism and think it is a failed morality that leads to individual and ultimately corporate slavery for humanity.  The lust for power, domination, money, sex, are what deny peace to the human race.  With my perspective being apparent, and knowing who I think is the enemy, you can judge whether the opinion is adequately liberal, or detached from prejudice enough to be an honest seeking of the truth.  Having lived the existential lifestyle, my negativity towards it comes from having been a slave myself; indeed, we are all slaves in that we are fallen.

So why does relativism, the claim that there is no moral truth, draw so many into unwitting slavery?  There must be some truth in it if it draws our beings, as by nature (yes, I know, I use that ugly teleological word) we must see something as true and good in order to pursue it.  In modern philosophy, casuistry or situational ethics, has taken the day.  Following Descartes' methodical doubt, we have demanded clear and distinct, i.e. mathematical precision, even in ethics.  Ethics are contingent, they depend on an infinite number of circumstances, so to demand mathematically precise answers in moral situations amounts to demanding the impossible. Yet, Enlightenment philosophers tried to do so, and in so doing failed. Nietzsche, of course, said that meant morality had failed. 

For instance, Kant gave us the categorical imperative, which is "only will that which you can will to be a universal maxim," and this golden rule could govern every moral situation.  So, if I willed to steal my neighbors car because it was a nice vehicle, I have to ask myself "Can I will that anytime someone has a nice vehicle, I can steal it? Can this be a universal maxim?"  You cannot will it, on Kant's account, because it would be a contradiction.  I would say, "In my own personal situation, it is ok to steal the car, but in the universal situation, it is wrong to steal a car."  Thus, I would contradict myself.  Kant's maxim is applicable to any moral situation.  If you're in a life boat and its going to sink because of too many passengers, you let it sink. Why, outcomes do not matter and you cannot will to commit suicide nor can you will to kill anyone else as these would violate the categorical imperative.  Anyone with common sense looks at that and says, "that's insane and wrong."  What is the common sense that beckons us in this way (here's a hint: it's a cardinal virtue and their prince -- prudence)?

Similarly, a utilitarian like Mill, would have another one way to answer every ethical dilemma.  He would ask, what does the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people?  In the lifeboat situation, you kill someone as that would save the rest.  Utilitarianism is a dangerous relativism because it rules out nothing as per se evil.  So murder becomes ok if it benefits the largest amount of people. 

Of course, the classical tradition and Aristotle don't demand mathematical precision in ethics. They are wise enough to understand the contigent nature of ethics, and that for virtue to be realized a context is necessary.  So, in the life boat situation, the Aristotelian says, exercise prudence.  Are there women and children on the boat?  Is there someone who is willing to give his life for the sake of another?  Is there terminally ill or elderly who won't survive on the boat in the weather, etc.?  With Aristotle, there is a right course of action, a moral course of action, but it requires that you think.  And it is not mathematically precise, although neither is ethics.

The real draw of relativism, though, is its allowance of personal preference morality.  Essentially, justice, truth, virtue, is what you make it.  Being so drawn by our sexual instincts, and power seeking instincts, relativism gives us a free pass to do whatever we want, so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others.  The question is, is such a view of the world correct?  It seems, since it draws so many people in, and tempering the passions is something that is often distasteful to us, (think of how hard it is cutting yourself off from that large piece of pie to lose weight,) it might be the case that simply satisfying the passions is the right way to live.  (Hume, Mill, Nietzsche and others would concur with this sentiment.) Indeed, if these are our "instincts," it follows that they may accord with our nature, and thus be right and true.

The first questions we should ask then, is, a) is pursuit of what the passions direct us to always the correct course of action? and b) is there good and evil?  If you look at question (a) and say with some emphasis "No way" you're on the path out of relativism.  If you look at question (b) and say, "there is definitely good and evil," you're on the path out of relativism. If you look at them both and say, "Passions always lead us in the right direction," and "There is only my good and my evil," then you are a relativist.  In the next post, I will finally examine the existence of evil, and we can all ruminate on if it is purely perspectival, or if there are really ontic (grounded in being) and moral evils.

In closing, I will simply ask, would it be right if we all sought to be children our whole lives?  If the draw of the passions, bereft of reason, is the right way for us to live, then we ought to all remain children.  Indeed, it would be better than to be less than that. It would be better to be swine.  Do we want to say that a pig is better off than a man?  The new pagan morality, while not outwardly stating such a thing, inwardly whispers to itself such a reality.  We are a culture worthy of swine.  A culture worthy of an unexamined life.

Moral neutrality...a preface to talk of evil.

In previous posts I have used the language of "moral neutrality," and a comment here is necessary on what I mean by that term. It ties in so fluidly with the classical definition of good and evil, that I thought I should explain the notion before ruminating on evil and whether it exists. Post modern thought, in succumbing to moral relativism, has failed to recognize evil, but I think we should question the idea that there is no moral evil. Indeed, we all recognize that there are crimes against justice; there is moral and even natural evil, but our shepherds have told us to shy away from such strong language because of our cultural (read Christian) perspective.

So what is moral neutrality? One of the greatest expositions of it was put forth by Montaigne in his famous essay "Of Cannibals." In a nutshell, this essay makes the claim that we only call things barbarism that are not familiar to our own cultural standards. So, when we accuse those who practice cannibalism from distant cultures of immorality, we are simply imposing our own cultural standards on a people that do not share those standards.  We must, and this is how the lie goes, accept differing cultural standards, even if they are in our perspective evil, simply because we make that judgment based on unfamiliarity with distant cultures.  If we saw it through the cannibals eyes, we would think it strange to not eat the bodies of our slain enemies.  It would be immoral not to do so. If you notice, though, there is a moral imperative behind the seemingly innocuous claim that we ought not judge cultures differing from our own.  We must not critique different cultures for being wrong, they are simply different.  In this line of thinking, it didn't take long for the truth silencers to silence those who accept that there is moral truth, simply by telling those who can see there is moral truth that they are "closed minded" for questioning differing cultures.  A very cute trick, and a nice, noble lie.

The gist of moral neutrality, then, is that we cannot exercise judgment on moral action because we are completely engrained in a perspective that may be false.  We have to stay out of the arena of judging action, because our cultural standards are simply that, self-made cultural standards without any objective morality behind them. (I'm hesitant to use the terminology "objective" as it brings in notions of categorical commands and Kant, which I think have no place in truly philosophical ethics.)

We can also see this moral neutrality at work in how our president refuses to use the terminology "terrorist" for Islamic radicals who are bent on killing innocents based on their "infidelity" to Islam.  "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," as the saying goes.  Whether or not a "terrorist" is a "freedom fighter" we would have to examine his specific actions and what he is fighting for. In the West, we judge them terrorists, and rightly so, as they specificially target innocent people and murder them in cold blood.  This is not the action of just war, or virtuous military action.  Terrorism is the right term.  Similarly, America acted as a "terrorist" with the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. It is immoral to target innocent people.

So moral neutrality is a false perspectivism, which on one hand claims there is no moral truth, but on the other, commands that we follow the morality that says there is no moral truth.

Of course, as my previous post attests, there is perspective in moral inquiry, and it does play a role in how we see moral truth (when we start discussing virtue theory, we'll expound upon how perspective plays a role in moral action). At the same time, there are the precepts of the natural law, which allow for cultural differentiation, but at the same time give us a means to critique actually immoral action.  In short, perpective plays a role in how we see the world, and there are legitimate cultural differences that should not be called immoral simply because they are different, but there is moral truth.  That is, there is perspective in moral inquiry, but there is also moral truth.  We live in a culture that goes to one of the two extremes, either there is no moral truth and only perspective, or there is no perspective and only moral truth. Both of these are false extremes.  (The former view is represented by our elites, and leftist politicians, the latter by misguided Kantian Christians and right-wing politicians.)

The greatest lies always start with a hint of the truth.  Moral neutrality is Enlightenment liberalisms greatest lie.  So what does all this have to do with evil?  In short, moral neutrality gives us no grounds for calling anything evil.  Yet, when a tragedy happens like the one that occured in Newtown, Connecticut, we all step back, as a world community, and say, "that is evil." We are such sick creatures that it takes the murder of innocent children for us to recognize there is moral truth.  I wonder what our shepherd relativists in academia, or our president, would say if we pushed them on whether this was evil?  I would guess they would probably admit it was, although their own philosophy disallows them to make that statement. After all, if there is no moral truth, this disturbed young man was simply acting on some perpectival good (on a side, this is precisely where classical philosophers would recognize there is evil, a perspectival good being realized, but a good that is not actually good. In other words, evil only exists in and of the good, so this murderer beheld an apparent good in his actions, but it was not a real good. This is the essence of moral evil. More on this later). "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," hard to imagine moral neutralists would hold to their morally neutral principles in the face of real evil.

This only serves to show that we are a Nietzchean culture. We have heard the term "cafeteria Catholic" in commenting on Catholics who pick and choose which principles of the Church they will follow based on their own wills. Well, the West is made up of "cafeteria moralists" with no principled approach to issues they take stands on, but only personal preference. Self-justification of my own will.  In a Nietzchean world where there is no truth, we, like Obama, can just pick and choose what we call moral or immoral based on situations and our personal preference. Although, the very principles of moral neutrality serve as a critique of simply choosing to say some individual action is evil, our non-contradiction deniers will tie themselves up in contradiction and continue to be impossible to argue with.  And they will get away with it because as a culture we have stopped philosophizing.

So, coming away from this post, I'm hoping my readers will have a better understanding of moral neutrality. It is the lie that we cannot make judgments about moral activity because the claim is there is no moral truth.  Our human nature, stamped into our very being, of course, detests this, and we can't help but call the murder of children evil.  That simple statement beckons to the idea that, even if we pretend there is no moral truth along with our academic shepherds, we inherently know that there is.  Discovering it becomes our biggest problem. Luckily, classical philosophy, namely Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, have given us a roadmap.  We'll follow that map in the coming posts.  Stay tuned for the inquiry into evil.