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What's at Stake is a Free Society What’s at stake today is much more than which party rules, which economic policies are followed, how many hours per week everyone will work or which type of high speed Internet connection each wants in their home. What’s at stake is freedom itself. There are those who claim that freedom is simply choice. What is chosen is completely beside the point; they insist merely there must be choice. Any attempt to determine what is chosen is considered equivalent, in their eyes, to what Hitler or Stalin did to their millions of victims. Any attempt to evaluate the thing chosen is judged to be judgmentalism – hypocritical as that may be – or intolerant or coercive. Furthermore, they claim, if a person has the capacity to choose something, then they have a right to it. Rights then fall into the arbitrary field of caprice. Furthermore, it is a caprice that comes with the strength of positive law. An example of this has been seen in the currently raging debate over whether to legalize narcotics in general or marijuana in particular. Their logic insists that, if one want to ingest some sort of narcotic, then they must have a right to, and any infringement, or even attempted infringement, on that right should be met with severe action from the executive branch of government. There are others that claim that freedom is made of tougher stuff. I think of the ancient Greeks, and their “aręte.” Aręte is virtue, and it is excellence. A horse had aręte if he ran fast and was strong and steadfast in battle. A king had aręte when he governed wisely, justly. A soldier had aręte when he had prowess; Helen’s aręte consisted in her feminine beauty; Andromachea’s aręte, in her devoted love. The man of aręte was supremely free, lord of himself. Choice becomes, in this view of freedom, a necessary accident, but not the essence, the stuff of which freedom is made. The greater or lesser freedom is not measured by numbers of possible choices, as if freedom were quantifiable. Greater or lesser freedom is determined by how a man does what is right. For example, one who can raise his children according to his principles yet lacks wealth which would open up more possibilities of choices is more free than a man who owns great wealth neglecting his family for addictions to work, to alcohol, to lewd women, to money or to the pursuit of power. Pinckaers describes this second freedom as a “freedom for,” and specifically for excellence, and the previous freedom “freedom from.” These expressions could be misused, if they are separated from the context of those who fight for the reign of arbitrary caprice over reasoned principles. The problem of the two understandings of freedom go as far back as the high middle ages, to the roots of scholasticism and St. Thomas Aquinas who pursued true freedom, and the opposing, posterior view of freedom suggested by the nominalists. This problem is not just assaulting civil society, but it inflicts ecclesial society as well. We see it, for example, when those who are clergy, at various levels and occupying diverse offices in the Church, are more eager to silence individuals or groups to avoid the exterior manifestation of conflict, but fail at the same time to address the problems underneath, such as heresy, apostasy, schism, dissent, liturgical abuse, immorality and so forth. When faithful clergy, for example, live up to their responsibility of teaching the faith or fulfilling liturgical norms, they frequently find themselves persecuted by their own brother clergy and ecclesial superiors. The aręte of the priest is suppressed in the most wicked, unjust and dishonest forms, since the true message of Christ and his true way of life for Christians infringe upon the choices these others, often profoundly corrupt and scandalous men, would prefer to exercise. This is what’s at steak today in the public forum. Will we become slaves to the masters of caprice, or will we be lords of our own society? Will we surrender to chaos, or will we live the freedom of the sons of God?
(6/27/05) As an appendix to this topic, the US Supreme Court's ruling on the prohibition of the showing of the 10 commandments is to the point. Talk about turning the US Constitution in such a way to make it say the opposite of what it says! What's at steak is freedom. For if there is no God that transcends the power of the government, giving basis and keel to the government, then the only real principle of Law, according to the supreme court, is they themselves. It is the power of man to coerce man, it is not the power of the transcendent God to establish his eternal and natural law. I think the Supreme Court is telling America, "We are the Lord your God... you shall have No Other God before Us." The beast is stirring under the waters. But his time to rise to kill and rape isn't at hand yet.
Suggested reading: 1. George Weigel, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God, New York : Basic Books, 2005. (Click here to buy it from publisher; it's more affordable on other sites.) |