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Feelings, Morality and the "Crybaby Culture"

Q. My neighbor regularly throws a tantrum when I disagree with him. By disagreeing with him, he says I hurt his feelings, and am therefore guilty of a "hate crime," and that "people like me" should be in jail. Am I right in thinking this guy is just crazy, or at least a big crybaby?

            A: It’s always a delight for me, as it is for you, Gentle Reader, to find a word for that thing you always see. An example: You know those little things at the end of your shoe laces, you know, the tiny plastic tubes which make it easier to pass the lace through the lace holes? They’re called “aglets.” Is that a WOW or what?

            I was delighted when I stumbled upon an on-line article from Crisis Magazine.[1] As soon as I read the title, I was hooked. It was one of those moments when you say, “At last, I found the name for it!”

            It was an article about the Crybaby Culture.

            When I think of the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), I think that America once set the standard for each; yet today, each is hardly to be found. But Americans are growing soft, turning into crybabies, hypersensitive and flabby, with little of that resilience and toughness which characterized the bold and adventurous founders of this nation. And it’s not just Americans; no, indeed, I have seen it all over Europe the many years I lived there: the Italian party animal, the affeminate Frenchman, the German too afraid to take a position on anything. I found the Spaniards seem to retain some traces of strength; for this and other reasons, among which I do not include the growing atheism and turn towards communism, among the European nations there’s still a smoldering wick of hope in Castilla.

            I don’t need to do a run-down of the manifestations of the Crybaby Culture, for Mr. Shea in his Crisis article waxes more eloquently than I could dare.

            Yet there is one feature which Mr. Shea didn’t have space to develop: that the Crybaby Culture is a particularly violent one. Not violent as a brave soldier, full of discipline and intelligence, fights for his land and family. The Crybaby’s aggression isn’t that of the hero, but that of the bully.

            One of my personal heroes, St. Thomas Aquinas, attributed parts to the virtue of fortitude. Some were “integral,” that is, things that are always in place where fortitude is found; and some where “potential,” that is, other virtues which rank as secondary to the virtue in question.[2] Without descending into the particulars, he discerns that fortitude has these parts: confidence, magnificence, patience and perseverance. These parts serve as four tools which will aid us to figure out what’s wrong with the Crybaby.

            The first part, confidence, is that of the man whose mind is made up and assured, such that no hardship can deter him. The Crybaby enjoys, at least for the moment, a made up mind: he will have it his way, no matter how ignoble, no matter what the costs to others.

            Magnificence escapes him, for his purposes are petty and mean.

            Patience abandons him, for he pouts at the first discomfort to his immediate satisfaction.

            Perseverance is alien to him, for he flickers with each whim and is a slave to his caprice and chaotic passions.

            And so we have the worse side of our Western Culture: incapable of persevering in a marriage, blaming everyone else for his own problems, wanting to imprison or murder when someone hurts his feelings (a particularly severe plague for the gay anti-culture), fighting and crying when one doesn’t “like” something, obsessed with leisure and fashion, obtaining political power by backhanded intrigue and scheming, throwing in the towel when times get tough, and downright effeminate men.[3]

            So grown men become Crybabies when they lack the virtue of fortitude. Grown women, too. Fortitude is cultivated, logically, by retaining confidence in every prudent decision, by stretching forth one’s mind to great things, by patience in adversity, and perseverance in the long run.

            The response of your neighbor leads me to think he is a practicing homosexual, for this is how the militant gay culture works. They cannot prove their case by reasoning, so they bully. And what I have just written shows that bullies lack the virtue of fortitude. The militant gay anti-culture, of course, clearly lacks temperance (for their sexual sins), prudence (for the untenable stance they hold), and justice (for the evils they bring upon the whole society in which they dwell and practice their evils). And as love is the essence of virtue, and they lack every cardinal virtue, we can only hope that the militant gay movement will renounce their perversion in favor of true love of God and neighbor.

            But of course, may the Gentle Reader loose nothing of gentleness while cultivating the cardinal virtue of fortitude. After all, if Crybabies are violent bullies, the strong are renown for their gentility.