A world of marvelously clashing cultures and a need for definition

This season was obviously different for me - my first year celebrating Christmas as a Catholic. Everything revolves around my Catholicism it seems. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between what might be an authentic conversion or the sheer novelty of a new religious landscape. I hope it is a little of both, because a little of both is just the right combination to make sense to the world around me. Spirituality must always have an aesthetic limb, or else it is simply untranslatable to the world around it.

I was able to drag my family along into a midnight Mass with me this year. It went over much better than last year. I am only curious as to what was floating through their minds as we participated in the Mass. I can understand the tension that must exist in their minds. Their awareness of my mind, associated with a separate sort of convictions, must spark a need for them to reconcile with the difference between my beliefs and their own.

At times, the only avoidance of broken relationships is to bull-shit through a conversation by ambiguous abstractions. Unfortunately, my convictions are rooted in articulated stances on what something is and what something isn’t (e.g., what faith is and what it isn’t, what the Church is and what it isn’t, what worship is and what it isn’t…) Not only so, but I am finding an increased ethical obligation to reference concrete points such as these when I am in a conversation. The poetic concepts that may be translated a million different ways by a million different people simply do nothing to help clarify who we are and what we believe as humans, or what SHOULD we believe. As this beautifully multicultural society in America expands more and more through the years, the need for clarity is becoming more imperative as we seek to understand what sort of people we are and what sort of people we should become as inheritors of all these different and diverse cultures and families. A social group that does not seek a category for itself is no group at all, and it deprives humans of a very definitive and objective human aspiration: that aspiration is to define ourselves. The more we seek unity without definition, the more we become sparse, disparate, and alone.

Because of this, our Holidays must have a definition. They must have objective value, and their cultural relevance simply can not be left in the dirt. To define things is not to exclude transcendence. This is why many people hate to confront theological topics or philosophical propositions, because they fear these propositions and arguments have lost the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of human life and God. The element of life which is missed is that life must be defined before it can ever be transcended, or else there is nothing to transcend; such are the attributes we give to humans, God, myth, and religion. Anthropology, theology, and the rest of the sciences can only go too far, and too many people misunderstand that most theologians and scientists understand this. Theologians and other scholars only seek clarity. They want to understand the human condition to help the human condition. We can only begin by defining ourselves against the backdrop of statements that contradict each other. This is the essence of Truth on a conversational scale. It must be referenced, and once something is referenced, it has taken a stance on what it is and isn’t.

Finding Rome through abstractions, metaphors, and prose

Whether I believe all this or not in years to come, I can’t know. I at least know that when I found Her, I was taken by an aesthetic world of wholeness. She gave me the personifications of feminine love at its fullest. I found Eve, my once lost love, once again. I could finally believe in everything. It will always be the fondest memory of mine when looking back at those first moments of trying to talk to my mother and queen, in my room when the lights were finally turned off. My soul needed quietude. I needed silence as I listened for God in the dark, after my day of endless shouting was over.

I was terribly confused that night. I didn’t know what I was praying, because I had not the slightest clue who I was praying to any more. I cried, and I also kind of shivered. It was because I knew my life would not be the same after this night. And it wasn’t. I shook, because my body couldn’t handle the uncomfortable feelings my mind entertained those past weeks. Finally I shattered, and I told Him I was ready to drown. I didn’t really want to live at that moment, because I knew that the landscape for my life was about to be crushed and replaced by a much hated world.

The abstractions were killing me in the weeks before, by confusing questions with answers and answers with distractions. Everyday before this was an abstract trick. Day after day consisted of me telling myself that I was spiritually apart of her, even though I was in protest. It was a terrible delusion.

But everyday after this, I wanted to find the center of Existence. I knew there was a deep well somewhere facing the East, and standing at it was a Divine King; placed next to Him was his Mother and Queen, the Acceptance in Pure Fidelity. Solomon, that first son of David, made his mother the queen of God’s people in the East, and now the new Son of David made his Mother the Queen of the East and the West. The Jewish woman at the first well did not give her will up to God. This one did. And I was soon to find her hiding from having her Child aborted.

I found her in a few muttered words, only half articulate but honest – a half confession really. Then I found her in a string of beads which gave me her whole story and how I was born. She was Eve. She was the Ark. She was the Jewish Queen. She was every word of wisdom spoken of that bore God Himself. She brought me to my King’s birth. I was finally there at a pool of water. It was my birthplace.

Everyday of my life up to this was spent with a friend and a relative. They were brought along in every new thing I discovered and believed. Some things were false, and some were true. But this moment was different, because no one had the same eyes to see it. No one could see it, because their unaesthetic world was so far from any true sense of grandiose beauty in our universe. We all lost the bearing of a Family over our minds. No more incense or paintings or portraits. We lost fidelity, commitment, sanctity, images of femininity, of sacred pictures. The world we had was always reducing itself to something less, in hope of aimlessly finding a fundamental particle we could all eventually call reality or church or community or whatever we needed as home. It couldn’t find it but kept digging further and further and further until it forgot everything that a martyr was, what necessity a Mother’s love had, what aesthetic need a sacred image filled. It was true idolatry. It was the worst of idolatry, because it worshipped itself and its digging, its own exhaustive but endless work. All to tear down… and for what?

And that was where I was no longer, but a world around me was still there, or so it seemed. My new landscape wasn’t because of any specialty I had, no scholarly eye or hand, but because a humble Jewish woman once gave birth to Grace. I was mystically brought into the grandest of plans. It was a family plan, and now it’s called something like a “Natural Family Plan”- always open to new life. It does not prevent birth. It always welcomes it. I used to like writing about myself and my beliefs and theories, but now that choice was surrendered to a plan that would choose to write me into it instead. Goodbye to the land of “Sola this and that!” – a land of shouting, protesting, and chatter where everyone stood alone. I was now to be quiet. I had only to cry and to confess if I was ever going to put my head down on Christ’s breast and rest. For now, I had to rest on Jacob’s rock and spit out the gunk stuck in my rambling mouth.

I did a lot of musing, really. My ears were full of hymns, because I didn’t have the strength to see who was watching me in the most pitiful state I had ever been in. That old world was rotting and loving to rot, and it couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to rot with it. Of course I “lost it”, because I lost what anything ever meant to that old world. And what “lost” meant to that old world did not mean much of anything anymore. There was always a new definition with a form of stapled “unity” around it.

I sat in my room with stacks of explanations of why this new Magisterial Home was going to be my new dwelling, of all the different rooms, especially of the dining table, where we digested our Lamb and our Lord. Our Queen was there of course, because the meals of the Royal Court were not eaten without our Queen. I was in a land of prose now; the rigidity of “just this” and “just that” was the pride of that old world. That was the world of Shakespeare’s old forests, where all who were lost thought they were found. The rebel was the king in those woods, who prided himself in his own starvation and dehydration. He was going to leave the Majestic Home, because the King’s provisions were not his own provisions. He would not stoop so low as to let the Royal Court provide. That was “idolatry”. He would let his God provide for him and for himself alone, and soon all his followers would come together in “standing alone” to form their own kingdoms under that God.

I left and they all watched in bewildered silence as I approached the gate of that Royal City. When I kneeled, they prayed for me. When the gates opened, they turned around. After they gave up their calls, they gave themselves their own explanations and rumored of how I was lured there.

My first meal was not much, because the guards had to strip me of my clothes full of stench and rebellion. They brought me through rooms. The Book of the Feast was placed at the center of the courtyard. It was propped on a gold stand. Parts of the stand were ravaged from the old riot, and there was another copy with pages torn out; the old world took the torn pages with them as they left. Many older citizens had scars in Rome. I found some cleaning the walls of blood stains and pieces of shattered portraits, and they are still being restored today by those faithful enough to keep up the Court.

I still looked out of windows, and my friends saw me with tears in their eyes, out of sincere concern for me. And that’s what hurt me most, because I was hurting for them as they were hurting for me. Our eyes drew in pain when they met. And that’s because there was so much concealed. They could only see the outside: the terrifying walls, arches, and towers. And that was enough to make them hurt for fear of my life. I can only explain so much through dispatched letters, especially when those letters are delivered with a stamp of the Royal guard on the envelope. Too many of my friends won’t open those letters, because of these idolatrous marks; at least, that’s what they still call them.

I lost my old self along time ago, and somehow I lost it quickly. There aren’t many things you can say about such a transition of living conditions. Too much of it gets lost in those trying to translate without any criteria of translation. I just learn to keep quiet and tell them of what plans I have in this new life, but that hurts still. I know this, because this is all I can say without putting up the draw-bridge. There aren’t many sturdy bridges, and if you send a message over, it’s bound to meet with shouts in defense.

Yet at the end of the day, I can only take on the words of one Pope and sing:

“Wherever the Catholic sun does shine
There’s music, laughter, and good red wine
At least I’ve always found it so
Benedicamus Domino!”

That’s the best I can send to those outside, and I only hope they come back Home once again.

Quelling our nervousness and delusions of certainties

When life gets too hectic and too complex for any interpretation of it to quiet my anxiety, it is always refreshing to turn to familiar things and familiar people. It is nice to sit and have a simple chat with my mom, with a cup of coffee in hand at a kitchen table so often associated with a gathering of my closest loved ones. It is not too difficult and does not require much professionalism in psychology or sociology to make an agreeable observation about the homeliness of familiar people and places. It brings a bit of sanity to our lives and a certain faith in consistency.

I’ve been reading through the various articles of The Philosopher’s Magazine the past couple of days. Article after article, one philosopher and rationalist after another, make the continuous and persistent observation that reason is our most useful human outlet to substantive meaning and happiness, while not admitting that this is the one first principle they might need to question. Understandably so, because once you admit the questionability of this unquestionable principle, religious affections come trampling in over that one period in history we all worked so anxiously hard at to achieve. And that’s why they say “Religion poisons everything”, because, undoubtedly, religion does poison everything. Religion is the greatest offense to a system which prides itself in tearing down the one Catholic colossus which stood against the assumed unquestionability of that central principle of reason alone or all those “alones” which liberated man from the tyranny of a tradition of unreasonable first principles.

The rationalist insists that to question everything is the best first principle to begin with when seeking to grind out the sheer beauty of brute facts. There is this intuited acceptance, since Descartes, to first trust reason above all things, to doubt everything, and to trust reason itself even if reason can not, in that ridiculously pure Cartesian sense, entirely get underway. “Of course we can split hairs and doubt to the point of silliness and insanity” says the rationalist, “Descartes’ errors already showed us that. But why should we doubt our first senses and affections if we ever want to eventually arrive at a conclusion?”

And so here we are, standing on the shoulders of some continuum that looks, feels, and smells like a tradition, but we will call it anything but tradition. The very reason why is because that single admittance will bring us back to square one, and the nervousness of pure skepticism rears its head once again. The point is that to quell our anxiety about a world we can not have absolute knowledge of, we always go back to some aesthetic beginning point, because without a first principle that appeals to the human mind, the human mind is in disarray. At this point, the Enlightenment’s search for certainty is as much of a joke as all the first principles it once criticized, when the religious mind was satisfied with a simply reasonable conclusion, and could carry on with life without having to mold the entire universe to the dictates of that little Medieval brain.

This is why Chesterton said, when you tell a Catholic convert he has lost his liberty, he will have a thousand good reasons to laugh. The reason why is because the Catholic intellectual isn’t driven by a nervous obsession with trying to figure everything out. He accepts the insanity of claiming the inability to doubt one’s first principles by the use of “pure reason” or “pure faith”. He also understands that these “pure” predicates are as fanciful as unicorns. As Newman put it, we can have certainty, insofar as certainty amounts to confidence; in that case, certainty is a very good thing to have. The Catholic intellectual can rest assured that his Fathers have answers, and very good ones at that. Tradition is not just something for the Catholic. It’s something for everybody, and it’s a continuum in which everyone operates, whether they acknowledge it or not. And just like the rationalist, there is no good reason to doubt a good principle which has landed in your lap, if you don’t have a good reason to give it up in the first place. The problem is that, after the Enlightenment, or maybe before, all the traditions don’t accept that they are traditions, and now this new identity crisis has produced its own nervousness. This social crisis, in its own special way, is an identity that identifies itself by persistently trying to nullify itself; it’s an age much like a suicidal but unsuccessful bipolar child, by closest analogy. To quiet intellectual nervousness is to recognize the other person’s arms that hold you up, and once you recognize this reality, it’s okay to keep inquiring about the world without worrying about falling.

A Cure for Modern Anxiety: Keeping a Fresh Understanding of Ourselves

Traditionalist criticisms of modern philosophies and the current condition of the modern thinker have often been a bit misguided. Maybe it’s just that modern philosophies tend to carry an air of arrogance about them. Or maybe traditionalists cling to their heritage so much that they refuse to accept the fact that traditions are bound to unfold new values, or newly articulated values anyway. It will be some time for traditionalists to truly grasp the significance of this shift that follows many post-enlightenment tendencies, this idea that man must continuously reflect upon his own rational activity and find direction for himself through his own individual means of reason and personal virtue. We should not have a problem with this simple approach, because it is truly a wonderful gift of modern thought, that man discovered something about his own obligation to find an identity for himself, and that a preconceived notion is never a good one until it is first criticized and disassembled. In this sense, our battles are not with the new upcoming consumers of materialism or the modern existentialists or the new pseudo-Christian movements, but those who do not seek to offer these new groups a clear identity which helps the adherents to understand themselves and enter rational dialogue with the rest of the world.

Nowadays, we hardly attempt reform of the inherited traditions our intellectual forefathers provide us. Instead, we are incessantly seeking to overthrow them. I suppose some of this tendency has to do with our various notions of reform, and much reform has evolved into a form of revolution. I think much of this was true of the Protestant Reformation. Although, I am becoming less convinced that the Reformation was such a pivotally destructive moment in history, I am becoming more convinced that it concluded in nothing less than a revolt against a tradition under the guise of “reforming” tradition. I remember reading a book by Albert Wolters concerning the Protestant notion of reform, and his argument was a plausible one, as far as the definition of what reform should look like. Yet, a revolutionary marking point within the Protestant Reformation turned the entire direction of modern thought on its head by its inevitable conclusion that man’s narrative of himself is one which resolves into the slogan, “Here I stand”. I came across a book written by various Catholic converts who cleverly entitled their book “Their We stood, and Here We Stand.” The shift after the Reformation was from “We” to “I”, but I still suppose this new approach was not such a bad one… The difficulty is finding a consistent identity once we attempt to define ourselves outside arbitrarily adopted norms. The Reformation did not cause such a loss in this sense, because it was precisely Catholic theology of the time that bred this mentality… I suppose such an event was bound to happen, and it was already so that many under the headship of the Church were as apathetic and negligent as the masses are today. And that is another tragedy concerning mankind; most men will always be primarily unreflective and disengaged from intellectual concerns in comparison to the academics who feed them the notions they subscribe to everyday. Luther only gave the masses a new and fresh option. He gave them another opportunity to choose a different context and identity for themselves. And of course they took it. Schismatics always run out of an institution’s doors with at least a handful of followers. Their virtues stand in stark contrast to their previous contemporaries and attract the attention of many minds with good intentions.

That’s how we learn from our past. We must give careful attention to how we develop within our own identified narratives. The criticism should not target the modern schismatic but the way we allow ourselves to breed the schismatic in the first place. Schisms designate a break or inconsistency in the narrative, an immoral character or an inconsistency in the ideals, consequently breeding confusion and revolt. We also fail to provide the option of a new value to unfold before us when we cease to keep our ideas alive and dialogical. This was the Catholic mistake within the 16th century. A big mistake was arbitrary censorship in the Church’s desperate attempt to hold on to her own identity. Although she eventually recollected herself, she suffered many wounds and her foundation was shaken all the way from her marble floors on up to her highest steeples.

So where should the criticism of modern philosophies now lie? It lies within the mentality of much modern academia to offer no consistency of identity and no end that defines what man is and what he should aspire to. Modern thinkers seek to continue to give man an opportunity to continuously break from his inherited identity, but to the point of confusion, if he is not careful. These thinkers offer no guidance in this sense, and it is, perhaps, one value many could adopt from the new materialists, like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, who offer a new materialistic way of life for young and directionless atheists and non-religious. Yet the new materialists are not without their problems either. They resort to the same mistake of too many institutions which seem to lose a foothold or suffer from insecurity; they threaten their followers with the belief that opposing ideas (primarily religious ones) must be excluded from healthy consideration. What will eventually result is mistrust in their fathers who are supposed to guide them toward enlightenment. I personally would predict a significant revolutionary shift in the frame of mind of their current young followers, if they continue to censor these religious reflections. When a tradition loses its rational and dialogical articulation of itself, it resorts to emotive force in hope of resisting breakdown in its system. We must clearly understand our ends, and we must always give answers to the big question we humans too often love to ask, “Why?” When those questions are neglected, we suffer a crisis. Consequently, the dialogues flourishing within our own communities transform into monologues, where certain notions are excluded from reasonable consideration.

Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes of modern thought is to assume that we can operate without subscribing to a system, but it is impossible for us to avoid confusion and anxiety when we do not submit to a consistent system which makes sense to us. When we are always questioning and never giving answers, or when we are never questioning and always giving answers, we lose that necessary binary structure to human inquiry, which must engage questions and attempt to offer clear and consistent answers. No idea is dead until it passes from sensible dialogue. When an idea is prematurely declared dead, we suffer another breakdown and a new directionless generation.

Philosophers, Duchamp, and the “Indie Artist"

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra and some of his other now canonized works, Friedrich Nietzsche often wrote of the philosopher's obligation to “go under” for the sake of man to “go over”. Surrounded by a poetic context of ambiguities, I always had difficulty understanding what the old man meant by this prescription for his modern man. As I grow more and more and develop within this modern social system, however, I begin to see the meaning of these words more clearly.

Nietzsche was a nobody, an eccentric and crippled old man, although quiet and cordial. His night life consisted of nothing much more than sitting in his attic and straining his failing eyes to read his own ramblings poured out on a stack of stale papers. Although pretentiously addressed to the modern age, his writings and essays were intended for nobody. Much of his works were only later to be discovered and published arguably against his will by the only person he ever acknowledged to truly know him, his most beloved sister.

And what is strikingly fascinating about this reclusive man, whose most definitive social context probably consisted of his very own fantasies he autonomously constructed for himself, was that he gave modern man something much more than modern man ever gave to him. This certainly is very distinct about Nietzsche’s gift to our modern age. Yet, what is more distinct is his shaping of the new identity of the philosopher and modern artist. Giving man a pattern and an image to replicate was nothing much different than philosophers before him, but the nature of his self-prescribed task was certainly much different.

Whenever I reflect on Nietzsche’s above words, I can not but think of the general sacrifice philosophers make for every age, and especially this one, when philosophers largely go unrecognized and unappreciated. At least for our time, there will never be another celebrity like Hume or Kant. The intellectual celebrity is now the physicist, biologist, politician, or the psychologist.

So I think of Marcel Duchamp and immediately reflect on his piece, Fountain. For Duchamp’s world, and even the Society of Independent Artists, this work was nothing more than a urinal plopped down in the middle of an art gallery. Yet, we can not now avoid associating this piece with initial rejection, only to be followed up by universal recognition in years to come. Again, it is the same way with various experimental music artists who sometimes carry that title: “Indie”. When I now think of Nietzsche, I am tempted to bring in a primary task recognized in both the contemporary Indie artist and Marcel Duchamp. From separate angles and utilizing different language-games, all three of these aesthetic figures contribute to the formation of the ambiguous and abstract identity of modern man. The very hopeful and now greatly needed task of these aesthetes is to offer a new possible doorway, a pond of disparate and fragmented tunes, colors, and values, only to be recognized or rejected… And that is why it is a sacrifice. I think of the work of experimental bands like Radiohead, Animal Collective, or the Pixies… Such bands have all offered a pond of abstractions and something terrifying but original to the music scene, often to be criticized or receive, at best, a pat on the head by mainstream critics. Their job is to off-set the pattern, in the desperate hope of setting a new one. The difference between such pioneers as these and some figures such as Coldplay or Dave Matthews is that such artists have rested on the pioneering sacrifice of the more obscure and experimental bands. The former sacrifice is the trial and error for the latter’s recognition as art.

It is this element that Nietzsche, Duchamp, and the experimental artist share. They do not serve the audience but the voice which will be recognized by the audience, and, occasionally, they themselves will be the object of recognition. Nietzsche seemed to imply that original thought would require a deposit of that thinker’s identity; the pioneer of the age submerges himself in a sea of ambiguity. The potential tragedy is that he may not emerge. His baptism is determined by his surroundings. The philosopher offers a concept or maybe a few concepts, only to be adopted or trampled and never be discovered again. This is his “going under” only to hope that man will “go over”.

Wittgenstein wrote that man is an endless resource for possible values and intended ends. More particularly, it is the rejected philosopher and artist who offer this resource. It is up to the rest of mankind to choose what characteristics and values to draw from these resources. And it is not that such men and voices who choose to replicate and embody these characteristics are scum; it is only that they are in a different kind of work. For the philosopher, his voice becomes the theologian and scientist who consume and re-package his ideas for the world. For the Indie music artist, it is the “pop” or “mainstream” artists, as almost every modern artist seems currently to relate to Duchamp.

There is probably not a single philosophy student unfamiliar with that obnoxious question: “and what are you gonna do with THAT degree??” But if it were not for the philosopher’s general apathy in desiring to answer that question, we would not be studying philosophy. The philosopher’s job is much less trivial than gathering an audience or making a recognized living for himself. His job is to sacrifice his thoughts, which are everything to him; they are, essentially, his identity. And that is his intimidating and sometimes despairing task. Modern thinkers and artists are often too heavily criticized as arrogant or too abstract, but they are sometimes perceived this way because they do not work within the patterns set for them. They work to define those patterns. Nietzsche defined modern man. Duchamp defined the modern artist. Their deposit is their sacrifice, and their exposure to ridicule is their gamble.

A brief thought on words and the Word

The uniqueness of words has been a topic of particular interest with me lately. Not too long ago I spoke with some Christian friends who claimed to not read many other books than Scripture. At that moment, besides being unable to entirely believe their testimony, the nature of script sparked a thought on the human responsibility to read.

The script is special in its own way, in that it pulls us along with it. Script articulates what was previously inarticulate. It clarifies the otherwise ambiguous world around us and interprts the wonder of other objects for the mind to exercise its intelligibility. I find it fascinating that I can not find myself truly "thinking" without conversing, or, at least, without articulating. So if the words of man are culminated in the Word, as St. John and St. Paul tell us again and again, what does this say about our obligation to familiarity with words, with script? If Christ came in any other form (say, an aesthetically pleasing idea) he would be merely an object, nothing more than the inarticulate other... one of Plato's Forms perhaps... But he would not be Revealed in a way that the understanding may grasp Him as the culmination of all written wisdom.

Contemporary Forms of Natural Law and Clarity in Dialogue

I am reading a book right now by J. Budziszewski called What We Can't Not Know. Budziszewski is a Natural Law theorist. Although I enjoy many of his arguments in favor of the Natural Law tradition, I am not always sold by his criticisms of our modern culture and philosophical disciplines. Along with many other contemporary Natural Law theorists, I find myself a little flustered when reading many of the mainstream and seemingly straw-man criticisms he offers. When I was reading Charles Taylor's book, Ethics of Authenticity, I greatly appreciated the line he drew between what he called "boosters" and "knockers". The "boosters" are often the "progressive" types, the typically unreflective pioneers of modern society, militantly ready to usher in the new morality and stomp out the regressive morals of the evil conservatives and fundamentalist types. Then there are the "knockers". I like to picture them as old men in rocking chairs (because they refuse to use "indulgently luxurious modern ones") who negatively project a model of our contemporary western society. Instead of identifying the good and the bad within the model, they, in an often roundabout way, demonize the whole model and suggestively condemn it to the flames. They offer criticisms that would typically only work if we largely eradicated our focuses in psychological interests, technology, and our fascination with new forms of entertainment such as movies, music, and television. While my sympathies are often with them to a relative extent, I sometimes wonder how they ever plan on engaging the cultures and the public square while demonizing these new canonized forms of communication and platforms of dialogue. Budziszewski often follows this tendency, as well as beating the seemingly dead horse of "relativism" and "the culture of feelings", which I hope to explain, is missing the bigger picture. With our new obsessions with the above interests and social tools (e.g., Dr. Phil, television, video games, and psychology, etc.,) and our popular tendency to approach any "opinion" based issue as one that can only be relative to each individual, I understand where he is coming from. However, offering the only option of rooting out these dispositions and tendencies is not going to happen, and, essentially, only takes a surface look, ignoring deeper isssues which give rise to them.

Taylor's right. Confronting our moral dilemmas by attempting to resurrect some ancient or medieval golden age is not a realistic approach to a much needed dialogue between the educated and uneducated, the atheists and theists, the religious and non-religious, the conservatives and liberals... The point is that our society has found new forms of communication, new forms of dialogue (e.g. an emphasis on mutual fairness btw. opposing positions), new forms of identity (e.g., individualism), and we must learn to value and cherish these achievements and new emphases. To attempt to bring an old system back, perhaps a system where book reading is the primary source of information, in the way many of the knockers have approached these issues, is to throw our society into even more confusion. We can not simply attempt a shotgun approach at re-introducing conservative values by merely presenting a community with either/or options (e.g., the old way or the current), but we must learn to take the dialogical steps in illuminating these imporant values, learning to understand ourselves as well as our opposing voices. Dialogue is a rediscovered value that has been greatly emphasized by our current generation of philosophers, and it's a vehicle that would not hurt all of us to hop on. Traditional values do not have to come in a package delivered by a horse and carriage, and contemporary ones do not have to ride in on 2 door coupes either. We should learn to work within this dialogical framework if we are ever going to simultaneously sympathize with other positions and articulate ours.

Obviously we should trace our steps and identify where we have failed. Unfortunately, we have developed an obsession both with epistemic certainty and the centrality of the individual after Descartes entered the picture, and we may have very well failed in our obsessions with epistemic certainty. The problem is, however, we are where we are, and to mature past these immature obsessions is practically a long way away (but not out of the picture).

The modern westerner wears Cartesian spectacles. We do not have to teach him that these are necessarily bad spectacles, however. After all, to assume that they are is to fall into the same error we criticize progressives for: a fundamental assumption that our way is and must be the canonized way toward human freedom. To assume we can not bring about change while still viewing our world through Cartesian lenses (that is, "through a search for certainty") is to assume that we have found the end of the road already. After moving through Descartes to Kant to the Existentialists, we have arrived at a point where discussion and clarity between two positions is vital to a philosophical understanding of ourselves. It is my belief that never in human history has dialogue been so heavily emphasized, and it is truly a wonderful gift that modern westerners have discovered and learned to cherish. The philosophical breakdown of the old way that arose with Descartes and the Reformation did not begin with Descartes and the Reformation, however. Part of the problem was due to an inarticulate communication between the educated aristocracy and the lower class. Yet now we have understood the importance of articulation and dialogue between parties, especially in multicultural circles. Perhaps it is time to give an ear to the multiculturalists, the intellectual representatives of the homosexual communities, the intellectual liberals, and engage those willing to engage us if we are ever going to recollect ourselves. It is my conviction that this is the most practical, articulate, and reasonable first step for our current Natural Law theorists to take on the road to morality.

The latest American dim witted reason for not voting for a politician: "he's too old"... I wonder what the statistics are for that one.

Play, Conflict, and Moral Character

About a week and a half ago I was attending and assisting with the Lindenwood philosophy conference on the American decentralist tradition. Political philosophy has never quite grabbed me the way philosophical disciplines like ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and theology have, and I suppose much of this personal disinterest is a failure to see where all the nuts and bolts connect political philosophy to the latter disciplines. James Schall particularly helped me with this one, and many of these answers were hiding in the very title of his book I just recently finished: “The Unseriousness of Human Affairs”. Yet I think we could dig a little deeper than “human affairs” and illuminate human nature as an even finer focus, at least to make sense of connections between something like ontology and political philosophy.

I think, more than anything, the tension between ontology (the study of being and essences) and political philosophy and the complexity of the relationship between the two has engaged as well as frustrated my reflections. Nevertheless, Schall’s insight into this matter, however unintentional it may be, has particularly helped me identify the internal links between internal and external human affairs, for ex., how virtue might shape a character and how human character shapes executive decisions concerning political and governmental affairs. If intellectuals and philosophers are ever going to understand the relevance of political philosophy to the politically disengaged individual, we must understand the necessary connections between politics and human nature.

I would bet that there isn’t a more popular topic for our century in politics than war and not a more popular subject within the past decade for philosophers than dialogical conflict within the public square. But Schall hits beneath the surface. The most fundamental beginning point of a conflict, he suggests, is not on the battlefield or even in public forums. The primary source of conflict, resides in the minds and hearts of human beings during their leisure time, a topic I focused on in my previous entry. Conflict originally arises from a free choice, but once the choice has been made, necessity follows. It’s not so easy to repair hazards which arise necessarily, but it might be easier to curb the conflict if we can confront the human when he is perceived and perceives himself to be the most free, during his leisure time. In that moment we are faced with an obligation to make a responsible choice which forms our character, which in turn, influences our future decisions under the public eye and effects the world around us. This topic of leisure might be a pivotal bridge between the essence of human nature and the purpose of human government and politics. Leisure is when we find ourselves to be most free, to engage in activities which are often simply done for themselves as an end in themselves. And once we open this arena, theology, religion, and all those other out-of-fashion topics to discuss among philosophers become all the more pertinent to discuss.

At this point, virtue becomes important; moral development becomes important, and the shaping of the personal character of the philosopher becomes his primary task. The other night, a very insightful cousin of mine pointed out that conflicts which arise from semantic confusion are not essentially semantic at all. They are essentially misunderstanding and a failure on both sides to clarify and articulate. And a quote from Pope Benedict couldn’t be more relevant here, "The 'best hypothesis' which, to be accepted, requires that man and his reason 'give up their position of dominance and take the risk of humbly listening.'" An unwillingness to listen has the individual turned in upon his own reasoning or faith. We can only be more careful in our consideration of how much blood is actually on our hands. Selfishness and pride really do murder lives.

Excellence in leisure and the life lived in peace and enjoyment

It is refreshing to be able to relax and have time to myself this summer, and I am reading the perfect book for leisure time, The Unseriousness of Human Affairs by Fr. James Schall. He is a professor at Georgetown, a priest, and a hell of a good writer. It is also very nice to receive a dose of Aristotelian ethics and teleology when one is unsure of how to balance contentment and productivity in one’s leisurely activities. We always have much to plan for but we also have much room for character development.
Schall is very good at arguing for the true status of war in society. His emphasis is that we should most often be concerned with how we condition ourselves while we are not overtly in battle. The essence and true meat of war take root in the home and in the public square, not on the battlefield. Yet, it is a marvel to me that we would rather obsess over federal concerns while our moral frameworks are rotting out from under our own homes. Well, I’ll be honest, it is not really a marvel… given our human tendency to obsess over other people’s mistakes, economic band-aids, and political scapegoats, only to direct our attention from our own grime and grease in our own garages.
But Aristotle and Plato understand free activity outside of our sometimes degrading bureaucracy, and Schall illuminates the importance of excelling at this free activity quite succinctly. Schall offers Aristotle’s belief, “to play is to contemplate” (“Tudere Contemplari” ?), as a metaphysical structure to all of our free activity, that is, activity that does not have to be done, activity that is not a must, as one would be if one was in a state of war or in a capitalist work machine. When we are not in a state of war, we act as we choose, not as we must. If we can act as we choose, this is an expression of true human freedom, and to choose to act excellently is perhaps the freest of human activity. Why? Because, to act excellently is to fulfill the virtue of being truly human, and a most intelligible and good action is seen to tend toward good goals and productive effects. That is, we are shaped, fulfilled, and appreciated by virtue of the final causes of our free activity. Thus, when we are not in the workplace, in the factory, or on the battlefield, we should choose our activity wisely, responsibly, and attentively. A good politician is a good mother or father, and a good school teacher is a good parent. Why? Because we are shaped by habits, by the choice of our habits, and our choice of how we perform those habits. Yet, we do not do this for utilitarian ends. We do this as an enjoyment in and of itself. Our activity should be appreciated for what it is, because every second and ounce of it performed is good. Therefore, “Evil for good” is a farce. Some Hegelian form of enslavement for the sake of freedom is not honorable, because such things are not good as ends in themselves. They present a future image of “good” and that is all. Not only so, but they obsess and work over time to make goodness and assure that goodness is brought about. They are fundamentally self-absorbed.
These are great concepts for a starving society. I look forward to more of this book.

A little glimpse into Obama's point of view

I don’t know what’s more beautiful right now: Barack Obama’s face or this bird’s eye view of a white sandy beach in Panama City. I think I might favor the latter, but if I was in lighter spirits… maybe the former.

Because of my usual inattentiveness in the political scene, I’ve recently obligated myself to do a little homework for the upcoming election. I chose to take a focus on Mr. Obama this morning.

Obama is taking his campaign to very popular levels, and the American public seems to like what it sees. My primary concern is with the aesthetic surface which seems to blind our insight into the deeper issues which carry serious ethical consequences. While reading a couple of articles on Obama’s strategies linked from the CNN site this morning, some frightening key words struck me while reading thes predominantly optimistic portrayals of Obama’s political and economic goals. Within a democratic context, I often feel a slight shudder as I come across words like “unity” “equality” “federal” “fairness” “practicality” etc. And there is nothing wrong with these little words given in other settings, environments, and contexts. However, when you hear them from a democrat, it tends to carry naïve shades of socialism. My fear is too much ethical regulation placed in the hands of a few short-sighted politicians. Obama has a strong affection for the lower class, underprivileged minorities, and, refreshingly, the elderly. His affections are in the right place, but he reminds me too much of Jane Austen’s character, Harriet; he does not always see past these immediate affectionate pulls or at least the bigger landscape they could point him to. The problem might lie in his claim to have an economic plan aimed at “what works” rather than “ideology” (a common polarization within our society). I think Obama might be thinking too much like a politician and less like an ethicist on this matter. With more federal regulations, tax breaks for lower income workers, and more federally moderated trade, it’s not only a slap in the face to our founding fathers, it’s a slap in the face to human freedom. Now I’m not one to equate liberty with license, but when CEO’s and other upper class individuals are treated like pawns to boost a more favored class of people, human individuals are no longer treated like human individuals and more like manipulated objects for a few economic strategists. Obama does hit some soft spots with me, but he doesn’t seem to be saying anything new or foreign… a little too much centralized control if you ask me.

And so the race begins...

Obama wins the democratic nomination.

Beginning the Summer with Scott Hahn

Scott Hahn has grabbed my heart with this one just like he did with Rome Sweet Home. A Father Who Keeps His Promises is a book for every American Catholic lay person to read. Perhaps the most important reason is that contemporary Catholics are starved from covenantal theology and most couldn't tell you the first thing about what a covenant is in the first place. But if Scott softened you up with the above book, he'll certainly help you connect that ripened sentiment with solid theology in this one.

Hahn's not afraid to dig back into some healthy Reformed Protestant resources as he surveys the whole redemptive narrative in the Old and New Testament. He also has a way of marrying these Reformed references with pure Catholic doctrine, and he has a knack for stretching the hasty Protestant stopping points to the proper Catholic ends, primarily hitting on the synthesis of the physical and the spiritual and the need for a physically revealed heavenly Church.

It's a great way to ground my summer as I begin to take some flights into abstract philosophy.

Catholic unity beyond the veil of American fellowship

May the Lord bless those who have lost themselves to gain a stronger unity for the rest of us...

Within the past couple of weeks my mom and I have developed a closer bond than we have had in the recent past, at least within the past few years. She attended Mass with me at St. Joseph, a parish that offers a more contemporary environment for contemporary suburbanites such as ourselves. As much as I grumble and complain about contemporary structures in celebrations of the Mass, I’ve learned that the Mass is simply the Mass, and whatever song or liturgical form present in that particular celebration, Christ is still present, no matter how much we subconsciously attempt to chase the aesthetic depth of the celebration out. I suppose that’s a different topic for a different time, but it takes a turn into larger considerations, such as unity and substance, which are a more relevant concern for me here.

There is a legitimate irritation my mom shares with a good portion of the rest of my Protestant friends, and that’s the Catholic Church’s exclusion of non-Catholics from partaking in the Eucharist. It’s an age-old concern, and that is no exaggeration. It literally extends to the first age of the Church.

I don’t remember his name, but there was a priest on EWTN the other day who shared his homily concerning the Corpus Christi (i.e. Body of Christ), a celebration within our liturgical calendar this week. The crux of his message concerning the divergence between Protestants and Catholics on this issue is a matter of approach. I suppose there has been too much ink spilled and too many arguments unleashed without any consideration of these primary differences in perspectives. It’s time we give closer attention to the manner in which we speak of Communion; it’s precisely here where the mix up and confusions begin. From the confusions arise misunderstandings, and misunderstandings on both sides are bound to foster a state of consistent conflict between Catholics and non-Catholics. The difference is in perspective of “unity”, that is, what “unity” entails for Catholics and non-Catholics, and what the Eucharist communicates within that context.

To be quite honest, my belief is that American Catholics should be more careful in the way they speak of Communion. Catholics in the States are so concerned with a superficial “getting-along” rather than pursuing true ecumenical dialogue, that we are too scared to call our Communion holy, and most often we don’t even speak of the Eucharist when talking about Communion. And why? Because too many Catholics are told that being “orthodox Catholic” is out-of-date, and to be in with the crowd, it’s time to start talkin’ like a good ol’ American Protestant. Instead of talking about hierarchy, the Papacy, the “Eucharist”, Purgatory, and all those other fancy orthodox terms, it’s time we start dumbing things down to reach people. Unfortunately, with watering down the terminology, we assume that it is nothing more and nothing worse than simply making the terms more friendly. What we often forget is that when we compromise the terminology, we compromise the true reality the terminology designates, and we consequently lose an accurate perception of that reality. Words are like the entry way to a room, and you can’t access the room without having a door to get there. Too much of our conventional speech locks the door to that room. It’s the same reason why the Tower of Babel was a great misfortune in human history. Dialogue is built on clarity, and clarity needs specificity. Or else we get nowhere. We just build competing towers of grandeur within our own isolated cities.

It is because of this very unfortunate phenomenon that Catholics have lost their integrity before the Protestant community, and the Protestant community is understandably left with the assumption that Catholics really do believe in Communion the same way they do; so why aren’t they letting them in? Good question, if communion’s just about spiritual fellowship, and primarily about spiritual unity, then why ARE we excluding Protestants from Our Lord’s Table. Our EWTN priest put it this way, “Protestants see communion as a MEANS to unity, while Eastern Orthodox Christians and the Catholic Church see Communion as the FRUIT of an already complete unity.” It’s our belief that this unity within the Body of Christ, the Body of Christ being a phrase St. Paul specifically uses to designate a PHYSICAL unity among believers, is a complete and accurate sign of this true unity, and that spiritual unity is simply not enough, or better yet, is not true unity because it lacks a primary element of our Redemptive narrative, the physical realm, Christ in the Flesh. St. Augustine made it clear when he said that “schismatics” (or dissenters) are not with us in true and genuine “love, although they agree in essential matters”, because they are not in union with the Church “descended from St. Peter.” Now whether or not one believes in the Petrine Succession is beside the point, as much as St. Augustine defended this Succession. The point is that Catholics have always believed the true Church to be as much a physical reality as it is a spiritual one; you can’t have the truly spiritual without the truly physical, and vice versa. We say that for the same reason that you can’t have Christ without his full physical and divine nature. That was the purpose in defending the Church doctrine against the old Nestorian heresy. You have Christ as fully human and fully divine or you don’t have Him at all. That is why we must “chew” (in Our Lord’s words) on His Flesh and drink of His Blood or we are eating and drinking “condemnation” on ourselves (in the words of St. Paul). Holy Communion for Catholics is just that, “Holy”. As beautiful and joyous of a revelatory festival it is at the Lord’s Table, it’s not time for fun, food, and fellowship. It’s time for deep reflective and contemplative unity with the Holy Trinity by partaking of the Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ together with the full, complete, and physical community of the Christian Faithful, being one “as He and the Father are one” (following the prayer for His Church during the Agony in the Garden).

Anyway, just a thought from the Catholic side of the fence...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/24/beck.oil.prices/index.html

Beck's a refreshing voice every now and then; his thoughts on economic policies are a bit rash but frank. Perhaps that's what we need right now. Too many politicians are concerned with the petty finger pointing.

Although our environmental concerns should be a chief focus, it seems we can not make the small steps toward environmental improvement without first stabilizing the resources which pave the way for that improvement.

Wright and a respect for the human person

Reverend Wright voiced another cry in front of a room of ten thousand at an annual NAACP conference today. The tension right now in this country between black and white Americans most often subsists behind the curtains; it's in the silence of our gestures, in our misunderstandings, and our hands covering our mouths after a slightly politically incorrect statement about the other race, and particularly black Americans. I am not as concerned right now with the issues confronted or the controversial and racial words potentially spoken by Rev. Wright, but what I can not ignore are my sympathies for this man and the pain I sense in the one voice he represents.

The white man's ear in this country is not quite attuned to the rhythm of the black man's songs, and I believe this ufamiliarity with African American culture is and has damaged a much needed conversation between blacks and whites. Wright's statements may have been offensive, and as much as he defends them as "descriptive" rather than "divisive", I am not entirely sold. But that is beside the point. Two scores and a century is not a long time for a culture to heal from a heritage marked by suffering through dehumanization. And the black poets of the early 20th century had it right when they identified the African-American culture with a mask it was forced to wear in order to hide its tears, being excluded from the fellowship of the rest of mankind. And two scores and a century wasn't a definitive point; African Americans have struggled for social recognition for a much longer time after their emancipation. There voice has been stifled, and their status as human beings has gradually been bought at the expense of their own tears and blood.

The media's obsession with Wright right now might open the door for more dialogue between blacks and whites. In order for the dialogue to continue, however, a posture to listen, as much as it is often tongue-in-cheek, has to be adopted by white Americans. Our responsibility is not to point to African American failures in voicing themselves ethically and soberly. Dialogue always demands an identification of the origin and end, and to arrive at an understanding of why the African American fist was raised and why it is still up in the air demands a sensitivity to be willing to understand, however much it fails in articulation.

The forms of expression are often offensive, loud, and obtrusive, but the form can not obviate our attention to the substantive issues at hand. Human identity survives through its cultural and social recognition, and it is one of our greatest duties to ensure the recognition of this identity. Whether or not we believe this "suffering" is self inflicted or a way of placing the responsibility on white Americans, it does not detract from the fact that black Americans are and have been hurting, regardless of where they place the blame. Even if their words are presently offensive, their words can not be divorced or castrated from where those words find their origin, the human tongue. And that is where our sympathy must begin, a respect for the dignity of human beings and human expression, and a willingness to see that dignity preserved. You can't separate the "drum from the drummer", and the drumming will not always be perfect. If we want a better tune, we have to attend the suffering human voice.

It's the 6th Sunday of the Easter season, and I am three weeks away from finally graduating with my B.A. in philosophy. The philosophy papers are keeping my mind off of graduation day, but hopefully the final products are rewarding.

It is looking like I'll be an uncle of three by autumn. Bryce will be four this August, and Laura just announced the expected arrival of another one in November. Rachael (my oldest sister) is also pregnant with her first, and I believe Rachael's ticket is for September. My plans are to stay with my mom this next year, and I will begin applying for graduate schools in the summer. Mom has been a tremendous help in reducing any unneeded stress through my ups and downs, so that's partially why I stay here. She and Joe are still dating, and Joe's quite the gentleman. Hopefully he'll stick around. My dad has not been doing well; thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. I hope to soon see him climb out of the struggles he's been dealing with. The divorce still seems to have a fresh effect on him. It is sometimes frustrating to notice a lack of healing progress in his emotional state, but I am sure the endured pain will foster development in his character. It hurts to sense bitterness in loved ones, and it's hard to maintain loving relationships with them when selfishness clouds our perception of them as dignified people. "Human dignity" was the echo I continued to hear in the air when Pope Benedict was in town; the tough part is channeling those echoes into practice.

Since my Confirmation in May, my religious focuses have primarily been on in-house ministries. I'm hoping to be an RCIA instructor next fall and also help with our youth group and Jr. High catechism courses. Father Benedict and the Holy See seem to be taking a turn toward more grounded education for Catholics in the States, so hopefully we will find a well-spring of desperately needed spiritual and intellectual growth in the Church in America. For this reason, it has been difficult for me to consider leaving for graduate school. I may take a more domestic focus and remain here to help at St. Peter (my parish). Many of the members of this church are intellectually and religiously mature, but many others could use a nudge or two.

Well, that's the vision I have scoped out for now. The love of Christ, His Church, His Mother, and those around me will have to keep me sane as the scenery changes.

Gilson and the Return to Holistic Philosophy

Etienne Gilson has restored the dignity of medieval thought for a world of philosophers numbed by the noise of directionless philosophy. For a good portion of the past couple of years, I have struggled with and even despaired over the disconnection between my philosophical and religious sympathies. I have never truly been too definitive about the relationship between these two as of recent, and my intellectual attractions have taken divergent paths in many cases.

It is remarkable how philosophers can write off another viewpoint and steal our sympathies with no more than a few strokes of a pen. If we are not attentive enough, we can surrender our ideas for the mere attraction of another at the drop of a hat. It is also seemingly fitting that such a phenomenon occurs when a targeted philosopher is no longer alive and able to apply his system in the form of a defense against a certain critique. Within a few sentences Plato has dropped from his great heights and replaced by the empirical achievements of Aristotle.

In reflecting on the past achievements of philosophical theory, I am awed by the variety of contesting views which still have not, by any means, achieved conclusive victory today. We are still bickering, and sometimes managing to debate directly and intelligibly, over the same epistemological and ontological confusions. Scientists and theologians are both competing against each other to rob philosophy for themselves. Materialists emerge, pass away, and resurrect once more. Metaphysicians take their stand before another scientist arrives and accuses them of building “castles in thin air”, and we are back to the closed system of the Pre-Socratics. Materialism has its reign once more. When we forget history or grow numb to reflection, we are vulnerable to yet another destructive path. To look back at philosophical history, it’s an endless and tiresome cycle.

For this reason, I like to stick to the origins of thought (including myth) and remain faithful to the heritage which blooms from these thoughts. I don’t like getting caught up in the mess of forgetful, unreflective, and aimless deconstructions. They don’t often succeed at providing mankind with any ethical development or air to breathe after they’ve rushed in and out and completed their work. This is my concern with much skepticism. Of course, there is an ounce of skepticism which is fundamentally useful as there is an ounce of every philosophical method which is fundamentally useful. It’s when a useful method takes on the form of a school of thought that it destroys its own original and proper function. When the skeptic and the logician step outside their respective context and take on an “ism” for themselves, they achieve nothing more than biting their own tail.

What I appreciate about Thomas Aquinas was his endeavor to gather and synthesize all the great thoughts which survived up to his time. Nothing good and useful for the intellect was left out of his philosophy. All the distinct branches of academic thought are gathered and organized into their respective positions. He had an eye for everything and a mind that rejected nothing. He never intended to be a skeptic, an Aristotelian, a metaphysician, a “this” or a “that”, but a gatherer and a philosopher. He did not have the pretentiousness to pose as anything more than a man of common sense, and for that reason he was disposed to everything availably true.

The greatest struggle we have today is returning to this stability, and every thinker tries a hand at “making sense” of the world. This is nothing less than a backward motion, because you can’t begin by trying to “make sense”. You can only be sensible. The world becomes absurd when we try to “make” it. We can not make it into anything it’s not, and it is this attitude we must avoid when beginning to philosophize. The world of sense requires sensible people who do not clog any pathways of intuition. It’s the people who seek this or that route and surrender all the others at the expense of that one passage who grasp only a portion of the world and mistake that portion for the totality of the whole thing. They’re bound to whirl themselves into confusion.

Too many theologians, physicists, and poets begin as theologians, physicists, or poets, and forget to first be men, as Hume put it. This is why mass amounts of people have suffered at the hands of irresponsible thinkers. Hegel began and left us with nothing but absurdity. Sartre directed the off-tune choir of complainers. The positivists gave us nothing but deduction about nothing. Now, we are left to the whims of a few physicists who have understandably and unwittingly projected materialist theory as fact. They have kicked out every leg of the thinking chair except one and have told us that we must learn to balance ourselves on that one leg alone. Philosophy can’t be done this way.

Wittgenstein and Clarity

Ludwig Wittgenstein opens his book, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus with the words: "The world is everything that is the case." Wittgenstein's epistemological attitude is unsettling at times, because he often seems to reduce all of reality into a heap of logical syllogisms. I am not far in this book to make too many judgments, and I have read and heard statements about Wittgenstein that seem largely up for controversy. Hence, I will steer clear from making too many critical statements as to the structure of the system he uses in this book.

I can say I admire Wittgenstein for his criticism of ambiguous speech and the detriment this brings to philosophical discourse, however. For Wittgenstein, most, if not all, of the confusion in philosophy is due to statements which do not clearly paint a relatable picture of reality, and that is due to the syntactical equipment we use in explaining reality. Our grammatical structure, in other words, should translate the experience we receive in perception of an object as honestly and clearly as possible. We can, in this sense, see, experience, and sense the world in logical syllogisms, because logic makes the world relatable and, more appropriately, intelligible.

Many brands of subjectivist thinking have seeped through our daily decisions in inspiring us to make decisions based on the idea that the world is only intelligible in relation to our autonomous projection of it. We can project whatever we want on the world to make it our own personal work of art without any necessary regard for social norms. In other words, we've lost the rules. In the West, the understanding of a "personal goal" seems to be commonly accepted as a goal strictly associated with the individual making it, and the goal itself should be subject to the individual's boundless desires and dreams. Thus, "personal" becomes identical with "individual", and "individual" is fundamentally defined outside the boundaries or regulations of any society or context.

Clarity is a problem not only reserved for grammatical discussions for English students. Failure to be clear fosters a nest of disasters waiting to happen to just about every average Joe. One of the reasons why philosophers stress the need for being precise in our logic and the language we use within those logical systems is often because they foresee an ethical dilemma on the horizon (which I'll try to explain). And why do philosophers get into a tizzy about all these petty little abstract ideas that seem to have no relevance to everyday life? Because the ideas we are working with are linked to a chain of other ideas which, if not handled with the utmost delicacy and clarity, can have a domino effect on everyone else's daily decisions (e.g. fast food, how to spend money, where to enjoy family time). In an intermediate, nevertheless, essential way, philosophers have entire societies and individual lives in their hands. And that is not an overly dramatic statement to make. We think within rational terms, and philosophers, logic being their chief science, are concerned with being clear, precise, and, in the end, thinking rightly about the world. Precision in logic and language (which we use to translate logic) can contribute tremendously to our understanding of ourselves and our relations to others. Confusing language and sloppy logic fosters misunderstanding, misunderstanding often fosters aggravation, and aggravation fosters violence. Perhaps a stronger focus on clarity in language, mapping out contexts in which we can relate to each other intelligibly, is a good we can gather from many logical reductionists.