Friday, January 05, 2007

Points to Ponder:
(On the Use of Force)

[O]ur main problems are not too much force, but too little. A peaceful world is not a world with no ready forces but one with adequate, responsible, and superior force that is used when necessary. The failure to have or use such forces causes terror and war to grow exponentially. Unused force, when needed at a particular time and place, ceases to be force. But force is meaningless if one does not know that he has an enemy or how this enemy works and thinks. That latter is a spiritual and philosophical problem, not a technical one. Many an adequately armed country has been destroyed because it did not recognize its real enemy. Nor is this an argument for force "for force's sake." It is an argument for force for justice's sake. I am not for "eternal peace," which is a this-worldly myth, but for real peace of actual men in an actual and fallen world. Peace is not a goal, but a consequence of doing what is right and preventing what is wrong and, yes, knowing the difference between the two. [Fr. James V. Schall, SJ]
On Genuine Peace and the Role of Force:
(Dialogue With Nate Wildermuth)

The post I am responding to with this thread is viewable here. Nate's words will be in purple colored font and where he quotes my words they will be italicized. Any sources I cite will be in darkblue font and any sources Nate cites will be italicized.

From Rerum [Novarum], what is probably an unintentionally idol-ridden prayer devoted to the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Let's dig in:

I should note starting off that about half of the prayer was taken from the site I linked to at the start of the thread Nate makes reference to in his posting.

Father, hold our soldiers in your loving hands. Keep them from spiritual and bodily harm. Place them under the protective mantle of our Blessed Mother Mary and send St. Michael and the holy angels before them in every danger. Give them and their families courage, strength and hope. Remember in your mercy all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and security of others both recently and in years past. We have in mind with this petition those who are lost their lives on 9/11 and in the current fight against religious zealotry much as in years past who fought the monsters of totalitarian communism and its twin leftist scourge fascism. With special mention we implore your mercy and the intercession of the entire heavenly cohort for those who died at Pearl Harbour sixty-five years ago today and those who gave their lives in that heroic conflict. In your mercy, grant peace to all your children in every nation on earth. We praise you and thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.

That is the full text of what I posted prayer-wise yes. Probably at this time, it should be best to note that Nate appears to me to be what is called a "conscientious objector" with regards to the subject of war in general. I have not written much on the subject of conscientious objectors on this weblog so my view on them may not be known. For that reason, recourse to the archives to explain my view will be done at this time:

I have respect for conscientious objectors...while having *no* respect for the Moveon.org crowd. The difference between the two is the difference between legitimate difference of opinion and sedition. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa February 5, 2004)]

And though I have erred at times in presuming certain persons were conscientious objectors who ended up later showing their hands as marxist-promoting seditonists, I nonetheless prefer to err on the side of generosity in this area for reasons which hopefully are obvious. For that reason, I want to make it eminently clear at the outset that I see nothing in what I have read of Nate's writings to give me reason to presume that he is anything but what he says he is. Having noted that at the outset, let us interact with his critique of my Pearl Harbour prayer.

Before reading anything I write, you'll probably want to check out Mark Twain’s The War Prayer.

Rather, it is better to stay focused on the issue here and avoid distractions instead. I have a lot of respect for Mark Twain but he was also quite a good rhetoritician and I prefer whenever possible to not default to rhetoric in the absence of actual arguments. Once the latter have been set forth, rhetoric can work as a nice spice but not before.

Let's take a look at the first part of this prayer, "remember in your mercy all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and security of others." I come across this idea a lot - that soldiers 'sacrifice' their lives in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Soldiers lay down their lives for others -that is part of what it means to be a soldier. Jesus was the one who said that laying down one's life for another was the sign of the greatest love. And many who become soldiers do so because of a love of their homeland and a desire to serve in protection of it. Surely you are not going to claim that it is wrong to love one's homeland right Nate??? Who can claim to love what they would not want to see protected from harm??? And who could claim genuine love for their homeland or for another person if they are not willing to (if necessary) sacrifice their own life for them???

We were often told that to "lay down your life for your friends" was exactly what we were doing as Christian soldiers. It's strange how people speak of this sacrifice as if it were the soldier's mission - to die.

It is the soldier's mission to be willing to die in order to try and protect others from sworn enemies. In other words, death is a casualty of the job itself -potentially more so than any other job there is. Those who are willing to take up that position and have the requisite tools to do it have my respect Nate because the price they are willing to pay is so significant.

But General Patton, one of America's finest fighters in WWII, said it better than I ever could:

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country… You know, My God, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against. My God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel. Now some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friends face, you'll know what to do.

I know that quote well. However, there is more to it context-wise than a simple perusal of the words would indicate. Such statements are not unlike what leaders say to motivate their subordinates and not only in war but even in other endeavours.{1} Presumably you are not saying Patton should have told the boys to retreat and let the Nazis pursue domination of Europe right??? I have no doubt sir that you are well-meaning in your advocated position but unfortunately, it would appear that with all due respect you are a bit naive. Fr. James V. Schall, SJ enunciated the view of a symbiotic balance required between peace and the willingness to use force quite astutely when he noted the following:

No talk of peace, justice, truth, or virtue is complete without a clear understanding that certain individuals, movements, and nations must be met with measured force, however much we might prefer to deal with them peacefully or pleasantly. Without force, many will not talk seriously at all, and some not even then. Human, moral, and economic problems are greater today for the lack of adequate military force or, more often, for the failure to use it when necessary.

In my experience, that statement is 100% accurate. There is nothing wrong with wanting to see peace and wanting to see productive dialogue lead to a cessation of hostilities. Indeed, that is a noble outlook provided that it is properly balanced. The truth is, much as many do not like it, there are enemies who seek to take away the fundamental rights that are God-given and precede all attempts at human legislation. These sorts will use false notions of "dialogue" as a means to take advantage of others whom they see as weak and compromising. For that reason, there will always be a necessity for force to be used in some cases.

I explaned in a brief fashion some time ago what I saw as the inherent danger in the approach that you seem to be advocating:

I cannot help in pondering the subject of war come to any conclusion except that if it was ever outlawed, if those who are the most manic of the so-called "peacemakers" among us were to actually achieve their intended aim, that we will have forever enthroned an unstoppable totalitarianism on the world. We need to always have the option of what Chesterton called "the sacred right of insurrection" if we are to have a modicum of restoring societies from the tyranny of legal perversion by bureaucratic termites and whores who see mankind as clay for their own sociological "moulding." [I. Shawn McElhinney: some private notebook musings (circa June 16, 2005)]

A more developed exposition of those short comments can be read here for those who are interested. To summarize them briefly, these are serious problems of a life and death situation involved in such an outlook as you are conveying Nate.

I see radical pacifistic approaches to solve these kinds of problems to make about as much sense as those Christian sects who pick up poisonous serpents because of what Jesus said in Mark's Gospel and then get bit by the serpents and die from poisoning. I see no difference whatsoever in the approach except the serpents are reacting without capacity for reasoning. The same cannot be said of various cultists who think those who refuse to wear the turban and pray on the coloured rug five times a day to "Allah" should be killed.

The latter may be fanatics but they are capable of doing a lot of damage and have. And few things make them bolder than when they see a foe showing weakness -that is what over a thousand years of history has taught us with regards to the Muslim fanatics. The only thing that has stopped them historically has been the willing use of force and that is the only thing that will stop them today.

All the priests and intellectuals who tell soldiers that it's their goal, mission, and duty to imitate Christ by dying for their friends… they have no idea what it means to be a soldier. This isn't to say that soldiers don't gobble it up, that we don't think to ourselves, "yeah, I'm noble, I'm sacrificing my life for my country!" But when confronted with Patton's words, we know the truth. Because it resounds. It isn't a soldier's job to die. It is a soldier's job to kill. If you die, you've failed, and your friends will die at the hands of the same evildoers who killed you.

First of all, it is an argumentation fallacy to claim that someone's arguments are or are not valid because they may or may not have certain experience. I dealt with this some time back when defining a couple of common argumentation fallacies which are unfortunately common among not a few who advocate particular points of view:

argumentum ad eventus

This is a variation of argumentum ad aevum and involves essentially the idea that an argument is not valid on the basis of lacking experience is what this one entails. It is akin to saying that no one can talk about a subject unless they have experience in it; ergo someone who has never abused heroin can never be credible in talking about heroin usage. Or on the ecclesial front, Pope Benedict XVI can never talk about a subject like sex because he has presumably never had any.

I am shocked that even otherwise intelligent people fall for this kind of "logic" but it happens often. At bottom, either what someone says in presenting an argument for a viewpoint has merits or demerits on the strength or lack thereof of the arguments made. That is where any and all criticisms of someone's arguments should lie. [Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa March 7, 2006)]

I would appreciate it if we could avoid argumentation fallacies and focus instead on the positions themselves. I see the whole attempt to dichotomize between the soldier having a "duty to die" and a "duty to kill" as inappropriate. It makes more sense to say that a soldier has a duty to protect and serve -a duty which may call on him to utilize force against another. This use of force could result in the death of the other or in the death of the soldier. And a soldier who dies in duty has not failed sir. To the extent that he has advanced the cause of freedom and protected others, he has succeeded. And for that, the memory of those who have fallen deserves proper honour and remembrance, not contempt.

Oftentimes a failure to act forcefully makes a situation worse than it would have been with proper action being taken. That is something that far too many people of your particular weltanschauung fail to take into account. Or to once again quote Fr. James Schall's astute observations on these matters:

Those who cry "peace, peace" often have unacknowledged blood on their hands because they failed to use adequate force when needed; "To the victors go the spoils" is an ancient principle of fact, not rightness. Cowardice has never been considered a virtue. Nor has "turning the other cheek" served as an acceptable excuse for allowing some evil — one we could have stopped except that our theories or fears prevented us from trying — to continue or conquer. Not a few worthy things have been eradicated forever because a war was lost. Eternal vigilance remains the price of liberty and much else that is worthy.

I am not in noting the above quotes saying that this means every war ever declared is therefore a noble enterprise. Nor am I arguing for the merit or lack thereof of a particular war in doing so. My point is to defend the necessity of what GK Chesterton called "the sacred right of insurrection" hopefully for reasons I have already made adequately clear.

So many people talk about how we've got to fight back these muslim fanatics, otherwise they'll be in our backyard burning Churches and raping women and converting our children.

If you have a proper familiarity with history, you would know this has been what the Muslim fanatics have done every time they had the means to do so. It is a matter of history and is not even debatable. I for one will not stand by and let them do it if I have any say in the matter whatsoever -whether the weapons I wield are my keyboard, my fists, my rifles, or anything else.{2}

And they ask soldiers to go out and kill to stop this Islamic invasion. And so how is this compatible with saying that a soldier's goal is to sacrifice his life?

It is not but then again, I do not make the kind of dichotomous assertions you are noting above. I will not deny that there are some who do this but positions being advanced by weak argumentation is hardly a rarity in the world unfortunately. But briefly: the soldier is offering his life as a potential sacrifice in seeking to preserve the lives and freedoms of others from those who would seek to either deprive them of life or somehow consign them to slavery. Or as I noted in a weblog posting after the death of Nick Berg more than two years ago:

Here is how I see the war on terror in a nutshell:

---We are fighting a group of intellectually and emotionally arrested fanatics who have yet to come out of the seventh century. Arab civilization contrary to the ignorant babblings of the media is hardly some fertile ground for philosophy, mathematics, science, and the like. All of their contributions in those areas -significant though they were- were a millennia ago. One commentator astutely noted that "since they gave us the zero, they have given civilization zero" and that sums it up about as well as can be done in a syllabus style statement.

---We are dealing with people who revel in death who do not hesitate to boast about this. We are dealing with people who view innocent children as "infidel subversives" and who have no scruples about killing them. Likewise non-Muslims are viewed. Essentially if they cannot convert you, then you must die. Hence in the most sadistic of "rituals" I heard chanting to "Allah" while a young man's bloodcurdling screams rang out over the airwaves as those bastards, those rats, those vile pieces of human debris cut his throat slowly in sawing motion with a dull blade.

But I suppose we are still going to hear the hollow paens of "involving the UN" in the Iraq situation - the same UN who cannot even run a simple oil for food program without massive corruption. I suppose we are going to still hear the cheap rhetoric of "give peace a chance" and after all, if we simply reason with these people and if we show them we are nice people that they will be nice too and all will be well. No my friends, you do not deal with a rabid disease infested dog that attacks you with kind words or idle threats. You deal with such an animal by shooting it. Likewise, these vile people need to be dealt with. I think stake burning would be appropriate for them. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 12, 2004)]

I stand by every word I said then and always will. But then again, I am firmly anchored in the understanding of the fundamental rights of man -the God-given fundamental rights which precede all legislation by any human whatsoever and whosoever they are. I have written on these factors many times and will do again this year when I feel so inclined to. But briefly for the sake of this point: life, faculties, and production are God-given. While one could argue that they can be deprived after due process in rare instances, generally speaking they are inviolable. That means no pundit, no politician, no philosopher, no pope, no human whatsoever can either give those rights nor take them away. And to give assent to propositions which by implication threaten the very existence of those fundamental rights leads inexorably to not only intellectual but physical suicide: something I cannot possibly countenance and which I will not countenance at any time whatsoever.

No. A soldier's mission is to kill, not to die. He is prepared to die, yes. He is prepared to make that 'sacrifice', but not in a direct sense.

Must all virtuous acts be direct or is an indirect action of value also to be praised??? I am unaware of anyone who is purely altrusitic and no even those who are with specific acts are not this way all the time. That means that there is almost always at least some self-interest in an action that is done. Should we therefore not acknowledge the value of the act itself at all??? I think not.

This sacrifice is not a Christ-like sort of sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice saved people. A soldier dying is only one more step along a road to a lost war that will result in people being destroyed (at least, from the perspective of just-war theorists).

With all due respect, this is a bit rationally muddled Nate. A soldier dying could be one step in a war that was eventually lost or one step in the direction of a war that is won. I am unaware of any war in history involving soldiers where the winning side did not have casualties.

It's a simple idea: if all our soldiers are dying, we will lose the war, and the soldiers will have failed.

You seem to be presuming that in a war all soldiers are dying. In that case, a war can indeed be lost but does that mean it should not have been fought??? Wars are fought for many things -sometimes nobile and sometimes not. Dying in defense of a cause can be a nobile act Nate.

I can understand just-war adherents honoring those who have fallen in a war, after all - it is a sacrifice in some sense. Like the fireman who runs into a burning house, the soldier knows that he can die. But the fireman doesn't run into the house to die. Nor does the soldier go into battle to die.

This is true. It is however recognized as a potential risk of the occupation. And some occupations have greater risk of this than others.

And here we get to the crucial difference between the soldier's sacrifice and Christ's: it is the difference between the fireman's and the soldier's. The fireman goes into a burning house with the direct mission of saving someone. The soldier goes into battle with the direct mission of killing someone. Now indirectly, the soldier's intention is to save someone. That is the whole point of the just-war theory.

A soldier goes into battle with the direct mission of achieving a set objective whatever that set objective in a given circumstance happens to be. That is not the same as going in with the direct mission to kill someone. However, in a military situation, you know that there is a likelihood of opposition to your actions by others with various kinds of weaponry. Depending on the reasons for your involvement in this endeavour, the war may or may not be considered just. I will not at this time go into how the traditional understanding of just war has been arbitrarily arrested in its application in spots by well-meaning but (unfortunately) naive persons as that would be to go off on a tangent. But that is nonetheless a factor in the equation we are speaking of here; ergo my mention of it in brief.

But what if the just-war theory is wrong, as the Pope and others have indicated?

The pope never said the just war theory is wrong. Furthermore, the pope is not the authority responsible for levying the theory and this authority cannot be delegated to others. It is the responsibility of the civil government who has the authority to levy a war. Or as I noted in a previous blog posting:

[There is] a seeming unawareness of what a proper appeal to just war theory actually is. On the latter, I will now briefly touch on so that readers do not think I am merely asserting something without proof...

[I]n medieval times, the term “just war” applied to the authority for levying the war, rather than to the substance of the cause or the complaint. If levied on the authority of an independent prince, the war was considered just, since there was no higher authority to judge the cause, and battle settled the issue. [Encyclopedia Brittanica Fifteenth Edition: Excerpt from War, the Theory and Conduct of Macropaedia Volume XXIX, pg. 643 (c. 1985)]

[XXXX] by trying to apply it to the substance of the cause or the complaint rather than to the authority for levying the war thus misappropriates the principle in no small detail. And lest he object to me quoting a non-Catholic source above on the matter, I will now quote from my copy of the Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary on the subject of war:

War. War is waged justly if it be initiated by public authority for a sufficiently grave and just reason. Soldiers enlisted before the outbreak of war can take its justness for granted unless the contrary is apparent; after the outbreak, those who join the army must first be morally certain of its justness. In a just war all means are licit which necessary and suitable for carrying the war to a successful end, provided that they are not contrary to natural or international law; e.g. the killing of any man under arms or of spies but not of non-combatants, the laying of ambushes, the destruction, but not the poisoning, of wells, are lawful acts of war. For a war to be just the motive must be the vindication of a certain right, of proportionate importance, which has been certainly violated, or a just intervention to defend the rights of others, and then only when other means of redress have failed. [Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary Tenth Edition: Donald Attwater - General Editor pg. 553 (c. 1941) as quoted in a Rerum Novarum posting (circa September 6, 2005)]

In a nutshell, [t]he evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good (CCC 2309) and this is the civil authority as I have noted before.{3} And for those who assert that my claim of the civil authority as the proper one for determining the parameters of and levying of a just war is erroneous, consider the following section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on who is responsible for the common good of a society (footnotes inserted into the text in italics):

1897 "Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all."John XXIII, PT 46.

By "authority" one means the quality by virtue of which persons or institutions make laws and give orders to men and expect obedience from them.

1898 Every human community needs an authority to govern it. Cf. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei; Diuturnum illud. The foundation of such authority lies in human nature. It is necessary for the unity of the state. Its role is to ensure as far as possible the common good of the society.

1899 The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."Rom 13:1-2; cf. 1 Pet 2:13-17. [Catechism of the Catholic Church sections 1897-1899 (c. 1994)]

Using the CCC to clarify who is responsible for the common good makes my interpretation of the proper authority for ascertaining whether or not a war is or is not just (as noted later in the CCC) the obviously correct one. This is why whenever people raise the opinion of a pope or curialist on these matters, I roll my eyes. They obviously has as much of a right to their opinion as anyone but their opinion on the matter is no less susceptible to being weighed on the merits of the arguments advanced as anyone else's is.{5} And on the latter point, there is far greater solidity in my position than the converse one -of this I have not a shred of doubt for reasons I have amply outlined in the past.

What if our soldiers have been misled? What if they are killing and dying not for Christ's peace, but for something else?

That is always possible. Mark Twain once said "the rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." Likewise, the rumours of the president and others "misleading" people have been more than a little exaggerated (to put it nicely). My stance on the war is the same as it was in February of 2003 before the invasion. But then again, I based my position on solid arguments and known facts and not transient speculations and presumed evidences. I have discussed this before and would gladly do so again if you like at some point in the future.

And so we get to the second part of Rerum's prayer:

"Remember in your mercy all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and security of others."

That is an accurate quote, yes.

Are soldiers killing and dying for the freedom which Christ's sacrifice has given us? Or are they dying for a different kind of freedom? A different kind of peace? Just-war theories say that these horrific wars can bring 'peace' to the world. But is this the same peace that Christ speaks of? Is this the Peace of Christ or the Peace of America?

Christ's sacrifice has freed us from certain death due to sin. It did not however abolish sin completely. As far as differentiating the freedoms go, all legitimate freedoms are worth fighting for or worth defending. These fall under the umbrella I spoke of earlier about the fundamental rights of man: a subject too complex to do justice to in a short blurb towards the end of a post. As far as peace goes, peace is not the absence of war. Nor is peace the maintenance of the status quo. And peace cannot be accomplished by showing weakness in the face of those who have no interest in a proper dialogue. That means there is a requirement for force for the maintenance of any semblance of peace. Militant Islam has only been checked by the threat of force against them. And they have been given a lease of sorts in recent decades as the west has shown a suspect resolve to hold them at bay by force if necessary

I'll cut this short with Christ’s tears:

As he drew near, he saw the city (Jerusalem) and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace -but now it is hidden from your eyes.

For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

Of course the question is if the words you are citing pertain to what we are discussing or not Nate. Jerusalem was punished for rejecting Jesus and knowing what was coming as he did, it saddened him. I do not see how this relates to what we are discussing except (perhaps) that a similar fate awaits the west if the charade of "playing nice" with the Islamofascists does not come to an end and soon. Again, we have 1400 years of history with these kinds of fanatics and the trackrecord is clear. Let them who can see it pay attention lest Santayana's dictum{4} be vindicated yet again -and not to our benefit as a civilization.

Oh and lest I forget to mention it, thank you for your service to the cause of freedom and security Nate. I have never known a soldier who takes relish in what they had to do in wartime situations and frankly that is the way it should be. But that is a subject for another time perhaps.

Notes:

{1} I remember in my youth playing sports hearing rhetoric about "crushing the opponent" and generally speaking, it did fire me up to do just that.

{2} Sacred Scripture is clear that there are times and seasons for everything:

All things have their season, and in all their times all things pass under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to destroy and a time to build...A time to rend and a time to sow; a time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time of love and a time of hatred; a time of war and a time of peace. (Ecclesiastes iii,1-3; 7-9).

In other words, the idea that there is never a time for war, a time to kill, or a time for hatred is false. We are at war with sub-animals and we cannot reason with them. They either want us to convert to their perverted notion of "religion" and worship their perverted notion of "God" or they will kill us. This has been explicitly stated by them and they have been demonstrating this intention for some time now -the latest example of which was Paul Johnson (may he rest in peace).

Wake up you self-anointed "activists" with your blind and irrational hatred of George Walker Bush. Your position is not only illogical but further: it is idiotic and plays Russian roulette with this nation's national security. You would compromise the safety of American citizens for the sake of political advantage in an election. For that, I spit on you!!!...

[I]f the savage beheading of American civilians by rabid infested subhuman debris is not enough to get self-styled "activists" to wake from their pathetic Vietnam-era pretentions and face reality, I have to wonder what it will take. And if they think people like me will wait around for them to finally "get it", I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell them. [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa June 18, 2004)]

{3} To briefly reference one such example from the archives of this weblog:

[S]ince the authority recognized by the CCC to levy war is the secular authority, it is to this authority where the judgment is levied, not that of the pope. This is easily demonstrated with Catholic sources -indeed I have done so many times already. And as the authority which weighs the assessments for the above critieria is not the pope but the sovereign, that means the executive, president, or prime minister if you will in a republic such as America.

For this reason, XX XXXX's assertions above reveal that he is willing to go against even the boundaries of Catholic just war critieria to advance his agenda...

That is not to say that there remains no role for the church in the matter of course. (A key role for the magisterium is aiding in the formation of conscience.) However, a whole phalanx of factors are involved in the latter formation and at the end of the day the magisterium is as incompetent on political matters as the sovereigns of the world are on theological and moral ones. Each has their own particular competence as the church has always recognized and does to this day. Unfortunately, some who seek to advance particular agendas are interested in blurring these distinctions for some reason or another. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 6, 2005)]

{4} In a nutshell it is this: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

{5} The role of the magisteroum is to outline the principles required for just war theory doctrinally and theologically. They do not hawever have the competence to apply them in concrete situations and their curial underlings likewise are incompetent in this area.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

On the Coming New Year, Warmer Climates, Foundational Presuppositions, Personal and Blogging Resolutions, Etc.:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

I went down Virginia, seekin shelter from the storm.
Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow.
Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder, still I wonder wholl stop the rain.


Just as it was last year at this time, it is raining in Seattle as I put the finishing touches on the present posting. One of the plans for the new year (though not officially a resolution) is to figure out a way to live part of the year in a warmer climate. Seattle is fine about eight months of the year (and great about six of those months -particularly the summer months) but the first two and last two months of the annual cycle are the pits weather-wise. Adjusting my business to being almost completely mobile will help in that way -by the end of the month I should be able to run virtually everything by a laptop, cellphone, and fax machine. But enough griping about the weather and onto the main purposes of this posting.

To start with, there is probably little that I could add to what I noted last year at this time so I will refer the reader first to that thread as what I note here will essentially be more of an addition to that thread and development of some more implicit elements of that thread. Having noted those things, I should say that 2006 was a better year than 2005 overall -even if it did not end as well as the latter year. Nonetheless, I anticipate this coming year to be significantly better than last year overall for reasons too numerous to go over at this time even if I wanted to. And while the normal platter of postings will begin either tomorrow or the day after, at the moment I am content to continue the Christmas truce I mentioned on more than one occasion. Whether I carry this out past the eastern Christmas holiday (January 6th/7th) or not will remain to be seen.

As far as resolutions go, as I noted last year,{1} one thing I have not done as a rule is make resolutions similar to what most people do. But this year, there will be at least one that falls into the latter category: the resolution to lose some weight. By this time next year, I will be thirty pounds or more lighter presuming there is no serious injury or some other significant unforeseen development.{2} I intended to do that last year{3} and was on pace to but it did not happen. So unlike last year, the losing of weight will be an official resolution this year and it will happen. Moving on...

I anticipate the following year will involve a greater exploration into the realm of foundational presuppositions than I have done in years past -how much more I am not certain as of this writing. Or as I noted last year when discussing the subject on one particular occasion:

[A]s far as I am concerned, arguing for a position on its intrinsic merits or lack thereof utilizing the tools of reason and logic is a serious business and far too many of a sophistic bent either do not realize this or they fail to take seriously the principle that ideas are serious things. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 28, 2006)]

Much more was sketched out on that occasion than what was noted above but that gets to the root and matrix of what I was discussing. Ideas have been fought for and died over and that is and will always be the case as long as there are those who believe passionately that there is such a thing as truth. The problem is, most people do not take the time to attempt to assess whether what they hold as truth actually is or not -operating instead from an intellectual prison of solipsism to varying degrees.

It has been my goal over the years to try and move those I have spoken with towards reassessing their foundational presuppositions or the filter through which they strain all information that comes their way from divers sources. While doing this though, I have rarely done more than mention a few bits in passing about why I go about things this way but the long and short of it is this: it has the potential to save a lot of time and effort by cutting down on the ratio of useless discussion. This alone can help pave the way for much more potentially fruitful dialogue to take place. Plus, I simply loathe talking points approaches to subjects and always have{4} viewing such things as shutting off the thinking mechanism and creating an environment detrimental to the cultivation of one's intellectual capabilities.{5} But I do not want to get offtrack with these musings so I will refer to something written last year where I touched on the subject a bit:

I have not discussed in detail what I mean by the term foundational presuppositions but generally from the context in which I use the term, its general meaning should be evident. Nonetheless, I did find this thread in my archives from earlier this year where I explained the term by virtue of what a change in said foundational presuppositions would inexorably involve. To wit:

[O]ne has to consider from time to time not only if the arguments they use to advance their position are good ones or not but even if their position itself is actually correct. As all of this probably sounds more complicated than it actually is, I will use the analogy of stocks and options to explain it in brief.

Those who are familiar with how stocks and options have a symbiotic relationship know that one of the reasons many investors like options[...] is because a small movement in the stock results in a magnified movement in the underlying option. This is the potential power inherent in dealing with foundational presuppositions of an individual: small shifts there can result in magnified movements in the individual's weltanschauung though sometimes it takes a bit of time for working out the ramifications of such shifts.[Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 28, 2006) as quoted in a Rerum Novarum posting (circa December 13, 2006)]

One of my resolutions for the new year is to try and sketch these elements out in greater detail as circumstances may lend themselves to it. Of course that is the key really: events and circumstances have to lend themselves to discussing these matters and the treatment needs to be both contemporary to the subject matter and circumstance at hand as well as contain general principles which are timeless in their validity.

It is not always easy to properly mix the two but we certainly do what we can here at Rerum Novarum as part of an ongoing effort to cultivate reason and logic and help people come to see just how helpful those God-given natural lights really are. So another resolution for 2007 is to focus more on foundational presuppositions behind various philosophies as we run across them in the arena of ideas. Certainly more could be noted on this at the present time but I have neither the time nor the inclination to delve any deeper into these matters at the present time.

Notes:

{1} It has been a long time since I bought into the idea of "resolutions" for the new year...part of the reason I suppose is that they are treated as such a joke by the culture at large. I am not opposed to resolving to do better of course but there is too much making of resolutions by people which are constructed in a way that almost guarantees them failure. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 2, 2006)]

{2} I have had some of these in years past which is why I preface every resolution with some kind of "God-willing and the creek does not rise" kind of phrasing.

{3} Though I did not make a formal resolution to do it.

{4} Albeit I have at times put up with it as a bit of a price to pay in order to get along.

{5} Or as I noted when giving out some preliminary advice to neophyte apologists over four years ago:

[M]uch as all musicians have certain riffs or motifs that pop up in their playing you will cultivate certain "riffs" of your own after arguing a particular position enough times.

Try though at all times to find a new phrase if you will in each argument advanced. Meaning: try if possible to find at least one new element to add to the mix when arguing a point. It may be a concept, it may be a new way of phrasing an argument to make it stronger, etc. But try without forcing the issue to avoid a carbon copy of your last time arguing a given point - particularly if you and your dialogue partner have gone over this issue before.

It is not always possible to do this but it often is. I am not saying reinvent the wheel everytime as much as I am saying do not repeat the exact same argument to someone you have previously discussed a given subject matter with. Because if you are listening to them you will receive information that you should take into account before responding. After all, you may have a mea culpa of your own to give *particularly* if you have been using the "boilerplate" approach. Make sure however that to the extent you make the error that you correct it...

By doing these things you will be less likely to resort to "canned" arguments which shut off the thinking mechanism. [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa November 1, 2002)]

Longtime readers who think I have somehow changed --either in my more explicit focusing in recent years on foundational presuppositions or my more recent explicit criticisms of common apologetics methodology-- can view what I wrote in late 2002 and notice that it is quite congruent with more recent developed writings. (Not to mention my approach towards certain parties who have failed in these areas: persons whom due to their experience should have learned this stuff a long time ago.)
"Auld Lang Syne" Dept.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?


For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.


And surely ye'll be your pint stoop
And surely I'll be mine
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.


For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.


We twa hae run about the braes
And pou'd the gowans fine
But we've wander'd mony a weary foot
Sin' auld lang syne.


For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.


We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn
Frae mornin' sun till dine
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.


For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.


And here's a hand, my trusty fiere
And gi'e's a hand o' thine
And we'll tak a right good willy waught
For auld lang syne. [Attr. Robert Burns]

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Points to Ponder:
(On New Year's Eve)

New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. [Hamilton Wright Mabie]