On Anna Nicole Smith's Death:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
It probably seems odd at first glance that your host decided to write on this matter rather than numerous other newsbits at the present time. It will also seem odd perhaps that this post will be as short as it will be. Society has had a fascination with the rich and powerful -or those perceived as such- as long as there has been a civilization and that will not change anytime soon. There is also the attraction of people to tragedies of those same people which plays into issues such as class warfare and other such subjects which we may well discuss again in the future as subjects worthy of consideration. But right now, consider if you can the tragedy of Anna Nicole Smith.
I say "tragedy" because by all societal standards, she had it made. She had money and fame, she was physically appealing to look at,{1} -basically you name it and she had it. But she was found dead in a situation where it does not appear to have been foul play. And if not the latter, then suicide is a likely reason. There were probably many contributing factors to this -the loss of her eldest son last year to whom she was apparently close may have had something to do with it. But in her passing, she left another young child who now will be without a mother.
I am sure a lot of people find the focus on this by the present writer to seem odd -after all, people die everyday that do not get a headline in the paper or elsewhere. People a lot poorer than Anna Nicole, a lot less "attractive", a lot less of a lot of things that she had. My point in focusing on her passing right now is to point out the problem with "happiness" as it is commonly perceived in society.
"Happiness" is viewed as an elusive commodity which is "obtained" or "lost" through the acquisition of possessions. Now it is one thing to acquire stuff that one likes but this has to be done with the proper disposition; namely, that happiness cannot be attained from without but must start from within. Possessions, relationships, family, etc. can enhance one's happiness but they are not where happiness is derived.
By all common societal standards, Anna Nicole should have been one of the happiest people on earth, but she was not. Those who heard her in interviews talking about personal demons would have known this{2} The happiness that must exist from within was not there. And if it is not, then no amount of external additions will compensate for it. Oh sure, numerous external additions can act as numbing agents to a degree much as escapes into alcoholic binges or various drugs, etc. can. But none of that is a genuine solution -instead, it is akin to putting a bandaid on a wound gushing with blood.
These sorts of events tend to generate predictable commentary from a lot of people. Of a particular annoyance is those who are poor who use this as an excuse for remaining poor -as if there is some virtue in poverty. But there are also those who are richer who act as if people passing on from this life who are poor somehow could have been "happier" if they had more wealth. In both cases, the core of the issue is missed because the focus is external instead of internal.
A person can be happy in any financial or social state in life. A person can also be miserable in any financial or social situation in life. Happiness is derived intrinsically from a person's security in themselves. Someone who is secure in themselves, who is capable of being rationally and emotionally self-sufficient to a certain extent, is in a much better position to be happy than someone who is not. A person who can think for themselves and does not have to depend on others to think for them will have a security in themselves that those who cannot do this will not have. Someone who has a strong faith in a loving God likewise can have a security in themselves that those who do not have it will not have. It can come from a variety of sources internally but that is my point: it must come from within.
It is unfortunate that Anna Nicole apparently killed herself and had to suffer the kind of dispair that many people do because of looking to the wrong things or people for happiness. More could be said on this and maybe I will in the future. But right now, this is adequate so I will wrap this post up praying that God may rest the soul of Anna Nicole Smith and her son -along with give the strength to her other children to perservere despite this tremendous hardship they are and will be facing. May He lead them to that happiness that can be enhanced from without but must originate from within.
Notes:
{1} Well, for most of the time she was in the public spotlight anyway.
{2} I heard a bit of this both from a little viewing myself but mainly via some friends who are attuned to celebrity stuff.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Remembering a President and Learning From History:
In celebration of the birthday of the late Ronald Wilson Reagan (40th President of the United States), I want to mark the occasion by drawing the reader's attention to two threads. The first is a book review I wrote back in July of 2004 for Dinesh D'Souza's biography of Ronald Reagan. The second is the full text ot a landmark speech delivered by Ronald Reagan on behalf of Barry Goldwater at the Republican Convention of 1964. Titled Rendezvous With Destiny many of its criticisms and forecasts are still applicable today. For example, in today's war on terror, many of the same problems are involved on the side of those who favour appeasement with Islamic fanatics that were around in the days of the Cold War. Consider if you will the following principles from the aforemetioned speech:
Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace--and you can have it in the next second--surrender.
Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
Those are the same challenges that we face today and which mankind will always face: the question of whether or not there are truths which the defense of is a duty of those who profess them to recognize lines which cannot be crossed. Anyway, I hope you find them to be of some interest today on the anniversary of the birthday of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Rest in peace Mr. President.
In celebration of the birthday of the late Ronald Wilson Reagan (40th President of the United States), I want to mark the occasion by drawing the reader's attention to two threads. The first is a book review I wrote back in July of 2004 for Dinesh D'Souza's biography of Ronald Reagan. The second is the full text ot a landmark speech delivered by Ronald Reagan on behalf of Barry Goldwater at the Republican Convention of 1964. Titled Rendezvous With Destiny many of its criticisms and forecasts are still applicable today. For example, in today's war on terror, many of the same problems are involved on the side of those who favour appeasement with Islamic fanatics that were around in the days of the Cold War. Consider if you will the following principles from the aforemetioned speech:
Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace--and you can have it in the next second--surrender.
Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face--that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand--the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin--just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits--not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
Those are the same challenges that we face today and which mankind will always face: the question of whether or not there are truths which the defense of is a duty of those who profess them to recognize lines which cannot be crossed. Anyway, I hope you find them to be of some interest today on the anniversary of the birthday of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Rest in peace Mr. President.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Points to Ponder:
(On Some Limits of Reason and Logic)
For all my focus on the importance of reason and logic for a proper apprehension of what can be called objective reality, there is an important element that may appear to receive short-shrift in this approach and it is something that goes beyond what reason and logic can deduce. Namely, it is the area of faith.
Faith is hardly limited to the religious sphere -indeed people place faith in non-religious persons, ideas, etc. all the time. The root of faith however is the same in all cases though. Theologically, faith involves aspects that are not contrary to reason and logic but to some extent transcend them. On the human level, it involves noting that sometimes a person however they present themselves to others may have a contradiction in how they present themselves and what they feel.
To put it another way, sometimes a person can unknowingly convey a sense or impression towards others that they do not intend to convey. Certainly as a rule one must presume continuity in these areas. Nonetheless, at the same time, there are exceptions whereby the actions and statements of a person do not necessarily correctly reveal their inner intentions. And while one should strive at all times to verify things by objective criteria; at the same time, the evidence does not always point to the reality of something as it subsists in the mind of the other party involved in a dispute.
With that in mind, and however it may appear to contradict objective manifestations, greater care at times needs to be given to what someone says they intend however appearances to the contrary may fail to countenance it. In other words: faith is required to some extent that an individual's assessment of their intentions is correct because by non-normative criteria it cannot be ascertained. This is not always easy to do mind you when there is a history of bad blood between persons. However, whenever an opportunity to put things right presents itself that manifests the possibility of success (however remote), I have always viewed it as something to be seized upon because one never knows when such opportunities may present themselves again if ever. [I. Shawn McElhinney: Notebook Musings (circa February 5, 2007)]
(On Some Limits of Reason and Logic)
For all my focus on the importance of reason and logic for a proper apprehension of what can be called objective reality, there is an important element that may appear to receive short-shrift in this approach and it is something that goes beyond what reason and logic can deduce. Namely, it is the area of faith.
Faith is hardly limited to the religious sphere -indeed people place faith in non-religious persons, ideas, etc. all the time. The root of faith however is the same in all cases though. Theologically, faith involves aspects that are not contrary to reason and logic but to some extent transcend them. On the human level, it involves noting that sometimes a person however they present themselves to others may have a contradiction in how they present themselves and what they feel.
To put it another way, sometimes a person can unknowingly convey a sense or impression towards others that they do not intend to convey. Certainly as a rule one must presume continuity in these areas. Nonetheless, at the same time, there are exceptions whereby the actions and statements of a person do not necessarily correctly reveal their inner intentions. And while one should strive at all times to verify things by objective criteria; at the same time, the evidence does not always point to the reality of something as it subsists in the mind of the other party involved in a dispute.
With that in mind, and however it may appear to contradict objective manifestations, greater care at times needs to be given to what someone says they intend however appearances to the contrary may fail to countenance it. In other words: faith is required to some extent that an individual's assessment of their intentions is correct because by non-normative criteria it cannot be ascertained. This is not always easy to do mind you when there is a history of bad blood between persons. However, whenever an opportunity to put things right presents itself that manifests the possibility of success (however remote), I have always viewed it as something to be seized upon because one never knows when such opportunities may present themselves again if ever. [I. Shawn McElhinney: Notebook Musings (circa February 5, 2007)]
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