[69] In the way we know all things of which we have knowledge
by reason, and yet reason itself is also counted among the things we
know by reason. Or did you forget that when we asked what is known by
reason, you conceded that reason is also known by reason? [1] So do not be
surprised that even if we use other things by free will, we are able to use
free will through free will itself. The will that uses other things somehow
uses itself, the same way as reason, which knows other things, knows
itself too. Memory does not only embrace all the other things we remember.
Since we do not forget that we have memory, memory also somehow
grasps memory itself in us, and it remembers not only other things but
also itself – or, rather, we remember other things as well as memory itself
through it.
Thus when the will, which is an intermediate good, holds fast to the
unchangeable good as something common rather than private – like
the truth, which we have discussed at length without saying anything
adequate – a person grasps the happy life. And the happy life, i.e. the [70] attachment of the mind holding fast to the unchangeable good, is the
proper and fundamental good for a human being. It also includes all the
virtues, which no one can use for evil. Although the virtues are great
and fundamental goods in human beings, we thoroughly understand
that they are proper to each person, not that they are common. Truth
and wisdom, however, are common to all, and people become wise and
happy by holding fast to them. Of course, one person does not become
happy by the happiness of another. Even if you emulate another in order
to be happy, you seek to become happy by means of what you saw made
the other person happy, namely through the unchangeable and common
truth. Nor does anyone become prudent by another person’s prudence, or
is made courageous by another’s courage, or moderate by another’s moderateness,
or just by another’s justice. Instead, you conform your mind to
those unchangeable rules and beacons of the virtues,[2] which live uncorruptibly
in the truth itself and in the wisdom that is common, to which
the person furnished with virtues whom you put forward as a model for
your emulation has conformed and directed his mind.
Therefore, when the will adheres to the common and unchangeable
good, it achieves the great and fundamental goods of a human being,
despite being an intermediate good. But the will sins when it is turned
away from the unchangeable and common good, towards its private good,
or towards something external, or towards something lower. The will
is turned to its private good when it wants to be in its own power; it is
turned to something external when it is eager to know the personal affairs
of other people, or anything that is not its business; it is turned to something
lower when it takes delight in bodily pleasures. And thus someone
who is made proud or curious or lascivious is captured by another life
that, in comparison to the higher life, is death.[3]
Footnotes:
1. See 2.3.9.36.
2. See 2.10.29.116–2.10.29.118.
3. See 1.4.10.30.
---
Source: St. Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, in On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings, ed. by Peter King (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2.19.51.194–2.19.53.200, 69–70.
https://philonew.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/augustine-augustine-on-the-free-choice-of-the-will-on-grace-and-free-choice-and-other-writings-2010.pdf
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Judgment Is the Only Sin
I have heard some people claim that their philosophy is that "judgment is the only sin." They proceed to act as they please and allow others to do likewise so long as the twain shall ne'er harm each other or get in each others' way against their wills.
But what is judgment? The person may reply, "It is to condemn another for their beliefs and their way of life." In other words, it is to say that something that a person is doing or the way a person is—that is wrong. It is to declare something wrong. A judgment in its most simple form is an assertion that something is or ought to be this way. But then to say "judgment is the only sin" is itself a judgment against judgment. Furthermore, to say, "People can do as they please" is also a judgment, a judgment of freedom; it is an apparently positive judgment but still a judgment. To qualify a statement that one can do as one pleases so long as it harms no one else is a restriction imposed by judgment: behavior is good insofar as it isn't harmful. And what is harm? It is up to the judgment of the individual (and practically speaking, the law).
Why is judgment the only judgment prohibited? These same people will then also assert, when pressed, that obviously things such as rape, genocide, pedophilia, etc., are wrong. But who are they to pass judgment? Why can a person do anything they please except those things that harm others? And who determines what it means to harm others? The individual?
This is a morality of solipsism, of individualism. It allows the individual to get away with anything he wants without responsibility for consequences and without regard for others.
Remember, Christ never forbade judgments in Matthew 7; He forbade hypocritical judgments. Christ Himself made many condemnations and was fully justified in doing so.
Judgment is fundamental to human action. Every action presupposes a judgment. Even animals make judgments. This morality of solipsism is simply a justification for sin, and it seeks to alleviate guilt by removing the possibility of judgment, of condemnation for bad behavior. That is why judgment is the only sin: because the presence of judgment means the possibility that I have to own up to my sins, that I can't simply do as I please without regard for consequences, that I am not an isolated individual who schizophrenically has no regard for others and regard for others only when I desire, when I determine.
But what is judgment? The person may reply, "It is to condemn another for their beliefs and their way of life." In other words, it is to say that something that a person is doing or the way a person is—that is wrong. It is to declare something wrong. A judgment in its most simple form is an assertion that something is or ought to be this way. But then to say "judgment is the only sin" is itself a judgment against judgment. Furthermore, to say, "People can do as they please" is also a judgment, a judgment of freedom; it is an apparently positive judgment but still a judgment. To qualify a statement that one can do as one pleases so long as it harms no one else is a restriction imposed by judgment: behavior is good insofar as it isn't harmful. And what is harm? It is up to the judgment of the individual (and practically speaking, the law).
Why is judgment the only judgment prohibited? These same people will then also assert, when pressed, that obviously things such as rape, genocide, pedophilia, etc., are wrong. But who are they to pass judgment? Why can a person do anything they please except those things that harm others? And who determines what it means to harm others? The individual?
This is a morality of solipsism, of individualism. It allows the individual to get away with anything he wants without responsibility for consequences and without regard for others.
Remember, Christ never forbade judgments in Matthew 7; He forbade hypocritical judgments. Christ Himself made many condemnations and was fully justified in doing so.
Judgment is fundamental to human action. Every action presupposes a judgment. Even animals make judgments. This morality of solipsism is simply a justification for sin, and it seeks to alleviate guilt by removing the possibility of judgment, of condemnation for bad behavior. That is why judgment is the only sin: because the presence of judgment means the possibility that I have to own up to my sins, that I can't simply do as I please without regard for consequences, that I am not an isolated individual who schizophrenically has no regard for others and regard for others only when I desire, when I determine.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Accepted Sorrow & Happiness
One has to accept sorrow for it to be of any healing power, and that is the most difficult thing in the world ... A Priest once said to me, "When you understand what accepted sorrow means, you will understand everything. It is the secret of life."
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Source: Maurice Baring, Darby and Joan, quoted in Joseph Pearce, Old Thunder (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2014), 334.
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Source: Maurice Baring, Darby and Joan, quoted in Joseph Pearce, Old Thunder (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2014), 334.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Repost: 15 Minutes Alone - A Study
Source: Mark Prigg, "Need Some Alone Time? Researchers Find Men Would Rather Administer Electric Shocks to Themselves than Spend Time Alone with Nothing to Do but Think," Mail Online, July 3, 2014, accessed July 22, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2679950/Need-time-Researchers-men-administer-electric-shocks-spent-time-do.html.
---
We've all complained that we would love some time alone - but few people actually enjoy it, researchers have found.
Most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous.
In fact, some of the volunteers, men in particular, preferred to administer mild electrical shocks to themselves rather than sit and do nothing.
'Many people find it difficult to use their own minds to entertain themselves, at least when asked to do it on the spot,' said University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study appearing in the journal Science.
'In this modern age, with all the gadgets we have, people seem to fill up every moment with some external activity.'
Nearly 800 people took part in the study.
Some experiments involved only college students.
The researchers then broadened the study to include adults who live in the same area.
They went to a church and farmer's market to recruit people from a variety of backgrounds and ages up to 77.
And they got the same results: most participants regardless of age or gender did not like to be idle and alone with their thoughts.
In some experiments, college volunteers were asked to sit alone in a bare laboratory room and spend six to 15 minutes doing nothing but thinking or daydreaming.
They were not allowed to have a cellphone, music player, reading material or writing implements and were asked to remain in their seats and stay awake.
Most reported they did not enjoy the task and found it hard to concentrate.
Researchers then had adult and college student volunteers do the same thing in their homes, and got the same results.
In addition, a third of volunteers cheated by doing things like using a cellphone or listening to music.
The researchers did an experiment to see if the student volunteers would even do an unpleasant task rather than just sit and think.
They gave them a mild shock of the intensity of static electricity.
Volunteers were asked whether, if given $5, they would spend some of it to avoid getting shocked again.
The ones who said they would be willing to pay to avoid another shock were asked to sit alone and think for 15 minutes but were given the option of giving themselves that same shock by simply pushing a button.
Many did not, especially men: Two-thirds (12 of 18) administered at least one shock.
One did it 190 times. A quarter of the women (six of 24) gave themselves at least one shock.
'I think they just wanted to shock themselves out of the boredom,' Wilson said.
'Sometimes negative stimulation is preferable to no stimulation.'
---
---
We've all complained that we would love some time alone - but few people actually enjoy it, researchers have found.
Most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous.
In fact, some of the volunteers, men in particular, preferred to administer mild electrical shocks to themselves rather than sit and do nothing.
'Many people find it difficult to use their own minds to entertain themselves, at least when asked to do it on the spot,' said University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study appearing in the journal Science.
'In this modern age, with all the gadgets we have, people seem to fill up every moment with some external activity.'
Nearly 800 people took part in the study.
Some experiments involved only college students.
The researchers then broadened the study to include adults who live in the same area.
They went to a church and farmer's market to recruit people from a variety of backgrounds and ages up to 77.
And they got the same results: most participants regardless of age or gender did not like to be idle and alone with their thoughts.
In some experiments, college volunteers were asked to sit alone in a bare laboratory room and spend six to 15 minutes doing nothing but thinking or daydreaming.
They were not allowed to have a cellphone, music player, reading material or writing implements and were asked to remain in their seats and stay awake.
Most reported they did not enjoy the task and found it hard to concentrate.
Researchers then had adult and college student volunteers do the same thing in their homes, and got the same results.
In addition, a third of volunteers cheated by doing things like using a cellphone or listening to music.
The researchers did an experiment to see if the student volunteers would even do an unpleasant task rather than just sit and think.
They gave them a mild shock of the intensity of static electricity.
Volunteers were asked whether, if given $5, they would spend some of it to avoid getting shocked again.
The ones who said they would be willing to pay to avoid another shock were asked to sit alone and think for 15 minutes but were given the option of giving themselves that same shock by simply pushing a button.
Many did not, especially men: Two-thirds (12 of 18) administered at least one shock.
One did it 190 times. A quarter of the women (six of 24) gave themselves at least one shock.
'I think they just wanted to shock themselves out of the boredom,' Wilson said.
'Sometimes negative stimulation is preferable to no stimulation.'
---
Pascal was right: diversion is both modern man's greatest misery and greatest consolation from misery. We don't know how to sit quietly in our rooms.
It would be very easy for some of us to see this study and scoff and claim, "They didn't test me. I could have done it easy." In a study of 800 people, surely at least a few of them had a similar idea. But if we were to be totally honest with ourselves and face the stark truth: could we find pleasure in being alone with ourselves, our thoughts, our being? Not distracting ourselves, not reading, not thinking, not fiddling; just being.
Here's why most can't: 1) a habit of diversion from modern living; 2) a deep aversion to any circumstance that brings us face to face with the truth of ourselves; silence and darkness are two powerful ways of doing this. Prayer is another. Traumatic events are also another. Beauty and child-like simplicity can also do it; see, for example, how Mr. Rogers totally disarms Joan Rivers in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Kp5YeqrlE.
For most of us, the truth of ourselves is quite simple: it is the horrifying pain that we have endured for so long that we will do anything to forget about it. It is the shame and fear that has been instilled in us by our parents, peers, society, and even ourselves. It is our deepest secret and what we always are hiding from. We shun silence as boring; the darkness as full of monsters (fear of the dark, the boogeyman, which is simply a representation of our inner, psychological turmoil that we fear); prayer as going unheard or useless; simplicity as naivety; beauty as trivial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw); trauma as the universe's sadism; and death as the ultimate evil for an individual (YOLO).
The truth is we don't know what to do with ourselves, so we just, in the words of the Joker, "do... things...."
Friday, April 18, 2014
Modernity's Unhappiness and Distractions
Pascal observed the problem in seventeenth-century France when he saw the obsession with entertainment as the offspring of the fallen human desire to be distracted from any thought of mortality. “I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room,” he said. And: “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”
Today the problem is even greater: Entertainment has apparently become many people’s primary purpose of existence. I doubt that it would surprise Pascal that the world has increased the size, scope, and comprehensiveness of distraction. It would not puzzle him that death has been reduced to little more than a comic-book cartoon in countless action movies or into a mere momentary setback in soap operas and sitcoms. Indeed, he would not find it perplexing that the bleak spiritual violence of mortality leaves no lasting mark on the bereaved in the surreal yet seductive world of popular entertainment.
But he might well be taken aback that the churches have so enthusiastically endorsed this project of distraction and diversion. This is what much of modern worship amounts to: distraction and diversion. Praise bands and songs of triumph seem designed in form and content to distract worshipers from life’s more difficult realities.
Even funerals, the one religious context where one might have assumed the reality of death would be unavoidable, have become the context for that most ghastly and incoherent of acts: the celebration of a life now ended. The Twenty-Third Psalm and “Abide with Me” were funeral staples for many years but not so much today. References to the valley of the shadow of death and the ebbing out of life’s little day, reminders both of our mortality and of God’s faithfulness even in the darkest of times, have been replaced as funeral favorites by “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “My Way.” The trickledown economics of worship as entertainment has reached even the last rites for the departed. [...]
Perhaps it is ironic, but the church that confronts people with the reality of the shortness of life lived under the shadow of death prepares them for resurrection better than the church that goes straight to resurrection triumphalism without that awkward mortality bit.
Bonhoeffer once asked, “Why did it come about that the cinema really is often more interesting, more exciting, more human and gripping than the church?” Why, indeed. Maybe the situation is even worse than I have described; perhaps the churches are even more trivial than the entertainment industry. After all, in popular entertainment one does occasionally find the tragic clearly articulated, as in the movies of a Coppola or a Scorsese.
A church with a less realistic view of life than one can find in a movie theater? For some, that might be an amusing, even entertaining, thought; for me, it is a tragedy.
Today the problem is even greater: Entertainment has apparently become many people’s primary purpose of existence. I doubt that it would surprise Pascal that the world has increased the size, scope, and comprehensiveness of distraction. It would not puzzle him that death has been reduced to little more than a comic-book cartoon in countless action movies or into a mere momentary setback in soap operas and sitcoms. Indeed, he would not find it perplexing that the bleak spiritual violence of mortality leaves no lasting mark on the bereaved in the surreal yet seductive world of popular entertainment.
But he might well be taken aback that the churches have so enthusiastically endorsed this project of distraction and diversion. This is what much of modern worship amounts to: distraction and diversion. Praise bands and songs of triumph seem designed in form and content to distract worshipers from life’s more difficult realities.
Even funerals, the one religious context where one might have assumed the reality of death would be unavoidable, have become the context for that most ghastly and incoherent of acts: the celebration of a life now ended. The Twenty-Third Psalm and “Abide with Me” were funeral staples for many years but not so much today. References to the valley of the shadow of death and the ebbing out of life’s little day, reminders both of our mortality and of God’s faithfulness even in the darkest of times, have been replaced as funeral favorites by “Wind Beneath My Wings” and “My Way.” The trickledown economics of worship as entertainment has reached even the last rites for the departed. [...]
Perhaps it is ironic, but the church that confronts people with the reality of the shortness of life lived under the shadow of death prepares them for resurrection better than the church that goes straight to resurrection triumphalism without that awkward mortality bit.
Bonhoeffer once asked, “Why did it come about that the cinema really is often more interesting, more exciting, more human and gripping than the church?” Why, indeed. Maybe the situation is even worse than I have described; perhaps the churches are even more trivial than the entertainment industry. After all, in popular entertainment one does occasionally find the tragic clearly articulated, as in the movies of a Coppola or a Scorsese.
A church with a less realistic view of life than one can find in a movie theater? For some, that might be an amusing, even entertaining, thought; for me, it is a tragedy.
---
Source: Carl R. Trueman, "Tragic Worship, First Things, June 1, 2013, accessed April 18, 2014, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/06/tragic-worship.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The Divine Beatitude
Whatever is desirable in whatsoever beatitude, whether true or false, pre-exists wholly and in a more eminent degree in the divine beatitude. As to contemplative happiness, God possesses a continual and most certain contemplation of Himself and of all things else; and as to that which is active, He has the governance of the whole universe. As to earthly happiness, which consists in delight, riches, power, dignity, and fame, according to Boethius (De Consol. iii, 10), He possesses joy in Himself and all things else for His delight; instead of riches He has that complete self-sufficiency, which is promised by riches; in place of power, He has omnipotence; for dignities, the government of all things; and in place of fame, He possesses the admiration of all creatures.
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Source: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, 1a.26.4, trans. by English Dominicans, http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1026.htm#article4.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., on Confidence in the Service of God
Apply yourself seriously to serve God and to do your duty, and if you happen to fail in any thing, trouble not yourself, and lose not courage for that; since all the world are failing in their duty. You are but a weak man, you are not an angel or saint; and God who knows very well your weakness and misery, would not have you be discouraged when you fall. He only wishes you to ask new strength of him, that, in imitation of children, who as soon as they fall, rise again, and continue to run; even so you ought quickly rise, and begin anew to run in the way of God's commandments. Fathers, says St Ambrose, behold the falls of their children, rather with compassion than anger; God does the same to us. He loves us as his children, he knows our frailty, and therefore our falls and weaknesses excite him rather to a tender compassion, than to any indignation towards us. As a father pities his children, so our Lord has pity and compassion upon those that fear Him; for he knows of what matter we are made, and he has not forgot that we are dust. (Ps. cii. 13.) One of the great consolations those have who serve God with the fervor they ought, is, to know that though they correspond not to his goodness as they should yet he ceases not to bear with them and to love them; because he is rich in mercy;(Eph. ii. 4. ) so that all our sins disappear before his infinite mercy, and become like wax that melts before the fire. What sentiments of zeal, gratitude and cheerfulness, ought not to be excited in us by the thought, that the many faults we daily fall into through our weakness, do not hinder God from loving us according to his wonted goodness, and do not at all diminish his grace in us?
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Source: Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., The Practice of Christian Perfection (New York, NY: Excelsior Catholic Publishing House), 2:189.
Bl. Palafox on Suffering with a Spiritual Intention
Since you must suffer in your temporal labors, make these works spiritual. Suffer for God, and then you will find happiness. Whatever you suffer with a holy disposition is a crown; without that disposition, it is a torment.... The spiritual man does not consider his days more painful, but more delightful than the days of the lost and dissolute man. In the life of the spirit, suffering is not suffering, but joy.
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Source: Bl. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Varón de deseos, "Breve Exortacion á La Vida Espiritual," nn. 5, 9, quoted in John G. Arintero, The Mystical Evolution, trans. Jordan Aumann (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1978), 2:44.
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Source: Bl. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Varón de deseos, "Breve Exortacion á La Vida Espiritual," nn. 5, 9, quoted in John G. Arintero, The Mystical Evolution, trans. Jordan Aumann (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1978), 2:44.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Two Portraits of Young Married Women
I want to look at two basic portraits of young married women, the first portrait consisting of what commonly occurs in third-world, or developing, countries, a portrait of violence, abuse, suicide, and sorrow. The second portrait consists of the practice of marriage in traditional Romania, a portrait of happiness, strong families, and cultural values informed organically by the best of the Christian heritage.
Portrait One: Third-World, Developing Countries.
In many parts of the world, women as young as 7 or 8 years old are being married to men as old as 50. In places, such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, or Nepal, such women will most likely enter into a lifetime of domestic violence, and not a few will attempt to commit suicide. The photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair very powerfully captured this plight in her series Child Brides (http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=712). Sinclair notes that in "Ethiopia and Nepal, girls who try to escape their early marriages are often intercepted by brokers and trafficked to brothels where they are exposed to violence and HIV."
Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health states that 95% of all suicides are "attempted by uneducated or less educated female [sic]" between the ages of 16-19. 80% of these attempted suicides are by married people. The average age for a single woman to attempt suicide is 14 years old, and out of all women, 19-year-old women attempt to commit suicide the most. As of September, more than 2,500 women in Afghanistan have committed suicide for 2013, increasing the suicide rate since 2012. On the other hand, suicide by self-immolation has decreased 40%.
Source: Ministry of Public Health, "MoPH Marks Suicide Prevention Day," Ministry of Public Health Website, September 15, 2012, accessed November 19, 2013, http://moph.gov.af/en/news/12776.
Feministnews, "Women Commit Majority of Suicides in Afghanistan," Feminist Foundation Majority Blog, September 12, 2013, accessed November 19, 2013, http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2013/09/12/women-commit-majority-of-suicides-in-afghanistan/.
According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghan women suffer the highest rate of domestic violence worldwide. Here is a quotation of a 15-year-old married girl named Sadat from UNAMA's December 2012 document Still a Long Way to Go: Implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan:
I got married to a man in Sawa village of Anjil district five months ago. My husband and my father-in-law had beaten me without any reason several times. The repeated mistreatment had forced me to complain, but all in vain as the prosecutor overlooked my petition and warned me to either withdraw the complaint or face imprisonment.Source: UNAMA, Still a Long Way to Go, UNAMA Website, December 2012, accessed November 19, 2013, http://unama.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Qy9mDiEa5Rw%3d&tabid=12254&language=en-US, 1.
Page 23 of the document describes the how the forced and underage marriages in Afghanistan form "one of the most deep-rooted and negative harmful practices." Under-reporting was attributed to the cultural difficulties surrounding such an issue, such as "fear of reprisal, threat to life, and fear of being charged for 'run-away' and adultery crimes."
The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that an estimated 140 million girls under the age of 15 will become child brides between 2011 and 2020, making a yearly average of 14.2 million and a daily average of 39,000.
Source: WHO, "Child Marriages: 39 000 Every Day," WHO Website, March 7, 2013, accessed November 19, 2013, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/child_marriage_20130307/en/.
In this same press release, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin (don't ask me how to pronounce that), the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), commented that "child marriage is an appalling violation of human rights and robs girls of their education, health and long-term prospects. A girl who is married as a child is one whose potential will not be fulfilled. Since many parents and communities also want the very best for their daughters, we must work together and end child marriage."
And such young women are statistically "more vulnerable to intimate partner violence and sexual abuse than those who marry later." Complications in pregnancy and childbirth, such as fistula (see Sinclair's Child Brides), "are the leading cause of death in young women aged 15-19," said Flavia Bustreo, M.D.
Other interesting statistics: by their 18th birthday, 50% in South Asia and ≥33% of sub-Saharan women are married. "The 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are: Niger, 75%; Chad and Central African Republic, 68%; Bangladesh, 66%; Guinea, 63%; Mozambique, 56%; Mali, 55%; Burkina Faso and South Sudan, 52%; and Malawi, 50%." This discounts India, which due to its population, clearly surpasses all other countries; "in 47% of all [Indian] marriages the bride is a child [i.e. below 15 years old]."
Portrait Two: Romani and the Romanians.
Romania is a bit complicated because there are two groups that sometimes get confused with each other: the Romanians proper and the Romani, who form 2.5% of Romania's population.
Source: Central Intelligence Agency, "Europe: Romania," The World Factbook, November 4, 2013, accessed November 19, 2013, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ro.html.
The photojournalist Maria Sturm came out with a photo series called Be Good (http://www.mariasturm.com/be-good), depicting not ethnically Romanian, married teenagers but those we have commonly called "gypsies," or more properly speaking, the Romani (or Roma) people. This ethnic group is spread all across Europe, America, and even Russia, and they may have come from northwest India.
Source: Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov, "Roma Muslims in the Balkans," Project Education of Roma Children in Europe Website, accessed November 19, 2013, http://romafacts.uni-graz.at/images/stories/pdf/c_1.3_roma-muslims.pdf.
Isabel Mendizabal, Oscar Lao, Urko M. Marigorta et al., "Reconstructing the Population History of European Romani from Genome-wide Data," Current Biology 22 (December 18, 2012): 2342-2349.
Sturm clarified in an interview,
In our understanding the definition of youth is tied strongly to freedom and individuality; [something] we cannot imagine growing up without. It’s something we see as a [human] right; it’s something we would fight for! Because of this upbringing we can’t understand a different way of life, or at least it is very hard for us. The way we have been taught is the ‘right’ way, therefore we feel pity for those who don’t have our choices. Of course I wouldn’t let my child marry at such a young age, but I didn’t grow up among those traditions....Source: Sahara Borja, "Portraits of Married Teens in Romania," Feature Shoot Website, November 4, 2013, accessed November 19, 2013, http://www.featureshoot.com/2013/11/portraits-of-married-teens-in-romania/.
I was surprised that even among the poorest families not even one person had a materialistic or egoistic wish: they all wished for health, good understanding in their families and that their children will have an easier life....
Individuality is something that doesn’t exist in their society, their language. Imagine a family living together in a house with one room—there’s just no room for individuality to develop. The children and family come first.
For the Romani, underage marriage is common, and because this group suffers from poverty, antiziganism, and outright persecution, much of the criticisms towards underage marriage from the WHO can apply. Consider, for example, the following passage from a news article from 2005:
In the Czech Republic, 79% of respondents to a 2003-04 survey said they wouldn't want Roma as neighbors, according to an EU report released in November. The report also said leaders in the Slovak village of Svinia refused more than a million euros ($1.3 million) in aid because the funding would have helped the Roma.Source: Mary Beth Marklein, "European Effort Spotlights Plight of the Roma," USA Today, February 1, 2005, accessed November 19, 2013, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-02-01-roma-europe_x.htm.
The fact of the matter is that for those living in the United States, such concerns are literally most foreign.
But then there is the traditional culture of Romania itself, which is a different picture. The predominant religion of Romania is Orthodox Christianity, specifically under the Romanian Orthodox Church. Civil marriage was not introduced until 1864, and even then, it remains a formality.
Source: Pavel Suian, "Marriage in Romania," accessed November 19, 2013, http://www.law2.byu.edu/page/categories/marriage_family/past_conferences/oct2006/pb_chapters/13%20-%20Suian.pdf.
After joining the European Union in 2007, the same union obliged Romania to eliminate the illegal status of homosexual relations. Interestingly, homosexuality and radical feminist ideas have increasingly weakened traditional Romanian values, especially in urban areas. The outcry of conservative Romanians is quite similar to Muslims with respect to Western culture in itself: it is a decadent culture. Of course, these two cries are only materially the same, and I would argue that the Muslim reasoning for post-Enlightenment decadence is quite different from the traditional Christian reasoning although some critiques may overlap. One need look only towards the statistical prevalence of actual and severe domestic violence in Muslim relationships, especially in third-world countries, compared to the absence of such violence in even the poorer Romanian village communities.
Marriage in traditional Romanian culture is not an individual ordeal but a communal one, one that is supervised by the family and the Church, and "is assumed by most of Romanians like in the Bible, to be normative for human beings. The responsibilities, duties, and joys of marriage are understood as matters of spiritual significance." It is not a mere human or culturally-created institution/invention, but is for God's glory through the right ordering of man and woman.
Source: Ibid., 200-201.
Polls conducted as recently as the mid-2000s show that between 92-96% of young Romanians consider "marriage and children as their most important goals and achievements in life." And to get a further sense of a traditional culture organically influenced by a living faith, consider that Romanians consider family to be the basis of society, and family is intrinsically related to a "true vocation ot holiness," receiving graces from the sacrament of Matrimony.
According to statistics from the WHO, suicide rates in Romania between 1990-2009 remain around 12%, and 3.5% of those people were female. The largest percentage of suicides committed by women in 2009 were between the ages of 45 and 75+.
Age: Percentage
5-14: .9%
15-24: 2.6%
25-34: 1.9%
35-44: 3.9%
Source: WHO, "Suicide Rates, By Gender, Romania, 1990-2009," WHO Website, 2009, accessed November 19, 2013, http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/romania.pdf.
And as of 2009, according to Romania's National Institute of Statistics, the average age of Romanian women getting married is between 20-29, the mean being 27.5 years old. Interestingly, for the past few years, there has been a decline in the marriage rate, and the decrease in urban areas is 2.3 times higher than rural areas. In fact, the birth rate is much lower than the death/mortality rate, leading to a shrinking population.
Source: "Româncele se căsătoresc la 27 de ani şi divorţează la 36. De ce au început să fugă de măritiş," Gandul.info Website, June 30, 2010, accessed November 19, 2013, http://www.gandul.info/magazin/romancele-se-casatoresc-la-27-de-ani-si-divorteaza-la-36-de-ce-au-inceput-sa-fuga-de-maritis-6466978.
CIA, "Europe: Romania."
My Point—Given in a Long-winded Way.
The differences here are not explained so much by location as by living conditions that work together to form a "culture." These conditions include the material and the spiritual. Wealth, education, and faith all work together. What is interesting to me is that organizations, such as the WHO, the UN, and the EU, darken the causes of violence and "bad" practices to vague, and therefore generally agreeable, terms. For example:
Child marriage, which has existed for centuries, is a complex issue, rooted deeply in gender inequality, tradition and poverty. The practice is most common in rural and impoverished areas, where prospects for girls can be limited. In many cases, parents arrange these marriages and young girls have no choice....Source: WHO, "Child Marriages."
Social pressures within a community can lead families to wed young children. For example, some cultures believe marrying girls before they reach puberty will bring blessings on families. Some societies believe that early marriage will protect young girls from sexual attacks and violence and see it as a way to insure that their daughter will not become pregnant out of wedlock and bring dishonour [sic] to the family.
I find the above analysis somewhat funny because it repeats itself. For example, "child marriage" comes partly from "poverty." It is most common in "impoverished areas." Well, if poverty is the cause of child marriage, then of course it occurs in impoverished areas, and of course prospects for anyone will be limited. Another example: "social pressures within a community...." From where else do social pressures originate? An individual? An ant?
The above quotation as well as the entire preamble for the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is filled with the discourse of the autonomous individual with his (her/its) rights, freedoms, capital, property, choices, equalities. I could start listing random words from this discourse, and you'd know exactly what I'm talking about, perhaps without even being able to say what I in fact am talking about: peoples, union, peaceful, future, common, values, conscious, spiritual, moral, heritage, founded, indivisible, universal, human, dignity, freedom, equality, solidarity, principles, democracy, rule, law, individual, heart, activities, citizenship, security, justice, preservation, development, respect.
Source: European Union, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, March 3, 2010, accessed November 19, 2013, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:0389:0403:EN:PDF.
In fact, the way I generated that list was by going straight through the preamble I mentioned. It goes on, but you get the point.
Now, consider how I have included both third-world and developing in this post. "Developing nation/country" has replaced "third-world" because the popular implication is that the "third-world" is inferior to the "first-world." I found an interesting analysis of the change in this brief essay here: http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=159. It considers that "third-world" comes from the French Tiers Monde, an allusion to the Tiers état of the French Revolution (where the first state was the royalty, the second state was the Roman Catholic Church, and the third state was the peasants. In other words, the article goes on to suggest that "third-world" is politically incorrect not because of the "sensitive self-esteems [sic] of the impoverished, but because the linguistic powers-that-be are uncomfortable with the idea of" a revolution from the "rural," "impoverished," and backwater parts of the world who continue to justify their continued practices that offend our post-Enlightenment sensibilities. In fact, we, the European Union (in this fantasy dialogue of mine), might get so offended that we might force Romania to legalize homosexual relations even though we respect "the diversity of the cultures and traditions of the peoples of Europe as well as the national identities of the Member States." What, then, is respect but one more manifestation of a discourse signifying nothing?
Now, certainly there is a difference between the abuse that occurs in Ethiopia or Afghanistan and what occurs in rural Romania. But it seems strange that the "developed" nations are the arbiters of what is meant by "undeveloped" (and therefore "uncultured"), and this judgment is based on a way of thinking solidified by Western European, bourgeois philosophers in the 18th-19th centuries.
People who buy into this liberal discourse will probably take offense at my implication that poverty, domestic violence, and gender inequality are not important issues. Of course, in doing so, they would ignore the rather belabored citation of multiple credible sources that bring attention to these very issues occurring in places that your average American would have no clue about (including myself). But yes, I am suggesting that there is a deeper issue, more important than the very grave evils of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and it is the bedrock of human culture itself: the human family and the divine.
As Suian writes,
The advance of decadent ideologies and the incorporation in several UN documents of phrases and so-called "principles" contrary to all major religious beliefs, contrary to all moral values, and based on the wrong way of understanding the idea of human rights and the protection of minorities was possible only because the rest of the world gave up without a struggle....Source: Suian, 206-207.
By accepting the dissolution of the natural family including divorce, same sex marriage, pornography and other such "new propositions" we are forgetting that divorce is not just a legal question, it is not a passing "crisis," but affects the human being, destroys relations among many persons, will adversely affect forever and mark each member of the family, and most of all will negatively affect children....
The truth is that even those who seek religious marriage are not always fully conscious of the religious teaching on the goods of marriage....
The present young generation is raised under essentially the same desire of getting "everything they ever wanted" from their parents and, as a result, they are often unable to give of themselves when sacrifice is required....
Couples could benefit from greater formation in an understanding of permanence as a "process," or as a way of living "unconditionally" mirroring Christ's unconditional love for His Church.
These portraits are indications that there is a deeper, spiritual warfare going on, and it is away from that reality that we shouldn't allow ourselves to become distracted.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Paul VI on the Artificial Joys of Modern Society
When he awakens to the world, does not man feel, in addition to the natural desire to understand and take possession of it, the desire to find within it his fulfillment and happiness? As everyone knows, there are several degrees of this "happiness." Its most noble expression is joy, or "happiness" in the strict sense, when man, on the level of his higher faculties, finds his peace and satisfaction in the possession of a known and loved good. Thus, man experiences joy when he finds himself in harmony with nature, and especially in the encounter, sharing and communion with other people. All the more does he know spiritual joy or happiness when his spirit enters into possession of God, known and loved as the supreme and immutable good. Poets, artists, thinkers, but also ordinary men and women, simply disposed to a certain inner light, have been able and still are able, in the times before Christ and in our own time and among us, to experience something of the joy of God.
But how can we ignore the additional fact that joy is always imperfect, fragile and threatened? By a strange paradox, the consciousness of that which, beyond all passing pleasure, would constitute true happiness, also includes the certainty that there is no perfect happiness. The experience of finiteness, felt by each generation in its turn, obliges one to acknowledge and to plumb the immense gap that always exists between reality and the desire for the infinite.
This paradox, and this difficulty in attaining joy, seem to us particularly acute today. This is the reason for our message. Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy. For joy comes from another source. It is spiritual. Money, comfort, hygiene and material security are often not lacking; and yet boredom, depression and sadness unhappily remain the lot of many. These feelings sometimes go as far as anguish and despair, which apparent carefreeness, the frenzies of present good fortune and artificial paradises cannot assuage. Do people perhaps feel helpless to dominate industrial progress, to plan society in a human way? Does the future perhaps seem too uncertain, human life too threatened? Or is it not perhaps a matter of loneliness, of an unsatisfied thirst for love and for someone's presence, of an ill-defined emptiness? On the contrary, in many regions and sometimes in our midst, the sum of physical and moral sufferings weighs heavily: so many starving people, so many victims of fruitless combats, so many people torn from their homes! These miseries are perhaps not deeper than those of the past but they have taken on a worldwide dimension. They are better known, reported by the mass media—at least as much as the events of good fortune—and they overwhelm people's minds. Often there seems to be no adequate human solution to them.
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Source: Pope Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino, Apostolic Exhortation on Christian Joy, Vatican Website, May 9, 1975, accessed November 6, 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19750509_gaudete-in-domino_en.html, section 1.
But how can we ignore the additional fact that joy is always imperfect, fragile and threatened? By a strange paradox, the consciousness of that which, beyond all passing pleasure, would constitute true happiness, also includes the certainty that there is no perfect happiness. The experience of finiteness, felt by each generation in its turn, obliges one to acknowledge and to plumb the immense gap that always exists between reality and the desire for the infinite.
This paradox, and this difficulty in attaining joy, seem to us particularly acute today. This is the reason for our message. Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy. For joy comes from another source. It is spiritual. Money, comfort, hygiene and material security are often not lacking; and yet boredom, depression and sadness unhappily remain the lot of many. These feelings sometimes go as far as anguish and despair, which apparent carefreeness, the frenzies of present good fortune and artificial paradises cannot assuage. Do people perhaps feel helpless to dominate industrial progress, to plan society in a human way? Does the future perhaps seem too uncertain, human life too threatened? Or is it not perhaps a matter of loneliness, of an unsatisfied thirst for love and for someone's presence, of an ill-defined emptiness? On the contrary, in many regions and sometimes in our midst, the sum of physical and moral sufferings weighs heavily: so many starving people, so many victims of fruitless combats, so many people torn from their homes! These miseries are perhaps not deeper than those of the past but they have taken on a worldwide dimension. They are better known, reported by the mass media—at least as much as the events of good fortune—and they overwhelm people's minds. Often there seems to be no adequate human solution to them.
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Source: Pope Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino, Apostolic Exhortation on Christian Joy, Vatican Website, May 9, 1975, accessed November 6, 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19750509_gaudete-in-domino_en.html, section 1.
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