Repost: Alasdair MacIntyre, "The Only Vote Worth Casting in November"

When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives. These are propositions which in the abstract may seem to invite easy agreement. But, when they find application to the coming presidential election, they are likely to be rejected out of hand. For it has become an ingrained piece of received wisdom that voting is one mark of a good citizen, not voting a sign of irresponsibility. But the only vote worth casting in November is a vote that no one will be able to cast, a vote against a system that presents one with a choice between Bush's conservatism and Kerry's liberalism, those two partners in ideological debate, both of whom need the other as a target.

Why should we reject both? Not primarily because they give us wrong answers, but because they answer the wrong questions. What then are the right political questions? One of them is: What do we owe our children? And the answer is that we owe them the best chance that we can give them of protection and fostering from the moment of conception onwards. And we can only achieve that if we give them the best chance that we can both of a flourishing family life, in which the work of their parents is fairly and adequately rewarded, and of an education which will enable them to flourish. These two sentences, if fully spelled out, amount to a politics. It is a politics that requires us to be pro-life, not only in doing whatever is most effective in reducing the number of abortions, but also in providing healthcare for expectant mothers, in facilitating adoptions, in providing aid for single-parent families and for grandparents who have taken parental responsibility for their grandchildren. And it is a politics that requires us to make as a minimal economic demand the provision of meaningful work that provides a fair and adequate wage for every working parent, a wage sufficient to keep a family well above the poverty line.

The basic economic injustice of our society is that the costs of economic growth are generally borne by those least able to afford them and that the majority of the benefits of economic growth go to those who need them least. Compare the rise in wages of ordinary working people over the last thirty years to the rise in the incomes and wealth of the top twenty percent. Compare the value of minimum wage now to its value then and next compare the value of the remuneration of CEOs to its value then. What is needed to secure family life is a sufficient minimum income for every family and that can perhaps best be secured by some version of the negative income tax, proposed long ago by Milton Friedman, a tax that could be used to secure a large and just redistribution of income and so of property.

We note at this point that we have already broken with both parties and both candidates. Try to promote the pro-life case that we have described within the Democratic Party and you will at best go unheard and at worst be shouted down. Try to advance the case for economic justice as we have described it within the Republican Party and you will be laughed out of court. Above all, insist, as we are doing, that these two cases are inseparable, that each requires the other as its complement, and you will be met with blank incomprehension. For the recognition of this is precluded by the ideological assumptions in terms of which the political alternatives are framed. Yet at the same time neither party is wholeheartedly committed to the cause of which it is the ostensible defender. Republicans happily endorse pro-choice candidates, when it is to their advantage to do so. Democrats draw back from the demands of economic justice with alacrity, when it is to their advantage to do so. And in both cases rhetorical exaggeration disguises what is lacking in political commitment.

In this situation a vote cast is not only a vote for a particular candidate, it is also a vote cast for a system that presents us only with unacceptable alternatives. The way to vote against the system is not to vote.

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Source: Alasdair MacIntyre, "The Only Vote Worth Casting in November," University of Notre Dame, October 2004, http://brandon.multics.org/library/Alasdair%20MacIntyre/macintyre2004vote.html.

Why Self-Knowledge Is Difficult

Notes from Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 41–44.

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Aside from the distorting effects of our fallen nature, there are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of attaining self-knowledge: 1) "the natural bent of our attention"; 2) "the complexity and mobility of our psychic experience" (41).

1. Our attention wanders seemingly aimlessly, drawn by present sensibles, current feelings and their relations to their causes (beliefs, worries, anticipations, regrets, etc.). The flux of consciousness is so fast and fluid that it's hard to identify single factors and motions, unless they are especially pronounced or prolonged.  Sometimes we dismiss what is important, thinking it is unimportant, and sometimes we exaggerate what is less important or an aftereffect.

2. The inner motions of our experience are so interrelated and numerous that often it is hard to begin somewhere, and once we have begun, it is hard to isolate one motion. Hence motions that God may introduce into us for spiritual purposes may end up being passed over as said above; they are "never brought to the scrutiny of faith-enlightened intelligence and integrated into our Christian life of free choice and love" (42). And on the other hand, due to ignorance and lack of self awareness, evil motions can hold a sway over us.

It must be remembered that awareness is difficult but possible, even necessary, to advance in the spiritual life. Repeated effort will increase the capacity for self-reflection and understanding.

Those who think that they are an open book to themselves should be warned. "They are probably reading their hearts very superficially, finding what they want to find or what they have been led to expect to find. Their easy confidence may be a barrier to real self-knowledge, which is not easily achieved" (43).

There is a great need for prayer, especially to the Holy Spirit, a prayer of trust and openness. The Holy Spirit can give us a superabundance of helps to come to understand ourselves and develop self-reflection. He alone can protect us from deceptions.

Finally, we need help from others, help from, say, St. Ignatius' rules and experienced guides. These are the human helps, or natural guides, through which Providence works and perfects in order to bring us to supernatural guidance.

Ignatius notes in his rules that these are "some rules," implying that they are neither exhaustive nor univocal. Their application must be adapted to circumstances, guided by an experienced, learned, and holy director. This application falls under the realm of prudence and discretion (44)

The Purpose of St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises & Discernment of Spirits

[39] The overall goal is the removal of obstacles in us to the one certain expression of love for God, our seeking sincerely to find and do his will (Spiritual Exercises, no. 1), and so enabling us to grow toward the ideal of hearts so pure as to experience God's revelation of himself in all things, and to live lives in Christ totally dedicated to thanksgiving, praise, and service, or, in other words, to doing always what is for the greater glory of God (Spiritual Exercises, no. 230). The way to such purity of heart is mainly contemplation of God's love revealed in Jesus as he is seen in the Gospels—contemplating in such a way as to experience his personal love "for me" and so to enter into intimate personal relationship with him, taking on his mind and heart.

Growth into such purity of heart is God's work in us, impossible to achieve merely by our own efforts, but not to be effected by God without our free response and effort. So it is of essential importance to be able to recognize when God is acting on our consciousness and to know when it is not God, but our own selves, or the prodding of the world, or of Satan. Only so, can we by our free choice open ourselves to God's influence and close out anything opposed to it.

The Threefold Purpose of the Rules: to Notice, to Understand, to Accept or Reject

Accordingly, when he comes to write his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Ignatius states that they are "to help persons get in touch with and understand in some manner the diverse motions which are prompted in them, in order to receive the good ones and expel the evil ones." If we analyze this statement, we can see that [40] it proposes three aims in an ordered series: (1) to help us get in touch with—that is, to become reflectively and discriminatingly aware of—the spiritually significant motions among all those in the whole mass of motions swarming in our consciousness; (2) to help us to a practical "understanding" of these perceived motions; and (3) to enable us intelligently to receive or expel these spiritually significant motions. The first purpose is for the sake of the second and makes it possible; the second in turn is for the sake of the third and makes it possible. The first two are so closely bound together that they can be discussed as one combined purpose. [...]

Ignatius assumes that those who study these rules will truly desire their third and ultimate purpose; they will want to open themselves wide to the movements from God and allow them to influence their lives in whatever way God intends by giving them; they will respond with decision and action when this is called for. On the other hand, he assumes that such persons will be ready to resist the movements from Satan and thrust them out. [...]

[41] An obvious condition for the possibility of understanding the spiritually significant motions within our minds and affectivities is our becoming aware of them. This is, therefore, the first purpose of the rules, to help us become perceptively aware of what is going on within us. This purpose involves more than mere consciousness of the motions; it involves reflective and discriminating attention. All the motions of which Ignatius speaks are conscious acts or feelings, but generally most of them are not attended to reflectively. In fact, when we make the effort to attend to them we find it very difficult to do so.

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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 39–41

St. Ignatius' Meaning of Interior Motions

[37] What Ignatius refers to by motions in the soul is the flux of thoughts (such as judgments about God, self, the world, plans, lines of reasoning, lines of association, or imaginings), and of affective acts (such as love, hate, desire, or fear), and of affective feelings (such as peace, warmth, coldness, sweetness, bitterness, buoyancy, or depression). Among all these motions Ignatius sees some to be of special interest for anyone who is trying to open himself to the Holy Spirit and to resist the influence of the evil spirit. These are motions which of themselves, and therefore in every instance, tend to build up or to tear down the Christ-life in us. Their unvarying thrust is toward having a beneficial or harmful influence on faith, hope, charity, prayer, personal relationships, apostolic work, decisions that give direction to our life as Christians, and the like. [...]

[38] [These motions] are such that, if they are accepted and allowed to work or are cooperated with, they will inevitably have such effects; but they do not necessarily, of themselves, have an actual constructive or destructive effect. Those which of themselves tend to a destructive effect can be resisted and become the occasion of actual spiritual growth. Those which of themselves tend to have a constructive effect can be ignored, resisted, or even misused, and so be the occasion for sin and regression in Christian life. What effect they actually have depends on what we do with them. No person who experiences them is worthy of praise or condemnation only for having had one or other of them. "I am not going to be saved," Ignatius writes elsewhere in reference to these motions, "because of the good works of the good angels"—that is, because of the good motions they prompt in me—"and I am not going to be condemned because of the evil thoughts and the weaknesses the bad angels, the flesh, and the world bring before my mind" (Letter of Sept. 11, 1536 to Sister Teresa Rejadell). [...]

[40] Understanding a motion comprises [41] at least three things. First, we recognize the characteristic features by which it is distinguished from other motions. Second, we see the direction in which it of itself points or leads us, its likely or actually effected consequences. Third, we know its origin. In a spiritual understanding, we recognize those features which distinguish spiritually significant motions from others; and among the former, we distinguish one sort from another. We see the good or evil consequences for a Christian life to which the motion of itself tends; and from these two elements of spiritual understanding, we infer the good or evil origin.

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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 37–38, 40–41.

The Astounding Truth of God's Relationship with Us

Ignatius shows no hesitancy in accepting in its fullness the central truth of Christian faith and all its consequences—unlike most of us who, if not in theory, at least in practice, are hesitant to accept the full astounding truth. If God so loves us as to send his Beloved, Jesus Christ, to be one with us in the flesh; to be a sacrifice for our sins; to give us all that the Father gave him, his life, his truth, his love, his joy, his glory; to give us his body to eat, his blood to drink; to give us the Holy Spirit who makes us children of God in Christ, who lives in us, enlightens us about Jesus and his teachings, pours out God's agape, defends and cherishes the Christ-life in us—if God so loves us as to do all this, then after that there is no problem in believing that God is constantly attending to each of his children, calling each of them by name, speaking to them, listening to them, sometimes in extraordinary ways but usually through the ordinary motions of their own minds and hearts, and giving them power to discover when it is he who is speaking and what he is saying. Given what a Christian is called to believe about his relationship with God, is it not surprising to our way of thinking that God does not speak and act in our lives even more obviously than Ignatius, with all genuine Christian tradition, has said he does?

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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 32.

Repost: "Titanism 101"

The titanic orientation of our contemporary humanity is a theme continually referred to and explained by Ernst Jünger and his brother Friedrich Georg. It might be useful to readers to have their vision applied in simple form to a few concrete aspects of our modern world.

According to one interpretation, the etymology of the ancient Greek word "titan" expresses the notion of an "over-stretcher" or over-extender. This expresses the titans' lack of a sense of measure when it comes to expressing power. Put in Nietzsche's terms, titans are motivated by a blind and insatiable will to power: always more to the point of extreme, without a conception of balance, of a point of sufficiency or equilibrium that can be reached and then maintained over time. The gods, who the titans periodically overthrow and briefly manage to keep out of the picture, represent this sense of balance and equilibrium.

It is already clear from this description how civilization in the last couple of centuries has become ever more titanic, beginning in the west but now reaching global extension. According to Jünger, our period is the next return of the titans after that of Imperial Rome. I believe we are slowly starting to understand the dangers of titanic arrogance in man and, at least theoretically and in restricted circles, contemplating a retreat from its unsustainable, inescapably catastrophic approach to existence and also the manner in which the next phase may emerge, a return of order-restoring "gods".

Here then are some superficially explained examples of titanism as it presently manifests.

Economic growth, environmental rape, unhappiness

Along with the intrinsically connected theme of the environment, the stagnant economy is the crisis of the day in the US and Europe, that is, in the titanic avant-garde of our world. It has long been taken for granted that nothing is more important to human welfare than continuous, unlimited economic growth, that higher GNPs and incomes are the critical measures of a country's all-significant entry into modern times and indeed measures of its citizen's physical wellbeing and even happiness. Given this assumption, there is no limit to the level of wealth to be achieved - this is most apparent in the richest western countries where a higher level of material comfort can hardly be imagined, yet growth is still the obsession. Indeed, a vicious circle of ever-intensifying, futile effort is created in this cul-de-sac: as the elusive happiness promised by politicians and scientists remains always around the next corner, behind the next technological improvement or economic upswing, we grow more and more desperate and run even faster down this alley, at whose end not salvation but spiritual and environmental catastrophe await us.

At some point, we titanic westerners also seek patronizingly to aid the "underdeveloped" world with our superior knowledge, though the process actually resembles more an infection of the innocent with our poison, with the seeds of discontent. If such initiatives seem (naively) well-meaning, at a deeper level they function for us as a necessary distraction from our spiritual desperation at the dilemma of "where to go now, now that we have everything and are more miserable than ever."

It may seem that there is no more to criticize in these material ambitions than their futility in providing happiness - given a basic level of comfort and sustenance, happiness is only ever a product of inner harmony and meaning, and not physical luxury. But in fact they bring serious material dangers with them, since economic growth at all costs entails a constantly increasing consumption of energy and natural resources (see F.G. Jünger's The Failure of Technology), to the point of environmental bankruptcy and nest-spoiling. Enter our environmental crisis, nothing more than the inevitable consequence of titanic over-extension and lack of measure. The tragedy here is that titans - we - do not learn through experience, we simply become its victims: we only stop when self-provoked catastrophe stops us dead in our tracks. From Ernst Jünger´s Aladdin's Problem: "We will either be saved by the poet or by fire".

But even the worst imaginable environmental catastrophe would not be the most tragic result of our titanic pretensions: the real tragedy is that they distract us from the spiritual efforts to be made in our personal lives and therefore lead to increasing inner poverty, personal meaninglessness and unhappiness. We put all our hopes in a material salvation and forget the fundamentally spiritual, internal basis of all deeper fulfillment. Indeed, those on the cutting edge of titanism, our wealthy western countries, are undoubtedly not the richest in happiness, and they are almost certainly the most spiritually bankrupt. Aladdin's Problem, "Soon there will be nothing left but the sound of Sheol".

Science

From being a source of spiritually meaningful knowledge in ancient times, science has been degraded by our titanic culture into a mere tool for driving economic growth and invention for its own sake, that is to say, science has been degraded into technology and an insatiable amassing of knowledge. Most scientists would be surprised to hear of times when science sought an absolute knowledge that had spiritual meaning for people, that aided them to achieve inner happiness and not merely physical comfort.

For today's titanic science is interested in knowledge only to the degree that it increases worldly or material power, or, when that is not applicable, as in astronomy for example, that is provides egotistical self-gratification, material to lord it over other titans involved in the same race to nowhere - by the very nature, Titans are competitive. (A low level expression of this is the curious pride the man on the street feels in his knowledge of trivia, which is absolutely useless in every sense except as a potential competitive measure: "I know more than you" - however useless such unintegrated abstract knowledge is.)

This titanic faith in technological science as a cure-all whose saving power always lies tantalizingly around the next corner, with the next technical innovation, is not just arrogant or naive, it can also be deadly; for invention per se has no preference for good or evil ends, and, in an age of spiritual decline, the latter may even emerge more readily than the former. Moreover, when the accidents inevitably happen, they take on technically-empowered proportions: the sinking of the Titanic was an early sign, one with unique symbolic value, but many others have since taken place, including for instance the technical ability of the Nazis to kill and dispose of human beings so efficiently. In this respect, we can only thank our lucky stars that the atomic machinery has never really gotten out of our control.

Art and Culture

As F.G. Jünger points out in The Failure of Technology, titans are incapable of art since they lack its basic prerequisites, a sense of measure. In fact, contemporary art limits itself, with rare exceptions, to pure innovation, novelty, and more often than not has a quite abhorrent effect by its disproportions. Like everything titanic, it aims at a dynamic effect, to be didactic or pornographic, to attract or repel - it has no understanding of the stasis that true art evokes (a la Stendhal effect).

If it has a genuine purpose in the greater process, which surely it does, then for the moment at least, it must be that of the compost heap on which the old used-up forms of old are decomposed and from whose rich substrate new forms can one day sprout. But let us be objective about which stage we are at now - when the new forms emerge, it will already signal the end of the titanic period.

As Ernst Jünger points out in Aladddin's [sic] Problem, human culture as such cannot be developed in a titanic society, since culture is based on our treatment of the dead and titans are patently not interested in the dead or anything that has to do with the past and with tradition - they only want to express power and that implies a break with static models of the past; they live with an existential centre of gravity in becoming and not being. The continuity and being-beyond-time implied by remembrance of the past, by graves and cults of the dead is of no interest or meaning to them.

In this same book, Ernst Jünger speculates that the emergence of a new cult of the dead will be a sign that culture can take root again - and we add that this will necessarily also mark the death throes of our present titanic phase.

"Extremism"

In the essay "Mut und Übermut" from Das Abenteuerliche Herz (2nd Edition), Ernst Jünger speaks of having lost his taste for certain words combined with the prefix "super" (über). As he explains, this prefix has a strong connotation of will power, a belief that the supreme achievement comes from the most intense application of will, and not wisdom - that is, as a result of titanic effort.

(Aside: the fate of the Superman actor Christopher Reeve may be another foolishly clear sign from Cassandra of the destiny of titanic mankind, similar to that other prophecy of hers which Jünger regularly mentions, the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic.)

The trend towards the superlative, in words and actions, has only progressed since that essay was written - today I would suggest that the equivalent word, the appropriate one for the next stage in the pursuit of more, is the adjective "extreme". "Super" has lost its power and now we are forced to use the next and last possibility, the extreme. Thus, in the media, in the lifestyles and productions of the west, we see this word appearing everywhere: extreme sports, extreme sex, extreme nutrition, extreme technology, extreme performance, my toothpaste is even called "extreme mint"!

A seemingly trivial social development that is in fact a frightening omen for our titanic civilization - because the extreme of any linear development (i.e one that does not follow or believe in cyclical patterns) must represent the last stage. There is nowhere to go after this word appears, there can be nothing beyond the extreme, except a precipitous plummet from the cliff we have so fanatically scaled.

Salvation?

This end must logically come, to some unknown degree catastrophically, even if in reality the meta-historical processes involved are not linear but cyclical, so that "the end" is actually only the low point that marks the beginning of a new cycle. Our titanic will power is such that it will drive us to that end without slowing down, and it will thus be more or less disastrous in a material sense. If this much is clear, then the only real task we have today is not to attempt a redemption of the material state of affairs, whose fate is essentially sealed, but rather to prepare spiritually for a passage through the curtains of fire and for the new world that must born on the far side.

In this respect, it may be we in the west who have the main role, for he who leads the way into the pit or cul-de-sac of material power will also be the one who first realizes its futility and so finds the way out.

Ernst Jünger often said that although he might be a pessimist in the short term, "ultimately" he was an optimist. The gods always return - at some point. He ascribed the 21st century to the titans, the 22nd to the gods - for myself, I am not sure that things can last that long.

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Source: "Titanism 101," Ernst Jünger Blog, July 21, 2011, http://www.ernst-juenger.org/2011/07/titanism-101-junger-brothers-view-in.html.

The Four Causes Defined

Principle: "that from which something proceeds in any way whatever" (Fr. William Wallace, OP, The Elements of Philosophy [Wipf & Stock, 2011], 44, §16.7); "the intelligible framework or conditions of change" (John Deely, Medieval Philosophy Redefined, 143).

Three principles of change in Aristotle's thought: 1) form; 2) matter; 3) privation.

Cause: "that from which something proceeds with a dependence in being" (Wallace, 44, §16.7; see also 100, §35.1) or that upon which something depends for its being.

Condition: "that which makes possible, makes ready, or prepares the way for an efficient cause to act, or for its action to be efficacious" (101, §35.3).
-the condition in which an obstacle is removed that "would otherwise block the agent's activity or render it ineffective" is called the removens prohibens.
-a condition that is an absolute requirement for the cause to function, a necessary condition: conditio sine qua non.

Occasion: "the opportunity for a cognitive agent to exercise its causality" (102, §35.4).

Four Causes (and Medieval subdivisions):

Material (Matter): "the intrinsic determinable principle that receives its actuation and determination from form" (103, §35.6); "that upon which the agent acts" (Deely, 140, fn. 6).

Efficient (or Agent or Productive): "the productive or transient action initiated by an agent [where] an agent be understood as anything capable of initiating a motion or a change" (Wallace, 104, §35.8).
Kinds of efficient causes:
1) Essential vs. Coincidental
2) Total vs. Partial
3) Principal vs. Instrumental (instrument: "something from which an effect flows by reason of its subordination to a principal efficient cause, to which the instrument ministers and by which it is moved" [ibid.]).
4) Primary vs. Secondary
5) Perfecting vs. Disposing
6) Natural vs. Non-Natural (e.g. violence, chance, artificial, voluntary)
7) Univocal vs. Equivocal vs. Analogical (depends on "metaphysical level" of the agent vs. patient)
8) Universal vs. Particular
9) Corporeal vs. Incorporeal
10) Agents that cause being vs. agents that cause becoming

(Intrinsic) Formal: "the intrinsic principle of existence in any determinate essence" or "the intrinsic determinant of anything that is determinable" (102, §35.5); "the result in or response of the material correlated with the action of the agent" (Deely, 140, fn. 6).
-Extrinsic Formal Cause (Exemplary or Ideal): that form which is introduced into matter "by an intelligent agent" according to a pattern or plan (ibid.).
1) Exemplary vs. Specificative (or Objective): that which specifies "cognition as an awareness of this rather than that object or aspect of an object" (ibid.).

(Intrinsic) Final (or Teleological): "the full development of the substance or the completion of the process itself," where "the end itself may be defined as that for the sake of which something exists or is done, or that for which an agent acts or action takes place"; "it is said to be first in the order of intention and last in the order of execution or activity"; also called the "cause of causes (causa causarum)" (Wallace, 105, §35.10); "the [intrinsic] pattern of development which an effect once produced exhibits over time" (Deely, 104, fn. 6).
-Extrinsic Final Cause (Exemplary/Ideal): "the determination or form of an effect as this is preconceived by an intelligent agent," which is "extrinsic to the effect and exerts its influence mainly as an idea in the intentional order" (Wallace, 106, §35.11); "the intention according to or purpose for which [an agent]" forms a material structure (Deely, 140, fn. 6).