Tag: Extremism

At Home on the Range

No, this is not about the song
   It’s about how comfortable we are about where we seem to find ourselves—or others choose to situate us—on the various ranges or scales that we use to describe and measure our appearance, behavior, popularity, feelings, skills, etc.
   Here’s a notorious example: skin color—classifying people on a range from Black to White (which actually is a range from dark to light).
   Nobody is at either extreme. Nobody’s skin is 100% black or dark, and nobody’s skin is 100% light or white.
   We all may know many so-called “black” people who are paler than some so-called “white” people, and many so-called “white” people who are darker than some so-called “black” people.
   When we use a range or scale like that to describe one another, we’re really thinking about all kinds of factors besides skin color—physiognomy, dress, behavior, ethnic origins, family, social status, education, wealth, etc.
   Just think about what we’re trying to get at—and how confusing it gets— when we classify people on the “conservative-liberal” range, or the “young-old” range, or the “smart-dumb” range, or the “weak-strong” range, or the “good-bad” range, or the “rich-poor” range.
   Whatever range we’re using to describe ourselves or another, there’s one common factor to them all: nobody is at the extreme of any range; no one is 100% anything!
   In other words, we all have and may display to some extent a bit of both: I may be fairly liberal about somethings and conservative about others, know a lot about somethings and little about others.
   And, of course, as we change and develop, our position on any of these ranges shifts, more towards one extreme or the other—sort of like the way the mercury moves one way or the other in a thermometer.

   Here’s another contemporary example: sexuality—classifying people on a range from heterosexual to homosexual.
   Nobody is 100% at either extreme—or exactly in the middle (e.g.. “bisexual”). Nobody is only and exclusively attracted to others of the opposite sex and never, ever attracted to the other—and vice-versa.
   When we use a range or scale like that to describe one another, we’re really thinking about all kinds of factors besides sexual attraction and/or behavior—physiognomy, dress, mores, cultural standards, affects, etc.
   With this range, there are key factors which strongly influence our reactions and judgements—our standards of morality and, or based on, our religious formation.
   A strong influence in the shaping of standards of morality and religious formation until fairly recent times, especially in Western societies, is sometimes identified as Jansenism (based on the writings of a 17th century theologian, Cornelius Jansen).
   This movement, rooted in Augustinian theology, emphasized original sin, the fundamental sinfulness of the human condition, and the need for divine grace. It inspired a very rigorous moral theology, especially in sexual matters.
   For example, I can remember being taught as a child in catechism class that the sixth commandment (about adultery) forbade, under penalty of mortal sin, “impure” thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions.
   I was terrified by what, in retrospect, I later realized were bad religious teachings.
   A moral to all this: be aware of the range of views regarding most matters and beware of believing your judgement about the right point on any range is the only legitimate, unbiased one. (Alas, we’re not infallible!)


23 May 2021

True or False

Polydactylism is an anomaly in human beings and animals—i.e., extra fingers and/or toes.
   Suppose you were playing True or False, and the question was “Humans have five fingers, true or false?” The common sense, customary response would be “True”—but sometimes, rarely, they don’t. So the right answer must be “False”.
   Now, if the question was more nuanced, say, “Humans usually (or mostly) have five fingers, true or false?” the right answer would be “True”.
   But if the players of this game all lived on an isolated little island (never mind that “isolated” and “island” are both derived from the same root word) where everybody has six fingers . . . well, you get the idea.
   On a day to day basis, it’s hard to find real life “absolute” truths and/or “absolute” falsehoods.
   A similar challenge involves characterizing something as either “right” or “wrong”, or as “good” or “bad”.
   The problem is whether there is such a thing as an “absolute”—because an absolute means something 100%, without exception.
   An absolute is a projection, based on experience. In practice, one end of a range is an absolute—e.g., from 100% True to 100% False. You can be at any point on the range, but you’re never at either end point.
   None of us are ever 100% True or 100% False; 100% Right or 100% Wrong; 100% Good or 100% Bad—no creature, that is. (100% is either a theoretical abstract or we’re talking about God.)
   But just because no view, opinion, or decision is absolutely (100%) true or absolutely (100%) false, it doesn’t mean that all views, opinions, and decisions are of equal value or worth.
   We judge things—and even argue about things—on the basis of how close or how far away they are from the ideal (the absolute).

   A popular classification or rating criterion now-a-days has to do with liking. Someone tweets something, and then we learn about how many “Likes” it got in response. (We don’t get into whether it refers to liking a lot or only liking a little.)
   This is a measure of popularity at any given moment in time (presuming, of course, that everyone more or less understands the tweet, view, opinion or decision being classified in the same way.)
   An idea may be very popular, but this has little to do with it being true or false—or right or wrong, or good or bad.
   When you get down to it, there’s a high degree of relativity to every aspect of our lives. We may not be perfectly (100%) good, but we may be striving to be good. Our ideals are the carrot on the stick!
   We often “like” the unearthing of negative facts about people. And, since none of us are perfectly (100%) good or bad, smart or dumb, prudent or imprudent, selfless or selfish, there’s always something to accuse, criticize, unearth, or discredit about each of us—about every human person, no matter who!
   What’s really important is what are our absolutes, our ideals, what are our carrots on the stick in front of us.
   If we try to be true, right, or good and manage to be more often than not we may be on the way to becoming “saints”—e.g. exemplary people, outstanding in many ways, models to be imitated.
   On the other hand, if more often than not we’re false, wrong, bad, we also may be exemplary people, outstanding in many ways, but an entirely different kind of model!


14 March 2021

Rights of the Body

You know how it is, every now and then while reading, a word or phrase hits you. Instead of slipping right past it, you come to a full stop—and you look it carefully and think about it.
Well, that’s what happened to me last year on All Souls Day! During the Office of Readings of The Liturgy of the Hours, I was really struck by the second reading, from a book on the death of his brother Satyrus by St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397).
It began with Ambrose asserting, “We see that death is gain, life is loss” quoting St. Paul’s famous, “For me life is Christ, and death a gain.”
It was followed by what seemed, at first, an ordinary reflection on the dichotomy, the tension between the desires of the soul and those of the body:
“. . . our soul must learn to free itself from the desires of the body. It must soar above earthly lusts to a place where they cannot come near, to hold it fast.”
However, However, although Ambrose cautioned, “Though we are still in the body, let us not give ourselves to the things of the body,” his next words managed to avoid the extremism sometimes associated with Paul’s thought.
“We must not reject the natural rights of the body,” Ambrose wrote, “but we must desire before all else the gifts of grace.”
Ambrose avoided advocating the rights of the soul at the price of disparaging the body. So to speak, he saw the goodness of both, but simply prioritized one over the other.
However However this was not the way the world was turning.
Christianity had developed initially in the pagan Greco-Roman world with its ideals about physical fitness and sexual moderation, but, perhaps in reaction to excesses of that world, was beginning to stress more the dangers of the body and its desires and to esteem sexual abstinence over sexual moderation.

Towards the end of Ambrose’s life, controversies about the roles played by free will and original sin in human behavior weren’t leaving much room for considering “the natural rights of the body”.
As centuries passed, from the early exaltation of the heroism of the martyrs and the development of a theology of “original sin” to the establishment of monasticism and religious and clerical celibacy, a certain disparagement of the body gradually became enshrined as the new ideal.
The early development of psychology in the nineteenth century, especially the work of Sigmund Freud, opened a door to a radically different way of looking at human nature and behavior—especially traditional Western attitudes about sexuality. It impacted and challenged traditional church teachings and customs, and still does.
Extremism, no matter what kind, tends to provoke a counter-extremism. No surprise, then, that centuries of extreme disparagement of the body had been leading to a modern over-emphasis on its “rights”.
Extremism in rejecting or defending “the natural rights of the body” seems to underlie many of the social and moral issues polarizing our contemporary society—for example, contraception, abortion, the nature of marriage, different- and same-sex relations, and LGBT rights, to name a few.
We need Ambrose’s moderation, balance, and priorities. A person is more than a body, and everyone’s rights include more than the rights of the body. Some rights are more important than others—for example, the “inalienable rights” of the Declaration of Independence to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

30 August 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)

Lingering Manichaeism

Manichaeism was a major religion that emerged in the third century. Condemned by the early Church as a heresy, it was founded by the visionary Mani in the Iranian Empire. It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, spreading east to China and west to the Roman Empire.
Manichaeism taught a dualistic cosmology, a primeval struggle between a good, spiritual kingdom of light and an evil, material kingdom of darkness.
This included a dual attitude to sexuality: It was a mighty, powerful drive that first caused the kingdom of darkness to spread; it also could be totally transcended and banished forever from the self.
Two classes existed among the followers of Mani: The Elect totally rejected sexual desire and dietary indulgence, leading ultra-abstemious lives. The majority, the Auditors, were married men and women who idealized the life-style of the Elect and who at least fasted and observed sexual abstinence for fifty days in the year.
Some of these ideals and attitudes existed in early Christian traditions. Eusebius wrote:

Two ways of life were thus given by the Lord to his Church. The one is above nature, and beyond common human living; it admits not marriage, child-bearing, property nor the possession of wealth. . . . Like some celestial beings, these gaze down upon human life, performing the duty of a priesthood to Almighty God for the whole race. . . .
And the more humble, more human way prompts men to join in pure nuptials, and to produce children, to undertake government, to give orders to soldiers fighting for the right; it allows them to have minds for farming, for trade and for the other more secular interests as well as for religion.

Even earlier, similar reflections about a dual aspect to the life of human beings were elaborated by Plato. The distinction between body and soul, between the material and spiritual, between the lower and higher runs all through Greek thought.
Its influence can be seen in the writings of Saint Paul, when he sometimes sounds more like the educated citizen of the empire than the rabbinic scholar.
In any case, by the fourth century there was a strong ideal of extreme asceticism increasingly spreading through the Christian world. Especially in the East, and Egypt in particular, there was a certain “fleeing the world” with the growing popularity of monasticism.
Individuals in the style of the famous Anthony, divesting themselves of the encumbrances and temptations of the city, embraced solitary life in the nearby desert.
For them, the demands of the spirit required harsh treatment of the body—extreme fasting and total sexual abstinence.
Their spiritual prowess became legendary; they were supported and sought out as gurus by the lesser mortals who may have shared their values but who could never imitate their example except occasionally.
As centuries passed, the popularity of desert asceticism waned, monasticism gradually transformed into cloistered religious community life, and religious communities began to be organized to provide charitable and religious services.
But Platonic, Manichaean, monastic, and religious community ideals of sexual renunciation still influence Western culture, popular religiosity, and church discipline.


27 October 2019

Continence

Continence. 1. self-restraint; moderation 2. self-restraint in sexual activity; especially total abstinence

In the pre-Christian Roman Empire, an important ideal for men in upper-class Roman society was sexual continence. It was not an ideal of total abstinence, but very much one of moderation.
The buildup of passionate, sexual energy and power naturally demanded release, and release temporarily diminished and depleted this reservoir of masculine power.
Moderation in releasing it was necessary, not because of any disparagement of sexual activity as such but because of the danger of excessively weakening oneself by indulging in it too frequently.
In Jewish culture, at the same time, there also was no disparagement of sexual activity as such, but, like many normal and even necessary human functions and activities, it could make a man temporarily ritually impure.
Temporary sexual abstinence was required for the performing of many religious rites and was also seen as an ideal for strengthen those engaged in fighting for good causes.
In the pre-Christian period, some small communities of Jews of strict observance seem to have idealized total abstinence. However, again, not because of any disparagement of sexual activity as such, but because of the need of no distraction or weakening in one’s whole-hearted commitment to serving God.
The Gospels have little to say about sexual continence except for Jesus’ comment about “. . . eunuchs who made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
This is not about sexual activity as such but about abstaining from marriage and family as distractions from one’s whole-hearted commitment to the kingdom of Heaven.

Paul, the educated rabbi and Roman citizen, had a lot to say about these matters, probably influenced by cultural traditions and reflecting his own life experience.
For him, continence is more than moderating a man’s energies and power or preparing him for an immediate ritual activity or for fighting for a religious cause.
The tension between some human drives and activities is not only a matter of strengthening vs. weakening or ritual purity vs. impurity. In Paul’s moral judgement, it also is a matter of higher or lower, good or bad, and righteous or sinful.
With the passage of time, the expansion of Christianity, and the influence of a variety of changing cultures, many Christian attitudes about sexual continence became more than either a practical, religious, or moral ideal.
Gradually permanent total abstinence became a regulation, demand, or canonical legal obligation for certain classes of Christians: monks, nuns, religious brothers, religious sisters, and bishops—and, in the Western (Latin) church, priests.
The Reformation led to a rejection of this demand for permanent total abstinence for clergy. Currently, gradually changing the Latin discipline is being cautiously explored.
It is very much influenced by the attitudes, values, and practices of contemporary post-Freudian societies. Besides a disciplinary change, it also involves a reassessment of the philosophies, theologies, and cultural practices that shaped the life of the Church.
We need some classic Roman moderation, not because of any disparagement of change as such but because too much too soon may excessively weaken the Church.


20 October 2019

Torments of Abstraction

Abstract (as adjective):
1. thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances;
2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance;
3. theoretical; not applied or practical;
4. difficult to understand; abstruse.

The traditional proverb, “The perfect is the enemy of the good,”—although it uses three abstractions (perfect, enemy, good)—is a warning about the danger, the possible tyranny, and the “unreality” of abstractions.
With due respect to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and other great philosophers, theologians, and scientists, sometimes they build elaborate abstract constructs that challenge our thinking about reality but which by themselves aren’t precisely real.
For instance, we used to describe the life of male and female religious as a “state of perfection”. Now we say a “state of seeking perfection”. But no matter how it’s called, there’s no such thing as perfect people.
Perfection, the carrot on the stick dangling before us, may lure us to strive to become ever better—but perfection is unattainable.
Looking forward is a continual frustration, since we are always measuring how much we fall short of the mark. Only looking backward can we find satisfaction in seeing our progress and attainments.
There are many other scales or ranges we use to measure our and other’s lives besides Imperfection/Perfection. For example:
Good/Bad, Right/Wrong, Dumb/Smart, Weak/Strong, Ugly/Beautiful, Rich/Poor, True/False, Heresy/Orthodoxy, Light/Dark, Liberal/Conservative, Success/Failure, Black/White—and even some contemporary categories like Male/Female, Gay/Straight, and Republican/Democrat.

Common to all these scales or ranges is that their two extremes are abstract categories.
No one is or can be 100% one or the other of them; such “purity” doesn’t exist in the real world. Everyone falls somewhere between the two extremes, a blend of both, ranging from 99-1% to 1-99%.
Sometimes these categories are a torment, for we are disappointed by what or where we are or by how little progress we have made in moving towards one or avoiding the other of the two extremes.
Some of us are at peace with what and where we are. Others strive, sometimes relentlessly, to come closer to one extreme than to the other. Some are outstanding, even record-breakers—at least for a while, until someone breaks their record, too.
A consoling thought is to remember that each of us is a unique creation of God, and so, for better or worse, “I gotta be me.”
It’s encouraging to remember that there never has been, is, or will be a person exactly, completely, and 100% like you.
It’s encouraging to remember that there never was, is, or will be a person who has to face a situation that is exactly, completely, and in every way like the situations you may have, are, or will be facing.
It’s encouraging to remember that there are things to be achieved and lives to be touched that never will be achieved and touched unless you achieve and touch them
This oft-quoted prayer may help us keep a balanced perspective: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”


30 June 2019

Murder Most Foul

“Murder most foul,” the spirit of the deceased king told his son in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, describing how his brother had killed him.
These words came to mind when I heard of the death of twenty young Israelis at a club in Tel Aviv one bright evening, the first of June. A benighted young Palestinian, strapped about with explosives and potential shrapnel killed himself along with them.
Who were the victims? For the most part, they were Russian immigrants to Israel. Their families were tired of the Communist and post-Communist society in which they had lived and of the pressures on their lives there. They came to Israel, the land that held out promise to them for a better life, a better future, and the chance to live in a free, Jewish society.
Who was the killer? Apparently, a young man frustrated by the plight of his people and the hopelessness of his life in a refugee camp and motivated by a promise of paradise for those who die for the sake of God and country.
Where he came from, many hailed him as a martyr — a curious distortion of that ancient word. In Greek, a martyr was a witness. In traditional usage it refers to a person who chooses to suffer or die rather than give up his faith or principles. Usually it is associated with non-resistance to a death inflicted by another.
Perhaps in his suicidal death and monstrous death-dealing he had a motivation of martyrdom, but the accurate and objective word to describe what he did is murder.

This is not a judgment of the culpability of the youth. For all we know, he could have been so persuaded by the example of others and the distorted religious formation he may have received that his conscience was clear.
Many of the brutal and violent actions that occur within the context of national struggles and political strife fall into the same category.
For example, when any sharpshooter selectively targets an opponent without firearms, he may be acting in good faith, but is he not murdering him?
Of course, murder is never the operative word; instead we use more palatable ones like attacking and resisting, terrorism and massive retaliation — but innocents are constantly killed.
Among the commandments the One God gave to Moses was, “You shall not kill.” This teaching is common to authentic followers of Moses, of Jesus, and of Muhammad.
Over the centuries, long, painful experience has carefully elaborated a variety of excusing and justifying circumstances ranging from the most intimately personal to open warfare.
Alas, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim history is also filled with callous examples of inflicting death on one’s enemies in the name of God’s will — murdering them.
Only God knows the depths of the human heart. May he have mercy on those who wantonly die and mercifully judge those who kill them.


(Published in
CNEWA World, 27:4, July 2001)

Beyond the Pale

A friend of mine once told me about how he and his wife resolved differences with their teenage children — for example, whether they had to go church on Sunday.
The parents would discuss it with the children and try to persuade them to do the right thing. But if the family couldn’t find some common ground, my friend felt it was up to him to decide the issue:
“For me, it’s simple — the rule in this house is that everybody who lives here goes to Mass. When my kids are living independently, they can make their own decisions about what they choose to do.”
Generally, the father’s norm for his children’s behavior was that, while they lived under his roof, they had to live within the boundaries their parents set for them.
Was this a diminishment of the children’s freedom? Of course. It was part of the price they had to pay for being members of a family and living at home as minors.
Similar things happen in the Church. As in all big families, there is always a fair share of internal disagreement and feuding — and name calling — among the Church’s members.
Also, as children often vie for their father’s attention and approval, so do individuals and groups in the Church, for the attention and approval of the Holy Father. They want him to be on their side.
For example, Pope John Paul II recently extended a few disciplinary canons of the Church’s law to clarify for its members their obligations to adhere to certain categories of church teachings.
There were exaggerated reactions both applauding and bewailing the Holy Father’s action.

There were expressions of delight by some that the “liberals” were being made to tow the mark. Others reacted as though the decree represented a victory of the “conservatives” in the Church.
The loving task of the father or mother of any family is not to pick or place one child over the other, but to maintain peace and order so that all their children live harmoniously together.
As in the family, the Holy Father tries to resolve difficulties and persuade the Church’s members to do the right thing. But, if this fails, it’s his responsibility to make clear norms of belief and behavior that must be observed by those who want to remain part of the Church family.
Is this a diminishment of their personal freedom? Of course. It’s part of the price they are willing to pay for being members of the family of the Church and living in it.
The Holy Father’s special responsibility is to keep the Church together in unity. As he presides over that diverse, international, and dynamic assemblage in the Spirit which is the Church, from time to time he has to set boundaries.
When the Anglo-Normans conquered sections of Ireland in the 12th century, those who chose to live outside Anglo-Norman governance were considered to be “beyond the pale.”
With the Church, too, alas, some are unwilling to pay the price of unity and choose to live “beyond the pale.”


(Published in
Catholic Near East, 24:6, November 1998)