The thoughts of yesterday have combined with a comment that I heard on the radio today to give birth to the reflection which you will find below.

If you must put me on a social scale, many more people would call me conservative than those who would call me liberal. When it comes to a variety of moral and social issues, I have a tendency to be somewhat related to that group which is currently labeled "conservative". Included in such issues are the importance of the family, God, and the acknowledgement of human freedom which does not ultimately rely upon governmental action. However, conservatives may call me liberal for my desire to have the government aid in picking people up and enabling them to rebound from their mistakes and falls. Additionally, my general aversion to the death penalty and wanton destruction of nature for the sake of progress are signs that my heart may be bleeding more than such conservatives think it should. The list could go on for both, but I will avoid such ponderous boredom right now. ;-) When all is said and done, I am more often-than-not labeled a conservative, often to my chagrin, for I hate labels like that in general.

This labeling, however, has brought me to an interesting point. Being young and often perceived as a pure conservative makes people assume that I see only in "black and white". This charge is railed against conservatives privately and publicly. John Stewart's book "America: Democracy Inaction" shows the left brain as having grey matter that is only existent as black and white matter in the right brain. This pun is doubtlessly offered only with respect to the general accusations which are railed in this debate over the judgments of conservatives versus those of liberals. Even so, it is indicative of the general perception which exists.

Anyway, in the course of my thoughts today, I heard the “ultra-conservative” Sean Hannity express a very "grey" statement and began to think. We won't get into where my views are with respect to Mr. Hannity's. I will at least say that he is not the crack-pot that everyone makes him out to be, although I would like to talk to him on a few social issues. On the whole, however, I don't think he is the black-and-white personality that people make him out to be, as his comment today clearly expressed.

Mr. Hannity was evaluating the culpability of individuals who are sex offenders, acknowledging a difference between someone who is 18 dating a 16 year old and the more wretched case of one who is a 45-year-old who takes advantage of a young child. Sitting in the traffic coming into town from work, I though, "How is it that people can accuse conservatives of being black-and-white?" This question has come up before in my mind, but I have ignored it mainly because of the weight of the reflections that flow from thence. Such reflections, as will be seen presently, hold within them the possibility of insulting many people before I finish expressing my thoughts. Nonetheless, I would like to venture into this realm for a short while.

If one thinks about what Sean said, there is definitely an accusation of right and wrong which renders a judgment against both cases mentioned above. In both cases, each are stated as being wrong, insofar as they are in direct contradiction to the legal and moral order. The perceived "black and white" is also a partial illusion. In his treatise On the Nature of Good, St. Augustine, arguing against the dualistic Manicheans, astutely points out that things of a lesser order are called by a contrary title when compared to something of a greater amount of that same quality (cf. De Natura Boni Contra Manichaeos, Ch. 14-15). With respect to our current consideration, both acts are truly evil compared to the ultimate good against which they are compared. In that respect, the matter is black-and-white. However, within this black-and-white must be ultimately held a spectrum of grey which acknowledges the insidious slipping by means of which man deviates from Goodness into the nothingness of oblivion.

I know not where the supposed "black-and-white" is other than in the contrary which must distinguish between that which is ultimately good and that which is some degree of privation from good. If such is the case, those who desire for more grey to be show in judgment are either misjudging the apparent “black-and-white” or are gravely mistaken in their perception of what true human progress is. They are mistaken if they think that "conservatives" believe that the first individual above is as gravely wrong as the second. If they are not so mistaken, what else can they believe but that the Truth is not absolute?

Of course, such a belief would be preposterous, as such a claim is absolute in itself. However, there exists there some latent desire to accept a plurality of "truths" or "paths" as being ultimately equally acceptable. I will only begin to rebuff such thoughts, as time is running short for me right now.

If progressivism is to achieve an end of perfection, it can not look toward anything less than perfection. To accept a lesser good as part of the path of progress is an affront to the Truth and to the ultimate goal of progress' very aims. Therefore, to accept a plurality of "grey" choices is a ridiculous affront to progressivism itself. Progress can only occur when it has a true sight of what Goodness and Truth are and how man exists in such with the potential of erring with his free will.

Having given these very poor reflections, I would like to address the issues in here individually and will perhaps take one of them up in my next entry. For now, I must get ready for bed, as it is already past midnight.

Pax.
MKM

As I sit here, listening to fireworks go off somewhere in my town, I find it necessary to pause and reflect on the true goodness of the democratic enterprise. In the wretched ignorance of my more youthful days, I would sometimes despair of the apparent arrogance which seemed to pervade the American conception of democracy. Indeed, it seemed to me to be nothing more than self-flattering drivel to celebrate a system of government which could become as equally corrupt as others. While I am thoroughly ashamed of this view on my part, I must say that I am also glad that the past few years of my life have washed this rebellious strain of thought from me.

The true goodness of democracy dawned on me when I realized that it holds within it a true affirmation of the power of liberty and free-choice. This thought has grown on me by means of influences both liberal and conservative. The liberals who rail over the imposition of the government on their choices speak a truth. It is often a danger of conservativism that it can ossify a country and, even worse, trap it in upon itself. However, the danger of extreme liberalism is that it too can deprive freedom to people, trying often to justify all actions or force control by means of over-zealous governmental regulation. Now, the point of this is not that liberals or conservatives are bad or good. I find that it is impossible to pin such titles on either group. G.K. Chesterton would say that it is impossible to find a good path of progress in either alone, for the only way to have a sure plan is to have planned it from experience, that is that true progress must be conservative also. We will not discuss this right now, although maybe it will come up at some later time. The essence of what I am saying here is that in this very protracted example, both groups hit upon an essential truth: That the human being is indeed free and must be able to make choices as such.

Of course, such freedom has its limits and any just society must protect the freedoms of all of its members, no matter how frail. Freedom does not stand against freedom but instead for it. Free will must be aimed at the unity of individuals and not the destruction of the bonds of true, unitive love. For this reason, laws exist to ensure that freedom may not be squashed by its own weight when misused. However, I have digressed.

The democratic spirit, when exercised aright, is truly an affirmation of Christian thought. The spirit of democracy proclaims from the mountaintops that man is intrinsically able to look toward the Truth which stands outside of him. It also acknowledges that something is not exactly right with any one man, that all of mankind suffers from the effects of its own weakness and sin. In one grand swoop, the democratic ideal aims to overcome the sinfulness of man by acknowledging his capacity for the Good and for the Truth. It realizes that man can and must strive for the Truth each day. Democracy does not hold itself to perfection. It has no aspirations for perfection in this lifetime. If that were the case, we would need no leadership or we could have a ruling monarch. Instead, we turn together as brethren and consider the Truth, which is ultimately communicated to us from without and reflect upon it within. Democracy can only function by action which sets forth from this type of reflection, always working to overcome human short-sightedness by looking deeper into the depths of the Truth.

Because of this true good which exists in what we Americans (and others, of course) have in our democratic system, we celebrate our Independence Day today. May freedom be embraced, with all of its possible infirmities, and may it always be aimed toward the unity of freedoms, ultimately by means of unity with Him who freely creates freedoms out of a true ontological love.

Pax.
-MKM