Tenderness leads to the gas chamber

I got this via e-mail, though there’s a web version, too (as with much e-mail today). I’m convinced that it’s true, and that the truth of it is important as we guard ourselves against becoming, in common terms, “monsters” – that is, nice guys who do horrible things with a more or less clear conscience, and probably with the approbation of their social set at that place and time.

An introductory paragraph has been omitted:

Throughout history, we have met ISIS before, in various guises. ISIS members believe they are doing good. So did the Nazis. The Bolsheviks.

A good friend of mine shared a quote from Robert Reilly:

Anyone who chooses an evil act must present it to himself as good; otherwise as Aristotle taught, he would be incapable of choosing it. When we rationalize we convince ourselves that heretofore forbidden desires are permissible. As Hilaire Belloc wrote, in this case, “Every evil is its own good.” In our minds we replace the reality of the moral order to which the desire should be subordinated with something more compatible with the activity we are excusing.

He reminded me of a comment by Dr. William Hurlbut that we both heard earlier this year at a talk in Chicago:

Hurlbut made the point that all the Nobel laureates he works with who are developing human cloning are all “really nice guys.” They are all about saving lives and relieving suffering in people’s lives. I’ve since come to the conclusion that the truly dangerous man must, almost by necessity, be someone who is largely loved and admired. Whittaker Chambers wanted nothing to do with turning in the names of communists trying to overthrow our government until it was forced upon him. These were kind people, friends of his, who only wanted what was best.

This in turn reminded my friend of a Flannery O’Connor quote: “In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness, and tenderness leads to the gas chamber.”

He concluded: “That is what guides those really nice guys that Dr. Hurlbutt talked about. They are guided by a faithless tenderness of heart.”

Both the nice men and the ISIS jihadists think they are improving the world. Any man may imagine a moral order of his own or he may subject himself to someone else’s moral order–that of the street gang, the Gestapo, a political party, or the jihadists of ISIS. They all espouse a view of good and evil. Someone took pride in the design of the gas ovens of Auschwitz. Someone took satisfaction in the efficiency of those ovens. Someone in ISIS was proud to post a video of a beheading.

The calls to commit such acts–abortion, jihad, what have you–may come through passionate shouts or seductive whispers, all pointing to some perceived or imagined good. Because of this, the world is always a dangerous place in both war and peace, on the battlefield and in the classroom. But neither the brutal men nor the nice men will inherit the earth. Jesus Christ embodies the only moral order that will endure. He was not nice and tame, but he is good.

Yours for Christ, Creed & Culture,

James M. Kushiner

Executive Director, The Fellowship of St. James

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Still recovering from political addiction

I keep catching myself clicking through on internet stories on what the GOP must do now to survive, to regain its glory, to avoid wholesale abandonment by young, dark-skinned or immigrant persons, and so forth. But it’s a sign of recovery that before reading two paragraphs, I invariable think “what do I care?” and close it out.

Maybe there really is something terribly virtuous about “the two-party system,” but when the Democrats are the party of vote your vice,” and are dead serious about it, while the Republicans are insincerely for virtue, solely to attract votes from gullible religious folks, I have a little trouble getting excited about those virtues.

It might be worth noting here that I never became a Republican activist. I was a pro-life activist, and tried to remain as neutral as possible in partisan politics, in the delusional hope that Democrat officials, especially Catholic Democrat officials, would see the error of their ways, rise up and play Robert Casey Sr. or Bart Stupak (before his vote on the ACA at least). It always struck me as odd that liberals should so completely forsake a vulnerable group,

Now, I think 1972 was the Democrats’ turning point, when they went over to the Dark Side of the Sexual Revolution, subordinating all else to that. That reality is accelerating today – and the strategy appears to be a political winner for them, as a big chunk of the population has as it’s top priority avoiding imposition of any sexual restrictions on their lives.

Meanwhile, “between the lines,” it was and remains clear that many Republicans were on the side of virtue (civic and personal) and of the unborn only as memorized talking points.

There being no acceptable third party I’ve found yet, I cheerfully conclude that we are doomed and look forward to what Phoenix shall from the ashes rise, since human nature won’t forever remain oblivious to the ravages of life lived sub-humanly.

* * * * *

I have a number of connections to Indiana’s new Chief Justice, Loretta Rush, starting with observing that this young woman a year behind me in law school was one of the grown-ups, despite being maybe 22 at the time. Not all my classmates were grown-ups.

It’s a little bit embarrassing that only she, and none of her male colleagues, was asked about work-family balance at Tuesday’s public candidate interviews by the selection commission. But I’m just not going to hang my head in abject shame, because the embarrassment I feel is that the Commission was too naïve to know that one does not mention certain truths in polite society, such as that tables have “legs” in Victorian times and our own taboos today.

“Women are asked that question more often than men are. It’s just assumed that it’s going to be more of an issue with women,” says Joy Dietz, director of the Women in Management program at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management (Journal & Courier editorial). Yeah, in my experience, on average it is more of an issue with women, which may reflect more badly on fathers than on mothers, and a 56-year-old Supreme Court Associate Justice, mom or pop, might reasonably be assumed long ago to have reached a workable modus vivendi on the matter.

* * * * *

“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.