Superstitious and Credulous Citizens

February 8, 2020 (1,105 words)

The last weekend in January presented me with an interesting juxtaposition of ideas. On that Saturday morning The Wall Street Journal featured a review of a new book on one of my favorite subjects.

Reviewer William Anthony Hay informs us:

“The Enlightenment provides a touchstone for our understanding of modern history and, not least, for our sense of the current moment.

“More than two centuries ago, a shift in outlook sought to throw off superstition and irrational prejudice by elevating the power of reason and the status of skeptical inquiry.

“Over time, the Enlightenment was credited with exponential advances in learning, as well as improved social conditions and modes of governance.”

But despite these glorious benefits, rumblings of discontent still remain among the populace at large. Our reviewer Mr. Hay continues:

“But it has drawn criticism, too, especially of late, for asserting – so it is said – a narrow, simplistic vision of human endeavor, one that ignores core attributes of human nature and exerts its legitimacy at the expense of custom, tradition, and community sensibility.

“The assumptions of The Enlightenment, for some people nowadays, are naive, even dangerous.”

The book under review, The Enlightenment That Failed by Emeritus Professor Jonathan Israel of Princeton, is just the latest celebration/defense of that ground-breaking intellectual movement.

Trying to boil down such a dense, erudite 1,000 page effort to a simplistic take-away may not be fair, and may rightly infuriate the scholarly set. But it’s the attention of the other 99% of the population I wish to engage. So at the risk of antagonizing the anointed, here goes:

Based on William Hay’s review, Mr. Israel’s defense comes across as a straightforward assertion that there has simply not been enough revolution in social mores. His position comes down to this: The Enlightenment has in fact been stymied and stopped short of its ultimate goals by the unwitting.

(By way of a quick synopsis, those goals include the just-touched-upon rejection of aristocracy and monarchy in favor of representative, democratic republicanism. And the rejection of religion, in favor of what it holds to be the accurate determination of truth through mathematical, scientific reason alone.)

We learn what has gotten in the way is the relatively small number of truly enlightened citizens who are present among us at any given moment. Acknowledging this impediment explains why the equal rights being promoted in place of monarchy was never really intended to mean equal participation.

As the William Hay review tells us, quoting Professor Israel, any man or woman is theoretically capable of acting rationally to promote the public good. But “superstitious and credulous citizens represent a substantial portion of any populace.”

And it is these lesser mortals who must always be kept from the reins of power.

So while The Enlightenment may have a marvelously egalitarian spirit behind it, the fine print insists power and the promotion of the public good must be studiously reserved to those select individuals who can properly understand these things.

In its practical application, then, The Enlightenment is meant to be confined to “empowering the enlightened.” Kind of puts a damper on things, doesn’t it?

Despite never having much good to say about ordinary people and their long-held beliefs, The Enlightenment nevertheless has always made and continues to make some valid points. It’s just that using it as the guiding light for all human endeavor leaves us at a bit of an impasse.

For one thing, what to do about the legion of superstitious and credulous citizens, unable to apply the purifying logic of reason to their affairs?

---

a more expansive vision of human endeavor…

---

Contrast this narrow and somewhat thorny vision of meritocracy with the more expansive vision that existed before The Enlightenment kicked in and took over. This other, now-discarded vision has always acknowledged certain core attributes of human nature, while respecting custom, tradition, and community sensibility.

I found an expression of this alternative vision the very next day, in a news blurb carried in the Sunday bulletin of the little hole-In-the-wall parish where I attend weekly Mass – far, far away from the halls of academe.

It’s a quote from the exhaustive reference work known as the Catechism of the Catholic Church, revised and updated in 1992, which our current pastor – the previously reported on native of Columbia – has seen fit to print in regular excerpts:

“1833: Virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do good.

“1834: The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and the will that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accord with reason and faith.

“They can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.”

Allow me to skip over 1835, 1836, 1837, and 1838, which briefly describe each of the four virtues listed above.

”1839: The moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts, and perseverance in struggle. Divine grace purifiers and elevates them.”

Today we may be supremely confident in the widespread belief that representative government is to be preferred over a monarchy. But are we really so sure our advances in learning and improved social conditions are the direct result of rejecting religion?

In our rush to harshly judge the past we have made an all-too-common error. It’s not so much the pre-modern institutions that were to blame, as the flawed individuals who animated them. As proof of this concept, I ask you: Aren’t we still plagued with essentially the same problems as before, just in a different guise?

Has the “power of skeptical inquiry” and “elevating the power of reason” truly altered our reality, or liberated us and our new, democratic institutions in any meaningful way?

Believing there exists – or ever will exist – a critical mass of enlightened citizens who only act rationally, and will therefore ensure things run more smoothly, not only flies in the face of recent history, but all of recorded human history.

It’s an easy cheat to think overturning an old order will automatically result in a new order that is better for all concerned.

Jonathan Israel and his fellow Enlightenment-embracing scholars need to come to grips with the facts: It is only the habitual pursuit of individual virtue that can make a dent in the problems that continue to plague us as a society.

Even if The Enlightenment got its start by deciding the inherently selfish flaws in human nature could never be adequately reformed, and therefore had to be dealt with from a more practical perspective.

But it turns out all our carefully devised secular work-arounds have proven to have their own peculiar limitations, haven’t they?

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
February 8, 2020

Chasing Our Tail

February 1, 2020 (600 words)

At last month’s Golden Globe Awards (January 6) the actress Michelle Williams won a prize and caused a stir with her acceptance speech. By way of full disclosure, I am partial to this actress for her moving performance in the 2016 theatrical release, Manchester by the Sea.

This speech was unusual and I thought rather exceptional, for how careful and deliberate it was. In the course of her remarks Ms. Williams offers a tribute to a women’s right to choose, specifically “when to have my children, and with whom.” She is grateful for living in a country where such choice is permitted.

The actress goes on to acknowledge how important this is, “since as every mother knows, the scales must and will always tilt toward our children.”

She also admits her choices might not be the same as other women’s, but notes how lucky we are to live in a country where we are all free – free to live according to our own particular faith, and pray to whatever god we believe in.

She ends her speech by invoking the names of her two children and saying “I can’t wait to come home to you.”

All in all it’s a lovely, heartfelt speech by a very sincere woman, even if I happen to disagree with the philosophy that underlies Ms. Williams’ most cherished assumptions.

The pro-life community has reacted predictably, by condemning the actress for the way she implies she has had an abortion, and feels no remorse. It also abhorred the applause the speech elicited from the audience of Hollywood types.

While these well-intentioned pro-lifers may be “my people,” I am nevertheless disappointed by what I consider to be a rather knee-jerk reaction that displays no appreciation whatsoever for the nuance of the situation.

What? When it comes to abortion there is no such things as nuance, I can hear all my friends and acquaintances saying.

Well, sorry folks, I beg to differ. The damning reports I have read of this speech give no berth to the manner in which it was delivered, and avoid the sections that don’t fit the desired, dreaded narrative.

By focusing on the repugnant ideology behind a portion of Ms. Williams’ remarks, it’s just way too easy to convey the impression that what we have here is a callous monster. With the cheering crowd also too easily condemned as wicked enablers.

We should, in fact, be thanking Michelle Williams for shining a spotlight on why our society now finds itself at such a dire crossroads.

This talented actress is 100% correct that we all get to believe in whatever faith we choose, and pray to whatever god we believe in. This sort of personal autonomy is what our country is built on.

Also escaping the notice of her pro-life critics is how the actress closes her speech with what I consider to be a positively incandescent observation: “Women should vote their self-interest. That’s what men have been doing for a long time.”

Again, she is spot on with this remark. The pursuit of self-interest goes hand-in-hand with personal autonomy, and together these principles form the bedrock of American society and drive all our actions.

Why then should any of us be surprised when half the population – committed to the very same principles we all hold so dear – decides to comport themselves and conduct their affairs in a way we object to vociferously?

To my respected pro-life brethren, I am not debating moral equivalencies with you. I am asking you to open your eyes and recognize the ultimate source of the problem.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. February 1, 2020

A Hidden Life

January 31, 2020 (697 words)

Terrence Malick has a new movie out, a three-hour opus entitled A Hidden Life. The last such production of his I dragged my entire family to was The Tree of Life, back in 2011, and they still haven’t forgiven me.

In fact it’s become a running joke. When I mentioned I was headed out to see this new film, I was greeted with howls of laughter, and pelted with any number of sarcastic remarks from the peanut gallery about meandering plot and lack of character development.

Malick (b.1943) strikes me as the filmmaking equivalent of the writer Thomas Pynchon (b.1937). Mr. Pynchon emerges every seven or eight years with yet another quirky, highly-inventive manuscript, drops it off at his publisher’s office, and retreats again into relative obscurity. Neither man goes in much for publicity.

The only difference is I have never been able to make it through a Pynchon novel, whereas I am enamored of every frame of Mr. Malick’s latest movie.

Part of the joy of discovery is coming upon a thing unsuspecting, with no idea you are about to have a close encounter with something special. For that reason I don’t want to say too much about this new picture.

Another reason is that it’s difficult to capture in words what Malick has been able to accomplish on film.

That hasn’t stopped the reviewers from weighing in of course, since after all, that’s what they get paid to do.

The notices in the prestige press have been mostly favorable, with the glaring exception of The New Yorker magazine, whose critic apparently watched a different movie than the one I sat through.

But even the good reviews are unable to do the film justice. Though The Wall Street Journal manages to come close with its’ five-word take-away: “Mournful, Memorable, and Emotionally Exhilarating.”

Somebody wrote: “If you don’t like Malick’s movies, A Hidden Life won’t convert you.” That rings true, since many of the same touches found in his previous odes are again employed this time around. But here “he has found the ideal vehicle for his cosmic inquiries”, so A Hidden Life may just be the one that does convert you.

But even if it doesn’t, there is no reason for us to quarrel over it, and we can still be friends. Each of us has our own distinctive sensibility, and some things may not be one’s cup of tea, going in.

For my part, I’m just glad there is someone out there making movies like this. And glad there are people with money willing to finance them.

It turns out there are any number of other Terrence Malick films I haven’t seen yet, so it would be rash of me to declare this latest one his best work yet. Though it’s such a towering achievement I’m inclined to think it might very well be.

What I can say is how downright inspirational it is to come across an almost 80 year-old man capable of such a strong effort, of making such a strong artistic statement.

It gives hope to senior citizen practitioners everywhere who are busy trying to clear away the underbrush, and produce something worthwhile.

When the screen finally fades to black, the following quote appears in white lettering:

”…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are no so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

George Eliot

A little research yields a few factoids. Ms. Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans) is a British writer who was born in 1819 and died in 1880. The selected quote comes from her novel Middlemarch, which appeared in eight installments in 1871 and 1872.

The Guardian (a British daily newspaper) describes the book as “a cathedral of words” and identifies it as No. 21 on a list of the 100 best novels.

These few lines of epilogue do nothing less than sum up my entire philosophy of life. Being introduced to the woman who wrote them is just one more thing I have to thank Terrence Malik for.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
January 31, 2020

Hiding in Plain Sight

January 30, 2020 (1,328 words)

I’ve managed to reach retirement age without ever coming in contact with To Kill a Mockingbird. Not the book that was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize. And not the movie adaptation that came out in 1962, and won Gregory Peck an Academy Award for best actor.

When Adam Sorkin wrote a new play that opened on Broadway in December 2018, based on Harper Lee’s famous book, I still wasn’t tempted.

But this month I had a hankering to see a show, and I’m partial to drama, so Mr. Sorkin’s play – a certified hit that’s still going strong on the Great White Way, one year later – is sort of the only game in town right now for people like me.

I’m really glad I went. There are poignant moments at every turn, and the performers never miss a beat or strike a false note. The entire cast does a first-rate job. Their truth-telling gently strums our exposed heart strings. When that happens there is nothing better than live theater, I do declare.

Even having no familiarity with the source material, which is set in Alabama circa 1936, one can sort of tell where the playwright tweaked a few things to help the proceedings unfold more smoothly for a contemporary audience. But that’s okay, since every one of those tweaks feels right.

One of the adjustments is how the kids in this play are much older than what they are portrayed as being in either the book or the movie. They sort of have to be, in order to pull off the dialogue and plot-forwarding they are assigned.

That’s especially true of the character of “Scout,” the de-facto narrator of the piece and daughter of the star of this adaptation, a small town lawyer by the name of Atticus Finch. The audience can tell she is “her father’s daughter,” and since she has been reimagined as someone closer in age to my own daughter, well, I was on tenterhooks throughout.

ANOTHER WARHORSE

Another warhorse I have studiously avoided is the movie Howards End, which came out in 1992 and is based on the E.M. Forster novel published in 1910. It’s the third such E.M. Forster film adaptation by Merchant Ivory Productions, a team consisting of screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, director James Ivory, and producer Ismail Merchant.

It received nine Academy Award nominations, including for best picture, and won the award for best actress and best screenplay.

This one’s been on my Netflix cue for months now, but I kept dutifully scrolling past it without a qualm. Until the other night, when I found myself in the mood for a slow-moving period piece that would no doubt be good for me, like castor oil.

Surprise. Not only is the movie beautiful in every detail, it’s also a compelling story of class relations in turn of the century Britain. I guess I didn’t realize E.M. Forester had it in him. Shame on me.

It’s billed as a “romantic drama” and succeeds nicely on those terms. It’s also quietly evocative of the natural beauty to be found outside the big city, at the country estate that gives the movie its title. And, as one critic states, it’s an “intricate tale of love, hope, and cruelty, (in which) three families from different backgrounds find themselves intertwined in a complicated plot that will grip older kids and parents alike.”

I was especially drawn to the class relations and cruelty part of the story, which is folded seamlessly into the drama. It might be of secondary importance to many, but it’s what makes the entire piece so compelling to me.

Without wanting to spoil it for anyone, a wealthy businessman causally tells two free-spirited and unmarried sisters (Margaret and Helen) that the insurance firm where a young clerk of their serendipitous acquaintance works is headed for bankruptcy.

The wealthy businessman then authoritatively stresses to these youngish old maids if they really care for their protégé they should advise him to leave his post at once, since it’s easier to find a new job while currently employed.

The young clerk eventually takes the sisters’ advice, having no idea where that advice came from. But his new position is for a reduced salary, making him even poorer than he was at the start. Then his new company down-sizes and he is let go, leaving him destitute.

We see him applying at various firms and being turned away cold. At one point he tells one of the sisters, now his primary benefactor, “You can’t get a job if you don’t already have one. People look at you (when applying) as if you stole something.”

When in the course of events the plight of the clerk is brought to the attention of the wealthy businessman, he waves off any responsibility for the young man’s fate. “My dear Helen, I feel for your clerk, I really do. But it’s all part of the battle of life.”

Helen is incredulous: “The battle of life? A man who had little money now has less.”

The wealthy businessman is unmoved. “Come, come. No one is to blame. Helen, a word of advice: Don’t take a sentimental attitude towards the poor. The poor are the poor. One is sorry for them, but there it is.”

Now I don’t know if this social commentary line of storytelling is pure E.M. Forester, or a combination of Forester and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Either way, it’s bracing to see it be so integral to the plot.

SUBLIME SPECTACLE

There is illumination into life’s many vagaries to be found all around us, if only we are willing to take note. One thing preventing us from noticing more often may be our pre-occupation with entertainment.

We rightly enjoy our entertainments as a welcome release. Their spectacle dazzles and easily distracts us.

While art must have an element of spectacle to attract our attention, its benefits are more sublime.

Going to see a production of To Kill a Mockingbird is different than visiting an amusement park or attending a sporting event.

Art reveals things to us we may have overlooked, or perhaps forgotten in the course of our persistent strivings. These revelations serve to make us more human, better humans.

At the same time, we who are only part-time patrons of the arts must guard against being mindless consumers of a given art form, fixating on the personality of the individuals who create the art we get attracted to, and missing the underlying lesson.

It’s not enough, for instance, for the casual fan to indulge in a sort of bland hero-worship of an artist – in this case, the likes of Harper Lee or Adam Sorkin or E.M. Forster or Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Yes, they are talented people capable of creating captivating dramas brimming with piercing insights. Yes, their powers of observation may run to the exceptional. But they are not oracles.

We are all made of the same stuff. Artistic types have the same dimensions, senses, affections, and passions as the rest of us. They are subject to the same level of stress and emotional turmoil and moments of doubt as we all are.

The proper orientation is to receive what the artist offers and be grateful for the illumination he or she provides. But realize we have a responsibility to take these insights back home with us, and work them into our own daily routines, with the people we rub elbows with every day.

The secret of this life is that we are all lead characters in our own personal drama, charged with being the best human we can be. The objective is to express our shared humanity in the purest form possible, so that it’s unmistakable to those around us.

This is true even though most of us will never escape our relative anonymity. The practice of virtue is largely a one-on-one proposition, and does not require a wide audience to thrive.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. January 30, 2020

Inadvertent Humor

January 23, 2020 (738 words)

There’s a guy at work who considers me a radical left-wing socialist, because he sees that I sometimes read The New York Times in the break room, while eating my lunch.

This gentleman doesn’t realize I’m equally fond of the right-wing bible, The Wall Street Journal, when I can get my hands on it. Most of the convenience stores I frequent don’t carry it, and the ones that do only stock a few copies. So if you arrive late, you lose out.

The other day I was able to nab an edition of both papers, and sitting down to eat I opened up that day’s WSJ before even looking at the NYT.

Right there on the front page, below the fold, was a story brimming with the sort of inadvertent humor the Journal occasionally dabbles in.

“Skilled Workers Score Sweeter Perks to Move” appeared on Monday, January 13, and was written by Austen Hufford. I couldn’t wait to dig in and get the low-down on this fascinating subject.

“Manufacturers are paying relocation costs and bonuses to move new hires across the country at a time of record-low unemployment and intense competition for skilled workers.

“Half a million U.S. factory jobs are unfilled, the most in nearly two decades, and the unemployment rate is hovering at a 50-year low, the Labor Department said on Friday.

“At the same time, people are moving around the country at the lowest rate in 70 years.

“To entice workers to move, manufacturers are raising wages, offering signing bonuses and covering relocation costs, including for some hourly positions.”

Okay, then. Since our free market economy is said to rely on supply and demand to determine prices and wages, what sort of largesse is this fierce competition for skilled workers resulting in?

Well, the article reports that a whopping 1.6% of manufacturing positions listed on ZipRecruiter include a pledge to pay moving costs, up from 1% in 2017.

Just how much in moving costs are we talking about? The story quotes a Mr. Charlie Shoup, who relocated from Salt Lake City to Columbus, Nebraska, a small city of about 20,000 people approximately 90 miles west of Omaha. Mr. Shoup tells us he received $2,000.00 in relocation costs:

”It pretty much gave me enough cash to pay for gas out here, get myself established with a solid place to live in a not-backwater part of Omaha, and then I got a couple of shirts with collars on them, he said”

How can anyone argue with gas money and a couple of shirts with collars on them?

But wait, “Companies are also raising wages. Wage growth at U.S. manufacturers reached its highest level since 2016 in December, rising 3% that month from a year earlier. The inflation rate in November was 2.1%.”

If you’re having trouble with the math, the net increase in wages The Wall Street Journal is crowing about is .9%.

The Journal also tell us “G.H. Todd & Mold, an auto-industry supplier owned by Tooling Tech Group LLC, increased it’s starting wage to about $18 an hour last year from $15 a few years ago.”

Again, for our slower readers, that translates into an annual salary of about $37,500, up from $31,200. Can you imagine trying to support your family on $37,500?

This is all part of the great de-unionization of the American workforce. As detailed in the Netflix documentary American Factory, union auto workers used to make $29 an hour with full medical and a pension. Now those same employees can be stuck earning as low as $12 an hour for an open-shop auto industry supplier, with only meager, payroll-deduction benefits being offered.

I don’t hold the journalist responsible for this short article to blame for the unintended irony.

Even though his piece amounts to a silly whitewash of a stark reality that has been trending in the wrong direction for years, he is probably just a young working stiff who was given a simple story to write, with an equally simple mandate to match the WSJ “house style” if he wants to keep his job.

But I do question the motives of his editors.

And I also wonder about the typical, highly successful WSJ reader, who I fear glances at a story like this and takes away just enough evidence to fuel a slightly smug and self-satisfied sense of “see, everything really is working out well for skilled workers in this economy.”

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
January 23, 2020

Effective Communication

January 20, 2020 (829 words)

Combativeness is not the best way to communicate. It does, however, have the advantage of getting the juices flowing and invigorating the participants, making them feel more alive in the heat of the moment.

It’s also a relatively easy stance to assume, requiring only a reflexive exchange of familiar talking points, put forth with decidedly more verve and volume than routine discussions of the weather or what’s for dinner.

And that’s the problem: Since being automatically combative takes comparatively little effort, and since human nature is to follow the path of least resistance, any attempt to “reach across the aisle” is doomed in advance, before we ever open our mouths.

That’s a shame, really, because most of us are just trying to figure things out as best we can.

When confronted with an opposing point of view I’ve found it helpful to remember this basic fact, and to keep in mind the person holding what I consider to be an oddball view generally means well.

No matter how passionate each of us may be in our beliefs, and how wrong-headed we think that other person is, very few of us are able to capture the whole of any truth.

This is not to suggest there is no such thing as objective truth, only that our ability to grasp it is far from perfect.

And it’s also not to suggest we shouldn’t keep trying to get it right, only that in most cases it’s a full-time job, a life-long project.

The goal, I think, is to be constantly working on one’s own “fuller” understanding of the truth, and not spend quite so much time denigrating someone else’s display of “partial” understanding.

Unless you happen to encounter an incredibly high level of belligerence, there is usually something to be learned from everyone we come in contact with – how a person chooses to frame an issue, how their mind works, the obstacle that is preventing them from breaking through and seeing the bigger picture, etc.

People we think are wrong should not be ostracized out of hand. Very few of these “others” set out to do evil. Most everyone is guilty mainly of “looking through a glass darkly.”

Now I know what you’re thinking: Some issues are non-negotiable, and there isn’t any common ground to be found, no matter how magnanimous one may start off trying to be.

How to avoid a sense of combativeness when confronted with the popular zeitgeist that sees liberation and emancipation in a sexual license we have always known is a repudiation of reason, and a form of enslavement to unfettered desire?

That defines progress and human flourishing so narrowly, as the endless pursuit of consumer acquisition that has left us all “the isolated and mutually suspicious inhabitants of an anti-culture from which many human goods have fled”?

Yes, some ideological divides are more like chasms, too broad and deep to span over with goodwill.

The rationalizations embedded in these false constructs have been developed over generations and will not be easily dismantled, no matter how composed or eloquent one might be in conversation.

In such cases one avoids combativeness simply by recognizing the scope of the task at hand, appreciating just how much the other person’s sense of their place in the world is tied up in their wayward views, and not expecting a miracle conversion.

But the better part of avoiding combativeness comes from something completely different: It comes from focusing on our own apostasy, rather than obsessing over someone else’s. It’s our own conversion that still needs to happen.

Despite the confidence and certainty we convey, and the mantle of moral superiority we wear so lightly, we are all struggling to one degree or another with stubbornness and pride and a willful ignorance. The truth we so admire and wish to embody is hard for others to see in us. It gets concealed by the countless minor (and sometimes not-so-minor) crimes against humanity we continue to commit.

Just professing to be a Christian, or born again, or a student of reason and a believer in self-control, is no salve. Being a true follower of Christ who acts in a rational manner and exhibits self-control is a much more difficult and demanding proposition.

We now have over two thousand years of data that documents an unfortunate discrepancy between stated intent and actual behavior on the part of the self-anointed elect. That’s twenty centuries of failure.

When we engage in these spirited ideological debates with family, friends, co-workers, or the occasional total stranger – sometimes good-naturedly, and sometimes not-so-good naturedly – we invariably act as though the angels are on our side, as we crusade for truth and justice.

But in our flawed state we are more often than not merely exposing a level of conflict that remains in our own soul, awaiting resolution. We are only expressing our lack of commitment to the very principles we claim to hold so close to our heart.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr. January 20, 220