Submission to truth is harder for people than any other submission, and until you will submit to truth, you cannot have peace anywhere else.
It is those who submit to truth who are really happy. No one who does not submit to truth is ever really happy. It is impossible to be happy if you refuse to live in reality. True joy comes from the love of truth- how could you be joyous if you were incongruent with reality? Things would be chafing constantly; reality bumping uncomfortably up against us. It is like being the right shape, or the wrong shape. Either you fit reality's shape, or you don't.
Far better to learn Reality's shape and fit with it than to doom yourself to the misery of having to manipulate your perception of reality.
Furthermore, we cannot learn to submit to structures we are inclined to dislike until we learn that we can be the wrong shape, which is in a reverse way realising that there is such a thing as Truth. A student does not submit to teaching unless he is willing to conceive he needs to learn something. Even harder, a student will not submit to giving a subject a chance to grow on him unless he believes it is possibly a worthwhile or lovely thing since others think it is worthwhile and lovely. You give other things a chance to be for you what they are for others. This is, I believe, a great deal of the Christian walk.
At any rate, what I really want to say is that we don't even consider submitting to 'lower authority' if we do not believe in truth. It is those that consider they may not be right who actually consider, really think about, whether they should submit to something or not. Unless you believe in truth, you will not let yourself think outside of the box to find out why one might submit to something.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Pursuit of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is Mere Opinion
According to modern relativism, values and meaning in the world are at most cultural fabrications, perhaps evolving in a culture as a best method. In a sense that sounds like you can interpret experiences (including sense experience) in any way you wish so long as it works for you. To posit that what works for you is objectively useful (true) is something that it seems modern society practically doesn't believe. It's hard to get rid of any form of objective meaning, though- I think that's because it is necessary for thinking at all, and especially for communicating.
Therefore the contemplation and pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (the Transcendentals) is only at best a matter of private belief and personal preference, and at worst it is silly and a waste of time because the Transcendentals claim to be objective when objectivity in spiritual matters doesn't exist (note that belief in that is claiming a one truth, though). If it were worthwhile for, say, me to pursue the Transcendentals, it would not be a personal matter any longer- we would be entering value judgement and the question of whether something is good for anyone at all. I am assuming that if you ask if something is good for you, you must consider that it could be good for other people like you, for situations like yours. Otherwise you have no information to consider, if you have never done this thing before. Therefore, even to ask the question of whether it is good for us is assuming the Transcendentals, and if you ask that question, or any other question of whether something is good or bad for us, you are treading the dangerous territory of Objective Morality which is in direct opposition to the pursuit of license (not happiness) in our culture.
Relativism seems, perhaps, to derive from Positivism that meaning and values cannot exist (though it could come from an earlier idea?); you have the idea Lewis talks about in the Abolition of Man that the idea that a waterfall is sublime is someone describing their feelings about a waterfall, not describing the waterfall. The idea that feelings can't be correct about the world around us seems to imply there could be no objective meaning that an object can convey, but I'd have to explain further why I get there and it's pretty hard to phrase. We shall see.
Therefore the contemplation and pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (the Transcendentals) is only at best a matter of private belief and personal preference, and at worst it is silly and a waste of time because the Transcendentals claim to be objective when objectivity in spiritual matters doesn't exist (note that belief in that is claiming a one truth, though). If it were worthwhile for, say, me to pursue the Transcendentals, it would not be a personal matter any longer- we would be entering value judgement and the question of whether something is good for anyone at all. I am assuming that if you ask if something is good for you, you must consider that it could be good for other people like you, for situations like yours. Otherwise you have no information to consider, if you have never done this thing before. Therefore, even to ask the question of whether it is good for us is assuming the Transcendentals, and if you ask that question, or any other question of whether something is good or bad for us, you are treading the dangerous territory of Objective Morality which is in direct opposition to the pursuit of license (not happiness) in our culture.
Relativism seems, perhaps, to derive from Positivism that meaning and values cannot exist (though it could come from an earlier idea?); you have the idea Lewis talks about in the Abolition of Man that the idea that a waterfall is sublime is someone describing their feelings about a waterfall, not describing the waterfall. The idea that feelings can't be correct about the world around us seems to imply there could be no objective meaning that an object can convey, but I'd have to explain further why I get there and it's pretty hard to phrase. We shall see.
A Bit of Ruminating, High School Times
Many times every day I think about what has happened with education. I don't know as much myself; people I know have said a great deal over the years of its decline. In a need to keep things balanced, I have been acting devil's advocate to the idea of the decline of education in my own head at least, but I do wonder, because I see what I think is a decline. Either I'm way too idealistic, or there has been one.
Reading Scholars Online's site again reacquainted me with my thoughts as a teenager under Dr. McMenomy's tutelage (I don't think I was a good student, but I loved those years). I got to join with my siblings a forum, back in those days, which students who knew each other well chatted about whatever. The other students knew each other before my family joined the online schools (we took classes on Regina Coeli Academy as was; I don't know what it's called now), so we joined into a group of friendly folks who debated theology and other things and fell on swords like good bad Romans.
There was a sense of striving for excellence among us, a sense I have not felt since in any other place. Maybe there is striving-for-excellence-lite in other areas of my life, but I have not felt that good pressure of challenge since, and it hasn't really been good that I've lost it. It was a very good thing for me. I pushed myself to become a virtuous person, in a sense I did not want to be ashamed, but I could distinguish between the bad shames and the necessary shames.
I remembered today that education can push one to a virtuous life. There is such a thing as rigour- oh, how I miss it! High school students studying college texts? Crunchable. I learned from these friends because many of them were better at some things than I was. I learned that I was, at least then, inferior in some ways merely because I wasn't willing to try- I was lazy. I insist that it is probably still so, but in the places I am now, it seems almost normal to be this lazy, in the name of following your dreams, being authentic. I would never try the things I do now if I had not had the pressure I had then. I loved that pressure... a lovely constant hum of desire to be better, and the constant improvement of my soul. If I envy anyone, I envy my past self.
Nothing can possibly be better than being pressed by the excellence of your fellows (whom I keenly felt were my superiors in some ways at least) to be better yourself. The love of truth, the love of truly doing right, the love of excellence... nothing can compare. It was a taste of the Best. Perhaps I most saw the good in it, and there was plenty of bad, but after reading Scholars Online's site again, I realise that I wasn't dreaming. It is out there, in some places. I want to find it and amplify it.
I do need to remember the good and apply it now. I have lost touch with the excellence that is possible because I am afraid of setting high hopes; I have killed the sense that this is real. I don't know if it is a threat to society now, but it feels that believing in these deeper, Greater somethings is a threat now.
Reading Scholars Online's site again reacquainted me with my thoughts as a teenager under Dr. McMenomy's tutelage (I don't think I was a good student, but I loved those years). I got to join with my siblings a forum, back in those days, which students who knew each other well chatted about whatever. The other students knew each other before my family joined the online schools (we took classes on Regina Coeli Academy as was; I don't know what it's called now), so we joined into a group of friendly folks who debated theology and other things and fell on swords like good bad Romans.
There was a sense of striving for excellence among us, a sense I have not felt since in any other place. Maybe there is striving-for-excellence-lite in other areas of my life, but I have not felt that good pressure of challenge since, and it hasn't really been good that I've lost it. It was a very good thing for me. I pushed myself to become a virtuous person, in a sense I did not want to be ashamed, but I could distinguish between the bad shames and the necessary shames.
I remembered today that education can push one to a virtuous life. There is such a thing as rigour- oh, how I miss it! High school students studying college texts? Crunchable. I learned from these friends because many of them were better at some things than I was. I learned that I was, at least then, inferior in some ways merely because I wasn't willing to try- I was lazy. I insist that it is probably still so, but in the places I am now, it seems almost normal to be this lazy, in the name of following your dreams, being authentic. I would never try the things I do now if I had not had the pressure I had then. I loved that pressure... a lovely constant hum of desire to be better, and the constant improvement of my soul. If I envy anyone, I envy my past self.
Nothing can possibly be better than being pressed by the excellence of your fellows (whom I keenly felt were my superiors in some ways at least) to be better yourself. The love of truth, the love of truly doing right, the love of excellence... nothing can compare. It was a taste of the Best. Perhaps I most saw the good in it, and there was plenty of bad, but after reading Scholars Online's site again, I realise that I wasn't dreaming. It is out there, in some places. I want to find it and amplify it.
I do need to remember the good and apply it now. I have lost touch with the excellence that is possible because I am afraid of setting high hopes; I have killed the sense that this is real. I don't know if it is a threat to society now, but it feels that believing in these deeper, Greater somethings is a threat now.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Link to a Discussion of the Meaning of 'Meek' from the Bible
I found this post (if you can read only one, read this as it's shorter and less convoluted) and this thread talking about the word 'meek', as I ran into some of the writings of objectivists online and had a feeling they misinterpreted the idea of 'the meek shall inherit the earth.' I had heard from source forgotten that 'meek' has a different meaning than how we think of it now- submissive, weak, gullible, and perhaps more positively in the word humble. From my fading memory of that source, I think they were posing it much more on the side of strength than even this thread does.
The thread, especially, reminded me of studying languages and finding out the nuances of the meaning of Old English or Latin words, even to their roots in Proto-Indo-European. Lots of fun nuggets. For some reason learning these things seemed to give me more understanding of how to use words in English better, or that was the sense I got- I feel like my writing flourished when I was studying these things years ago, and I felt more attuned to the careful, thoughtful use of words to really illustrate a particular flavour of a certain topic. For a really general illustration, you can use more English words, or you can use more Latin words, to talk about some topics, and either you choose will give a different flavour to that topic. Gabriel Wyner of Fluent Forever talks about how some topics are better spoken in French than in English- the language is suited to certain topics. If you speak with more English-root than Latin-root words, I feel that there is more of a practical groundedness, like everyday folks doing their business in the English countryside.
So when writing, the use of a word is very important, and in the writing of the Bible I am guessing (at least I would love to think) that there is the same care as to what words were chosen. Besides, I love to think that God is the Lord of Excellence and that His written Word was engineered skillfully and fluidly to properly transmit its meaning.
Since I feel I'm just beginning on the topic of the definition of 'meek', if I had written my own post on it, I would probably have taken quotes bits from these two sources instead of writing my own- perhaps someday I will yet do it, but it would be confusing if I had to keep sourcing bits, especially from a thread written by multiple people.
I could write more about how I see the practical meaning of the passages relating to this, though, because this idea of meekness has been in my head since I was a child, even if I didn't know that it tied to that specific word. It is the beautiful picture of wise, noble Saints.
The thread, especially, reminded me of studying languages and finding out the nuances of the meaning of Old English or Latin words, even to their roots in Proto-Indo-European. Lots of fun nuggets. For some reason learning these things seemed to give me more understanding of how to use words in English better, or that was the sense I got- I feel like my writing flourished when I was studying these things years ago, and I felt more attuned to the careful, thoughtful use of words to really illustrate a particular flavour of a certain topic. For a really general illustration, you can use more English words, or you can use more Latin words, to talk about some topics, and either you choose will give a different flavour to that topic. Gabriel Wyner of Fluent Forever talks about how some topics are better spoken in French than in English- the language is suited to certain topics. If you speak with more English-root than Latin-root words, I feel that there is more of a practical groundedness, like everyday folks doing their business in the English countryside.
So when writing, the use of a word is very important, and in the writing of the Bible I am guessing (at least I would love to think) that there is the same care as to what words were chosen. Besides, I love to think that God is the Lord of Excellence and that His written Word was engineered skillfully and fluidly to properly transmit its meaning.
Since I feel I'm just beginning on the topic of the definition of 'meek', if I had written my own post on it, I would probably have taken quotes bits from these two sources instead of writing my own- perhaps someday I will yet do it, but it would be confusing if I had to keep sourcing bits, especially from a thread written by multiple people.
I could write more about how I see the practical meaning of the passages relating to this, though, because this idea of meekness has been in my head since I was a child, even if I didn't know that it tied to that specific word. It is the beautiful picture of wise, noble Saints.
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