She told The Fix that START’s portrayal of pro-lifers does not resemble how the DHS typically views “radicalization” in any political camp.“We didn’t have a great definition, so we wanted to clear it up, what we were trying to prevent, which was violent thought,” she said. An act of “vandalism” by college students would not have been a concern, she told The Fix.
There is no legitimate government activity that entails "we were trying to prevent... thought." It doesn't matter what goes in the ellipsis.
Universities in particular should be places that encourage thought, and then arrange encounters of poor thinking with better thinking. Ideas should not be suppressed but engaged, and the better and more truth-bearing ideas will win out.
Some encounters can produce thought that is violent or angry in a righteous way, as today's post by D29 points out. If you follow the discussion to the original documents -- Aquinas and Aristotle -- you will find that the object of righteous anger is revenge, which, Aquinas says:
...is a desire for something good: since revenge belongs to justice. Therefore the object of anger is good.
Now you can go wrong with anger, as Aquinas and Aristotle both warn, because it is a spur to action and yet also an impediment to reason. You have to get the reason right in order to measure the revenge taken against the full interests of justice, both in terms of the scale of the revenge and the means taken to exact revenge. Getting the reason right is hard, but necessary if there is to be a just and virtuous act.
In order to be able to do that, you need to practice thinking in cases when you are angry and, yes, even inclined to violence. Violent thought is important to practice getting right, which means it mustn't be stopped. It needs engagement and training, so that justice can flourish. Indeed, Aristotle holds that such anger is produced by one's excellence: it is one's virtuous attachment to justice that provokes anger when injustice is encountered.
...it is our duty both to feel sympathy and pity for unmerited distress, and to feel indignation at unmerited prosperity; for whatever is undeserved is unjust, and that is why we ascribe indignation even to the gods.... All these feelings are associated with the same type of moral character. And their contraries are associated with the contrary type; the man who is delighted by others' misfortunes is identical with the man who envies others' prosperity.
There is a great deal of value here, but you don't develop virtuous citizens by defanging them. You only get virtuous citizens by training and educating them to use their natures well and wisely. That requires practice, even -- especially! -- practicing the dangerous things.
8 comments:
Anger is dangerous, yet not universally bad. Anger is the appropriate response to some actions.
I don't see the failing as being the implication that the government is defanging *all* citizens, though it's an important part of it. The worry of 'radicalization' among the government functionaries is that the *wrong* citizens will be stirred to righteous anger, and action.
Certainly among Democratic officials, there's a clear sense that groups like Antifa and BLM protests that burned cities were useful in advancing the cause. They're willing to loose the hounds, as it were, to scare people into compliance.
These people in this article enjoy the approval of the College Fix because they're sort-of on the Republican side. So even among these establishment Republican figures, the interest is naturally expressed as "stopping violent thought." I think that's a truism about Republican establishment leaders: they're really afraid of their base. Defanging ordinary middle class kids who go to college is in their interest, because their instincts are to look upon the hoi polloi with fear.
On the old Greek political model, then, the Republicans are trying to run America as an aristocracy and keep the mob in check. The Democrats are demagogues, a type that typically starts as an aristocrat who learns how to use the terror of the mob to force the other aristocrats into submission.
Some Anger IS Righteous ? Really? What about the Sermon on the Mount? - Greg
Garrigou-Lagrange is a Dominican and champion of aquinas.
He says: "We saw in the preceding chapter that in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord demands the mortification of the slightest inordinate interior movements of anger"
Please read:
Seeds of Death and the Infinite Loftiness of the Eternal Goal by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange
https://onepeterfive.com/seeds-death-infinite-eternal/
.......The Infinite Elevation of Our Supernatural End Demands a Special Mortification or Abnegation
We saw in the preceding chapter that in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord demands the mortification of the slightest inordinate interior movements of anger, sensuality, and pride, because we ought, He says, to be “perfect as also your heavenly Father is perfect,” (Mt. 5:48) since we have received a participation in His intimate life, and since we are called to see Him immediately as He sees Himself, and to love Him as He loves Himself...........
.....From the fact that we are called to a supernatural end of infinite elevation, since it is God Himself in His intimate life, it is not sufficient for us to live according to right reason, subordinating our passions to it. We must always act not only as rational beings, but as children of God, in whom reason is subordinate to faith, and every action is inspired by charity. This obliges us to detachment in regard to all that belongs only to the earth, or is purely natural, in regard to all that cannot be a means of drawing nearer to God and of leading souls to Him. In this sense we must combat the different forms of natural eagerness, which would absorb our activity to the detriment of the life of grace......
It is not my business to adjudicate a dispute on theology between St. Thomas Aquinas and a Dominican preacher. They definitely disagree on this point, but teaching whether the Saint is right or wrong within the Church is a matter for churchmen with the appropriate authority. I make no such claims for myself.
If one were bold enough to try it, the point of entry might be ST.I-II.Q62.A2, on the theological virtues as exceeding the intellectual and moral virtues.
https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I-II.Q62.A2
That will lead you to ST.II.II.Q23.A8, which argues that charity ("caritatem") is the form and end of all the virtues, including presumably virtuous anger.
https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.II-II.Q23.A8
At most a synthesis position is going to have to admit that anger is a moral virtue, while proceeding towards an argument that perfection entails transforming it through charity. That would inform the 'means and degree' of revenge-seeking as a good, perhaps. Calling for the mortification of a moral virtue isn't going to work; your Dominican will need to convince whoever still has the moral authority to define church doctrine, in a time when many Catholics reject the Pope, to go along with rejecting Aquinas' view.
Which doubtless many of them do; there are all sorts of wild views being pontificated by priests and such today.
I think Grin really already made this point, but-
" We must always act not only as rational beings, but as children of God, in whom reason is subordinate to faith, and every action is inspired by charity."
That presupposes that anger cannot be inspired by charity. Is desiring that a child rapist be held accountable not inspired by charity towards the child victims? Is even violence imposed by the state (imprisoning included) not also committed by us? Yet we almost universally agree some should be imprisoned, and certainly in the case of child rapists (and some might wish for even more justice).
Anyone ought to wish for 'more justice.' What some might say in that case is that justice requires more anger -- and indeed more vengeance.
Post a Comment