Are we better, as a society, without virtue? Are we happier, as a people, since the philosophers declared that God is dead? Do men behave more or less honorably than they did in the past? Have pornography and the indulgence of strange sexual appetites taught people to respect each other and behave nobly? Are there fewer rapes and murders now that several generations of men have been disarmed of their masculinity? Do we kill fewer people during war because we have chosen science over moral conviction? Are our streets safer because we have decided that decrying sin is too “judgmental” for our modern tastes? Do we have more selfless heroes, brave knights, and noble leaders in this age?
These are rhetorical questions, but in fact it's hard to say what the truth is about some of them. It seems likely, for example, that there actually are fewer rapes: the crime rate has been falling since 1992, and even though rape reporting is higher among women than in previous generations, there seem to be fewer rapes. The statistics are also muddy because FBI changed its definition in 2013 in order to capture more things as "rape," which gave the appearance of a huge sudden spike but was really an artifact of this definitional change. Even given increased reporting and also a definition change to expand the category, however, we do seem to be down from the 1992 high. I don't of course suppose that men being "disarmed of their masculinity" is the cause of this even if there is a correlation; but the rhetorical question's answer isn't as obvious as the author supposes.
Likewise, the conclusion:
But we are not a happy people. We are not a brave people. We are not an honorable people willing to fight each day for what is right.
Speak for yourself, sir. I know some very brave and honorable people, and even a few happy ones.
I need to read the article at the link, but it sounds like Men Without Chests.
ReplyDelete-Larry
There's a new Medieval History blog, maybe of interest to Grim and others here:
ReplyDeletehttps://feignedflight.substack.com/
I liked the article and I agree with its conclusion. While I personally know several happy, brave, and honorable people, one look at the headlines and the offerings of popular culture are enough to demonstrate that our country, as a whole, certainly has its issues with all three.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid, once again, we will have to disagree, especially regarding your opinion of the CIA. While I recognize the utility of intelligence agencies like the CIA, I don't find their work particularly honorable. Field agents spend their time trying to compromise "assets" and turn them into traitors (for our benefit, to be sure, but traitors all the same). While there is great utility to our country through such efforts and we benefit from them, they are still odious and not particularly praiseworthy. In short you wouldn't want your child to be one of them. While these agents may be patriotic, it is worth noting that patriotism isn't the only virtue.
Many rogues and villains have claimed the mantle of patriot. It didn't make them less rogues and villains.
I am glad you are around, my friend.
DeleteTo betray your country might be honorable, if your country is a Communist tyranny. Treason, good treason, was likewise the hallmark of our own Revolution against King George; or the one against King John that brought about Magna Carta. Sometimes treason is the best thing, even if it carries an ugly name.
Good treason:
ReplyDeletehttps://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-spirit-of-rebellion.html
I understand the horror in the idea that I have spent a lot of my life suborning treason, and they did for their whole careers. All I can say is that no state deserves your loyalty unless it deserves it. The minute it crosses the lines laid out in the Declaration of Independence, you have every right to strike it down. At some nearby point, also as the Declaration makes clear, you have not only the right but the moral duty.
ReplyDeleteIt is good to be back my friend.
DeleteThere is a truth in what you say when you make the statement "that no state deserves your loyalty unless it deserves it," but only to a point. Often times you still must be loyal even when your country doesn't deserve such dedication. Our own Declaration of Independence makes this point:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
I don't believe the Founding Fathers committed treason when they ratified the Declaration of Independence (although they knew that is how the Crown would view it). At that point, they had no choice. The crown had previously, and explicitly, removed the Colonies from the Crown's protection with the Prohibitory Act, in addition to repeated refusals to even accept colonial petitions for redress. You can't betray that which has already kicked you out.
We are very close to agreement, since we share first principles here. The very next line in the Declaration is: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
DeleteFulfilling one's moral duty is always honorable; sometimes the means are hard, and scar the one who does it. But bearing wounds in the service of the honorable is, itself, also honorable.
"To betray your country might be honorable, if your country is a Communist tyranny"...there was a German officer named Hans Oster who became a mainstay of the anti-Nazi resistance. In 1939, he disclosed German invasion plans to an acquaintance in Dutch intelligence, knowing that this disclosure could likely lead to the deaths of fellow German soldiers. To a friend he said "It is far easier to take a pistol and kill someone, it is far easier to charge into a hail of machine-gun fire when you believe in the cause, than it is to do what I have done. If things should ever come to this pass, then please be the friend even after my death who
ReplyDeleteknows how it was and what moved me to do things that others might never understand or undertake themselves."
I think it speaks well of Oster that he did what he did--but also that he found it difficult to do so.
Betrayal is never honorable, and ultimately destructive to one's soul. It requires the betrayer to maintain a false face towards those to whom he owes a duty. It requires him to not just live a lie, but to live in an ever expanding web of lies. After awhile, such a life makes it hard for the betrayer to even recognize the truth.
DeleteIf someone doesn't believe they can discharge their duties with a clear conscience then they should resign their commission. They shouldn't deceitfully pretend to be something they are not and assist in the killing of those they have accepted a responsibility to lead.
Oster's actions proved he lacked the courage to honestly proclaim his convictions. Maybe, if more German officers had been willing to publicly oppose Hitler earlier, this would have inspired more people, through their example, to resist and his regime would have toppled sooner, possibly even preventing WWII. That can't happen when one only acts deceitfully, out of sight in the shadows.
I think Oster's soul whe as in much better shape than the souls of those who supported the Nazi regime either through conviction, fear, or a misguided sense of loyalty A sense of loyalty should only go so far before it becomes a betrayal of other loyalties.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd been an American or French or British soldier in the First World War, Oster would have shot you if he'd had the chance, and probably not felt bad at all about it. But his loyalty to a regime had limits, and in a totalitarian society, the ways in which opposition can be achieved usefully are limited.
Oster's soul may be in better shape than the Nazis, not exactly a high bar. That doesn't change the fact that he should have been honest and open about his convictions rather than hide them and act in the shadows. What Germany, and the world, needed were more Germans willing to publicly oppose the regime.
Delete*clapping*
ReplyDeleteWell done, gentlemen. I do so love reading these conversations, and I'm happy to have found something from which such could occur. Although, I confess to feeling somewhat left out sometimes in that I cannot participate simply because most of my thoughts have already been expressed much more eloquently by the time I get to the bottom!
Thank you, Grim, for thinking the subject worthy of your site.
0>;~}
It was both an honor and a pleasure.
DeleteJoel L...if he had the opportunity to use the knowledge he had to advise the Dutch-Belgians-French of the details of the impending invasion, and hence to take appropriate measures against it, that would seem to have a lot more impact in the world than speaking out publicly (which probably would have been ignored, as most such were) If the invasion of 1940 had been quickly defeated and the Hitler regime had fallen, thens of millions of lives would have been saved.
ReplyDeleteWe already know that his disclosure didn't have the desired effect. We will never know what would have happened if he and other Germans had been public regarding their position.
Delete