Northern State Universitya talk by Jon Schaff, a man about town
There
is a joke attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes like this.
Now Lincoln was fond of somewhat bawdy jokes, so the faint to heart are
forewarned. It seems there was this
farmer working out in the field. He
looks up to see his young son running across the field at full speed.
The boy comes up to the farmer huffing and puffing.
“Pa,” he says, “come quick.”
“Why?” asks the farmer. “Sis
and the hired man are about to pee all over your hay.”
“Really?” says the farmer. “What
makes you say that?” “Well,”
the boy replies, “I was just in the barn, and I saw them up in the loft.
Sis had her skirt hiked up and the hired man had his pants off.”
“Hmmm,” says the farmer, “I believe you have your facts right son,
but I find fault in your conclusions.”
About 25 years after Lincoln’s death Frederick Nietzsche would take this fact that people sometimes perceive the same phenomena differently and extrapolate from it the philosophy we now call post-modernism. What Nietzsche added to this calculation is the belief that there really is nothing but perception. There is no reality to be deduced. Most influential, perhaps, was Nietzsche’s teaching that there are no eternal unchanging moral laws. In the absence of such a moral law, what is left is human will. Humanity is left, in Nietzsche’s terminology, to create value. Already one sees a subtle change in language. The post-modernist does not speak in terms of morality or virtue, he speaks of values. See values are changeable. Human beings assign value to a thing. It is an act of human will. At the supermarket they might be selling Spaghetti-O’s for $1.75. If I assign a value to the Spaghetti-O’s greater than $1.75, I buy it because I really like Spaghetti-O’s and for me $1.75 is a bargain. But some might not like Spaghetti-O’s, and for them $1.75 is too much to spend. We have evaluated, i.e. placed value, on Spaghetti-O’s differently. In the post-modern world each creates his own values, not just about Spaghetti O’s, but about how we are to treat each other, what we owe to our fellow man, and so on. The world then is composed of the conflict of values. The person or persons who are the strongest, that can, again in Nietzschian terms, strongly exert their “will to power,” will set the value for all. The world is nothing but the conflict of power against power, and there is no way to speak truth to power, because there is no truth to be spoken.
I
see this all the time in my own field of political science.
There is pathology, identified by political philosopher Leo Strauss.
This is known as the fact/value distinction.
The modern academic thinks that facts are things that are observable and
measurable, using some mathematical method.
These are facts. Everything
else is merely a “value” and we can say nothing authoritative about values,
and they are not worthy of study. What
we do in political science, and indeed in all of the social sciences, is reduce
human behavior to quantifiable data. Lincoln
said in the debate in Ottawa, Illinois Thus we work up sophisticated computer
programs using the most complicated mathematical formulas to prove that,
amazingly, Republicans tend to vote for Republicans and Democrats for Democrats.
This fact/value distinction has, I think, rather profound implications. What we study is human behavior, i.e. man as he is.
We do not bother asking the question of what man should be; what
is his relation to God; what does he owe his fellow man.
You see, these are values, and nothing can be said about them.
But just as man has used his knowledge of hard sciences to dominate the
physical world, what is to stop his knowledge of social science to dominate man?
As we divorce all study of humanity from all questions of right and
wrong, of morality, how do we know when our copious knowledge is being used for
good ends or bad ends?
This
view is pervasive in education. Thus
it should not be surprising to find that the average American has the same,
well, values, as the post-modernist. In
a recent study by the Barna Research Group they find that by a 3 to 1 margin
American adults believe truth is relative to the person and situation.
The rate is higher among teenagers, 83% of whom believe truth is
relative, and only 6% of whom claim to be guided by an objective moral standard.
A plurality of those surveyed reported that when faced with a moral
conundrum their primary guide is their feelings; in other words, their will,
just as the post-modernist would have it.
But
this attitude isn’t so hard to understand.
The average American yearns to be tolerant.
We see this in the pervasive use of this word “tolerance.”
We are told often that we need to be more tolerant of other opinions,
other lifestyles, etc, so as not to be judgmental or to “impose our opinions
on others.” So what does it mean
to be “tolerant?” Maybe some of
you have had some experience with those small little creatures I like to call
children. You might have children
of your own, or you have nieces and nephews, or you baby-sit, or you have had
some other job where you work with children.
Now I don’t want to shock you, but children can be truly awful little
creatures. Do you discipline
children every time they do something that they ought not?
You don’t, do you? Why
not? Well, there are some perfectly
good explanations for this. If we
correct children every time they are in technical violation of good behavior,
we’d end up pestering them mercilessly. Sometimes
you just let kids be kids, which is also sometimes very ugly. This is for the sanity of parents too. They can’t always be correcting every little thing or
they’d go nuts. Sometimes, as you
all know from common sense if not experience, it is better to let things slide.
Now, does that mean that the misbehavior is good?
No. Is it even indifferent?
No. It is bad.
The behavior is wrong, but we don’t punish it.
This is tolerance. We
tolerate what is bad in the name of some greater good.
We speak of being able to tolerate physical pain, or bad weather.
These are bad things.
But
this isn’t what is usually meant in common discourse by tolerance.
What we are being asked is not to be patient with that which is wrong; we
are usually being asked to be indifferent towards a thing, to withhold
judgment. Or we may even be asked
to accept a thing as an actual good. In
the common language when people say we must be more tolerant what they often
mean is we need to be more permissive, meaning what is wanted is our permission,
our sanction, regarding a belief or action which has heretofore been held to be,
to one extent or another, wrong.
Those
who most strenuously push so-called tolerance take the position of neutrality,
believing it to be the only morally objective position.
See they aren’t really taking sides, we are led to believe, they are
simply being neutral. But
neutrality itself is a value-laden position.
Take, for example, Pepsi and Coke. Now
some people are Pepsi people, and some people are Coke people.
If, say, we are a room of Coca-Cola people we don’t denounce the Pepsi
people as somehow being our moral inferiors.
We don’t try to convince the Pepsi people that they have chosen badly
and they’d be happier if they drank Coke.
Why? Because the difference
between Pepsi and Coke is literally one of taste.
We can’t say that one is better than another.
So we withhold judgment. But
what about issues involving human life? Human
sexuality? The Family?
Honesty? Courage? Piety? Can
one really be neutral about the various ways humans express themselves sexually?
Perhaps. But that itself
carries important moral baggage. The
unwillingness to say that some forms of sexual expression are better than
others, or put another way, the claim that all forms of sexual expression are
equal, is a moral position with important consequences.
Sexuality is not soda pop. The
claim to neutrality often acts as a cover for what is really indifference, an
unwillingness to judge. Indifference
towards important social and moral questions is itself a moral position.
It is not true neutrality.
There are two justifications for the religion of tolerance. The first says that what is important is human choice. Our decisions aren’t really valuable unless they are decided free of outside influence. Now, all Americans value autonomy and respect individual rights, but is it so clear that individual choice should, in every case, trump certain socially beneficial goods such as decency, discipline, trustworthiness, self-control? And are the choices for drug use, pornography, or casual sex the products of a rationally thinking mind, or are they more the impulses of our lower appetites, or one might say, the will rather than the mind? Think about it. Isn’t the choice for casual sex usually a product of lust, the desire to satisfy our selfish sexual impulses? When people choose to do drugs, isn’t it more likely that it is out of a fear of not fitting in with a certain crowd than a product of intricate well reasoned thought? We have to ask ourselves, “How much of my well being is invested in pursuing my own way, and how much is invested in the development of universal virtues such as intelligence, courage, self-control, sociability, love?” True individually comes from discipline, not simply reacting to the impulses of our will. Discipline requires that demands be made on us, not simply that the constraints on us are removed.
The
second justification for suspension of judgment is that of equality.
This view holds that I have the right to have my life choices treated
equally regardless of the social effects of my choices.
Well, what if a significant minority of people regularly took drugs,
consumed pornography, and regularly visited prostitutes?
Could such a society survive for long?
Must our love of equality turn into a social suicide pact?
In his influential essay, “Defining Deviancy Down,” Daniel Patrick
Moynihan argues that society can only handle so much deviancy, so as more and
more anti-social behavior takes place, we have to redefine as “normal” some
things that we used to consider deviant. This can become a vicious cycle, at the
end of which the most awful things might have to be labeled as “normal.”
We do value the concept of equality, but this in one good among many.
While recognizing our common humanity, this does not mean that we can’t
recognize varying degrees of excellence or bestow esteem on some ways of life
and not others.
Let
me return to where I began, to Abraham Lincoln, but this time not to tell a
bawdy joke. You see, I was once a
kind of post-modernist, or more accurately what Leo Strauss labeled a
“historicist,” one who believe that history should be our guide rather than
abstract principles such as natural rights.
Truth is relative to a time and place in history.
Now, this is not the worst of all theories, indeed Lincoln himself said
in the Cooper Union speech of 1860 that it is better to be guided by the old and
tried than the new and untried. But
then I started reading and writing about Lincoln, and I read a book by one of
Strauss’ students, Harry Jaffa; a book called Crisis of the House Divided,
which explores the arguments of Lincoln in defense of natural right and the
arguments of Lincoln’s Illinois nemesis, Stephan Douglas, in favor of
“popular sovereignty.” It is
fair to say this book changed my mind forever.
What was popular sovereignty, as defended by Stephan Douglas?
Not to be tedious, but some history may be in order.
As most of you know, in 1820 the states of Maine and Missouri were
admitted to the Union by what became known as the Missouri Compromise.
Maine was admitted as a free state, Missouri as a slave state.
All states admitted thereafter located north of 36°30 latitude would be
admitted free, and those south of that line would be slave states. Leap forward
to 1854, when the Kansas and Nebraska territories applied for admission to the
Union. By the Compromise they
should have been admitted free. Stephan
Douglas had another idea, and idea he called popular sovereignty. It didn’t seem fair for Washington, D.C. to tell states how
to run their business. Why not let
the citizens of the new territories vote on whether to be free or slave; let
them exercise “popular sovereignty.” Can
this be argued with? Why not let
choice rule? After all, some thought slavery to be wrong, others right.
Douglas declared himself to be indifferent. All he wanted was for choice
to rule. Thus he proposed the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which would enshrine popular sovereignty as the law
of the land. This was an earth
shaking decision. It had at least
two major ramifications that would change the nation forever.
First, it spawned the creation of a new anti-Slavery party, the
Republican party, which in two short years would supplant the Whig party as the
second major party in the nation. More
importantly, it would pull an Illinois lawyer who was a former one-term
Congressman back into public life after six years in the political wilderness.
That lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, saw the evil of popular sovereignty for
what it was, indeed he called it “insidious popular sovereignty.” Lincoln tried to sway public opinion and keep it true to the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims natural rights,
i.e. not granted by anyone but God, to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness and that by nature all men have these rights equally.
Perhaps
the central problem of his time, Lincoln thought, was the attempt by pro-slavery
forces to discard this central idea of the natural equality of all men. They sought to replace it with certain variations: the
equality of states, or Stephen Douglas’s “popular sovereignty.”
In 1858 Lincoln challenged Douglas for a Senate seat from Illinois.
Lincoln’s defense of natural right against popular sovereignty was at
the core of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 and formed the heart of
Lincoln’s political thought. Lincoln
abhorred the indifference to slavery exemplified in the concept of popular
sovereignty, as well as the assault on natural right it represented. Lincoln said in the debate in Ottawa, Illinois, “The
declared indifference, but as I think, covert real
zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.”
Defense of popular sovereignty forced “so many of our really good men
amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil
liberty--criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting there is no
right principle of action but self-interest.”
At Alton Lincoln eloquently defended the need to take care of public opinion and
defend natural right:
And
if there be among you anybody who supposes that he as a Democrat, can consider
himself “as much opposed to slavery as anybody,” I would like to reason with
him. You never treat it as a wrong.
What other thing that you consider as a wrong, do you deal with as you
deal with that? Perhaps you say
it is wrong, but your leader never does,
and you quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong.
Although you pretend to say so yourself you can find no place to deal
with it as a wrong. You must not
say anything about it in the free States, because
it is not there.
You must not say anything about it in the slave States, because
it is there. You must not say
anything about it in the pulpit, because that is religion and has nothing to do
with it. You must not say anything
about it in politics, because that will
disturb the security of “my place.” . . . [Judge Douglas] says he
“don’t care whether it is voted up or voted down” in the Territories . . .
Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can
say that who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don’t
care whether a wrong is voted up or down. He
may say he don’t care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he
must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing.
Lincoln argued that the conflict was between “the
common right of humanity and . . . the divine right of kings.” The question
was whether the nation would continue to honor natural right, rights true for
all time and for all people, or yield to the “might makes right” foundation
of popular sovereignty. Douglas
sought to change the opinion of the people against natural right and towards
tyranny of the majority. Douglas
sought to make the people indifferent to the moral wrongness of slavery and its
incongruity with natural right. To
combat indifference to the natural rights outlined in the Declaration was the
impetus behind Lincoln’s political activity after the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had made popular sovereignty national policy.
Not many of our concerns today reach the level of the evil of slavery,
although some do. But the principle
holds for all moral questions. Are
we guided by our own will, by majority will, by a “will to power,” or will
we retain our ability to speak truth to power, as Lincoln did? The university plays a key role in this task.
C.S. Lewis puts the problem this way.
“Without aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the
animal organism. The head rules the heart through the chest.”
And as Lewis famously wrote, “We make men without chests and expect of
them virtue and enterprise. We
laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
We castrate and bid geldings be fruitful.”
John Keats famously wrote that truth is beauty and beauty is truth.
In the words of Leo Strauss, “The Greeks had a beautiful word for
“vulgarity”; they called it apeirokalia, lack of experience in things
beautiful. Liberal education
supplies us with experience in things beautiful.”
Pope John Paul II calls it Veritas Splendor, the splendor of
truth. My hope for these students,
and all students everywhere, is that in their education they experience the
splendor of truth, and they are truly set free.
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