In our age of internet and cell phones, it sometimes seems that we live at the speed of light, and it is easy to get swept away in a chaotic tide of activity.  We often find little time for silent reflection.  We hardly have time to think at all, never mind time to think about the important questions.  And yet we run the risk of arriving breathless at the end of life and finding that we have missed the point.  When is the last time you thought about your life, and what you want out of it?  What is most important to you in life?  Please take a moment now to think about it.  Try to pause, silent the inrushing stream of data.  if you need help organizing your thoughts, Victor Frankl’s poignant question may help you to get to the heart of the matter.  The great psychologist sometimes asked his struggling patients:  “Why do you not kill yourself?”  Though it seems a bit crass, it is a good question that forces us to think about what is really important to us.  If we take the time to reflect, the answer may surprise us, and we may realize that we have been sleeping through life.

So what is it?  What is the goal, the meaning, the point of your life?  Perhaps you answered that it was your family, or your career, or time with nature.  But let me suggest something.  Let me suggest that it all boils down to this.  The goal of life is to find fulfillment, to maximize our sense of fulfillment.  All of the other goals that we may identify, religious or secular, may be reduced to this fundamental principle.  In fact, it is the only reasonable answer.  It would be unreasonable for someone to do something that did not seek to maximize their own sense of fulfillment.  Even self-sacrificial behavior boils down to the same principle.  The altruist seeks the fulfillment that he receives from sacrificing himself. 

Our question then becomes, how can we maximize our sense of fulfillment?  You see, I think we are all always trying to do this, but I do not think that we do it efficiently or reasonably.  We in America generally seem to see only one kind of fulfillment, that which comes from physical comfort and pleasure.  Even when we are concerned for our families, it is generally with respect to their physical needs and desires.  Ours is a culture of entertainment, food, and comfort-seeking.  From American Idol and Ipods, to casinos and Coolattas, the icons of our society are all indicative of our physical appetites:  for sex, food, money, and comfort.

These things do bring some sense of fulfillment, but let me suggest that fulfillment is short lived and shallow, and does not satisfy.  Let me suggest that the highest fulfillment does not come from physical pleasure and security at all, but from less tangible, yet no less real pleasures.  I am speaking of such time-honored values as love, friendship, honor, freedom, responsibility, and achievement.  From ancient times men have lived fulfilling lives in abject poverty and discomfort, and even in pain, because they sought their fulfillment in these higher sources.

Victor Frankl used another idea to help his patients with meaning-of-life questions.  When you are on your death bed, and look back on your life, what would bring you fulfillment then?  This question can bring into focus the contrast between the fleeting physical pleasures and those lasting pleasures like love and honor. 

These values, developed in mankind from ancient times have become a very real of man himself, of each one of us.  Man is built for them, and cannot find fulfillment apart from them.  To abandon the quest for these values is to abandon any hope of true fulfillment, and it is to abandon reason.

This is not to say that the quest for lower sources of fulfillment must be abandoned, but we must seek the right combination of pleasures, we must seek the lower pleasures within the context of our quest for the higher.  But the higher take priority over the lower.

And yet we in America live, by and large, for the lower pleasures, and we pay the price.  We live empty lives, always chasing the next dollar, meal, sexual experience, or whatever fix it is we are hooked on at the moment.  And it even affects our politics.

Even our politics is influenced by this culture of comfort.  “Americans vote with their pocketbooks” is an old, and accurate, slogan.  But I think it is broader than cash.  If life is about comfort, then I will vote to ensure and enhance that comfort.  And this is why our country has become increasingly socialistic.  Socialism promises security of comfort. 

The problem is, it violates the higher values.

Check back soon for Part 2.

Man is the world of men, the State, society.

And there it is.  One of the fundamental differences between between Marxism and reality.  man is not the ant or bee.  Man may be gregarious, but he is not a social organism in the sense of the Hymenoptera.  Man is the individual. 

I am not the State.  I am not society.  I am not the world of men.  I think.  I feel.  I exist.  This is more than can be said for these others, which are no more than abstract concepts and do not have consciousness.  When I say the word “I”, I do not mean “society”.  And when I act, I act, not society.  If society has a consciousness or mind of it’s own, I do not experience it first hand, the way I experience my own consciousness and mind.

I am the one who must deal with my own existence.

The only reasonable motivation for doing anything is to increase our own sense of fulfillment, as I have previously argued.  If we are to be reasonable, we must follow where this precept leads.  If nature and history have determined what will bring us the highest fulfillment, the nature and history have determined our purpose, the goal to which we must strive if we are reasonable.

William Grey has written along similar lines:

The whole upshot of the biological story is to show how life and purpose can arise in a lifeless and purposeless world. The fact that life and purpose have emerged from, and are based upon, the exquisite and impersonal processes of chemistry in no way compromises the existence of purpose, and hence of value and significance. Existentialists, while rightly rejecting transcendent cosmic purposes, are wrong in supposing that the only source of significance and value is located in individual (human) choice and commitment. Their claim that man has no nature, or is free to create his own nature through autonomous decision, is a significant mistake.

I suggested above that biology can help throw some light on the question of what sort of life we ought to pursue. Any acceptable answer will have to take into consideration important constraints which derive <492> from the nature of human nature; and biological considerations can be of assistance here (as I suggested above) by helping to elucidate the sort of life to which the species homo sapiensis best adapted. This involves an Aristotelian supposition that organisms, including ourselves, have natural ends: teleology is in fact built into our nature. This innately programmed purposiveness, which is of the greatest importance for the project of establishing significance in our lives, is itself the product of the aimless processes (and “mistakes”) of evolution. An Aristotelian account can not only provide the basis for a naturalised ethic for mankind, it can also provide the basis of an ethic for nature. [11]

From:  Zygon Vol 22, No 4 (1987), pp. 479-496.

 

I want be fulfilled.  I find fulfillment in living honorably, compassionately, and freely.  This, then is my purpose:  To live with honor, compassion, and freedom, fulfilling the duties that I have to my family and others.  I have purposed it.  To the extent that I achieve it, I will be satisfied with my life and will have fulfilled my purpose.

The question is, does it matter if I chose my purpose freely or if it was determined for me?  I am not sure it does.  It would seem that all that matters is the sense of fulfillment I receive from fulfilling the purpose, regardless of the source of that purpose.  I suppose one could argue that simply knowing that you have a purpose brings fulfillment, but I don’t think so.  if I have a purpose, but have not fulfilled it, then how does that bring a sense of fulfillment?  Or, if I have a purpose that does not bring me fulfillment, what does that do for me?

So I guess the question of external teleology is superfluous for me, except in one regard.  if this “purpose” has an external source, then it is by definition, objective.  Nature and evolution have created an objective morality.

Then my wife saw this video at Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink.  Take a look, and listen to what Beth O’Toole says at the end.  She says that, as a working mom, she thinks Palin is a great role model, and that the belief that a woman can’t balance both home and family is an “archaic and outdated theory… we’ve proven that we can, we’re successful… the example that she’s gonna set worldwide is gonna benefit our reputation as the United States.”  Whoa!  The implications of Palin’s bid became all too clear. 

Some, like Ms. O’Toole, are using it to further discourage mothers from the honorable and motherhood.  The fact is, a mother cannot have a time intensive career and be the kind of mother she has the potential to be.  Here’s why:  Though there are exceptions, in general a mother is the best caregiver and teacher that her children could have.  Only she has the kind of natural love and nurturing instinct for her special charges that they deserve.  If a mother decides to deligate this responsibility to others for the majority of her children’s waking lives, then she has chosen something less than what is best for her children.  If she knowingly and willingly gives her children less than she could give them, then I don’t know how you can say that she is being the kind of mother she could be. 

It’s that simple.  Unless you argue that time with mom is not best for the child, you cannot escape this conclusion.  There is no doubt that this argument may be valid for some dysfunctional mothers, but it seems clear that mothers are by nature the best fit for the job of caring for their own children, at least while they are young.

So, a mother who makes the choice to engage in a time-intensive career is making a sacrifice, and so is her husband.  One might argue that such a sacrifice is “worth it”, that a lesser good for their children is worth a greater good for many people.  of course, this would be the position of the socialist, but socialism is unreasonable.

If I were on a boat full of children, and the boat were sinking, would I give preference to my own children, or others?  What if I could save either my children, or hundreds of others?  My answer, and I think the only reasonable answer, is that I must save my own.  My obligation to my own children is clear.  It is my responsibility to protect and care for them.  That charge has been given to no one else.  They look to me for protection and care. 

The only reasonable motivation for doing anything is to increase one’s own sense of fulfillment, and I can not imagine that that allowing my own children to suffer for others would increase my fulfillment.  There is no doubt that personal sacrifice for others can lead to fulfillment, but I do not see how sacrificing one’s children could do the same.

I understand that there are times when a woman must work.  Obviously a single mom has no other choice.  There may also be dire financial situations that require a mother to work (though in general, it is often possible for a mother to stay at home, though significant sacrifices may be required).

I also understand that such things must be taken on a case-by-case basis.  Some women are emotionally unable to provide the love and care that their children need, or would be unable to do so if they were home all day.  I am speaking in general terms. 

But we live in a day when motherhood has been redefined, and the standard has been lowered.  This is apparently true even in Christian organizations, like Focus on the Family, which have historically upheld the high standard.  It is ironic that the liberal media is questioning Palin’s ability to fulfill her motherly responsibilities while simultaneously being Vice President, and the conservative media, including long time promoter of full-time motherhood, Focus on the Family, is defending her.

The questioning of Palin’s motherhood makes many angry.  How dare you suggest that mother’s should stay at home with their children, that they cannot maintain a time intensive career awhile still being a good mother! 

To begin with, I am notsaying one cannotbe a &quot;good&quot; mother while keeping a time-intensive career and a young family.  I am saying she cannotbe the best mother she could be.  But to the question, “Is this inhibiting and stifling to women”,  I answer, “Only if motherhood itself is stifling and inhibitive”

And it is not.  Not according to my wife, who stays at home and homeschools my two children.  Not according to nature itself, which teaches us that the highest calling of a mother is motherhood, and her first responsibility as a mother is to her family.  Fulfilling this duty is the mother’s highest calling. 

Higher than being vice president of the United States? 

Yes.  The pregnant woman has been charged with a responsibility to her children.  No one has charged her with any higher responsibility.  Moreover, while someone else can step in to her job in the workplace, or even the government, no one can do the same job as the mother of her children.

But is it necessary for a woman to be with her children all of the time in order ot be the best mother she can be?  I will answer with a question:  What is better? 

And the question in our minds is, is Sarah Palin a good role model for the women of America, as Ms. O’Toole asserts, or is she neglecting her responsibility as a mother as so setting a poor example? 

There is no doubt that Ms. Palin has much about her that we can admire and aspire to.  The fact remains, however, that she has apparently made a choice to give her children second best.  I am sure that many working moms reason that by working they are actually, somehow, giving their children a better life than they could if they stayed at home:  more money, comfort, etc.  It is possible that Ms. Palin could reason that by working for a better country she will improve her children’s lives.  I will admit that such a scenario may be possible.  But I wonder if it is so.  I wonder if such things are really more weighty for a child than the time and nuture of their mother. 

And with respect to her role in politics, let’s not forget that it is the hands that rock the cradle that rule the world.

Post Script:

If I can answer this question with conviction, then the struggle melts away.  If I really want a life of higher fulfillment, then the voice of temptation fades.  My struggle waxes and wanes with my conviction, and my conviction waxes and wanes with my feelings about higher fulfillment.  When I am thinking that this idea of higher fulfillment is all a bunch of hooey, then I begin to struggle again with the urge to indulge the “beast”.

My task, then, is to focus on the question of higher fulfillment, because only as that concept solidifies in my mind will I avoid the poisonous infiltration of the beast.

If it’s not fun, why do it?  Because there is more to life than fun.  There is more to life than sensual fulfillment–more than sex and wine and vacations and parties and iPods and video games.  In fact, these basic, animal forms of fulfillment are short lived and not really very satisfying.  If this were not true, then why would we need to continually seek more and more of them.  “The eyes of a man are never satisfied,”  wrote Solomon.

But there are more lasting and greater sources of fulfillment–those sources that are unique to our higher nature:   Honor, love, compassion, achievement, and freedom, for example.  And sometimes these higher sources of fulfillment conflict with the animal desires within us–the desire for fun.  It is at those times that we

Government may, and should, prevent any person from inhibiting the freedom of another.  That is, government should punish murder and fraud and the like.  That is because these are actions of one individual against another’s liberty, and it is reasonable that groups of individuals should band together to protect their own liberty.  However, government should not force anyone to do something against their will, unless that action would infringe on another’s liberty.  This principle rules out socialism, since that system limits the freedom of individuals from pursuing their own happiness in whatever way they may choose.  The independent acquisition of property and wealth by one’s own honest labor does not infringe on the liberty of others.  Therefore, it is unreasonable for a government to inhibit such activity.  If a government does inhibit such activity, then that government has acted unreasonably in inhibiting the freedom of the person who sought the wealth.  This includes the redistribution of wealth through taxes that fund government welfare programs and the like.  Such programs are a form of legalized plunder, as Bastiat asserts.

So, socialism is fundamentally flawed.  But is also flawed for pragmatic reasons.  Let’s assume that the highest values for man are comfort, peace, prosperity, and the absence of suffering.   In other words, let’s assume that this is the goal of society.  This view seems prevalent in the modern socialist movement, and yet socialism is not the best way to achieve these values.  One only has to look at the fallen USSR and China.  Socialism fails because it clashes with human nature.  Human beings are not bees in a beehive, or ants in an ant hill.  We are individuals and function as such.  The so-called “common good” and slogans like “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” is for bees and ants, not men.  as Henry Grady Weaver put it:

1.  Only an individual human being can generate human energy.

2.  Only an individual human being can control the energy he generates.

Humans are not motivated to excellence by “the good of humanity”, and neither should they be.  As I have discussed in previous posts, the only reasonable motivation for a human is his or her own personal fulfillment.  It may sound reasonable that human society as a whole should seek its own fulfillment, but I am not society as a whole, and the question is:  why should I or anyone else do anything at all?  The answer can only be:  because it will increase your sense of fulfillment. 

 If you leave people free to work toward their own goals and for their own benefit, then they will produce more goods and innovations, and their society will prosper and progress.  The success of such a system has been demonstrated in the United States since the revolution.

So, even if comfort, peace, prosperity, and the absence of suffering are the highest values, as socialism seems to assert, socialism fails.  But in fact, these are not the highest values.  Socialism subjugates other values, such as freedom and individual responsibility, to the values of comfort and peace.  The whole reason behind the equal distribution of wealth is to achieve the greatest “good” for the greatest number, where “good” is defined as physical comfort.  Unfortunately, the redistribution of wealth is immoral.  It steals from one to give to another.  In reality, members of socialist societies are stealing from one another.  In addition, it is impossible to ensure that everyone’s needs are “taken care of” without infringing on their personal freedom and responsibility.  The redistribution of wealth infringes the responsibility of the individual  to control his or her own destiny.  It also infringes on his or her ability to find fulfillment in charity. 

Inevitably, socialism also results in a greater number or restrictions and laws.  For example, if the government is paying for health care, then the government must restrict the activities of humans that may be harmful, such as smoking and eating “trans fats”.  It’s like a parent child relationship:  if I am responsible for my child’s welfare, then I have to dictate his diet and even his leisure activities, at least to a certain extent.

Socialism robs individuals of their opportunity to experience the highest values:  love, honor, compassion, justice, etc., because these values must be experienced as the result of free individual action, which is inhibited under the socialist regime.

It is not physical comfort that gives life meaning.   There is a reason for the saying “Live Free or Die.”  As Patrick Henry famously articulated it:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Or take the example of Viktor Frankl and others in the concentration camps.  If physical comfort, or even length of life itself gives life meaning, then life’s meaning is gone in the concentration camps.  But this is not the case.  Full life comes from life lived rightly.

Is this all women care about?  Is this where women are today?  I know the answer: of course not.  But the second question is not so easily answered:  Is this what women aspire to?  Do women today aspire to this kind of evolutionary regression?  Is it a goal of feminine society to return to their bestial roots, shedding the garments of civilization and humanity?

Maybe this is a backlash against men.  Maybe, since we men have behaved this way, women figure it’s their turn.  I suppose there is some truth to this.  Men were brutish long before it became fashionable among the gentler sex.  And actually, I aim this inquiry not at women only.  In fact, women were the last stronghold of humanity, the men having previously abandoned the progress of millenia to revel in their primal instincts.

Generalities, I know, but justified, I think.

So, first of all, is it true?  Is this the way men should live–as animals whose highest concern is their genitalia and sexual euphoria?

First, I must admit I have been guilty here, and more often than I would like to admit.  This is what gives me the authority to speak on such things, I think.

In an earlier post, I suggested that men should live so as to maximize their sense of fulfillment.  I also suggested that this is best accomplished by the right combination of pleasures, including the base or primal pleasures, like sex, and the higher pleasures, like those that come from family, accomplishment, love, honor, and wisdom.  I would also suggest that a focus on the bestial pleasures has a way of destroying the higher sources.

So here’s a question:  if it is true that the greatest fulfillment is found in a balance of pleasures, and if a focus on the primal decreases the net fulfillment, then what are we doing?  Why have we abandoned our previous course?  For millenia man has sought to progress away from the animal towards mannishness, and I believe that we bear inherited mechanisms in our psyche that find their highest fulfillment in such pursuits.  Yet, in our modern world we shun these things, cast them off like garbage and turn toward ways that we vomited out eons ago.

Ms. Baird decries the idea that one should “settle” for a less than ideal mate:

This March, author Lori Gottlieb wrote a much-discussed piece titled “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” for The Atlantic. She advised women to settle: “That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling ‘Bravo!’ in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics.” Settling will make you happier, she said, because those who marry with high expectations are only disappointed. This could have been written in the 1950s. The whole idea of settling remains depressing—and offensive, especially if you imagine people might be settling for you.

Two things bothered me about this.  One was that Ms. Baird apparently thinks it is possible to find the “perfect” mate.  I am thankful that my wife did not reject me for my imperfections and annoying tendencies and habits.  Likewise, I am thankful that she does not leave me whenever I leave my socks on the floor. 

The second thing that bothered me is that Ms. Baird’s only critera for Mr. Right are physical and sexual.  This ties right in with her demand for sexual gratification.  My goodness, the article reads like it was written by a doe in heat rather than by a human being!  Is this what it means to be a human?  Is life all career and sex?  is life no more than physical pleasure?  If so, we are no different from the lowest animals–worse than chimpanzees.  And I fear this is what we have become.

In our rush to point out the unity of man and animal, we have forgotten what it means to be man.  We have forgotten the differences.  We are indoctrinated with how humans and animals are not qualitatively different.   It may be true, but does that mean we are no different?  Of course not.  Chimps may show affection, but theirs is only the seed, only the incipient germ of human love.  Elephants my mourn their dead, but it is nothing compared to human grief.  Chimps may count beans, but they can’t write the laws of statistical mechanics.  They may be able to use a stick to fish grubs from a log, but they can’t take soil samples from the moon.  They may live in small social groups, but they can’t write declarations of independence.  They may be able to learn simple sign language, but they can’t write free verse. 

I have been struggling with this concept of the differences between man and animal.  I think part of the problem is that I have been approaching it all wrong.  There may not be definitive qualitative differences, attributes that animals do not have and man does have.  Instead, I am thinking about it this way:  There are behaviors and attributes that are (or historically have been) characteristic of man, such as love and honor and justice and intelligence, creativity and imagination, personality, appreciation of beauty and science.  Then there are behaviors that are characteristic of animals:  lust, selfishness, aggression, mindless instinctual behaviors, and survival instincts.

It is not that there is no admixture of animal and mannish characteristics in man, or no mannish characteristics in animals.  Of course there is.  But man is characterized by mannishness (to borrow a word from Schaeffer).  But perhaps I should say man was historically characterized by mannishness, or maybe to be safer, he has historically aspired to mannishness.

Today, he is not.  It seems we are aspiring to animalness.  We are striving towards the lowest and basest of ideals.  having been convinced that man is animal, we think it desirable to leave off mannishness as an outdated religious artifact and plunge headlong into the dark ages of evolutionary history, to a time when even the faint glimmer of mannishness we see in the chimps was yet to come, a time when creatures were ruled by instinct and sensation.  We are declaring humanity’s liberty from man.  All that is left is the animal.

Yes, Sex and the City and all of the rest of our cultural oracles are succeeding, though  perhaps not as quickly as some would like.  Soon, all of you liberated woman will no longer be disturbed by repulsive men.  You will have all of the lusty animals you want, plenty of pheromonal male beasts to satisfy your desire.