Tag Archives: Edmund Burke

In Defense of Honor

Culture, Faith, God's Will, Virtue, , , , ,

In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke comments on the loss of honor that came as a result of the French Revolution. Concerning Marie Antoinette, Burke writes,

Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprize is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

Honor once lost, like any other virtue, is not easily regained. It is especially hard to regain in a culture that is actively hostile to it.

Honor, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines it, “is the reward of every virtue… it follows that by reason of its matter it regards all of the virtues” (ST II-II Q. 129 Art. 4). Thus, it is clear that honor comes from virtue. In order to be truly honorable, a man must be virtuous. Our culture has, in large part, rejected the traditional idea of virtue. There is much talk about rights and what we are owed, but little discussion about duty. Men are encouraged to extol the virtues of kindness and inclusivity, and women, on the other hand, are told that expressing traits like “nurturance” and “family-oriented values” are just mere preferences and not virtues. As always, the devil is in the details. A man should be loving and caring, but if he places kindness and inclusivity above all other virtues then the family and, by extension, society, will suffer. Certainly, kindness and inclusivity would not have saved Marie Antoinette from the guillotine. And families do not need women who prefer to be nurturing and selfless, but women who are nurturing and selfless. There will be, however, some who will object to this and say that traditional notions of honor and virtue are outdated and bigoted. So, naturally, the question becomes, “Why should we care about honor, aren’t we better off without it?”.

There are a couple of approaches one could take towards answering this question. The first would be to ask what will replace the role that honor had in society? What is beyond honor and virtue? Alasdair MacIntyre explores this question in his book After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Of a society that has lost its vision of honor and virtue he writes,

In a society where there is no longer a shared conception of the community’s good as specified by the good for man, there can no longer either be any very substantial concept of what it is to contribute more or less to the achievement of that good. Hence notions of desert and of honor become detached from the context in which they were originally at home. Honor becomes nothing more than a badge of aristocratic status, and status itself, tied as it is now so securely to property, has very little to do with desert.

A society that abandons honor does not get egalitarianism. Instead, it gets aristocracy and credentialism.

For the second approach, one might ask if tearing down virtue and honor would also threaten other societal goods. Failing to examine this question would be like removing a wall in a house without first determining if it is load-bearing. Unfortunately, leaving honor in the past has not been without consequence. Honor is the basis for magnanimity. Aquinas identifies this connection: “Now a man is said to be magnanimous in respect of things that are great absolutely and simply, just as a man is said to be brave in respect of things that are difficult simply. It follows therefore that magnanimity is about honors” (ST II-II Q. 129 Art. 1). In 2020, Ross Douthat wrote a book called The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success about how and why our society has, in many ways, stopped advancing. While his hypothesis is beyond the scope of this article, the phenomenon he is discussing is germane to the point. There has been a societal decline in the desire to do great things. This stems directly from a change in societal value. As MacIntyre pointed out, society values the vain status associated with honor rather than the virtue from which honor is derived. Not only is magnanimity a virtue and therefore necessary for human flourishing, but society needs it. Magnanimity landed on the moon, it sailed to new worlds, it wrote poems and epics, it built planes, and made countless discoveries and inventions. So rather than resent success and laugh at honor, we should have the courage to ask ourselves if we are here on this earth for something great. Perhaps there really is something great in store for each and every one of us if we would but have the courage and magnanimity to pursue it. And even more terrifying is the possibility that part of the greatness God wishes to bring to the world can only be brought through you. Sure, God can bring goodness out of anything, but there may be good that never comes if you abandon honor and magnanimity. In closing, I would like to turn to Pope Benedict XVI who so eloquently reminds us of this truth: “The ways of the Lord are not easy, but we were not created for an easy life, but for great things, for goodness”.

Bias: A Progressivist Slur

Culture, History, Politics, , ,

Many of us have been subjected to implicit bias trainings that have become part in parcel of the human resources department of corporations and academic institutions throughout the country. While many of the ideas behind these trainings seem absurd, they have inflicted grave harm on society nonetheless. Take for example the idea that institutions must embrace equity in order to “correct” for these biases. Evidence suggests that Asians applying to Harvard needed to score 270 points higher on the SAT than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than African Americans to have the same chance of admission: bitter fruit indeed. It was statistics like this that, in part, led to the 2023 SFFA v Harvard Supreme Court case. Though it would be an interesting article to cover the topic of implicit bias trainings and their connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology, that will have to be an article for another day.

What will be dealt with here is the larger issue of bias. Bias is a term frequently thrown around by both sides of a debate, but rarely defined. At one point or another we have all probably received the retort “Well you just think that because…” or “You are just biased”. In many cases this is just a simple ad hominem or genetic fallacy and nothing more. However, there is a particularly pernicious use of this attack that is worth examining in-depth. This is the progressivist accusation that the ideas of the past are no longer valid because they are biased, either by their bigotry, racism, sexism, or whatever other pejorative one can think of. This attack is at best ignorant and at worst hypocritical. Bias, per se, is not a reason to discount any argument or idea. In fact, it is unavoidable.

The Progressive View

Before discussing the absurdity of the progressivist charge of bias, it is necessary to talk about the philosophy behind this attack. When I speak of progressivism I am not merely speaking of a political movement, but of a philosophy. It is a philosophy rooted in the belief in inevitable progress towards a more fair, more just, and more enlightened society. Rarely do the proponents of this philosophy argue explicitly that society is inevitably progressing in a positive direction, rather it is assumed. With each advancement in society, progressivists are usually quick to point out that it is a sign of progress, but what is rarely asked is “Progress towards what?”. If the progress is inevitable then the question would not even be worth asking. In an 1853 sermon called “Of Justice and Conscience” Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said, “Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice”. This statement has been famously quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. While there is truth in this quote, after all we do and should long for justice: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Mt 5:6), it is just too simple. Simple narratives of history should be treated with extreme skepticism. An honest reading of history reveals anything but a simple narrative. History is filled with successes and failures, suffering and triumph, heroes and villains. It is not one long “progressive triumph of the right”, but rather a struggle in which there is both progress and regress.

On a societal level, progressivism leads to the view that tradition is foolish or even a burden as a recent presidential candidate frequently pointed out. On a personal level, this can lead to a deep resentment of one’s ancestors. Progressivism is implicitly opposed to the fourth commandment, “honor and obey your father and mother”. If the progressivist reading of history is correct then what is there to honor in your parents? After all, they are less enlightened than you. Sure, there is a certain degree of gratitude one still owes to their parents for taking care of them and giving them life. But at the end of the day, society has moved on from their honor. What was honorable in their day has been replaced by the “continual and progressive triumph of the right”. There are sobering examples of how resentful progressivism can make people towards their ancestors, including their parents. Take this woman for example. Further, there is research showing that an increasing number of children are cutting their parents off. While there are certainly other factors at play, progressivism has not helped this problem.

I Think Therefore I Am Biased

What the progressivist fails to see is that bias is a necessity. No person can avoid it. Bias is the set of assumptions that we bring with us into the world. It is the narrative by which we see reality. I affirm that each of us should examine this narrative, but I do not advocate for getting rid of it. There is no human being who can rid themselves of all assumptions. As G.K. Chesteron points out in his essay “Philosophy for the Schoolroom” all argumentation, and thus all thought, is built on assumptions and dogmas. No one can be a completely objective observer of the facts of this world. For every person there is a value or set of values by which the facts are interpreted. Therefore, the progressivist is no less biased than anyone else. The concern should not be whether or not a person has bias, but whether that bias disposes a person towards the truth. The goal should not be to rid ourselves of assumptions, but to hold true assumptions. So, yes, we should examine our biases to see if they are in accord with reality and truth. The man who wishes to discard all of his bias must reconstruct his entire system of thought every time he has a new thought, lest he be biased by what he thought before. And even that would not remove all of his bias as Chesterton points out. Ultimately, the great irony for progressivism is that in order for society to progress at all we must be biased towards our ancestors. For it is as Edmund Burke said in “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors”.