We have a small post about the reunion on OP-FOR…

Snicker.

BTW, drop me an email and let me know what your next plans are.

Cheers,
Phib

great post! I enjoyed it a lot

I want to rub it in Skippy’s face – he went to Charleston Community College for the Infirm ‘ya know ……

“Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart,
For the laws are clean gone that restrained our art;
Up and down the near headlands and against the far wind
We are loosed (O be swift!) to the work of our kind!”

No one captures the dark heart of the warrior ethos like Kipling.

I notice, on the one hand, you write that “as a Christian, I have to admit that all of this ‘What Jesus Thinks’ discussion is ultimately moot” because we “cannot know what the Almighty thinks.” On the other hand you write, “At the end of the day we can only live our lives as best as we can according to the teachings that Jesus Christ laid out for us.”

But for our purposes here, “what Jesus thinks” and “the teachings that Jesus Christ laid out for us” are the same thing! When I ask “What would Jesus do?” (admittedly a cliche) or “What would Jesus think” I’m opening a discussion that is not “moot” at all but is central to being a Christian, precisely because when we ask that question we’re trying to figure out how (in your words) to “live our lives as best as we can according to the teachings that Jesus Christ laid out for us.”

You’re right to bring up the old “faith vs. works” question. (As when you say “Belief in Christ and His salvation is the only way we can be saved. No amount of works…can make up for that.”) But I don’t think it’s a good idea to use that theological idea as a reason not to think about how to live an ethical life. Yes, at some point one will probably come up against a moral problem too tough to be solved by mere human reason, at which point one falls back upon faith alone. But again, that’s no reason not to try to think through the moral problems we can solve on our own. The idea that works alone are not sufficient is not an excuse to avoid works, as I’m sure you know. The question of what it takes to be saved and how to live an ethical life are are related, but not identical.

You’re also right to note that “the saints weren’t very ’saintly.’” I agree completely. The thing is that, however they might have started out, they ended up as believers. Mother Teresa apparently ended up as a nonbeliever. Which is not to judge her. I think she did a lot of good in the world, and maybe in doing so she saw so much human suffering it overwhelmed her and destroyed her faith. I probably wold have done a lot worse than she did. What I think is intriguing is that she kept up the good work even when she no longer believed.

And FWIW, I still think Roosevelt is wrong (at least from a Christian perspective) to say that daring great things is “far better” than meekly living a life that is virtuous but unspectacular. He’s not merely pointing out a fact (namely, that those who dare great things tend to be remembered). He’s making a value judgment (namely, that it’s better to dare great things)–and, I must insist, this particular value judgment is not Christian. It’s worldly.The fact that Roosevelt could use the words “poor spirits” to refer to those who live lives that are virtuous but unspectacular tells me that he didn’t understand the first thing about Jesus. Yes, as you point out, the Roosevelt types will be remembered and the others will be forgotten. But forgotten by whom? By the world, not by Jesus. Last time I checked, Jesus said some rather positive things about the meek, but not a peep about the Roosevelt-style strivers. Roosevelt’s values are those of the world. (And frankly I’m a little surprised to see so many people taken in by this sort patently worldly rhetoric. But hey, we’re all misled by our decidedly worldly and seductive culture.)

And as a Christian, I have to admit that all of this “What Jesus Thinks” discussion is ultimately moot. We are not devine, and truly cannot know what the Almighty thinks or plans or even has for lunch. At the end of the day we can only live our lives as best as we can according to the teachings that Jesus Christ laid out for us. We are all sinners, saved by grace through faith. Belief in Christ and His salvation is the only way we can be saved. No amount of works, or pretenses upon one’s character can make up for that.

Also, the saints weren’t very “saintly.” Many of them lost their faith and their way a time or two. Many of them were tax collectors, thieves, etc. Heck, Paul murdered Christians before he had his epiphany and was called to serve the Lord.

On a side note, I appreciate your comments. It’s nice to have the other side of an argument presented sometimes.

Suppose someone lived a life of love and humility but never dared great exploits. Do you really think Jesus would care about the lack of great exploits? Do you really think Jesus would think of this person as a “poor soul”? The point is that Roosevelt’s value system seems pretty skewed, at least for a Christian.

I would agree with you and with Roosevelt that there IS something thrilling and admirable about those who dare great things. But I also think that comes from my own sinful worldly nature, and I’d like to keep in mind the fact that there’s a bigger and better value system out there, one where love and humility count for all and great exploits, in and of themselves, for nothing at all.

Roosevelt says in the speech that “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.” He is alluding, of course, to Roman gladiatorial combat–which the early Christians tended to see as a mark of pagan inferiority, if not a form of human sacrifice. (This is the setting from which we get the word “arena.”) The blood on the man’s face could well have been that of a Christian martyr, a possibility that Roosevelt seems not to consider. (He wrote a great deal, none of it very carefully.)

Think for a second about Roosevelt’s insistence that “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.”

Sounds great at first, but I doubt you actually believe it. Should those on the sidelines have refrained from criticizing Joseph Stalin? A strong man to be sure. Definitely a doer of deeds. So, who should we respect more–Stalin or Solzhenitsyn? When, say, Hannah Arendt criticizes Hitler, do you just dismiss what she has to say as “disparaging comments”?

Roosevelt was a great president, but also, alas, all too often a thoughtless bloviator more in tune with his own plans than with God’s.

Finally, I can’t help but comment on your final examples of those who “accomplished great things and huge triumphs.” One was a pacifist, the other a nonviolent nun, a member of church that has condemned the Iraq War as unjust. FWIW, Ghandi was not a Christian, nor was Mother Teresa, whose recently published letters reveal that she lost her faith. And I can only guess what Kipling would have thought of Ghandi. Neither bears much resemblance to the warrior of San Juan Hill, a man who as a speechifier worked very hard on behalf of a policy that brought about the butchery of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, creating one of the greatest blots on this great nation’s record. But heck, so what if a million or so are butchered? The important thing is not to criticize. Well, I happen to believe that one should admire what is admirable and criticize what is contemptible.

But the quote does not address humility and love. One can still have humility and love but still live his or her life to the fullest. Jesus would also disapprove of the critic who would rather watch from the sidelines and make disparaging comments without putting himself in the other man’s shoes. That is not love nor humility.

The argument can also be made that Gandhi and Mother Theresa accomplished great things and huge triumphs by spreading a message of peace, love, and humility.

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

“Far better”? Well, this is of a piece with Kipling, though I can’t imagine Jesus Christ possibly agreeing with it. I mean, when did Jesus ever say we should go out striving and conquering and glory-seeking? Nowhere. And would Jesus EVER have used the words “poor spirits” to describe people who live quiet lives of love and humility?

But then, perhaps we have forgotten by now and our empire is destined to go the way of Britain’s. Quite possibly it is already going that way. I would say that what Kipling was warning us against HAS already happened. Look at what Americans typically mean by Kipling’s refrain, “Lest we forget.” The phrase is nowadays taken to mean we should not forget the sacrifices made by our soldiers, or that we should not forget that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, or something similar. These days the phrase is generally NOT taken to mean what Kipling intended, namely, to warn us against hubris, against placing our faith in our own military might rather than God’s providential justice. Too bad, but of course Kipling predicted it would happen to the Brits, and to us too, just as it happened long ago to Nineveh and Tyre.

In moral philosophy the term is used differently. A true moral relativist would hold that lying, cheating, stealing, and tolerating those who do is ALWAYS wrong–anywhere and anytime. A moral relativist would hold that such a belief might be right for the VMI cadet but not for others. It might be moral at VMI, but not necessarily elsewhere.

A VMI cadet is morally obligated not to lie, etc., because those things are wrong within the “culture” the cadet has willingly joined. Others who are not part of that culture might not be similarly obligated. The cadet has agreed to honor the code, but others haven’t. Thus others are morally bound to the code only if the code is universal. But I would say it’s relative and (as I will argue shortly) it’s a good thing, too.

The VMI Honor Code is in the philosophical sense “morally relative” because it is held to apply to VMI cadets, but not universally. You might personally believe that the code SHOULD apply universally, which would make you, personally, a moral absolutist, but the code itself is relative to VMI. That’s why you wrote, “AT THE INSTITUTE, we adhere to a singular moral code….”

My point is that a VMI cadet could be a moral relativist without in any sense being a bad cadet. A moral-relativist cadet would simply believe that the Honor Code applies without exception to the cadet, but not universally.

Actually, there’s not likely to be much disagreement about lying, cheating, or stealing. People find those things wrong pretty much always and everywhere. But consider the bit about “not tolerating those who do.” A good moral case could be made that there are times when the moral thing to do IS to tolerate it.

It’s not hard to see how tolerating a thief or a liar might be the moral thing to do. Suppose you’re in Iraq and your job is to gain the trust and support of a local warlord. Suppose you’re giving him a lot of money for arms, etc., and he’s keeping a fair amount of that money for himself. And when you ask him about it, he denies it.

Suppose finally that this guy, despite his flaws, is doing a great job for you. He’s pacified his neighborhood and giving you great intel. On the other hand, he’s definitely stealing and lying. So, do you tolerate it or not? I would say that yes, the moral thing is to tolerate it. Perhaps you would never tolerate it, under any circumstances, at VMI, but you would tolerate it under certain circumstances in Iraq.

In which case you might well be a (gasp!) moral relativist.

I would add finally that “moral absolutism” is not the same as “unchanging.” Because institutions are made up of fallible human beings, an institution might discover that something it had for ages thought of as absolutely morally right was in fact absolutely wrong.

Racial segregation is a good case in point. I trust you would agree that it is morally wrong to bar black students from VMI solely on the basis of their skin color. VMI did so for generations, then discovered its mistake and changed its policy. But that change was neither morally relativist nor PC. It was, rather, a morally correct response to the absolute immorality of racism.

For bearing with me this long, I offer you a short Kipling poem from his “Something of Myself”:

Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose
From his first love, no matter who she be.
Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose,
That didn’t settle somewhere near the sea?

Parsons in pulpits, tax-payers in pews,
Kings on your thrones, you know as well as me,
We’ve only one virginity to lose,
And where we lost it there our hearts will be!