Satire and Evil (and Good), Pt. 2

Note: At one point in this video, I mention amendments to the satire posted earlier. Not all of those amendments -- if any -- will go into effect. To injure the rhetorical effect of the satire by rendering it facile would be to diminish the necessary seriousness of approach to this difficult issue.

Satire and Evil (and Good), Pt. 1

Where is the Horse and the Rider

or 'Why you see few art-related posts on my page'

"Where is the horse and the rider?

Where is the horn that was blowing?

They have passed like rain on the mountains,

Like wind in the meadow

The days have come down in the West

Behind the hills into shadow..."

Where is the love of beauty? Where is breathtaking art and poignant song, and where are those who will seek them, praise them, cherish them, and show us how to see?

Like the brief, ephemeral art of our generation, they have been abruptly hidden from sight. Rinsed as from the slate -- no tablet of wax bearing the imprint of centuries' wisdom. Rather, the clean slate of a frontier school that started clean one day and started clean again the next.

Just as we are minimalists in ownership, we are minimalists in understanding or in seeking, in knowing and in wishing to know. And so we receive what we desire, we reap what we sow, which is so close now to nothingness. Where is the love of beauty, the devout appraisal of art? It is as it is in our hearts. Do we expect the tiny race of the people of culture to shower us with the Gospel while we wonder whether we are Princess Belle in her green dress or blue, or which Buzzfeed quiz will show us our best virtues?

Can you hear the overwhelming silence of the artists? I can hear the sea ceasing to sing, ceasing to whelm us over with the peace that she has given the imagination and the further peace that the imagination has given her. Did we think the artists would not starve? But they have all starved -- starved from a destruction of beauty in the world, a destruction of real living, of the seemingly invincible subject. The world has died, and art imitates life as life imitates art. Have you seen the imitation of death? I know that I have.

"The everlasting violence of that double passion with which God hates and loves the world" has come upon the artists in their silence. And as much as they have loved her, adorned and graced her with their innumerable lavishments, they wish nothing now but for her destruction, her punishment, her fall from pride into desolation and suffering and noisome darkness and fear. Repentance.

The fuel of the artist is life -- life that breeds more life -- life teeming and bursting at the seams -- life burgeoning unstoppably and never ceasing to unfold into new and eternal glories. Is it any wonder that the artists are silent, or that the lesser imitate death until it takes them.

Here is the demand of beauty: life. What prodigies have we killed, or allowed to die? No more.

The death of society is at hand. Were we more bitter towards the slaughter of our friends, we would have burned the fortresses of darkness and salted the earth, leaving the festering fields of evil forever barren.

We wish to intervene against the Islamic State in the Middle East. This is a just impulse. But, in our haste to tender retribution, do we forget the thousands slaughtered daily at home. Are the lives of countless children less worthy than the preservation of political potency in names: in "Yezidi", in "Christian", in "Shi'ite". Do we wish to save lives? Is that our intent? Or do we wish to save particular lives for particular reasons? Are the unborn not our brothers and sisters, and do they not live next door. Do they not die next door.

Can you justify your willingness to stop the IS against your unwillingness to stop the Abortionist State? Is it easier to fight a tyrant thousands of miles away?

The lauds of the poet fall silent. The artist in anger and desperation hurls his brush. Is there beauty in the world.

Can you justify not -- at the very least -- standing in prayer before the clinic, adjuring those who would be murderers to abandon their course? Rationalize, I beg you. Rationalize. Rationalize a way to avoid preventing murder when power is in your hands. I have dispensed with the arguments. I have had them all. I have heard them all. There is not one left with integrity. The truth cries out like a stone. It will not move.

The poet falls silent. The artist's heart roils and burns, and a black anger rises.

If you would have the soldiers stopped who terrorize in the name of Islam, but you will not place yourself in danger for your brother who perishes at the hands of the mercenary next door, the only judgement left to you is that of coward and liar.

Go out into the world. Go out. You have been sent out to bring the good news. The good news begins with the gospel of life. You must protect life, from conception to natural death. If you have not done this basic duty, this basic act for the ongoing creation of society, if you watch society crumble -- you too will fall with it.

Go out into the streets and pray, and beg God for mercy. I too will go with you. Come alive, and reject the systematic destruction of the human person. Overthrow the deathly edifice. This is our duty. It is undeniable. It is irrefutable. It is the supreme test of faith in our time -- the supreme evil, that which requires the most devout action in opposition.

If you wish to have good things, you must give, and you must first give life.

Where is the horse and the rider?

The beauty of the warrior lies in that which he defends.

Relativism: The Scourge of the West

Relativism is, surely, a loaded term in the West today. Generally, when spoken, the word carries a negative connotation; even those who believe in some strain of relativism do not like the label. I find this topic interesting largely because of the way the phenomenon of relativism has seized western culture, while relativism as a philosophy has experienced a less than robust life. Up until the last couple of centuries, serious minded thinkers viewed relativistic thought as a nonviable way to understand and describe reality. With modern science and the spreading compartmentalization of knowledge, and modern philosophy and its replacing of God with the self, relativism began its forceful and flattening march on western culture.

One might look around now and easily find at least a couple manifestations of relativism – the one, paralyzing, the other, emboldening. Before continuing, let us have a general definition of relativism from which to build our discussion: the idea that any truth or knowledge is relative to a specified framework (i.e. culture, history, society). Of the two manifestations, the former follows very closely the definition above. The relativist of this manner may be a somewhat thoughtful person. Seeing the irrefutable fact that different peoples in different times and places have formed varying beliefs and behaviors, the relativist concludes that his judgments about other cultures or societies or the good or ill therein are nullified by the fact that all he believes is relative to his own time and place. There may be knowable truths, and judgments that follow, within his specific framework, but he does not believe that “his truth” applies to those outside his framework, thus he is paralyzed and unable to act. As one narrows the appropriate realm of human reason, one widens the chasm between himself and truth.

The second manifestation of relativism magnifies the narrowing effect seen above, for the framework in which one is locked is no longer one’s culture, society, or position in history but one’s self. The threat of this relativism is far more than the frustrating experiences of hearing someone say, “Well, that’s just your opinion.” If we take the proportionality statement above, this second kind of relativism creates even more separation from the truth, and therefore, is more dangerous than the first. With all things relative to the self, the self becomes radically independent, disconnected from others and society.

It should be clear why this phenomenon of relativism continues to spread and take hold: it is easy, convenient, requiring only a weak mind, and a weaker will. This kind of relativism is what Joseph Ratzinger once called “a dictatorship of relativism.”¹ With nothing definite, there is nothing demanded, and so this relativism brings forth an illusion of freedom while in reality, the independent and distorted self turns inward and becomes enslaved to its own desires.

We find ourselves under this “dictatorship of relativism” today – the battle for men’s souls rages. As man narrows his horizon and moves further from the truth, the question of what is to be done becomes more difficult still. One answer, one hope, is beauty. Somehow, the relativist must experience ecstasy, must come out of himself. The artist, then, is charged with the highest of tasks: making men free. Beauty has the power to awaken in man new desires, to turn his gaze upward towards heavenly things, to crack his hardened heart so that the light of truth might begin to shine through. In his unique relationship to the Beautiful, the artist plays a central role in broadening the narrow vision of the relativist. The relativists are correct that we all live, think, and interact within a specified framework – how small have you made yours?