The Virtue Signaling Religion

Back around the beginning of this century, Gordon B. Hinckley, our beloved prophet at the time, wrote a book titled Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes. The “Standing for Something” part refers to a saying: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

I own the book, but I
got the image here

The book is about our need to return from the secularization of our culture. In the introduction he says,

People who carry in their hearts a strong conviction concerning the living reality of the Almighty and their accountability to Him for what they do with their lives are far less likely to become enmeshed in problems that inevitably weaken society. The loss of this conviction, the almost total secularizing of our public attitudes, has been largely responsible for the terrible social illnesses now running rampant among us (p. xix).

I think there’s a connection between this loss of God and a movement toward a whole long list of alternative “virtues” that don’t qualify as ultimately good, because ultimate good is defined by God. In short, when people stop relying on God, they fall for all kinds of substitutes.

People like to be able to think well of themselves. A traditional way of measuring your own goodness has been through religion. And that has been effective. Religious people tend to think about things bigger than themselves, related to pleasing God and effecting good for the rest of the human family. This leads to stronger intact families, celebrating life and protecting the lives of others, honesty, respect of property ownership, service, sharing, helping, kindness, and other things we typically think of as virtuous.

People who fail to believe in God still want to think well of themselves, but they don’t have the same source of guidance. They may still adhere to many of the behaviors in the above list. Or their secular religion might come up with another whole list of “virtues.”

They might shun some of the traditional virtues—particularly sexual purity. And then, in an effort to let those around them know that they have reason to think well of themselves, they do outward behaviors to signal their perceived virtue. They virtue signal. To themselves as much as to others.

And along with virtue-signaling, they might also shame anyone who doesn’t join them in their “religious” behavior. 

That’s where we have problems. It’s hard to find common ground when one person is shaming another—either direction. Sometimes these very people shove their beliefs down the throats of everyone around them while shouting, “Stop shoving your beliefs down our throats.” And they do this completely without self-awareness.

People might not be aware these days of some ancient history patterns. We think we’ve grown beyond the pagan, or the superstitious. But some of the virtues being signaled today are the same, with some wording differences and technological updates, as ancient pagan practices.

We can categorize some of these anti-religion’s tenets.

Worship of Environment and Animals above Human Life

I wrote this last year, after the US stepped away from the Paris Accords:

Climatism (not climate-related science, but the thing you’re not allowed to question) looks to me like a pagan religion. The sacrifices being required of us in the essentially vain hope that such sacrifices will appease the climate gods look eerily similar to throwing people into the volcano. It might make people feel like they have some control over something out of their power, but it doesn’t actually affect an eruption—and it’s really bad for the ones who get thrown into the volcano.

Are there reasons to be concerned about clean atmosphere and water? Of course. We’re better off with clean air and water. But the more advanced technologically a country gets—much of that from fossil fuels—the better air and water quality. In fact, we have made so much progress that way that there was a sudden shift from worrying about carbon monoxide to worrying about the very natural and positive carbon dioxide.

Should we be concerned because of climate models? Maybe, but they’ve been so consistently wrong so far that changing our entire lifestyle seems extreme.

And saving water is a good idea, especially if you’re in a drought area, because getting enough potable water for a large population is a challenge. But, the world is not running out of water. I saw a documentary in the IMAX theater of a museum once that showed a very dry part of the US, and talked about the worry of running out of water. I was puzzled, because they didn’t say “here”; they said it as though the world is losing water.

But, if you were taught the water cycle in grade school, then you know that water from the atmosphere comes down as rain, and makes its way into groundwater or into streams and rivers that eventually flow into the ocean. When something wet dries, that water goes into the atmosphere. And sun shining on lakes and oceans causes water to evaporate into the atmosphere. That’s how it gets there to come down as rain or snow. And the cycle goes on.

Water molecules are made up of two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. Those are elements. They don’t disappear. Even if you disconnect the hydrogen and oxygen, you don’t lose them; they stay here as part of our earth, and they can be reconnected. (“Sciencing” was used in the novel The Martian, about an astronaut trapped on Mars, explaining how to “make” water.)

Example of virtue signaling found here

Should we be concerned because of climate models? Maybe, but they’ve been so consistently wrong so far that changing our entire lifestyle seems extreme.

Another aspect of ancient pagan religions is to honor animals above humans. No other species would sacrifice its entire species out of guilt that its existence fails to always positively impact some other species. Species are designed to perpetuate themselves. It isn’t virtuous to feel guilty for being human; it’s unnatural and ungrateful.

So, if you’ve been virtue signaling in one of the following ways, you might want to ask yourself how you know what you do is virtuous. And then, if you can’t explain it so clearly, logically, and unemotionally to a nonbeliever that you convert with persuasion, maybe you’d better stop the shaming as well:

·         Feeling panicked about global warming.

·         Driving a Prius or other electric status vehicle.

·         Pushing for alternative energy sources—except not nuclear.

·         Eating vegetarian or vegan, not just for your health, but because you believe your species has no right to eat other species.

   

Sexual Depravity and Human Sacrifice

Related to valuing other species above humans also shows up as human sacrifice in pagan, savage societies. Certainly we ought to be beyond that. And yet that is a pretty good description of abortion.

Some ancient societies do away with the old and infirm. That is what euthanasia is.

Savage societies typically fail to honor monogamy. This leads to a lot of social failures we’ve known about for a long time, as described by Vico and Unwin. (I’ve written a fuller discussion here.)

A side issue related to failing on monogamy is the spread of what have always been considered deviant behaviors: homosexuality and gender confusion. Finding better ways to treat people with these issues has to be a more humane approach. But tolerating and embracing deviancy isn’t enlightened; it’s very old and very pagan.

So, if you’ve been approving of the following things in an attempt to virtue signal, you might also want to ask yourself how you know what you do is virtuous. And again, if you can’t explain your reasoning so clearly, logically, and unemotionally to a nonbeliever that you convert with persuasion, maybe you’d better stop the shaming as well:

·         Alternative sexual lifestyles

·         Promiscuity

·         Homosexuality

·         Same-sex “marriage”

·         Transgenderism

·         Sexual freedom (promiscuity) for minors

·         Abortion

o   Favoring government funding and approval

o   Refusing any limits to abortion

·         Divorce for any reason

·         Benefits to couples whether married or not

·         Pro-masculinity for women

·         Anti-masculinity for men

Ruler as God

Another tactic of ancient potentates—kings, emperors, pharaohs, etc.—was to replace the people’s religion, setting themselves up as god incarnate, or perhaps an idol that they create as the object of the ruler's new religion. Then the people had to be loyal to him or be prosecuted (and usually executed) for heresy. The people were instructed to bow down to their god/ruler, pay him whatever assessment he charged, and then he, their god/ruler, would look on them favorably.

I don’t know if the ancient king who set up a fiery furnace for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego offered amenities that some “subjects” expect of their government today. Life was brutal, so maybe just less imposed brutality was enough to buy their subjects’ worship. But today, in exchange for “worship” of the government/ruler, people speak as though government is doing the divvying out of good things so that the “subjects” can be absolved from needing to give.

So it becomes something virtue-signalers do when they “take care of the poor and less fortunate” by having government confiscate wealth from some to give to others. And they feel charitable doing this—even though it was coerced, and therefore not charitable giving by them or anyone else.

And anyone who even mentions that government interference actually makes things worse (look at welfare recipients since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s) is shamed as cold and hateful—even if that person is personally giving a tithe and more in actual charity and the virtue-signaling shamer has given nothing.

As we say here at the Spherical Model pretty often, 

If the government wants to implement something beyond the proper role of government, not only will government fail to achieve the stated goals; it will likely do exactly opposite of the stated goal.

So, if you’ve been approving of the following things in an attempt to virtue signal—you’re getting the idea—ask yourself how you know what you do is virtuous. And once again, if you can’t explain your reasoning so clearly, logically, and unemotionally to a nonbeliever that you convert with persuasion, maybe you’d better stop the shaming as well:

·         Socialism

·         Anti-capitalism

·         More government regulation

·         Infringing on First Amendment rights: religion, speech, assembly,

·         Gun control

·         Welfare unrelated to work or ways to get off welfare

·         Ignore or reimagine the Constitution

·         Public school monopoly of education

·         Socialized medicine

The list could go on. The point is that our disagreements go deep—as deep as religious beliefs. If we are ever to have peace, we need to learn to respect people with different beliefs, stop assigning them epithets—racist, homophobic, transphobic, hateful, bigoted, science denier, etc.—simply for not following a new, unpersuasive list of virtues.

And if we want more civilization and less savagery, we need a religious people who recognize virtue in honoring God, life, family, truth,and property.

Truth, Beauty, Goodness

Welcome to a new year! If you’re still breathing, you got here. It doesn’t seem like that much of an accomplishment, just surviving. But if you got here healthy and happy, with abundant joy in your life—now that’s an accomplishment. And it’s something that isn’t likely to have happened if all you do is breathe and survive. You need to live life a certain way to bring about that kind of happy result.

Sometimes we use the beginning of a new year to reflect, and to plan. To see how we’ve been doing and resolve to do something even better. We live, at least while we’re thinking about it, with more purpose.

Aristotle, image found here

So, in order to get more goodness in our lives, we need to focus on some pure, basic principles of goodness. These are the principles we try to identify in separating civilization from savagery, in Spherical Model terms. It’s simply better to face inevitable adversities while living in the abundant, fulfilling, loving and happy civilized society, rather than in the mean, dark, bitter, unfair, and chaotic misery of a savage society. We might be trying to identify what Aristotle referred to as “eudaimonia,” or “human flourishing.” You get to that state, hexis, or disposition to act excellently, by learning and adopting virtues.

I listened this past weekend to an interview between Bill Whittle, at PJTV, and Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College. I’ve quoted Dr. Arnn a number of times [here and here], and I think I’m seeing a theme. He often talks about the basic idea of nature: the goodness of a thing residing it its “being” the thing it is meant to be. The “cupness” of a cup is what determines whether it is good. And similarly, the “humanness” of a human being is what determines goodness. So, from that comes the question: what is a good human? Or, put more directly (and more religiously), what does it mean to be a good person? What should we do, think, and be to live a good life?

Here's the whole interview, which I recommend. But I have taken just a segment to talk about below.

 

Dr. Arnn says they teach the classics at Hillsdale College, and also at the charter schools developed by Hillsdale. The reason for studying classics is that these very questions about how to live have been asked, with attempted answers, for a very long time. Hillsdale is a liberal arts college, so this exchange is in response to a question about the value of such an education in today’s world. But, again, it’s the answer to that “how to be” question.

[at 11:50 in] Bill Whittle: You said earlier that a liberal arts education prepares people basically on how to live. Basically, a student who’s completed a liberal arts education at a college like yours that really understands the meaning of the term, is somebody that not only has a storehouse of information, but they also come out with some kind of a value system, some sort of  a moral code—some sort of an intellectual and moral ability to look at changing circumstances in the world, make sense out of them, put them together in a way that’s reasonable, and then proceed down the pathway of history. What do you say to people who claim that a liberal arts education doesn’t prepare students for a specific career?

[at 12:20 in] Larry Arnn: Well, the first thing to know is, what are you? We all love to say now that students are trying to find their identity. Well, their identity would be located in what kind of thing they are.

Around here I teach Aristotle’s Ethics every other year or so, and it’s a glorious thing. It’s one of the greatest books ever written; it’s a very beautiful book. And that word beauty is a very important word. The Greek word is “kalos” in Aristotle. And he thinks that everything tends toward the good and the beautiful. And the good is really the thing in inside each thing that makes it what it is. So, we are humans, and we’re full of contradictions and potentials. Contradictions, because, for example, we depend on our families a lot. All you’ve got to do is come to college on opening day in September, and you’ll see lots of weeping mothers and fathers leaving off their beloved children, who are 18 years old. And if they were some other kind of creature, the parents wouldn’t even know who the children are.

That word nature—that comes from the Latin word for birth. And the idea is that family, like human rights, is a natural phenomenon. And you can see that played out all the time.

Well, that’s one part of human nature, but another part is, we have discretion over stuff like that. We don’t really have to get married. We can abandon our children, if we want to. Whereas other animals obey instinct.

So the first thing is, Aristotle’s question in the Ethics is, What makes a human being happy? And his answer is, in short, being good. That is, learning how to be a good one of this kind of thing. And he lists the virtues. And they start with courage, which is the right disposition toward pain and danger. And then the second one is moderation, which is the right disposition toward pleasure.

And when you study that book, you become acquainted, in one of the greatest books ever written, with the obstacles with which we are confronted in our attempt to be good human beings. And there’s just nothing but nobility, in learning what that book says. And there are profound questions in the book that you will end up thinking about the rest of your life, if you think seriously. And it will make you a more serious person. And, in response to your direct question, better equipped to be a working and functioning citizen and worker and member of society.

You could say that learning to live a virtuous life makes you a better contributor to civilization than learning computer programming or civil engineering. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn those other things and contribute in those ways so you can earn your keep; it means that learning to make a living, absent learning how to live a good life, is not enough. In a full life, do both. But start with learning how to live; then add learning how to do something useful. Because once you learn how to live a good life, you will be capable of learning any number of contributing skills.

There’s an object lesson I’ve seen many times. You have a pile of rocks and a pile of sand that must fit in a jar. If you put the sand in first, the rocks don’t fit. But if you place the rocks in first, then the sand sifts into all the open places and fits in the jar as well. First things first, is the principle. Live a good life, whatever you do. The rest of living will find room.

I pray this is a year in which more of us find a way to live a beautiful life, in harmony with the our true nature, as God intended for us, with the happiness God is ready to grant if we will live in obedience to the principles of civilization.



John Keats, quote from "Ode on a Grecian Urn,"
image found here