photo credit: kaelin.fe

What I venture to criticize in certain men, whom some call scientists and I call materialists, is their perpetual use of Mythology. One half of what they say is so true as to be trite; the other half of what they say is so untrue as to be transparent. But they cover both their platitudes and their pretenses by an elaborate parade of legendary and allegorical images.

I read this in some remarks on Darwinism by one of the last surviving Darwinians: “Among the individuals of every species there goes on, as Malthus had realised, a competition of struggle for the means of life, and Nature selects the individuals which vary in the most successful direction.” Now when men of the old religions said that God chose a people and raised up a prophet, at least they meant something; and they meant what they said. They meant that a being with a mind and a will used them in an act of selection. But who is Nature, and how does she, or he, or it, manage to select anything or anybody? All that the writer actually has to say is that some individuals do emerge when other individuals are extinguished. It hardly needed either Darwin or Darwinians to tell us that. But Nature selecting those that vary in the most successful direction means nothing whatever, except that the successful succeed. But this tautological truism is wrapped up in clouds of mythology, by the introduction of a mythical being whom even the writer regards as a myth. The reader is to be impressed and deluded by the vision of a vast stone goddess sitting on a mountain throne, and pointing at a particular frog or rabbit saying, in tones of thunder, that this alone is to survive. All we know is that it does survive (for the moment), and then we pride ourselves on being able to repeat the mere fact that it does survive in half a hundred variegated and flowery expressions: as that it has survival value; or that it is naturally selected for survival; or that it survives because it is the fittest for survival; or that Nature’s great law of the survival of the fittest sternly commands it to survive.

The critics of religion used to say that its mysteries were mummeries; but these things are in the special and real sense mummeries. They are things offered to a credulous congregation by priests who know them to be mummeries. It is impossible to prove that the priest knows that there is no god in the shrine, or no truth in the oracle. But we know that the materialist knows that there is no such things as a large fastidious lady, called Nature, who points a finger at a frog.

The particular case in which this mythological metaphor was used is of course another matter. It is, indeed, a matter which has involved at various times a great deal of this element of materialist mythology. To see what truth was really in it we should have to go back to the old Darwinian debate; which I have not the least intention of doing here. But I may observe, in passing, that this notion of Nature selecting things is specially incompatible with all that can really be said for their own case; and that the very name of natural selection is a most unnatural name for it. For it is their whole case that everything happened, in the ordinary human sense, by accident. We should rather call it coincidence; and some of us call it quite incredible coincidence. But, anyhow, the whole case for it is that one quadruped happened to have a long neck, and happened to live at a moment when it was necessary to reach a taller tree or shrub. If these happenings happen to happen about a hundred times in succession, in exactly the same way, you can by that process turn some sort of sheep or goat into a giraffe. Whether this is probable or not is another question. But the whole Darwinian argument is that it is NOT a case of Nature selecting, any more than of God selecting, or anyone else selecting, but a case of things falling out in that fashion. We are quite ready to discuss trees and giraffes in their place, without perpetual references to God. Could the materialists not so far control their rhetorical and romantic sentimentalism as to do it without perpetual reference to Nature? Shall we make a bargain; that we will for the moment leave out our theology, if they will leave out their mythology?

But the mythological habit is not entirely and exclusively confined to men of science, or even to materialists. This sort of mythology is rather generally scattered over the modern world. The popular form of the mythological is the metaphorical. Certain figures of speech are fixed in the modern mind, exactly as the fables of the gods and nymphs were fixed in the mind of pagan antiquity. It is astonishing to note how often, when we address a man with anything resembling an idea, he answers with some recognised metaphor, supposed to be appropriate to the case. If you say to him, “I myself prefer the principle of the Guild to the principle of the Trust,” he will not answer you by talking about principles. He can be counted on to say: “You can’t put the clock back,” with all the regularity of a ticking clock. This is a very extreme example of the mental breakdown that goes with a relapse into metaphor. For the man is actually understanding his own case out of sheer love of metaphor. It may be that you cannot put time back, but you can put the clock back. He would be in a stronger position if he talked about the abstraction called time; but an all-devouring appetite for figurative language forces him to talk abut clocks. Of course the real question raised has nothing to do with either clocks or time. It is the question of whether certain abstract principles, which may or may not have been observed in the past, ought to be observed in future. But the point is here that even the man who means that we cannot reconstruct the past can hardly ever reconstruct his own sentence in any other form except this figurative form. Without his myth, or his metaphor, he is lost.

Another mass of metaphors is drawn from the phenomena of morning, or the fact that the sun rises; or, rather (I grovel in apology to the man of science), appears to rise. It is a perfectly natural metaphor for poets; or indeed, for all men, in that aspect in which all men are mystics. That there is mystery in these natural things, which the imagination understands more subtly than the reason, is true enough. Nor have I any contempt even for mythology considered mythology. But when we want to know what somebody wants to do, when we ask a free-thinker what he thinks, and why he thinks it, it is a little tiresome to be told that he is waiting for the Dawn, or engaged at the moment in singing Songs Before Sunrise. One is tempted to retort that Dawn is not always an entirely cheerful thing, even for those who have exercised their free thought upon the conventional tradition of their own society. There is such a thing as being shot at Dawn.

I do not mean for a moment, of course, that we should do without myths and metaphors altogether. I am constantly using them myself, and shall continue to do so. But I think we ought all to be on guard against depending on them as a substitute for reason. Perhaps it would be well to have a Fast Day, on which we undertook to abstain from everything but abstract terms, Let us all agree that every Friday we will do without metaphors as without meat. I am sure it would be good for the intellectual digestion.

photo credit: Rhys Alton

First, a short announcement: in the interest of bringing you better quality posts, Smith and I will be taking turns posting on Wednesday.

Creative Minority Report, a blog which Eternal Revolution is currently sponsoring, has had a good week already. A post by Matthew Archbold on abortionists keeping aborted babies in jars made the Drudge Report, and the resulting effect crashed the National Catholic Register’s servers where Matthew’s post appeared.

Matthew writes that this revelation changed his view of abortionists from exploitive, profit-seeking killers to some sort of priests in a death cult fetish (my interpretation of his words). Put another way, it was not money that they were worshiping, but death itself.

It is a harrowing warning to not misdiagnose the gods others worship. Wealth is common, but Death has probably been worshiped by humanity for longer, and with more violent and destructive acts of awe. The gods are indeed real, even if only in the minds of their followers, because they are idolized and worshiped even by those who deny their existence or are ignorant of their existence – it is the atheists who don’t exist.

This may sound like a lot of spiritualist bunk but it is frighteningly true. Man is a spiritual being, and we seek to idealize anything. If we deny the existence of God, our belief, like the rest of nature, abhors a vacuum. Money, health, education, nature, life and death, technology and media – old and new gods fill the void and give us something for which to live. Even humanity or the self can be set upon an altar.

As always, we are at war. Not with each other, but with ideas and idols – in other words, we humans are ever at war with the gods.

photo credit: John_Stephen_Dwyer

A vast amount of nonsense is talked against negative and destructive things. The silliest sort of progressive complains of negative morality, and compares it unfavorably with positive morality. The silliest sort of conservative complains of destructive reform and compares it unfavorably with constructive reform. Both the progressive and the conservative entirely neglect to consider the very meaning of the words “yes” and “no”. To give the answer “yes” to one question is to imply the answer “no” to another question. To desire the construction of something is to desire the destruction of whatever prevents its construction. This is particularly plain in the fuss about the “negative” morality of the Ten Commandments. The truth is that the curtness of the Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion but of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things are forbidden. An optimist who insisted on a purely positive morality would have to begin by telling a man that he might pick dandelions on a common and go on for months before he came to the fact that he might throw pebbles into the sea. In comparison with this positive morality the Ten Commandments rather shine in that brevity which is the soul of wit.

It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted precisely because most things are permitted and only a few things are forbidden.

But of course the fallacy is even more fundamental than this. Negative morality is positive morality, stated in the plainest and therefore the most positive way. If I am told not to murder Mr. Robinson, if I am stopped in the very act of murdering Mr. Robinson, it is obvious that Mr. Robinson is not only spared, but in a sense renewed, and even created. And those who like Mr. Robinson, among them my reactionary romanticism might suggest the inclusion of Mrs. Robinson, will be well aware that they have recovered a living and complex unity. And similarly, those who like European civilisation, and the common code of what used to be called Christendom, will realize that salvation is not negative, but highly positive, and even highly complex. They will rejoice at its escape, long before they have leisure for its examination. But, without examination, they will know that there is a great deal to be examined, and a great deal that is worth examination. Nothing is negative except nothing. It is not our rescue that was negative, but only the nothingness and annihilation from which we were rescued.

On the other side there is the same fallacy about merely destructive reform. It could be applied just as easily to the merely destructive war. In both cases destruction may be essential to the avoidance of destruction, and also to the very possibility of construction. Men are not merely destroying a ship in order to have a shipwreck; they may be merely destroying a tree in order to have a ship. To complain that we spent four years in the Great War in mere destruction is to complain that we spent them in escaping from being destroyed. And it is, once again, to forget the fact that the failure of the murderer means the life of a positive and not a negative Mr. Robinson. If we take the imaginary Mr. Robinson as a type of the average modern man in Western Europe, and study him from head to foot, we shall find defects as well as merits. And in the whole civilisation we have saved, we shall find defects that amounts to diseases. Its feet, if not of clay, are certainly in clay, stuck in the mud of a materialistic industrial destitution and despair. To say it is a positive good and glory to have saved Mr. Robinson from strangling is to miss the whole meaning of human life. It is to forget every good as soon as we have saved it, that is, to lose it as soon as we have got it. Progress of that kind is a hope that is the enemy of faith, and a faith that is the enemy of charity.

When our hopes for the coming time seem disturbed or doubtful, and peace chaotic, let us remember that it is really our disappointment that is an illusion. It is our rescue that is a reality. Our grounds for gratitude are really far greater than our powers of being grateful. It is in the mood of a noble sort of humility, and even a noble sort of fear, that new things are really made. We adorn things most when we love them most. And we love them most when we have nearly lost them.

photo credit: danahuff

Apparently there is a rash of Nigerian churches telling people that some children are actually witches, and the cause of poverty. As a result, the children are being executed, mutilated, or abused.

Where on earth would the people of Nigeria get a crazy idea like children cause poverty?

Planned Parenthood ads in Nigeria

Discovery HQ terrorist asked for end to “parasitic” human births.

The UNFPA on Children and Poverty

Indeed, as G.K. Chesterton said, “Without education we are in horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”

photo credit: TomHiggins

A few weeks ago when I brought up paganism, I made the remark that even Jesus Christ can be a pagan god. A recent study has confirmed that the idea is spreading among American teens.

Author Kenda Creasy Dean was featured in an article on CNN’s website about how youth in America are following a “moralistic therapeutic deism” instead of Christianity. This misdirected faith is the subject of her book, Almost Christian.

Dean took part in a study of some 3,300 American teens that found many of them thought God was like a therapist, who wanted them to feel good. Despite the fact that three quarters of American youth call themselves Christian, less than 50% practice the faith or think it is important.

It reminds me of the single good bit of satire in Kevin Smith’s movie Dogma: the “Buddy Christ.” A new statue of Jesus is revealed, pointing at passers-by and giving a thumbs up, with a “you’re ok” attitude. The statue has been reproduced a lot, and has become a cultural icon in its own right.

Jesus as a feel-good guru conflicts with the Jesus who said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” told sinners to “sin no more” and insulted the self-righteous.

We elders and parents are not helping. The more the message is brought down to a lower level, abridged, made cool, or reduced to “glad texts” the more the pagan “buddy” Christ replaces the true Christ.

In Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton said that “Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world.” According to that perspective, we do not even now have a watered-down version of Christianity in our society. We are all in need of a turning back to the true Christ, the very definition of revolution.

Again, I find Dean’s solution good in theory: we must be more radical, and more open about our faith motivating us to do radical things. Instead of mission trips to Bolivia, as she suggested to CNN, there’s enough of a mess in our daily lives here in America to clan up. Sacrifice your career for your children, your neighbor. Speak out against injustice. Give charitably, especially when it hurts to do so. Be willing to lose everything for the true Christ, and our youth, as well as your peers and elders, will be less likely to fall for the feel-good sham version of Jesus.

photo credit: altemark

By now many of you have heard of Dove World Outreach Center in Florida’s “Burn a Koran Day.” Condemnation of the very idea of burning copies of the Islamic sacred text has been nigh universal.

I would like to disagree with the common wisdom here: We should burn the Koran. Then again, I am also for the burning of Bibles, money, computers, Blackberries, and copies of Atlas Shrugged.

As a society, and thus individually, we have ceased to truly reject ideas. Political squabbling doesn’t count, since the rhetoric on both sides is absurdly the same; the landscape is void of real ideas. We no longer burn heretics at the stake (which is a good thing) but we have also stopped rejecting heresy. Without a natural predator, wrong ideas thrive. Even worse, they become idols.

When a physical embodiment of an idea (such as a book) or a thing itself (such as Blackberry, aka Crackberry) becomes an obstacle to your end goal, you need to vehemently cast it away. Destroy it. Fire has been a popular choice for such a purpose. Even the Bible can be an idol; I’ve known more than a few Christians who, like the Pharisees, held the Bible itself higher than reverence for God. I couldn’t possibly pick out which Muslims have made the same mistake with their holy book, but I know it would be unfair to accuse them all of such a fault.

What of the Dove Outreach center? Besides having a terrible name for advocating such a practice, here is how they describe the event on their facebook page:

“On September 11th, 2010, from 6pm – 9pm, we will burn the Koran on the property of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!”

They are not burning the Koran for being an obstacle to their goal, their salvation. They are doing it in memorial to those who died in 2001 – thus it is an act of vengeance, and improperly aimed, for not all of Islam participated or even condoned the attacks. This, at least in part, is the justification for labeling Islam as “evil.”

I will not tarry on the point of Islam’s righteousness or wrongs here. The point for this post is that the Dove Outreach center is not burning an idol, they are burning an effigy of the object of their hatred. It is not unlike P.Z. Meyers’ abuse of Eucharistic hosts – pure defamation, with the intent to shock.

I do not know for certain at what point we, like Elijah, should smash the idols of others. I do know that we have too many idols ourselves to deal with before we make a weak case for naming another’s idol for them and smashing it. And the intention should be purely to free the person from the idol, not an act of hatred towards the person who values the object. On the other hand, we should be relentless in destroying our own idols.

Another example of an act of defamation would be the terrorist attacks of 9/11 themselves, made more horrific by the destruction of human lives. The goal was not to free us of the snares of a capitalist system, but to destroy the symbol (a very large banking and trading center) in order to shock.

I will close with an odd piece of prophesy from G.K. Chesterton on the matter:

“If, for instance, the Socialists were numerous or courageous enough to capture and smash up the Bank of England, you might argue for ever about the inutility of the act, and how it really did not touch the root of the economic problem in the correct manner. But mankind would never forget it. It would change the world.”

G.K. Chesterton, In The Place De La Bastille

photo credit: joannapoe

Regular readers should have figured out that Fight Club is a favorite here. And yet, it’s a hard movie to recommend – “graphic” doesn’t begin to describe it.

The the kernel of the short story that came before the novel, that came before the movie, was rules.

Author Chuck Palahniuk said in the afterword to the novel that the inspiration came from movies and books for women that defined social order and relationships, such as How to Make an American Quilt. He wanted to do the same for men, and the result became a cult classic. Fight Club could have been about any topic, according to Palahniuk; the crux of it all was the rules.

For those unfamiliar with the rules, here they are as kinetic typography:

Every culture, every community, every tribe has rules. Christianity has more than just the Ten Commandments, when you stop and think about it. The first and second rule of fight club are interesting in that they are not followed and may not have intended to be followed. Or perhaps it was meant to mean share it, but don’t just talk about it, for discussing the group itself is often disastrous (guys, you know what I mean).

Back on topic: “Go forth and teach all nations” is a rule. Judge by the fruits. Fear not those that harm the body, but those that kill the soul. These are the rules of Christianity in the world.

Monastic communities follow a “Rule of Life,” a spiritual structure by which they grow through limitation. This doesn’t just apply to guys, of course. As C.S. Lewis observed in The Screwtape Letters, we are animals; we are material as well as spiritual. Ritual and rules are for our beneifit, not God’s. And as we tell ourselves we don’t need to go to church, we don’t need to kneel to pray, we don’t need this or that ritual, we slip into laziness.

Monastic, or even club rules, define the life we live with the community we live in. Our community is not of this world, and our rule of life should enforce the priority of the eternal over the passing world’s trends, fads, and desires – even so-called necessities such as nest eggs and reliable transportation.

Have you even considered the Rule of Life you live? Do you more closely follow the Rule of Life of your workplace, your school, or other worldly communities than one of an eternal revolution?

photo credit: SuperFantastic

Although legendary and oft repeated quotes on the internet are sometimes inaccurate, and I have not had the time to verify this one, the statement itself is very true:

God has not called me to be successful; He has called me to be faithful.

Mother Teresa

If you carry His message to the world, do not despair if no one hears you in the present.

If you never seem to get ahead, if you barely keep your head above water – it doesn’t matter in the end.

We are called to be faithful to a divine will, something not of this world. Material success is measured in worldly terms, and is worthless in the end.

So remember what it is you are working for. Let all that does not matter truly slide.

photo credit: Tim & Selena Middleton

This is another long post from Chesterton. This fragment was never published until it appeared in his biography by Masie Ward. However, it is relevant as it addresses the idea of “Christian Socialism,” and interesting as Ward mentions that at this time Chesterton did not yet call himself Christian.

However, the power of the piece is not about economic theory, but about any movement of people. Do we call for society to change, or place the responsibility on each and every one to change, as Christ does?

Now, for my own part, I cannot in the least agree with those who see no difference between Christian and modern Socialism, nor do I for a moment join in some Christian Socialists’ denunciations of those worthy middle-class people who cannot see the connection. For I cannot help thinking that in a way these latter people are right. No reasonable man can read the Sermon on the Mount and think that its tone is not very different from that of most collectivist speculation of the present day, and the Philistines feel this, though they cannot distinctly express it. There is a difference between Christ’s Socialist program and that of our own time, a difference deep, genuine and all important, and it is this which I wish to point out.

Let us take two types side by side, or rather the same type in the two different atmospheres. Let us take the “rich young man” of the Gospels and place beside him the rich young man of the present day, on the threshold of Socialism. If we were to follow the difficulties, theories, doubts, resolves, and conclusions of each of these characters, we should find two very distinct threads of self-examination running through the two lives. And the essence of the difference was this: the modern Socialist is saying, “What will society do?” while his prototype, as we read, said, “What shall I do?” Properly considered, this latter sentence contains the whole essence of the older Communism. The modern Socialist regards his theory of regeneration as a duty which society owes to him, the early Christian regarded it as a duty which he owed to society; the modern Socialist is busy framing schemes for its fulfilment, the early Christian was busy considering whether he would himself fulfil it there and then; the ideal of modern Socialism is an elaborate Utopia to which he hopes the world may be tending, the ideal of the early Christian was an actual nucleus “living the new life” to whom he might join himself if he liked. Hence the constant note running through the whole gospel, of the importance, difficulty and excitement of the “call,” the individual and practical request made by Christ to every rich man, “sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”
To us Socialism comes speculatively as a noble and optimistic theory of what may be the crown of progress, to Peter and James and John it came practically as a crisis of their own Daily life, a stirring question of conduct and renunciation.

Modern Socialism says, “Elaborate a broad, noble and workable system and submit it to the progressive intellect of society.” Early Christianity said, “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”

We do not therefore in the least agree with those who hold that modern Socialism is an exact counterpart or fulfilment of the socialism of Christianity. We find the difference important and profound, despite the common ground of anti-selfish collectivism. The modern Socialist regards Communism as a distant panacea for society, the early Christian regarded it as an immediate and difficult regeneration of himself: the modern Socialist reviles, or at any rate reproaches, society for not adopting it, the early Christian concentrated his thoughts on the problem of his own fitness and unfitness to adopt it: to the modern Socialist it is a theory, to the early Christian it was a call; modern Socialism says, “Elaborate a broad, noble and workable system and submit it to the progressive intellect of society.” Early Christianity said, “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”

This distinction between the social and personal way of regarding the change has two sides, a spiritual and a practical which we propose to notice. The spiritual side of it, though of less direct and revolutionary importance than the practical, has still a very profound philosophic significance. To us it appears something extraordinary that this Christian side of Socialism, the side of the difficulty of the personal sacrifice, and the patience, cheerfulness, and good temper necessary for the protracted personal surrender is so constantly overlooked. The literary world is flooded with old men seeing visions and young men dreaming dreams, with various stages of anti-competitive enthusiasm, with economic apocalypses, elaborate Utopias and mushroom destinies of mankind. And, as far as we have seen, in all this whirlwind of theoretic excitement there is not a word spoken of the intense practical difficulty of the summons to the individual, the heavy, unrewarding cross borne by him who gives up the world.

For it will not surely be denied that not only will Socialism be impossible without some effort on the part of individuals, but that Socialism if once established would be rapidly dissolved, or worse still, diseased, if the individual members of the community did not make a constant effort to do that which in the present state of human nature must mean an effort, to live the higher life. Mere state systems could not bring about and still less sustain a reign of unselfishness, without a cheerful decision on the part of the members to forget selfishness even in little things, and for that most difficult and at the same time most important personal decision Christ made provision and the modern theorists make no provision at all. Some modern Socialists do indeed see that something more is necessary for the golden age than fixed incomes and universal stores tickets, and that the fountain heads of all real improvement are to be found in human temper and character. Mr. William Morris, for instance, in his “News from Nowhere” gives a beautiful picture of a land ruled by Love, and rightly grounds the give-and-take camaraderie of his ideal state upon an assumed improvement in human nature. But he does not tell us how such an improvement is to be effected, and Christ did. Of Christ’s actual method in this matter I shall speak afterwards when dealing with the practical aspect, my object just now is to compare the spiritual and emotional effects of the call of Christ, as compared to those of the vision of Mr. William Morris. When we compare the spiritual attitudes of two thinkers, one of whom is considering whether social history has been sufficiently a course of improvement to warrant him in believing that it will culminate in universal altruism, while the other is considering whether he loves other people enough to walk down tomorrow to the market-place and distribute everything but his staff and his scrip, it will not be denied that the latter is likely to undergo certain deep and acute emotional experiences, which will be quite unknown to the former. And these emotional experiences are what we understand as the spiritual aspect of the distinction. For three characteristics at least the Galilean programme makes more provision; humility, activity, cheerfulness, the real triad of Christian virtues.

Humility is a grand, a stirring thing, the exalting paradox of Christianity, and the sad want of it in our own time is, we believe, what really makes us think life dull, like a cynic, instead of marvellous, like a child. With this, however, we have at present nothing to do. What we have to do with is the unfortunate fact that among no persons is it more wanting than among Socialists, Christian and other. The isolated or scattered protest for a complete change in social order, the continual harping on one string, the necessarily jaundiced contemplation of a system already condemned, and above all, the haunting pessimistic whisper of a possible hopelessness of overcoming the giant forces of success, all these impart undeniably to the modern Socialist a tone excessively imperious and bitter. Nor can we reasonably blame the average money-getting public for their impatience with the monotonous virulence of men who are constantly reviling them for not living communistically, and who after all, are not doing it themselves. Willingly do we allow that these latter enthusiasts think it impossible in the present state of society to practise their ideal, but this fact, while vindicating their indisputable sincerity, throws an unfortunate vagueness and inconclusiveness over their denunciations of other people in the same position. Let us compare with this arrogant and angry tone among the modern Utopians who can only dream “the life,” the tone of the early Christian who was busy living it. As far as we know, the early Christians never regarded it as astonishing that the world as they found it was competitive and unregenerate; they seem to have felt that it could not in its pre-Christian ignorance have been anything else, and their whole interest was bent on their own standard of conduct and exhortation which was necessary to convert it. They felt that it was by no merit of theirs that they had been enabled to enter into the life before the Romans, but simply as a result of the fact that Christ had appeared in Galilee and not in Rome. Lastly, they never seem to have entertained a doubt that the message would itself convert the world with a rapidity and ease which left no room for severe condemnation of the heathen societies.

With regard to the second merit, that of activity, there can be little doubt as to where it lies between the planner of the Utopia and the convert of the brotherhood. The modern Socialist is a visionary, but in this he is on the same ground as half the great men of the world, and to some extent of the early Christian himself, who rushed towards a personal ideal very difficult to sustain. The visionary who yearns toward an ideal which is practically impossible is not useless or mischievous, but often the opposite; but the person who is often useless, and always mischievous, is the visionary who dreams with the knowledge or the half-knowledge that his ideal is impossible. The early Christian might be wrong in believing that by entering the brotherhood men could in a few years become perfect even as their Father in Heaven was perfect, but he believed it and acted flatly and fearlessly on the belief: this is the type of the higher visionary. But all the insidious dangers of the vision; the idleness, the procrastination, the mere mental aestheticism, come in when the vision is indulged, as half our Socialistic conceptions are, as a mere humour or fairy-tale, with a consciousness, half-confessed, that it is beyond practical politics, and that we need not be troubled with its immediate fulfilment. The visionary who believes in his own most frantic vision is always noble and useful. It is the visionary who does not believe in his vision who is the dreamer, the idler, the Utopian. This then is the second moral virtue of the older school, an immense direct sincerity of action, a cleansing away, by the sweats of hard work, of all those subtle and perilous instincts of mere ethical castle-building which have been woven like the spells of an enchantress, round so many of the strong men of our own time.

A knight is not contented with the statement that his commander has hid his plans so as to insure victory: what the knight wants is a sword.

The third merit, which I have called cheerfulness, is really the most important of all. We may perhaps put the comparison in this way. It might strike many persons as strange that in a time on the whole so optimistic in its intellectual beliefs as this is, in an age when only a small minority disbelieve in social progress, and a large majority believe in an ultimate social perfection, there should be such a tired and blasé feeling among numbers of young men. This, we think, is due, not to the want of an ultimate ideal, but to that of any immediate way of making for it: not of something to hope but of something to do. A human being is not satisfied and never will be satisfied with being told that it is all right: what he wants is not a prediction of what other people will be hundreds of years hence, to make him cheerful, but a new and stirring test and task for himself, which will assuredly make him cheerful. A knight is not contented with the statement that his commander has hid his plans so as to insure victory: what the knight wants is a sword. This demand for a task is not mere bravado, it is an eternal and natural part of the higher optimism, as deep-rooted as the foreshadowing of perfection.

photo credit: bobster855

It is all too easy to push off changing the world to things that “society,” “the future,” or even worse, “the government” ought to do.

You may have noticed we don’t talk a lot here on Eternal Revolution about current politics, if at all. Most of us can’t affect the power plays of the ruling class other than with our votes and the occasional participation in notification campaigns.

Leaving change to something society must do is lazy and cowardly. It reduces your requirement to change things in your life, in your world, and in your sphere of influence. The Eternal Revolution, like the Kingdom it is restoring, exists in its smallest, most nuclear form within you and your family.

Jesus did not call society to change. Rather, he said specifically that men’s hearts must change first. When teaching socio-economics, his command was “Go and sell what you have and give the money to the poor.” It was a a personal call to action, not a suggestion to join a political action committee.

Many of us would rather cut off a hand than quit a job, for instance. Even a morally questionable job, even though we are told to sever the ties that lead us to sin – even if it be a hand or an eye. Most of us fear criticism of our fellow man than doing the right thing.

One relevant example is this young woman’s valedictorian speech. Of course she’s nervous. What Seth Godin refers to as the “lizard brain,” her sense of self-preservation, is fighting the idea of criticizing the educational system that is honoring her. Perhaps she is biting the had that fed her (even if it was junk food), but she saw that something had to be done, and she did it despite her fear.

Somehow I think the staff sitting behind her are wishing their deviant valedictorian would have just been one of those to flash the audience.

Most of the changes we need to make are not this drastic. Looking to your personal economy. Look first to care for those who you have a divine charge to take care of – your children, your family, your neighbor. The revolution starts there. Don’t skip ahead.