My friend Jonah Goldberg swats one out of the park today:
What Maher, Raines, and Smiley fail to grasp is that all morality is based upon transcendence — or it is merely based on utilitarianism of one kind or another, and therefore it is not morality so much as, at best, an enlightened expediency or will-to-power. It is no more rational to vote based on a desire to do “good” than it is to vote based on a desire to do God’s will. Indeed, for millions of people this is a distinction without a difference — as it was for so many of the abolitionists progressives and civil-rights leaders today’s liberals love to invoke but never actually learn about.
Love, in fact, is just as silly and superstitious a concept as God (and for those who believe God is Love, this too is a distinction without a difference). Chesterton’s observation that the purely rational man will not marry is just as correct today, because science has done far more damage to the ideal of love than it has done to the notion of an awesome God beyond our ken. Genes, hormones, instincts, evolution: These are the cause for the effect of love in the purely rational man’s textbook. But Maher would get few applause lines from his audience of sophisticated yokels if he mocked love as a silly superstition. This is, in part, because the crowd he plays to likes the idea of love while it dislikes the idea of God; and in part because these people feel love, so they think it exists. But such is the extent of their solipsism and narcissism that they not only reject the existence of God but go so far as to mock those who do not, simply because they don’t feel Him themselves. And, alas, in elite America, feelings are the only recognized foundation of metaphysics.
I think Jonah should become a Catholic!
His wife is Catholic. I have high hopes for him.
If it were true that: “in elite America, feelings are the only recognized foundation of metaphysics,” I think Catholic ideas could be presented to such a group without much trouble. But I think that the foundation is much more something like: “I will let you do as you wish, if you let me do as I wish,” which is much harder to gain any traction against. And is liable to continue unabated until something comes along that wants us to do as it wishes.
If it were true that: “in elite America, feelings are the only recognized foundation of metaphysics,” I think Catholic ideas could be presented to such a group without much trouble. But I think that the foundation is much more something like: “I will let you do as you wish, if you let me do as I wish,” which is much harder to gain any traction against. And is liable to continue unabated until something comes along that wants us to do as it wishes.
Jonah is such a profound thinker, and he has such an understanding of faith, I was saddened to see his ending statement that he is not religious.
Jonah is such a profound thinker and has such a knowledge of faith—it was sad to see he is not religious…..and you say his wife is Catholic….I wonder what he is seeking? Or have we failed him somehow?
I don’t know. Sometimes the Holy Spirit takes a while to work. Eugene Genovese returned to the faith after abandoning it for six decades. All in good time.