Talk Is Usually Cheap

 Going Up or Coming Down?

Donald Trump wants to make America great once more.
His supporters respond to that message, and they fervently wish to make America great once more. The devil-in-the-detail is how does one go about doing such a thing as "making so-and-so great once more"?

How do we go about making anything take on a moral quality? How do we re-claim a virtue or a good quality?

In the past few weeks, I have read that our society needs to learn humility again. In the aftermath of certain Supreme Court decisions, I have read that certain segments of the population may need to withdraw into a "Benedictine" virtual cloister to be able to live in a world of same-sex marriage and ObamaCare.
There was also some nonsense about universal service in various capacities on the theory that The Selective Service System of World War II was a paradigm for the teaching and learning of the virtue of loving one's country and one's society; a bit of nonsense that omitted the role of unspeakable evil's ability to call forth an opposition of self-denying feats of strength from us, the common men of the world.

I do not criticize a call to virtue, but I do think that such appeals fail to realize that being virtuous is a long-term experience that requires a lot of time and effort.

Furthermore, if our country is no longer "great" or lacks some other old-timey virtue it once had,  we should ask ourselves how it came about that those wonderful qualities were lost or lapsed. Can such virtues, once in abeyance, be switched on again within seconds? Are we ourselves in any way responsible for the diminution of virtue, or was it all due to other people who are lazy in a moral way?
And no matter how intensely we want something, if that "something" is Virtue, it takes years of commitment on our part.
Remember the old saying "Whatever does not kill us makes us stronger"?

That pretty much can sum up how Virtue is learned: we face the worst, and we emerge intact, yet we are changed.

Mr. Trump has recommended fighting ISIS by bombing the heck out of Iraq's oil fields.

I think that interesting suggestion makes it clear that Mr. Trump believes that Greatness is a virtue that,
(1) someone else caused to lapse, and
(2) is somehow still floating around in our souls fervent with desire, and
(3) can be decisively re-invigorating by quick actions, and
(4) the ends justify the means...

for since "bombing the heck out of so-and-so" is not in itself a virtuous act, it is the fact that WE bomb the heck out of so-and-so that is the Virtuous Act.

If Trump is elected, I will go "short" on this place.

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Got Virtue?

So I was arguing with some fellow about ethics and violence:  he said that true Christianity necessarily includes the command to "turn the other cheek" after all and sundry offenses.

I stated that the passage of the New T. in question states that when struck on one cheek, we turn the other, but leaves silent what to do if the abominable cheek-striker also hits the second proffered cheek.
I said that this passage was all about the first response, and nothing subsequent to that.

When confronted, let your first response be the peaceful response. Things being what they are, the majority of people would respond well to the peaceful response; they would let their anger subside, and there would probably be no escalation.

Beyond this, however, it may be time to kick tukhes.

The way I understand it, the cheek-turning could be interpreted as a strategy at the very beginning of a confrontation, which if successfully done, could avert conflict.
However, once this fails, we are in the realm of Virtue.

Whatever we do should be formed by our upbringing in Virtue - our reaction after our first peaceful response is rejected should be in accord with what we understand Virtue requires of us.

Virtue has a duality.
It has an eye on the Holy and morality, but is also has an eye on our humanity - "virtue" being derived from Latin "vir" meaning "man", and usually "man" with some notion of strength, not just generic "man", which would be "homo".

Within that duality we act out our morality play about violence and peace.

Pity the guys and dolls who skipped school the day Virtue was being taught, however.

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Musing About Possession

After my post on "The Gods Of Bubbles", I am "musing" on our times.
We inhabited not a time of emotion, but a time of possession: we are inspired by the powers about us, but we have neglected to take the important precaution of learning how to be virtuous.

Lacking virtue, we are playthings in the hands of the dark gods of fear and hatred.

Virtue actually is its own reward.

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Double Redemption

I am reading about the character of Walter White in the TV series Breaking Bad.

In my opinion, Mr. White will be a case of double redemption.

Initially, White is redeemed from a life in which he finds little meaning by his discovery of his cancer. This opens the door to a refreshing quest into the heart of darkness, wherein he finds all the manly virtues and vices. These are properly called the good and bad virtues: the strengths of mankind that are benign and malign.


The exercise of violence is not a weakness. It is a strength. Evil virtue, yes, but a an act of a man, a  vir  in ancient Latin, "virtue" being derived from "virtus", which itself comes from "vir".

White is being washed in the blood of the lamb of destruction, as it were.

He is due for another redemption... at least, I hope so. The Redeemer always Rings Twice.

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