Why laws exist at all: In Kagan’s circular view, mankind created the State, the State creates the rights of man, and elites run the State. Kagan’s view would have it that, when mankind created the State, man forfeited all natural or higher rights independent of the State. In a similar game of Three Card Monty, in Progressives’ view, God created physics, and laws of physics happened to evolve man, so there is no pertinent, active, higher law giver, and there are no laws or rights -- save as given to us by physics and by such elites as interpret such “moral laws” as are derivative solely from indifferent physics.
But this is nothing more than a shallow variation on an old shell game, for falsely “proving by assuming” that God and/or Nature have divinely ordained or delegated the “right to rule” to such elites as pretend to be “most fit.” This is masquerade, whereby elites tell us there is no reason by which we should care to second guess them, even as they tell us there is “reason” by which we “should care” to obey them. So what do they say when we rip off all masks and ask, “Why so?”
Without respect for a superior and active Source of laws, so that no man and no elite is given to be his own lawgiver, there would be no physical or civilized basis under which independent beings could communicate or pursue separate interests. We are able to live only within a relatively narrow range of temperatures. We enjoy changing and meaningful independence only within a relatively narrow and changing range of legalistic intrusiveness.
No doubt, Kagan recognizes that we need to minimize functions that otherwise would upset the balance of our physical environment. Does she not recognize, in like respect, that we need to avoid that which would upset that which is superior to our manmade system of laws? Does she not recognize that civilization, to convey decent meaningfulness, must remain respectfully receptive to an active Source of higher moral parameters? Does she not care that such laws as mortals experience are necessarily secondary to Something that is superior to indifference?
Bottom line: Hobbes was wrong. We did not in desperation throw up hands and contract all together to agree to subordinate ourselves to a system contrived entirely by whatever elites may come to rule us. Insofar as we conceived to “contract,” we contracted to legitimize norms in respect that all who would civilize themselves thereunder should respect that there abides a superior Guide ... above whose higher law no man is superior.
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In death, all particular perspectives of consciousness must eventually become collateral damage from the unfolding purposes of the field of consciousness. Our material world is not the best of all possible; we are only its gardeners, always pursuing communion, and perhaps eventual merger, with a happier state of being.
3 comments:
I doubt “good” can be quantified in terms of "how good was it." Point is, moral choices are too important to be left to the "elite moral scientists who know best." Point is, the ambitions of many scientists have exceeded their legitimate expertise. A society that cannot produce adults who can be entrusted with liberty to make their own choices cannot very well claim to be an agency of moral relevance. Rather, such a society, having devalued morality itself, becomes a machine for devaluing humanity generally. If depriving humanity of capacity for moral relevance is not evil, then nothing is evil. To elites who feign to know best in all things: Hello! We cannot choose man over God without choosing machine over man.
Were our evolution to become such that our grasp ever caught our reach, God would, in otherwise boredom, simply extend our reach. God’s forte may be less about being a trickster than an adventurer.
Distinguish between clinging to one's "ideology" versus clinging to one's "philosophy." A thinking person, over time, will adduce a philosophy that, absent good reason for deviation, will furnish a default lens through which to interpret reality. Indeed, I don't know how anyone could communicate a continuing thread of thought without doing that. Maybe a difference is this: a philosopher will mull whether new facts necessitate an adjustment; an ideologue will simply ignore inconvenient facts.
Problem is, philosophy is hard work. No doubt, some believe they are on the verge of complete, consistent, coherent truth about morality and civilization. But if that were true, one would think, by now, that a synthesis would have been adduced and become common knowledge. Regardless, incorrigible philosophers press on, pursuing their own peculiar form of fulfillment. Meantime, worker bees need somehow to assimilate around some values, to obtain the blessings of civilization.
To one who suggests that social conservatives who want detailed social mores enshrined in intrusive laws are less like real conservatives than they are like fellow collectivists who want to regulate every breath you breathe and spread every dime you make, I would not disagree.
Marxists anticipate a transition to a worker's paradise that first has to go through a dictatorship of the proletariat before the state can wither way. The better way to try to trim back state intrusiveness is to inspire people to share decently civilizing values, many of which are found in the Bible. But I would broaden beyond a Christian perspective and ask: What if God -- regardless of one's religious lens -- seeks to help us learn how to respect one another's freedom and dignity without the need of state coercion? Well, I see little wrong with that faith. Indeed, in those terms, I share that faith.
I can see how that which is moral is not necessarily concentric with that which is legal. But whether something is legal is a factor in judging whether it is moral, and whether something is moral is a factor in judging whether it should be legal. I can also see how the tyranny of the majority ought not be allowed to use law to silence all moral dissent. I think an important reconciling test consists in asking: What laws are most conducive to sustaining a viable, humane civilization? On marriage, the question to debate is: What form of marriage should government sanction, encourage, or even finance, in order best to preserve decent civilization?
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