Postscript to the previous entry

 

I feel a bit uncomfortable with one aspect of the argument from the previous entry. Since it seems I must confront and in some way accept the fact of my own guilt in many of these matter, I would seem to have no reasonable ground for remorse for my implication in practices that I judge wound the world. Aren't we all, despite being thrown into damaged world we did not make and thus torn between being part of the problem or extreme asceticism, judged by purity, innocence, by an absolute standard? Like all the circles we draw are going to be imperfect, because compared to the ideal geometrical circle? If there is no absolute standard, then the language of desecration, betrayal, corruption, sin, alienation, and even remorse are meaningless. You could always comfort yourself with the thought that you are doing the best under the circumstances. Something important is lost if that is the whole story.

    Back to the analogy of the geometric circle. No actual circle is perfectly circular. Yet the ideal circle remains indispensable. Without it, we could not even recognize degrees of approximation. The ideal is not abolished by the impossibility of realizing it. Something similar may be true morally. The fact that no human life is innocent does not imply that innocence is unreal. The fact that no human action is perfectly pure does not imply that purity is meaningless. The reverse seems true. We recognize our impurity precisely because we glimpse purity.

    This is where Plato, Christianity, Weil, Murdoch, Gaita, and even Berry converge. For Plato, no drawn circle is the Circle itself. Yet the imperfect circle participates in the Form and is judged by it. For Christianity, no human life after the Fall fully embodies holiness (Christ). Yet holiness remains the standard by which every life is measured. For Weil, our obligations are infinite while our capacities are finite. The disproportion is not an argument against obligation. For Gaita, the absolute value of persons exceeds our (most of us, anyway) ability to honor it adequately. Yet the value remains absolute (think of the well-meaning doctors at the mental institution). In all these cases, the ideal remains transcendent.

    The danger is to turn the ideal into a demand for purity of self such that the self is free of sin, of implication in the wounded world, and thus can judge others who are less pure. To become part of the self-righteous chosen few. Or to wallow in sentimental self-guilt. Suppose I recognize that industrial meat production wounds creation. One response is to conclude that I am guilty and must become pure. Another is that I owe greater fidelity to creation than I have yet achieved. Which? The danger of the first is self-preoccupation. The second remains focused on the good itself but poses the danger of false consolation and accepting one’s part in the desecration and alienation of the capitalist system. Weil thinks that genuine remorse differs from guilt-consciousness. Guilt can become a form of narcissism: e.g., “Look how bad I am.” Remorse is directed toward reality, on what has happened. The focus remains on the wounded world rather than on the wounded self-image.

    This is why Christian theology traditionally distinguishes between contrition and scrupulosity. Contrition acknowledges a real failure measured against an absolute standard. Scrupulosity becomes trapped in the impossibility of perfect innocence. What troubles me is not whether there is an absolute standard because I am convinced that there is. The trouble is how can one be judged by an absolute standard without being crushed by it? Lose your life to gain it. Lose your life in the world to gain spiritual liberation. We are getting close to Gnosticism, to a dualism between material world (evil) and spiritual world (good) that I reject.

    The standard is not primarily a measuring stick but a reality that draws us. The perfect circle makes approximation possible without condemning every imperfect circle. Analogously, the saint, the Good, Christ, holiness, justice, or whatever name one gives to the ideal reveals the direction even as it exposes failures of love.

   This is where the theme of difficult hope becomes relevant. If the absolute standard exists, then remorse is entirely appropriate. I should regret my participation in cruelty. I should regret my failures of attention.

   I should regret my complicity in destructive systems. But the purpose of remorse is not self-condemnation. Its purpose is truthfulness. It keeps alive the distinction between what is and what ought to be. Without remorse, we become reconciled to the Fall. Without hope, remorse becomes despair. The difficult position taken by Berry, Weil, Gaita, and many Christian thinkers is to hold both simultaneously: the world is genuinely fallen, including me; and the good remains genuinely good.

    I wonder whether this is why the Fall remains such a powerful myth. It allows us to say two things that modern thought often separates. We are implicated in a disorder we did not wholly create but are nevertheless responsible for our participation in it. The tension defines us and it seems outrageous to me at times. The first without the second becomes excuse.The second without the first becomes self-righteousness. The truth of the myth is that it insists on both at once.