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Sunday, December 02, 2007
Fran’s Sunday Ruminations: Course Corrections
December 2, and here on Long Island it's already snowing, and cold enough for the snow to accumulate! This global warming stuff has got to stop!
What's that? Global warming is supposed to have the reverse effect? Oh. Well, bring it on, then. I could use a nice reduction in my heating bills.
But wait a second longer: aren't there folks who claim that even lowered temperatures are evidence of global warming? That "one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability" -- ? So it's not possible to disprove the global warming thesis no matter what happens, then? Doesn't that make it an article of faith?
Apologies, Gentle Reader. I just wanted to luxuriate for a moment in the knowledge that there are other persons who cling to unfalsifiable faiths, even in this oh-so-materialistic age. It makes me feel less alone...though, if the truth be known, if it were up to me I'd have chosen other company. Anyway, let's Ruminate for a bit. I'm in a particularly good mood, and perhaps I can infect you with it.
Way, way back in the Sixties, when I was an undergraduate physics student, there was something of a war going on between two opposed cosmological camps: the "Big Bang" theorists, whose theses are pretty well known today, and Sir Fred Hoyle's "continuous creation" camp, which has since expired due to repeated stretchings and tearings in the attempt to encompass inimical evidence.
Hoyle, a brilliant astronomer with a long record of achievements, had tied himself so tightly to his continuous creation theory that he could not bear to see it defeated by the accumulating evidence being gathered by ever-advancing observational astronomy. So at each adverse turn of the observational screw, he modified his theory...and modified it again...and again...and again, until it became unsustainable by anyone who dared to call himself a scientist. Ultimately, he did concede the field to the Big Bangers, but only after doing his reputation a considerable amount of damage. He had offended against the first law of science: facts trump theory. When the objectively observable facts run counter to what your theory predicts, you don't deny the facts; you junk the theory.
(In a recent, punishing lesson to the cultural and intellectual Left, physicist Alan Sokal seduced one of their leading publications into buying into the reverse notion. Leftist intellectuals have been trying to live it down ever since...which suggests that we should do what we can to keep the tale alive.)
A theory is the creation of a human mind, and is therefore fallible. Indeed, given the limits on our ability to test our theories, Tanner's Paradox:
"In any given field where there are N scientists at work, N-1 are wrong. Therefore, for practical purposes -- say, in administrators' terms -- all scientists are always wrong." -- Bob Leman, Conversational Mode.
...is the most reliable guide to the future disposition of any theory, no matter how well confirmed it is at the moment. It's also a reminder of the extraordinary importance of humility.
Humility is far more often misunderstood than not. Humility is not self-abnegation nor self-deprecation. Neither is it the denial nor the minimization of one's own abilities or achievements. By casting humility in this light, its enemies have succeeded in blackening it in the minds of the credulous, a most unfortunate development responsible in part for the prickly pugnacity of our milieu.
Humility is the recognition of one's nature as a temporal being: one's limitations in space and time, one's fallibility, and one's lack of a license for reshaping others to suit oneself. Humility concedes all these things. Among its other properties, it's a social asset, the one most important to making oneself acceptable to acceptable others.
A man who cannot accept assistance when tried beyond his strength lacks humility. A man who cannot admit to his errors lacks humility. And a man who cannot resist the temptation to make other persons over in his own image lacks humility.
(Yes, virtually all politicians lack humility, as do virtually all special-interest activists. I started this Rumination off as I did for a reason.)
The most important visible characteristic of a humble man is that he refrains from dwelling on the faults of others. He will note them; he will adjust his behavior as necessary to account for them; he may even speak of them, under appropriate circumstances and in appropriate company. But they are not his to remedy and he knows it, wherefor he avoids doing so. As far as he can, he avoids allowing them to distort his behavior or affect his equanimity.
When the subject is human improvement, the humble man's focus is on himself. He takes to heart Albert Jay Nock's dictum that the only moral and efficient way for him to improve "society" is to present it with a single improved member: himself.
The opposite of humility is vanity, one of the seven capital sins. Vanity is the attitude that makes oneself the standard against which all other persons are judged: "That which diverges from me is wrong; that which accords with me is right." In its most extreme form, vanity produces a self-absorption so complete that the afflicted cannot see anything, man, beast, or special offer at the mall, except as it affects and relates to him. Persons that vain cannot have lovers or friends, only worshippers, disciples, and acolytes.
The more ability, energy, and confidence God has bestowed upon you, the more prone you are to vanity. "By far my favorite sin," said Satan as played by Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, and it could well be so. For the vanity sufferer is forever trying to remake others after his own design. The more advanced the disease, the more radical and brutal his efforts will be.
Once in a while, even the humblest man will slip on one of vanity's ubiquitous banana peels. The very best persons alive have "topical" vanities: subjects at which they imagine themselves infallible or indefeasible. Humility itself, if one is too conscious of it, can tempt one to vanity: "I would never denigrate others as he does." Enjoy the irony; it's a nice bit of evidence that God has a taste for the absurd.
But cultivating the habit of turning one's critical faculties inward, first, last, and always, is a tough job. It can feel like self-belittlement, if not self-destruction. It takes a firm grip on one's consciousness of reality -- the metaphysically given facts of existence -- to keep the effort sound. One must resist the notion that one is somehow misdirecting one's attention in criticizing oneself, when there are so many obviously more deserving targets. One must remember that not only is he unlicensed to remake others; he is unable to do so.
Human nature decrees that we are individually motivated. We do what pleases most or hurts least, in the given circumstances. Smith can offer Jones incentives to alter his behavior, but he cannot compel Jones to do, or refrain from doing, any particular thing. The same is true of Jones's convictions on any subject: social, political, familial, religious, or what-have-you. Smith can argue for some position other than the one Jones holds, but he cannot compel Jones to accept it.
The humble man accepts reality as he finds it; he concedes that the laws of nature are not his to amend. The vain man insists that reality conform to his preferences; he demands a line-item veto power over the decisions of God Himself.
Vanity is something I've struggled against for most of my adult life. God was exceedingly good to me; He gave me great powers of body and mind, and filled me with the energy required to use them. That made it difficult for me to tolerate the shortcomings and foibles of persons less gifted...persons I came all too readily to regard as my inferiors.
But here we are at the inception of the Advent season, when Christian hearts turn toward the feast of the Nativity and everyone else is at the mall. The Incarnation should be a potent reminder of how low we stand in the order of things. God sent His Son to live, work, teach, suffer, and die, not among the most savage people of that time, but among the most civilized; not among the low of mentality or those riven by animistic superstition, but among the most literate, theologically advanced people of classical times, the Jews of Judea. Yet He conducted His ministry, not in the city of Jerusalem where a teacher of great merit and penetration might find a patron from among the rich and powerful, but upon the plains and hills around the Sea of Galilee, where dwelt the poorest, least respected persons of the Hebrew race: a people marginalized even in their religious devotions.
Jesus's mortal parents were a poor carpenter and his wife. They were far from home against their inclinations; on the night of the Nativity their only shelter from the elements was a stable. The Holy Infant spent His birth night lying in a donkeys' feed-trough. He remained materially poor throughout His life. During His years of ministry, He accepted the supports of life as gifts from His admirers, and required the twelve we call the Apostles to do likewise. He would not exalt Himself; on several occasions He forbade His disciples to tell anyone that He was the Messiah. His Passion was the most brutal and humiliating death the time had devised. It should help us to be mindful of the virtue of humility.
Keeping one's humility tuned up should be a full-time job. After all, Jesus warned His disciples that He would return when we least expect it:
Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come. [Matthew 24:41-44]
That could be today, you know. On what other day would you expect it less?
May God bless and keep you all.
Comments
Well, the Bahá’í would believe he has returned. :D
Posted by Elijah on 12/02/2007 at 01:47 PMDear Mr. Porretto,
Thank you for a most illuminating post. In my dotage (I’m collecting Social Security) I am much into reflection and recollections. Of all the people I have known, both personally and by reputation, the ones who I have the greatest admiration of and affection for were humble. Some of them may have been acting. I have no way of knowing. All I know is I remember them fondly.
You introduced this piece by referring to the scientific debate about steady state vs. big bang cosmology. I have had a life long interest in the subject. I read and reread “One, Two, Three Infinity” by Dr. Gamow starting in about 1952. It seems that, as predicted by history, the big bang is running into observational difficulties. I commend to you:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm
If you accept evolution and “dark matter”, which are vigorously defended as main-stream consensus science, you run into an intellectually inconvenient construct. The chemistry of “ordinary” matter is wholly determined by two particles: the proton and the electron. There is no argument advanced that dark matter is necessarily only one particle. Would it not be a logical argument that there is a chemistry of dark matter that would lead, via evolution, to intelligent beings. Since dark matter is estimated to comprise somewhat more than 75% of the mass of the universe maybe we are the ghosts?
Regards,
RoyPosted by on 12/03/2007 at 09:18 PMGreat thoughts on humility. Human pride may be the base for all other evils in the world, and to find a truly humble person is difficult. Casting it in the light of not dwelling on others’ faults is enlightening, and I will try to implement that in life.
OK, gotta wait; can only comment every 600 seconds…
Posted by Liquid Egg Product on 12/04/2007 at 10:00 AM
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