The Danger of "the Tumultuous Torrent of Fugitive Ideas"

Stop and think!

I always enjoy reading Chronicles magazine. The article I read today described divisions in the political right. It isn't just the Dems who reflect chaos these days. The author made the point that language is being used on both sides of the aisle "less as an instrument of reasoning" and more as a justification for "tribal loyalty" with premises that "remain unexamined" resulting in "impoverished discourse in which both factions retain an appetite for shock and awe but very little for restraint, calibration, or discovery."

Wow! Too true!

What author Chloe Mastour describes isn't just evident in political disagreements. It seems to be the default position today in many areas and is particularly evident on social media. Many adopt fixed and unchangeable positions. No amount of reasoned argument can touch them. And sometimes those with opposite views, are equally fixed and unchangeable. 

Where truth and untruth face off, that makes sense. There is no common ground possible between those who believe killing babies in the womb is a woman's right and those who defend the intrinsic right to life of those same little ones.

But many issues are not so cut and dried. People can disagree about all kinds of things: the best way to help the poor, the most sensible policy on (immigration, energy, education, take your pick), etc. That's when debate becomes important based on intelligent reasoning. In other words, sensible and critical thinking. 

I might feel like wind turbines are the best approach to clean energy. Are they? Did I take into account the maintenance, the energy required for installation, the bird fatalities and other environmental impacts? Many issues seem to be decided without clear thinking. 

Chesterton's fence analogy is apropos here:

...let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate is erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

 But the reformer who's in a hurry is not very inclined to go away and think. As the Chronicles author wrote:

Thinking is painful. For many, cognition rarely amounts to more than the recitation of prefabricated views. It is far easier to surrender to the brain's lazy manufacture of semi-lucid, inchoate notions -- an internal playlist of borrowed opinions shuffled at whim -- than to strain oneself in conducting a  proper internal monologue, rousing order from the capricious, mechanical, and tumultuous torrent of fugitive ideas.

I was so impressed by that lovely prose I had to stop and re-read it. But what she said next identifies the why of our laziness and what contributes to it:

And most media serve chiefly as accelerants for the diffusion of thought -terminating cliches. Regardless of whether they peddle a left or right-wing line, they exist as a force multiplier for those compact automatisms of thought, which substitute moral posture for prudential judgment....Precisely at the hour when prudence demands depth, patience, and scale of reference, the garden of the conservative imagination is trampled flat. The result is a discourse at once dry, predictable, and strangely pre-chewed....little more than slogans, optimized for bookings, retweets, and clipped soundbites to be emailed to donors.

The saddest thing about this truth is that it also often applies to Catholic bloggers and pundits. Personally, I want to resist the temptation to engage in political theater, react in anger without thought, or let the outrage of the moment carry me off. Sometimes it's better to wait, take a deep breath, do a little research, and pray before responding to the latest scandal from the Vatican. I try to remember before I write to turn to my editor, the Blessed Mother, and my guardian angel. I pray never to use this blog to do anything but glorify God and share the faith. 

I want everyone on the planet to know God, love God, and serve God so we can be happy with Him in heaven. Sad to say, that is unlikely to happen. Mary said many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them. I don't want anyone to go there because I failed to pray for them. 

Since the election the Lord has placed it on my heart to pray for our Governor elect and her colleagues. I'm especially praying that Jay Jones, Attorney General elect, never experiences in his own home the evils he wished on Todd Gilbert and his family. It occurred to me when I was praying this morning that God might do just that. I begged him not to -- thinking of Abraham and Moses interceding for other poor sinners. As a sinner myself, I hope others are praying for me.

Hopefully, I'll get serious about fasting since, as Jesus said, some devils can only be driven out by prayer and fasting. Please join me, readers in praying for all the politicians so committed to violence and the embrace of intrinsic evils so offensive to God. One of the greatest acts of charity is to pray for our enemies. Let's join the little mystic of Fatima, Jacinta, and pray for poor sinners in danger of hell. 

Lord Jesus, King of Kings, have mercy on us.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.