Doghouse

Dougy T on Morality

"I'm sorry dear, but there are no colors. It's either guilt by association, or non-guilt by disassociation.
Remember to always accuse others of being Relativists or Postmoderns and you'll be just fine."


Mr. Doug is on his usual Jihad.

While I certainly cannot support the relativization of evil, he, as usual, shoots his own feet off.

We cast judgment on Saddam and the university professor knee jerks by referencing Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in the 80s. Slaughtered Native Americans, black slaves, our late entry into WW2, Viet Nam, no WMDs, these are all used by the liberal mind to support a world view of moral equivalence. Deny good an evil above all else. It's an easy trick, for every good thing you can think of, just slather it in bad things associated with it. Does western capitalism develop technology that saves lives? Bring up the way our capitalism destroys the planet's eco-system and you've just made the black and white into a comfortable haze of gray.

It is possible that some refer to the things above as a "moral equivalence", but Doug would ruin his own moral stand by dismissing those acts of evil because he does not see them as morally equivalent to larger acts of evil.

They do not have to be morally equal to be wrong.

Thus Doug would turn a blind eye to the sins of America simply because he can find an example of something worse.

He finds something vastly superior about the American Way even though he would allow us to use all the same means in an immoral war. Thus kidnapping and torture are fine venues in a good and righteous cause. And it's okay to hate, because God hates...and we all know who is God's little special boy.

It's a Black and White Pleasantville world for Doug. But what he fails to see is that it's a world full of color, not a grey haze. Thus, one can look upon the benefits of Capitalism without immediately dismissing responsible stewardship of God's Creation. One can hold Saddam Hussein accountible for atrovcities and still hold Donald Rumselfd accountible for his bad decisions in dictators.

They are not mutually exclusive.

Awhile ago Doug sent me two papers by a man who is clearly brilliant: J. Budziszewski. The first was a biblical critique and dismantling of classic Liberalism. It's a stunningly good critique and I suggest you read it (though have some time to do so).

The second by Budziszewski is his critique of Conservatism, which is no lessing damning.

One of the reason Budziszewski can do this is he understands, and employs what Bonhoeffer called the difference bewteen the "penultimate" and the "ultimate". (You will find that in Ethics).

Thus Budziszewski understands God as not nationalistic in the way that Doug and his minions (and they are not all minions) do. Speaking of the confusion of viewing America as the Covenant favorite, he writes:

It may well be that all nations have callings of sorts-specific purposes which God in His providence assigns them. But no nation can presume to take God under its wing. However we may love her, dote upon her, and regret her, the Lord our God can do without the United States.

The "Ultimate" in Bonhoeffer's way of thinking (and I suspect Budziszewski's) is the Kingdom of God, not the self-righteousness self-determination of any one nation.

Doug continues to give America, and this Administration, not only a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, but also a free pass to the best properties on the board. And that is because the "Penultimate" has overcome the "Ultimate" in his whole paradigm.

I remarked once something about Peter Berger and Doug immediately dismissed him..as..probably, a Relativist. Not so in his 1961 book The Precarious Vision.

What Berger writes there undercuts Doug's entire fallacy of hyper-nationalism and his own forms of Relativism (of yes, he has them and employs them all the time) for America does, like all nations, have to answer for its own actions and sins. And we as men and woman are not absolved from our own culpability simply because millions vote alongside us.

No, when God "judges the Nations" we are often one of those nations. I am not speaking of any natural disaster (for that is what they are) but rather accountability.

Berger in Part 2 tomorrow.

posted by Obi-Mac BakDon @ 7:02 AM