My karate studio is having a black belt test next month, and so I have had some time to think about rank and related topics a bit more lately. There is a certain authority associated with the achievement that students often abuse.
While it is easy for people to understand that a black belt symbolizes a certain dedication to the art and understanding of it, it is considerably more difficult for them to regard it as a symbol of service. This is because the pursuit of rank is usually motivated by the desire to rule, not to serve.
But the pursuit is made objectively worthy by those who contributed an objective good to it. If all black belts were rapists, it is unlikely that anyone worth knowing would aspire to the rank. (It's not like anyone really wanted Cobra Kai to win.) Fortunately, most black belts aren't rapists, and many really and truly do serve those around them.
It is authority used in service that makes rank effective. Were I able to communicate more effectively the notion that rank is to be served, not to serve, perhaps the world could be a better place. Examples of the perversion of sovereignty litter the news daily.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Saturday, June 3, 2006
Relationships
I am quite tired, but I have been in the mood to get things done this evening. I had a conversation with an old friend tonight after a movie; the norm for our conversations is that they're relatively long, and this was no exception.
I summarize, for both our sakes. I think we arrived at the conclusion that the old adage "Love your neighbor as yourself" requires a certain extrinsic outlook. There are two interesting things to note about the phrase: the first is that it requires self love, and the second, that unless you love others, you don't love yourself.
The genesis of our discussion was that my friend's cousin said that he would never die for his wife; he loved himself too much for that. It is not particularly surprising to find that my friend's cousin has a reputation for putting others down to exalt himself—his relationships suffer through respecting his own life overmuch.
Because his outlook is narcissitic and introverted, he is unable to love others or himself; his self-love isolates him and leaves him unhappy, which is precisely the result he would avoid if his pride didn't get in the way. (You may, of course, substitute me in this paragraph; I am surely guilty.)
The connection of pride and misguided self-love is not accidental. Lewis talks of appropriate pride, which is the natural reward of the task. It is not wrong to take pride in compliments, as a child does when his father congratulates him on a job well done. It is the "natural reward" of doing the job well.
But there is a pride which motivates self-sufficiency and suppresses the need for the natural reward of pleasing another person. In self-obsession, it isolates man from his peers and destroys his ability to relate to others; it is an inability to admit a need for friendship and companionship, to be interdependent. It is a negative pride that eliminates the positive (and Good) pride.
It is precisely the answer of the cynic to those who are in love or who love at all, because love expects the natural rewards of a relationship, as a man pursues marriage rather than sex or a child the approval of his parents rather than their scorn.
I summarize, for both our sakes. I think we arrived at the conclusion that the old adage "Love your neighbor as yourself" requires a certain extrinsic outlook. There are two interesting things to note about the phrase: the first is that it requires self love, and the second, that unless you love others, you don't love yourself.
The genesis of our discussion was that my friend's cousin said that he would never die for his wife; he loved himself too much for that. It is not particularly surprising to find that my friend's cousin has a reputation for putting others down to exalt himself—his relationships suffer through respecting his own life overmuch.
Because his outlook is narcissitic and introverted, he is unable to love others or himself; his self-love isolates him and leaves him unhappy, which is precisely the result he would avoid if his pride didn't get in the way. (You may, of course, substitute me in this paragraph; I am surely guilty.)
The connection of pride and misguided self-love is not accidental. Lewis talks of appropriate pride, which is the natural reward of the task. It is not wrong to take pride in compliments, as a child does when his father congratulates him on a job well done. It is the "natural reward" of doing the job well.
But there is a pride which motivates self-sufficiency and suppresses the need for the natural reward of pleasing another person. In self-obsession, it isolates man from his peers and destroys his ability to relate to others; it is an inability to admit a need for friendship and companionship, to be interdependent. It is a negative pride that eliminates the positive (and Good) pride.
It is precisely the answer of the cynic to those who are in love or who love at all, because love expects the natural rewards of a relationship, as a man pursues marriage rather than sex or a child the approval of his parents rather than their scorn.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
The Problem of History
It's interesting how much our perception of history seems to have changed over the years. The latest indication, I think, is probably The Da Vinci Code. The book is fictional, of course, but that hasn't stopped two things: (1) People thinking that it might not be, and (2) the church from getting rather upset about it.
Now I can't claim to be an historian by any stretch of the imagination. But the reason the first point is frightening is because the book is not very historical or factual in many of its main points (ignoring, for example, more likely reasons for the Council of Nicea, Gnostic elements of the Gnostic gospels, and the fact that the Priory of Sion started in 1956).
What is disturbing is that evidently some people are willing to believe that the book is historical without examining history to arrive at their own conclusions. This is the thrust of the conspiracy theory, though—that history is unreliably reported. There is no longer a solid, reasonable foundation for making conclusions about the past.
The result is that we start molding the past, present, and even future, to our own liking, disregarding objective fact. We lose perspective, passion, and hope (for history teaches us to hope), courting instead brainless hypotheses.
Now I can't claim to be an historian by any stretch of the imagination. But the reason the first point is frightening is because the book is not very historical or factual in many of its main points (ignoring, for example, more likely reasons for the Council of Nicea, Gnostic elements of the Gnostic gospels, and the fact that the Priory of Sion started in 1956).
What is disturbing is that evidently some people are willing to believe that the book is historical without examining history to arrive at their own conclusions. This is the thrust of the conspiracy theory, though—that history is unreliably reported. There is no longer a solid, reasonable foundation for making conclusions about the past.
The result is that we start molding the past, present, and even future, to our own liking, disregarding objective fact. We lose perspective, passion, and hope (for history teaches us to hope), courting instead brainless hypotheses.
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