Two Tales of a Well

You would think that the world would be a kinder, fairer place with the advance of modernism. But it's not. The scientific outlook has transformed cultural assumptions about personhood to eradicate the notion of justice. The unit of the post-modern world is not the family, but the individual; and not the individual in a family, but what that individual determines they should be, regardless of societal considerations. Therefore, people in authority are free to determine the worth of any one or all individuals under their power, depending on the goals and standards they establish for themselves. And those goals, more likely than not, are self-serving, because modernism is built for the self. It was created and established by popular acclaim, in order to break apart ruling systems and allow the individual opportunity to choose.

Choice is everything, but the goal of modernism was never to choose against justice or the dignity of the person or the family. Modernism was able to leverage the written word, the arts, and the power of the vote to leverage for civil rights, to loosen the grip of authoritarian rule. By the grace of modernism, power has been made to listen. By the scourge of modernism, power has found new means to assert itself and lose nothing of its control in the bargain.

Power resides in property. The king rules the land, the plutocrat his factory. But whereas kings and plutocrats can be overthrown by one or another means, we have not found the means to tame or control our worst inclinations, our determination to seek our own ends, regardless of societal considerations. The drive for personal profit in society has never been so profound. Profound in the sense of deep and abiding, and unquestioned. While worker's salaries have flat-lined for decades, the salaries of executives have gone through the roof. The disparity between the rich and the poor has never been wider, more clear, more telling. We can talk about recycling, gun control, racial injustice, and gender issues until we're blue in the face, but at the end of the day power resides in property, and until a good many more individuals own land and the means of production, nothing of import will change.

Small changes can occur of course - and we thank you for that - but there is nothing a capitalist won't do to make money off what you believe in and, in so doing, remain in control of the message and the means of telling it. Their justification is that's the way the world works. And they are right. That is the way the world works, but that does not make it just.

Imagine you live in a tiny remote village with your family and, let's say, another 20 or so families. The region is in a drought and, while there is plenty of grain in store, the only supply of water is the village well. Everyone takes only what they need from the well so that others have enough. But you think you want more, and you justify this thinking that if you had more water, your family would not merely surviving, but comfortable. And if they are comfortable, they can do more for themselves and be happy, and isn't that the goal of life? So you take your ration of water during the day along with everyone else, smiling at your neighbors, helping an old woman carry her bucket to show what a great guy you are, and then at night you sneak out to take some more. A bucket to start, a coupe then a few buckets as the days pass, for no one has said anything and you sleep fine. Obviously this is a great idea. Besides, the drought can't last forever; it's bound to rain eventually.

But it doesn't rain. And so the water in the well decreases, the level drawing lower and lower. People reduce the amount they take, holding to the quaint notion of personal sacrifice for the good of all. They get thinner and thinner, eyes downcast. All activity in the village has ceased except what is necessary to live. But your family is fine. You too walk around with eyes downcast, but your hut is the only one where there is talk and laughter, and even the flowers in the garden still bloom, strangely enough. But the other villagers do not rebel or castigate you. They know by now, to be sure, at least the clever ones do, but no one goes out of there way to show that they know. In fact, there is even a kind of respect. After all, you have succeeded where they failed. You broke the rules, true, but you did it for your family. Who else if there to rule the village and make decisions? You take over that role, humbly, and set to things with a will. Now perhaps there is another village about 20 miles away where they have water, you have heard. Plenty of water. And even if they are in short supply, aren't the needs of your village and family equal to theirs? All you need is a dozen or so men armed with spears, just in case. Now, who will join me, you ask, and one by one hands are raised in the air.

I think I have painted a pretty fair portrait of the successful, modern capitalist, a person who has simply taken the principal lessons of modernism and applied it to their own actions: only science is true and one is accountable only to one's conscience. Of course, the notion that you can rely on your conscience when you have discounted or discarded all ethical or religious guidelines an absurd one. The conscience, in that case, does not really exist. It has nothing to grab hold of. It acts merely as a form of initial reaction which, through time and repetition, can be put to rest. Some matters - murder, for example - will appall you, and you will pat your conscience on the back accordingly. But the level of water in a well? Who can say what right is? You would never dream of telling someone else what to do, so why should they care....

You might think that the underlying purpose of this blog, OpenCatholic, is to evangelize, to help people to find God, and you would be right, but only partially. If I had the space to say what people should do - oh look, here it is! - I would say it is not enough to embrace Christ but you must, must, must put aside the world as it is. You cannot be a faithful Christian and a loyal Republican. You cannot be a faithful Christian and a loyal Democrat. You cannot be a faithful Christian and a Capitalist. Not in our era, not in the modern or post-modern sense, because politics and capitalism hold no sense of justice in the Christian sense. There is no thread in the scientific, empirical, materialist, modern school of thought that can mold a person and a society to be not only willing to sacrifice oneself for the good of all, but to understand that such a sacrifice is necessary and required. Indeed, sacrifice is not what makes us merely human, but good people. One does not get to pick and choose. The day is today, the time is now to serve. Right now. And anything you do right now that is contrary to your calling as a Christian is a sin, period. So fight for the individual and their rights - but as members of a family, or a human society. And never stop fighting for just power, for your just amount of property.

We must accomplish more than words can say if we are to overcome the injustices of this age.

That's how you build up your conscience. It takes practice. It takes work. It's hard not to go out at might and take more water for the well, but you tell yourself you would rather die than do such a thing. It would be better if you and your family died doing the right thing than if you betrayed them under the guise of benefiting them (and yourself). No, you will not take water from the well tonight, or any other night. In fact, you will go out and guard the well, for who knows but that someone else, someone feeling weak, might not conceive the idea of taking more water then is their share? There is no need to take your spear. If you see someone coming to the well at night you can greet them and say, "Ah! I couldn't sleep so I thought I would go for a stroll. Isn't it a lovely night? And they may stammer and say, "Yes, yes, it is. It is a lovely night, after all."