Hi. This section of Pieper’s essay The Christian Idea of Man deals with “Discipline and Moderation.”
At the end of the video I’ll show you the skull that I keep here on my desk.
The overall theme of this section is that moderation
is overemphasized in our modern ranking of the virtues.
To understand why, we should recognize that as a virtue, moderation requires a certain
background theory of human nature. We must conceive of the possibility
of the lower powers of the soul rebelling against their control by our spirit.
This rebellion is repugnant to man’s being, and is ultimately made
possible by original sin, which deprives us of the natural inner order of our souls.
Now, modern philosophies, to the extent they hold that man is naturally good,
deny this background. So the virtue of moderation is more or less unintelligible to them.
The problem is made worse by the modern Christian reaction:
to emphasize the practice of moderation all the more strongly, without building up the needed
anthropological background at the same time. This emphasis on controlling the lower
powers of the soul has led to a version of “moderation” becoming, in the secular mind,
synonymous with Christian faith: Christians are those people who insist on sexual self-discipline.
And there is distortion also in the mind of modern Christians. They tend to think
moderation is the chief difference between the church and the world, and our main critique of
modern culture. Pieper points out that courage or justice could as easily play this role.
Moderation is most private of the virtues, in that it deals with individual-to-individual
conduct. For this reason, classical theology puts it last among virtues,
after the more socially integrated virtues of justice, courage, etc.
By making the “private” virtue of moderation the first and most “Christian” virtue,
modern Christians cooperate in and reflect liberalism’s privatization of the ethical.
Moderation is a very good and necessary virtue, Pieper says, but overvaluing it
leads to a number of other harmful consequences. First, it contributes to the modern identification
of “morality” with sexual self-control, and little else. Combined with a moralistic idea of the good,
this prioritization of moderation also furthers the separation of doing from being
in modern ethical thought. When we think of moderation
in terms of doing or abstaining from certain actions, we risk losing sight of the need to *be*
a certain sort of person. Not “I must not do X,” but rather “I should become the sort of person
who does not do X and does not want to do X.” This latter requires the richer anthropology of
lower powers obeying the control of higher powers within the self. It also requires
an ethical system of training and shaping the lower powers to be obedient to internal control.
Overemphasizing moderation also gives us a distorted view of moral exemplars,
especially religious exemplars of purity like Mary the Mother of God.
With the result, Pieper writes, “that these figures have not remained present
in the general Christian consciousness in the full richness of their reality.”
Pieper notes that the title “Immaculata” refers to more than Mary’s chastity:
it refers to the fullness of being and grace given to her from the beginning,
and her perfect configuration to God. There is more than moderation here.
A third negative effect of overvaluing moderation relative to other virtues is its effect on our
language and thought regarding bodily desires. Words like “passion, desire, sensuality,”
have acquired a negative connotation, as though they are by nature sinful or at least suspicious,
at odds with our choosing the good. We tend to assume that “desire” means “sinful
desire” and “passion” means “evil passion,” when the truth is that desires and passions are morally
neutral, and can be configured to the good. In other words, we lose our grasp of all the
ways the life of the senses is related to the life of virtue.
To illustrate this problem, Pieper ends this section by examining Aquinas’ recommended
cures for “sadness of the soul.” Perhaps surprisingly to us moderns,
Thomas’ solutions to sadness in the soul are primarily sensual: 1. Any kind of pleasure,
2. Tears, 3. Sympathy of friends, 4. Contemplating the truth, 5. Sleep and a bath.
The life of the bodily senses is so profoundly connected with the life of virtue that Thomas
does not hesitate, in a work on theology, to recommend natural and sensual solutions to a
spiritual problem. We should understand the value of moderation in that light.
That brings us to the end of the section. The next, penultimate,
section is about the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. We’ll discuss it next week.
And now let me show you the skull that I keep on my desk. This is the skull of an animal,
that my kids and I found on a walk in the park behind our house some years ago, and I've kept
it on the third shelf up above the camera of this desk for a long time. And here it is.
I don't know what kind of animal it is; I presume a predator from the remaining
fang. A fairly small head and skull and brain. So if you know whether it's a fox or some other kind
of small cat or creature, I'd appreciate your letting me know in the comments.
But this is my memento mori, my animal skull that I keep on the desk
here in my home office. That's all for right now. Thanks for watching today; goodbye.