Extreme Safety, the Death of Civilizations

Tacitus, (56-120 AD) the Great Latin Silver Age Historian and keen observer of human nature, never lacked for quips about politics and war, because it is in both those fields that the sublimity and depravity of human nature are on full display.

When describing the fall of the Roman Emperor Nero in his Annals, Tacitus makes a curious remark about that pretentious and vicious Emperor who would end the line of the Julio-Claudians. He said, “nisi impunitatis cupido retinuisset, magnis semper conatibus adversa.” Literally, “unless the desire for impunity restrained [him], [which is] always adverse to great endeavors.” Since this observation is usually quoted as a fragment from the original, many translate it as a full sentence: “The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”

However, I enjoy the depth of the original Latin, since what Tacitus picks up is this cupido inpunitatis. “Cupido” means far more than “desire”, and “impunitas” means far more then “safety”. Of course, “cupido”, is akin to the word for Cupid, the Greek God of desire. Although Tacitus doubtlessly would not have applied a Christian moral analysis to his own words, in our own theology, cupiditas is a word well enshrined in the Augustinian Tradition, as he tried to examine the human condition under the reign of concupiscence (once again, a word tied to “cupio”, or desire). Borrowing from St. John’s First Epistle, we have always clearly identified three primary manifestations of conscupiscence: that of the flesh, of the eyes, and of the pride of life (1 John 2:16).

What Tactius observes as a personal human flaw in leaders, and in this case Nero, can in my opinion be easily be applied to many men and women who pose as a true leaders, yet in fact are not. As a result of this lack of leadership, conditions of extreme instability come to prevail, in spite of attempts from the ‘centers’ of power pushing for at least pro-forma adherence to the norms of law and society. Notice how Tacitus literally doesn’t say that “love of safety stands against greatness,” but the “desire for impunity”; that is, to do what one wants, but to insulate oneself from risk or possible punishment. It is the desire to appear to be a leader, while being in fact a coward at worst, and inconsequential at best, which is so destructive.

As I mentioned before in my article last month on ‘Rosh Gadol‘, it is the extreme desire for ‘security’ which, when wedded to a more unscrupulous heart and mind, is in fact a desire for control. As. C.S. Lewis observed almost a century ago in his The Abolition of Man, our culture has been creating and promoting a ruling class which is made of “men without chests.” Although some may object to C.S. Lewis’ language, I believe the language is apt, because I believe the crisis acutely belongs to biological men. Over and above the incessant commercials, TV sitcoms and other media which portray men as hopeless incompetents and sub-par partners and caregivers, Western Men in particular have borne the brunt of a process of what I would call a “flight to safety”: instead of the centuries-old method of leading men (and women) out of the crib and into society, today we encounter the near terminal phase of this process of the near-permanent infantalization of the adult world.

The Pandemic is one of those rare global moments, those ‘mini-judgments’ I mentioned before, where, quidquid latet, apparebit: all that has been hidden will be revealed. Firstly, it has revealed the fragility of our global financial system. Secondly, it has revealed the fragility of human life, even though we have spent almost half a century reveling in the apparent triumph over our microbial adversaries. Thirdly, it has revealed how our culture is completely submerged in the ‘risk mitigation’ mentality, and that there are monomaniacs so obsessed with the idea of the mere possibility of spreading this disease that they see a complicated societal issue as a simple one. In this way, we hear and read silly and unfair statements like ‘preferring the DOW Jones to Grandma’s life’, or other such hysterical language.

I am not an epidemiologist or a medical doctor, but I do think I am qualified to make a human observation about what the Pandemic has shown about us. I think it first drives home a key point from Noam Chomsky’s 2002 work Manufacturing Consent: The Media is the new Priesthood of the Contemporary Age. Before, Priests performed largely that role, by interpreting the “signs of the times” and making practical suggestions to regular people and the powerful alike. Sometimes these suggestions were conveniently in support of what powerful people wanted, but also common were times when Priests and Prophets defied their would-be patrons and condemned all sorts of sins. Of course, the Church worldwide historically has had to fight vigorously against becoming an organ of the state, rather than a voice which represents the commandments of Christ and the Natural Law. Sometimes we succeeded at this task, and other times we have failed. Some may disagree with the assertion, but in a pluralistic society, given the choice between being a free voice and an enfranchised voice, the former seems best, but it also carries with it great danger: we have no one to blame but ourselves if our moral authority collapses.

What the anti-culture has done in the meantime is ingenious, by effectively moving the interpretative center of our history away from metaphysics, and toward politics, and the chief handmaiden of politics: economics. The proliferation of technocrats in government (their name is legion) is one manifestation of this. The ideological weaponization of what has been called the “education-entertainment complex” is another.

I would love to see a serious study done on the major global news networks. I think we should make some telling questions: who runs them, financially and personally? What is typically the ‘average’ political slant of their news coverage? From which universities, hospitals, think tanks and advocacy groups do they routinely source their data, or provide talking heads to ‘inform the public’?

Many want to interpret the Pandemic under several dualistic, Manichean interpretative keys, such as: Liberal vs. Conservative, Science vs. Anti-Science (for many liberal journalists, these two dichotomies amount to the same thing), Rich vs. Poor, Educated vs. Uneducated, Capital vs. Labour, etc.

What all of these analyses miss, in my opinion, is something even far more systemic: the evaporation of risk appetite in the West. In other words, I see this mostly as a conflict between Security vs. Risk, or Fear vs. Courage. When Covid-19 was fresh out of China, and with all our data proceeding from a country’s whose government is as repressive as it is mendacious, I think many Western Governments decided to act with maximum caution. All these slogans we hear with almost nauseating regularity: “flatten the curve”, “masks save lives” and “we stay apart so we can stay together”, are all simply covers for one fundamental instinct: follow all government mandates to this putative end: to save as many lives as possible and to preserve the health care system from collapse. Certainly it belongs to a healthy polity to have a basic trust in its governing institutions, but there was something very disingenuous in Lexus and Boeing telling me they are “here for me”, when they haven’t personally done for me a blessed thing in decades.

Studies across the United States and the world are confirming what some epidemiologists have been saying for months: far more people have been infected with the coronavirus than testing can see, and that by orders of magnitude. This implies the real fatality rate outside of nursing homes is extremely low.

But even if the mortality rate was as high as the WHO initially projected, to the scale of 1-3%, how much could reasonably be done by the average citizen, and for how long, until they were reduced to absolute penury? Medical professionals never cease to tell us (rightly) that they are the experts in their field. But in this horrific age of over-compartmentalization in human knowledge and human government, where are the economists or other leaders telling the medical professionals that they, too, may be reaching the limits of their professional competence?

I am also increasingly disgusted by how dismissive and truly bourgeois the white-collar middle class and upper class are toward most of society. We saw this phenomenon in 2009. On social media, multi-millionaires complain about the boredom in quarantine (Ellen DeGeneres is probably the most egregious example), comparing her multi-million dollar luxury estate with infinity pool to a “jail”. Meanwhile, millions live in poverty and are at serious risk of losing their homes, and this will come firstly from those who rent homes, and can no longer make monthly payments. This isn’t to mention the surge in physical and sexual abuse, and mental illness.

Of course, I have to circle around and take a look at the only Global Institution which transcends yet contains all these world events: the Catholic Church. Let me first say that risk management is not a bad thing. Who doesn’t want protection for one’s house, health, or other asset, in the event of something tragic occurring? Any organization’s resources are finite, after all (except, seemingly, the Federal Reserve).

The Church, too, in terms of worldly possessions, has finite, albeit considerable resources. Our best non-spiritual resource, in my estimation, are our committed people, including our Priests. That is, the people who live the faith everyday as best they can, trying to build that “Civilization of Love” to which St. Pope John Paul II called us.

As I wrote in my essay “Prudence in a Panic”, I understand and even sympathize with why our Bishops robustly cooperated with civil authorities to suspend public services until such as a time as the pandemic should pass. But how long can that possibly be? Three months? Nine? Eighteen? Meanwhile, great damage is being done to the regular faithful. It takes great faith to practice it without other Christians, because Christianity is not a religion meant to be practiced in solitary confinement, so to speak. The Body of Christ, both mystically and sacramentally, is hugely important. Yet I believe some of our Ecclesiasical Leaders are now seeing the tragic results of being too risk-adverse all at the time. It’s a providential irony of epochal proportions: we made settlement funds because lawyers told us it would reduce our liabilities: now most dioceses can’t afford to withstand the deluge. We sold huge swaths of our historical patrimony or redirected funds generously provided by donors for a specific purpose, and now find ourselves more in the red than before. We thought we could manage our decline by more accounting tricks and demographic studies, and have largely now caused more systemic instability, like the rot of one tree being grafted onto another. A perfect storm is coming via sex-abuse related settlements, reduced assessments, and economic collapse which may bring the institution to its knees. We have tried now for twenty years to set the ship aright, plugging leaks and giving new paint jobs: but the ship of the Church is still being lacerated by the iceberg. Risk management and the desperate search for security is going to be our ruin.

Other journalists and geopolitical consultants have noticed, like Peggy Noonan or Peter Zeihan, that what we are suffering from most all across the board is a critical deficit of leadership. Should it surprise the average American that Governor Andrew Cuomo enjoys sky-high ratings across the country because of the way he professionally, calmly and (dare I say?) presidentially handled the epicenter of the pandemic in his own state? I loathe Governor Cuomo’s politics and social beliefs. But I cannot help but express admiration for his gravitas. He seemed to be one of a very few who seemed to be acting in response to this crisis, and not merely managing or reacting to it.

The Pandemic is also helping us see what are two counterfeit manifestations of leadership: assigning undue blame to one’s subordinates, and retreat from reality, which really is another way of saying abdication from responsibility. As much as I have admittedly always had sympathy for Trump, precisely because he was the consummate “Anti-Technocrat”, now I believe that there is only true hope for the Church and the World: education, in its fullest sense. Technocrats cannot be defeated by autocrats, but by ‘Sophocrats’: that is, those who rule themselves by wisdom, and not just technical or procedural proficiency. I do not mean the education which is actually political and anthropological indoctrination forced on children and young adults in government schools, but a true classical education which inculcates character and a bent of mind which is both critical and creative, illuminated by the greatest treasures of faith and reason, our common heritage.

The Technocrat, who is the apotheosis of the bureaucrat, basically is given freedom to control government because he or she is considered an “expert”, and we need “experts” to continue the status quo. I would argue that many Churchmen are themselves Technocrats of a stripe: how can we uphold the old institutional order, even as its inner reality is evaporating before our very eyes.

For centuries, Christians and even Pagans lived with the daily knowledge that life is short and uncertain. None of us are getting out of here alive. Yet we are given a choice whether we want to be noble and good, or debased and wicked. There is simply no way to “hedge” the basic experience of the struggle for human excellence. No matter how much we may pass this responsibility to psychiatrists, entertainers and entrepreneurs, the need for personal engagement in the warfare of life remains.

To finish this thought, it also follows that we have tended to take a huge amount of spiritual things for granted. Daily Reception of Holy Communion, although in theory praiseworthy, is a novelty in the 20th century. I rejoice at its diminution, if only because so few make worthy communions. We became used to Churches on every corner, and multiple Priests in every rectory. This Church is completely dead, and probably will never return in our lifetimes. God is showing us in the social and the ecclesiastical spheres via this Pandemic and its attendant crisis that there are absolutely no substitutes for two things: courage, and faith. For all risks cannot be mitigated, and all doubts cannot be extinguished.

The virtues and the dangers must coexist, even when decisions are difficult: because the only other alternative is death.

A few weeks ago I had a Zoom Meeting with the woman of one of the couples I married in the past few years. They both have become very close to me. A perennial topic now, as people marry older, is about when they need to start having children, if indeed they can. This pandemic has made the anxiety worse for many well-meaning couples. I had to remind them, “There is no perfect time to have a child. You try to save up what you can, you try to prepare as you are able, but then it’s time to try and see where God takes you.”

I believe on some level that conversation encapsulates everything that is wrong with the Western World today. We want everything “just perfect”, which is another way of saying we want total control, we want no risk, we want to be demigods or masters of space and time. But we are not. And perhaps I was wrong. The result of not failing to engage in risk and danger is not death, but sterility. Because death can only destroy a living thing. Sterility is a future that never can come to pass at all, because in the past, it was prejudged unfit to be.