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Query:

I have been studying natural law for my master’s thesis, but so far I haven’t been able to see how to answer the following objection which has been thrown at me.  It runs like this.  Given the implications of deconstructionism and the “linguistic turn,” what one person or culture means by “life,” “nature,” or “human flourishing” is not the same thing that another person (or culture) means when he uses those terms.  They both play by independent rules, given their respective language games, and so they are separated by a chasm that can’t be bridged.  Ergo, natural law is rendered linguistically effete.

Reply:

What would you think if your dog had eaten some garbage, was throwing up, and just as you were about to take him to the vet, someone spoke like this? –

Given the implications of the linguistic turn and deconstructionism, what one person or culture means by “dog,” “garbage,” and “throwing up” are not the same thing that another person or culture means when it uses those terms.  Each plays by independent rules, given his respective language game, and therefore are separated by a chasm that can’t be bridged.  Ergo, veterinary medicine is rendered linguistically meaningless.

Or if you had decided to overcome your fear of flying and take an airplane to a different location, and just as you were about to book the flight, someone spoke like this? –

Given the implications of the linguistic turn and deconstructionism, what one person or culture means by “fear,” “flying,” “location,” and “not falling” are not the same thing that another person or culture means when it uses those terms.  Each plays by independent rules, given his respective language game, and therefore are separated by a chasm that can’t be bridged.  Ergo, the practice of air travel is rendered linguistically meaningless.

Reality is the way it is, and we all live in the same one.  If we are using words differently, then we should investigate which way of using them corresponds better to how things really are.  Yes, of course there are social conventions, but there must be some shared world even for there to be social conventions; there has to be some bedrock reality even for us to behave differently in it, or disagree about it.

Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking Glass before the deconstructionists of whom you speak came onto the scene, but a little parable of his had them pegged.  What they want isn’t to live in the truth of reality with other people, but to manipulate them:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Related: What’s Wrong with Universities?

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Gentle Readers,

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In October, a conference on “Christianity and the Common Good” was held at Harvard Law School.  My own talk at the conference, “Faith, Natural Law, and the Common Good,” is now available for viewing, and has been added to the Underground Thomist Talks Page.  If you prefer, just listen to the audio.  I hope you enjoy it! 

The conference was sponsored by Harvard’s chapter of an excellent organization called the Thomistic Institute, with the help of Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule.  The Thomistic Institute is an initiative of the Dominican House of Studies.  Students, why not establish a chapter of the Thomistic Institute at your own university?

If you should chance to be near Oxford University on Saturday, March 2, I'll be giving one of the talks at the Annual Aquinas Colloquium, which is about “Aquinas on the Development of Law” this year.  The other speakers are Ryan Meade (Loyola University, Chicago), Jonathan Price (Oxford University), and Richard Conrad, OP (Aquinas Institute).

In studying Old Testament law, I am repeatedly struck by the fact that often what seems weird and obsolescent is not only realistic but very up to date.  Deuteronomy commands the Hebrew people as follows:

“When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.  There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.  For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord; and because of these abominable practices the Lord your God is driving them out before you.”

It would be unwise to consider ourselves above all that weirdness.  Although we no longer sacrifice our sons and daughters by fire to the gods of fertility, we sacrifice them by knives to the gods of sterility.  As to the rest of the practices mentioned, it is immaterial to the validity of the precept whether people can really tell the future, speak to the dead, or cast evil spells.  Those who think they can – both practitioners and clients – do a great deal of harm even in the present life.  Moreover, they are ruining not only their own souls but also those of others, by promulgating false beliefs such as the omnipotence of fate and the associated denial of personal responsibility.  Their purpose is to gain favors, or attain mastery, by placating false gods, conniving with evil powers, and perverting the course of nature.

Do you think I exaggerate?  Curiously, the high-tech forms which charms and wizardry sometimes take today are not usually recognized for what they are.  A person who ingests hallucinogens because they make him feel divine, more than human, or in touch with another world, is really practicing what used to be called mediumistic sorcery.  Similarly, a man who uses the “date rape” drug Rohypnol to induce a woman’s sexual compliance is employing what used to be called a love philtre.  The authentic means of contacting divinity are to pray and practice charity, and of cultivating love, to be kind and chaste.

Gentle Readers:  I’m glad to say that you can now watch the video of my talk, “What Makes Men Men?”, as well as the videos of the other speakers’ talks at the October 2018 conference “Patriarchy: Fatherhood and the Restoration of Culture.”  I enjoyed listening to them all.

If you’d like to see what else is new, you can mosey on over to the Underground Thomist Talks page.

In the generation of Burke and Kant, people who thought about art were fascinated by the fact that beauty does not exhaust the range of aesthetic values.  Something is beautiful, they said, if it evokes admiration because of its grace of form and color, but it is sublime if it excites awe because of the vastness or mystery of its object.  An object can be beautiful without being sublime, and sublime without being beautiful.  In fact, an object which is sublime may even include elements of the jarring or grotesque, which are opposed to beauty in themselves.  A painting of the crucifixion in which Jesus does not seem to suffer does not awe.

Already things are becoming complicated, but even beauty and sublimity together are far from exhausting the qualities that people look for in a work of art.  I am not here thinking of attractions which are separable from the work, such as how much its great expense will delight my friends or how well its color scheme blends in with the rest of my decor.  Rather I am speaking of attractions which are intrinsic to the work itself, those it would possess even if it I had picked it up cheap at a garage sale and it looked out of place in my house.

It might be neither beautiful nor sublime, but intriguing.  It might be none of these things, but faithful to its object.  It might call my attention to something I had not thought of before.  It might catch or fool the eye.  It might suggest an episode in a story, or convey a lesson.  It might symbolize a concept.  It might excite admiration because of the labor which went into its composition.  It might evoke a mood, such as boredom, a philosophy, such as nihilism, or a psychological state, such as obsession.  It might call up a whisper of memory.  It might challenge, comfort, or irritate.  It might build up, or it might inflict damage and harm.  It might signal that the maker holds one of the currently fashionable views (or, more rarely, that he doesn’t).  It might do nothing more than express his attitude toward himself, other people, God, or the viewer, in the manner of a joke, a prayer, a sob, a sin, or a curse.

Such qualities have always been present in art.  The difference is that now they are at the center of the enterprise.  Mind you, though I could do without some of them, I am not at the moment passing judgment on all of them, but only pointing them out.  I am not one of those who hate all modernist art, though much of it leaves me cold.  It is often interesting -- even though it is not often what I would call beautiful.

I used to be puzzled by those who protested, “No, it is beautiful.”  But people who speak that way are not usually speaking of beauty per se.  They are merely using the term “beauty” as a lazy label for all of the things some people look for in art.  Where I might say that a given painting is mesmerizing, playful, ugly, or obscene, but not beautiful, they would call it beautiful because it is mesmerizing, playful, ugly, or obscene.

So, I think much of the appeal of modernist art for those who do fancy it arises not from the fact that they see something beautiful (or sublime) that other ages would have missed, but that, for better or for worse, some other quality than beauty or sublimity appeals to them much, much more.