MM#357--Foundations in Flourishing, pt 4 - Why Virtue?

0:07 Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, david Kaiser. Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute Into another in our series on the foundations in flourishing. Now, today's episode is going to be quite controversial because the world doesn't like to be pushed back on, and we will challenge how to exactly flourish in the world, and we'll do so by choosing virtues over values.

0:55 You see, values in today's world is that wonderful, all-encompassing term that allows everything to be accepted, about everything, for everybody, through everything, about all things. That was my Kamala Harris interpretation. That wasn't a word salad, I'm not sure what is, but don't you value the good? And most people would say yes, of course. Well, you can replace the values of anyone with anything when you use the word value. But when you start talking about pursuing the good with virtues, well, the virtues are quite specific and they're quite defined.

1:45 For some 2,500 years, human history tells us that whole cultures and societies know the virtues. So today's episode will be controversial for sure, but we have been down that road before. Please check out Mojo Minute's 335, a Sound Spiritual Life is Found in the Virtues. 334, choosing Virtues Over Values to Parent Champions. Mojo Minute 240, the War of Virtue and Mojo Minute 96, virtues and Vices. I'll put links in the show notes for all of those Mojo Minute episodes.

2:28 But today we're going to go deeper and link virtues with the flourishing life and we will cement for all time why virtues are better than values and why, frankly, unless we pursue a life of virtue versus a life of values, we will almost always fail to build that flourishing life. Values are just that empty, that empty of a vessel. We have to choose virtues. It's super critical. Choosing the virtuous life will bring clarity to a very, very dark world that we live in.

3:13 Choosing the virtuous life will ultimately lead toward your creator and, even though the world doesn't like to talk about that, that will bring you the most happiness on this side of eternity. And choosing the virtuous life as your foundation, you will begin to work with your creator, not against him, and frankly, that makes all the difference. That makes all the difference in building a flourishing life. I just read an incredible statistic the other day in the news. Happiness levels among adults are at all-time lows, and this is even after the COVID pandemic has gone away and receded seated Now.

4:01 Normally, most research on happiness levels sees a downturn during major events, catastrophic events in cultures and countries, such as wars or pandemics, and everyone can understand that. But now, since the COVID pandemic has been lifted and that's happened for the better part of two years now, happiness levels among adults are still simmering way below the 2018 levels and as we go back, they're lower than all the way back in 1976. Now the wording of the question in this general survey was this quote taken all together, how would you say things are these days?

4:50 Would you say that you are very happy, please rate that as a number three. You're pretty happy, please rate that as a number two. And you're not too happy? Please rate that as a number one. So again, very happy, number three, pretty happy, number two and not too happy, please rate that as a number one. So again, very happy, number three, pretty happy, number two and not too happy. Number one. And more adults than before 1976 are rating a number one on average. Again, that's below 2018 numbers and while we did see a rise all the way back to 1993, this running average is showing a slow and steady decline from that peak of 1993.

5:31 And that was on the rise all the way back from 1976. So we have slipped below 1976 levels 76 levels and I would propose for roughly about the last two to three decades we have seen a culture that has slowly with frog in the water pan, uh, while the hot water is being turned up slowly, we have seen the culture turn darker and darker, much darker, where now people just know in their bones that something isn't right. They just know that something is off.

6:13 And that is where we want to try to help people. We want to help to build their lives, we want to help build their flourishing life. But before we ask how to do that, how do you build a life on the virtues, let's go to our book of the day. And this book of the day is actually quite fascinating because it was written all the way back in the late 1990s, so still in the 20th century. You have an advance to the 21st century and the foreword is actually written by a wonderful conservative gentleman by the name of Russell Kirk.

6:55 Some of you folks will know him, russell Kirk. Some of you folks will know him, but Russell Kirk did a foreword before he passed on to a book called Back to Virtue by Peter Kreeft. And again, it was written in the late 1990s. We're just going to pull a couple of these quotes because it illuminates where we are at today, some three decades later. So let's go to the book for our first pull quote later. So let's go to the book for our first pull quote. Can virtue be taught? That question of the fifth century before Christ looms gigantic again near the end of the 20th century of the Christian era. Peter Kreef, who perceives much about life and death, aspires to teach us about virtues, both classical and theological.

7:42 He does not aspire to teach us about values. Praise be as he puts it. Values are like thoughts, like ghosts undulating blobs of psychic energy. The positivistic sociologist would reduce our moral order to personal preferences called values. Later on we read this In its classical signification, virtue means the power of anything to accomplish its specific function, a property capable of producing certain effects strength, force, potency. Also, the word virtue implies a mysterious energetic power, as in the gospel according to Mark, jesus immediately, knowing that virtue had gone out of him, turned about in the press and said who touched my clothes?

8:39 That was Mark. 5, 30. Now presently, virtue also signifies moral goodness, the practice of moral duties and the conformity of one's life to moral law, uprightness and rectitude. It carries with it a strong suggestion of public leadership. Peter Kreef reminds us that ethics without virtue is illusion. He is moved by the Christian perception that virtue is the fruit of faith. Therefore, he does not hesitate to draw the sword of faith and then sound the horn of virtue, rallying us to join the battle as to sound of the trumpet of war on behalf of man's higher nature, defying the vegetative and sensual errors of our age.

9:32 This book Back to Virtue is steeped in old virtues and it exhorts us to renew them. And again, that is Russell Kirk writing in the foreword to this book. I said it was in the late 90s. It's actually. I checked the front of the book, it's actually published in 1992. But he was writing about the last decade of the 20th century. And you would think, at least back then, some three decades ago, that we still would have a, back then, some three decades ago, that we still would have a pretty good culture. But the most perceptive of us, namely Russell Kirk and Peter Kreeft, thought different. They did see how the culture was embedding itself with values and not virtues, and perhaps values with values and not virtues, and perhaps values or virtues, rather, were out of date.

10:22 In fact, let's go back to the book to answer that very question Are virtues out of date? A book about virtues and vice? How quaint and out of date. This is Peter Kreef writing. Obviously, I reply that a civilization with such a notion of virtues and vices will soon itself be quaint and out of date. But life today is so confusing yes, life is always confusing to someone without principles. Finding your way through downtown Boston is very confusing to out principles. Finding your way through downtown Boston is very confusing to out-of-towners without roadmaps.

11:04 The most fundamental issue of our civilization today faces is are there moral roadmaps? If there is a God, there is a map. If God has a map, his map is the true map. The civilization you sit in as you read this book, namely Western civilization, the civilization that is now in obvious crisis, perhaps its death pangs twisting grotesquely like a dying animal swirling down the garbage drain, this civilization was founded on God's roadmap. The most striking feature of this map is the stark fact of the two roads.

11:47 There is a road that leads to life and there is a road that leads to death. There is good and there is evil, there is right and there is wrong. Here is one of the most earliest and strongest statements of this map. It comes from Moses just before he dies. It is his last word to God's chosen people as they are poised to enter their promised land. It is to be their unforgettable guidepost forever. It is to be their unforgettable guidepost forever. Moses quote here See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.

12:28 If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I command you this day, by loving the Lord, your God, and walking in His ways, by keeping His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, then you shall live and multiply and the Lord, your God, will bless you. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and cleaving to him, for that means life to you. That comes to us from Deuteronomy 30.15-30.20.

13:18 And here is another statement of the same map. It is the first psalm, the key and gateway to all the others. The map shows us again two roads, only two Road. One blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the. And again, here's road. Two the wicked are not so, but are like chaff, which the wind drives away.

14:09 Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. So there we go. We do have a map, we have God's roadmap, and it was actually told to not Christians, but to Jews, the chosen people. So that is one culture. It's vastly different than the American culture that we are so used to. But our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values. It's a common phrase now, isn't it? It just rolls off our tongue Judeo-Christian values, but then we've already fallen into the trap.

14:58 Perhaps we should start calling it Judeo-Christian virtues. For that is what it is. It is a roadmap. It is the roadmap that leads to life. Let's go back to the book Again. This is Peter Kreeft in Back to Virtue. But what is it to be human? What is the business of life? Our primary business in life is not business, or construction work, or sales, or teaching, or even motherhood, but becoming a complete human being. But what is that? There used to be maps, diagrams, pictures of a complete human being.

15:41 A very large part of the old maps were about virtues and vices, good and bad, qualities of character and life, but the old maps have fallen into disuse. Now, in this book, I tried to perform the radical task of blowing off some of the dust of those old maps, so that you can make the astonishing discovery that the old maps still work, actually. As an aside, this is the reason why I wanted to share this book with you. I'd like to blow off the dust of the old maps because they do indeed still work. Going back to the book, in other words, this book is basic moral teaching, the kind of thing you used to expect from run-of-the-mill philosophers as a matter of course for the last few millennia, but which has become increasingly scarce in our time.

16:35 The first part of the book chapters 1 through 3, is about virtue for social survival, virtue for Western civilization. The second part is about virtue for individuals. Many readers will think the first part is more important, but I disagree for two reasons. First, the only way to a good society is through good individuals. Ironically, as Confucius says, if there is harmony in the heart, there will be harmony in the family. If there is harmony in the family, there will be harmony in the nation. And if there is harmony in the heart, there will be harmony in the family. If there is harmony in the family, there will be harmony in the nation. And if there is harmony in the nation, there will be harmony in the world.

17:18 Second, individuals are infinitely more important than civilizations because they are immortal. When all civilizations are dead, even the stars blink out. Billions of years from now, every one of us will still exist in eternal joy or in eternal misery, and that is the only issue that matters infinitely. Quo vadis? And I love how Dr Peter Kreef ends that quote with the famous Latin phrase meaning where are you going? Taken from that classic work from Henry Sinkowitz in the 16th century.

18:03 Quo vadis, where are you going? Where the tradition holds that Peter was trying to flee Rome as Nero was burning Rome and he sees Christ walking on the Appian Way back towards Rome. And Peter's famous phrase is when are you going, lord? Quo vadis domini? And our Lord says I am going back to Rome to be crucified, and therefore Peter follows him and ultimately is crucified upside down.

18:45 But in today's Mojo Minute, let us reflect on the notion of values and virtues. Let us reflect that we do have a roadmap, we have God's roadmap. It is the path to life. We've heard that in a Judeo culture, we've heard that in a Christian culture, namely from Holy Scripture. And so let us choose happiness, let us choose life, let us choose the good path, the good life that Aristotle so, namely, called for some five centuries before Christ ever came.

19:27 Because when we do so, that will indeed ensure that we are building a foundation, a foundation towards a flourishing life, and that is what we're trying to achieve here. So, as always, let's keep fighting the good fight, and next time we meet, we will dig into the four cardinal virtues and what they're all about virtues and what they're all about. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.