YOLO and the Wisdom of Solomon

I have written before on the stupidity of the word YOLO and the phrase it stands for (You Only Live Once, for those whose residence is beneath a rock). Of course, it's easy to just get flustered and rant about such philosophical silliness (and we often do), but it's much more important to look at such a phenomenon within the broader context of what ails modern society.

YOLO, whether spoken, tweeted, said in other words, or simply implied, now passes as a rationale for an action. Carpe Diem has apparently become passe, and we as a culture needed a new catchy saying to prop up our foolish spontaneous actions. Carpe Diem, YOLO, and whatever else we think of next, are quite simply indicative of a society obsessed with self and the flimsy psychological notion of self-fulfillment. In our post-Christian world, it is quite easy to convince ourselves that we can come to total fulfillment (whether spiritual or otherwise) through our own actions, independent of any other. This fits in nicely with our Americanized ideals of complete and utter autonomous individualism. But, like the bizarre Calvinism of Lady Gaga discussed in another post, this thought process is simply an old heresy dressed in new clothes.

In this case, we must draw a comparison to the Pelagians, the special nemeses of St. Augustine, who taught that man was born without Original Sin, and thus had the capacity to attain perfection without the grace of God, by simply following the good example of Christ. The not-so-subtle frame shift here is from God to humanity. We become the masters of our lives and set ourselves up as totally self-reliant and self-fulfilling. Echoes of this are heard in YOLO today: You only live once, so why not be reckless, stupid, lazy, lustful, begrudging, etc. You are the master of your life, after all. You are answerable to no one. Enjoy your total freedom!

The Wisdom of Solomon, one of my favorite books of the Bible (sorry Protestants, you're missing out!), opens with the author exhorting his readers to seek and follow the Spirit of Wisdom, which of course comes from God. In the second chapter, there are the following words which quite simply hit this nail squarely on the head.

"For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. For we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts; when it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat. For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

‘Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Let none of us fail to share in our revelry; everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot. Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow or regard the grey hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.

‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training."- Wisdom 2:1-12

There's just so much to soak in from this passage. It's as though the author had some sort of privileged window on 21st Century America. It shows especially clearly a holistic view of how our current culture has "reasoned unsoundly" and found itself in a variety of philosophical predicaments. Let us progress through some of the more interesting points:

• Reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts - Rather than seeing our reason as a faculty endowed to us by our creator, in union with certain universal absolutes, our culture tends to reason more from personal emotion and feeling, resulting in a bizarre relativism that says that two conflicting viewpoints can both be true.
• Make use of creation to the full as in youth - Disregard for our natural environment is symptomatic of a culture that is self-absorbed. 
• Let none of us fail to share in our revelry - Need I flick on the TV to Jersey Shore? Mindless revelry and a lifeless culture of meaningless relationships and substance abuse is a hallmark of a culture that has lost sight of virtue and fallen into fruitless self-satisfaction.
• Let us oppress the righteous poor man - The plight of the poor in our world is perhaps without equal in all of human history. 
• Let us not spare the widow or regard the grey hairs of the aged - This point has two related aspects - the physical and the mental. We have an increasing disregard for the old in our society. Euthanasia is on the rise because authentic care for the elderly is too difficult. On the other hand, as we continue to dismantle the traditions that bind us together, we insult the wisdom of all of those generations who came before us with a casual sweep of 21st Century pride.
• But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless - When might makes right, the weak suffer the most. The most glaring offense in this category is abortion, which perverts the relationship between mother and child into one of power and domination. 
• Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us - This is only becoming truer by the day. Christ and His Church are inconvenient to society because they often stand in direct opposition to the world and its ways.

Like I said - a lot of good stuff on which to reflect. YOLO is, as I said, a mere symptom of such a society envisioned by the second chapter of Wisdom. A society that has become so absorbed in self it has forgotten both God and neighbor in a whirlwind of revelry, worldly might, and contempt for the truth that sets us all free.

Born Again This Way

One of the more interesting ironies of modern pop culture that I've noticed recently is a very interesting juxtaposition between a sense of deterministic fatalism on one hand and a desire to invent your own meaning in life on the other hand. The first may be boiled down to Lady Gaga's annoyingly pedantic hymn to herself Born this Way. It says something along the lines of: "I was born to do this, this, and this, and I am thus forbidden not do these things." The second might be summarized more neatly by one of those sentimental pictures one sees so often on Facebook. You know the ones - a faded, faux-vintage picture of a beach with superimposed white script imploring the viewer to shake off his or her former personal shackles and live life in exactly the manner he or she sees fit. Another example may be the recent explosion of the phrase "You only live once", cutely shortened to the ubiquitous YOLO (or, more usually, #yolo).

These twin heresies are often espoused by the same people, though not often at the same times, for if they were spoken one after another, we would all be able to readily see that the Emperor is wearing few, if any, clothes. I call them heresies not out of any special contempt, but for the simple reason of that is what they are. Heresy as defined by St Thomas Aquinas is "...a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas". Notice here that our good St Thomas says "corrupt" rather than jettison the dogmas. Heresy is most usually an unhealthy exaggeration of one truth, which causes corruption in terms of other truths. For instance, the Pelagians over-emphasized the free will of man, and, in the process, denied the need for God's grace. The Arians exaggerated Christ's humanity and swept away his divinity in the process, while the Gnostics did the opposite.

Though my subject matter is not religious or even Christian per se, they are emphatically philosophical, and, like all philosophical matters, have immense bearing on our daily lives. Returning to the first error, which I shall name Gaga-ism: the concept of destiny or a set track for our lives is very convenient for the modern times in which we find ourselves. It excuses us from our actions. If we are meant to be a certain way, woe betide anyone who should call us to higher aspirations. It's a reverse sort of Calvinism dressed down in sparkly camouflage. Why attempt virtue when we are destined and born in vice? It's who we are. 

The second error, on the other hand, enigmatically often calls the modern man to do exactly what Gaga-ism says he can't do - change. It shouts up and down that life is all there is, make of it what you will, don't be burdened by your station in life, society's expectations, or anything else for that matter. Just be you! The implicit argument is that you can't possible truly be yourself while simultaneously adhering to societal norms, morals, or expectations. You can't be who you were born to be, you must utterly and completely disregard all that in the ever-important quest to be authentic, etc. You must live your life (whatever that means). You must seize every opportunity to experience life, even if it is immoral or wrong, because you invent what's right for you, and anything else is simply holding you back from your self-fulfilling quest.

As I mentioned before - this two-headed postmodern philosophical slop often sallies forth from the same people's mouths, though at different times. Some times they say "We can't possibly change because I am me" while other times they say "I must change because I am me." It's all a matter of convenience I suppose. The Christian truth, I'm afraid, is to be found in neither of these pop philosophies, and is frankly far more compelling. It says quite simply that you were born in sin, but called to holiness. It says "I love you as a child of God" and "Go and sin no more" simultaneously. It offers the free choice between good and evil. It fortifies the soul for the long labor of life, whose circumstances we can not often choose on some postmodern whim. It calls the soul to constant conversion toward the truth - not a one-and-done declaration or an obstinate refusal to declare. We can be born again as often as we find ourselves trapped in the way we were born.

Paradise Regained?

"If we had to choose today, would Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, the Son of the Father, have a chance? Do we really know Jesus at all? Do we understand him? Do we not perhaps have to make an effort, today as always, to get to know him all over again? The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes." - Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Ch. 2

Ever since we got the boot out of Eden, we humans have been trying desperately to regain our earthly paradise. Perhaps we can say it began with the story of the tower of Babel, when we thought we could pridefully build our way back up to God. The attempts have continued since.

We have been discussing in my history of architecture class the various reactionary movements inspired by the Industrial Revolution. Mechanization of industry set in motion a number of attempts at Utopianism - attempting to create a beautiful, equal, and productive society. Of course, the most vile of these was Marxism, which lead to untold misery and disaster. However, it is perhaps the more milder ideas that still influence us the most. The captains of industry building rational, self-sufficient suburbs for their workers. The City Beautiful movement that sought to bring life and equality into city life. The Arts and Crafts movement that brought production away from the machines back into the hands of skilled artisans, who organized themselves in self-sufficient guilds.

The idea that we can somehow establish a utopian society on earth rests on two fundamental assumptions: that human beings are on a constant trajectory of moral and social advancement, and that our priorities are utterly and completely based alleviating all suffering in this world. Evidence of these two assumptions is plentiful in our American society. We laugh at the silliness and ignorance of those who came before us - thinking ourselves the most enlightened generation to ever walk the earth. We live in the 21st Century, for God's sake! We are naturally superior! We have evolved out of all that nonsense! Why does anyone need to suffer? Look at all of the technology we have developed, surely we can save ourselves from destruction of any kind!

We, as a society, have opted for a planned and thoroughly organized world. A world of complete rationality, escape from suffering, and constant material advancement. Where does God fit into a society where we set ourselves up as our own saviors? He is treated merely as an inherited cultural superstition - harmless to invoke in private, but an offense to our enlightened and decidedly sensible civilization.

My colleagues and friends are all engaged in professions that involve progress. I am not here to remotely suggest that progress in medicine, engineering, or design is inherently bad - quite the contrary! We are indeed called to assist our fellow man. However, it is when we suggest that we can exterminate suffering and live in complete peace and harmony that we approach the dangerous pride and subsequent ruin of Babel.