There is a flow to history and culture, and this flow is rooted in what people think. Subsequently, what people think will determine how they act. As wise old King Solomon put it, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
Another prominent individual, known for his philosophical bent, Marcus Aurelius, considered among the most respected emperors in Roman history, paints it this way, “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”
It is important to recognize how a person’s collective thoughts, or world view, contribute to their resiliency as they are exposed to the pressures of life.
What we are witnessing in today’s exploited culture appears, in many respects, to have found this pressure point, our Achilles’ heel, if you will.
Author and social critic Francis Schaeffer, who Time Magazine, in 1960, christened a “missionary to intellectuals,” spent the last twenty years of his life addressing the upheavals of a culture whose values and norms of behavior were often in direct opposition to mainstream cultural mores.
Schaeffer, who authored over twenty books on apologetics, theology, and ethics, extracted lessons from Rome (thought to be the “Eternal City”) and Roman civilization; direct ancestor of our own modern Western world.
Schaeffer sets forth, “In many ways, Rome was great, but it had no real answers to the basic problems that all humanity faces. For the simple reason, that without a sufficient base of knowing what is right, what is wrong, why we should do certain things in contrast to why we should do certain others, no amount of military might [which Rome certainly possessed] is sufficient.”
Relativism, the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute, flooded the culture. Relativists did not necessarily claim the nonexistence of morality, rather they claimed that morality was solely what an individual or culture believes.
More distressing is the reality that relativism also implies that obvious moral wrongs are acceptable. Accepting a moral wrong because of moral relativism based on culture is dangerous as it leads to indifference. If we cannot judge, and moral rightness depends on the culture, then “anything goes,” or as the Old Testament prophet Samuel declared, “Each person did whatever seemed right in their own opinion,” or as the Athenian philosopher Plato paraphrased in his dialogue Protagorus: “What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me.”
Without a backdrop of shared values and attitudes, and without familiar laws and judicial procedures that define standards of ethical conduct, certainty is elusive and subjectivity (the peculiarity of “what is right and what is wrong” existing in someone’s mind: personal feelings, tastes, or opinions) takes precedence.
Rome first tried to build on the personal feelings, tastes, or opinions of “accepted” citizens of the republic and later, on the opinions and decisions of its emperors. But these attempts ultimately failed because they were not a sufficient base on which to build a society.
And contrary to perception, the Romans really had no sufficient base intellectually. That is, as Schaeffer relates, “They did not have anything big enough or permanent enough to which to relate either their thinking or their life. Therefore, they had no value system strong enough to bear the strains of life, either individually or politically.”
So the Romans, like the Greeks before them, decided to create gods based on the demands of their culture and the emperor’s sensitive ego. Explains Schaeffer, “It was hoped these gods would be perceived as big enough upon which to rest their society. However, when that didn’t happen and the society tumbled, their gods tumbled with them.”
Therefore, the Roman experiment in social harmony, based on re-imagined finite gods, ultimately failed.
Redeeming and preserving grace – Part 2 is next week.
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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