It’s been a difficult week, two events of cataclysmic magnitude have occurred in my life.
I received an email from a coworker urging me to take care of my mental health (October 10th, World Mental Health Day). Ignoring the fact that it is an intrinsic contradiction, apodictic for those who read something other than Facebook, it should be noted that we are rarely aware of the loss of our mental capacities and when that happens it is one of the most terrifying tragedies of life, read the biography of Robert Schumann.
I am surprised by this email, first because it is impersonal, and nothing more personal than the inner storms, that ineffable place that makes us one, who we are. It sounds like a “cheap good deed”, a Linkendin-like deed. Second because it comes from a sophisticated and highly educated person, with intellectual nuances for whom I have respect and have learnt from. As a side note, our professional meetings almost always take place during weekends, and for years I have excused myself from going to mass in those circumstances. I remember being at one of those meetings on a Saturday afternoon two years ago, preparing the next day’s activities, when this same colleague said “Well, I have mass at 7 near the hotel, I’ll be available at 8.” Touché!… I silently accepted my mistake and laziness. It turns out that my Catholicism is intellectually fervent, but somewhat lax in its rituals. The biggest lesson was that he said it spontaneously, with neither exhibitionism nor shame, both of which are difficult in this age where spirituality is not highly regarded in the circles where we work.
On a different note, next week my company has a “day of good ” in which they give us a free day and everyone signs up for a “good” activity previously approved by the brilliant intelligence of our benevolent leaders. The corresponding photos (all with a smile and from the right angle) will be posted on the company’s website within 24 hours.
These two events, which may seem random and disconnected, are symptoms of the same and ominous direction of our western civilization.
First, a private enterprise is an entity that society has created to aggregate resources and talent, within a specific legal framework, conducive to producing goods and services that increase the utility of both the buyer and the company. If the transaction benefits both, the firm has fulfilled its function, and in that sense has done a good thing, although I agree with M Rothbard that economics should be “Wertfrei” (value-free) and limit to describing transactions and their consequences, full stop.
If we have one day of doing “good” this means that for 364 days we do not do good. This is a fair and logical question. If we do not do good for 364 days, this means that our economic activity in which we produce a good or service that buyers need is an immoral activity. Who is the subject of that immoral action? Are investors immoral? the CEO? the CFO? my boss? Is it me? The answer to these questions is that the subject of moral action is only the free individual in the exercise of his freedom.
Parallel to the extinction of religious values over the last centuries in Western civilization, there has been a phenomenon of “externalization” of morality, which has even led to the coining of the term “secular morality,” an intrinsic contradiction from the point of view of formal logic. This secular morality, in general, is composed of the same Christian norms stripped of their religious foundation. By extension, concepts such as equality or fraternity among men have been elevated to the category of “human” values, see the revolution of 1789 with its “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” But the concept of both equality and fraternity is an idea derived from our condition ofs “children of God,” this makes us equal in dignity and makes us fraternal (family). By using the argument of “morality without God” we arrive at a vague, void and ill-defined humanism that seeks reasons to aggregate people. In this way we arrive at communities through elements that change according to the needs of the historical moment. They can be communities of class, country, race, sex or whatever is necessary in the specific place and time.
In the 21st century, the evolution of this concept of “morality” not linked to any transcendental vision has come to question those same confusing paradigms of “good” or “morality” and has led to a conception of the absence of rules, since previous rules are defined as an artificial social construction, the product of an agreement in a specific time and space, with no relation to reality. The critical theory of Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas and the Frankfurt School is an attempt, disjointed in any case, to reinvent all the elements of society. This reinvention of the “new man”, once again, with a mixture of philosophical ideas with Marxist and historicist roots, together with the use of social sciences and psychology to give a layer of irrefutable scientific truth to its conclusions. The evolution of these ideas has produced the prevailing biologism and naturalism, which is short-sighted and has done nothing but reify man. This objectification of the human being has stripped away the argumentative and transitional sense of life. When the rules of conduct are destroyed because they are considered an artificial social construction, life lacks a horizon, the sense of responsibility is gone and the judgment of actions is suspended. Its understanding is transferred to the study of the conditions in which these behaviors occur. The aforementioned biologism studies actions from a mechanistic and simplistic point of view. Where then do the judgments about the supposed good or evil of human actions come from? I am sure my company has a list of actions classified as favorable or not favorable (there are no good things because we are “apolitical” and “amoral”). The list is likely kept in a safe in the office of a high-ranking official in the human resources department. The high-ranking official in human resources probably has a PhD in “Gender and distinctive access to inequality in Sub-North Asia in the Late Years of the middle kingdom.” The process of deterioration of transcendence and reduction to a mechanistic vision of man erases the individuality of the human being. This leads immediately to the dissolution of the concept of individual responsibility, to moral disorientation and finally to the annulment of freedom. Moral action requires two fundamental elements: the individual and his freedom. There is no moral action unless both are present. The new paradigms are now established by disjointed powers such as companies, professional associations, the media, the government, supranational governing bodies. All these unconnected powers are those that define what is right or wrong, and also establish the elements of dependence in the form of dangers for which the individual needs help (mental health, emotional health, physical health, healthier cities, cleaner air, etc.).
What is worrying is the lack of attention and rebellion against these external dictates in societies.
Personally, I am struck by this sleepwalking of the educated classes. I believe there are two reasons. First, part of that educated class believes itself superior and, in a position to set the rules of acceptable behavior to the rest of society, which considers crude and lacking in sophistication, what Hillary Clinton called the deplorables in her 2016 political campaign. Second, the supposedly educated class is not really educated, it is simply a technical class with a different economic position, but lacking any depth or understanding of human nature ( a western concept by the way, that is for another day), they are worried about work, next vacation or party.
Here we are, a time when companies define goodness and the days to exercise it, and serotonin reabsorption inhibitors and LinkedIn truths keep us safe on October 10th .
I’m going to mass!
References
Man, Economy and State by Murray N Rothbard 1962
Tratado de lo mejorby Julian Marias 1994
Locos egregios by F Vallejo-Nagera 1977
Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno 1944
