Readers' Questions

Roundhead or Cavalier?

Below is a selection of readers’ recent questions. There is also a Q&A thread for you to use here.

Can the leopard change its spots? If you’re trying to help someone, what are the reasonable limits to the self-sacrifice one makes in the attempt?

People don’t really change. The exceptions prove the rule, and "probability is the very guide to life." (Bishop Butler quoting Cicero, De Natura, 5, 12) So live by the probable, not the possible. If you’re thinking of marrying someone, for example, don't foolishly imagine you can change something about that person you find unacceptable. Better to accept what you see ‘warts and all,’ as the wise saying goes.

And you must also decide whether the person you’re trying to help even wants you to. Most people don’t. And even if they say they do, words are easy. Judge by actions.

I greatly value individualism / individual liberty. I’m also very patriotic. Are these both compatible? I believe they are, but sometimes it’s easy to see them as paradoxical.

Individualism and nationalism are the excesses. Patriotism is the mean. Aquinas wrote that,

'a man becomes a debtor to others in diverse ways in accord with the diverse types of their excellence and the diverse benefits that he receives from them. In both these regards, God occupies the highest place, since He is the most excellent of all and the first principle of both our being and our governance. But in second place, the principles of our being and governance are our parents and our country, by whom and in which we are born and governed. And so, after God, a man is especially indebted to his parents and to his country. Hence, just as [the virtue of] religion involves venerating God, so, at the second level, [the virtue of] piety involves venerating one’s parents and country. Now the veneration of one’s parents includes venerating all of one’s blood relatives... On the other hand, the veneration of one’s country includes the veneration of one’s fellow citizens and of all the friends of one’s country. (Summa Theologiae II-II.101.1).

Love for your country is an extension of love for your family. And just as your country benefits you, you also benefit it:

'Country should be honored, not merely by the admiration one feels for its greatness in the past or present, but also and primarily by the tender feeling of veneration one has for the land that has given one birth, nurture, and education… External manifestations of piety towards country are the honors given its flag and symbols, marks of appreciation of its citizenship… and efforts to promote its true glory at home and abroad. (McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology, Volume II, pp. 412-13).

Excessive individualism makes you forget you exist in a network of dependencies. It isn't conducive to patriotism. Liberalism emphasises autonomy above all else, and that includes insufficient regard paid to one's family and nation.

What are your thoughts on or analysis of Enoch Powell’s famous Rivers of Blood speech?

Spiritual heritage is more important to culture than blood is. Multiple ethnicities and races can comprise a common culture.

John Paul II wrote wisely on this:

Authorities invite trouble when they disrespect the natural desire to preserve one’s nation and its culture. Both natural law and traditional moral theology affirm that this desire is morally praiseworthy. Authorities that disrespect it are inviting an extreme nationalist response.

The Catholic Catechism teaches two important points:

1. The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.

2. Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Powell is right that mass unassimilated migration is asking for trouble.

What are your thoughts about the kids’ game 'kiss chase'? Do people still play it? Was it good or bad?

Let’s start with chasing games generally. Boys very often chase each other, usually ending in wrestling and mock fights. It’s a way to establish the dominance hierarchy. To be male is to exist in a male dominance hierarchy. Girls, by contrast, don’t chase each other as often, and they hardly ever wrestle each other to the ground.

When the sexes chase each other, the game gets a special name, and the talk about it becomes a lot more animated. The children understand the sexes are separate: you need a PhD to get that confused. But boys will tend to mix cross-sex and same-sex chasing. They like to show off to the girls that they can dominate the other boys. Unlike the boys, the girls will have very clear safe-zones where they can retreat and talk about the game.

Girls more often threaten to kiss girls than the other way around, and this is probably because girls mature faster. When ‘cooties’ is added to the game - a contamination ritual - girls are seen as more polluting than boys. Boys don’t give cooties each other, and although there are ‘cootie queens’ there are no ‘cootie kings’. This probably reflects how female sexual fidelity and virginity are highly prized.

Kids’ playground games are very profound. Boys control about ten times as much space as girls do, and the boys at the bottom of the male hierarchy get called ‘girls’.

What are your thoughts on the Succession to the Crown Act 2013? I have heard you talk in favour on the monarchy and how it relates to family i.e. father's being the head of the family and King’s being the head of the nation. Do you think male-preference primogeniture should of been kept or what it's been replaced with (absolute primogeniture)?

Aquinas says that 'a triple charge is laid upon the king':

1. ensure the good of the multitude subject to the king will be preserved through his care when he sets himself to attend to the appointment of new men to fill the place of those who drop out;

2. restrain the men subject to him from wickedness and induce them to virtuous deeds, following the example of God;

3. keep the multitude entrusted to him safe from the enemy.

Since men are less emotional than women, more commanding and better at protecting, a case could therefore be made that male monarchs are preferable. God appointed Moses, not his wife Zipporah, as the monarch of the Jews in the OT.

Roundhead or Cavalier? And why?

Cavalier. Democratically elected politicians generally think they are better than other people. After all, they won: they’re special. But a hereditary monarch knows he is no better than anyone born into another role. So a king is more likely to be humble. He also hasn’t sought out power for himself.

It’s often said power tends to corrupt. But it also tends to attract the corruptible. By contrast, the king has inherited it as a duty. Democracies tend to reward megalomaniacs (Hitler was democratically elected). The king is also less likely to flatter. Tocqueville famously noted that politicians flatter the people. But a king doesn’t need to.