Christmas Special: Back to Basics
This Christmas Eve, I’m thinking about How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a story that shines moral clarity upon our moment in history. (If you aren’t already familiar with the story, take ten minutes to catch up through the video, then join me below.)
Christmas — “It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!” Packages, boxes, and bags serve to embellish, affirm, and demonstrate our spirit of kindness, care, and empathy, but they are secondary and instrumental. Only when the Grinch comprehends that the spiritual dimension is more real than the tangible dimension does he cease to be a monster.
We sometimes get our order of operations reversed. For instance, we think we should empathize because we have a moral responsibility not to harm others. In other words, we should uphold virtues to achieve impacts.
While this construct can help, it can also be discouraging. Inferring impacts is tricky, and it can turn our passionate convictions into a stale, rational matter of social scientific argument. Luckily, we can instead focus on cultivating our virtue for its own sake. The Grinch could steal utility but he could not steal humanity. We can only hold onto our humanity in all circumstances, and it is what matters above all else.
To reverse my example, we must not harm others, not for reasons that look beyond ourselves, but for reasons that lie within ourselves: because our empathy is what we value most and we would not want to damage it. For those who are familiar with the idea of “flow,” I am applying a similar mindset by emphasizing the joys that are found in the process of moral behavior, rather than the goal of moral achievements.
Spiritual good versus evil is a valuable worldview, even today. It is clear. We understand how our behavior shapes ourselves far more immediately than we understand how it affects others. So, this Christmas, keep your soul safe from the soul-snatchers. Never forfeit intuitive, inherent goodness, and remember that character formation comes prior to action. As Charles Blow wrote in the New York Times, “When you reconnect to what you love, you remember why you fight.”
Literature & Philosophy
A recent New York Times op-ed quotes the great poet Wendell Berry:
Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out for longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone’s individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.
I was reminded of Wendell Berry’s other masterpiece, “A Poem on Hope,” excerpted here:
Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground underfoot.
The world is no better than its places. Its places at last
are no better than their people while their people
continue in them. When the people make
dark the light within them, the world darkens.
If we look for hope ahead, or around us, fog will cloud our vision. We need look within. If everyone sustains their light, we each have our own hope.
Art, Music & Performance
Nothing to share this month :( That’s why you need to send me images or clips that are particularly resonant! Here, please:
Society
Nikhil Lebaka, an undergraduate student at UMass Amherst studying chemistry, recommends “How the Ivy League Broke America” by David Brooks, who has been thinking about a culture centered around personal virtue for a while now; he’s worth following, even if you don’t always agree with his conservative-leaning view of social morality. Nikhil says, “The source reminded me, to an extent, of your brief ramblings on the value of a childlike openness and attention [in my November letter]. It's not the shortest read but I thought it made a sound narrative at the end on the value of curiosity, with pretty good substantiating evidence, once it got past the click-bait introduction and related anti-ivy sentiments.”
If we can orient our meritocracy around a definition of human ability that takes more account of traits like motivation, generosity, sensitivity, and passion, then our schools, families, and workplaces will readjust in fundamental ways.
Next, Alan Taylor of The Atlantic curated the “Top 25 News Photos of 2024.” My favorites capture humanity, surviving.
Hey Justin! Stumbled upon your piece and had to chime in! So, you're saying empathy should be "cultivated for its own sake", but isn't empathy inherently relational by nature?( If it’s not about connecting with others, then what is it? Also, where does the Atheist notion of morality come from in this context? morality in its essence is concerned with right and wrong behavior, which begs the question of what is right and wrong behavior? ) Doesn’t that risk an ethical conception that’s a little… egocentric? 🤔 Also, how do you acess moral worth definitively, then? Just by intention, background/ context, or are outcomes totally off the table?
Happy Holidays!