APPARENTLY an American actor
expressed the view recently
that if he does not read the newspapers, he obviously would be
uninformed of developments around. But if he reads them, he most
likely would also get misinformed, considering the way the papers are
now, he said. He found himself in a dilemma.
This is the challenge we all face at present. The truth is
that we have to get informed, but informed properly. We simply have to
find ways of how to get out of the state of being uninformed and
misinformed.
This will require some skills, of course. But the basic
and relevant virtue to live here is that of prudence. That’s what
would enable us to judge whether we should read the papers or not, now
or later, or to “smell” whether a piece of information is good or not,
useful or useless, relevant or irrelevant, true or false.
Nowadays, the need to be most discerning is getting urgent
precisely because of the proliferation of useless information, not to
mention, misleading and deceptive ones and fake news that are laced
with all sorts of biases and prejudices of those who make them. It’s
not only political partisanship that occasions this phenomenon. It’s
deeper than that. It’s now ideological partisanship.
This virtue of prudence, of course, presumes some criteria
to guide our judgments. In this regard, it has to be made clear that
we have to start with God’s moral law. We just cannot set aside this
indispensable requirement and plunge immediately to merely earthly and
temporal values like practicality, profitability, popularity, etc., to
guide us. That would be like sailing a boat without the North Star, or
the GPS.
Prudence, of course, presumes a certain hierarchy of
values that we should respect, uphold and defend. It should be vitally
connected with wisdom that in the end connects us with God and all
others, as well as all things in the world, through love and truth.
We have to make sure that our prudence is not only
motivated by secondary criteria, like efficiency, effectiveness,
practicality, profitability, convenience, etc. If these criteria do
not lead us to a closer relation with God, with others and the rest of
the world, but would rather reinforce our self-absorption, then it
would not be true prudence.
We might enjoy some perks that these secondary standards
may give us, but it would not be true prudence when it fails to lead
us to our proper relationship with God, others and the rest of the
world.
Of course, true prudence springs first of all from our
intimate personal relation with God, the source of all good things, of
all truth, of all love. Without that foundation, our prudence would be
limited to mere appearances of prudence that would be nothing other
than the prudence of the world and the prudence of the flesh, if not
the prudence of the devil.
Again, we cannot overemphasize the need to be vitally
united with God for us to be truly prudent and able to discern all
types of information that are being fed to us these days.
that if he does not read the newspapers, he obviously would be
uninformed of developments around. But if he reads them, he most
likely would also get misinformed, considering the way the papers are
now, he said. He found himself in a dilemma.
This is the challenge we all face at present. The truth is
that we have to get informed, but informed properly. We simply have to
find ways of how to get out of the state of being uninformed and
misinformed.
This will require some skills, of course. But the basic
and relevant virtue to live here is that of prudence. That’s what
would enable us to judge whether we should read the papers or not, now
or later, or to “smell” whether a piece of information is good or not,
useful or useless, relevant or irrelevant, true or false.
Nowadays, the need to be most discerning is getting urgent
precisely because of the proliferation of useless information, not to
mention, misleading and deceptive ones and fake news that are laced
with all sorts of biases and prejudices of those who make them. It’s
not only political partisanship that occasions this phenomenon. It’s
deeper than that. It’s now ideological partisanship.
This virtue of prudence, of course, presumes some criteria
to guide our judgments. In this regard, it has to be made clear that
we have to start with God’s moral law. We just cannot set aside this
indispensable requirement and plunge immediately to merely earthly and
temporal values like practicality, profitability, popularity, etc., to
guide us. That would be like sailing a boat without the North Star, or
the GPS.
Prudence, of course, presumes a certain hierarchy of
values that we should respect, uphold and defend. It should be vitally
connected with wisdom that in the end connects us with God and all
others, as well as all things in the world, through love and truth.
We have to make sure that our prudence is not only
motivated by secondary criteria, like efficiency, effectiveness,
practicality, profitability, convenience, etc. If these criteria do
not lead us to a closer relation with God, with others and the rest of
the world, but would rather reinforce our self-absorption, then it
would not be true prudence.
We might enjoy some perks that these secondary standards
may give us, but it would not be true prudence when it fails to lead
us to our proper relationship with God, others and the rest of the
world.
Of course, true prudence springs first of all from our
intimate personal relation with God, the source of all good things, of
all truth, of all love. Without that foundation, our prudence would be
limited to mere appearances of prudence that would be nothing other
than the prudence of the world and the prudence of the flesh, if not
the prudence of the devil.
Again, we cannot overemphasize the need to be vitally
united with God for us to be truly prudent and able to discern all
types of information that are being fed to us these days.
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