WITH the present temper in the world of rest, recreation and entertainment, we need to develop a very discerning sense of what is truly helpful and healthy, since a lot of ingredients, heady but harmful, actually glut such world.
How many times have I talked with people, both young and old, who, for example, got so addicted to the Internet, or who can’t say no to watching basketball or boxing on TV, that they end up gravely disoriented and even alienated!
They can go to the extent of neglecting their meals and sleep. Worse, they can develop asocial or even anti-social tendencies. Other graver disorders can emerge.
Many are seriously confused as to what means to rest properly, or what would constitute as good entertainment. They naively pursue their R and R guided at best only by instincts and common sense, when the present environment is filled with complicated predatory elements.
We need to be aware of this predicament and start to do something to correct it. In this we need to be active and aggressive and very discerning, not passive and complacent.
We actually are ranged against formidable challenges, and we just have to know how to grapple with them. We may need to check out the materials involved, do some consulting and research, and make a plan with clear ideas about the expected benefits and possible dangers.
We have to examine our understanding of this human need, verifying if we have the proper attitudes and practices. We also have to regularly assess the moral quality of this world of R and R and see if it conforms to the proper standards.
Truth is that our rest and entertainment should not only have its salutary effects on our physical or emotional well-being. It should also build up and reinforce our spiritual and moral outlook in life. They should not be kept from this very crucial requirement.
Sad to say, this is what we are seeing these days. It looks like things spiritual and moral, the things of our faith and those directly related to God are banned from this territory, in the mistaken notion that they just spoil the fun.
Thus, we should not limit our rest and entertainment to the purely physical, visual and instinctive variety. They should also include the more refined kinds like reading, listening, imagining, etc.
We need to ask ourselves questions like whether our rest and entertainment help us to pray, or to live in the presence of God, or to develop a healthy social and apostolic concern.
Do they make us closer to God and to others? Anything in them that weakens these human needs should be acted upon accordingly, or even rejected altogether.
Do the relief and pleasure they give make us more eager to go back to work, or do they, on the contrary, dampen our desire to serve others? Is there joy and peace as a result, or does the fun and excitement they produce agitate us improperly?
Is our unity of life made stronger with them, or do they tend to fragment our life into more uncoordinated or disconnected parts? Do we find it easy or hard, for example, to shift from work to rest and then back to work?
We have to be keenly careful when our rest and entertainment stir the wrong parts in our system, leading us to develop the escapist syndrome, creating fantasies and parallel realities, and leaving us completely self-absorbed.
We have to be forewarned that many of the shows and movies today are notorious for being erotic and titillating. They massage the flesh but leaves the spirit to deteriorate.
Our rest and entertainment should not take us away from our immediate surrounding. While they have the license to fly to the moon of make-believe, they should not be allowed to uproot us from reality.
Rather they should make us gain a deeper appreciation of the real and immediate world. We should see that they make us more of a normal person, not one with strange traits, habits and idiosyncrasies.
They should help us establish more intimate relations with God and with others, sharpening our knowledge and love for them. When we notice that we are just filled with self-contentment, we have to realize we have made a wrong turn.
These, to me, are some challenges we have with respect to attending to our need for rest, recreation and entertainment. We have to analyze them more finely so as to have a good grip of the situation.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
The pill is still 15 at 50
TIME Magazine recently featured as its cover story the 50th anniversary of the pill, that diminutive tablet that usually comes in a set and has generated such a controversy that it has monopolized the use of the otherwise generic term, pill.
The article traces the long, tortuous history of the contraceptive, giving out plenty of details from different angles—biological, social, political, legal, economic, personal, marital and familial, etc. As expected, the moral angle had to struggle for due consideration.
In the end, the author acknowledged that the issue is so complicated that as its parting shot she said: “As the conversation of the past half-century makes plain, science alone will not resolve questions that reach this deep into our relations with one another.”
I’m ok for now with that non-committal position. The issue is still hanging in the air, unresolved and in earnest search for the truth. But the conversation, also known as debate, discussion, dialogue, etc., has to continue, even as the drama itself as played out in life, in real time will continue.
So, the immediate impression I got after reading through the article is that the smoldering issue is still a restless adolescent at age 50, still possessed with rebelliousness, caprice and instability, in danger of falling into total alienation from reality which, by the way, is far beyond the physical and temporal.
For sure, it has produced volumes of arguments, pro and con, that were nothing short of amazing. The tricky part is that each side has points that are true and false, logical and fallacious. Sorting out which is which is now going to require a colossal effort. We need to pray hard for enlightenment.
To me, the different stages and developments that marked its historical path so far are a reflection of the battle between faith and reason, belief in God and belief in men alone. I suspect it will take more time, more twists and turns, more blood, sweat and tears before we can see the final denouement.
The powerful reasonings built up by each side can be so convincing that one needs to be truly radicalized in his beliefs to decide which is one is correct and get out of confusion.
We cannot remain in the externals and the peripherals. Especially in this issue of the pill, we really need to go to the roots of things, before we get lost in our man-made webs of rationalizations and justifications.
I’m of the belief that only faith can truly go radical, since it has the original roots in God. Reason, on the other hand, can not be radical if not infused with faith. Alone it is simply a rootless, floating human faculty looking for its ultimate proper soil and port.
Reason alone without faith can easily be misused by us to follow our, not God’s, designs. With this anomaly right at the start of our capacity to know, we tend to make our own reality, our own world. We end up creating cultures contrary to God’s will, with laws and institutions to support them.
To be sure, there are those who are skeptical of faith. They think that any concession given to it necessarily undermines their reason, and they do not like that at all.
This is actually wrong, since what faith does is to enhance reason and to put it in its best conditions. For this, we have to acknowledge the limitations of our reason. And that is where much of the problem lies. Many of us do not like to accept the limitations of our reason.
In this issue of the pill, for example, the rationalization started by claiming that women need to have greater control or defense for their body in the face of the danger of the so-called unwanted pregnancy.
From there, all sorts of justifications developed. The legal angle exaggerated the right to privacy of individuals to the extent of undermining the objective moral law. The liberal feminists insisted that women have absolute right over their body, and can do anything with it as they choose.
Of course, all sorts of supporting data presented in vivid drama were made. But then again, nature cannot be cheated indefinitely. It always has a way to work out corrections in life and in people, often in very extraordinary, explosive manner.
We may still fail to promptly see the connection between our mistakes and the corrections. We may even harden our erroneous positions. But God and nature will eventually clarify things in stronger terms.
The article traces the long, tortuous history of the contraceptive, giving out plenty of details from different angles—biological, social, political, legal, economic, personal, marital and familial, etc. As expected, the moral angle had to struggle for due consideration.
In the end, the author acknowledged that the issue is so complicated that as its parting shot she said: “As the conversation of the past half-century makes plain, science alone will not resolve questions that reach this deep into our relations with one another.”
I’m ok for now with that non-committal position. The issue is still hanging in the air, unresolved and in earnest search for the truth. But the conversation, also known as debate, discussion, dialogue, etc., has to continue, even as the drama itself as played out in life, in real time will continue.
So, the immediate impression I got after reading through the article is that the smoldering issue is still a restless adolescent at age 50, still possessed with rebelliousness, caprice and instability, in danger of falling into total alienation from reality which, by the way, is far beyond the physical and temporal.
For sure, it has produced volumes of arguments, pro and con, that were nothing short of amazing. The tricky part is that each side has points that are true and false, logical and fallacious. Sorting out which is which is now going to require a colossal effort. We need to pray hard for enlightenment.
To me, the different stages and developments that marked its historical path so far are a reflection of the battle between faith and reason, belief in God and belief in men alone. I suspect it will take more time, more twists and turns, more blood, sweat and tears before we can see the final denouement.
The powerful reasonings built up by each side can be so convincing that one needs to be truly radicalized in his beliefs to decide which is one is correct and get out of confusion.
We cannot remain in the externals and the peripherals. Especially in this issue of the pill, we really need to go to the roots of things, before we get lost in our man-made webs of rationalizations and justifications.
I’m of the belief that only faith can truly go radical, since it has the original roots in God. Reason, on the other hand, can not be radical if not infused with faith. Alone it is simply a rootless, floating human faculty looking for its ultimate proper soil and port.
Reason alone without faith can easily be misused by us to follow our, not God’s, designs. With this anomaly right at the start of our capacity to know, we tend to make our own reality, our own world. We end up creating cultures contrary to God’s will, with laws and institutions to support them.
To be sure, there are those who are skeptical of faith. They think that any concession given to it necessarily undermines their reason, and they do not like that at all.
This is actually wrong, since what faith does is to enhance reason and to put it in its best conditions. For this, we have to acknowledge the limitations of our reason. And that is where much of the problem lies. Many of us do not like to accept the limitations of our reason.
In this issue of the pill, for example, the rationalization started by claiming that women need to have greater control or defense for their body in the face of the danger of the so-called unwanted pregnancy.
From there, all sorts of justifications developed. The legal angle exaggerated the right to privacy of individuals to the extent of undermining the objective moral law. The liberal feminists insisted that women have absolute right over their body, and can do anything with it as they choose.
Of course, all sorts of supporting data presented in vivid drama were made. But then again, nature cannot be cheated indefinitely. It always has a way to work out corrections in life and in people, often in very extraordinary, explosive manner.
We may still fail to promptly see the connection between our mistakes and the corrections. We may even harden our erroneous positions. But God and nature will eventually clarify things in stronger terms.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Putting ethics and morality in economics
IN his address to the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Pope Benedict called for a re-planning of economics worldwide. He said it is clear that the market cannot regulate itself apart from public intervention and the support of internalized moral standards.
We cannot deny the fact that we are still reeling from the disastrous effects of the global financial breakdown. The latest victim is Greece, which has just been given a life-saving bailout, the biggest to be given to a country, in the amount of 110 billion Euros from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Now the festering disease that has brought the once-proud Greece to its knees is exposed for the world to see and to learn from. It’s a terrible case of a country long spoiled by the lavish but parasitic lifestyle and culture of its people, sorry to say that.
To get an idea of what was wrong with the Greek economy, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has this to say:
“Greece’s problem, (Greek Prime Minister) Papandreou says, was that it developed a financial culture in which pervasive corruption and tax evasion were tolerated, its leaders made promises they couldn’t keep; they expanded public-sector employment so much that nobody even knew, for sure, the number of government employees.”
It seems that Greece has been cultivating a kind of welfare state that killed the productive potentials of its people and other resources. It’s, of course, important that the government helps and intervenes in the lives of people, but it should not take away the people’s initiatives and productivity.
The government plays only a subsidiary role in the over-all development of nations. It’s actually a very crucial role that should not be misunderstood as being only secondary. Its role can be and should be both primary and subsidiary. These two qualifications need not be in conflict with each other.
And to get an idea of the bitter pill that the Greeks have to swallow for this mess, here are some words from a press report:
“Papandreou unveiled austerity measures and tax rises worth 30 billion Euros, including: an increase in the retirement age from an average age of 53 to 67; government workers to lose annual bonuses worth an extra two months’ pay; ten per cent tax rise on alcohol, cigarettes and petrol; three-year freeze in the public sector; early retirement will be limited or abolished altogether; and VAT increase from 21 to 23 per cent.”
News reports also have it that these austerity measures were met with severe opposition from the Greek people many of whom went on a rampage to express their disapproval.
And that’s not all. Other developments in the world today indicate trends of financial and economic activities that are ultimately driven by greed, and not by ethics and morality, not by the social principles of the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity.
Some learned sectors claim that the recent oil leak off the coast of Louisiana in the US that many fear is a mega-catastrophe in the making is caused by greed. Greed blinded the ones involved to the requirements of prudence and safety. They just went about pumping more and more oil from the ocean floor.
We have to return to common sense, to the basic sense of restraint in any endeavor we make. We need to recover the necessary awareness of the need for ethics and morality in our economics and other temporal affairs. We need to develop a finer sensitivity to the demands of the common good and justice and fairness.
Our problem often is that when these human affairs start to assume big proportions, the requirements of ethics and morality tend to be ignored, then forgotten if not openly attacked as irrelevant.
We have to be quick to react to the desensitizing effects of our worldly concerns. The ideal is that the spiritual and supernatural tone of our thoughts and desires, even when they involve our earthly activities, should be kept vibrant and so deeply felt as to effectively guide us in our daily routine.
It would seem that the world of finance and economics find it hard to accommodate the directives of ethics and morality. Greed, pride, arrogance and vanity, which actually are human weaknesses, are converted into the very fuel and resource engine to further our economic activities.
The Pope’s call to re-plan our economic activities according to more internalized moral standards is most relevant these days. We need to correspond to that call.
We cannot deny the fact that we are still reeling from the disastrous effects of the global financial breakdown. The latest victim is Greece, which has just been given a life-saving bailout, the biggest to be given to a country, in the amount of 110 billion Euros from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Now the festering disease that has brought the once-proud Greece to its knees is exposed for the world to see and to learn from. It’s a terrible case of a country long spoiled by the lavish but parasitic lifestyle and culture of its people, sorry to say that.
To get an idea of what was wrong with the Greek economy, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has this to say:
“Greece’s problem, (Greek Prime Minister) Papandreou says, was that it developed a financial culture in which pervasive corruption and tax evasion were tolerated, its leaders made promises they couldn’t keep; they expanded public-sector employment so much that nobody even knew, for sure, the number of government employees.”
It seems that Greece has been cultivating a kind of welfare state that killed the productive potentials of its people and other resources. It’s, of course, important that the government helps and intervenes in the lives of people, but it should not take away the people’s initiatives and productivity.
The government plays only a subsidiary role in the over-all development of nations. It’s actually a very crucial role that should not be misunderstood as being only secondary. Its role can be and should be both primary and subsidiary. These two qualifications need not be in conflict with each other.
And to get an idea of the bitter pill that the Greeks have to swallow for this mess, here are some words from a press report:
“Papandreou unveiled austerity measures and tax rises worth 30 billion Euros, including: an increase in the retirement age from an average age of 53 to 67; government workers to lose annual bonuses worth an extra two months’ pay; ten per cent tax rise on alcohol, cigarettes and petrol; three-year freeze in the public sector; early retirement will be limited or abolished altogether; and VAT increase from 21 to 23 per cent.”
News reports also have it that these austerity measures were met with severe opposition from the Greek people many of whom went on a rampage to express their disapproval.
And that’s not all. Other developments in the world today indicate trends of financial and economic activities that are ultimately driven by greed, and not by ethics and morality, not by the social principles of the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity.
Some learned sectors claim that the recent oil leak off the coast of Louisiana in the US that many fear is a mega-catastrophe in the making is caused by greed. Greed blinded the ones involved to the requirements of prudence and safety. They just went about pumping more and more oil from the ocean floor.
We have to return to common sense, to the basic sense of restraint in any endeavor we make. We need to recover the necessary awareness of the need for ethics and morality in our economics and other temporal affairs. We need to develop a finer sensitivity to the demands of the common good and justice and fairness.
Our problem often is that when these human affairs start to assume big proportions, the requirements of ethics and morality tend to be ignored, then forgotten if not openly attacked as irrelevant.
We have to be quick to react to the desensitizing effects of our worldly concerns. The ideal is that the spiritual and supernatural tone of our thoughts and desires, even when they involve our earthly activities, should be kept vibrant and so deeply felt as to effectively guide us in our daily routine.
It would seem that the world of finance and economics find it hard to accommodate the directives of ethics and morality. Greed, pride, arrogance and vanity, which actually are human weaknesses, are converted into the very fuel and resource engine to further our economic activities.
The Pope’s call to re-plan our economic activities according to more internalized moral standards is most relevant these days. We need to correspond to that call.
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