The Danger of Becoming Morally Blunted
9:45:00 AMUnknown
We've
all heard it a thousand times: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence,
therefore, is not a virtue, but a habit.” Habits give structure to our goals
and determine how we go about achieving them in our daily routines. One could
scarcely believe that an Olympian was able to win a gold medal based on sheer
talent alone. Countless hours of preparation and careful discipline are behind
every great athletic achievement. Being excellent is often inextricably tied up
in and connected to personal habits.
While
it’s easy to think of countless other examples of great habits people are able
to cultivate, Hildebrand’s essay on the dangers of becoming morally blunted deals
with the other side of the issue of habit. He writes: “Habit is a sort of
beneficial adaptability in human beings that can make their lives more
bearable, yet it is also a force that can diminish the spiritual alertness of a
person, which is the foundation of all true moral and spiritual life.”
Spiritual alertness? Isn’t the moral life all about action and the will? At
first glance, it seems pretty sweeping to say that an “alertness” is the
foundation to all true moral and spiritual life.
Habits
must never dim our ability to see the glory of the goodness of life or the
great beauty that we experience. Habits should increase our gratitude for the
glorious world around us. Hildebrand writes: “Human beings must never grow
accustomed to any gift from the ‘Father of Lights’, the sun shining for us,
every drink of water that refreshes us…In such cases, habit has an exclusively
negative effect, for the grateful appreciation of all things that are good
should never diminish; nothing should ever be simply taken for granted.” When
reading this, I thought back to my semester experience in Gaming, Austria. I
was able to go to Mass every day, and many times, it just became a part of my
routine, a habit. When I went back to Michigan at the end of the year,
one of our foreign exchange students returned to his native China. Later this
summer, he shared with us that he was only able to go to Mass once a month. How
much more grateful I could have been for daily Mass! I had lost my alertness to
the reality of gift; plain old habit had skewed my appreciation of this
profound gift.
Habit
must especially not get us accustomed to sin. Our consciences must never become
numbed all too easily, not only when we ourselves sin repeatedly without truly
repenting of the sin each time, but also when we put up with the injustices of
others and so accustom ourselves to a morally poisoned atmosphere. Even if we
initially reject sin with indignation, when we allow ourselves to regularly
come into contact with sin, or persons who continually sin, that initial
indignation becomes tolerance it can becomes. We allow ourselves to “put up
with it.”. I can think of a time over the summer when I was discussing a recent
movie with a friend. I was saying to her: “I just couldn’t get over all of the
inappropriate sexual content. It was saturating almost every scene.” To which
my friend replied, “Oh well, I meant besides all that!” I believe that
this is one of the easiest ways in which our consciences can grow accustomed to
sin. We justify movies, songs, and other entertainment in our modern culture
because we can just forget about the moral problems in them and instead
concentrate on their “redeeming qualities.” Seeing sin in this sense has become
a habit: we cannot get away from the relativistic values which our cultures
promotes. We are willing to excuse behavior because, frankly, we are just so
used to seeing it everywhere.
Hildebrand
thinks that this is a great moral problem. But, one may ask, what if I am not actually
doing anything sinful?
If
we do not immediately break out of this passive attitude towards good and evil,
this alertness to true reality will eventually waste away, rendering us morally
and spiritually asleep. This is the
danger of demoralization. In Hildebrand’s time, he saw people everywhere taking
up a similar, passive attitude towards Nazism as the party came to power in
Europe. We must look past the wrongs, they said, and start focusing on the good
aspects of Nazism. Nothing could have enraged Hildebrand more. Evil must be
rightly recognized for what is it, never “gotten used to” or “looked past”. We
are called, as Christians, to vehemently and constantly combat it.
Even
if we are not able to actively fight evil every time we encounter it, we must
remain alert, especially in our mental habits. “Nothing should diminish
our inner judgment, our unconditional rejection, our conscious of the horrific
immorality of it all, and our determination to fight it with every means
available”. We are to always be sober and watchful: quick to reject evil in
every circumstance and to accept with active gratitude the good gifts from God.
So,
if this means staying five minutes after Mass in a prayer of thanksgiving, say thank
you with a sincere heart. If it means shutting off the phone to simply
admire nature, do it. Be bold and say no to watching a morally problematic
film. It may exciting and entertaining, but if it causes our hearts to become
less morally sharp, it’s simply not worth it. Let’s not allow ourselves to sink
into spiritually stagnant attitudes.
True faith is found in having the courage
to purposefully align ourselves to the good and beautiful, and true saints are
made in the active, interior rejection of anything and everything which is
contrary to that goodness. So, cultivate good and truthful habits. Fight the
good fight. Be alert!
Source:
Dietrich Von Hildebrand. The Danger of Becoming Morally Blunted. My
Battle Against Hitler. November 10, 1935.
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