Metaphysics and Changing the World

Metaphysics and politics are often thought to have nothing to do with each other, like quantum physics and literary theory. I, however, think that metaphysics and politics are like white wine and chicken. And in today's post, I want to look at something I think metaphysics illustrates about how social change must be achieved, if you wish to achieve it.

So if you dislike metaphysics, or if you have a short attention span, don't read this post. And if you dislike unashamed moralizing, don't read this post either.

But before we get into the moralizing, let us look at metaphysics.

Metaphysics looks at all existing things, simply as existing, at all their various levels. Biology looks at things as living; psychology looks at things as influencing the mind; chemistry looks at things beneath another aspect. Metaphysics, however, looks at all existing things simply as existing things. It tries to take in a view of the whole of reality, how reality is, and why reality is.

One of the things that you see if you look at all reality thus--although you will not find this in most standard metaphysics textbooks--is that the more perfect a thing is, the more it produces outside of itself, but the less it works / the less it is changed in so doing. It is best to explain all things through examples, and so I shall do so.

Consider an animal. It acts for goals, but it doesn't really decide between the means it uses to reach a goal, for they are determined for it by instinct. Thus the number of means it uses are relatively few.

Then consider a man, say a soldier. He also acts for goals; but because he is intelligent, he can choose any number of means to accomplish them. Thus he can do more than the animal. He also uses tools in a creative fashion because he is intelligent; he can do more with less. Thus, his tools provide a way for him to do more--making the world as he wishes it to be--while doing less--in changing / altering himself. An animal has to chase down a thing to kill it; the soldier can kill it in any number of ways. The man is higher than the animal, and so he can do more while working / changing less.

Consider another man, say a general. Considered qua general, he is higher than the soldier. And so we find both that he can do more than the soldier--his decisions have far more effect and influence, generally speaking--and doing more involves him doing less. Considered as general--because, as man, the soldier and the general are equal--the general can do more while working or changing less.

Or consider someone such as a famous writer, who may have even more power than the general. He changes scarcely at all in altering the outside world--compared to the animal or the soldier, in what he does he is quite innactive. And yet his words can waste empires and kill kings.

At the risk--even at the probability--of belaboring a point that is already obvious, allow me to give two more examples.

Consider the angel. If Aquinas is right about angels--a huge if, for I cannot conceive of how one could possibly know that one was right about them--for an angel to be in any place is simply for an angel to act on something. Angels have no bodies, and so, for them, changing something doesn't involve material motion. They remain yet more within themselves than the writer while possessing magnitudes greater power in their action in the world.

And at the end of the sequence, one can attempt to consider God. Nothing can be done without God; God has made all that is good; God is all-mighty and and all-powerful. Yet according to traditional theology, He--considered as One--does not even change in willing what He wills. He is all-powerful and connected to things, yet apart from them and utterly unmoved in moving them.

So, across all levels of existence, it seems that the greater one's internal perfection and act, the greater the things one accomplishes, while the less alteration / effort / self-change / movement such accomplishment involves. A greater inward intensity in action results in a greater perfection of others, with less effort on one's own part. As Aquinas said, the good is diffusive of itself.

What does this mean for anyone attempting to change the world?

Well, take the example of the holy man. The holy man often changes those around him, simply by being himself. The way he is both witnesses to the transforming effect Our Lord has had on him and to the reasons that others should wish to be similarly transformed.

"Preach the gospel always; when necessary use words."--St. Francis' advice is not an excuse to avoid learning how to preach the gospel, but a command to know Christ such that one's life preaches Him as did St. Francis. It does not decrease but increases the responsibility we have laid upon us. Anyone with an apologetics handbook and a memory can preach the gospel with words. Changing one's life so that it all preaches the gospel is far more difficult--yet far more effective.

Thus, the holy man, because he is internally perfected, accomplished great things simply by being himself. St. Therese of the Child Jesus, a cloistered nun, is the patron saint of missionaries.

Now ake the example of the small community that embodies that good life directed towards God. The thing about such a place is that, as with the holy man, the life lived in it both explains what we should pursue and why we should pursue it. I think such a place wherein one sees the good life--whether in the family, in a monastery, or a small town--is the most compelling argument that one could give for abandoning liberalism and following the good life.

Now, note again that anyone with a few books about ethics in hand and a pretty good mind can talk about the importance of such a life in community--just like anyone with an apologetics handbook can argue that one should be Christian. But in both cases, this casting of oneself into the external world is to a great degree a distraction from the real work.

People are not convinced by words, but by deeds; not by books, but by lives. And so theory--as important as theory may be--cannot be our goal. The thing itself is our goal: good lives lived in a good community.

Good things, simply by being good things, begin to change the world; if metaphysics has any lesson for politics, this is it. I repeat that this is not an opportunity for laziness; there is no harder work, surely, than really pursuing the good life. Those who believe they are trying to be good because they are trying to study philosophy, liturgy, theology, or politics are only fooling themselves--and I would probably be among such people far more often than I like to admit.

Yet flinging myself into the external world to try to change it is just as much an escape from the pursuit of the good as flinging myself into the intellectual world. Only if we are noble so that our nobility shines can the world be illumined.

The good is diffusive of itself.