A Guide to a Virtuous Life, Part 4
Natural Law and Chaos
As I said, the whole world is a system. And when everything is doing what it is supposed to do, the system works with stability and order. But whenever things are forced to go against their nature, against their purpose, there may be chaos.
As we discussed, humans are meant to live in groups and aspire to rise through the ranks of their social ladder. What if you take a human away from a group and force him or her to be alone- all the time? Sometimes, it might be fine. Other times, it might cause enormous problems. What if we change the system so that it becomes impossible to rise through the ranks, and we force someone to live at the bottom rung without any hope for improvement? It may cause dangerous mental illnesses that result in violence or other problems.
Usually, when we look at stories of people who grew up to do very bad things- killers, for example- we can see in their childhood that they were held back in some way. They were not allowed to grow themselves properly. They had no opportunities for improvement, and tended to fall to the bottom of whatever social ladders they were in. Sometimes, tragically, it resulted in violent chaos.
We can also find chaos elsewhere. Deer are strange animals. They are herbivores, meaning they don’t eat meat. And they have to run away from predators. And they have two ways of escaping predators- one is to simply run. That is reasonable. Running is key to survival for many, many prey animals. But the other method is less obvious- they freeze. When they detect a threat, they will essentially lock their bodies. This is a useful skill when they are evading a predator whose hunting is based on eyesight (like humans), because it makes them far harder to see. Imagine trying to see a motionless deer through the dense the shrubs, leaves, and trees of a forest. Not easy!
But nowadays, in North America, deer have no predators left. The wolves have all been hunted away and the humans in most north-eastern states don’t hunt much. Because of that, deer have experienced a huge population increase, so that they seem to be everywhere. Deer have never enjoyed such peaceful, fruitful lives. But what about the chaos?
Well, there aren’t just a lot of deer in the eastern US. There’s also a lot of people, and those people have cars. Often, deer will attempt to cross a street or highway, and when they hear or sense a car coming, they will perceive it as a threat. Instead of jumping or running out of the way or off the road, they will completely freeze and stare directly at the car as it barrels toward them at 60 miles per hour.
Almost inevitably, this results in the death of the deer, the car being badly damaged, and, in some cases, death or injury to the drivers. Chaos. Deer were meant to freeze to make it harder for predators to spot them in a forest. But cars aren’t predators and freezing doesn’t make them harder to see in the middle of a road anyway. Their purpose is being misused. The result is chaos.
Hopefully you now understand natural Law. But how does it relate to virtues and honor? As I said above, honor is about how others view you. How much they admire and respect you. This is natural. You gain honor by being good and you lose honor by being bad. But what is good? What is bad? This is a question that very smart people have been trying to answer for thousands of years!
In modern English, good often gets associated with words like kindness or charity. Those things can be good, but they aren't always. That might be hard to understand, but I will explain in detail later. The simple truth of good and bad is: is it helpful for your society or harmful?
As an example, let's look at kindness. If you live in a rich country and you see a very poor country, you might believe that the best thing you can do is give money to the poor country. But does this help your society in any way? Will it make your people's lives easier or safer? Will it make your group happier? Probably not. But that doesn't mean it's bad. It might be neutral for your people, and helpful to the other society. After all, you donating a small amount of money to another country won't harm your group either.
But what will it do to the other country? Evidence seems to indicate that it won't actually help. Charity groups in Africa are neck deep in local stories of corruption. And even if the money really does make it to the intended recipient, will it help? Why are these people starving in the first place? Sub Saharan Africa, for example, is one of the world's most fertile areas. Do these people not know how to farm? Or if they do, is war or conflict destroying their infrastructure? Giving money will treat the symptoms of a problem, but may exacerbate the cause. Before giving to a charity, you should research its performance and check to make sure it is not involved in any scandals. The UN's activities in Africa, for example, often have an abysmal record.
So if an act of kindness is neutral for your group and bad for another, it is not good. On the flip side, if an act of kindness is neutral for you and good for another, it is at least somewhat good. After all, helping to usher in worldwide economic stability is a net good because it makes everyone safer and reduces destabilizing issues like mass-migration.
But good isn't always about outward actions. Good is usually about what you do with and to yourself. A productive life of hard effort is good- we know this because it wins honor. Living correctly, working hard, and being strict with yourself will earn the admiration of your peers and people will look up to you. Some may even try to emulate you. By being good, you become an example for other people. Sometimes, people may even be jealous of you. But even jealousy is natural!
[Continued in part 4]