Leo D.M.J. Aurini - The Shifting Locus of Morality： Secular vs Spiritual

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00:00:30.000 So this video is about the shift of the locus of morality from the spiritual world of the

00:00:41.720 church into the temporal world, the secular world of government and society.

00:00:50.080 Now it's part of a requested video, which is going to be two parts.

00:00:53.760 The second one is going to be more directly addressing how to find a good woman, how to 0.99

00:01:00.380 be a man in today's culture.

00:01:03.520 But I need to set the groundwork for all of this, which is what this video is all about.

00:01:10.640 Because the standout thing of Western civilization, of Christendom, the reason that Christianity 1.00

00:01:18.560 creates such advanced societies, it all boils down to the separation of church and state.

00:01:27.320 Now this was formalized in the formation of the U.S. government, but this is a long-standing

00:01:32.920 tradition.

00:01:34.760 Since the inception, since the Roman emperors first converted to Christianity, there's been

00:01:42.840 this divide between the world of politics and business, the marketplace, as they used

00:01:49.340 to call it, and the world of philosophy, theology, morality, beauty, and valuation.

00:02:01.220 And it was the separation of the two that allowed Christian societies, not just in Europe, but 0.98

00:02:06.480 in Africa, in parts of Asia, to absolutely thrive compared to their neighbors.

00:02:17.260 And here's what it comes down to, is that the church is talking about absolutes.

00:02:23.600 The study of theology, the study of science, which is what theology leads to, these are about

00:02:31.040 studying absolute quantities, perfections, mathematical forms.

00:02:37.920 And so the Catholic Church, when you examine the Catechism, it is speaking about the perfected

00:02:45.480 form of morality, at least as best as we've managed to figure out so far.

00:02:52.320 Whereas the world of politics, of business, the world of the marketplace, is not about perfection

00:02:58.260 in absolutes.

00:03:00.940 I forget who it was that said this, but there's a great point made that I read ages ago, that

00:03:07.260 men of good character, honest temperament, and even the same education can have disagreements

00:03:17.060 as to what we should do politically.

00:03:20.040 You can, in a business, businesses will disagree as to what the best new product is.

00:03:27.900 Because the world of politics, the world of business, of entrepreneurship, there are too

00:03:34.660 many unknowns.

00:03:35.900 The same thing with the study of history, or the study of art.

00:03:40.360 There are too many unknowns.

00:03:42.520 We can't predict what the next great business idea is going to be, or what the next great

00:03:47.540 artistic endeavor is going to be.

00:03:51.020 We can't know that thing until it's been created.

00:03:56.100 And we can't run scientific experiments on it.

00:03:59.660 You can't see what would have happened if the other person had got elected, if we'd chosen

00:04:04.520 that other policy, if we'd gone for this marketing campaign instead of that marketing campaign.

00:04:11.160 So the world of politics, the world of the marketplace, it is a world of relative opinion.

00:04:21.620 We all try and make the best decisions we can based upon the past when it comes to that,

00:04:25.180 but we don't really know what's going to happen with any of these decisions.

00:04:28.960 So men of good character can disagree on politics.

00:04:36.160 When it comes to absolutes, though, there's no disagreement to be had on something like

00:04:42.480 mathematics, on an objective scientific test, experiment, on derived principles.

00:04:56.220 There isn't any room for disagreement there.

00:04:57.800 These are absolutes.

00:04:59.880 And yet they are almost like platonic forms.

00:05:03.520 They're idealized forms of what morality should be, how we should behave, how we should interact.

00:05:12.040 And so the church holds these things up as these ideals to strive towards.

00:05:18.820 And we're all going to falter, but we get back up and we keep striving towards them.

00:05:25.940 And this is what made Western civilization stand apart.

00:05:31.940 If you look at something like the Islamic system, where God constantly plays dice, the Islamic 1.00

00:05:38.380 God is capricious, changes his opinion, messes with your head, lies to you, and so you're

00:05:44.840 not going to get any sort of scientific method deriving from that.

00:05:49.260 And the same thing, the holiest person is the one with the biggest club.

00:05:55.460 If you look at Chinese civilization, which was absolutely one of the great civilizations out

00:06:01.340 there, but again, they had this unification of valuation of morality and of the state.

00:06:12.620 And so the Chinese system, it stagnated.

00:06:15.960 Because the entire system, well, it was the state, the government, the civilization, it

00:06:21.740 was captured by a system.

00:06:25.400 The imperial schools, the imperial exam, was the only thing that mattered for your station

00:06:31.240 in life.

00:06:32.240 If you want to advance forward in life, you had to score high on the exam, on the imperial

00:06:39.020 exam.

00:06:40.020 Everybody, you know, they could afford it, and it actually wasn't that expensive even.

00:06:44.300 But everybody could take it.

00:06:46.460 So everybody had this opportunity to advance.

00:06:49.180 But then, because you're defining what is good by what the exam is, you are predicting,

00:06:56.780 you are getting people that test well.

00:07:00.520 You have an established institution, a system in place that is not going to change.

00:07:07.620 Whereas in Western civilization, we had the politics of the day, and we had the church

00:07:16.920 always saying, do better.

00:07:18.220 Do better.

00:07:19.440 Do better.

00:07:20.440 Every single one of you, do better.

00:07:25.440 So we had the best of both worlds.

00:07:28.440 You know, we didn't pretend that the king, the king was the most important layman in the

00:07:33.380 church, but he was still a layman in the church.

00:07:36.380 So he could be fallible.

00:07:41.880 He would make mistakes.

00:07:45.820 But it doesn't change the valuation of morality.

00:07:50.680 Whereas what we've done over the past couple hundred years is that the system of valuation,

00:07:59.920 our locus of morality, has gone from the church into the secular world.

00:08:07.420 So ironically enough, we actually have the exact opposite now.

00:08:11.360 It used to be that the church was where you got your sense of meaning, your identity, it

00:08:16.180 was the absolute.

00:08:17.420 Whereas the politics, that's like your opinion, man.

00:08:22.920 These days, we are deriving our identity, our morality, and our sense of valuation from

00:08:30.760 the political sphere.

00:08:31.800 And your religion, like, that's just your opinion, man.

00:08:38.200 And the problem is that most Westerners, most Christians, even traditionalist Christians, embrace

00:08:51.140 this.

00:08:51.640 So your identity, your sense of meaning, whether you're libertarian, republican, or democrat,

00:09:01.080 you know, this defines your absolutist worldview.

00:09:05.640 Even though politics is constantly shifting, this defines your worldview.

00:09:09.140 And as numerous people have pointed out in the alternative right and the alt-media, the definition of the good life keeps shifting.

00:09:20.400 You know, a Republican would have been a Democrat 20 years ago.

00:09:24.600 And with the recent nonsense with Bill Nye, you can see him shifting his opinion as to what genes are, as to what sex is.

00:09:35.120 He's shifting his opinion like a rudderless ship in a storm.

00:09:44.580 Whereas the religious aspects become more and more about the rituals, the tradition of it all.

00:09:58.400 And so even the deeply religious person is still, because this is the reality.

00:10:04.820 This is what the world is made up of right now.

00:10:07.900 They are getting their valuation from their politics.

00:10:13.520 So the ritual, that's just like your opinion, man.

00:10:16.220 But the sense of valuation comes from the political sphere.

00:10:21.800 So it's actually the Republican Party that is behind morality.

00:10:26.880 Not the church, even though most traditional churches are going to be more Republican-leaning.

00:10:35.620 It's actually the Republican Party where the values are coming from.

00:10:39.500 And the secular morality that we have right now is a very effeminate morality.

00:10:52.020 Effeminate, as in it decries male sins while ignoring female sins. 0.78

00:11:02.240 Not feminine, okay? 0.96

00:11:04.360 But it's a degenerate form of the feminine. 0.98

00:11:10.140 And so, you know, think about any lecture you've heard at church.

00:11:15.180 Think about what sins are focused on in churches, even in the most traditional churches.

00:11:22.100 You know, you certainly get lust is a big one.

00:11:28.740 Violence.

00:11:29.960 You know, that's another thing we don't like in our society.

00:11:35.000 And hate speech or rude speech that offends somebody.

00:11:40.780 These all tend to be more male sins. 0.80

00:11:46.580 You know, they are failings in masculinity. 0.99

00:11:49.100 You know, getting hot under the collar and starting a fight for the wrong reason.

00:11:52.760 Pursuing women in a wanton manner. 1.00

00:11:55.780 And telling people like it is, even when you're not being particularly polite or civil or gentlemanly.

00:12:02.820 These are the sort of sins that men are more prone to than women. 0.57

00:12:10.660 And it's important to remember that there's a case of having the virtues of your vices.

00:12:19.860 Somebody that gets hot under the collar too often gets into fights.

00:12:23.360 Well, no, that's not a good thing.

00:12:24.900 But it's better than being a milquetoast that can't even defend your family if you have a home invasion.

00:12:32.760 Part of being a man is being aggressive at the correct times.

00:12:37.240 And so the guy that gets too hot under the collar, he's being aggressive at the wrong times.

00:12:41.780 But he's got the virtues of his vices.

00:12:43.920 He is going to protect his family when the chips are down.

00:12:48.220 And yet these are the virtues that we punish.

00:12:51.280 These are the sins that are connected to virtues.

00:12:54.140 They are part of virtue.

00:12:56.080 They're just an imbalance of virtue.

00:12:57.960 And we punish those.

00:13:00.500 And very frequently in the church we talk about all of this.

00:13:04.800 But what we don't talk about are female sins. 1.00

00:13:09.060 The sort of sins that women are more prone to. 1.00

00:13:12.400 And you've got something like gossip is a great example.

00:13:16.700 Gossip is extremely vicious.

00:13:18.800 It's very scandalous.

00:13:20.640 As in, it's a sort of dishonesty and immoral behavior that drives people away from the truth.

00:13:26.360 Away from faith.

00:13:27.320 Away from the church.

00:13:29.860 Gossip is downright horrific.

00:13:33.740 And yet we have, anytime you go to the grocery store,

00:13:37.060 you've got an aisle of gossip magazines.

00:13:41.000 Same thing with vanity. 0.96

00:13:44.780 Vanity tends to be more of a female sin than a male sin. 1.00

00:13:50.580 And you will very seldom hear vanity talked about in the churches.

00:13:56.000 And you know, even when it comes to, to lust.

00:14:01.460 The way we approach it is, we, we punish the men.

00:14:05.880 We blame the men for pursuing women, for sleeping around, etc.

00:14:12.680 When the irony being, a guy that can get away with sleeping around,

00:14:16.720 he's doing that because he's displaying a lot of male virtue in other areas,

00:14:20.840 even though he's being intemperate with his sexuality.

00:14:25.800 So we punish that.

00:14:26.920 But we don't look at romance novels.

00:14:30.420 You go into any major bookstore,

00:14:33.440 and there are going to be two aisles full of romance novels.

00:14:38.040 And the, the false narrative being pushed forth by those romance novels

00:14:43.120 are just as false as the false narrative being pushed by pornography.

00:14:51.040 To put simply, you know, the narrative of pornography that,

00:14:55.540 oh, there's just this fun-time girl, she doesn't want any commitment, 0.55

00:14:58.680 and you're just going to get your rocks off.

00:15:01.980 Absolute lie does not happen in real life.

00:15:04.180 That is not what women are. 1.00

00:15:06.640 If a woman's offering that, she has an ulterior motive. 1.00

00:15:09.420 Whether it's to get back at daddy,

00:15:12.900 or because she's emotionally intemperate and will lash out at you the next day. 1.00

00:15:19.780 You know, it's, it's a free lunch.

00:15:21.680 Run from that.

00:15:23.580 The narrative in the romance novel is that

00:15:27.680 the, the woman can capture the bad boy and tame him. 1.00

00:15:33.780 Whether it's the pirate captain,

00:15:35.680 whether it's a steel magnet, like in Fifty Shades of Grey.

00:15:41.000 She can capture him and subdue him and punish him. 0.99

00:15:45.960 The irony being that by doing that,

00:15:48.220 she actually loses interest in him.

00:15:50.400 And by the way, that is the narrative of all three Fifty Shades of Grey books.

00:15:54.560 Okay, it starts off with BDSM,

00:15:56.400 but by the end of it,

00:15:58.360 she's got him wrapped around her finger.

00:16:01.000 These are the sins that we don't talk about.

00:16:07.560 Not all that often in the church,

00:16:09.480 because our locus of morality is secular.

00:16:12.820 And our secular civilization has become a very, very effeminate one. 0.97

00:16:18.740 So we punish the male sins that are connected to male virtues,

00:16:22.820 while ignoring and encouraging the female sins of gossip, vanity, 1.00

00:16:28.460 and the feminine form of lust. 1.00

00:16:31.000 And the great irony of all this

00:16:39.720 is that one of the consistent themes throughout the New Testament

00:16:44.740 is that the Pharisees were engaging in all of the trappings of religion,

00:16:52.940 all of the rituals of religion.

00:16:55.980 They were observing all the details,

00:16:59.260 they were obeying the letter of the law,

00:17:01.540 while completely ignoring the spirit of the law.

00:17:05.860 And the sad thing is,

00:17:09.340 and this is not just from the person requesting this video,

00:17:13.420 this is other sources,

00:17:14.860 Catholic forums I've been on,

00:17:16.900 where, you know,

00:17:18.920 a male talks about getting divorced,

00:17:22.040 they say you need to man up,

00:17:23.320 a woman talks about getting divorced,

00:17:25.780 an annulment,

00:17:26.820 annulment.

00:17:28.680 And it's not an annulment if you feel like it.

00:17:32.500 An annulment means there never was a marriage.

00:17:34.680 If you just get sick of the other partner,

00:17:36.780 you're not getting an annulment.

00:17:38.560 But no,

00:17:38.860 when the female talks about it, 0.98

00:17:40.280 they, you know,

00:17:41.200 they blame the husband, 0.98

00:17:42.540 as opposed to saying she needs to woman up. 0.99

00:17:46.700 This is happening throughout traditional circles.

00:17:48.600 Because our locus of morality is rooted in the secular world.

00:17:53.940 And the secular world is fundamentally a variable one.

00:17:59.580 It's a world of shifting opinion.

00:18:05.860 And so yes, ironically,

00:18:07.420 even the most traditional of churches,

00:18:10.320 you are going to find that it's people obeying,

00:18:14.620 obeying the rituals,

00:18:17.260 obeying the letter of the law,

00:18:18.600 but getting their morality from somewhere else entirely.

00:18:27.580 So when it comes to finding people of good character,

00:18:32.460 if you're looking for a wife of good character,

00:18:37.140 this isn't to say you shouldn't look for her in the church,

00:18:41.720 but that you should be casting your net

00:18:45.340 to capture people

00:18:48.220 who are oriented

00:18:51.260 in the right direction,

00:18:52.900 who are not interested

00:18:54.100 in the popular,

00:18:57.500 the easy,

00:18:59.040 the marketplace's definition of good,

00:19:01.520 but who are genuinely

00:19:03.220 pursuing the good.

00:19:05.340 And I'd like to think there's more of those people

00:19:09.300 in the church than outside of it,

00:19:11.360 but let's not pretend that all of them

00:19:13.500 are inside of the church.

00:19:15.260 Because a lot of them aren't.

00:19:17.040 So that needs to be what you're looking for.

00:19:20.680 Fundamentally,

00:19:21.420 it's people that are genuinely

00:19:22.860 pursuing the good

00:19:24.460 and letting the chips fall

00:19:26.120 where they may.

00:19:29.980 Abandon the secular morality,

00:19:33.660 genuinely seek after God himself,

00:19:36.580 and learn to master yourself

00:19:40.880 in the process.

00:19:43.120 So the follow-up video to this,

00:19:44.560 we're going to be discussing more

00:19:45.680 of the individual struggles

00:19:47.720 that young men face

00:19:49.040 and specifically how to pursue women

00:19:52.900 that aren't waiting

00:19:55.020 until they're 30 or 35

00:19:56.220 to get married.

00:19:58.000 So I will see you then.

00:20:00.500 Thanks for listening.

00:20:02.140 Deus Volte.

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00:20:46.440 Deus Volte.

00:20:47.160 Deus Volte.

Leo D.M.J. Aurini - May 01, 2017

The Shifting Locus of Morality： Secular vs Spiritual

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