Fewer Opinions, Deeper Values
“Another type of self-denial, more penetrating and far more necessary to practice, is mortification of our will and judgment. We do not mean that we should refuse to make a judgment, to use, nourish and cultivate our judgment. We can never have too much. The judgment we refer to is that highly personal viewpoint which measures and solves every point, especially disputed ones. We include those personal solutions given every problem, be it our personal conduct or that of others; be it community life or education. This personal slant is the result of our type of mind, our temperament and education; our intellectual habits, prejudices and tastes. We do not say: Suppress it! Kill it! For that is impossible and scarcely desired. Such an effort, moreover, would make us sluggish, a sort of living robot. We say, however, learn to step aside in this matter. We must endeavor to understand and appreciate other patterns of thought, other norms of acting and judging that differ from our own and even contradict them. Naturally this pertains to matters where diversity of opinion is free and unavoidable. We are not discussing fundamental points of faith, of rule, of general orientation where there should be but one mind. In everything else — and this is all-embracing — we must not tenaciously espouse and uphold our own opinion.”
From Come, Holy Spirit: Meditations for Apostles, by Fr Léonce de Grandmaison, SJ
I was struck when I read this passage because I have become acutely conscious of this topic as Substack has leaned heavily into Notes and become the “Orange Twitter” — for the moment, a higher-rent version of the platform of mass febrile outrage, but I know from many comments that others here too sense where things are going.
I am of course highly susceptible, being a strongly opinionated person. I tend to lose sight of the fact that while the strength of my opinions has been pretty constant since I had my political awakening in the 80s, the content of those opinions has not been. I am instinctively as righteous about my opinions now as I was when I held the polar opposite of my current views.
When the algorithm feeds me outrage, I am quick to take the bait — though thankfully I have become a little more skilled at feeling the provocation without acting on it.
Fr Léonce’s observation gave me a helpful perspective, which is essentially this: Most of the things about which I am tempted to be outraged are, neutrally, matters where I have little sure knowledge and next to no direct experience or competence, on which I have expended no intellectual or moral sweat, and about which I therefore have every right to have an opinion and no right at all to be doctrinaire or contemptuous. They are not essential. That someone thinks differently about them is fundamentally not my concern and none of my business. I have no practical or moral obligation to say anything to contradict someone who believes differently than I do. God’s honor, the truths of the faith, and the felicity of the innocent are not at stake.
This also arises, given that the subtitle of Fr Léonce’s book is “meditations for apostles”: I have an apostolate. I am a member of the Body of Christ. That body’s heart is the Lord’s heart, receiving the Holy Spirit for the transfiguration and restoration of Creation. Why on earth would I risk alienating and scandalizing someone who might, through me, open his heart to the Savior of the world? And for the sake of my opinion about some matter that, in the “fog of war” that is human history, I must in charity and candor say can admit of many analyses and contradictory assessments?
How ridiculous! How contemptible!
On the other hand, the opposite of this partisan warfare of opinion is the labor to perceive and to grasp what Dietrich von Hildebrand called values — meaning not some emotional human attachment to forms of culture, mores, or behavior, but the things that are genuinely, objectively, intrinsically valuable. In von Hildebrand’s doctrine of spiritual life, proper axiology — the perception, understanding, and clarification of values — is in a way the architectonic virtue: reverence. It is learning to know and love the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. (I apologize to any real Hildebrand scholars who chance to read this — I am doing my best!) Reverence, faithfulness, responsibility, veracity, goodness, justice, purity, humility, loyalty, reliability, gratitude: these are the values worthy of our life and witness.
Grasping values and remaining faithful to them is essential. Holding opinions is not.
Therefore the need for my response to someone’s terrible take is precisely zero, except when it could be an occasion for witness to values that does not in its enactment contradict those values. “In everything else — and this is all-embracing — we must not tenaciously espouse and uphold our own opinion... [we must] learn to step aside in this matter.”
Someone might be open to hear the Gospel through your words and deeds. Don’t let your opinions get in the way.
I really think mortification of the will and judgement is a very helpful category to think through the ethics of public life, on and off line. Thank you for bringing this book to my attention!