Therein the Patient / Must Minister to Himself - Granite Grok

Therein the Patient / Must Minister to Himself

In ‘Our Culture, What’s Left of It,’ author Theodore Dalrymple in discussing how Shakespeare’s Macbeth “warns us to preserve our humanity by accepting limitations on our actions,” remarks on the fraud of perfecting human nature though social engineering in a way that reminded me of our current circumstances on this Christmas day.

Speaking on the motivation of Banquo’s murderers…

We do not know, of course, whether their disappointments and setbacks are real or imaginary, self-inflicted or undeserved, and it doesn’t matter: Shakespeare gives us to understand that their self-pity–and by extension all self-pity, including our own–is dangerous permitting evil in the name of restitution.

But he (Shakespeare) does more.  He shows us not only how easily that line is crossed, even by someone without an excuse or a special propensity to do so, but what the consequences are of crossing it.  And in showing us that the line is always there, easily and disastrously crossed, Shakespeare destroys the utopian illusion that social arrangements can be made so perfect that men will no longer have to strive to be good.  Original sin–that is to say, the sin of having been born with human nature that contains within it the temptation to evil–will always make a mockery of attempts at perfection based on manipulation of the environment.  The prevention of evil will always require more than desirable social arrangements; it will forever require personal self control and the conscious limitation of appetites.

People willingly accept that they have been done wrong, doubly so when someone offers them property or privilege as recompense, because of human nature.    This is why law and rule of law are essential, to both punish those who have wronged others and to send a message to others considering similar performances, regardless of station;  it is a rare person who cannot convince themselves that some–perhaps any ‘evil’ is acceptable in the name of a restitution which attends to our disappointments or whose exercise brings us power.

We should not be surprised to observe, then, that a facet of this human condition predisposes people to the pursuit of positions of power.  People who act to remove the checks and balances on human nature just as they act to bypass checks and balances on their pursuit of power.

The family.  Constitutions.  Institutions.  Religion.  These things all stand between human nature and power.  Barriers that the culturally corrupt use to enlist cultural fascists who then descend upon in pursuit of their own self-interest–intentionally or not–without regard for the larger consequences.

Secular humanists and atheists, for example, scoff at the Ten Commandments, taking false offense at public displays because they have been told they have the right.   But history demonstrates that any nation without a genuine reverence for the simplicity of these rules–for the purpose of limiting our natural human weakness–is doomed to commit cultural suicide.   Removing them from sight is viewed as a victory for diversity of thought when in fact it is a fascist imposition with a calculated purpose.  It never occurs to them that they are being used to not just dismantle an institution which might stand in opposition of tyranny, but to institutionalize a disdain for the source of morality altogether.

Men who fear nothing greater than themselves, left to decide what is law, what is right, and what good means, are the source of all the evil in the world.

It is human nature.  Modernity cannot cleanse it from us, nor legislative manipulation perfect it, which is why the progressive plan has always failed and always will.  But they are not alone.

The presumption of social engineers that they can continue to pile up regulations until they have managed people into a social and cultural utopia suffers from the same failures as the anarchist’s idea that in the absence of even the most basic organized protections of people and property that everyone will choose to do the right thing.    That we will simply behave ourselves.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as Dalrymple reminds us when he closes his chapter with the words of Macduff.

‘Boundless intemperance, In nature is a tyranny.

Without limits there will always be those incapable of self-correction (and in the absence of any moral compass no incentive).   Those so-inclined will encourage people to become thugs and villains on the road to glory, not in the defense of persons or property but in the conquest of same.

And there is no cure for what ails us.  We can only treat the symptoms.  The founders of this Nation knew that, and so they attempted to fashion a means by which we could intervene when human nature got the better of our elected leaders.  And the system’s biggest flaw was one that could not be avoided.  It required a just and moral people to be engaged in it.

A nation crowded with people lavished by their “leaders”  in disappointments and setbacks, real or imaginary, self-inflicted or undeserved, citizens motivated by failures rather than accomplishments, a nation divided by differences leaving nothing to future generations but a means of restitution for wrongs real or imagined until even that is denied us by our governing masters, is doomed.

We will be left with an imperfect union, denied justice, without tranquility, defenseless, unsure of our blessing and insecure in our liberty, having little or nothing left to pass on to posterity but a rote  accounting of the wrongs heaped upon us by others–repeated like a chorus, as provided by our political masters–until we shuffle off our mortal coils by means natural or otherwise.

Human nature, left unchecked, will have made us the puppets of tyrants, divided and immoral, fed by fear or anger,  bettering ourselves by the only means left to us; at the expense of others.

These are not complications that come new to the stage of our world.  They are it’s dominant actors.  Actors whose brief intermission was brought about by a vision of a government whose power came from the people it sought to govern.  Brief only because the people were taught to forget their role by those seeking to remove them as a check on power.  People who, to this day, try to intimidate and silence anyone who dares challenge them or their authority.

Dalrymple opens the chapter from which I speak by quoting Macbeth as he seeks the advice of his physician for “some sweet oblivious antidote (to) cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?”

Shakespeare’s physicians respond: “Therin the patient / Must minister to himself.”

In our current cultural and political circumstances, given what we know of human nature, you would be right to be concerned about the ability of the patient to minister to “himself,” when the patient may not even know of “his” ailment or may believe he benefits from it.

When confronted with this circumstance I find myself turning, of all places, to Batman, and The Dark Knight Rises.  Even in Gotham’s darkest hour, with the whole of his world turned against him, Bruce Wayne is not done.

Selina Kyle: You don’t owe these people anymore, you’ve given them everything.
Bruce Wayne/Batman: Not everything, not yet.

So here we are, on Christmas Day, a time to celebrate the greatest of sacrifices–a life given so that it might give of itself to cleanse us of our original sin.  Whether you accept this as a literal sacrifice, a metaphorical one, or just as a literary device in a  story told by cultists, it applies to you.  Original sin is the expression of the flaws inherent in human nature.  For us to become better than that, we must sacrifice of ourselves, not just once, but every single day.   We must fight our nature, every day.

Seeing as governments are formed by human beings and administered by them, it behooves us to find leaders who appeal to our better nature instead of to those who accumulate their power through disappointments and setbacks real or imaginary, self-inflicted or undeserved;  we need leaders who understand that our self-pity–and by extension all self-pity, including their own–is dangerous permitting evil in the name of restitution.

We are on a downward spiral, have been for some time.  A spiral that has been accelerated in the last few years.  A spiral that is being fed by political opportunist.  Fed on the worst of our nature.  A cycle that legalizes theft, uses intimidation to silence opposition, mobs to keep opponents in check, all as an excuse to feed self pity in the name of restitution

Are we not better than that?  Are we not willing to make sacrifices for the good of posterity?  Shouldn’t we stand up to tyrants who feed on our worst traits to better themselves and their faction?

No one will do it for you. They cannot speak for you.  They cannot act for you.  They cannot vote for you.   Therin the patient must  minister to himself.

Have you given everything?  Not everything, not yet.

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