The Moral, the Existential, and the Ontological

Part 4, Moral Drift

In this post I want to gather up some observations I've made before, but using them to illustrate the moral, existential, and ontological layer framework I've been floating in this series.

The question I want to focus on in this post is this: What are some of the things that happen when the moral layer becomes separated from the layers beneath it?

There are so many things to say, but let me focus on things I've shared over the years and in some of my books.

Let me start with some things about when the moral layer becomes separated from the existential, narrative, and symbolic layer. The first thing to say, as I have throughout this series, is that man does not live by morals and politics alone. I'll say for the fourth post in a row: Meaning is the bread of life. So, while the Judeo-Christian values of liberal humanism and political progressivism may provide one with a moral compass and political commitments, this is insufficient to fill the existential vacuum of secular modernity.

Another thing that happens when the moral layer is separated from the narrative and symbolic layer is that the moral vision becomes thin and impoverished. For example, when we disembed social justice from the moral matrix of the Judeo-Christian worldview crucial moral commitments and capacities are left behind. This turns "social justice" into a blunt instrument, and is one of the reasons social justice so often goes awry. Here's how I described this in Hunting Magic Eels:

As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Justice is just one tool in our moral toolbox. A critical, essential tool. But one tool can’t do all the moral work life demands of us. Justice is a hammer, and when you’re looking at a nail—say, oppression—the hammer is the tool to pick up. But the moral drama of our lives isn’t just about oppression. We’re dealing with all sorts of things, from forgiveness to mercy to shame to guilt to joy to truth to peace to reconciliation. And hitting mercy with a hammer just isn’t a good idea. You’ll break it.

Consider an obvious example: how the social justice movement struggles with the issue of forgiveness. With the pervasiveness of what has been called “cancel culture,” can the canceled ever be forgiven? What about problematic allies? What if someone’s moral performance for the cause is less than perfect? The social justice movement struggles here with the issues of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The reason for this is that justice is a hammer, and while a hammer is an excellent tool for nails, it is not so great with other moral tasks. Forgiveness is a different problem than injustice. You need different tools. The moral drama of life isn’t putting up a swing set in the backyard, easily tackled with the single tool enclosed in the box; it’s building an entire house. Moral life is cement work, brick laying, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, roofing, painting, and so on. You need more than a hammer.

So here is one reason we need to keep the moral layer connected to the narrative and symbolic layer. Moral and political life is complicated and nuanced and that requires a fuller, thicker, and and richer narrative and symbolic foundation. Without this foundation, moral life becomes crude, reductive, agonistic, and incoherent.

Let's now go one layer deeper. What happens when the moral layer looses contact with the ontological layer, the layer of the Real?

I'll point out two things.

First, as I've repeatedly pointed out over the years, the Judeo-Christian moral vision demands a metaphysics of hope. For two reasons. First, without hope the moral drama of our lives, our small efforts to make the world a better place, will succumb to despair, rage, cynicism, hate, burnout, compassion fatigue, and the violence motivated by what John Howard Yoder called "revolutionary impatience." If the moral arch of history doesn't, ontologically, bend toward justice, then it will be impossible to maintain the Judeo-Christian moral vision of love and justice in a committed, persevering, and joy-filled way. And the critical point to underline here is that hope isn't a moral commitment. Nor is it a symbolic one. Hope is an ontological issue. What sustains the Judeo-Christian moral vision of love and justice is its connection to the Real.

Secondly, the actual content of the Judeo-Christian moral vision is subject to drift, corruption, or replacement. There are anti-humanistic ethics afoot in the world. The liberal humanism of the West, grounded in Judeo-Christian narrative and ontology, is faltering.

Now, it might be countered here that some of this faltering is due to Christians themselves, their instrumental embrace of authoritarianism and fascism to accomplish short-term political and cultural goals. In response, I'd simply point to Tom Holland's argument in Dominion that these liberal and humanistic criticisms of authoritarianism and fascism are, themselves, rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Which means that this conflict will necessarily boil down to ontology. That is, what is the true and real moral vision of Jesus of Nazareth? Phrased differently, the task of resistance, as ontological critique, is prophetic in nature. Who--really, truly--speaks for the Lord?

Of course, a liberal humanist might want to criticize Christian nationalism from the outside, in purely secular terms. To that person I'd simply say, "Best of luck!" For a few reasons, but an obvious one is that the Christian fascists, as Christians, believe themselves to be standing on the Real. They're wrong, in my estimation, but they are making ontological claims. The secular liberal humanist, by contrast, is a nihilist. That is to say, the secular liberal humanist--as a pluralistic post-modernist--is unable to defend their moral vision is either real or true. Again, the liberal humanist has cut themselves off from the existential and ontological layers. Their moral vision rests on air. And in a debate between a nihilist and a ontologist the ontologist is going to win every time. In short, if you want to criticize the Christian fascist you're going to have to do so on ontological grounds. You must become a prophet. Which means you have to connect your moral vision to the ontological layer.