The Indictment of Self Control
One of the great values is being lost. It is one of the basic principles of every great religion and every great man. Foundational to the former, indispensable to the latter, it is the mastery of self – or more commonly, self-control.
The obvious examples of its degradation are those celebrations of excess that we meet in media and most large cities: drunkenness, gluttony, promiscuity, consumerism. These are vices that in some golden age past were acknowledged as such. Today they are largely accepted with a wink and a smile, if not praised outright with jokes and high fives.
Although offensive these lapses in our cultural self-control are not the most dangerous. Far from it, I believe. There is a much more subtle, pervasive lack of self-will that threatens to poison our understanding of this most basic of values, and in that way poison its practice in our society.
Let me start by giving a quick, working definition of self-control: we’ll say that self-control is the denial of selfish desires in favor of more universal values. I will not here delve into the foundations of these universal values; whether they be divine, utilitarian, ancient herding instinct, or other has little bearing here. What matters is that there is some set of values that is more universal than personal desires. Relativists, I apologize, but there is not much here for you.
America celebrates hard work. We like to believe that by the aggregate sweat of their brows our forefathers carved the greatest nation in history out of the solid rock of the New World. What they did was purposeful and proactive; it was good. And today the ideal of early mornings and late nights and collapsing into bed lives on, and with this ideal comes a photogenic but centrally false adaptation of self-control.
Centrally false because the center has changed. The American ideal of hard work originated at a time when our fledgling country was expanding rapidly. People were being born and immigrating and they would need houses and jobs and food. This sense of purpose, coupled with daily familial necessities spawned amazing works like railroads and aqueducts – improvements that blurred with necessities. When we think of the ideal of hard work that was born in this period we see dirty farmers and sweating railroad workers. They go home at night to two room shacks where they live with spouses and children.
Contrast that with today’s ideal of the hard worker. They wake in two story houses, put on expensive suits and fight traffic in luxury cars. They work long hours in tall buildings, spinning money into more and more money, pecking away at keyboards and cell phones and secretaries. They talk business constantly – on the road, at lunch, on the course, late into the night. No breaks, no nonsense, all focus. They do, in fact, work hard. But what for?
No longer do they stay late to keep food on the table or provide a humane living space for their families. They are not (for the most part) trying to provide for the health or well-being of their fellow man. The fact is that many who are praised for their self-sacrificing hard work are working mostly for themselves.
Their schedules are catalogs of self-control. No fluff, no daily indulgences. But the reasons behind those schedules are grotesque images of consumptive indulgence. They work because they want – houses, cars, women, men, power, status, comfort, luxury, service; more. Long ago in more formative years these desires sprouted in their minds. Family and society could have trimmed and tempered them, but did not. Likely they encouraged and coaxed them, misguided though that may be. These young ones in whom the desires took root had the opportunity to control them, focus them, take the best of them and leave the chaff, but they did not. The desires grew.
They eventually took over. Daily has become only the acting out of selfish desires. Hence the hard work and long hours and constant business. They can do no less if they want to fulfill these driving passions. Desires disguised as values have grown into purposes and a life is being carried away ten-hour-day by ten-hour-day. The veneer of self-control is actually an acquiescence to uncontrolled lusts.
And this, my friends, is the ideal. This is the new standard, the bar by which we are measured. No longer are we asked to provide the purposes for which we work, so long as we work hard. No longer are we to assume that life has meaning, and to live it accordingly. Rather we are to live according to… well, you tell me.
The obvious examples of its degradation are those celebrations of excess that we meet in media and most large cities: drunkenness, gluttony, promiscuity, consumerism. These are vices that in some golden age past were acknowledged as such. Today they are largely accepted with a wink and a smile, if not praised outright with jokes and high fives.
Although offensive these lapses in our cultural self-control are not the most dangerous. Far from it, I believe. There is a much more subtle, pervasive lack of self-will that threatens to poison our understanding of this most basic of values, and in that way poison its practice in our society.
Let me start by giving a quick, working definition of self-control: we’ll say that self-control is the denial of selfish desires in favor of more universal values. I will not here delve into the foundations of these universal values; whether they be divine, utilitarian, ancient herding instinct, or other has little bearing here. What matters is that there is some set of values that is more universal than personal desires. Relativists, I apologize, but there is not much here for you.
America celebrates hard work. We like to believe that by the aggregate sweat of their brows our forefathers carved the greatest nation in history out of the solid rock of the New World. What they did was purposeful and proactive; it was good. And today the ideal of early mornings and late nights and collapsing into bed lives on, and with this ideal comes a photogenic but centrally false adaptation of self-control.
Centrally false because the center has changed. The American ideal of hard work originated at a time when our fledgling country was expanding rapidly. People were being born and immigrating and they would need houses and jobs and food. This sense of purpose, coupled with daily familial necessities spawned amazing works like railroads and aqueducts – improvements that blurred with necessities. When we think of the ideal of hard work that was born in this period we see dirty farmers and sweating railroad workers. They go home at night to two room shacks where they live with spouses and children.
Contrast that with today’s ideal of the hard worker. They wake in two story houses, put on expensive suits and fight traffic in luxury cars. They work long hours in tall buildings, spinning money into more and more money, pecking away at keyboards and cell phones and secretaries. They talk business constantly – on the road, at lunch, on the course, late into the night. No breaks, no nonsense, all focus. They do, in fact, work hard. But what for?
No longer do they stay late to keep food on the table or provide a humane living space for their families. They are not (for the most part) trying to provide for the health or well-being of their fellow man. The fact is that many who are praised for their self-sacrificing hard work are working mostly for themselves.
Their schedules are catalogs of self-control. No fluff, no daily indulgences. But the reasons behind those schedules are grotesque images of consumptive indulgence. They work because they want – houses, cars, women, men, power, status, comfort, luxury, service; more. Long ago in more formative years these desires sprouted in their minds. Family and society could have trimmed and tempered them, but did not. Likely they encouraged and coaxed them, misguided though that may be. These young ones in whom the desires took root had the opportunity to control them, focus them, take the best of them and leave the chaff, but they did not. The desires grew.
They eventually took over. Daily has become only the acting out of selfish desires. Hence the hard work and long hours and constant business. They can do no less if they want to fulfill these driving passions. Desires disguised as values have grown into purposes and a life is being carried away ten-hour-day by ten-hour-day. The veneer of self-control is actually an acquiescence to uncontrolled lusts.
And this, my friends, is the ideal. This is the new standard, the bar by which we are measured. No longer are we asked to provide the purposes for which we work, so long as we work hard. No longer are we to assume that life has meaning, and to live it accordingly. Rather we are to live according to… well, you tell me.
posted by James at 00:32
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