Observe that the same morality—altruism, the morality of self-immolation—which, for centuries, has been preached against the individual, is now preached against the civilized nations. The creed of self-sacrifice—the primordial weapon used to penalize man’s success on earth, to undercut his self-confidence, to cripple his independence, to poison his enjoyment of life, to emasculate his pride, to stunt his self-esteem and paralyze his mind—is now counted upon to wreak the same destruction on civilized nations and on civilization as such.
I quote John Gait: “You have reached the blind alley of the treason you committed when you agreed that you had no right to exist Once, you believed it was ‘only a compromise’: you conceded it was evil to live for yourself, but moral to live for the sake of your children. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your children, but moral to live for your community. Then you conceded that it was selfish to live for your community, but moral to live for your country. Now, you are letting this greatest of countries be devoured by any scum from any corner of the earth, while you concede that it is selfish to live for your country and that your moral duty is to live for the globe. A man who has no right to life, has no right to values and will not keep them.” {Atlas Shrugged)
Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for bis proper survival qua man—i.e., qua rational being. They are not compatible with altruism.
Man’s soul or spirit is bis consciousness; the motor of his consciousness is reason; deprive him of freedom, i.e., of the right to use his mind—and what is left of him is only a physical body, ready to be manipulated by the strings of any tribe.
Ask yourself whether you have ever read a document as body-oriented as that encyclical. The inhabitants of the world it proposes to establish are robots tuned to respond to a single stimulus: need—the lowest, grossest, physical, physical-istic need of any other robots anywhere: the minimum necessities, the barely sufficient to keep all robots in working order, eating, sleeping, eliminating, and procreating, to produce more robots to work, eat, sleep, eliminate, and procreate. The most dehumanizing level of poverty is the level on which bare animal necessities become one’s only concern and goal; this is the level which the encyclical proposes to institutionalize and on which it proposes to immobilize all of mankind forever, with the animal needs of all as the only motivation of all (“all other rights whatsoever … are to be subordinated to this principle”).
If the encyclical charges that in a capitalist society men fall victim to “a stifling materialism,” what is the atmosphere of that proposed world?
The survivor of one such plan described it as follows: “We had no way of knowing their ability tthe ability of others], we had no way of controlling their needs—all we knew was that we were beasts of burden struggling blindly in some sort of place that was half-hospital, half-stockyards—a place geared to nothing but disability, disaster, disease—beasts put there for the relief of whatever whoever chose to say was whichever’s need…. To work—with no chance for an extra ration, till the Cambodians have been fed and the Patagoni-ans have been sent through college. To work—on a blank check held by every creature born, by men whom you’ll never see, whose needs you’ll never know, whose ability or laziness or sloppiness or fraud you have no way to learn and no right to question—just to work and work and work—and leave it up to the Ivys and the Geralds of the world to decide whose stomach will consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life.” (Atlas Shrugged)
Do you think that I was exaggerating and that no one preaches ideals of that kind?
But, you say, the encyclical’s ideal will not work? It is not intended to work.
It is not intended to relieve suffering or to abolish poverty; it is intended to induce guilt. It is not intended to be accepted and practiced; it is intended to be accepted and broken— broken by man’s “selfish” desire to live, which will thus be turned into a shameful weakness. Men who accept as an ideal an irrational goal which they cannot achieve, never lift their heads thereafter—and never discover that their bowed heads were the only goal to be achieved.
The relief of suffering is not altruism’s motive, it is only its rationalization. Self-sacrifice is not altruism’s means to a happier end, it is its end—self-sacrifice as man’s permanent state, as a way of life and joyless toil in the muck of a desolate earth where no “Why?” is ever to flash on in the veiled, extinguished eyes of children.
The encyclical comes close to admitting this prospect, and does not attempt to offer any earthly justification for altruistic martyrdom. It declares: “Far from being the ultimate measure of all things, man can only realize himself by reaching beyond himself.” (42) (Beyond the grave?) And: “This road toward a greater humanity requires effort and sacrifice, but suffering itself, accepted for the love of our brethren, favors the progress of the entire human family.” (79) And: “We are all united in this progress toward God.” (80)
As to the attitude toward man’s mind, the clearest admission is to be found outside the encyclical. In a speech to a national conference of Italian bishops, on April 7, 1967, Pope Paul VI denounced the questioning of “any dogma that does not please and that demands the humble homage of the mind to be received.” And he urged the bishops to combat the “cult of one’s own person.” (The New York Times, April 8, 1967.)
On the question of what political system it advocates, the encyclical is scornfully indifferent: it would, apparently, find any political system acceptable provided it is a version of statism. The vague allusions to some nominal form of private property make it probable that the encyclical favors fascism. On the other hand, the tone, style, and vulgarity of argumentation suggest a shopworn Marxism. But this very vulgarity seems to indicate a profound indifference to intellectual discourse—as if, contemptuous of its audience, the encyclical picked whatever cliches were deemed to be safely fashionable today.
The encyclical insists emphatically on only two political demands: that the nations of the future embrace statism, with a totalitarian control of their citizens’ economic activities—and that these nations unite into a global state, with a totalitarian power over global planning. “This international collaboration on a worldwide scale requires institutions that will prepare, coordinate and direct it … Who does not see the necessity of thus establishing progressively a world authority, capable of acting effectively in the juridical and political sectors?” (78)
Is there any difference between the encyclical’s philosophy and communism? I am perfectly willing, on this matter, to take the word of an eminent Catholic authority. Under the headline: “Encyclical Termed Rebuff to Marxism,” The New York Times of March 31, 1967, reports: “The Rev. John Courtney Murray, the prominent Jesuit theologian, described Pope Paul’s newest encyclical yesterday as ‘the church’s definitive answer to Marxism.’ . . . The Marxists have proposed one way, and in pursuing their program they rely on man alone,’ Father Murray said. ‘Now Pope Paul VI has issued a detailed plan to accomplish the same goal on the basis of true humanism—humanism that recognizes man’s religious nature.'”
Amen.
So much for those American “conservatives” who claim that religion is the base of capitalism—and who believe that they can have capitalism and eat it, too, as the moral cannibalism of the altruist ethics demands.
And so much for those modern “liberals” who pride themselves on being the champions of reason, science, and progress—and who smear the advocates of capitalism as superstitious, reactionary representatives of a dark past. Move over, comrades, and make room for your latest fellow-travelers, who had always belonged on your side—then take a look, if you dare, at the kind of past they represent.
This is the spectacle of religion climbing on the bandwagon of statism, in a desperate attempt to recapture the power it lost at the time of the Renaissance.
The Catholic Church has never given up the hope to re-establish the medieval union of church and state, with a global state and a global theocracy as its ultimate goal. Since the Renaissance, it has always been cautiously last to join that political movement which could serve its purpose at the time. This time, it is too late: collectivism is dead intellectually; the band-wagon on which the Church has climbed is a hearse. But, counting on that vehicle, the Catholic Church is deserting Western civilization and calling upon the barbarian hordes to devour the achievements of man’s mind.
There is an element of sadness in this spectacle. Catholicism had once been the most philosophical of all religions. Its long, illustrious philosophical history was illuminated by a giant: Thomas Aquinas. He brought an Aristotelian view of reason (an Aristotelian epistemology) back into European culture, and lighted the way to the Renaissance. For the brief span of the nineteenth century, when his was the dominant influence among Catholic philosophers, the grandeur of his thought almost lifted the Church close to the realm of reason (though at the price of a basic contradiction). Now, we are witnessing the end of the Aquinas line—with the Church turning again to his primordial antagonist, who fits it better, to the mind-hating, life-hating St. Augustine. One could only wish they had given St. Thomas a more dignified requiem.