William McGurn has an excellent column in today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal. It is entitled, “My Big Fat Government Takeover.“
In the column, he decries those in favor of governmental solutions to all man’s ills, and he mentions that lack of humility of those like President Obama and his ilk, who believe that a few “smart” people with centralized power can solve the nation’s (and the world’s) problems. (Yet, they can’t prevent party-crashers to a state dinner. Good luck with that.)
We want to emphasize the hubris (and the misguided and misplaced faith in themselves) because it is the perfect message on this date, December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Whether knowingly, by coincidence or through the Grace of God, Mr. McGurn’s column relates well to the bible readings (and we’re sure to many of the homilies) on this Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics.
As many Catholics know–and all of them should know–today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which celebrates Mary’s conception and perpetual state of grace. (A fair number of Catholics confuse the Immaculate Conception with the Annunciation, when Mary is visited by the Angel Gabriel, and learns (and accepts) that she is to be the mother of our Lord. That’s partly their fault for not paying attention and partly because the Gospel reading for today is, in fact, the Annunciation.)
The first reading, from the Book of Genesis, recounts Man’s Fall from Grace, while Luke’s Gospel of the Annunciation gives the Angel Gabriel’s greeting, “Hail, full of Grace! The Lord is with you.”
The failure to consider and appreciate that distinction between her grace and the Fallen Nature of every other person is why big-government solutions always fails–either in the short-term due to bureaucratic ineptitude or in the long-term due to totalitarianism (or both). In the extreme cases of totalitarianism, when the government attempts to get rid of the imperfect true-believers in it, there is no shortage of imperfect folks to eliminate. That, of course, is the impetus for the gulags and the killing fields.
Because we attended this morning’s Mass for the parish school’s children, our excellent new Parochial Vicar–who recently replaced our excellent and transferred Parochial Vicar and friend, Fr. Sean–tried to emphasize that distinction between the grace of Mary and everyone is the Church– and the world, for that matter.
He asked the students three questions: (1) How many of you always listen to your parents and do as they ask? (2) How many of you always listen to your teachers and do as they ask? And (3) How many of you always listen to God and do as he asks?
Either out of (1) hubris or (2) incorrectly anticipating the answers that he sought or (3) considering which of Santa’ lists they hoped to be on so very near to Christmas, many of the younger children answered affirmatively to all three questions.
Our priest then asked similar questions to the parents and other adults present, and no hands were raised. In fact, like every other priest that we know, he admitted to being a sinner and noted that he could not raise his hand for any of the questions.
That’s makes us wonder why those seeking centralized solutions would (likely) answer in concert with first-graders in the pews rather than with the adults?
By itself, there’s no problem thinking that you’re better than others. In many situations, a healthy self-confidence in one’s God-given abilities is often a necessary condition for success.
The problem is that much of the empirical evidence one observes about oneself often doesn’t support that hypothesis.
So rather than internalizing those flaws, an easier way to maintain the distinction or mirage of superiority is to demonize others and attribute the basest of motives and behaviors to them. In other words, immediately believe the worst that you hear about them, while maintaining skepticism when you’re told good things about them.
A friend of ours mentioned that prior to serving as the head of a rather contentious organization, he would often view those with opposing viewpoints as being either evil or stupid or both. After being lobbied by both sides of various issues for a few years, he realized that folks can have different opinions and perspectives and objectives without necessarily being evil or stupid. (We joke that those who disagree with us need not be evil or stupid, they may simply be ignorant and not know any better.)
In that regard, we would hope that both the faithful and non-believers could agree with the first phrase of Alexander Pope’s famous quote: “To err is human…”
And, like Mr. McGurn, we would hope that individuals with responsibility for various social, political, and economics organizations would take their own flaws and the flaws of others into consideration when designing institutions and policies for those institutions. After all, that type of organizational and managerial control is one of our specialties at Spero Consulting.
