No, this isn't a review of a movie; and I apologize that this is turning into Faith & Politics Friday. I promise it'll stop soon; my political science class is over in a week and a half. But I've had a question on my mind for a long time that just floated in and out, and I could never seem to really investigate it more. Well, I could yesterday; and I don't know if my professor wondered why I got fidgety all of a sudden in class, but my mind was spinning. So I thought I'd present it to you all.
The question I have is, why do we think that wisdom always necessarily comes out of democracy? (I haven't yet gotten the question in a phrasing I like, either.) I mean, why do we assume that if we get 10,000 people together and ask them questions, the answer at which they arrive is better than the answer of one person with advanced knowledge of the subject? Well I think I have an answer, but some people may not like it. I know my boss wouldn't.
Here's the problem, and yes it is a problem: historical philosophical discourse has been dominated by men. All of our political philosophy comes from men: Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, the Founding Fathers. To men, logic is good and emotion bad. And I would agree: for men, emotion is bad. Watch any sappy love movie (not that all love movies are sappy, but watch the sappy ones) and see what men do when they're overcome with emotion. Women, though, can work differently than we do; I've seen emotional women do things and think things that men are utter fools not to pay attention to, and I don't mean that the way a comedian would mean that. Compassion is an emotion that the entire world needs.
But beyond just stating that emotions are bad and logic is good, political philosophy -- what I've read of it -- assumes that logic is stronger than emotion, that logic will always beat emotion in a contest of discourse. How tragically untrue. Look at 1860's South: was that a culture dominated by logic? Or did the logic bend to the racist emotions?
And I'm not alone in this: I've got Paul (the apostle). "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Timothy 4:3). It's actually interesting that Paul put this in the future: much of the Old Testament is people suiting their own desires. But what this verse points out is what my point is: in a perfect world, yes, perhaps logic is the best route (again, I agree with many points of the argument for emotion). But if you haven't been watching the news, we don't live in a perfect world; emotions are rampant. And according to Paul, those desires will shape the logic.
And surely I'm not the only one who has strongly desired something, and justified it through twisted logic. When a child or youth does it, it's much easier to pick apart. There's usually a gaping hole somewhere. But I don't think it's that adults cease the practice: they only get better at it.
So, to close (and to burst the bubbles of those who hope I'm on the fringe) I'm not arguing for monarchy, I'm arguing for foundational truth. Probably some of you (good post-modernists) still think I'm on the fringe. But for Christians, that's why we have the Bible; for exegesis, pulling truth from Scriptures; not eisegesis, reading truth into Scriptures. It takes a humble heart, one that does not think it has the answers, and honest seeking for God's will through faith that He will show it to us. And a little compassion and logic, too.
See you Wednesday.
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