Civilisation Begins in the Soul

# Civilisation Begins in the Soul _Civilise the Corner of the World You Have Been Entrusted With_ There is a law of noble behaviour, of civilisation. The external world, or that corner of it in which we have agency, is a mirror that reflects our soul, our will. Our character tends to impress its form upon whatever lies within our control. A positive piece of modern knowledge is that a virtuous family can suffer war, disease, betrayal, poverty through no moral fault of their own. Often, however, this truth is overplayed into the claim that nearly everything lies outside our sphere of agency, when indeed, much is in reach of the will. If the soul is dismal wreckage that seeks comfort or follows animal instinct rather than the good, the area we inhabit reflects this and becomes disordered, bitter, indifferent, selfish, irritable, cruel, morally compromising, disloyal, harsh, and impulsive. Choose your burdens, or the world will choose them for you, and it is not a kind master. On the other hand, to the extent we surrender to the Lord, bringing our will into alignment with his, we possess a bright nobility, a love for others, a gratitude, a self-control, delaying gratification as needed. That is, a civilisation. To the extent we manage this, the external world around us will be enriched with laughter, with cleanliness, with honour, with success and happiness. The key demonstration of that is a family: a model small enough to understand. If the father and mother have souls that fear the Lord, are wise and strong, and align themselves with him, then they will be gentle, kind, self-controlled, capable, patient, loving. Their child will inhabit something that is more or less orderly, trustworthy, beautiful, frightening, arbitrary, generous, or loving. And unfortunately the civilised are taught how to fend for themselves in disorder, but children of disorder are rarely taught how to be civilised, harming themselves and those around them until they adapt. The primary duty of a father and mother is to secure the corner of the earth they have and approximate heaven within it for the child. That is, the father guards the 'borders' and protects from external threats while bringing home spoils of war, and the mother multiplies, guards internally, and tends the hearth. And a noble man would not refuse to wash the dishes if his wife is eight months pregnant. The point is that neither spouse asks, "What is the minimum owed?" but rather, "What does love require of strength here?" To the extent both parents are doing their duty, restrained yet capable, aligned with the Lord, that corner of the world becomes more and more the Kingdom on earth. This is reflected in disposition and often, depending on vocation, in material circumstances. But material circumstances are a poor proxy; gentleness even when angry is a better one. The relationship we have with God, the nobility we choose to bear, is reflected in all three of our other relationships: that with ourselves (are we resentful, or patient; are we grateful, or bitter); that with others (are we callous, or are we kind; are we loyal, or faithless; are we wrathful, or are we gentle); and that with reality (are we strong, or are we unable to meet reality; are we producing works that are beautiful, wise and uplifting, or works that are ugly; do we propagate virtue, or vice). For nobility is a cross: the highest leader is the one who serves the most, who chooses wise sacrifices. Some cultures believe that it is foolish to sacrifice for others, that loyalty is disloyalty to oneself or one's family. They are wrong, for while disloyalty can be locally 'optimal' (optimal, that is, for the wrong goal), such a civilisation does not flourish, and so the local maximum becomes far worse than even a minimum in a more 'foolish' society of high trust. Some cultures believe in an unthinking, impulsive care for all. They are wrong, for real love requires sacrifice, requires you to identify what is good, not what is simply desired in the moment, even out of empathy. Predictably enough, those who act simply on sentiment do not often do good in their giving, for the aim is not the good but the sentiment itself. A parent who gives a child everything the child desires on a whim does not truly love them. Vice contains intrinsic costs even when it produces temporary advantage. The liar must inhabit a world dependent upon lies to continue; a tyrant or schemer destroys the trust on which competent cooperation depends; an adulterer obtains immediate pleasure by damaging their ability to uphold covenant; we can see how low-trust societies that reward predation and corruption locally become collectively poorer and more miserable. This is a law of reality, though a law of tendency rather than of mechanism: that the noble cultures of the loyal, passionate, wise, gentle, kind, the servants of others tend to reign; and that those who choose to be impulsive, unfaithful, dispassionate, callous, cruel and to enrich themselves tend to sink to the lowest layer of life possible for them. This is the fundamental fabric that decides the fate of each individual, each family, each collection of people, each nation. It is the alignment of their will with God's, their culture, their nobility of spirit, their willingness to bear the cross for others. Observe the world around you. What you have done unto society, you first did within your soul; one is the image of the other. Is that image joyful, the physical fabric of the kingdom of heaven? Is that image dismal, the physical fabric of treason committed against your values, your friends, your society, yourself? By culture we do not mean cuisine, nationality, clothing, music, or even etiquette and the aesthetic. Those are manifestations. Culture is the accumulated pattern of a people and its mapping to the divine itself: what they reward, admire, excuse, despise, sacrifice for, and treat as sacred. Those become our myths, stories, habits, and family practices, which in their turn begin forming others. I believe this factor is more predictive of what matters in a human life than any other: is a man's mind-image set upon God, the highest good he can aspire to, the reality of Christ; or upon an idol (an idol being anything that is not God elevated to that highest position, be it the man himself or food or money or even relationships with others)? Multiplied across a group, this is 'culture'. And this determines the rise and fall of that group, and whether mankind's place within that corner of the universe is kingdom-like or hellish. Goodness does not mechanically produce pleasant circumstances, and faith is not a bargain for comfort. But the object of our highest devotion will dictate all else that flows down from it in our lives, with chosen hardship becoming meaningful in subordination to the good. A love that flows from the divine forms noble character, and our character governs relationships and stewardship of our slice of the world. Repeated across families and generations, these patterns make up culture. That portion of reality entrusted to a people becomes more truthful, beautiful, loving and habitable; or it becomes more disordered, wrathful, and callous. To deny this law is to deny our duty to spread such a way of living throughout the human race, and so to leave innumerable people to suffer in poor relationship to themselves, to those around them, and to reality as a whole. We cannot purport to know the good and evil of deeds beyond doubt; we do not have the mind of God. Yet there is good and evil in the acts of men. Thus we cannot merely act wise, comforting our minds with cleverness and cynicism. We must instead be wise: that is, we must readily accept our shortcomings and still choose to engage, because we know the alternative is not better. We must do away with certain, self-justifying, reflexive action, and with uncertain, cynical inaction. We must enter the real battleground of the world: right action under conditions of uncertainty, open to correction. That is the ultimate failure of the political mind turned towards the decline of a society. Politics cannot substitute for sanctification. The state may attempt to restrain certain evils and protect certain goods, but it cannot manufacture the kind of human being without whom a good society becomes impossible; indeed, the state itself is made up of such human beings. Civilisation is the incarnation of the wills of its people. Our invisible loves become visible realities. Providence gives us circumstances we did not choose, a reality that acts on us and on which we act in turn; character determines what we add to that reality. Do not start with what other men must be made to do, with coercive authority, for such power magnifies the worst of our fallibility. Order that will of yours towards the divine, and first make the territory through which your will passes more truthful, more beautiful, more gentle, more ordered, more courageous and more loving than it would have been without you. The foremost implication of such a model of the world is that while we may have civic or even belligerent duties in defence of nobility, these are downstream of our personal sanctification. Indeed, without personal sanctification it is far too easy to become either dispassionate or a prideful, wrathful pharisee. Are you furious about the disloyal? Then be loyal. Are you furious about the collapse of sexual ethics? Then treat those you love with gentleness and honour the Lord. Are you lamenting ugliness? Then make something beautiful. If you condemn weak fathers, you must learn to be present and take on the weight of a capable and warm fatherhood. Are you appalled by selfishness? Then till the earth for years and give away what is costly to you. If you demand the fruits of civilisation, you must civilise the territory entrusted to you. Order first your life, then that of your family; only then can come the village and the successively larger dragons to be slain.