Tea at Trianon: Moral Relativism

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Moral Relativism

To quote Judie Brown of the American Life League:

Pope Benedict XVI has addressed the problematic nature of moral relativism (MoRe) on several occasions, including the effect that such thinking, which he calls a “dictatorship of relativism,” has had on young people across the world.

This argument is mirrored by a recent Knights of Columbus/Marist poll. Speaking of that survey while in Rome, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said, “Catholic Millennials support Church teaching in a wide variety of areas, including contentious issues like abortion and euthanasia. In other areas, the cultural relativism that Pope Benedict XVI has spoken so much about is very evident, and it confirms the wisdom of his attention to this question as central to the New Evangelization.”

Such comments remind me of a Celebrate Life magazine article published in the year 2000 and written by then ALL executive director Andrew Daub. In his article, “No MoRe Lies,” Daub spelled it out very clearly when he said, “A better way to describe moral relativism is moral apathy—the absence of truth, interest, emotion, feeling or concern in regard to morals. It’s feeling blah about right or wrong—too lazy or uninterested to make a decision.” (Read entire post.)

julygirl said...: It happens when the problems and pitfalls of life drag people down to the point of physical, moral and psychic exhaustion leaving them with a sense of frustration and helplessness. For many families, it is enough just getting their children schooled, keeping them safe, paying bills, and generally trying not to drown in the current of cultural mayhem.; July 4, 2012 at 12:27:00 PM EDT