OPINION:
Higher Ground is there for you if you’re seeking guidance in today’s changing world. Everett Piper, a Ph.D. and a former university president and radio host, is writing an advice column for The Times, and he wants to hear from you. If you have any moral or ethical questions for which you’d like an answer, please email askeverett@washingtontimes.com, and he may include it in the column.
DEAR DR. E: Why do conservatives insist on imposing their dead-right and dead-wrong, pharisaical nonsense on the rest of us? — FED-UP PROGRESSIVE FROM MICHIGAN
DEAR FED UP: I’d like to start by asking you a couple of questions about the “dead-right and dead-wrong nonsense” you cite above.
Doesn’t your question presuppose that you are “dead right” in condemning conservatives for believing they’re “dead right”? Isn’t your accusation a bit self-refuting? Can’t you see that your very premise condemns itself and that your presuppositions collapse of their own weight?
The words “Physician, heal thyself” come to mind. You appear to have one finger of accusation pointed outward, while at the same time, you seem entirely oblivious that you have several others pointed back at yourself. I’d argue you have uncomfortably stumbled into the technical definition of nonsense, for your position literally makes no sense.
As I have said before, claiming you’re always right for condemning those who always think they are right is akin to saying “I know nothing can be known, and there absolutely are no absolutes.” Or better yet: “I can’t tolerate your intolerance, I’m sure that nothing is sure, and I just hate those hateful people.”
A little refresher course in the law of non-contradiction might be in order here.
Now let’s deal with the matter of Pharisees. With apologies to the movie “The Princess Bride,” I don’t think the word means what you think it means. The term “pharisee” is not (as you imply) a pejorative reference to those who believe in objective truth. Calling someone “pharisaical” is not a repudiation of “right standards” but of an attitude of self-righteousness. It is a condemnation of arrogance and personal superiority.
“Pharisee” connotes a love affair with self. It’s akin to Narcissus gazing with admiration at his own reflection while listening to Carly Simon sing, “You’re so vain. I bet you think this song is about you.” A Pharisee thinks everything is about him. He believes his truths are superior to God’s.
When someone elevates their values and opinions above their Creator’s, that person is indeed a “Pharisee.” The irony is that left-of-center progressives tend to commit this error much more boldly today than their conservative brothers and sisters, whom they’re so eager to ridicule.
This habitual reenactment of the original sin (i.e., declaring yourself to be “as God”) is something today’s nonjudgmental judges must do to justify the elevation of their opinions over and above the time-tested truths of history, reason, experience and revelation. The irony, however, is that common sense and natural law — what C.S. Lewis called the Tao — are much more conducive to pluralism, freedom, and a robust exchange of ideas than are the views of those who proudly wave their rainbow banners of inclusion, tolerance and affirmation.
Proof? It’s usually not the conservatives who are calling for the thought police to silence their opposition and deplatform everyone who merely has a different perspective than the officially accepted narrative.
I’d argue that your implied disregard for the self-evident truths that give knowledge any measure of knowability is much more autocratic and controlling than anything coming from today’s conservative camp. In fact, your confidence that you, rather than Scripture, are the final measure of everything that is “dead right” and “dead wrong” is arguably the first step down the path Robespierre trod as he “strangled the last king with the entrails of the last priest,” and thereby handed the guillotine’s blade to his own executioner.
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