A sketch on the
old Muppet Show with their very special guest star Harvey Korman had a
panel discussion on The Meaning of Life.
Harvey Korman came down on the side of “Life is like a tennis game,”
with which Miss Piggy disagreed, while one of the other panelists favored “Life
is like a garbage dump.” The discussion
ended with a general exchange of insults and the announcement that the next discussion
would cover whether conversation was a dying art . . . whereupon all the
Muppets keeled over leaving Korman shaking his head.
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| "Ditch the philosophy, Frog. We want entertainment!" |
No one seemed to
notice that “Life is like a tennis game” and “Life is like a garbage dump” are
metaphors. They don’t really tell us
anything about the meaning of life.
Saying life is like a tennis game, a garbage dump, or “a tale/Told by an
idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing” tells us what life is like,
not what life is for.
Of course, no one
really expected to get the meaning of life from the Muppet Show. The fact that no one was able to give even a
direct (albeit humorous) answer, however, is revealing. Diverting the question into another topic,
even unconsciously, suggests that few people today think about the meaning of
life, even in a shallow fashion, e.g., “Life is for getting stuff,”
“Life is for having fun,” and the most insidious of all, “Life is for being
happy” (as opposed to “pursuing happiness,” which is substantially different).
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| Pierre Leroux, Saint-Simonian socialist. |
As we saw in the previous
posting on this subject, however, “the New Christianity” of Henri de
Saint-Simon revised the Christian message (and mission) by declaring that the
meaning and purpose of life is “the amelioration of the moral and physical
existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way
best adapted for attaining this end.”
In other words,
according to the adherent of “the Democratic Religion” and prophet of the
Church of Saint-Simon that was intended to replace all traditional forms of
State, Church, and Family (later termed “socialism” by the Saint-Simonian
Pierre Leroux), the Meaning of Life is to have material needs met. “Morality,” in fact, was redefined as having
a “scientific basis,” the most moral thing being that which most efficiently
met human material needs.
This, by the way,
seems to be the source of the idea that capitalism is more moral than
socialism. As Milton Friedman liked to
say, capitalism is more moral than socialism because it makes more people
richer than socialism . . . in other words, capitalism is more moral than
socialism because it is more socialist!
That is, if we take the principle of socialism — social betterment — at
face value.
All this, of
course, is either a diversion or simply a wrong answer to the question, What is
the meaning and purpose of life?
Ironically, the question can be answered very easily from an
Aristotelian perspective. The meaning and
purpose of life is to become more fully human.
How? By acquiring and developing
“virtue” or “humanness.”
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| "Virtue consists of becoming more fully human" |
Human beings
become more fully human by conforming themselves more closely to their own
nature. That can only be done by
exercising natural rights, thereby becoming more “natural” or what What- or
Whoever created us wants us to be.
And that requires
work. No one gets to be more fully human
except by working at it. A virtue is the
habit of doing good (just as a vice is the habit of doing evil), and building
habits — good or bad — takes constant practice.
If you wish, for
example, to acquire and develop the virtue of generosity, you don’t do it by
giving a beggar a nickel once a year or so.
No, you become generous by being generous so that it
gradually becomes part of your nature — generosity becomes natural to you.
As Aristotle pointed out, becoming more
fully human, then, requires constant practice in exercising those natural
rights that enable us to build the habits of being just, courageous, temperate,
and prudent. The three most important natural
rights of life, liberty, and private property are (in a sense) custom made to
help human beings develop the classic natural virtues of fortitude, temperance,
prudence and justice, this last being the greatest natural virtue.
Justice is the
greatest natural virtue?
Yes. Charity is the greatest supernatural virtue,
and cannot even exist until and unless justice has been fulfilled. Why this is so is what we’ll look at in our
next posting on this subject.
#30#