Looking up the word "virtue," I can see that it has a number of aspects. Without much care, the word wanders around my mind meaning (without much scrutiny) something that is either good in an over-arching sense or good for you in a quite particular sense.
What brought this somewhat amorphous topic to mind was watching the first installment of documentary film-maker Ken Burns' "Prohibition" on TV last night. The examination of America's love/hate relationship with booze did not begin with the shoot-'em-up criminalities that erupted after the 18th amendment to the Constitution was passed. It began long before, picking up steam from the 1820's into the 1850's and 1860's. It began with women who got fed to the teeth with husbands whose love of alcohol often left mothers and children destitute and hungry and at the whim of men whose ascendant role in family life allowed them to act in wildly intemperate ways. Luckily, those same men tended to elevate the fairer sex to a soft and mothering and squishy throne that allowed them to do things like gather and pray outside a saloon or pharmacy ... and shut down the sale of booze. And when, at last, the income tax came into effect, politicians could abandon their recognition that alcohol represented 30% or more of the nation's income ... and they could vote for prohibition and coincidentally keep their jobs.
What a powerful movement. Church, schools, industry flocked to its banner, though often with very different motives. And what began under the cover of virtue was ratified in 1919 and not repealed until 1933.
Those early women were right, of course. Alcohol was a scourge. Still is, for that matter if anyone would care to look up the drug-addiction statistics. And those women were limited by their society as to the courses of action open to them. Virtue was one of the few avenues they could take. And so, virtue got a foothold and emerged 'victorious' ... until it collapsed of its own, human weight.
What all of this long-windedness (it's not long-winded in my mind, of course :)) made me think was this: So-called virtues are OK ... right up to the moment when one person insists on inflicting or demanding them from another. At that point, they are likely to turn into a vice.
If a (wo)man embraces what is called a virtue and strives to make it a reality is his/her life, the meaning and experience of virtue can bear some pretty good fruit. But imposing that virtue on others, in whatever way, invariably leaves out the unlimited human capacity -- a capacity that is both wondrous and horrific by turns. A (wo)man who attempts to revise his or her own way of life is a marvel. But to step from that acceptance and subsequent effort into a world of arm-twisting is doomed to failure. Not because they are wrong or because they do not win an occasional public victory, but because ... well ... if the only conviction I have is based on the convincing you (or a book or an organization) have done, then I am living in a world of belief instead of a world of experience based on the effort made to actualize what is sometimes called virtue.
If one person tells another to be good or threatens them with punishment if they do not act in accordance with virtue, that person may feel guilty or repentant ... but what sort of basis is that for virtue? Isn't that like building a house on a sand foundation? I think it is. And worse, a perfectly good reality is lost behind a haze of 'goodness' ... an insufferable, if understandable, vice.
This is getting too long and too ornate. What really interests me is the ability anyone might have to practice what virtues they see or seek. There is nothing wrong with saying "I see or seek x, y, or z." Such things can sometimes be fruitfully discussed. But to imagine that because I think something is sensible or worthy is a reason someone else might agree, or, worse, should agree ... this is a silly vice, worthy of investigation.
I always liked Buddhism's approach. There are The Four Noble Truths and there is The Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths make observations about this life. Anyone is free to find meaning or usefulness in them ... or not. And if anyone finds usefulness or meaning in The Four Noble Truths, they are likewise free to exercise The Eightfold Path which is suggested as a sensible course for getting our heads screwed on the right way. It's a suggestion, not some imperial mandate that is the ground water of vice.
I dislike seeing virtue turned into vice, but lord knows there is something very tempting about the vice of virtue.
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