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Alien vs. Predator Day, The Comfort of Philosophy, and a Sure Election

Admin by Admin
March 17, 2025
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Alien vs. Predator Day, The Comfort of Philosophy, and a Sure Election
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“So what good is energy if it’s a supply of fixed fear and worry? Like all of the remainder of us, kings wish to dwell out their lives with out these sorts of worries, however they can’t. They usually boast of their powers. However if you happen to see a person who can not accomplish what he needs to do, do you consider him as highly effective?”
—Girl Philosophy in The Comfort of Philosophy

I’ve lengthy since taken to calling the primary Tuesday in November Nationwide Alien vs. Predator Day, primarily based on the franchise crossover’s seemingly apt advertising and marketing line, “Whoever Wins, We Lose.” And so it was once more in 2024. Although there have been loads of true believers in each events who discover themselves in euphoric celebration or shocked mourning, polls proceed to recommend that for a lot of (most?) of us, neither choice was significantly interesting. In case you are in full-on celebration mode, playing cards on the desk: this text will not be for you. For true-blue political partisans feeling blue, some solace may be had right here. However I write this primarily as one for whom mourning was at all times going to be the inevitable results of this cycle’s marketing campaign season.

We dwell, I consider, in a pagan, barbaric age. The pragmatics of political brinkmanship have left us with solely two events, every of which I’d contend is inhuman within the methods detailed by Alan Noble in his e-book You Are Not Your Personal. Certainly, although every celebration is polarized in opposition to its opponent, the ills of every are signs of a better flip towards radical autonomy and self-service that superficially feels proper however on extra elementary ranges runs fairly in opposition to the grain of how we now have been designed.

On this means, it jogs my memory of one other state of affairs, an period of inhumanity and political cynicism within the waning hours of a once-great empire. On this season (as in so many), I discover myself turning again to the sixth-century Christian thinker and statesman Boethius. I firmly consider that there’s by no means a foul time to learn his magnum opus, The Comfort of Philosophy, however it feels much more poignantly apt now than in most different occasions. And in its pages, we will see maybe a technique to mirror on what it means to dwell faithfully in an period of sociopolitical barbarism.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born someplace between 475 and 480, proper on the time when the Western Roman Empire lastly fizzled out. For the early a long time of his life, he flourished personally regardless of the sociopolitical chaos of his surroundings. As a boy, he was adopted by the aristocratic scholar Symmachus, who cultivated his younger cost’s love of studying—to the very finish, Boethius would reward Symmachus’s character and thought. He would additionally go on to marry Symmachus’s organic daughter, Rusticiana, with whom he would have two sons. Boethius labored exhausting at integrating the seemingly disparate philosophies of Plato and Aristotle whereas additionally following his mentor and father-in-law Symmachus in defending Nicene Christian orthodoxy. And for whereas, his efforts met with worldly success, as he pursued a profession in politics that culminated in his appointment to the function of Grasp of Workplaces below the Ostrogothic Emperor Theodoric.

The Comfort of Philosophy was maybe probably the most influential e-book exterior the Bible in Western Civilization for almost a millennium.

However issues soured rapidly for the idealistic philosopher-statesman Boethius. Although the precise particulars are nonetheless a bit murky, in looking out corruption in authorities ranks, he appears to have drawn the ire of some who profited in these broken programs, males who went on to focus on him. The capricious and risky Emperor Theodoric turned in opposition to Boethius and had him imprisoned (although it’s unsure whether or not he was truly jailed or positioned below home arrest). No reprieve was forthcoming, and round 526, he was executed.

Within the house of his captivity awaiting seemingly loss of life, nonetheless, Boethius would pen one of many masterpieces of Western literature and mental thought, The Comfort of Philosophy. Adopting the dialogue type of Plato however interspersing the sections with little flashes of poetry, Boethius would wrestle with all of the anxieties that naturally comply with from considering one’s personal mortality. Within the e-book, the fictionalized Boethius is bemoaning his destiny by internet hosting the Muses, who indulge his grief in melodramatic poetry. Girl Philosophy, his onetime mentor, chases away the fickle Muses and surveys the scene in dismay. She all however facepalms at Boethius’s self-pitying indulgences and asserts that she’s going to fortify his spirits with some sturdy medication (slicing the bitterness of the treatment with a spoonful of poetic sugar).

Girl Philosophy’s argument facilities on the query of happiness. The temptation for earthly people is to search out our happiness within the changeable good issues of this life, however these items are ruled by the unreliable mistress Fortune. In Boethius’s time, Fortune—luck, probability, happenstance—was envisioned as a girl spinning a wheel upon which we’re all unwitting passengers, generally on the high however inevitably, lastly crushed on the backside. Girl Philosophy factors out that till latest occasions, Boethius’s life has been fairly charmed by Fortune’s requirements—good schooling, good job, good household—so even on that entrance, he has little to complain about. However the larger subject is that he ought to by no means have been putting his happiness in Fortune within the first place.

Nobody needs unwell for themselves—all of us, Girl Philosophy insists, need to dwell out our understanding of the Good Life, pursuing happiness. And as soon as we get this good, she maintains, we might fairly hold it than lose it. However this, then, is the issue with Fortune—her items don’t totally fulfill, and we don’t get to maintain them. But since we will acknowledge them as good, we have to be measuring them in response to some unlearned customary. All temporal items of Fortune, concludes Girl Philosophy, are shadows of a whole, unchanging Good, one we now have intuitive information of and have to be continually pursuing, whether or not we notice it or not. And this Good can solely be the constant and unified God. So we discover that God is himself the Good, and subsequently the expertise of him is true happiness.

Boethius’s textual content then explores the implications of this chain of reasoning. As a result of God is supreme existence, wickedness will not be solely a flight away from the Good, it’s an escape from final actuality. In a way, the depraved don’t actually exist, and as such, they deserve not our hatred a lot as our pity. God in his divine love, energy, and goodness finally guidelines over all issues, which he can do as a result of he’s not solely past all bodily house however exterior of time as properly, equally “current” in all moments without delay.

Although not as well-known as sure different nice texts of antiquity, The Comfort of Philosophy was maybe probably the most influential e-book exterior the Bible in Western Civilization for almost a millennium. From the medieval world into the Renaissance, it was learn by just about each educated or literate particular person, and its core ideas had been immediately cited, implied, or simply assumed by numerous texts from this era. Its English translators included King Alfred the Nice, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Queen Elizabeth I. Solely in the previous couple of centuries has its affect waned, but it has at all times retained some readership; C. S. Lewis thought-about it one of many ten most influential books in his life, and it stays a favourite in Nice Texts packages and classical Christian circles.

Within the Phaedo, Plato had his Socrates declare that “a person who has actually devoted his life to philosophy needs to be cheerful within the face of loss of life.” This is the reason within the Comfort Girl Philosophy is so disenchanted with Boethius firstly—as a result of he’s failing the truest take a look at of his calling to be her disciple. And whereas the e-book’s reputation is due partially to its lucid prose, partaking dialogue type, and wonderful poetry, I feel another excuse is that, ultimately, everyone knows that Boethius put his cash the place his mouth was. Not like so many different mental works, we all know that The Comfort of Philosophy is eminently sensible, as a result of its creator was pressured to dwell it out to the final full measure.

And that is why I return to Boethius time and time once more when set in opposition to difficulties, which in my case hitherto are far much less excessive than his personal travails. Theodoric’s decree in opposition to him represented the final word “playing cards on the desk” second—may he die as he lived? The reply was, “Sure.”

Girl Philosophy reminded Boethius that the depraved are those that have doubled down on the fallacious types of happiness.

Realistically, as soon as we excavate the fact of our politics from beneath the polarized apocalyptic rhetoric, we will notice that the non-public stakes for many of us will not be as excessive as they had been for Boethius. However as Christians, our playing cards are his playing cards—if the God we profess is actual and if he’s the God we declare he’s, then Boethius’s comfort must be our personal. Left-leaning or average Christians now may be in shock or mourning or denial, at the same time as our conservative brethren had been 4 years in the past. However this oscillation is strictly what ought to anticipate from Fortune, at the same time as Girl Philosophy identified. Chances are high, ultimately, the wheel will spin once more, and for these whose happiness is sure to temporal issues, the celebration and lamentation will as soon as extra be reversed.

And what if the implications are extra extreme—important nationwide or world misery? Properly, that will make our state of affairs even nearer to Boethius’s. He lived in a realm surrounded by individuals uneducated in advantage, and he may solely watch as his idealistic desires of making an area dominated by the ideas of cause, philosophy, and religion had been crushed—and value him his life. He died by the hands of the state, sufferer of a politics of energy as Europe collapsed into an insular competitors of barbaric tribalism.

I don’t know that Boethius would have regretted making an attempt to reform the Gothic Roman Empire; certainly he would have resumed his work if given the prospect, in search of an informed authorities that pursued justice. It isn’t fallacious to hunt the nice of our land, nor to mourn when our efforts appear futile. However Girl Philosophy’s phrases maintain a reminder for the Christian who appears forward to a bleak regime ruled by energy and caprice, simply as they do for the man believer rejoicing on the present flip of Fortune’s wheel. We are able to and will do our work; but our remaining happiness can by no means lie within the vicissitudes of the historical past we inhabit, for these items will, ultimately, be stripped from us.

Girl Philosophy reminded Boethius that the depraved are those that have doubled down on the fallacious types of the nice life. Their energy is illusory, fleeting, and it’s thus a type of weak point, for they can’t succeed of their true objective—nothing lower than happiness. Dealing with his personal execution, Boethius may keep that the person who ordered his loss of life deserved not his hatred however his pity. This too is a crucial reminder on this midst of our personal polarized period. I would favor us to not see these on the opposite finish of the political finish of the spectrum as enemies—however even when we do, these are the very individuals we’re advised to like and to wish for.

I feel I would like just a few extra conversations with Girl Philosophy earlier than my medication kicks in and I can face the longer term with the identical peace that Boethius emerged with. However as soon as once more, I can return to The Comfort of Philosophy to be reminded—of my true dwelling, the supply my true happiness—even when the world and the partitions round me could seem darkish.



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