Monday, August 18, 2025

Diabolical modernity

Satan tempted Christ to avoid the cross, and offer us instead the satisfaction of our appetites, marvels or wonders, and political salvation – exactly what modern market economies, science, and liberal democracy promise us.  In my latest essay at Postliberal Order, I discuss Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s analysis of the diabolical, and the light it sheds on the character of the modern world.

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26 comments:

  1. Vini TadeoAugust 18, 2025 at 12:30 PM

    Judging by the title, I can already expect this to be good! Can't wait to get home after work and read it through and through!

    Thanks, Ed!

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  2. MaolsheachlannAugust 18, 2025 at 3:14 PM

    I think the liberal would argue that liberalism doesn't propose values but is purely procedural. Democracy is there to in fact discover what people want; science to achieve it most efficiently; the market because people are willing to pay for what they actually want.

    I don't believe this is an honest characterization, but it's hard to argue against.

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    1. English CatholicAugust 19, 2025 at 1:47 PM

      Liberalism is actually very easy to argue against.

      It's impossible for a government to avoid imposing values. Either burglary is wrong and worth punishing, or it isn't. Either pornography is destructive to a society and worth prohibiting, or it isn't. Either stopping employers from forcing their staff to work Sundays is a way of giving glory to God and strengthening family life and friendships and ought to be done, or it isn't.

      Liberals tend to be right about burglary, but wrong about the other two. But in either case, *someone* is imposing his "values".

      Similarly in individual judgements. If I fail to pay for work when I contracted to do so, and the judge forces me to do so, that's the imposition of a "value". If I want to put away my wife and marry a younger model, and the judge allows me to do so, that's the imposition of a "value". And so on.

      (Actually, values don't exist in some subjective realm separate from facts -- that's a false view of reality, hence the square quotes. One of the many errors of liberalism is the fact-value distinction. In reality, the values are hardwired into the facts.)

      There is no such thing as political neutrality, because politics just is the imposition of force to resolve controversial questions in a community. Liberalism's diabolical con-job is to pretend that it's neutral, and not a vision of what a society ought to be like that can be imposed by force.

      See the blogger Zippy Catholic on liberalism.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 18, 2025 at 4:01 PM

    The government should absolutely provide for those let down by the free market economic order. The U.S. is the ONLY first world capitalist country where many people don’t have a government run healthcare option available, thus leading them to have to choice between going bankrupt or getting medical care. The average American is one serious injury or illness away from total poverty.

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    1. MPAugust 19, 2025 at 3:28 PM

      No.

      That's your job (often in cooperation with others, of course), not government's.

      The Church condemns the "Social Assistance State" (see the "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church" and encyclical "Centesimus Annus" that it cites).

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    2. The Great Thurible of DarknessAugust 20, 2025 at 8:42 AM

      @MP

      "166. The demands of the common good... concern above all the commitment to peace, the organization of the State's powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of ESSENTIAL SERVICES TO ALL, some of which are at the same time human rights: food, housing, work, education and access to culture, transportation, BASIC HEALTH CARE, the freedom of communication and expression, and the protection of religious freedom..."

      Maybe you should acquaint yourself with the contents of Catholic social teaching before you go around making pronouncements.

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    3. The Great Thurible of DarknessAugust 20, 2025 at 9:03 AM

      Oh, and before you claim that that section must be referring only to private charity, I would like you to explain how private charity can provide freedom of expression, or transportation, or religious freedom, or access to culture. That entire section refers quite clearly to the operation and responsibilities of the STATE towards the common good, even if it doesn't exclude the participation of other levels of society based on the principals of subsidiarity (see 167). Any other reading renders most of its injunctions either meaningless or nonsensical.

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    4. Tim LambertAugust 20, 2025 at 3:08 PM

      Thurible, can the state take by force money to provide healthcare for all?

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    5. MPAugust 20, 2025 at 5:28 PM

      Of course, that section does not refer to the private charity only. It also does not refer to the State only. After all, it is under the title " b. Responsibility of everyone for the common good". "Everyone" includes State, Church, individual citizens, various associations, businesses etc.

      Various components of Common Good are achieved in various ways. For example, the State mostly "provides" "freedom of expression" or "religious freedom" by not persecuting people (that is, essentially, by doing nothing).

      As for "transportation" or "access to culture", I can easily explain how private charity can provide them. Drive someone to wherever that someone wants to go, and you end up providing transportation by private charity. Sing a song in public, and you will end up providing access to culture by private charity.

      It's absurd to insist that State alone can provide such things.

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    6. AnonymousAugust 20, 2025 at 6:50 PM

      @MO The Compendium of he Social Doctrine of The Church" is not an ex cathedra declararation.

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    7. TonyAugust 21, 2025 at 7:42 AM

      the commitment to peace, the organization of the State's powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of ESSENTIAL SERVICES TO ALL, some of which are at the same time human rights: food, housing, work, education and access to culture, transportation, BASIC HEALTH CARE,

      This passage is a loosely-written smorgasbord of goods that are in various different senses part of the common good, and part of the CONCERN of the state. It is similar in its loose, even sloppy, drafting, to the passage in Lumen Gentium that listed a bunch of evils and denoted a rough characterization of them as "intrinsically evil", where some of them were clearly NOT of that character. Some of these goods are within the state's concern without being the primary object of state action, while others are indeed primarily the state's duty and principal, direct objects of its action. Clearly, it is specifically the state's purview, and not lower-down agents', to establish a justice system. Just as clearly, it is NOT the state's purview to give jobs to everyone, that is principally meant for individuals and businesses, while it remains within the state's concern to ensure large-scale obstacles to work and businesses offering jobs do not impede too many people from working. Similarly, it is not principally the state's duty to feed everyone, or to provide their housing, or transport them wherever they want to go, but to help ensure that basic social structures (law and other conditions) allow individuals and organizations to manage these. It is rather obvious that basic health care fits in with these latter groups of goods.

      The government being the primary or even sole provider of health care is not even remotely the intent of this passage. Indeed, the Church explicitly supports the principle of subsidiarity, which tells us that governments (and other social organizing orders) should intentionally leave to lower-level bodies their own proper sphere of action, so that individuals, families, and small entities (like family businesses) can operate well, can make good and prudent decisions about local matters, and can contribute their own portion of offering to the common good, without undue interference. This general principle is a coordinate principle with that of solidarity, which prescribes that we all "are our brother's keeper", we all have a duty to consider the welfare of others and act for that welfare. The common good as a whole requires that the state, the Church, and other major social structures work to keep these principles IN BALANCE, under the right ordering of action at the many levels of social organization. Some activities are the proper, principal scope of the state or the Church at the highest levels, some are the proper scope of the state at local levels, some are the proper scope of action of parishes, some are the proper scope of action of businesses, and some of individuals and families.

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    8. TonyAugust 21, 2025 at 7:42 AM

      It is damaging to families and lower orders for higher orders to take over their proper scope of action (for example, for the state or the Church to take over deciding who will marry whom), and thus such interference damages the common good. Because of fallen human nature, there is an inevitable tension involved in finding the right balance, and (especially but not solely) because of human sin and stupidity, there will be cases where individuals fail to receive the private goods that they need for a good life, where it would be notionally possible for the state to step in and supply those goods but its doing so necessarily obstructs other, lower down parts of the social structure from operating well within their proper role. The aspects of the whole good served by subsidiarity, in a world of fallen humans, sinful humans, and imprudent people, requires that the state allow some evils to occur at the individual level in order to enable smaller-scale entities to fulfill their offices. The prudence of the statesman lies in knowing how to achieve the best balance possible, where the state successfully supports lower-level structures to achieve their own proper functions, where to intervene and rescue from disaster people whose needs are not being met, and when to permit some evils to occur because having the higher-order government intervening would too much damage the lower organizations and individuals spheres of operation.

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    9. MPAugust 21, 2025 at 11:18 AM

      No, it is not ex cathedra. Instead, it is mostly a summary of what the Popes were writing about Social Doctrine of the Church.

      And it is pretty unlikely that they were all completely wrong...

      Also, it's a pity that you are "Anonymous".

      Otherwise it might have been fun to look for things you might have written about more... um... controversial things that pope Francis has said or written...

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    10. AnonymousAugust 21, 2025 at 1:54 PM

      Keep in mind that the US is a minority of one. Every other first world capitalist country regards the availability of free government run healthcare as a basic necessity, not something to be debated about by politicians.

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    11. AnonymousAugust 22, 2025 at 12:11 AM

      US is a minority of one.

      Except...you know, there are always exceptions, right? Except not the Vatican State: it does not provide full government-paid health care for its residents. It provides some healthcare, but relies on supplemental privately paid healthcare and other healthcare from Italy. You just know free, government run healthcare is a prime concern of the Church when...oh, wait: physician, heal thyself.

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    12. MPAugust 22, 2025 at 1:45 PM

      "Keep in mind that the US is a minority of one." - that would be more persuasive if the blog post was not called "Diabolical modernity"...

      The same countries that have healthcare that is mostly government-run, often also have policies that represent the "culture of death".

      And, to some extent, they are the measures to keep the costs of government-run healthcare under control (killing the patient is often cheaper than keeping him alive).

      Even USA, which has "only" Medicare and Medicaid (which do seem to be meant to "provide for those let down by the free market economic order", by the way), ends up with the debt that will probably never be paid back (the only question is if the default will be by repudiating the debts outright, or by inflating it away).

      Giving low priority to subsidiarity is not free.

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  4. AnonymousAugust 18, 2025 at 4:56 PM

    When you say”Western Civilization” what is the criteria to be part of Western Civilization? What characteristics exclude a country or People from being part of “The West”?

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  5. AnonymousAugust 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM

    Neither revelation , natural law nor the magisterium requires we live in a democracy.
    Why not a benevolent dictatorship? Isn't virtue more important than freedom?

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    1. AnonymousAugust 19, 2025 at 6:47 AM

      Seriously? Good Lord. Virtue presupposes freedom, for starters. And the Catholic Tradition, from Aquinas on, is opposed to concentrated state power and supports democratic institutions.

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    2. ficino4mlAugust 19, 2025 at 12:55 PM

      Why not a benevolent dictatorship? Well, for starters, who will dictate to the dictator when the dictator's benevolence flags?
      Remember that Plato describes the enormous force of temptations that can turn even philosophical natures to political injustice. Aristotle teaches that, although democracy is the system that effects the least justice and good, it is also the system that effects the least injustice and evil. It's not because he drank too much that Churchill reminded the House of Commons that "Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
      I suspect that people who promote dictatorship of any kind imagine that they will be tight with the regime rather than on its enemies list. But you have no guarantee of that.

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    3. AnonymousAugust 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM

      Good Lord, indeed. Do you think democratic governments existed in the Middle Ages? In Vol 3 of The History of Christendom, Warren G. Carroll called the Middle Ages "The Glory of Christendom."
      https://sophiainstitute.com/product/the-glory-of-christendom-1100-1517/?srsltid=AfmBOool0W1EvD2efwlkLYIu5G4yj5gIAMSw3ehXOVmQ8RIz1p0FlSfz

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    4. AnonymousAugust 21, 2025 at 8:21 PM

      ficino4ml here: adding, consider how Stalin and Mao purged party officials and members who were loyal to Communism and to the General Secretary. You might think you are the most loyal running dog of the "benevolent" dictator, and you may later find yourself among the purged. It has happened before.

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  6. Vini TadeoAugust 18, 2025 at 9:03 PM

    "Not that Boulter’s or Geuss’s characterizations of modernity are terribly novel or idiosyncratic. The features they identify are widely acknowledged, even if not always described in exactly the way these two writers do. But it is striking that the three features they take to be definitive of the modern world correlate exactly with the three temptations by which, on Sheen’s analysis, the Devil attempted to draw Christ away from the cross, away from redeeming us by way of suffering. In the light of Sheen’s analysis, modernity can be seen as appealing to us in precisely the diabolical way Satan urged Christ to appeal to us."

    Not only to plausibly link Fulton Sheen's analysis on the demonic activity -- and even to find parallels of the same problem not only in modern writers -- but also on a deeper analysis with the false goods that tempted Jesus... Ed, you're an intellectual treasure for this world. Period. But wait, there is more, as Ron Popeil would say:

    "Moreover, while modern people may occasionally speak sentimentally of the cross, its substance is anathema to them. As Sheen emphasizes, even in the Church today, mortification, asceticism, self-denial, and the “spirit of discipline” in general have been set aside. The remaining imperfections and disappointments of modern life are not endured patiently or acknowledged as inevitable in a fallen world, nor are they accepted as a penance, but instead are endlessly complained about and attributed to persisting injustice.

    "The modern world does not want a suffering Christ who commands us to take up our own crosses. It wants the satisfaction of every desire. It wants bold and wondrous actions. It wants political power to secure these other wants, and to dominate and neutralize any who would deny them to us. It wants what Sheen characterizes as diabolical “short cuts” around the cross."

    For some reason, these last passages kindly reminds me of TLS (even though the seriousness of the essay you wrote is very different from the tone on the book, in some parts) because the courage to say what must be said remains exactly the same as it was back then.

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  7. Vini TadeoAugust 19, 2025 at 1:48 PM

    This important discussion in the essay gave me the idea of bringing this to discussion, and I hope that's okay.

    In the essay, Ed gave very important insights about vices and disorder in the human psyche. But there is one aspect or behavior that puzzles me today. I don't know how to properly call it, but let's just call it apathy.

    When I ask people who have more experience in life than I do, they usually don't know too much about this specific phenomenon that I have in mind, but I think it is something that is relevant to say, even if my perspective is from a Gen-Zer that don't know much about life.

    The specific thing I have in mind manifests itself in these kinds of behavior: 1) indifference towards friendships or people in their lives; 2) a strange, bloodless kinda feeling towards things or people (like they don't matter sentimentally speaking); 3) and, lastly, a very overwhelming sense of indifference or dead feelings when you talk to them about deeper topics (like love, a good live or even a friendly and woried admoestation about something) -- it seems that it doesn't matter how you put your heart out (your feelings, attention, and so on), you are literally talking to a cold thing that could leave at any time.

    I saw this kind of behaviour not just in men but also in a considerable number of young women/young adult women. I think this behaviour or "disposition" is very, very bad; it seems like a total incapacity for feelings or, better yet, feeling the right things. It also feels like the folks in Dante Alighieri's poem that neither hell nor heaven wants because they seem lukewarm when it comes to things in life.

    But, the most astounding behavior of these people is that they seem unaffected and remain "happy" or comfortable regardless of having other people in their lives or not. The only thing I can know for real is that people like that cannot be really happy, as master Aristotle taught, because they cannot have true friends in their lifes, they don't know how to reciprocate, and it even seems that the possible virtues that may move their feelings is cloged into a sheer amount of nothingness and indiference.

    I would love to know more about the causes of this, like what causes this pathology in these people? Are they able to cure themselves, or is that just a vice of character that will remain throughout life? There is something we can do to help, or should we just leave? I think it is relevant to bring out this kind of behavior, because it's also part of modernity's problem (IMO).

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  8. AnonymousAugust 21, 2025 at 8:27 PM

    @Vini Tadeo: are you Gen Z? Have you been ghosted by someone Gen Z? Ghosting is a feature of our culture, whether apps are to blame or Calvinistic Total Depravity or sins against the Historical Process or something else. Whatever it is, yes, there are many who will treat you as though you do not exist. I don't know what is the answer except to find that small number -- it may be fewer than five -- who will be friends/lovers who care about you for who you are as well as for what you do for them.
    Rock on, bro. There are people who make the world not dreadful.

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    1. Vini TadeoAugust 22, 2025 at 1:48 AM

      Anon,

      Hello!

      "Are you Gen Z?"

      Well, I'm 27 now, I may be "too old" to be called gen-z but since the term covers people born from 1997 to 2012...I'm in -- liking it or not.

      "Have you been ghosted by someone Gen Z? Ghosting is a feature of our culture, whether apps are to blame or Calvinistic Total Depravity or sins against the Historical Process or something else."

      Well, I never used a dating app, and I don't have so many friends (the ones I do are with me since high school), so I don't know if you are referring to 'that kind of ghosting' or 'ghosting' in general. I think that 'ghosting' in general is at least intelligible, bear with me: young folks have a lot of unruly feelings, and these feelings are very, very transient (they are intense and don't last long). If we also consider the fact that we live in a society that pushes bad behaviors to the limit, e.g., liking someone for what he or she can do, the power that he or she may have, the "sex appeal," and so on, you get to why 'ghosting' and 'that kind of ghosting' exists: people have internet access and they think they will find a "better specimen" or a person better-suited for their puerile interests (they don't love the person, they love the utility of the person).

      "Whatever it is, yes, there are many who will treat you as though you do not exist. I don't know what is the answer except to find that small number -- it may be fewer than five -- who will be friends/lovers who care about you for who you are as well as for what you do for them."

      I appreciate so much what you said here. To be honest, I think you are completely right - we can count our friends in a single hand!

      The reason I made this question about these "apathic" people (as I labeled them) is that these kinds of people scare me a lot. Not only because, say, if a dictator is elected, they couldn't care less if the guy massacres everybody (as long as it doesn't affect their lives), since they don't care about other people's lives; but because these people seem to handle life as if they are some kind of "Ubermansch," like they don't need anybody or anything in their life and, also, they are very, very good at faking feelings and smiles to the point that it seems natural.

      (an extremely off-topic example: there is a picture of a woman in a "suicide pod" smiling and waving at the camera. The people I've been describing could fit this situation exactly, excluding the pod, off course. I mean, you can literally see that they are in a precarious or unvirtuous situation, but it seems like that really doesn't affect them at all -- like, they are "above" all this and all others -- it seems like they can't see that 'the good is good,' say, and that they actually enjoy the apathy they live in -- it seems completely anti-human).

      I don't know if I am more prone to seeing these kinds of people due to my area of work, but to be completely honest, it feels like a horror flick. So it would be good to understand more about the causes, effects, how to handle them, and so on.

      Oh, btw, thank you for the last part of your comment, may God bless you!

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