Within the Sarcophagus of Virtue

Allegory with a portrait of a Venetian senator (Allegory of the morality of earthly things), attributed to Tintoretto, 1585. Attributed to Jacopo Tintoretto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Elizabeth Bruenig (a former contributor to Ordinary Times) wrote a poignant note on Twitter (not available, she deletes all her tweets on an automated 24-hour cycle), to the effect that we should be able to accept Freddie deBoer’s apology (also a former contributor to Ordinary Times), his profuse and numerous apologies, and allow him to rejoin polite society. It was an interesting note, referring to a media personality I do not really know, but I was intrigued enough to read the March 17 entry by the gentleman in question, which details in sketches his behavior in a plea for mercy. He behaved badly, he says, then psychotically, after which he received medical treatment. He has since tried to make amends and be restored, to frustrating effect, because many will not allow that his psychotic behavior be forgotten. His concluding sentences here are a paroxysm: “If you’ve got more questions than this, go ask your priest. I’m done talking about it.”

Are his tormentors practicing Roman Catholics? In fact, Elizabeth Bruenig is a Roman Catholic, a relatively recent convert, if I understand correctly, so she participates in it with the fervor of a neophyte, and thereby fervidly beseeches the public to reconsider their continual vituperation against Freddie. Perhaps, then, we can say that Elizabeth actually did consult her priest with further questions about Freddie. Perhaps also we can say that Elizabeth is not one of his tormentors.

Because Elizabeth deletes her tweets, I don’t have its exact phrasing and nuance at hand, but its language is common enough to reconstruct it here for examination, and I hereby do so under those auspices, namely that the ideas within it are in the water, so to speak, not sourced in any particular individual. Thus, she puts a cup into our common well, saying something along these lines: “People hurt each other. It’s what we do, the iron law of life together. ‘Just don’t do anything wrong’ is simply not a possible way to live together. Freddie DeBoer has labored to make amends for his behavior, and we do well to accept the apologies for his mistake. After all, wouldn’t we want the same?” This is high virtue, reflecting the words of Jesus, who said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Nevertheless, in our language there rests the impossibility of the thing. Freddie repeatedly contends that he did terrible things for which he is personally responsible. In fact, he has done virtuous things subsequently, but those virtuous things cannot in any way ameliorate what he has done, though he was out of his mind when he committed a crime. He writes, “Malcolm Harris, of course, has every right to dislike or hate me, to disparage me if he feels like, or tell people not to engage with me or publish my work, in the event that he thinks about me at all, which I’m sure is rare. I can never make adequate restitution to him.” This is, in fact, the case. He cannot ever make adequate restitution. He can make some restitution, and he can make continual restitution, but nothing he does will ever rise to adequacy.

A quibble: Elizabeth writes the word “mistake” to describe Freddie deBoer’s behavior. It hearkens to the political, doesn’t it? A professional athlete gets caught beating his girlfriend, or a state representative gets caught disappearing a young constituent, and they march to the television cameras to offer mea culpas in that language: “I made a mistake. I’m truly very sorry if I offended anyone with my behavior. Please do not end my career because of a mistake.” Politely, we might call it an “indiscretion.” Freddie calls it a crime. Is it a crime? A violation, maybe?

The obstacle of the Golden Rule, as the command of Jesus is called, is that it makes no provision for failing the rule. Freddie did not do unto Malcolm as he would have Malcolm do unto him. What now? He has thrown himself to those whom he collectively failed, and they are to do, what, exactly? If he made a mistake, and if that mistake cannot be made whole by his own doing, then how could we ever correct that mistake? How can we make restitution on his behalf? A mistake is a mistake, and that’s all there is to it. As Mother Goose gleefully reminds us: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put deBoer together again. And has there ever been a trampling of horses like Twitter?

As we emerge from our previous incarnation as a backwards and unjust society into a more just and virtuous society, we become more fingerless as horses to put people back together again. The iron law of “harm one another” remains true, but now we have no mechanism for restoring the prodigal. We have no mechanism nor even the language of yesteryear, only the smoldering husks of the institutions in which we dwelt with those words on our lips, words whose meanings are long forgotten. This is the price for a purified society, enlightened by our own fire. As for poor Freddie, well, he is the egg to make our omelet. It’s a pretty big omelet, though, and it has taken a lot of eggs, but it’s definitely worth the justice.

But what about forgiveness? Freddie asks for it. What about forgiveness? Can we forgive him? Do we have the capacity for forgiveness? Who has the power to forgive Freddie? More importantly, who has the authority to forgive him? In order to obtain the authority to forgive, one must also obtain the authority to judge, and judge morally.

While it’s true that I might be able to conjure up in myself the words “I forgive you, Freddie,” those words are essentially ineffective beyond myself, and should Freddie hear them, those words would reach their limit of effectiveness at a grand total of two people, an effective change of status between two people. Others may overhear my words of forgiveness to Freddie, but without authority, they do not change the status between Freddie and general society, a society of virtue. Moreover, how would Freddie actually receive my words? “I forgive you” confers upon me the status of moral judge, a power. Indeed, he becomes subordinate to me, though I am the forgiver, and no one in our virtuous society has such power to subordinate; we are equal, and we are equals. How could I ever judge what he did as a forgivable sin, and forgive on behalf of us all, to formally restore Freddie unto our virtuous society? If any individual does not have the capacity to do this, then no one does.

As much as we are determined to hew virtue to our constructs of Good and Just and Fair and Equitable, the language of virtue is a language solely of the power of condemnation. There is no word belonging to the realm of purified virtue with the power to restore.

Morality, as we have been correctly taught, must be imposed upon us. Because we are a radically individualistic society governed by ever-purer virtue, we have purged moral language from our lips, as perverse Seraphim, serpents of fire, purging ourselves by our own hand, perverting what they did to Isaiah to purge his lips from uncleanness, an event of external imposition using tongs. No authority shall ever impose upon us a morality again, and never shall we utter moral judgments, not apart from individual conviction, and them we shall consider as quite unvirtuous, trying to invade our persons, violating social norms of personal boundaries. As a society, no, we no longer judge morally. We judge according to virtue.

As an aside, uncleanness, curiously, enters into Freddie’s self-evaluation: “And even though I was still badly deluded at that time I saw clearly what I was, which was broken and unclean, and I knew I would be that for the rest of my life.” This is the sarcophagus of virtue, within which we remain unclean hopelessly, as Freddie is. “There is a certain amount of ethical, psychological, and therapeutic work that I have to do because of what I did to Malcolm, work I am morally obligated to do. It can only happen internally, and it can’t be seen by or shared with anyone else.”

This is the truth when virtue becomes our completion, after burning off the dross of morality. We are corpses, unable to live, and worse, unable to forgive or be forgiven. Without the language of morality, we do not have the voice of morality, and without the voice of morality, we cannot declare with authority a forgiveness, not as a society, not even to the abjectly repentant who beg for mercy. And so, we are convulsed ever by the lifeless currents of virtue.