On the Greatest Difficulty in Living the Dominican Life in Contemporary American Culture
In the Middle Ages, the disputed question was one of the major forms of academic investigation. A master of theology would pose a question on which great authorities seemed to disagree, and then entertain objections from fellow masters and students. After others attempted to reconcile the various authorities, the master would give a determination that resolved the question.
In our form of the disputed question, two student brothers approach a difficult issue from different angles in order to reveal its complexity. The first brother begins with a statement, to which the second brother offers a response. While traditionally the dispute was settled by a master, in this edition, we will allow the readers the readers to form their own decision.
The Question
As the Order turns 800 years old, there is no illusion about the existence of difficulties in living out the lofty call of following Christ according to the example of St. Dominic and his holy followers. Some stem from human weakness in general, which we hold in common with Dominicans of every place and age.
However, in the following disputed question, Br. Jordan and Br. Augustine will examine the difficulties that are more particular to living the Dominican life in the current American situation.
The Statement: The Friar’s Digital Dilemma
Jordan Zajac, O.P.
It was like I had a phantom limb.
For my first few days as a postulant, I could have sworn that my iPhone—the one I didn’t have anymore, since I deactivated it before leaving for the novitiate—was still vibrating occasionally in my left pocket. Or I would pull up short before entering the chapel, thinking to myself, Better put it on silent or—oh yeah, nevermind. And I didn’t quite know what to do with myself when, in conversation with my classmates, a question came up concerning some factual detail, but answers via a Google search were not a few finger taps away.
I had always been quite optimistic about the benefits of smartphones and the other technologies that the digital revolution has introduced into society. However, I had not been realistic about just how deep an impact technology could leave on us—on the way we think, act, and interact with each other.
There is no doubt that digital technology has much to offer the Dominican friar. It proves useful for ministry and study. It functions as an excellent medium for our preaching, too. Yet, as I will argue here, it can also have a potentially disruptive influence on the way Dominican life is lived. Considering its ubiquity and the transformative effects it has on the way individuals think and relate to others, digital technology poses the greatest potential threat to our ability to live Dominican life to the full. I will highlight three areas of concern, each relating to our life of regular observance: the Internet’s deleterious effects on prayer life, on the common life, and on the silence observed in order to protect and foster these and other essential components of Dominican life.
Prayer
We are called to be preachers, and prayer fuels preaching. The contemplative dimension of Dominican life is indispensable. But in the digital age, we run the risk of becoming mere e-contemplatives. Regular exposure (and overexposure) to the Internet, in other words, can work to erode the kinds of mental habits that are most conducive to prayer, such as concentration and calmness. We run the risk of “power browsing” through our prayer life the way many people tend to push through a full inbox or scan headlines on the Drudge Report. As studies have started to reveal, the way we consume digital content is impacting our cognitive processes.
In 2008, The Atlantic published an influential article by technology writer Nicholas Carr entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” There Carr tries to make sense of the ways in which his engagement with an ever-intensifying amount of digital content has changed his reading practices and cognitive processes. He finds himself processing and decoding lots of information, but at the same time feels himself less capable of focusing or reflecting on any of it. The studies in neuroscience which he appeals to demonstrate that the human brain is quite malleable, and that our habits of thought are shaped by the technologies to which we are exposed. The Internet not only supplies “the stuff of thought, but [it] also shape[s] the process of thought.” In other words, we are allowing ourselves to be retrained in how we think (or, in the case of “digital natives”—that generation too young to remember the sound of a dial-up modem—not retraining but training the mind outright, from their earliest years of life).
George Hodan — Old Phone
This retraining is all the more perilous for those of us pursuing the contemplative life. Our mental habits in turn affect our mental prayer. The more accustomed we become to multitasking, stopping a task to address an email, and scanning large amounts of content online, the less disposed we are for contemplation. To be a passive recipient of digital media is not the same as being open and receptive to the Holy Spirit in prayer. Indeed, the former can slowly but surely erode our capacity for the sort of concentration that animates contemplation. If technology is training our minds to wander, we will have greater difficulty finding and following the Way (John 14:6). On a similar point, in his Treatise on Preaching, Humbert of Romans cites the wisdom of Seneca: “It is a sign of a good mind that a man stays put with himself and dwells within himself.” The more time we spend plugged in, the more difficult it becomes to pursue this necessary good in our life.
Common Life
Just as digital technology may compromise our communication with God, so too can it weaken our common life. Many recent studies, such as clinical psychologist Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other, reveal the extent to which digital technologies, especially social media, are impairing people’s capacity for meaningful personal relationships (and this applies to members across the generational spectrum). In seemingly small but significant ways, our conversation can start to take on a shape and tone similar to the emails we have exchanged that day—terse, to the point, not exactly steeped in empathy or patience or a willingness to listen attentively.
We do not make such calculations on a conscious level, but our sustained engagement with digital technology could nevertheless cause our capacities for empathy and attentiveness to atrophy. We run the risk of treating our confreres the way some may approach the inbox—as something to get through and be done with. It requires commitment to invest oneself in community life. But technology makes demands on us as well, and we tend to submit to them too readily. Much like the attention needed to be docile in prayer, attentiveness to others in our fraternal life necessitates a kind of “active passivity.” It takes effort to remain open and genuinely receptive to our brothers. To spend sustained periods of time each day engaging in the opposite kind of activity—the “passive activity” that the digital age promotes—can in turn weaken our capacity for authentic engagement in the common life.
Silence
It is important to ask ourselves what—and how much—of the world we allow into the spaces where we live and study. In the digital age, the answer is: likely more than ever before. Much like cloister, silence is meant to keep out certain distractions and promote our life of regular observance. As the Order’s Constitutions state, “Silence is the guardian of all observances and contributes greatly to the interior quality of religious life, to peace, prayer, the study of truth and authenticity in preaching” (LCO 46§1). The silence called for here can be thought of as a kind of poverty of communication. But if friars’ rooms are able to pick up the priory’s Wi-Fi, there is no such poverty of communication. Silence is meant to help us still our minds, lead and enlighten, calm and convict us. Yet if we remain plugged in, we allow technology the opportunity to pull at and rush, worry and obsess us.
For others in contemporary American culture, it may well be that choosing to put away the smartphone or iPad for some period of time means losing touch with what matters most. But for the Dominican, or any other who pursues contemplation, it may be the opposite. The time we spend away from technology is precisely our opportunity for intellectual, spiritual, and self-reflective engagement with the life to which we have vowed ourselves. Silence is not the isolation that digital natives and other technology junkies might fear. Rather, it yields blessed solitude.
Final Thoughts
So, before the Internet, no friars were distracted during prayer, challenged by the common life, or struggled to maintain silence? Of course they were. And this fact strengthens my claim. Implied in my argument is that the way of life to which we have been called is already incredibly challenging. It demands a grace-filled mix of discipline, self-surrender, and assiduous effort. Submitting ourselves to technology as willingly as we have—welcoming it into our workspaces and living quarters—has meant unintentionally inviting in yet another serious stumbling block to our flourishing in Dominican life. This is not to say that we should shun technology. Nor do I wish to come off as Brother Luddite, OP. Rather, I am arguing that the digital age has introduced an unprecedented source of tension into Dominican life, one toward which we must apply all the prudence, temperance, self-discipline, and accountability that our consecrated life is meant to instill within us.
Response: Haunted by Utilitarianism
Augustine Marogi, O.P.
Regardless of how cloistered one may be, it is almost impossible to go through an entire day without being bombarded by some kind of advertisement, whether it be found in a cereal box, a package of soap or a newspaper we happen to be reading. These inescapable encounters reveal the extent to which the culture in which we live is a consumeristic culture; this is an irrefutable fact, and we are all products of this culture. This means that years of enculturation, indoctrination, and instruction have made of us experienced bargainers who recognize valuables when we encounter them. While attaching values to objects is a skill that may be useful in the marketplace, in religious life this tendency is bound to foster a utilitarian mindset where everything is evaluated in accordance with its usefulness. I would like to express my gratitude to Br. Jordan Zajac for his insightful article, “The Friar’s Digital Dilemma,” wherein he suggests that the greatest difficulty in living the Dominican life is caused by the infiltration of digital technology into our conventual life, and thereby disrupting our prayer, community life, and solitude. In my treatment of the disputed question, I intend to explore an alternative answer wherein the greatest difficulty, I believe, lies not in the use of digital technology—the existence of which is a mere symptom—but rather in the utilitarian tendency to ascribe to others a value commensurate with their usefulness.
The main proponents of utilitarianism were the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Bentham sought to invent a social contract that secured the maximum degree of pleasure in order to ensure the greatest possible good for the majority of people. He equated good with pleasure and evil with pain. According to Bentham, “virtue” is “a good thing by reason only of the pleasures which result from the practice of it.” Conversely, “vice” is “a bad thing by reason only of the pains which follow.” Seeing how this system of thought could easily degenerate into the exploitation of the individual for the sake of obtaining the maximum pleasure for the majority, Mill reformulated the idea to include the “harm principle,” which states that all pleasure-procuring activities are permissible so long as they do no “harm to others.” While, for Mill, utility remained the governing principle that a society must observe, he recognized that some pleasures are superior to others based on their quantity and quality. Therefore, he posited a hierarchical gradation of pleasures that are experienced correspondingly by beings according to their capacities. This means the dignity of a human being surpasses that of a brute animal because of man’s capacity to experience pleasure more intensely.
Utilitarianism is mainly influenced by David Hume’s empiricism wherein all things are assessed in terms of what is only verified through sensory experience. In his article, “Let There Be Justice: A Thomistic Assessment of Utilitarianism and Libertarianism,” Jason Lloyd states that instead of “focusing upon the intentions” of a person and “the value of his motives,” utilitarians focus “exclusively upon the external effects” of a person’s actions. Consequently, human beings are appraised by the extrinsic value of their characters.
Martin Henri — Work
The influence of utilitarianism in the contemporary American culture is not hard to see. The situation is even more troubling, though, when one retains these tendencies even after entering a religious order that is, by its very nature, fraternal and communal. Even friars can fall into the danger of treating one another on the basis of the sum total of pleasures or the degree of usefulness that may be extracted from each other. How valuable do we find that brother whose academic aptitude surpasses the rest? How desirable is the company of the brother whose humor captivates his audience and from whom we are able to procure a good laugh? To be clear, academic excellence and a delightful sense of humor are indeed praiseworthy attributes. However, a community that esteems its members according to the perceived benefits that may be gained in return is disordered because it ignores the role God’s grace, which is bestowed on individuals gratuitously, and not based on their merits. Utilitarianism is harmful to the friar himself, his relationship with other community members, and the people to whom he ministers.
The Friar Himself
Holding a utilitarian mindset causes, above all, damage to the self. The utilitarian perceives his self-esteem as flowing from the degree of success he achieves in his ministry or from the number of tasks he is able to accomplish successfully. Moreover, a sense of satisfaction or happiness may easily be lost since it is not a result of virtue nor does it rest on God, but rather it stems from perishable things that may be taken away from us. Since utilitarianism is indicative of an inner, cyclical motion that consists in transient, warring desires and their temporary and successive appeasement, the mind of a utilitarian is never at peace to live faithfully the contemplative aspect of the Dominican way of life.
His Relationships within the Dominican Community
When projected onto others, utilitarianism strips away the threefold dignity of creation, redemption, and the call to religious life, which God confers on those pursuing the life of consecration. In effect, it is capable of destroying the spiritual communion that binds the members of a community together, rendering them little more than mere objects to be used for self-gratification. A distorted sense of utility can induce friars to avoid each other’s company for seemingly more pleasurable activities such as surfing the net or texting someone else from whom we may elicit more satisfaction, rather than engaging those members of the community who can offer us little in return for spending time with them. All these temptations are present within our priories because the men who enter are influenced by a utilitarian mindset before entering the Order.
His Ministry
Ecclesial ministries are not immune from the effects of this harmful philosophy either. While one may demonstrate a readiness to carry out his apostolate, his intentions and motivations are not guaranteed to be pure. A utilitarian mindset lends itself to treating those in one’s care as trophies that display our successful service to the Order or to the Church. Rather than being an expression of love, ministry becomes a fulfillment of a need for identity or purpose in life. This approach is devoid of divine nourishment, which charges the preacher and sustains him in his evangelical walk.
The Thomistic Alternative
A Thomist can easily offer a lengthy critique of utilitarianism. However, for the sake of brevity, we will explore a few points only. From a Thomistic perspective, utilitarianism does not recognize man’s proper dignity, which resides in his intellectual powers. Rather, it reduces the final end of man’s actions to sensory pleasures and fails to account for intellectual fulfillment, which is necessary for man’s happiness.
Aquinas ascribes the proper dignity to man based on the intellectual capabilities with which he is endowed, while utilitarianism associates the dignity of man with his ability to experience pleasure, and thereby reducing his esteem to that of an irrational animal. Aquinas recognizes that since “every being” is “from God” (Summa Theologiae I.44.1), and since “man” is the “image of God by reason of his intellectual nature” (ST I.93.4), the dignity of a human being resides in his intellectual capacity rather than in his sense appetitive powers. This dignity is of an immeasurable value. The attempt of utilitarians to locate man’s dignity in his sense appetitive powers fails to recognize the intellectual dignity that is proper to man alone and which establishes his preeminence among other creatures.
Unlike Bentham and Mill who state that pleasure is the end of all man’s actions, Aquinas asserts that man’s final cause is God. He argues that the final end of man is not simply to experience the pleasures and delights of the body, but rather it is union with God. Creatures intend to “acquire” their “own perfection, which is the likeness of the divine perfection and goodness” (ST I.44.4). In the course of this undertaking, man is oriented towards a final cause or the final end which renders his actions meaningful and intelligible. Since good is the object of the appetite—the rational appetite in this case, or the will—is directed towards God, the infinite Good, upon whom all appetites rest. The utilitarians’ attempt to associate the meaningfulness of man’s actions to the pleasures they produce is a reductionist philosophy that ignores the true final end, the perfect good towards which all rationally informed appetite is oriented. Therefore, Aquinas suggests that man can only find meaning and intelligibility in his actions by pursuing the Divine perfection and goodness, while Bentham and Mill argue that the final end of all things is the maximization of pleasure for man.
Aquinas maintains that happiness does not consist in pursuing sensory pleasures, but rather it is obtained through God, the infinite being Who is the fulfilment of man’s intellectual and volitional powers. The essence of man’s happiness is an intellectual act rather than a bodily sensation. Delight is the proper accident of happiness that “pertains to the will” (ST I-II.3.4). Bodily delight, which is usually labelled as pleasure, is simply a product of sensory experience that uses the body as its instrument. An object of the senses cannot possibly be the perfect good because it is corporeal and limited. Material and finite good could never satisfy the intellect, which is the highest power of the soul that is independent of any bodily organ. Moreover, the senses only know the singular, whereas the intellect, being a power that is independent of matter, knows the universal, which includes an infinite number of singulars. Consequently, it is impossible for a finite good to satisfy man’s intellect; rather, the soul requires an infinite good in order for it to live happily.
Aquinas suggests that this infinite and “universal good” cannot be a created good found in creatures because the goodness found in a creature exists only by participation in the perfect good, or God (ST I-II.2.8). Finally, if the intellect is what distinguishes man from an irrational animal, then man’s happiness must be connected to that peculiar difference, which sets him apart. This rules out the utilitarian concept of happiness consisting of sensory pleasures, which subjugates man’s intellect to his sensitive appetites and puts him on a par with irrational animals.
Happy individuals make for a happy community. Lloyd states that “the goal of the community” should be “to promote the wellbeing and flourishing of each of its members,” while each individual “is expected to contribute his fair share to the common good.” The relationship between the individual and his community is based on the principle of justice, or “the rendering to each his due.” Aquinas’s interdependent relationship among individuals in a community provides a stark contrast to the harmful, utilitarian vision of the subjugation of individuals to the majority. Therefore, based on a Thomistic account, utilitarianism fails to recognize man’s dignity, which is based on his intellectual powers, it has a reductionist understanding of the final end of man’s actions, and its definition of happiness ignores man’s intellectual capabilities, which distinguish him from irrational animals.
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Dominicana Journal, Summer 2016, Vol. LIX, No. 1, CLICK HERE.
