The Japery on Joseph M. Knippenberg on Moderation

Fr. Gassalascus S.J. offers Professor Knippenberg's thought on moderation, or the lack of it. In short, the Professor asks whether or not we moderate principle or common sense. The former allows for imperfect people to more successfully perfect their world in troubling times. The latter leads to an immoderate absolutism that shatters when it eventually collides with reality. Observe:

"Both the moderation of principle and the moderation of common sense are at least potentially stable in a way that a moderation born of confusion and ad hoc choices is not. I fear that our moderation is unstable because it is unprincipled, or rather, because it is ultimately immoderate. Its most culturally compelling element, at the moment, is sovereign individual choice, which recognizes no limits and is by definition infallible.

"In an effort to preserve us for "the better angels of our natures," I will continue to put my shoulder to the wheel on one side, pointing to a foundation that combines a fallible recognition of limits with a faith in ultimate redemption. When we recognize that we are not the authors of our world, that we see through a glass but darkly, we can accommodate different prudential judgments, understanding how reasonable (but fallible) people can disagree and recognizing that there is good to be found and a lesson to be learned even when, politically, we lose.

"The ground, in other words, of genuine political moderation is faith, not in ourselves, or in our capacity to choose, or in political institutions that compel us to "split the difference," but in God.

To acknowledge our fallen nature is to recognize our need for God. To order our lives according to this reality is to successfully model society on What Lasts. To deny our fallen nature is to rationalize away our dependence on God. To order our lives according to this illusion is to found society on quicksand. The Reasonable believe in one of these propositions without recognizing the peril of their conviction. The Foolish believe in the opposite proposition, fully and gratefully aware of the consequence of their decision. Which one do you think the Reasonable chooses? Which one the Fool?

Which one do you?

"The world is made thus.

No, thus have we made the world. Thus, have I made it."
--from The Mission