But who dare look directly at the maelstrom of flesh, beings, and spirits circling in the confines of time? It takes some courage. The pigeons colliding against the glass of airplanes are the perfect metaphor for what, at some point, human beings become. Collision should incite excitement, not death. Where does life come from, if not from the collision between two organs? Those afraid to collide, to collide minds, spirits, saliva and thorax, are building their prison cell. Yet, this is the default mode of existence. Some call them NPCs (Non Playable Characters) in a videogame-like metaphor. This is the type of humans who live on autopilot, repeating the same behaviors without questioning the why or the cultural elements given to them since birth. The opposite is those who take anomalous action daily, comparable, perhaps, with the Fool archetype we have all seen in card decks.

This foulness imposes itself as a disruptive force that has decided to look directly at life outside the womb rather than evade it through NPC behavior. In European culture, there is a term known as “the village´s fool” to describe nothing less than the genius who flies above the regular and predictable and brings new colors and shapes to the world in an opposite way to that of the average Joe. In many ways, he is blessed. Yet, he doesn’t have the apparent certainty of day-to-day life, nor can he enjoy a receptive attitude from his peers. Whether he cares about that depends highly on his extroverted or introverted nature, but that would be a theme for another analysis.

On the other hand, nature will not bless with the gifts of life those who do not wish to emulate life itself. Love will not come for the one who does not emulate love. All the possibilities of blissful and enlightening universes are open, but who takes them? Who dares, with all his essence and vitality, to throw himself into the circle of flesh and beings that spin incessantly in time? Who dares to return to himself, to singularity? Who of us, excited beings in the process of enlightenment, would dare to enter the forbidden realm? We would dwell into it again, and again, and again, and again, and again until the end is indistinguishable from the beginning; perhaps then the singularity of existence would be attracted enough to devour us, and perhaps this time, just this time, it would never throw us out again.

It is important to consider that the concept of thrownness, as understood by Heideggerian terms, is quite confusing. The search for depth beyond the ephemeral and sensual instant is even more confusing. Let’s imagine for a second that, indeed, romance is an existential patch meant to heal existential anxiety temporarily, that intimacy is nothing short of a transactional good, that friendships are small false idols that we build to feel accepted within the confines of an unpredictable world, that entheogens are brief glimpses of death, that family relationships are biological arbitrariness meant to restrict our minds from flying too far away from the tribe, that reason is sophisticated sophistry capable of justifying anything, and finally that emotionality is a rude child crying out for a pinch.

If all the elements, which we find in the totality of the 3D world, are ephemeral manifestations of creation from nothingness, then only nothingness and its infinite emptiness are the only sources of depth. This is just a logical conclusion.

In other words, beyond the Thanatos drive, death itself, and nothingness themselves, there is no depth of any kind. What we will always remember until the last of our days will be those small encounters with the annulment of our being: the absorption of our consciousness in an exquisite aesthetic experience, the Dionysian dementia of bliss, the mystical ecstasy even in the darkest of times, for they foretell the coming of a much-promised judgment day. Even the relational contact with the beloved other whose company is pleasing to us constitutes a forgetfulness of the self, a daring, a distraction, a mere rest from what constitutes the existential anguish of day-to-day life.

The consciousness of thrownness towards life, the constant intertwining with death, and the supremacy of emptiness help us gain a certain orientation and flee from the clutches of the false daily dichotomies. It delivers us from the phenomena that come, go, return, and torment us. There will be moments of maximum enjoyment, of maximum oblivion of life itself, and it is in those moments that we must be grateful to the infinite matrix that underlies everything else, but which is itself the most brutal black matter, destroyer of everything, creator of everything, absent of absolutely nothing. Among our existential thrownness, we must always be grateful for the dark bliss underlying it all.

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The reason for this is simple. If something belongs to the sphere of the moral, then it is absolutely obligatory. One must not murder. One must not steal. While circumstances might mitigate a person’s culpability, these prohibitions are nevertheless universally binding. If something is absolutely obligatory, then it must be—so long as there is to be any justice in this cosmos at all—the kind of thing that is attainable, in principle, by every human being. Regardless of wealth, class, upbringing, education, geographic location, or genetic makeup, a man must be honest. This “must” is non-negotiable. He cannot be a good person without it. This universal binding quality is the distinctive mark of moral values.² We develop moral virtues by responding, again and again, to moral values. By God’s grace, the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) are added to the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance), and when perfected, these yield saintliness.

While paling in comparison to the achievement of that final goal and worthless without it, the refinement of a cultured life is nevertheless a worthy pursuit. Ideally, as we see so compellingly illustrated in Newman’s own life, the refinement of culture serves as a kind of superadded halo around the halo of holiness, a fringe of white around the field of gold.

By contrast with the moral virtues, the cultured virtues cannot be required of every man because they contain in their very essence a cultural inheritance that not everyone is fortunate enough to have and for which he cannot be held responsible. Literacy, for example, requires even at the most basic level a language with an alphabet. Unfortunately, not everyone on the planet has this. But I am certainly glad that I do, and no amount of money would persuade me to give it up.

Some cultured virtues require (or at least are greatly benefited by) certain natural endowments, such as a good ear for harmony, for which we can take no moral credit at all. Again, however, the development of musical taste on the basis of this good fortune is a precious thing.

Finally and most obviously, all the cultured virtues require a level of material prosperity sufficient for a person to devote time and energy to something besides the bare survival of his family. Again, someone can become a saint even in the depths of poverty (sometimes because of the depths of poverty), but I am grateful for a little extra to spend on books.

It can be tempting to think of cultured virtues as merely lucky features of a personality, but on closer inspection, they show a close structural resemblance to moral virtues. While they require a cultural basis for which we can take no credit, they do require a free, conscious response to value for which we are responsible. Like moral virtues, cultured virtues require a fundamental response to the Good, again and again, in such a way that we develop a stable disposition of character over time. They require the consistent application of effort, practice, and discipline. Hence, we are right to praise the possessors of the cultured virtues even though such people have benefited greatly from the good fortune of a lucky position in life. We can even continue to praise and admire the cultured virtues themselves even when, as often happens, their combination with a lack of moral virtue turns a man into an insufferable snob—or worse. As Dietrich von Hildebrand argues in Graven Images, cultured virtues or their counterfeit imitations are frequently used as a kind of replacement for morality.³ People do this, Hildebrand argues, because they can point to their education, their taste, or their correct manners and say, “See, I am a good person,” while leaving intact the deep centers of pride and concupiscence that dominate their hearts.

We should be on guard, therefore, against this all-too-easy temptation to get ourselves off the hook. But as I have argued in several other posts, temptations that attend the pursuit of certain forms of excellence are no definitive argument against pursuing them. Education, for example, can lead people into all manner of supercilious pride, but out of love for my children, I insist upon their education nonetheless—while also teaching them about the temptations.

I have tried to compile a list of the cultured virtues, each of which will receive an in-depth post of its own. While this list is not exhaustive, it does provide us with a place to start:

Literacy—A literate man is more than a man who can simply read words on a page. He is a man who has cultivated a habit of judicious reading over a long period of time and has thereby built up a stock of knowledge, judgment, and prejudice. Though not based on text, something analogous to literacy exists in other media, such as paintings or film.

Cleanliness—A man with cleanliness cares for the general hygiene of his body, but more importantly, he exerts intelligent order in all aspects of his life. His environment is ordered, his time is ordered, and his comportment is ordered. The opposite of cleanliness is slovenliness.

Manners—The core of good manners is treating other people well, which obviously implicates the moral sphere, but manners belong to the cultured sphere because they require a whole established cultural apparatus for the precise ways to treat other people well in determined cultural contexts. Good manners include what we might call “civility,” keeping the peace, but it extends beyond it.

Charm—Charm is the cultivated ability to be liked for things that are genuinely likable. Like good manners, charm involves the ability to get along well with others, but charm relies on the development of a distinctive personality, while good manners rely on the opposite, a common social machinery that works the same for everyone.

Taste—A man with taste possesses a capacity for judging the objectively good from the objectively bad, the better from the worse, and has built upon this capacity a learned enjoyment of the better.

Humor—A man with humor has learned to see the point of a joke without being told. He knows how to avoid taking things too seriously, not least of all himself.

Pietas—Pietas is the disposition to take serious things seriously. Principally, pietas involve a sense of reverence and decorum around that which is sacred, but that reverence and decorum extend to such things as one’s elders, historical places, funerals, military sacrifice, or libraries.

Elegance—Elegance requires a sense of aesthetic balance, infusing actions, places, words, or even simple daily objects with notes of grace. Elegance includes what Baldassare Castiglione called sprezzatura, the art of doing extremely difficult things without the appearance of difficulty.⁴

Style—While we typically use this word in connection with dress and writing, style applies to a wide variety of domains in which we express ourselves. Style is the ability to impress a developed inner personality upon some external medium without sliding into narcissism, hubris, or, alternatively, servile self-effacement.

Depth—Someone with depth penetrates beyond the surface trivialities of life. Combined with good manners and a dash of humor, a deep man knows how to make small talk or laugh at trivial jokes, but he also knows how to go beyond them.

Refinement—Like dross being refined out of metal through a repeated process of purification, a refined man has a habit of cyclically reflecting upon everything in his life, sharpening what should be sharpened and smoothing what should be smoothed.

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