Catholic Husband

When the iOS App Store first opened its doors, I was one of the first customers. For years, coworkers would query me about the latest and greatest app. They’d come to me with the solution that they were trying to achieve, and I’d help them find the best app for the job. I was a true technophile.

So much has changed over the past eight years. I embraced many of the consumer technologies that have emerged, only now to regret implementing them at all. Privacy is now my biggest concern, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a technoskeptic.

Technology is not all bad, but it must be tested. Its usefulness evaluated against the drawbacks. The more I use my phone, the less I connect with the world and the people within it. The more free services I use, the more technology companies track and profile me.

I’m retreating from technology, one step at a time. I believe that there are a few legitimate ways in which it can help me. Navigation, food tracking, blogging, and even my three year running habit of daily journaling. But for the many niche applications, where I could easily go analog, I’m going to move in that direction.

I’m tired of the tracking and the ads. I’m tired of the daily pleasures I’m missing while glued to a rectangle. I’m ready to return to a healthier balance in my life.

Tumblr recently faced an internal crisis. The niche mass-blogging platform had become widely accepting of adult themed blogs. Pornographic images were freely posted and shared, all within the acceptable uses defined by the company. Then came the child pornography.

Most modern websites that allow photo uploads scan images against a database of known child pornography. There’s no disagreement that this type of imagery is not only morally wrong, but a criminal act that must be dealt with harshly. Tumblr had a technical breakdown, and was unable to filter out those images. So they decided to update their Terms of Service to no longer allow pornographic images of any kind.

And people were livid.

I think this shows the intellectual weakness in our society. We rightly rage against sexism and sexual assault, and we are angered when a company makes a move against arguably the largest influencer of sexual assault in the modern era. Pornography is nothing new, but its acceptance in the mainstream is a monumental shift. It influences young men and women, forms their minds and behaviors, and now we live with the result.

I think that Tumblr made a brave and moral decision to make adult imagery less mainstream, less accessible, and less commonplace. It’s right for our children, and its right for the good of the Internet writ large.

My degree is in classical philosophy, with a heavy emphasis in Ancient Greek thought. Of all of the courses that I took, none stand out as more impactful than Logic. When use that word, “logic,” a lot without really appreciating just what it is. (I will use an upper-case “L” when referring to Logic in the classical sense.) Logic is a system, very closely related to mathematics, that helps us to process thoughts and positions to ensure integrity and congruence.

Within Logic, there are two general types of formulas: tautologies and fallacies. Tautologies are formulas that are always true, while fallacies are formulas that are essentially flawed and can never deliver a true result. The unique nature about these formulas is that they are expressed with variables, making them completely interchangeable with any subject matter or problem. When you study and understand the underpinnings of these types of formulas, you start to be careful in the way that you construct arguments. This caution is heightened because you wouldn’t want your logical argument to be able to be reconstructed for illicit purposes.

The true benefit that Logic brings to any debate is that it is impartial. It allows for any argument to be processed and evaluated without relying on the innate fickleness of human nature. Emotion can turn on a time, but Logic is immovable.

As we move into a society of screaming and stalking, we are collectively shrugging off an objective referee in favor of emotion and perception. We claim to support science and Truth, and yet we cherry-pick the science that we like and have made truth wholly subjective. This is most clearly illustrated in the idea of someone speaking, “their truth,” as if truth applied unevenly and particularly to each individual person.

Abandoning Logic creates dangers beyond what we imagine in our limited views. Evils like racism or sexism can put on the cloak of moral rectitude because, in a world where there is no Truth, they can easily adapt to pass muster.

We must resist the very easy course of just doing what feels good, and instead engage the full capacity of the human mind. As rational beings, we posses tremendous creative capacities to create. New ideas should be generated, tested, and shared. When we retreat to the recesses of emotion as our sole guide for morality and justice, we are doomed to exist in a world ruled by the irrationality of a pubescent teenager.

The midterm elections are concluded. With over 700 days before the 2020 presidential election, the news cycle is running wild with speculation as to who will run, who will be nominated, and who will win. A new Congress will sit in January, and in this lame duck period, conjecture flies about what it will (or won’t) do. The 2016 presidential election continues to be litigated, investigated, and bloviated. The Federal government is getting ready to change top-level leadership, and the antagonism between this Administration and the media continues to fill pages of articles and terabytes of video.

And we haven’t even gotten to talking about anything truly sinister, like geopolitical threats, mass violence, or the next epidemic.

While it’s nice to put the news media up on a pedestal, the truth is, that kind of praise is undeserved. They may aspire to be impartial in their journalism, but it’s hard to get humans to separate their personal views from their work. This doesn’t make journalists bad actors, but it does remind us that as consumers of news, it’s up to us to evaluate bias and draw conclusions.

The fact of the matter is that journalism these days is less of a service and more of a business. Sure, it’s always been a business, but in times past, the public was willing to pay for their news. Not so anymore, hence the cascade of ads all over news websites. Those clickbait headlines? Yeah, they just need you to fall for it so they can get paid. Why do they have a comment section? So that you’ll be on the page longer and they can charge advertisers more.

Journalism is in the fight of its life for survival, and competition is anyone with a computer and access to the internet.

Much like political campaigns, media empires understand human behavior more than any of us could ever hope to know. They do detailed research to identify their ideal client and then mercilessly and shamelessly shape their product to target that demographic.

They also know that the best way to keep you engaged and coming back is to mess with your emotions. If they can get you scared, upset, confused, anxious, or enraged, they’ve got you. Recent surveys are demonstrating that major networks are no longer drawing from a diverse audience, but instead, are megaphone extensions of particular tribes. Conservative, you watch Fox. Left-leaning? CNN. Progressive? MSNBC.

I don’t mean to paint with too broad of a brush. Certainly there are news organizations that do a superb job covering the news and keeping the information flowing. Unfortunately, their business model requires expensive paid subscriptions that keep their quality journalism out of reach for many Americans.

So what’s my point? News, politics, elections, economy. It’s easy to get caught up and miss today.

Today is the thing that matters right now. Anxiety over who will win an election in two years does nothing for you. Between now and the next election what could you accomplish if you focused on you and your family? Do yourself a favor and stop falling into their trap.

There are many reasons to be optimistic in life, especially as an American. We live in comfort and peace. I go to bed at night, not fearing roving thugs, errant artillery shells, or that some secret government agency will come and kidnap me.

The turmoil in the Church has caused much consternation, especially when many of us thought we’d left the worst of it behind in the early 2000s. I have seen plenty of ideas for how we can act out, in civil disobedience, to register our displeasure. Among them are to withhold financial support, stop receiving communion, or even join another denomination. I’m not sure why I should let the failures of leadership on the part of others steal the joy of my faith.

The Catholic Church is built upon the relationship between God and His Church. We have the Sacraments, the Magisterium, and Tradition on which to lean on, not a singular bishop or priest. We should root out corruption and abuse with extreme prejudice, but giving up the gift of faith is not a proportional response.

The same can be said for our political leaders. We have been gifted this thoughtful Republic, this unique system of government that has withstood extreme volatility. The correct response to a political leader that we dislike is not to destroy the machinery of government.

There is much to be joyful and optimistic about. There are many pleasures that we get to enjoy every day, such as the change in weather, the vibrancy of leaves, or even just the taste of ice cream. I’m not going to waste my creative powers and imagination on a buffet of negativity.

We are a Nation, and a Church, with problems, but my joy is mine to surrender. I have so many blessings, including the daily doses of cuteness given to me by my three children. You can give up your joy if you like, but I’m going to jealously guard mine.