The Not-So-Virtuous Dude Abides

We all hypocrites to some degree. But being a hypocrite isn't so bad. Well, it's not the worst. Ultimately, it means we hold to some belief, but we aren't living it out fully.

The issue then comes to what we believe. Today, people talk more of values. But what are these values? For the most part, they can be whatever you want them to be. Values are a formal way of discussing our personal or societal preferences. In other words, they don't have to be objective in any way or form.

But it wasn't too long ago, we would often refer to virtues: moral excellence, right living, a goodness. Yes, virtues are seen to be more objective than not. It would be hard to be ethical without them. Yet, the word is a tad out of fashion, and we don't like it very much because it imposes on us to believe in an objective goodness too strongly. Hence, we like values better.

So what is worse than being an hypocrite? It would not be having a lack of virtue, because then we at least would believe in something objective and be aware that we aren't holding to it. What would be more corrupt is having any lack of knowledge or belief about virtue. And this is main issue Peter Kreeft tackles in his excellent book, Back to Virtue.

If we don't have any virtuous standards, then we can never be hypocrites. Sure, it makes living easy — but to a point. It really means we have no self-mastery over ourselves. And “If we can conquer everything except ourselves, the result is that we do not hold the power” (Kreeft).

It's not that we don't have any virtue these days, or are even more immoral than our predecessors. Kreeft notes, “I do not think we are necessarily more wicked than our ancestors, overall. True, we are less courageous, less honest with ourselves, less self-disciplined, and obviously less chaste than they were. But they were more cruel, intolerant, snobbish, and inhumane than we are. They were better at the hard virtues; we are better at the soft virtues. The balance is fairly even, I think.”

So it's probably more our virtues have gotten too one-sided. We are all about being kind, compassionate, nonjudgmental, and tolerant. This sort of let's us off the hook, because it doesn't require too much from us. 

It was Aristotle who recommended the golden mean when certain virtues got too extreme. For example, between foolish tolerance and strict judgement is the virtue of discernment, requiring a more refined perceiving that is appropriate to the circumstances.

But this refined approach to virtue has been mostly lost, even in how we see our exemplars. As Kreeft points out, we have even reduced Jesus to the nice guy guru instead of seeing his virtue as a whole...

“Why have we reduced him to meek and gentle Jesus? Because we have reduced all the virtues to one, being kind; and we measure Jesus by our standards instead of measuring our standards by him. But why have we reduced all the virtues to being kind? Because we have reduced all the goods to one, the one that kindness ministers to: pleasure, comfort, contentment. We have reduced ourselves to pleasure-seeking animals.”

And so it is this version of Christ that gets somewhat mocked in the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski. (The Coen Brothers are known for plenty of religious symbolism in their films.) Near the end of the film, there is the amusing dialogue between Jeff Bridges and Sam Elliott:

The Dude: Well, take care, man, gotta get back.
The Stranger: Sure. Take it easy, Dude.
The Dude: Oh yeah!
The Stranger: I know that you will.
The Dude: Yeah, well - The Dude abides.
The Stranger: "The Dude abides." I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. 

While the Dude's virtues aren't all that bad, I believe Kreeft is making the point that any attempt to stress certain virtues with the positive exclusion of other virtues is doomed to failure by undermining goodness all together. 

Ultimate goodness requires a univocal wholeness; a place where the Dude does not abide so well.