What He'd Want Us to Do

I have been reading a number of Catholic blogs on issues like Ayn Rand and euthanasia. And I've been thinking about Halo: Combat Evolved.

I'm going somewhere with this, hang on.

My two thoughts were, first, that it's (almost) too bad the Flood's not real, and that Rand would've been dead for 570 years when we contacted it, because nothing would've been more appropriate for her than to be infected by the most perfect collectivism ever.

Oh well; virtually doubtless, she is enjoying the perfect selfishness of Screwtape's Father Below as we speak.

And the second was, opponents and proponents of euthanasia talk past each other. The issue is not whether death is preferable to indignity; a moment's reflection would reveal that of course it is. Why else are "death before dishonor" and "better to die on your feet than live on your knees" considered valid remarks, rather than lunacy?

No, the error is that proponents of euthanasia hold that suffering is undignified. And this, of course, is not the case. It can be, of course, but one can always bear pain in a dignified manner. Indeed Isaac Jogues converted a great many Iroquois by the manner in which he endured their tortures, and the same is true of missionaries the world over; and let us not forget Gaius Mucius, who gained the cognomen Scaevola ("Lefty") when he burned off his right hand merely to prove a point to the Etruscans ("This," he said, "is so you will know how negligible is the flesh to one who has great glory in view.")

This, I was reminded of by Halo, as well. The Chief doesn't kill Keyes to end his suffering; he kills him to spare him the indignity of being the means by which the Flood, and the Gravemind it was forming within him, found Earth. Death before dishonor. Similarly, if Halsey had any historical sense at all, she'd put a monument on Reach reading "O stranger passing by, go and tell the Spartans, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie." But the sacrifice of Noble Team and the other Spartans makes Reach, to an Objectivist, at least as immoral a game as the worst GTA has to offer.

PS. I realize that what I most hate about Objectivists and similar is their ungenerosity. For 6000 years, among our people, a great man showed his greatness in his largess (the words even mean the same thing); "ring-giver" was an epithet of kings. John Galt would scrimp and pinch every penny, and give rings to no man. Stingy weakling, born to be a thrall.