The Right Side of History

by Ben Shapiro

  Judaism fought the notion of human inequality before God tooth and nail. We are all created equal in our endowment with a certain level of free will. Perhaps the most important sentence ever penned was this, from Genesis 1:27: “God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” No longer was divine choice restricted to great leaders: in fact, God mocks such pretensions in Genesis 6:2, when He decides to flood the earth after the “sons of the gods”—the rulers—begin running roughshod over the rights of commoners, prompting God to scoff at the arrogant humans who “are mortal.”23

  Instead of a ruling caste with the power of free will, now all human beings—each and every one of us—was granted the value of choice. God had stamped us all, breathed life into us, formed us out of the clay of the ground. The creation story itself is designed to demonstrate how the first man, Adam, used his innate power of choice wrongly—and we are all Adam’s descendants. One of the most moving segments of the Bible takes place just before Cain slays his brother Abel: God sees that Cain is jealous that Abel’s offering has been accepted, and passionately informs Cain, “Why are you annoyed, and why has your countenance fallen? Is it not so that if you improve, it will be forgiven you? If you do not improve, however, at the entrance, sin is lying, and to you is its longing, but you can rule over it.”24

  This is a constant recurring theme. God lays out the importance of choice—of proper exercise of free will—in Deuteronomy:

  See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord, your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws. . . . Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.25

  Because we choose, we are God’s partners in creation. We are signatories to a covenant with God, in which we must play our role and choose to abide by our commitments. Free choice is the central element here. When God brought the Jews out of Egypt and stood them before Sinai, He required them to sign on to the program; they made an affirmative decision to contract with God, and did so without even waiting to hear the terms: “We will do, and we will hear.”26 Freely willed action preceded justification.

  WHAT JERUSALEM TELLS US . . . AND WHAT IT DOESN’T

  Let’s return to our original standard for happiness: individual purpose, individual capacity, communal purpose, and communal capacity. What does Judaism alone have to say about these necessary elements?

  When it comes to individual purpose, Judaism has quite a lot to say. Judaism says that God expects things of us—that He has standards for our behavior, that He demands our holiness, that He cares about our commitment. A human being on a desert island can find purpose in living the life God wants for Him, and it is laid out for Him through a series of rules to be found in His holy book. As King Solomon concludes in Ecclesiastes, the purpose of human existence is simple: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”27 In doing so, Ecclesiastes says, we will find joy: “I know that there is nothing better for people than to rejoice and do good while they live . . . there is nothing better for a person than to rejoice in his work, because that is his lot.”28

  With regard to individual capacity, the Bible speaks clearly as well. The Bible states openly that we are free agents with the capacity to choose sin or holiness, and that we have the obligation to do so. We are holy; we are made in God’s image. And we are equal in the capacity to act as Godly creatures, although we may have different capabilities. The Bible also makes clear that our job is to use our minds to discover God—to seek Him out, to ask questions, to struggle with Him. We believe that God abides by certain rules morally, and that he has set out certain rules for the world He created—that life is not an arbitrary scheme of chaotic last-minute decisions made by a variety of gods fighting for supremacy. In terms of science, this notion—the notion of a predictable, discoverable God—is vital. The assumption of regularity in the universe’s rules is vital for the development of Western civilization—and for the development of science in particular. The entirety of science is based on the notion of looking for universal rules that govern the world around us. If the universe were a random agglomeration of unrelated events, governed by no higher logic, the scientific search would be rather frustrating.

  The Bible does not, however, set out the notion that our own search for universal truths will bring us closer to happiness. God is, in the Jewish view, the only universal truth. Jews seek out God and hold Him to His word, not ours—His standards of truth matter, not our own.29 The notion of a search for truth outside of God is foreign to Biblical thought.

  How about communal purpose? Certainly, Judaism provides the notion of a communal purpose. God tells Abraham in Genesis, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”30 Never has a prophecy been truer—from one man in search of God in the wilderness came three monotheistic faiths that dominate humankind and shape human culture on the broadest possible scale.

  Judaism taught that communal purpose was both particular and universal—that we must live within our communities and model our behavior to others. Judaism said that the nation of Israel would serve as proof of God’s provenance, as demonstration of God’s place in history.31

  The attitude of historical progress, coined by the Jews and adopted by Christianity, drives Western civilization as a whole. Barack Obama was fond of quoting Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” He even had that quotation inscribed on a rug in the Oval Office. But King himself only thought the moral arc existed in the context of a religious narrative of history. Here’s the original context in which King spoke those words: “Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’” If history has a direction, it does so only if we have faith in a God who stands at the end of it, urging us forward.32

  Finally, communal capacity: What does the Bible have to say about the best system for fulfilling individual and communal purpose? Surprisingly little. Judaism believes that power ought to exist in the first instance in the family; secondly, in the community of faith; and finally, in the government.

  Judaism is ambivalent at best about the notion of state power. The Bible separates powers between the Levites and a judicial system. In fact, the Bible expresses fear of divine monarchy repeatedly. Moses says that the people will choose to appoint a king—he doesn’t say that God will mandate a monarch. He then spells out a series of restrictions to be placed on the king, ranging from limitations on wealth to restrictions on the number of wives, and concluding with an order that the king must write his own copy of the Torah, so as to be reminded of his legal duties each and every day. The king must “not consider himself better than his fellow Jews and turn from the law to the right or to the left.”33 Once the Jews enter the land, they are ruled by judges for generations; the prophet Gideon explicitly declines to rule over the Jews, stating, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you, the Lord shall rule over you.”34 When the Jews finally decide to throw over the prophet Samuel for a king, Samuel warns that a monarch will impoverish the people and act as a tyrant, concluding, “in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”35

  Judaism has a healthy suspicion of centralized power. Criminal penalties require two witnesses who warn the perpetrator before the crime, and then witness the crime. While religion has been used as cover for theological tyranny, there is ample basis in the Bible for the notion that various forms of state organization for purposes of enshrining both individual and collective purpose can work. That truth would become obvious during the pre-Enlightenment period, when widespre
ad reading of the Bible would overturn centuries of theocratic power.

  In short, the Bible presents a fulsome view of human happiness—but one that requires further elucidation. The Bible tells us what God expects of us and tells us that we have the duty to fulfill those expectations; it tells us that we are special, and that we are loved by an infinitely good, caring, and powerful Being. It tells us that we have a duty to reach out to Him. The Bible makes God accessible; it brings God down to earth. In doing so, it offers man the opportunity to raise himself. But the Biblical tradition does not stress the ability of people to reason a priori; revelation stands above reason.

  And revelation alone is not enough. The soul with which God endowed man seeks the Divine through reason—the uniquely human quality that lifts human beings above animals, and places us at the foot of God’s throne.

  To seek a higher moral purpose, human beings would have to cultivate their reason.

  For that, they turned to Athens.

  Chapter 3

  From the Dust

  There is a battle currently raging on college campuses regarding the role of the university. Is it to create a safe space for students to “find themselves”? Is it a place to experience the wonder of a wide variety of thought? Or is it a place to inculcate the basic thought underpinning Western civilization?

  In the past, the answer was clearly the last option: people went to college to be steeped in the classics. The Founding Fathers were well versed in Latin and Greek; their writing is replete with references to ancient literature. In 1900, half of all American public high school students were obligated to take Latin classes.1 But many current scholars and students find the classics trite and boring, old and hackneyed—ethnocentric and culturally stagnating. Jesse Jackson famously marched at Stanford in the 1980s, arm in arm with students, chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.” As of 2010, not a single top university required students to take a course in Western civilization; only sixteen even offered such a course.2

  What happened? A generalized scorn for Western civilization itself led to a sharp critique of learning about the classics. Western civilization, in the view of many on the radical Left, was a bastion of imperialism and racism; students should be devoted to learning about those shortcomings, rather than about the glories of ancient philosophy. In fact, study of ancient philosophy and civilization dramatically limits our understanding of the West’s innate evils. Edward Said made this case most explicitly in Orientalism, in which he suggested that the legacy of Greece and Rome was one of “othering” the East—and that classicists were most concerned with the denigration of non-Western traditions. Furthermore, Westerners were forbidden from writing about “Orientalist” cultures—as outsiders, they were destined to pervert the teachings of these cultures.3 Education, in this view, is merely a different form of perpetuating power relationships—and focusing in on Western civilization thus contributes to ongoing tyranny. Better to ignore the classics in favor of a more well-rounded education focusing on various cultures.

  Now, there’s nothing wrong with reveling in that which we can learn from a multitude of cultures—the Supreme Court’s hearing room contains Moses, Hammurabi, Solon, and Confucius in its tableau of lawgivers.4 But to ignore the legacy of the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition is to perpetuate the lie that Western civilization brought us more exploitation than liberty. The promulgators of multiculturalism in education all too often aren’t promoting breadth of learning, but lack of learning. This attitude reaches its apotheosis in the anti-classics movements we see on college campuses like Reed, where one student group lobbies against basic humanities courses because they allegedly “perpetuate[] white supremacy. . . . The texts that make up the [Humanities 110] syllabus . . . are ‘Eurocentric,’ ‘Caucasoid,’ and thus ‘oppressive.’”5

  This is a dramatic, deliberate misreading of the history of Western civilization—the greatest force for good in world history. That statement is not meant to ignore the myriad evils in which Western civilization has participated. But Western civilization has freed more people than any other, by a long shot; it has reduced poverty, conquered disease, and minimized war. Western civilization is responsible for the economic betterment of the global population, and for the rise in human rights and democracy.

  And that civilization has deep roots. Why should Americans bother to learn about ancient Greeks? Because the classical roots of Western civilization in Athens still have much to teach us. Athens teaches us what we are capable of doing as human beings. Athens teaches us that we have the ability to use our reason to reach beyond ourselves. Athens teaches us not only how liberty can flourish, but why it should. I’ve argued that without Jerusalem, there could be no West; without Athens, the same holds true.

  Religious faith is empowering because it tells human beings that they are loved, and that they have the capacity to choose between good and evil. But religious faith also requires us to acknowledge the inherent limits on human capacity—it requires us to say that there are things we will never understand, that we are earthly creatures bounded by dust. But if the project of Sinai was about elevating man above the animals by associating him with a Godly mission and granting him a Godly soul, the project of Athens was about elevating man using man’s own faculties. Religion doesn’t discount the capacity of mankind, of course, but that capacity is always secondary to God’s will; Athens elevates man’s capacity and makes it primary.

  Greek thought, of course, didn’t suggest that man could overcome all. The notion of Greek tragedy revolves around man reaching for the stars, but being prevented from his aspirations because of his own inherent limitations. But the heroes of Greek legend are those who challenge the fates, seeking to glorify their own independence: Prometheus, Antigone, Achilles . . . even Socrates himself. As famed drama critic Walter Kerr puts it, “Tragedy speaks always of freedom.”6

  This tragic quest for knowledge is endemic to Greek thought. It is a tragedy shot through with hope. Plato’s allegory of the cave is the most famous example of striving to reach the light. In that allegory, Plato paints a picture of men chained to a wall in a cave, prevented from seeing the source of light outside the cave; their ignorance restricts them to the belief that “the truth is nothing other than the shadows of artificial things.” But a few noble people can be released from those bonds, acclimated to truth, and brought out into the light; those happy few can then return to the cave and help build a truer society for their fellows—but they will risk the wrath of their fellow prisoners, and may pay the ultimate price for having debunked popular notions of truth.7

  Utilizing human reason to escape the cave, and bringing knowledge of the light, that was the task of ancient Athens—a task uniting Plato (428–348 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE). The ancient Greeks gave us three foundational principles: first, that we could discover our purpose in life from looking at the nature of the world; second, that in order to learn about the nature of the world, we had to study the world around us by utilizing our reason; and finally, that reason could help us construct the best collective systems for cultivating that reason. In short, the Greeks gave us natural law, science, the basis of secularly constructed government. Jerusalem brought the heavens down to earth; Athens’s elevation of reason would launch mankind toward the stars.

  FINDING PURPOSE IN NATURE

  The first contribution of the ancient Greeks was the philosophy of natural law.

  We live in the physical world. The physical world has nothing to say to us about purpose or meaning. It’s a bunch of stuff. Why should a bunch of stuff have any information to give us about how we direct our lives? We live in a world filled with things and facts. Facts do not determine values. A tree is not good or bad—it’s just a tree. The world is filled with brute facts; we ourselves are brute facts, with no capacity to rise above the basic realities of nature.

  That’s the conclusion of many modern philosophers. It was also the conclusion of certain ancient Greeks like Democri
tus (460–370 BCE), a philosopher who lived contemporaneously with Plato and Aristotle and believed that all of human life could be boiled down to fundamental particles of matter he called “atoms.”8 Nature was merely nature; ethics takes a backseat.

  Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics thought differently. Plato and Aristotle rejected Democritus’s atomic theory. In their view, the human mind was freely capable of deciphering nature’s rules—and they believed that those rules did, in fact, exist. We could determine rules and values from nature itself. Nature had a purpose—or the God behind it did.

  How could they reach such a conclusion? Their reasoning was simple and profound. They posited that virtually every object in creation is directed toward an end—a telos, in Greek. The value of an object lies in its capacity to achieve the purpose for which it was designed. Facts and values aren’t separate things—values are embedded within facts. For example, a watch is virtuous if it tells time properly; a horse is virtuous if it properly pulls a cart.

  What does this mean for human beings? What makes a man virtuous is his capacity to engage in the activities that make him a man, not an animal—man has a telos, too. What is our telos? Our end, according to both Plato and Aristotle, is to reason, judge, and deliberate. Plato put it this way in The Republic: