Either/Or, Both/And, This-then-That

Last updated on: January 16, 2014 at 12:03 pm by willduquette

Either/Or, Both/And, This-then-That 2014-01-15T14:04:20-05:00 willduquette

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I frequently read on one blog or another that Catholics aren’t either/or, we’re both/and. And this is true: not feasting OR fasting, but feasting AND fasting, each in its proper season. Not celibacy OR marriage, but celibacy for some AND marriage for others.

I ran into another example or either/or thinking recently during an on-line discussion of the man who was shot for texting during a movie. I see two facts, here:

A man was texting during a movie, which is rude; the light from the phone distracts other patrons.
Another man shot him for it, which is murder, and completely disproportionate to the offense.

The facts of the situation are somewhat unclear; it seems that the texter was texting a babysitter during the previews, before the movie actually began; and there’s some indication that the killer might have felt threatened by the texter’s response to being asked to stop.

At least one commenter insisted that the texting wasn’t a bit rude. The texter was texting a babysitter, which is reasonable, and it was during the previews, not during the actual movie. I would disagree; I rarely go to the movies, and I like to watch the previews; and while distracting me during the previews isn’t as bad as distracting me during the movie, it’s still rude. But I got the sense that for this commenter, to accept the rudeness was to somehow partially justify the killing. Possibly I’m misreading her. But I see this sort of thing often: both parties are in the wrong, but people champion one or the other and insist that their party did nothing wrong, as if to say otherwise was to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

But we’re a both/and people, we Catholics; we should have no trouble pointing out that neither party’s behavior was above reproach.

Once one does that, though, people start shouting “moral equivalence!” and asking how we can equate rudeness with murder.

But we’re not simply a both/and people. We’re also a this-then-that people. Rudeness is wrong, and murder is wrong, and murder is much worse than rudeness. We’re not equating them; we’re recognizing them for what they are, and then putting them in proper proportion to each other.

Life is more complicated than either/or; and it’s more complicated than both/and. We need a sense of proportion.

____
photo credit: Dan Zen via photopin cc

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