A new A.R.T. form.

During a Vancouver radio interview, Paul Martin, Canada's Prime Minister, defended his involvement in the legislation of same-sex "marriage" by stating, rather tersely, that "what I've got to do is take the widest perspective possible." Given the temper of the times and the perspective of the Prime Minister, this is neither a slip of the tongue nor a careless remark. Being "wide," "open," "diverse," and "inclusive" are considered morally good these days. "Narrow," "closed," "uniform," and "exclusive," consequently, are presumed to be unequivocally bad.

There is a time-honoured adage within the field of jurisprudence, which states that the study of law sharpens the mind by narrowing it. The new vogue suggests the opposite, that the study of law dulls the mind by widening it. Unfortunately, as boundaries are erased, definitions disappear, focus is lost, and the mind responds by gently falling into unconsciousness.

Justice, which is supposedly the professional interest of lawyers (Martin is a lawyer), always requires a balance. And there can be no balance where there is but one factor. Operating with only a single component ("width," for example) is like driving a car that has a gas pedal but no brake. At the moment, Canada has two major political parties: one has a gas pedal without the brake, the other has the brake without the pedal. As bumbling an investigator as Inspector Clouseau of Peter Sellers' fame knows that his work requires him to narrow the field of suspects until he finds the one person who is guilty. Even Clouseau understands that it is not his role to widen the field of suspects until it includes everyone.

I recently wrote a letter to the editor of a major Canadian newspaper complaining about a column. The column stated that the Pope and his hierarchy were acting like Nazis because they were discussing the issue of whether communion should be given to certain politicians who are acting in a way that brings grave scandal to the Church. The editor wrote back to me and defended her paper's criticism of the Church by stating that her newspaper gives its writers a great deal of "latitude" (can we refer to this trend as the "latitude attitude?").

"Latitude" is a sophisticated synonym for "width." "Longitude," which intersects latitude and gives it specificity, does not happen to be fashionable at the moment. Pity the seaman who tries to find his destination without being allowed to coordinate latitude with longitude. A baseball pitcher would love to have a wide strike zone, but the batter wants it to be narrow. This is why the umpire is a realistic necessity, for he is willing to balance width and narrowness in the interest of locating the strike zone. In football, a "wide receiver" renders himself ineligible when he crosses the longitudinal that marks the boundary between in-bounds and out-of-bounds.

In grade six I was taught that "an adjective modifies a noun." I had no idea at the time, naturally, how philosophically profound and brilliantly sane this simple postulate is. Many years later, in reading Aristotle and Aquinas, I learned that the relationship between an adjective and a noun is analogous to the relationship between an "accident" and a "substance." Neither adjectives nor accidents can exist by themselves. The apple may be red, but the redness does not exist alone. It needs the apple in which it inheres. Adjectives are like parasites; nouns are like hosts.

Isolated adjectives, such as "wide," "open," "diverse," and "inclusive," really have no moral significance apart from the realistic context that a noun gives them. No one wants an increasingly "wide" waistline. Nor does anyone want his skull to be "open." Christianity eschews the polytheism of a "diverse" number of gods, and is equally emphatic in insisting that it not be so "inclusive" as to include Satan and sin.

Certain politicians and secular columnists seem to be practicing a new A.R.T. form that has roots in cloning (S.C.N.T.--Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer). The latter procedure removes the nucleus of a somatic cell and transfers it to an enucleated egg cell. This is how the sheep, Doily, was engineered. In the former procedure, what I call Adjective Removal Transfer (A.R.T.), an adjective is removed from a noun and transferred to the brain cell of a politician. And lo! An absolute moral principle is born.

Adjectives need nouns. Justice needs balance. Latitudes need longitudes. A key is meant to lock and unlock. We need to inhale and exhale. Life is binary. It may require less psychic energy to believe that all that moral thinking needs is a single suspended adjective. But such a view belongs to the realm of fantasy, if not insanity. To remain within the parameters of reality and to hold onto one's sanity, a person must learn the wisdom of harmonious duality. The art of living well is to harmonize body and soul, man and woman, individuality and communality, contemplation and activity, prayer and practice, faith and reason, freedom and responsibility, love and knowledge, history and eternity, Christ and His Church. We must know when to set things in motion and where to draw the line. In the unspeakable and dramatic mystery of the "and" lies the source of all wisdom. And I, myself, must know when to pick up my pen and when to set it down.

Dr. Donald DeMarco is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in CT, USA.