Certain “outward observances” are private by design.  It’s very hard to virtue signal or be conspicuous about them.

Hypocrisy is the vice of claiming a high degree of righteousness in public while excusing your black sins in private. Hypocrisy is a satanic parody of the virtue of upholding standards that you yourself fall short of. We call this the nameless virtue.

The virtue that is the opposite of hypocrisy is obvious. It’s where you do good in private so you don’t get social credit for it. Virtue non-signalling, we could call it. Christ was big on this virtue in the gospels. ‘that which do in secret your father will reward openly’ ‘let not your right hand know…”

Probably any type of virtue can be hypocrited, but the two classes of virtue are the most vulnerable. One is whatever type of virtues are involved with publicly signalling your allegiance to good stuff.  We don’t normally think of these as virtues because virtue signalling is so common in our world.  But there are virtues like that, they are just buried under the vice of virtue signalling.  The other one is when doing good requires outward observances, where virtue consists of identifiable acts that people can see.  This was the type of hypocrisy that the Pharisees embraced.  Super-large phylacteries, tithing their herb garden, etc.

It’s interesting that most of our restoration outward observances are things that naturally occur privately.  Wearing the garment, fasting, paying tithing, are all things that no one really knows whether you are doing it or not.  To an extent the same is true with sabbath observance and even with the Word of Wisdom.  Of all these I think garment wearing is particularly interesting.  It is *by design* private.  People can tell if you are not following the standards, but it is hard to tell if you are.  Wearing the garment is in a sense the opposite virtue to the nameless virtue.

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Your means should be proportioned to your ends and no matter how reasonable or practical or achievable your means are if they will not accomplish your ends they are inadequate and if means that are difficult or nigh impossible or even impossible are the only way to achieve your right end then that is the means.  The beauty of Christianity is that we do not lie to ourselves about our ends.  Restoration Christianity allows you to rip off the mask and say, yes, I was meant to be a GOD, instead I’m a gross humdrum niggler, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.  Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Everyone almost automatically adjust their ends to fit their means.  We do not have the right end of beingMan until we let ourselves know from the inside the full nobility that a human spirit should be able to achieve, until we let ourselves admit that we have tasted something true and pure, and we say that is the end even if our means are wholly unable to achieve it.

Though he slay me, yet will I praise God.

I have a new take on the nameless virtue. (First nameless virtue post here).

Let’s look at something President Nelson said.

Discover the joy of daily repentance. Cut short your misery. He loves us especially when we repent.
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We’ve had a lot of errands to run at night, around town and out into the empty.  We’ve been looking at the Christmas lights.  We have decided we have a lot of respect for the single strand of lights.  It usually runs along a fence or sometimes an eave or around a window.  It often looks a little tired.

But a street with single strands on nearly every house has more cheer about it than a street with one house lit to the nines.

I like a house lit to the nines.  My own house is an elegant and tasteful blaze.   Yet there is something affecting about that little strand of lights.

It is someone showing their devotion to a celebration and a standard even if that standard doesn’t make them look good.

It is the equivalent of what some sociologists call the decent poor.  It is the nameless virtue (#namelessvirtue)

It is the Christ deciding to become a mortal, starting out as a baby.

You don’t have to be temple worthy to have a temple worthiness interview with your bishop.

A prime example of the nameless virtue (#namelessvirtue).

Come to think of it, mortality and the keeping of the first estate are all a giant exercise in the nameless virtue.  A more deliberate method of putting yourself in the way of having all your flaws exposed I cannot imagine.  Maybe that’s the difference between the great majority whose mortal experience is only fetal or as a very young child, and those of us who live longer.  Maybe they knew perfectly well they were going to flub it and volunteered to come anyway, while we minority of optimists felt that it would be a challenge but believed we were up to it.

Elder Christofferson once preached that the aim of the gospel is to draw down “perfect justice and infinite mercy” from heaven. The phrase stuck with me. Perfect justice and infinite mercy.  Infinite mercy, sure.  But who among us struts so cockily that he wants perfect justice?  Who among the wise can know that he is more sinned against than sinning?  None.

But the truly wise know, even the justice that condemns you is joyful.

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You have a new boss (not the one portrayed above). Against all precedent, he doesn’t change all the old boss’s policies. He keeeps all the ones that working. You’re pretty impressed with your new boss. He is one of a kind. (more…)

I’ve been writing a lot about the nameless virtue, which is the virtue of unironically recognizing and praising standards that you yourself fall short of. The nameless virtue is easy to recognize when we’re talking about conventional sins and shortcomings. The inmate telling kids to stay away from the gangster life, the alcoholic who wishes he’d never taken that first drink, those are all standard fare. Along the same lines, what first brought the nameless virtue to my attention were Mormons who missed out on the basic steps of Mormon life extolling those steps. Those kinds of exceptions that prove the rule make the nameless virtue pretty apparent. (more…)

It’s no mystery why a world that rejects the nameless virtue would reject heroes. At first glance, its no mystery why that same world would embrace celebrities. (more…)

One kind of creativity is making unexpected connections. Wodehouse excelled at this kind of creativity. I just read where Fink-Nottle, on a vegan diet, started weeping at a sunset, because the color reminded him of a nice, underdone slice of beef.

Most of my creativity comes to me second hand. Providence makes the connections for me. “Look on this picture, and on this,” Providence says, and all I have to do is look, and think. (more…)

This post is about discretion and legalism. It follows up on the post The Virtue with No Name, or the Best Mormon Essay You’ll Read This Month. (more…)

No, not this essay, goose. Another essay. Which will be revealed to you later.

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