"When a religious scheme is shattered it is not merely the vices that are let loose, The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have done mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. " G. K. Chesterton, "Orthodoxy"

This quote has shed more light on the state of our world than hundreds of books could explain. The secular western world is trying to make sense of itself with one hand building a brave new world and with the other tearing down the Christian world before it. After german philosophers declared God dead in the 18th century, modernity hurried to build a new world forge of science and steal, reaching for the stars. Throwing away all superstitions as they are perceived, the modern man and woman are fashionably passionate about the latest trend as if the whole universe depend on it. Until the next week of course, when the new news is the most important thing

Vices are bad. Vices have a short life. Virtues are good.

The New Virtues and the New American Gods

Together, in a system that balances them, virtues give us strength. By themselves, they are tyrants that demand everything without any restraint. There are no restraints. Like the new American Gods, they demand allegiance and do as they please.

Virtues let loose are about holding the moral high ground. It doesn't matter that other virtues are killed in this process. As long as one of them is the rally cray, it's all right. And when you really look at it, you see that people don't even believe in what the virtue is supposed to stand for, but use it as a reason to justify their position.

Virtues and power

Without a system that keeps them in place, who's to say that this virtue is better than the other ones. And with the postmodern world fabricating is virtue by the second, what moral substance does a virtue have anyway?

In the Christian world, virtues make sense because first and foremost they are a person, they are attriubutes of the the God man we know as Christ.