How the World Sees Reality Upside Down: The Priority of Goods
In mid January of 2021, it struck me that the world sees reality upside down. So I decided to sit down and make a list of everything that exists, and order it according to how the world values it. It was an interesting list, full of unexpected groupings. I was surprised when almost everything physical, for example, fell under the very second priority. After that, I entered almost completely into intangibles. Making this list was an eye-opening experiment.
My reason for this experiment was in order to seek an answer to the question: Once we see how the world values its priorities, will we be able to invert that order, and see how God values everything? I’m always fascinated by trying to see myself, others, and the world through God’s eyes, and I had a feeling that I might be looking at the world all wrong.
I’ve given this list a lot of thought since then, and I have come to the conclusion that it is exactly the case that the world values everything upside down from how God values it. My whole perspective has shifted, and clarity has begun to break in where, before, there was a darkness of confusion and anxiety on my mind. With this shift has come peace, and an ability to live my life with freedom from false attachments and vain idols.
The world values everything upside down from how God values it.
I will share this list, and explain it to the best of my ability.
This is all content the Lord has been revealing to me over time, so if you want to read this, but are having trouble, I recommend that you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help you gain insight. He is the best interpreter of truth, and He will help to compensate for any mistakes I make in my explanations.
The Holy Spirit is the best interpreter of truth, and He will help to compensate for any mistakes I make in my explanations.
For a full and condensed list of the priorities (upside down and right side up), see the end of this article.
THE INVENTED ‘GOOD’
The most worshipped gods of the world, the invented good is not a good in and of itself. The invented ‘good’ was invented by man, not created by God, and therefore, has no good in and of itself. It is neutral, and can just as easily be used for good or evil. It is not the root of all evil, as money has often been labelled, but it is easy to use it for evil, because it has no inherent good in its own nature. It does not exist on God’s list of priorities, but was added by man.
MONEY
The first category that jumped out to me was Money. The world truly puts this first because it believes that without economy, no person can be a functioning member of society. It is the foundation upon which we base all other things in life. Money is the pre-agreed upon standard for the passing back and forth of goods. Without this invented standard, goods are unattainable without begging, or becoming entirely dependent upon others who themselves are able to obtain money in some way or another.
The lowest ‘good’ is neutral, and can just as easily be used for good or evil.
Additional methods for accumulating goods falls into this category as well, such as all types of insurance, banking, and the stock market, because these are intrinsically a part of economy.
Money, according to the thinking of the world, is necessary in order to attain stability in our world structure, and it’s attainment must be secure before we can begin focusing on other affairs, such as building families, donating to charities, buying quality food, etc.
Hence, even if a person claims that they believe family is the most important thing in the world, if they think they need to secure a financial future for themselves and their future children, they have fallen into the lie of the world, and put the value of money, which is an invented ‘good,’ above the priority of family.
THE LOWEST GOOD
The lowest good is a real good, which God created. It is man’s participation in the beauty of creation through mankind’s creation of non-essential items. These items are good in their existence, because they are created out of man’s creative genius, but can be directly used for good or evil, depending on the owner of the item, and his or her use of it. The lowest good can fail to raise mankind’s eyes to the beauty of the creator, and instead, bog us down here on earth with too many items. Even though the act of creation is a good, the goods created are not strong enough to speak of the Creator by themselves. Instead, they easily distract from Him. Thus, they are the lowest good.
MERCANTILE
This lowest good is Mercantile. Mercantile, or trade, is the creating and passing back and forth of physical goods, or (like in our society) the utilization of money to obtain non-essential goods. These as objects which are not necessary for living, but which are useful and supplementary to a beautiful utilization of the resources of the earth, such as toys, decorations, jewelry, electronics, board games, etc.
I thought I needed money and mercantile before I could even think about getting married.
Without the accumulation of non-essential objects, the world believes people cannot function.
I personally fell into this lie for a long time. I thought I needed to own good clothes, pay rent, and buy a good car before I could even think about getting married or pursuing the work I believed I was called to do. If I wasn’t even able to purchase Christmas gifts for my siblings, how could I expect to be a good steward of my children, and provide for them? I was using the standard of non-essentials - such as a car and gifts - to judge how functional a member of society I was.
Therefore, even though I claimed to believe that family was of a higher value than money and mercantile, I believed that these things needed to be the foundation upon which I built a family, thus putting them as higher priorities. See the inversion? I will explain more as I go.
The Lower Goods
The lower goods have deeper innate goodness within them, because human beings are intricately connected with the fulfillment of these goods. For example, a sports game is not played by robots (mercantile); rather, it is inherently necessary that it be played by human beings; in addition, a stand-up comedy, even if it uses a puppet, requires a human being for real humor. Therefore, the image of God is more immediately present in these pursuits.
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
The next priority, according to the world, is Sports and Entertainment. These are activities oriented toward distraction, physical excellence, and humor, examples being jokes, sketches, sports, dances, board games, card games, party games, etc. The world puts these two things as the next most important priority.
They do this by establishing in Hollywood, sporting arenas, cities, etc. a self-contained world, wherein the successful entertaining of audiences, or the striving to outdue all others in the accomplishing of sporting feats, or even the affiliation to a specific team, becomes the sole basis by which a person is known to be valuable to the community.
Sports and entertainment have become a self-contained world.
Who are the most popular people in our world? We need merely to look at the magazines as we check out from the store, or watch a product commercial on Youtube hawked by celebrities, to see who we label as the most valuable individuals within society. Although we might claim to believe that friendship is a higher good than a comedian, or going to church is more important than a football game, our culture puts sports, shows, movies, etc. in a more elevated position. I remember my pastor at the eleven o’clock mass on Sundays giving shorter homilies during Pro Football Season, and being completely open about the fact that that was why he gave shorter homilies.
LABOR
The next priority, according to the world, is Labor. Labor is any activity of dedicated attention (often accompanied by sweat) that brings forth food, housing, education, literature, the means for communication, or the fulfillment of mercantile, medicine, or cleanliness.
People go to work to attain the false security that the world promises.
People in the world value labor so highly because they see it as the means by which they can obtain money, security, stability, and/or status. Rather than benefitting from labor, they view it as their salvation. It is good to participate in labor and learn from it both what one is capable of and what they are not, but this is not people’s goal now when they go to work. Rather, they throw themselves into it in order to obtain anything and everything in life. Whether they are actually successful in this endeavor is irrelevant - they do not learn that labor is ineffective at bringing forth lasting happiness, and so they continue to seek happiness through this means.
They do not see labor as resulting in a fruit, but only producing results. What are the results? To fill the time, or make money. What is the fruit? Fruit has an infinite multitude of layers. Fruit grows over time. It becomes something else later on. But this work has become ‘jobbing.’ People do not go to work in order to labor, produce fruit, and face themselves in the process. They go to work to fill the time and make money, in order to attain the false security that the world promises. They are no longer working, they are ‘jobbing.’
COMMUNICATION
The next good, according to the values of the world, is Communication. Communication is the activity of conversing with friends and acquaintances over many miles, even the whole world, using such means as water, air, land, or space vehicles; and wire, paper, smoke, or air signals. Obviously, in our society, we lean most heavily into air signals, by which we utilize Wi-Fi and Cellular to communicate with people across the globe.
They do not learn that the lower goods are ineffective at bringing forth lasting happiness, and so they continue to seek happiness through these means.
This emphasis on communicating with anyone from anywhere has become even more important of a goal and priority for the world than communicating in person, or dedicating time to face-to-face encounters. If we are communicating face-to-face, it tends to be while connecting over a sports game or other type of entertainment, or while working (labor). We do not participate in the true good of this thing, which is as a temporary connection between people who otherwise spend most of their time in face-to-face, in real connection with friends, family, and God.
We even see this in writing letters to Santa Clause. Fewer and fewer children think he can see and hear them at all times, so they no longer pray to him, they believe they must send letters. Santa has ceased to be a saint who receives intercessory prayers from children, and has become an unreachable, unanswering deity who resides at the North Pole. This is a result of the world’s ‘Wi-Fi’ culture which places the importance upon help lines and zoom calls, rather than in-person connection.
THE HIGHER GOODS
At last, we come into the higher goods. These are ‘higher goods’ because they are good for the sake of their own beauty and restoration. Unlike the lower and lowest goods, which are good merely because of the good feelings we receive from participating in them, the higher goods are good for their own sake, and achieve higher ends than mere positive satisfaction.
Naturally, the world has a perverted relationship with these goods, because they are prioritized incorrectly, but the world cannot negate the true power of these goods.
MEDICINE
Medicine is the next priority. Before we arrive at the basic necessities of air, water, food, housing, or even friendship, the world is trying to patch itself back together. After securing a job, a worker looks for the ‘benefits,’ which (if they are not dealing with the economy) have to do with medicine. Of course, medicine is a good. Everything on this list is a good. But it has become a central good in our society.
Medicine is the act of healing negations of life, and restoring the body to full vitality. Examples include vitamins, minerals, herbs, diet, splints and casts, rest, and exercise.
The world treats medicine as the god which can restore any and every ailment. When an injury is sustained, the default reaction is to rush the patient to the Emergency Room. Despite the fact that waiting rooms are usually over-crowded and lead to long delays, and despite the fact that the injury will typically just heal on its own, we have a culture that just wants to ‘be sure.’
The world treats medicine as the god which can restore every ailment.
We have machines which can look inside our bodies, and so we rely completely on these machines to tell us if something is wrong. We are not at rest until every test possible has been run.
This is not a true restoration of health. This is an obsession with the medical industry. Medicine is one of the top reasons we believe so highly in labor as a savior, because we can only work if we are healthy enough to do so; and we can only be healthy enough to work, if we work first to get our money so we can get our medicine.
But labor is not enough, because money is still the highest priority. Therefore, the modern medicine industry reinforces our dependence on money in the form of insurance, without which we cannot afford the full range of tests that will put our minds to rest.
EDUCATION AND LITERATURE
The first of the higher goods is Education. Education is the process of consciously passing down knowledge, through generations, concerning the self, the world, and God. Examples of these are chemistry, biology, theology, philosophy, language, social studies, grammar, rocket science, earth science, the making of clothing, houses, machines, etc.
The world cannot negate the true power of the higher goods.
The world sees education as important for the sake of those goods which it prioritizes as higher. This is where education has become inverted. For example, education is for the sake of obtaining a job or administering medicine, communicating with other people, experiencing entertainment, participating in the current economy, and the accumulation of goods. In a deeply true sense, then, education is for the sake of status. It is not seen as a good in and of itself, but a good which furthers one’s ability to be a contributing, valuable member of the world.
When I chose a liberal arts college for my bachelor degree, friends and family were concerned that I was choosing something ineffective. Something that would deplete my ability to perform well in the financial and status roles of the world. They did not concern themselves with my intellectual growth, and further knowledge of truth, but wanted to know if I would grow in my ability to fulfill a future career.
Education, as opposed tot he world’s view, is not properly meant to be a good for the sake of the world, but for the sake of the individual. It forms the conscious mind, nurturing that aspect of the individual for their greater mental and intellectual benefit.
The next good is Literature. I group Literature and Education because they are both for the purpose of forming the individual. Education forms the conscience, and literature the sub-conscious mind.
Literature communicates truth through story and beauty.
Literature is the process of communicating truth to the subconscious mind through story and beauty. Examples include music, sculpture, drawing, painting, theatre, novels, poetry, ballet, opera, etc.
While education nurtures the conscious mind, literature nourishes the subconscious. The world places literature after education because it sees the depositing of knowledge into the conscious mind as more important than fostering the imagination and value-system of the subconscious. However, fairytales form infants long before a middle schooler learns the concepts of logic, and without the formation of the subconscious, the conscious itself cannot be formed. This is how the world has inverted, specifically, these two goods, by putting education before literature, when it ought to be literature before education.
Because the world does not seek to cultivate any values apart from its own prioritization, and because literature is terrible at communicating truths about the things the world values most, the world has resorted to dismissing literature. It treats it as overly-sentimental, unnecessary, chauvinistic, and sappy. (We see this best in Critical Reviews of The Princess Bride. Look up any reviews from professional critics when it was first published, and you will see how they dismiss the deep, mythical truths with a wave of their hands.)
HOUSING AND CLOTHING
Housing is a structure to facilitate a warm, dry, and safe enclosed space for the cultivation of the higher goods. Examples include manmade structures - achieved through labor - out of materials such as wood, stone, brick, snow, leather, and plaster; or natural caves.
The world believes that housing is necessary for the sake of safety. It must be a structure created as a place that guarantees protection against evil. But no place on this earth is free from evil - to make a house, or the idea of some kind of abode, into such an ideal is to make it into an idol.
However, the goal of housing is to create a space in which the individual has a home in the world, an enclosed, sacred space dedicated to the cultivation of the higher goods, such as friendship, family, and worship. It is also, on account of the fallenness of the world, for a protection against potential dangers such as floods, rain, high winds, and man-made dangers, such as crime.
The reason for clothing is for the recognition of the dignity of the human body, and to respect and protect it.
Clothing serves a similar purpose to housing. It is more important, since the body deserves close protection before it requires a larger one.
The world believes we must cover ourselves as protection against the elements, and in order to protect our privacy from the prying, dismissive eyes of other human beings. Finally, it believes that clothing is a mask to hide our shame at our unpleasant appearance, and make ourselves more pleasing to the eyes of others.
However, the first reason for clothing, according to the Lord, is for the recognition of the dignity of the human body. Therefore, all clothing must ennoble the human person, robe him, in a sense, as God robed Adam and Eve with animal skins, correcting their first attempt to minimally clothe themselves with fig leaves. Our first parents utilized fig leaves to cover their shame, but God corrected their mistake, and elevated their human forms with His dignified attire. The second reason is to respect the body and protect it, especially from the eyes of those who do not, first and foremost, perceive the true inner dignity of the individual when their eyes fall upon them.
FOOD, WATER, AND AIR
The point of food, water, and air is to meet the basic necessities of living. These things, as being physical objects, both natural and directly created by God, cannot be evil in and of themselves. The negative good only comes about when they are made toxic by introducing outside, inappropriate materials into them. We can also, even to the most healthy and good of these things, have unhealthy mentalities and disorders in relation to them, such as eating disorders, panic attacks or asthma, and a distaste for drinking water, with a bend toward drinking only other types of liquid.
These things cannot be evil in and of themselves.
Examples of food include vegetables, meat, fruit, nuts, fungus, sunlight, insects, eggs, dairy, and grains. Water and air speak for themselves.
THE HIGHEST GOODS
Purely redemptive in their own right, these highest goods are always good when undertaken for their own sake, and will eventually point to the divinity, unless they are falsely undertaken in order to advance a lesser good.
Any good can be perverted when it is viewed as the ultimate good of Worship. However, some goods, when viewed as the ultimate good, can help to orient one toward the real ultimate good.
Stewardship, Friendship, and Family, when participated in correctly, orient one toward the ultimate good. All the other goods do not help to orient one toward the ultimate good, because to view them as the ultimate good is to actually consider oneself the ultimate good. Therefore, they merely orient one toward the fulfillment of one’s own desires: physical goods, entertainment, selfish friendship, mental prowess, physical and mental health, and basic necessities.
The highest goods, however, are redemptive and point to the perfect plan and intimate love of the designer of the universe. Therefore, valuing these highest goods usually points one toward the recognition and participation in the ultimate good, which in turn, redeems all other goods.
STEWARDSHIP AND FRIENDSHIP
Stewardship is the cultivation of nature by man. Examples include pets, gardening, burning prairies, clearing forests, etc.
It is almost impossible to pervert this good, if it is undertaken with true concern for nature, since any care for the earth and its creatures is a positive undertaking. Even if the endeavor is undertaken with the mindset that nature or animals are more important than friendship, family, or God, the true and active participation in nature, and curious observation of its structure will often, over time, illuminate the gardener/caregiver with insight into people and divinity. Therefore, true stewardship is a redemptive good.
The world’s method of approaching this good, however, is to disregard it in favor of monetary gain, exploitation of resources, and, in a false stewardship, to ‘patch it up again’ after the harm is done by grasping after resources.
Friendship is an elevation of stewardship, applying the everyday practices of nurture, and providence of basic needs, to the inter-relationships between persons. Friendship is relationship between human beings, founded on love and mutual care of one another, including the administration of medicine, basic needs of food, water, and air, emotional care, conversation, education, literature, entertainment, and physical touch.
The highest goods, however, are redemptive and point to the perfect plan and intimate love of the designer of the universe.
The world believes that friendship is purely the shared enjoyment of lesser goods together, such as entertainment, sports, work, eating for pleasure, and other activities. This, however, is only an extension of those lesser goods, and not true connection between individuals. Real friendship is the unification of man to man: the close, interpersonal relations of humanity. For this, we were created, as Christ affirms when he says that the greatest law is to Love God, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
The negative good that the world engages in is great here, because we have entered a realm where the goods are good in and of themselves. This good, when it is perverted, does not merely become a negative in relation to us: it is not simply the absence of friendship, or a lie that we have friendship when we do not, although these realities are detrimental. Rather, the absence of real friendship in our relationships enacts active harm against those to whom we ought to show love. It enacts active evil upon others, resulting in trauma and deadly woundedness.
FAMILY
Family is the intimate relationship between a man and a woman, which leads to other relationships of individuals bound together in love and mutual care.
Family is a briefly-lived microcosm of the ultimate and final good. Family is necessary, just like friendship, to achieve the greatest good, which is to love God. Man is created by family, into family, out of family, in order to build his family.
The world believes that family is merely a status position, facilitating the rise of individuals within the corporate and economic worlds. Lately, recognizing such a reality as a lame identity, and failing to recognize the true purpose of family, the world has begun to reject family entirely. This recent rejection of family is a last loss of defense against complete heathenism (disbelief in God).
However, the public rejection of the idea of family, regardless of an individual’s private actions, is difficult to achieve. If, for example, a father believes his daughter does not love him, so he kicks her out of the family, the desire to have a good, stable, and loving family still never leaves his heart. He is always searching for it, so that, even if he believes his own family to be evil, it is very difficult to convince him that family, in the general sense, is evil, or to renounce publicly that ‘family is evil’. It is more likely for an individual to reject their own family on an individual basis, and yet to applaud the idea of family publicly, even to the extent of establishing their own pseudo-family out of a coming together of unrelated and unvowed individuals. Therefore, we have so many unstable structures now of people living together without marriage, children choosing emancipation, and a loss of familial care.
THE ULTIMATE GOOD
The ultimate good is the first good according to God. When veiwed as the first good, the misordering of priorities naturally flips, and reorients itself into the proper prioritization of goods.
WORSHIP
Worship is the extremely intimate relationship between God and man. Examples include Liturgy/the Mass, the Eucharist, praise and worship music, and prayer.
Worship is, of course, the highest, or the ultimate, good. It orients the creature toward his Creator, and gives him ultimate fulfillment. It bequeaths everything necessary to existence: love, a forever home, and an eternal place to abide.
Worship bequeaths everything necessary to existence: love, a forever home, and an eternal place to abide.
The world’s idea of worship is also the ultimate evil. It is listed as the first Commandment: I am the Lord Thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. If any good is placed out of priority, and turned into this one, there is a negation of true good. However, the negative good of Worship itself is the renunciation, knowingly and consciously, of the positive good of the Love and Welcome of the Divine Creator. It is complete heathenism.
As I mentioned, the highest goods point toward this good, but if any of them are placed above it, there is still a perversion within it, and unless worship is ultimately acknowledged, the good will cease to be a good, and will instead begin to degenerate toward the lower goods.
CONDENSED LISTS
The order of priorities according to God.
Worship
Family
Friendship
Stewardship
Air
Water
Food
Clothing
Housing
Literature
Education
Medicine
Communication
Labor
Entertainment
Mercantile
Money
The order of priorities according to the world.
Money
Mercantile
Entertainment
Labor
Communication
Medicine
Education
Literature
Housing
Clothing
Food
Water
Air
Stewardship
Friendship
Family
Worship