Zorak links to a fascinating essay titled The Progressive Era and the Family, by Murray N. Rothbard. It outlines the influence of pietistic Protestantism on the progressive movement. Not only were public schools, prohibition, women's suffrage, and the eugenics/birth control movement choice examples of the moralizing pietistic impulse, they were also intensely nativist. Public schools, of course, were means of subduing the Popish menace, attempting to convert Catholics' children. The birth control movement was a similar means for reducing Catholic and other immigrant influence. Women's suffrage was a key blow struck by the pietists, for the women in more ritualistic forms of Christianity tended to leave politics to the menfolk. And where did the men gather for political association and argument? In the saloons, of course--which was another reason why Prohibition was implemented. This last fact makes me so mad I'm tempted to start up a political saloon of my own--which of course would promptly fail, the old ethnic neighborhoods having been destroyed by suburbanization. And suburbanization itself, some would argue, was an intended result of desegregation.

A few excerpts:

The pietist doctrine was essentially as follows: Specific creeds of various churches or sects do not matter. Neither does obedience to the rituals or liturgies of the particular church. What counts for salvation is only each individual being "born again"—a direct confrontation between the individual and God, a mystical and emotional conversion in which the individual achieves salvation. The rite of baptism, to the pietist, therefore becomes secondary; of primary importance is his or her personal moment of conversion. But if the specific church or creed becomes submerged in a vague Christian interdenominationalism, then the individual Christian is left on his own to grapple with the problems of salvation.

[...] In contrast, the Northerners, particularly in the areas inhabited by "Yankees," adopted a far different form of pietism, "evangelical pietism." The evangelical pietists believed that man could achieve salvation by an act of free will. More particularly, they also believed that it was necessary to a person's own salvation—and not just a good idea—to try his best to ensure the salvation of everyone else in society.

[...]Specifically, it was clear to the pietists that the role of women in the liturgical "ethnic" family was very different from what it was in the pietist Protestant family. One of the reasons impelling pietists and Republicans toward prohibition was the fact that, culturally, the lives of urban male Catholics—nd the cities of the Northeast were becoming increasingly Catholic—evolved around the neighborhood saloon. The men would repair at night to the saloon for chitchat, discussions, and argument—nd they would generally take their political views from the saloonkeeper, who thus became the political powerhouse in his particular ward. Therefore, prohibition meant breaking the political power of the urban liturgical machines in the Democratic party.

But while the social lives of liturgical males revolved around the saloon, their wives stayed at home. While pietist women were increasingly independent and politically active, the lives of liturgical women revolved solely about home and hearth. Politics was strictly an avocation for husbands and sons. Perceiving this, the pietists began to push for women's suffrage, realizing that far more pietist than liturgical women would take advantage of the power to vote.

[...]A laboratory test of which women would turn out to vote occurred; in Massachusetts, where women were given the power to vote in school board elections from 1879 on. In 1888, large numbers of Protestant women in Boston turned out to drive Catholics off the school board. In contrast, Catholic women scarcely voted, "thereby validating the, nativist tendencies of suffragists who believed that extension of full suffrage to women would provide a barrier against further Catholic influence.”

[...]One way of correcting the increasingly pro-Catholic demographics was to restrict immigration; another to promote women's suffrage. A third way, often promoted in the name of "science," was eugenics, an increasingly popular doctrine of the progressive movement. Broadly, eugenics may be defined as encouraging the breeding of the "fit" and discouraging the breeding of the "unfit," the criteria of "fitness" often coinciding with the cleavage between native, white Protestants and the foreign born or Catholics—or the white-black cleavage. In extreme cases, the unfit were to be coercively sterilized.

[...]Many observers, indeed, reported in wonder at the strongly religious tone of the Progressive party convention. Theodore Roosevelt's acceptance address was significantly entitled, "A Confession of Faith," and his words were punctuated by "amens" and by a continual singing of Christian hymns by the assembled delegates. They sang "Onward, Christian Soldiers," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and finally the revivalist hymn, "Follow, Follow, We Will Follow Jesus," except that "Roosevelt" replaced the word "Jesus" at every turn.

[...] Thus the foundations of today's massive state intervention in the internal life of the American family were laid in the so-called "progressive era" from the 1870s to the 1920s. Pietists and "progressives" united to control the material and sexual choices of the rest of the American people, their drinking habits, and their recreational preferences. Their values, the very nurture and education of their children, were to be determined by their betters. The spiritual, biological, political, intellectual, and moral elite would govern, through state power, the character and quality of American family life.

[...]It has been known for decades that the Progressive Era was marked by a radical growth in the extension and dominance of government in America's economic, social, and cultural life. For decades, this great leap into statism was naively interpreted by historians as a simple response to the greater need for planning and regulation of an increasingly complex economy. In recent years, however, historians have come to see that increasing statism on a federal and state level can be better interpreted as a profitable alliance between certain business and industrial interests, looking for government to cartelize their industry after private efforts for cartels and monopoly had failed, and intellectuals, academics, and technocrats seeking jobs to help regulate and plan the economy as well as restriction of entry into their professions. In short, the Progressive Era re-created the age-old alliance between Big Government, large business firms, and opinion-molding intellectuals—an alliance that had most recently been embodied in the mercantilist system of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.

Other historians uncovered a similar process at the local level, especially that of urban government beginning with the Progressive Era. Using the influence of media and opinion leaders, upper-income and business groups in the cities systematically took political power away from the masses and centralized this power in the hands of urban government responsive to progressive demands. Elected officials, and decentralized ward representation, were systematically replaced either by appointed bureaucrats and civil servants, or by centralized at-large districts where large-scale funding was needed to finance election races. In this way, power was shifted out of the hands of the masses and into the hands of a minority elite of technocrats and upper-income businessmen. One result was an increase of government contracts to business, a shift from "Tammany" type charity by the political parties to a taxpayer-financed welfare state, and the imposition of higher taxes on suburban residents to finance bond issues and redevelopment schemes accruing to downtown financial interests.

[...]In every case, we see the vital link between these intrusions into the family and the aggressive drive by Anglo-Saxon Protestant "pietists" to use the state to "make America holy," to stamp out sin and thereby assure their own salvation by maximizing the salvation of others. In particular, all of these measures were part and parcel of the long-standing crusade by these pietists to reduce if not eliminate the role of "liturgicals," largely Roman Catholics and high-church Lutherans, from American political life. The drive to stamp out liquor and secular activities on Sundays had long run into successful Catholic and high-church Lutheran resistance. Compulsory public schooling was soon seen as an indispensable weapon in the task of "Christianizing the Catholics," of saving the souls of Catholic children by using the public schools as a Protestantizing weapon. The neglected example of San Francisco politics was urged as a case study of this ethnoreligious political battle over the schools and hence over the right of Catholic parents to transmit their own values to their children without suffering Anglo-Saxon Protestant obstruction. Women's suffrage was seized upon as a means of increasing Anglo-Saxon Protestant voting power, and immigration restriction as well as eugenics was a method of reducing the growing demographic challenge of Catholic voters.

Of course, Pietism found its international expression in the form of Wilsonian diplomacy. It's not a suprise that today's neo-Wilsonianism walks hand in hand with pietism.

The Von Mises Institute has a blog.

A sample, which provokes fantasies of greed even in indifferent little me:

The New Yorker Magazine this week features a review of two investment classics, Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor and Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Benjamin Graham, one of the teachers of billionaire investor Warren Buffert, comes down on the side of financial entrepreneurship. Based on simple mathematical models using the future profits of a business, he provided analytical methods for estimating the "intrinsic value" of its securities - the price that an informed investor would pay to purchase the asset. The intelligent investor will apply Graham's methods to company financials, looking for bargains: companies selling for less than their intrinsic value.

Sex and Consequences (FR Thread): An Anthropologist vindicates the traditional family

Catholic University's Claes G. Ryn has provided an interesting examination of US neo-Wilsonian foreign policy. Here's a gem of a quotation:

‘‘Over the past 60 years, the United States has consistently
combined its military superiority with moral and political leadership."

-Richard C. Holbrooke, former US Ambassador to the UN

Our Prostate Cancer Awareness Week Video is ended.

Let us go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord.

Every time I attend Sunday mass at my home parish, I say a little prayer that goes something like this:

Lord,
Help me not to wince profusely during atrocious hymns,
those insipid peans to Emersonian self-worship;
Lord,
Keep me from sniggering during the sermon,
with its cheap crowd-pleasing tricks
and empty platitudes.
Lord,
Preserve me from being a prig.
Amen.

Alas, the prig's prayer is in need of amendment. Just after Holy Communion, at the close of a liturgy better than most, the priest told the congregation to remain seated for an important announcement. And what announcement might that be? Why, prostate cancer awareness week! With a Prostate Cancer Awareness Week Video!

Talk about cognitive dissonance. I suppose I should count my blessings. The video never did show what a prostate exam looks like.

"The Senate in particular is rhetoric's cemetery."

-ERIC GIBSON, You, Sir, Are a Bore

Orthodoxy’s Call for a More Radical Diversity, Inclusion, Tolerance, and Empathy

The modern idea of diversity is less diverse than the ancient ecumenical idea of eccumene. The classic concept of eccumene. (universal, the whole world) spans many generations—even milleninia—while the modern idea of diversity spans but a single century (or more likely only a slice of that – one generation, or one subset of on generation, such as a particular coterie of youth culture). Because modern diversity has no time to listen to other generations it risks a massive loss of wisdom.

Likewise, the modern idea of inclusion is less inclusive than the classic Christian understanding of inclusion. The classic understanding rises from the more radical inclusiveness of God’s mercy toward all, as creator of all, redeemer of all, and consummator of all history. God’s work in creation is given to all, even if some refuse the gift. God’s action on the cross is offered for all, even if only some accept it. God’s promise for the futre of history encompasses all, even if some will voluntarily reject grace. The modern version typically focuses on only one particular disenfranchised interest group.


The contrast continues: the modern conceit of tolerance is less tolerant than the ancient ecumenical ethic of long-suffering forbearance. Modern tolerance depends on a relativism that gives up on the search for truth before it begins, whereas classic Christian forebearance seeks the highest common denominator: our human participation in the divine-human covenant (as represented in repentance, humility, and cross-bearing). Out of this call for participation comes a higher-level energy for social reconstruction unburdened by illusions.


The modern version of absolute equality embodies less empathy than the ancient ecumenical idea of compassion, which puts a neighbor’s need above one’s own. The modern idea of absolute equality survives on the thinness of passing human sypathies, whereas the classic Christian understanding of compassion radiates the full depth of God’s own compassion for all humanity, as shown in God’s willingness to become flesh and die for our sins. Classic Christianity is not a substitute for democracy; it is the leading progenitor of it.

-Thomas C. Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, p. 115. Courtesy of KC Burke

While reading through Eve Tushnet's Judica Me Deus, I paused at a scene where the title character recalls a Good Friday service, where the people of God shout out "Crucify him! Crucify Him!." My mind turned to the passage from Matthew where the crowd of Jews shout "His blood be upon us and upon our children." Doesn't this have a completely different, even ironic understanding in light of what we are told about the blood of the Lamb in revelations? And might not all the handwringing over Gibson's film be completely redirected?

In Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1689), John Locke gives an intricate account of the role that education plays in inculcating the moral and intellectual virtues that equip individuals for a life of liberty; and in Locke’s view, it is parents, within the confines of the fundamental association of the family, who have the responsibility to ensure that children receive this education.

-Peter Berkowitz, The Liberal Spirit in America

In this essay, Berkowitz discusses the tensions in American political thought. He obviously prefers the word "tension" to "contradiction."

In other words, sexual "freedom" is really a form of social control. What we are really talking about is a gnostic system based on two truths.

The exoteric truth, the one propagated by the regime through advertising, sex education, Hollywood films and the university system, the truth, in other words for general consumption is that sexual liberation is freedom. The esoteric truth, the one that informs the operations manual of the regime, in other words the people who benefit from "liberty' is the exact opposite, namely, that sexual liberation is a form of control, a way of maintaining the regime in power by exploiting the passions of the naive, who identify with their passions as if they were their own and identify with the regime which ostensibly enables them to gratify these passions. People who succumb to their disordered passions are then given rationalizations of the sort that clog web pages on the Internet and are molded thereby into a powerful political force by those who are most expert in manipulating the flow of imagery and rationalization.

-E. Michael Jones, Eyeless in Gaza: Sexual Liberation as Political Control

Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." They would have been released in due course, he added later.

The tactic worked. On Friday, Hogg said, the lieutenant general appeared at the front gate of the U.S. base and surrendered.

U.S. Adopts Aggressive Tactics on Iraqi Fighters

A little hostage taking, in nice violation of the Geneva Convention and US Military Law?

"Modern democratic theory has been an attempt to give an account of democracies as just, without the people that constitute such a society having the virtue of justice."

-Stanley Hauerwas, "How Risky is _The Risk of Education_", Communio, Spring 2003

Who Paid for Secularization?

""I have a ceremony to attend," quoth one, "at dawn to-morrow, in the Quirinal valley." "What is the occasion?" "No need to ask: a friend is taking to himself a husband; quite a small affair." Yes, and if we only live long enough, we shall see these things done openly: people will wish to see them reported among the news of the day. Meanwhile these would-be brides have one great trouble: they can bear no children wherewith to keep the affection of their husbands; well has nature done in granting to their desires no power over their bodies. They die unfertile; naught avails them the medicine-chest of the bloated Lyde, or to hold out their hands to the blows of the swift-footed Luperci!"
-Juvenal, Moralists without Morals

Read This First before embarking on a literary career

Pietism as an Ecclesiological Heresy

On Kantian Aesthetics, and its relevance for JPII's Theology of the Body

Kant: 'Taste is the power of judging of an object or of a way of representing it through an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The object of such a satisfaction is called beautiful'[The Critique of Judgement]

"By saying that aesthetic appreciation is 'entirely disinterested' (ohne alles Interesse) Kant does not mean, ,of course, that it is boring: he means that it is contemplative. In terms of the theory of taste the aesthetic judgement implies that the object which is called beautiful causes satisfaction without reference to desire, to the appetitive faculty. A simple example is sufficient to convey an idea of what Kant means. Suppose that I look at a painting of fruit and say that it is beautiful. If I mean that I should like to eat the fruit, were it real, thus relating it to appetite, my judgment would not be a judgment of taste in the technical sense, that is, an aesthetic judgment; and I should be misusing the word 'beautiful'. The aesthetic judgement implies that the form of the thing is pleasing precisely as an object of contemplation, without any reference to appetite or desire." -Copleston, _History of Philosophy_, vol VI p. 357

"Further, [Johann Gottfried] Herder attacks the idea that history should be interpreted as a movement of progress towards the modern State. He implies at least that the development of a modern State had little to do with reason, and that it was due rather to purely historical factors. The members of a tribe may very well have been happier than many inhabitants of a great modern State, in which 'hundreds must go hungry so that one can strut and wallow in luxury.' And Herder's dislike for authoritarian government is plain enough. When he published the second part he had to omit the statements that the best ruler is the one who contributes the most to making rulers unnecessary, and that governments are like bad doctors who treat their patients in such a way that the latter are in constant need of them."
-Copleston, _History of Philosophy_, vol. VI p. 175

A note on Tolerance: According to Roger Kimball's _The Long March_, Herbert Marcuse is the inspiration for the Leftist virtue of tolerance. In his 1965 essay "Repressive Tolerance" Marcuse declares: "Liberating tolerance would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and tolerance of movements from the left." Knowing full well that a text without a context is a pretext, I still think this is a perfect description of the toleration dispensed at my almae matres.

Natural Order and Human Goods

This ties in to my previous entry covering Kimball on Descartes. While lurking on a discussion thread that had shifted towards Catholic apologetics, some confusion arose over the phrase “against the natural order.” The atheist had no clue what natural order meant, while the apologist couldn‘t explain the phrase, taking the meaning to be self-evident. “Natural” is terribly vague. It can be contrasted with the supernatural, the artificial, and the cultural. It can be interpreted in the monotheistic sense, as the reflection of the will of a benevolent Deity; in the Darwinian sense, as a struggle for existence; and in the nihilistic sense, as a blank slate upon which man may work his will.

So here’s my shot at a clear definition: the “natural order” is the proper hierarchy of human goods.

Papa Wojtyla says something similar: “The normative truth of "Humanae vitae" is strictly tied to those values which are expressed in the objective moral order according to their proper hierarchy.”

Frederick Copleston documents a homologous line of thought in the Anglican bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752):

…It may be objected, of course, that happiness is something subjective, and that each individual is the best judge of what constitutes his happiness. But Butler can meet this objection, provided he can show that ‘happiness‘ has some definite and objective meaning which is independent of different persons‘ various ideas of happiness. And this he tries to do by giving a definite objective content to the concept of nature, that is to say, human nature. In the first place he mentions two possible meanings of the word ‘nature‘ in order to exclude them. ‘By nature is often meant no more than some principle in man, without regard either to the kind or degree of it.’ But when we say that nature is the rule of morality, it is obvious that we are not using the word ‘nature‘ in this sense, namely, to indicate any appetite or passion or affection without regard to its character or intensity. Secondly, ‘nature is frequently spoken of as consisting in those passions which are strongest and most influence the actions.’ But this meaning of nature must also be excluded. Otherwise we should have to say that a man in whose conduct sensual passion, for instance, was the dominating factor was a virtuous man, acting according to nature. We must look, therefore, for a third sense of the term. According to Butler, the ‘principles,’ as he calls them, of man form a hierarchy, in which one principle is superior and possesses authority. ‘There is a superior principle of reflection or conscience in every man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart, as well as his external actions: which passes judgment upon himself and them; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust…’ In so far as conscience rules, therefore, a man acts according to his nature, while in so far as some other principle other than conscience dictates his actions, these actions can be called disproportionate to his nature. And to act in accordance with nature is to attain happiness.”(History of Philosophy, Vol. V p. 187

So conscience, by which I understand Butler to mean moral reason, is king of the human goods, and the neglect of moral reason is contrary to the natural order.

But I wonder: is such an approach to natural order a distinctly modern one, or is it something the ancients could have accepted as well?

"Poor Grendel's had an accident. SO MAY YOU ALL!"

Theology and Science without Dualism

Envoy's Carl Olson has written an excellent overview of divine adoption, titled Called to Be Children of God. Theosis, by another name.

"The point is that the ambivalence we feel about Descartes is a reflection of the ambivalence we feel about modernity. Despite the prattlings of contemporary academic "humanists," New Agers, and other intellectually handicapped persons, no one can in good faith utter a simple "no" to modernity. The affluent protestors who chat on their cell phones and jet around the world to demonstrate against "globalization" embody in their lives the very things they pretend to reject. Still, an unqualified "yes" to the modern world is also impossible. Descartes' dream of a philosophy that would render us the "masters and possessors of nature" has been all but realized. The question is whether we can really inhabit the world that we rule over with such thoroughness. Advances in genetic engineering, in nanotechnology, and other frontiers of science, pose deep challenges to any traditional notion of humanity and moral order."

-Roger Kimball, "What's Left of Descartes?" Lives of the Mind

Very intriguing. To what extent can one say "no" to modernity as an ideology, while accepting its benefits? I suppose in the exact same way one can say "O Felix Culpa!" to the fall of Adam and Eve or to the American economy's exaltation of greed.

I've long been pondering the various theories of nature. In contrast to the ancients and medievals, moderns see the natural no longer as man's superior and an ordered reflection of God's creative will. Rather, it is subject to the absolute domination of man. And so man is faced with the awful indignity of being an existentialist: he has no place in nature, but must nonetheless give meaning to a meaningless universe.

Even in the medieval Christian worldview, man never really fit within nature. Aquinas declares that man's happiness consists in no created thing, but rather in God. Yet there was a sense that nature was man's teacher, rather than man's slave, that man was part of the created order. The Dumb Ox also states "the order of nature is from God Himself: wherefore in sins contrary to nature, whereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God, the Author of nature." The Cartesians have obliterated both the magisterial quality of nature and its image of God's will, and in so doing, have undermined the "traditional notion of humanity and moral order."

What then? Is there "no returning to the pre-Cartesian"? Is Nature's slavery permanent?

A Review of Pieper's _The Concept of Sin_, translated by my favorite Jesuit, Edward T. Oakes

Newman, too, believed that Liberalism functioned as a peace treaty:

Next the liberal principle is forced on us from the necessity of the case. Consider {68} what follows from the very fact of these many sects. They constitute the religion, it is supposed, of half the population; and, recollect, our mode of government is popular. Every dozen men taken at random whom you meet in the streets has a share in political power,—when you inquire into their forms of belief, perhaps they represent one or other of as many as seven religions; how can they possibly act together in municipal or in national matters, if each insists on the recognition of his own religious denomination? All action would be at a deadlock unless the subject of religion was ignored. We cannot help ourselves.

Aristotle on Deification, courtesy of Cornelis:

Here is something from the Nicomachean Ethics Book 10.7 1177b (from the Crisp translation)

Such a life is superior to one that is simply human, because someone lives thus [in complete happiness], not in so far as he is a human being, but in so far as there is some divine element within him. And the activity of this divine element is as much superior to that in accordance with the other kind of virtue as the element is superior to the compound. If the intellect, then, is something divine compared with the human being, the life in accordance with it will also be divine compared with human life. But we ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things, or because we are mortal, think of mortal things. We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.

Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss carried on an interesting exchange of letters throughout their careers. Cornelis has posted several of these letters on FreeRepublic.com. Here's one on Locke from Voegelin

Dear Mr. Strauss,
Many thanks for your offprints of "Walker's Machiavelli" and "Locke's Doctrine of Natural Right" . . . The Locke piece interested me greatly . . I have a slight uneasiness in light of your handling of Locke as a representative of natural law . . . I ask myself can . . . Locke be treated as a philosopher of natural right? And even more: Is Locke still a philosopher?

Lockean reason.

[The Lockean ratio is actually opinion, no longer participation in the ratio divina. With that, the question arises, essentially for the whole Age of Reason, whether a ratio that, unlike the classical and Christian, does not derive its authority from its share in divine being is still in any sense a ratio? For Locke, it is clear on the strength of your excellent study that it is no longer that. In the concrete realization he must drop the swindle of ratio, and in the last instance refer to desire.

The deliberate destruction of spiritual substance occurs throughout Locke's political work. In three places it becomes decisively visible. You have dealt with two of them. The first act of destruction concerns ratio. The second, man as imago Dei. From this second destruction, the specific Lockean idea of man as "proprietor of his own person" should follow, on which the theory of ownership through incorporation of work into natural matter is based. This definition of the essence of man as property of oneself always seemed to me to be one of the most terrible atrocities in the so-called history of philosophy--and one perhaps not yet sufficiently noticed. The third act of destruction comes in the Letter on Toleration, on the occasion of a separation from a church community. Locke askes himself if, on such an occasion, conflicts over property could ensue that would make necessary the intervention of the state. He answers in the negative for the following reasons: the sole question of property could emerge from contributions to provisions that are consumed during the sacrament of communion. The contributions are too trifling to lead to a suit under common law. This conception of communion as a consumption of staples that cost money always fascinated me as much as the conception of property of oneself. Beyond these three main points, I believe, the systematic destruction of symbols can be demonstrated as a continuous feature in Locke.

The right of concupiscentia substituted for natural right.

This destruction leads now inevitably to conflict between the language of symbol, which is still used, and the new meanings that are substituted. It is not a conflict in Locke's theory (there you are quite right; he is consistent) but instead in the verbal construction. In the Second Treatise, the conflict is expressed in the fact that Locke must try three times to establish finally a political order that he wishes to have as the right one. The three attempts are (1) the natural state of pioneer squatters with approximate economic equality ("in the beginning all the world was America"), (2) the same egalitarian state, protected by state organization, (3) the consent of inequality (through money) in the context of state organization. The ultimate stage will then be protected by the new definition of consent by the fact of residency and by the exclusion of a state-run social policy. This final protection could refer, in a concrete historical sense, to the attempts of the politics of the Stuarts (Stafford and Laud) to protect the farmers of N. England and the slaves in Bermuda against extreme exploitation by the landlords and merchants, the attempts that were the material motive for revolt of the upper classes against Charles I.

It is a brutal ideological construction to support the position of the Enlgish upper class, to which Locke belonged through his social relations. The construction is consistent, insofar as the concupiscentia is maintained from the beginning as the driving motive; it is inconsistent, insofar as the introduction of the vocabulary of natural right forces a repeated redefinition in the concept of nature.

Lockean camouflage

And this leads, now, to the problem on which you have for so many years worked: the camouflage of the philosopher who wishes to protect the uncomfortable theories against the conventional protests. If I understand you correctly, you see also in Locke such an effort at camouflage--and I believe you are right. But only then, when you considerably extend the problem of philosophic camouflage.

I mean the following: you follow completely legitimate problem when you state that philosophers (I think for example about your Arabic studies) take precautionary measures to protect their philosophizing against disturbance by the unqualified. But: Is an ideological constructor, who brutally destroys every philosophical problem area in order to justify the political status quo, a philosopher? Is this not precisely the opposite case of a nihilistic destroyer, who wishes to cover his work of destruction from the attentiveness of the qualified? What difference, I ask myself, actually exists between Locke and that series of types that Camus deals with in L'Homme révolté? Isn't that which may still appear as camouflage of a philosopher already the bad conscience of a "modern" man, who doesn't quite dare to declare the knavery that he actually intends; and so he hides it not only from others but also from himself, by the ample use of a conventional vocabulary? That possibility recalls the words of Karl Kraus; such a person knows already what he wants, only subconsciously. What is the political philosophy of Locke other than the roguery of which Anatole France in the Ile des Pengouins makes fun: the majesty of the law that forbids eaully the poor and the rich to steal. Finally, when one considers the development from Locke to Marx, what is this Lockean ideal picture of political order but the picture of bourgeois society that Marx believed he had to produce with laborious research and had to unmask. If England had not in fact been better than Locke, and had not again elevated itself through the Wesleyan Reformation, this nasty caricature of human order would have brought about some interesting revolutions.

Excuse the length of this letter. But when it comes to Locke, my heart runs over. He is for me one of the most repugnant, dirty, morally corrupt appearances in the history of humanity. But back to our technical problem: it seems questionable to me, at least where it concerns Locke's political work, whether it still falls within the area of philosophizing; and following from that, it seems questionable whether the substance of Locke's political work becomes accessible by attending to the question of philosophical camouflage. Perhaps what is involved is a phenomenon of completely different order; Locke was one of the first very great cases of spiritual pathology, whose adequate treatment would require a different conceptual apparatus.

And on Karl Popper:

Leo Strauss: May I ask you to let me know sometime what you think of Mr. Popper. He gave a lecture here, on the task of socioal philosophy, that was beneath contempt: it was the most washed-out, lifeless positivism trying to whistle in the dark, linked to a complete inability to think "rationally," although it passed itself off as "rationalism"--it was very bad. I cannot imagine reading, and yet it appears to be a professional duty to become familiar with his produtions. Could you say something to me about that--if you wish, I will keep it to myself.
Dear Mr. Strauss, The opportunity to speak a few deeply felt words about Karl Popper to a kindred soul is too golden to endure a long delay. This Popper has been for years, not exactly a stone against which one stumbles, but a troublesome pebble that I must continually nudge from the path, in that he is constantly pushed upon me by people who insist that his work on the "open society and its enemies" is one of the social science masterpieces of our times. This insistence persuaded me to read the work even though I would otherwise not have touched it. You are quite right to say that it is a vocational duty to make ourselves familiar with the ideas of such a work when they lie in our field; I would hold out against this duty the other vocational duty, not to write and to publish such a work. In that Popper violated this elementary vocational duty and stole several hours of my lifetime, which I devoted in fulfilling my vocational duty, I feel completely justified in saying without reservation that this book is impudent, dilettantish crap. Every single sentence is a scandal, but it is still possible to lift out a few main annoyances.

1. The expressions "closed [society]" and "open society" are taken from Bergson's Deux Sources. Without explaining the difficulties that induced Bergson to create these concepts, Popper takes the terms because they sound good to him[he] comments in passing that in Bergson they had a "religious" meaning, but that he will use the concept of the open society closer to Graham Walas's "great society" or that of Walter Lippmann. Perhaps I am oversensitive about such things, but I do not believe that respectable philosophers such as Bergson develop their concepts for the sole purpose that the coffeehouse scum might have something to botch. There also arises the relevant problem: if Bergson's theory of open society is philosphically and historically tenable (which I in fact believe), then Popper's idea of the open society is ideological rubbish . . .

2. The impertinent disregard for the achievements in his particular problem area, which makes itself evident with respect to Bergson, runs through the whole work. When one reads the deliberations on Plato or Hegel, one has the impression that Popper is quite unfamiliar with the literature on the subject--even though he occasionally cites an author. In some cases, as for example Hegel, I would believe that he has never seen a work like Rosenzweig's Hegel and the State. In other cases, where he cites works without appearing to have perceived their contents, another factor is added:

3. Popper is philosophically so uncultured, so fully a primitive ideological brawler, that he is not able even approximately to reproduce correctly the contents of one page of Plato. Reading is of no use to him; he is too lacking in knowledge to understand what the author says. Through this emerge terrible things, as when he translates Hegel's "Germanic world" as "German world" and draws conclusions form this mistranslation regarding Hegel's German nationalist propaganda.

. . . Briefly and in sum: Popper's book is a scandal without extenuating circumstances; in its intellectual attitude it is the typical product of a failed intellectual; spiritually one would have to use expressions like rascally, impertinent, loutish; in terms of technical competence, as a piece in the history of thought, it is dilettantish, and as a result is worthless.

It would not be suitable to show this letter to the unqualified. Where it concerns its factual contents, I would see it as a violation of the vocational duty you identified, to support this scandal through silence.

Leo Strauss is in the news.

First, a hatchet-job attack from the Asia Times: Neocons dance a Strauss waltz....The New Liberal Mantra?

Then a better article from the Boston Globe: The Philosopher of Neoconservatives

(This link contains an intriguing interview with one of Strauss' students)

Finally, there's this year-old article from Newsmax.com: Leo Strauss, Conservative Mastermind, which is perhaps the fairest presentation of Straussian thought of all three articles.

I've read very little of Strauss; I didn't understand his Natural Right and History very well, though several people I respect tell me he has written some excellent commentaries on Plato.

An article on Theosis by an Eastern Orthodox priest. Good guidelines at the end.

"All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government . . . in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body."

-John Stuart Mill, 1859, quoted here

The Liberty of Ancients and Moderns by Benjamin Constant, 1816. Via the Conservative Observer.

Bush the Blasphemous and his Messianistic Nationalism

"Ours is the cause of human dignity: freedom guided by conscience, and guarded by peace. This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it." -Speech on September 11, 2002

""There is power – wonder-working power – in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people." -State of the Union Address, 2003

"There is power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the Lamb." -Evangelical Hymn from the turn of the Century

So what are we to make of this conflation of America with the person of Jesus Christ? Theological illiteracy, as in the comment of the putative Christian Tony Blair: "I wonder what Jesus would have made of it?" The cynical abuse of religious language for the purpose of national aedification? Idolatry of the state?

The Romans prided themselves on warring down the proud and sparing the conquered. We have assumed a similar role in our recent "liberation" of Iraq. Augustine declared this attitude "the inflated ambition of a proud spirit." All our rhetoric about Liberation arrogates to ourselves the qualities of the Prince of Peace

St. Paul's Suite is a wonderful short work by Gustave Holst, incorporating several Irish jigs. Download it here

The Common Good and Christian Ethics

Usury

After working temp for a credit card company, I've tried to assuage my moral scruples by learning exactly what usury is. No such luck.

Hillaire Belloc held that usury is taking interest on a non-productive loan. Belloc's example of a usurious relation is if a farmer's field is let out, only to be rendered useless by river which has changed its course. While still paying interest on the property, the tenant would have no means of making a return on his investment. This has a great deal to be said for it. If I loan somebody $100 for food and charge them 5% interst, they're out $105 with no chance to make it back. But if I loan somebody $100 at 5% interest, and he puts it to productive use, then we're both ahead, and there's no transfer of wealth from the poorer to the richer. Yet there are a few difficulties: for instance, what if the loan is potentially productive, yet the loanee botches the use of his capital?

The author of the usury article in the Catholic Encyclopedia mentions those who share Belloc's theory, while neither approving nor condemning it.

Interest in the Catholic Tradition

John Paul II on Usury, from the Italian Jesuits.

An excellent resource on Theosis

Cornelis makes a very acute observation on the statement "Space/time is part of the creation and not something in which the Creator exists."

Erik von Keuhnelt Leddihn selections, posted by Askel5
The Illiberalism of Democracy
The Present is Largely Leftist-Inspired
A Leftism to End All Leftism

"We have no disposition to dissemble, that, in our judgment, the evils to be remedied come from the natural and inevitable developments of the democratic principle, against which the convention of 1787, that framed the federal constitution, aimed to guard the republic, but did not provide sufficient safeguards, especially in case of a people recognizing no divinely constituted spiritual authority capable of commanding their reverence, and disciplining them into submission to the law of God. We ask for no king, no kaiser, no titled aristocracy, but we do want the people to understand that they are nothing without leaders, and that the mass of them are born to follow, not to lead, and that nothing is worse for them than to be led by fanatics, hypocrites, traders, business men, and unscrupulous demagogues. Yet in a community like ours, under a pure or a representative democracy, such are sure to be our leaders, and equally sure to lead us to political destruction,- as all would see and admit if they were not blinded by their unfounded conviction, that a democratic government is the best of all possible governments; or if they had the courage to look the facts, daily occurring before their eyes, full in the face, and draw from them their strictly logical conclusions. Democracy is the best of all possible governments to make the many tax themselves for the benefit of the few, or to build up a burgher aristocracy, or, in our day, an aristocracy founded not on capital, but on paper, or the paper evidences of debt. The journalists tell us the country is rich, and we count our millionaires by thousands, if not by hundreds of thousands; and yet, if called upon suddenly to pay its debts or to redeem its bonds of every sort, it would be found to be hopelessly insolvent, and the reputed wealth of the millionaires would vanish in smoke. Our present wealth is chiefly in evidences of debt, that is, created by mortgages on the future.

There is no people in the world so heavily taxed as the American people, and none who derive so little benefit from the taxes they pay. Were it not so, should we see the vast, the appalling amount of poverty we see in our cities and large towns, the movements of the laboring classes for higher wages, or hear the perpetual clamor for an adjustment of the relations of capital and labor? There is no country in the world where industry is more general, labor more intense, and the working men, in proportion to what they produce, are more poorly paid,- especially if we take into the account the additional expense imposed on the laboring classes by our miserable democratic doctrine of equality. Do our statesmen ever consider what it costs, and the terrible suffering it occasions, to maintain the doctrine, “I am as good as you”? The working men and women cannot, as a rule, escape the public opinion or the fashion of their country; and since by the democracy which asserts their equality, you elevate them, at least in their own estimation, in the social scale, you make it a moral necessity for them to maintain a higher or more expensive style of living, which demands in turn a higher rate of wages, and a rate beyond the ability of the average employer to pay. Hence, the most thriving class, if not the only thriving class, of simple laborers in the country, is composed of emigrants from countries where democracy, if it affects the dreams, has not yet formed the habits of the working classes, and has not yet taught the peasant to despise the state in which he was born, or to aspire to be the social equal of his lord. Consequently, they are less affected by the fashion, the tone, and the sentiment of the country, and are contented with a more simple and less expensive style of living, and can live and thrive on a lower rate of wages. If it were not for the migration hither of foreign labor, our industry, our vast enterprises, and internal improvements would come to a standstill. But it is only the generation that migrates hither that are more economical, more frugal, and contented to live plainer; their children, born here and brought up under the democratic influences of the country, are as extravagant, as aspiring, and as averse to labor at a responsible rate of wages, to say the least, as the children of old American families; and hence the children of foreign-born parents form an undue proportion of the dangerous classes of our cities and towns. The democratic tone and sentiment of our country, to a fearful extent, more than neutralize the influence of the example, instructions, and admonitions of their parents, who are regarded as old fogies or behind the age, by children hardly in their teens, or so-called “Young America.”

Everybody sees the evil, complains of it, is inquiring for some “Morrison pill,” as Carlyle would say, to cure it, but hardly anybody has the courage to look for its cause in the democratic doctrine and sentiment of equality of the country, which creates a universal discontent on the one hand, with one’s actual condition, and on the other, a universal striving or longing to rise in the social scale till one reaches the topmost round; for democratic equality cannot exist where one is higher than another, and nobody regards himself as his neighbor’s equal unless his acknowledged superior. Satan never sent from his region of smoke and darkness a grosser delusion than this ignis fatuus of democratic equality, for which the nations of the Old World are so foolishly and wickedly struggling, as a means of elevating or ameliorating the condition of the poorer and more numerous classes. It is for the people the greatest curse that could befall them. What is just is equal, but what is equal is not always just. It is the reign of justice, not of equality, that modern society needs, and which governments and nations should seek to introduce and sustain."

"The Republicans in congress show the same dearth of statesmanship in regard to what is called “labor reform.” That the relation between capital and labor, in an age when paper or debt serves as capital, is not well adjusted, there is no doubt; but your genuine Republican, where the question lies between white labor and capital, knows no remedy, but the maxim, “Let government take care of the capital, and capital will take care of the labor;” which means in plain English, “Let government take care of the wolf, and the wolf will take care of the lamb.” Their statesmanship arrives at no wiser solution of the problem, than to shorten the hours of labor without diminishing wages to appease the workingmen or gain their votes, and then to tax the whole people through what is called a protective tariff, to compensate capital or to enhance its profits. It forgets that its two measures neutralize each other, so far at least as the interests of labor are concerned. A rise in the rate of wages means a rise in all the commodities the laboring classes consume, which must be paid by the working classes, for they are the greatest consumers of their own wares. We do not adopt the free-trade policy as a policy for all nations, and for all times, and under all circumstances; but we cannot respect very highly the policy that lays a heavy duty on imported woolens for the benefit of the home manufacturer, and a corresponding duty on imported wool to encourage the wool-grower. It is simply a policy that gives with the one hand and takes away with the other, with no other effect than an increased tax on consumption, from which the laboring classes, as the greatest consumers, are the principal sufferers."
-Orestes Brownson "The Political State of the Country"

"He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that any body has a right to do wrong." -Abraham Lincoln, Fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate

"oliticians may do as they please, so long as they violate no rule of right, no principle of justice, no law of God; but in no world, in no order, or condition, have men the right to do wrong." -Orestes Brownson, source unknown

I wonder who influenced whom.

"Yet it is difficult to see how any theology but a Trinitarian one seriously affirms the personal nature of God. Personality, despite many shades of definition, is almost universally defined in terms of a capacity to relate to others. If God is an eternal Person, He must be in some eternal relation. A strict monotheism-God is one and only one-leaves unanswered the question, with whom or what does He have an eternal relation?"
Towards a Post-Appolinarian Theology

Romulus makes some excellent comments about redemption and atonement and "blood satisfaction" theology.

Kant wrote an essay "Perpetual Peace" advocating a cosmopolitian world-state, foreshadowing some of the more ludicrous opinions in favor of this war. His section mandating that every national government be republican is especially relevant.

Warmonger Explains Iraq to Peacenik

"Just war deplores creating
false moral equivalencies: there is a big
difference between being paid low wages for
hard work; being denied the franchise; and
being tortured or gassed because one’s politics
is incorrect or because one is a member of an
ethnic minority that cannot defend itself
against a dominant and violent majority.
But the injustices of Saddam’s reign in and of
themselves did not constitute grounds for
forceful intervention, not within the just war
framework. Had Saddam been engaged in
gassing Kurds, a case for intervention in the
internal affairs of Iraq could have been
mounted. But the day-to-day, routine
inequities of a polity, short of such egregious
violations as systematic torture of political
opponents, targeting and destruction of categories
of persons within one’s own boundaries,
do not of themselves warrant the
upheavals and destruction of intervention
with force."
-Jean Bethke-Elshtain, Just War and Humanitarian Intervention

The Mystery of Being in the Shadow of the Cross

My father and I just returned from a delightful vacation in New Mexico. Stops in Taos, Chimayo, and Santa Fe. I viewed the definitely mysterious Mystery Painting called Shadow of the Cross in Taos's San Francisco de Asís Church, a painting far better in quality than any of those I saw hanging in various galleries around the town--an artist's haven, itself. Granted, I am a fan of the realist school--realism always reminds me of the Incarnation--and this was one of the few realistic paintings I encountered on my trip: it depicts a haloed Christ standing by the sea of Galilee, his eyes painted in just such a way that they follow one around the room.

Simple enough, it seems, even quotidian. But you see, the "mystery" in the Shadow of the Cross is only revealed in darkness. After the room darkens, the sea and sky of the painting radiate an astounding blue-white glow. The figure of Christ appears in silhouette, bearing a cross upon His left shoulder. The pulsating shadow appears to move outward, towards the viewer, as though Christ is slowly moving towards one on his way to Golgotha. It provokes one to wonder what exactly is the meaning of such a work?

This question, of course, runs into difficulties, because the painter denies having ever intended to create such an intriguing piece. But it seems a few bits can be discovered, like mystery being an integral part of reality.

Onward from Taos, dad and I stopped at the Sanctuario in Chimayo, a small 19th-century adobe church featuring wooden kneelers, a barely-fluent priest, and holy dirt. According to the locals, this earth has curative properties. There are two methods of application: a light sprinkling on the affected area of the body, or direct geophagy: that is, dirt-eating. Being in a rather desparate state on account of my alleged schizophrenia, I did both. It seems to have worked so far.

Finally, a brief stay in Santa Fe. We stopped in a beautiful small church and a hideously modernist cathedral, each within blocks of the other. Why did Catholics ever have to indulge in such terrible bad taste?

Bush went to war during our trip, and Arvada received 3 1/2 feet of snow while we were gone, so we returned to a different world. Still, it was some trip.

Lo! Many excellent freepers have migrated to Liberty Forum

The Louis Kelso Institute and a critique of his movement.

I have been wondering if there is a natural law argument to be made for the goodness of the body. Sure, it's great to denounce meaningless views of the body, but some people need some further preparation before they accept that their body is meaningful because it is created by God. I was looking for an argument like Aquinas makes against murder: even murderers resist being murdered. But, being rather uncreative myself, I was struggling to establish one. Then I came across this sentence in Ephesians 5:

"For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body."

Voila!

Of course, there seem to be an objection to this: certain terminally ill people definitely come to see their body as a cage, and hate it. So have I really developed a natural law argument? Well, it seems my reasons are no more objectionable than Aquinas', and that's a pretty good standard.

The Cato Institute on War

After more consideration, I think there's more to my wartime foreboding than mere nostalgia. Despite the mantra that "everything's changed now" and that "new times demand new concepts," I suspect that we'll follow much the same modus operandi we followed during the Cold War. Proclaiming democracy and freedom, we'll install some attack dogs who promise to be tough on terrorists and never ever develop nuclear weapons. We'll turn a blind eye to their dictatorial excesses, then express shock when some of these attack dogs break their leash and turn on us like Hussein did, or when the locals turn on their harsh rulers.

Even if we decide to govern not by proxy but via the US military, we'll end up putting down various rebellions ad infinitum--until and unless we loose a Sherman-like campaign of annihilation on rebel areas. And that's just Iraq. The hawkish are clamoring for war on Iran, North Korea, plus Saudi Arabia and even China(!).

So how long will the US be able to keep annihilating, before a coalition rises against us?

English Bishop who coddled pedophiles was sacked by JPII back in 2001. So.... Why aren't the rest gone?

Mozart was a Red

Andrew Sullivan's Just War article simply doesn't convince me.

He says First off, we are not initiating a war. We are not the aggressor. We are still in a long process of defense. It's hard to remember now but this war is not a new one. It's merely the continuation of one begun in 1990 by Saddam whe he invaded Kuwait.

I've made this argument myself, but I'm no longer convinced it's a good one. For one thing, I've never heard a Bush Administration official use it. What's more, it doesn't make for consistent foreign policy: we have not signed a peace treaty with North Korea, only an armistice.

The issue is therefore not whether to start a war. It is whether to end one by rewarding the aggressor and simply ignoring his infractions of the truce. Such a policy, in as much as it clearly rewards unprovoked aggression, is immoral and imprudent.

Not always. We can certainly tolerate an evil, should eradicating it cause a greater evil.

...finally a last attempt under U.N. Resolution 1441 to give Saddam a last, last chance to disarm. He was told three months ago by unanimous U.N. agreement that he had to disarm immediately and completely. He still hasn't.

It's a tad self-serving to argue that Saddam's non-compliance with the UN is somehow a casus belli when you yourself are completely indifferent, if not hostile to the UN. Oh, I know it makes for fine rhetoric to appeal to that superlatively august international body, but it's dishonest rhetoric.

A coalition of the willing - a majority of the states in Europe, the U.S., Britain and other countries - easily qualifies as a legitimate source of authority for launching war.

But, as authority is intimately tied up with its purpose, I must ask: war for what purpose? If we are wearing a certain hawkish hat, that which reads "Liberators of Iraq," we are effectively arrogating to ourselves jurisdiction over Iraq, which properly speaking belongs only to God and the Iraqi people.

Well, there is one obvious alternative to war: continuation of economic sanctions on Iraq. But these sanctions have long been abused by Saddam to allow him to finance his weapons programs, while leaving thousands of Iraqis, including children, to starve or die for lack of good medical care.

Another argument I once thought about using, but I knew I would only use it to score debating points against peaceniks, and not to reach the truth. Frankly, I often doubt the justice of economic sanctions on rogue nations. Such sanctions destroy the livelihood of people who have no say in how their government is run, while only increasing the looting of the tyrants who oppress them. And if sanctions are in themselves immoral, we only have ourselves to blame for imposing them.

No one doubts he would get and use weapons of mass destruction if he could.

I doubt he would use them. I would hope that I'm not nobody.

No one can guarantee he would not help Islamist terrorists get exactly those weapons to use against the West or his own regional enemies.

Well, this assumes Saddam has a death-wish, which "no one can guarantee." Sullivan demands certainty only from his opponents, and not from himself. He cannot guarantee that an occupied Iraq will be a safer Iraq, nor that our threats of invasion will not in fact push Saddam into the hands of terrorists. He can't even guarantee that Saddam is in fact collaborating with terrorists, unless the administration's case has improved since the Powell speech(which was once convincing for me, but has ceased to be so).

Unfortunately, recent US action is taking away all of Saddam's options. We are turning him into a man who has nothing to lose, and driving him to hardline Islamicists to shore up his weakened regime. But I doubt Saddam would have done this on his own; it is the fruit of our folly.

After much pondering, I think I've finally realized one solid reason why some people are asking for UN approval before any military action against Iraq. Among the Bush administration's several caps on the hawkish hat rack, one reads "Defender of Universal Human Rights," while another reads "Liberator of Oppressed People and Exporter of Democracy." Now the US, being a particular, national government, can't really enforce universal rights anywhere than within its particular boundaries, nor can it replace an entire government the way it would replace a corrupt official within its own administration. Rather, that is the baliwick of local governments and people. Since, in the case of Iraq, the local government is none too respectful of personal dignity, some transnational body, like the UN, is the only body with anywhere close to the proper authority to impose such disciplinary measures, as a superior chastising a subordinate.

I'm not sure I believe it, but at least I think I understand it.

"[Anybody who] has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition…must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect. " -Flann O'Brien, quoted by Kevin Michael Grace

New Yorker article on the alleged Iraqi attempted assassination of Bush I in Kuwait, outlining the numerous flaws in the official story. via Unqualified Offerings

Questions that won't be asked about Iraq via University Blog

Newly-Published Interview with Walker Percy

Wicked Satire courtesy of LaBelleDameSansMerci:

Miz Scarlett! Miz Scarlett! How you gwain spread democracy and free markets all over da moslem world when you cain't even preserve da freedom on yo' own planatation?--

Oooo mammy! You let go of me! I want to roll--

But Miz Scarlett! Miz Scarlett! Da plantation is burnin' down around our ears! We got no money! Da teachers hate us and are makin' the chillun mo' stupid den when dey was born. Da field darkies hate you lily white folks like da' debil. Miz Scarlett you gots to mind yo' own plantation afore you go around da world givin' advice to da moslem masses!--

Ooooo Mammy! Let go of me! I'm goin to roll!--

Miz Scarlett! Miz Scarlett! How long you gwain stay over dere? How much of da' money you ain't got is you gonna spend over dere? How you gonna' put dat democracy into da' brains of folks who don't want it dere? You gwain put dat freedom on da tip of a missile and fire it into da brain of dem foreigners? --

Ooooh Mammy! I'll think about that tomorrow. Today I want to roll!--

But Miz Scarlett! What's gwain happen to da' plantation while yo is out rollin' around in da big wide world?

Ooooh Mammy! You selfish darkie! Don't you care about all the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an evil mad man? Don't you care about UN resolutions?

Why Miz Scarlett, is we goin' in after North Korea and Pakistan and India and all dey other countries in violation of UN resolutions too?

Ooooh Mammy! You commie, nazi, islamofascist.---

But Miz Scarlett! If 'da UN tells 'da United States dat we has to do somethin' dat we don't wanna do, is we gwain do it?---

Ooooh mammy! You're so dumb. That could never happen.---

But Miz Scarlett! Does you want America to be gone with da' wind?--

Ooooh Mammy! You hate George Bush! That's what it is. Now you let go of me! I'm going to roll, if it's the last thing I do!

"I got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion directly contradicts the original idea from which I start. Starting with unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that apart from my solution of the social formula, there can be no other." -Shigalyov, _Demons_

Sursum Corda points to this excellent essay by Stanley Hauerwas, who echoes Alisdair MacIntyre in basing ethics upon submission to a discipline of life.

When Hauerwas says that "to learn to pray requires that we learn to pray with other Christians. It means we must learn the disciplines necessary to worship God." I fear that American Catholicism seems to have failed to provide such spiritual exercises. Perhaps there was no greater communal prayer than the exercise, that is, the askesis, of the Friday fast so hurriedly abolished after Vatican II. Besides Sunday Mass, how many Catholics actually pray together?

What is it that's good about "diversity."

It displaces the concept of organic community rooted in boring old things like shared culture, language, affinity, and family, and replaces it with pseudo-community, in which all members have nothing in common except their re-engineering as economic units of production and consumption. Government's attention-getting stunts and the corpocracy's imposition of frenzied economic activity meanwhile, are proposed as a fair trade for the suppression of authentic culture, tradition, memory, and the family's privileged zone of privacy and moral sovereignty.

Sounds like fun, dunnit?

-Romulus, on Free Republic

A Mediocre Lecture on Dostoevsky

An Excellent Essay on Dostoevsky

I'm reading Demons right now, enthralled.

"Interestingly, recent biological works on Stopes perhaps confirms a Stopes whose real motives as a sexologist were more personal than scientific." From this essay on Muriel Spark's _The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie_.

Stumbled across JK Huysmans today, the decadent writer. An interesting article on him.

"One can indeed, as I have tried to do, learn the idiom of each [worldview] from within as a new first language, much in the way that an anthropologist constitutes him or herself as a linguistic and cultural beginner in some alien culture. In doing so one can come to recognize that the only capacity which the adherents of each standpoint possess for translating the utterances of the other would always result in what some adherent of that other standpoint who had learned the rival language would have to characterize as mistranslation, as misrepresentation."
-Alisdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry

Fr. James V. Schall being interviewed.

Have mercy on us, Lord have mercy

We are filled with contempt

Indeed all too full is our soul

With the scorn of the rich

With the proud man's disdain

-Psalm 123

Boy, do I love this Brownson. He's almost as much a curmudgeon as the Old Oligarch. Here he is on the popular press.

If you ever distrust a Catholic journal at all, if published with the approbation of the ordinary, distrust it when you find it falling in with the popular doctrines of the day, and confirming the public in their prejudices or their fallacies.

And on Constitutionalism:

They held the people could be safely entrusted with the guardianship of the constitution, which was very much like locking up a man in prison, and giving him the key. But experience has proved that written constitutions, unless they are written in the sentiments, convictions, consciences, manners, customs, habits, and organization of the people, are no better than so much waste paper, and can no more restrain them than the green withes with which the Philistines bound his limbs, could restrain the mighty Samson.

There is far less equality, as well as less honesty and integrity, in American society, than there was fifty or sixty years ago. The honor paid to wealth, or what is called success in the world, is greater; people are less contented with moderate means, a moderate style of living, as well as with moderate gains, and have a much greater horror of honest labor. I remember when it was, in the country at least, regarded as an act of prudence for a young couple with little or nothing but health, industrious habits, and a willingness to earn their living by hard work, to marry and set up housekeeping for themselves. Now, except to a very limited extent, it would be regarded as the greatest imprudence.

On Catholicism in the United States:

but for the conversion of this country nothing appears to be doing. The subject is hardly thought of. There is even a feeling, not seldom expressed in words, among our Catholic population, that Americans, Yankees especially, cannot be converted, as if Christ died not for them as well as for others; and we are quite sure that the less the Catholic publicist, who wishes to stand well with his religious brethren, says about it, the better. As a body, we have no hope of converting American non-Catholics, and make not the slightest effort in that direction. We think it quite enough for us to be permitted to retain and practice our religion for ourselves, in peace and quietness. If there is any one thing among us that will bring a blight on the church, in our country, it is our lack of apostolic zeal, and our indifference to the salvation of our non-Catholic neighbors and fellow citizens. The Holy Father has written to us and admonished us again and again, but all to little purpose. Our Catholic youth seem more likely to turn their backs on their mother church, than the non-Catholic American youth are to turn their faces toward her. We throw away our advantages, and trust to immigration from abroad to keep up our numbers. Nothing, we fear, will arouse us to a sense of our duty, unite us, and quicken either our zeal or our charity, but another and a more threatening Know-nothing movement. We are too prosperous, and are contracting the vices of prosperity. A little adversity, a little real persecution, would reinvigorate us, renew our zeal, expand our charity, and hasten the conversion of the country.

On Authority and Reason:

Catholics, in fact, are the only people in the world who do, can, or dare reason in matters of religion. Indeed, they are the only people who have a reasonable faith, and who believe only what they have adequate reasons for believing. They are also the only people who recognize no human authority, not even one’s own, in matters of Christian faith and conscience. Sectarians and rationalists claim to be free, and to reason freely, because, as they pretend, they are bound by no human authority, and recognize no authority in faith but their own reason. Yet why should your reason be for you or any one else better authority for believing than ours? Your authority is as human as ours, and if ours is not a sufficient reason for our faith, how can yours suffice, which is no better, perhaps not so good? As a fact, no man is less free than he who has for his faith no authority but his own reason; for he is, if he thinks at all, necessarily always in doubt as to what he ought or ought not to believe; and no man who is in doubt, who is unable to determine what he is or is not required to believe in order to believe the truth, is or can be mentally free; for he only has the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, for his faith.

But the Christian Quarterly is not alone in imagining a contradiction between reason and authority. The whole modern mind assumes it, and imagines a contradiction wherever it finds two extremes, or two opposites. It has lost the middle term that brings them together and unites them in a logical synthesis. To it, natural and supernatural, nature and grace, reason and faith, science and revelation, liberty and authority, church and state, heaven and earth, God and man- are irreconcilable extremes; and not two extremes only, but downright contradictions, which necessarily exclude each other. It does not, even if it accepts both terms, accept them as reconciled, or united as two parts of one whole; but each as exclusive, and warring against the other, and each doing its best to destroy the other.

Hence the modern mind is, so to speak, bisected by a painful dualism, which weakens its power, lowers its character, and destroys the unity and efficiency of intellectual life.

On American Letters, Love, and Marriage:

Nevertheless, our literary artists must not despair; they must struggle manfully against the false tastes and false tendencies of the age and the nation, not by preaching against them and scolding them, as we do in our capacity of critic, or as Cooper did in his later novels; but by laboring to produce fitting and attractive examples of what literature should be, by careful self-culture, by acquiring habits of independence, and by avoiding all servile imitation- not study- of foreign models, whether ancient or modern. No man writes well unless he writes freely from his own life. Above all, let them bear in mind that a literature destined to live, and to exert an ennobling influence on the national character, must entertain the ideal, be replete with thought, inspired by an earnest purpose, and addressed to the understanding as well as to the affections, passions, and emotions. Truth has a bottom of its own, and can stand by itself; but beauty cannot, for it exists only in the relation of the true to our sensibility or imagination, as a combination of intellect and sense.

"Mr. Thornwell is apparently disposed to maintain that this fifth method[private revelation from God] is the one actually adopted, but this he is not at liberty to do. The method is private, not public, and cannot be appealed to in a public debate. In a public debate, the appeal must always be to a public authority, that is, to an authority common to both parties. If the authority to which the appeal is to be made is private, there can be no public debate; if private, interior, immediate, as must be the teachings of the spirit, there can be no argument. Argument in such a case would be superfluous and even criminal. When, therefore, a man resorts, on a given question, to argument, and to public argument, he necessarily assumes that the authority which is to determine the question is public, and denies it to be private. Mr. Thornwell in his essay made his appeal to argument, and wrote his essay to prove that the question he raised is to be settled, not by the private spirit, but by public facts, arguments, and authority. He therefore cannot fall back on the private spirit. Having elected public authority, he must abide by it. If he cannot now fall back on the private spirit, he cannot allege it as a supposable method; and if he cannot so allege it, he cannot accuse Dr. Lynch’s argument of sinning by an imperfect enumeration of particulars, because it omits it."

-Oresetes Brownson

In The Exorcist, a little girl becomes possessed by a demon after, among other things, playing with an ouija board. So what has Warner Brothers created at the Exorcist website? the Captain Howdy Ouija Board. Don't they even watch their own movies??

"Our own government, in its origin and constitutional form, is not a democracy, but, if we may use the expression, a limited elective aristocracy. In its theory, the representative, within the limits prescribed by the constitution, when once elected, and during the time for which he is elected, is, in his official action, independent of his constituents, and not responsible to them for his acts. For this reason, we call the government an elective aristocracy. But, practically, the government framed by our fathers no longer exists, save in name. Its original character has disappeared, or is rapidly disappearing. The Constitution is a dead letter, except so far as it serves to prescribe the modes of election, the rule of the majority, the distribution and tenure of offices, and the union and separation of the functions of government. Since 1828, it has been becoming in practice, and is now, substantially, a pure democracy, with no effective constitution but the will of the majority for the time being. Whether the change has been for the better or the worse, we need not stop to inquire. The change was inevitable, because men are more willing to advance themselves by flattering the people and perverting the constitution, than they are by self-denial to serve their country. The change has been effected, and there is no return to the original theory of the government. Any man who should plant himself on the Constitution, and attempt to arrest the democratic tendency, - no matter what his character, ability, virtues, services, - would be crushed and ground to powder. Your Calhouns must give way for your Polks and Van Burens, your Websters for your Harrisons and Tylers. No man, who is not prepared to play the demagogue, to stoop to flatter the people, and, in one direction or another, to exaggerate the democratic tendency, can receive the nomination for an important office, or have influence in public affairs. The reign of great men, of distinguished statesmen and firm patriots, is over, and that of the demagogues has begun. Your most important offices are hereafter to be filled by third and fourth-rate men, - men too insignificant to excite strong opposition, and too flexible in their principles not to be willing to take any direction the caprices of the mob - or the interests of the wire-pullers of the mob - may demand. Evil or no evil, such is the fact, and we must conform to it."
-Orestes Brownson, OCTOBER, 1845 see also orestesbrownson.com

An old Free Republic thread on a Patton speech. I'm especially partial to the comments of Romulus.

A story on a local couple who run an orphanage in Kenya. Somehow, the author of the article avoids mentioning that one of these fine folks is a deacon at my home parish. At least they quote one of the kids: "I hope God will bless them for what they have done for the Africans."

Oddly, the same author wrote an article for the Denver Catholic Register, emphasizing his status in the church.

The Art Renewal Center, link courtesy of the Old Oligarch

The Self as God in German Philosophy

Whatever marvel happens in this world, it is certainly less marvelous than this whole world itself,--I mean the sky and earth, and all that is in them,--and these God certainly made. But, as the Creator Himself is hidden and incomprehensible to man, so also is the manner of creation. Although, therefore, the standing miracle of this visible world is little thought of, because always before us, yet, when we arouse ourselves to contemplate it, it is a greater miracle than the rarest and most unheard-of marvels. For man himself is a greater miracle than any miracle done through his instrumentality.


-Augustine, City of God, Book X Chapter 12

St. Augustine on Sacrifice

Political Theory Workshop

What does meaning mean?

How does one understand understanding?

"How can good defeat evil if not by strength of arms? By embracing weakness, by embracing His heel; by self-sacrifice and humility and suffering and death. Evil is limited to power, it cannot use weakness. It is limited to pride, it cannot use humility. It is limited to inflicting suffering and death, it cannot use suffering and death. It is limited to selfishness, it cannot use selflessness."

-Peter Kreeft, on Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in StAR.

Accommodating Pluralism:
Liberal Neutrality and Compulsory Education

Beloved:

See what love the Father has bestowed on us

that we may be called the children of God.

Yet so we are.

The reason the world does not know us

is that it did not know him.

Beloved, we are God's children now;

what we shall be has not yet been revealed.

We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,

for we shall see him as he is.

-1 John 3:1-3

David Lodge

Secularists in the Democratic Party

"Now, what do we gain by hearing it said of a man that he has now thrown off the yoke, that he does not believe there is a God who watches our actions, that he considers himself the sole master of his conduct, and that he thinks he is accountable for it only to himself.? Does he think that he has thus brought us to have henceforth complete confidence in him and to look to him for consolation, advice, and help in every need of life? Do they profess to have delighted us by telling us that they hold our soul to be only a little wind and smoke, especially by telling us this in a haughty and self-satisfied tone of voice? Is this a thing to say gaily? Is it not, on the contrary, a thing to say sadly, as the saddest thing in the world?"

-Pascal, Pensees 194

"The free inner union between the absolute, divine principle and the human person is possible only because the latter also has an absolute significance." -Lecture 2

"Western civilization has liberated human consciousness from all external limitations, acknowledging the negative absoluteness of the human person and proclaiming absolute human rights. But at the same time, by rejecting every principle that is absolute in the positive sense, that in reality and by its very nature possesses the entire fullness of being, and by circumscribing human life and consciousness with a circle of the conditional and transitory, this civilization has also asserted infinite striving and the impossibility of its satisfaction." -ibid

"Thus, on the one hand, a human being is a being with absolute significance, with absolute rights and demands. On the other hand, this same human being is only a limited and transitory phenomenon, a fact among the multitude of other facts, limited by them and dependent upon them on all sides. This is true not only of the individual, but also of humanity in its entirety."

"Human beings do not, however, wish to be mere facts, to be only phenomena. This unwillingness is already a hint that, actually, they are not mere facts, not mere phenomena, but something greater. For what is the meaning of a fact that does not wish to be a fact or of a phenomenon that does not wish to be a pheonomenon?"

"..belief in oneself, belief in the human person, is at the same time belief in God, for Divinity belongs to human beings and to God, but with one difference: God possesses Divinity in eternal actuality, whereas human beings can only attain it, can only have it granted to them, and in the present state, there is only possibility, only striving."

"Just as one demands from actors not only that they act, but that they act well, so one likewise demands from human beings and humanity not only that they live, but that they live well." -Lecture 3

"Divinity in heaven and the least blade of grass on earth are equally unfathomable, and equally fathomable, for reason. In their common being, as concepts, both constitute an object of pure thought, are wholly subject to logical definitions, and in this sense are fully intelligible and fathomable for reason. Yet in their own being, as existent but not as conceivable, both are something greater than a concept and lie beyond the limits of the rational as such. In this sense, they are impenetrable, or unfathomable, for reason." -Lecture 6

"Christianity has its own content, independent of all these elements that have become part of it. This content is uniquely and exclusively Christ. In Christianity as such we find Christ and only Chirst."

"In the human being, nature outgrows itself and passes(in consciousness) into the domain of absolute being. Receiving and bearing in consciousness the eternal, divine idea and inseparably connected with the nature of the external world by his factual origin and existence, the human being is the natural mediator between God and material being, the conductor of the all-uniting divine principle into elemental multiplicity, the orderer and organizer of the universe." -Lecture 10

"Before, as the spiritual center of the cosmos, human beings embraced in their souls all nature, lived one life with it, loved and understood it, and therefore governed it. But now, having asserted themselves in their selfhood, having shut their souls off from everything, human beings find themselves in an alien and hostile world, which no longer speaks in any intelligible language and does not understand or obey their words."

"As long as personal will and life that are immersed in untruth are opposed only by truth as an idea, life remains essentially unchanged. An abstract idea cannot overcome this will, because personal living will, though evil, is nevertheless an actual force, wehreas an idea that is not embodied in living personal forces is merely a luminous shadow."

"In a saint, actual good presupposes potential evil; a saint is so great in holiness because he or she might be great in evil as well. A saint has conquered the force of evil, has made it subordinate to the supreme principle, and this force has become the basis and carrier of the good. That is why the Jewish nation, exhibiting the worst aspects of human nature, "a stiff-necked people" and with a stony heart, is the nation of the saints and the prophets of God, the nation in which the new spiritual human being was to be born."

"The incarnation is indeed impossible if we consider God as only a separate entity, existing somewhere outside the world and humanity. For such a view(deism), the incarnation of Divinity in humanity would be a direct violation of the logical law of identiy, that is, something totally unthinkable. But the incarnation is just as impossible from the point of view(pantheism) that sees God as only the universal substance of cosmic phenomena, the universal "all," and humanity as only one of these phenomena. According to this view, God's incarnation would contradict the axiom that the whole(the all) cannot be equal to one of its parts: God could no more become a human being than the waters of an entire ocean could be at the same time but one of its drops." -Lectures 11 and 12

"The world as an aggregate of limitations, being ouside God, as material, is at the same time essentially connected with God by its inner life, or soul. This inner life is characterized by the fact that every entity, while asserting itself in its own limit as this, outside God, is not satisfied with this limit and strives to become the all, that is, it strives towards inner union with God. In conformity with this, God, while transcendental in Himself(abiding beyond the limits of the world) also is in relation to the world, the active creative force whose will is to communicate to the world soul what it seeks and strives for(that is, the fullness of being in the form of all-unity), whose will is to unite with the soul and to generate from it the living image of Divinity. This determines both the cosmic process in material nature, which ends with the birth of the natural human being, and the following historical process which prepares the birth of the spiritual human being...

From this point of view, the appearance of the spiritual human being, the birth of the second Adam, is no more incomprehensible than the appearance on earth of the natural human being, the birth of the first Adam. Both appearances were new, unprecedented facts in cosmic life, and both for that reason seem miraculous. But these new and unprecedented appearances were prepared for in advance by all that had happened before; they constituted what the former life desired, what it strove and moved toward. All nature strove and gravitated toward humanity, while the whole history of humankind was moving toward Divine humanity."

"Christ, as God, freely renounces the glory of God and thereby, as a human being, acquires the possibility of attaining that glory. On the way to this attainment, human nature and the will of the Savior inevitably encounter the temptation of evil. The Divine-human person has a dual consciousness: the consciousness of the limits of natural existence and the consciousness of His own divine essence and power. And so, experiencing the limitations of natural being, the God-man may be subjected to the temptation of making His divine power a means for the goals that follow from these limitations.

In the first temptation, a being subject to to the conditions of material existence is tempted to make material welfare the goal and His divine power the means for attaining it: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made into bread. The divine nature and the manifestation of that nature are tempted to serve as a means for satisfying a material need. In answer to this temptation, Christ asserts that the Word of God is not an instrument of material life but is itself the source of the true life: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Having overcome this temptation of the flesh, the Son of Man receives power over all flesh.

In the second temptation, the God-man, free from material motives, is tempted to make divine power an instrument for the self-assertion of human personality, to fall into the sin of the mind, the sin of pride: "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." This act would be a proud call of a human being to God, a temptation of God by a human being, and Christ answers: It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the lord thy God. Having conquered the sin of the mind, the Son of Man receives power over minds.

The third and last temptation is the strongest one. Enslavement by the flesh and the pride of the mind have been removed. Human will finds itself now on a high moral level, and is conscious of itself as being higher than the rest of creation. In the name of this moral height, humanity can wish for mastery over the world in order to lead the world to perfection, but "the world lieth in wickedness" and will not voluntarily submit to moral superiority. Therefore, it must be forced to submit; one must use one's divine power to force the world into subjection. But to use coercion, which is evil, in this way for the purposes of good is to admit that, in itself, good is impotent, that evil is stronger than good. It is to worship that principle of evil that has dominion over the world. "And he sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." The human will is directly challenged with the fateful question of what it believes in and what it wishes to serve--the invisible power of God or the power of evil that openly reigns in the world? Having overcome the temptation of a plausible desire for power, Christ's human will freely subordinates itself to the true good, rejecting any agreement with the evil that reigns in the world: "Then said Jesus unto him: Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve." Having overcome the sin of the spirit, the Son of Man receives supreme power in the realm of the spirit, refusing to submit to the earthly power for the sake of dominion over the earth, he acquires for Himself the service of the powers of heaven: "And behold, angels came and ministered unto Him."

Thus, in the second Adam is restored the normal relationship of all three principles that the first Adam violated."

"The essence of pure rationalism consists in the conviction that human reason is a law unto itself and gives laws to all that exists in the practical and social realm. This principle is expressed in the demand that all life, all social and political relations, be organized and directed exclusively on the basis worked out by personal reason, apart from all tradition and all immediate faith. This demand permeated the entire so-called Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and served as the guiding idea of the first French Revolution. Theoretically, the principle of rationalism is expressed in the claim that the whole content of knowledge can be deducted from pure reason(a priori), or that all sciences can be constructed in a speculative manner.

...This self-confidence and self-assertion of human reason in life and knowledge is an abnormal phenomenon; it is the pride of the mind. In Protestantism and in the rationalism that issued from it, Western humankind succumed to the second temptation. But the falsity of this path was soon manifested in the sharp contradiction between the excessive claims of reason and its actual impotence. In the practical domain, reason turned out to be impotent against passions and interests, and the kingdom of reason proclaimed by the French Revolution ended in a wild chaos of insanity and violence. In the theoretical domain, reason turned out to be impotent against empirical fact, and the pretension to build a universal science on the principles of pure reason ended in the construction of a system of empty, abstract concepts.

...Reason is a certain relation of things that gives them a certain form. But a relation presupposes terms that are related; form presupposes content. By positing human reason as such as the supreme principle, rationalism abstracts it from all content and has in it only an empty form. But at the same time, in consequence of such an abstraction of reason from all content, from all that is given in life and knowledge, all this content remains irrational for it. Therefore, when reason comes out against the reality of life and knowledge with a consciousness of its own supreme rights, it finds that everything in life is alien, dark, and impenetrable, and it cannot do anything with it. Abstracted from all content, transformed into an empty concept, reason naturally can have no power over reality. Thus, the self-elevation of human reason, the pride of the mind, inevitably leads to its ultimate downfall and abasement.

-Vladmir Soloviev, Lectures on Divine Humanity

While pondering my constant state of indecision, it occurred to me that I have no text, that is to say, no inner source which I have mastered from which I can draw inspiration and guidance. Then I realized that it is not that I must master something, but that something must master me. And what better master source than the Incarnate Word of God?

Such thoughts are confirmed by one Father Alexander who, among other things, outlines the consequences of mankind's attempt to master the Word of God.

The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.
-St. Gregory of Nyssa; CCC 1803, copied from here

"Since perfection is possible, it is obligatory." So wrote that damnable heresiarch Pelagius. But perhaps this phrase is not heterodox in itself, since Christian perfection is in fact a commandment of Jesus("Be ye perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.") Perhaps Pelagius's words are only harsh because they echo his insistence(or perhaps just the insistence of his followers) that mankind perfects himself?

Pascal once noted that nobody regrets lacking a third eye. I wonder if he could say the same today. Contemporary transhumanists openly advocate reengineering humanity, and I'm sure some are open to creating triclopses and the like. They make old-time humanism look downright quaint. I suppose it's no surprise that we've come to this; having abandoned the Incarnation, the human form is bound to appear as just one more transitional element in the universal Heraclitean flux. Psalm 8 affirms human unicity, yet an affirmation is hardly an argument. Perhaps Hopkins speaks to this quandary. Yet another thing to ponder.

"The spoils of the Egyptians are of no use and could, in fact, become a deadly burden if they are not received into a converted heart. For it is not the greatest knowledge or the deepest wisdom that is right but the greatest obedience, the deepest humility; not the sublimity of thought, but the effective simplicity of love."
-Hans Urs von Balthasar

A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
-Pope, Essay on Criticism