tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72946387047625245392024-03-14T01:45:43.805-07:00Musings of a Christian HumanistMusings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-34023152800929609042018-09-12T16:35:00.002-07:002024-01-14T14:31:31.916-08:00How Twitter Killed Tolstoy or Why You Will Likely Not Finish this Blog My favorite fictional Professor, aptly described the end of learning. Faber, tells how his class went from<br />
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Sven Birkerts The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age<br />
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction Alan Jacobs<br />
Slow Reading in a Hurried Age David Mikics<br />
Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital Age Naimi S. Baron<br />
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My own experience parallels that of Professor Faber. With declining Liberal Arts majors and distracted Great Books students....<br />
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Our lives have become as thin as the thinnest flat screen TV. There is a hollowness to our public discourses and our private conversations. It is not surprising how the tone, texture, and content of our verbal exchanges mimic posts on our dominate social media or the headline stories<br />
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Of course, the title of this blog could have been any of the following:<br />
How Instagram Killed<br />
How Vine Killed<br />
How Facebook Killed<br />
How Google+ Killed<br />
How LinkedIn Killed<br />
<br />Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-18930794766809684432017-08-09T08:36:00.001-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.028-08:00Observing the Loss of the University<br />
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Unless it is dramatic, erosion usually goes unnoticed. Or, unless one leaves for some time and then returns to notice what is often subtle and slow. Cultural shifts are often much like erosion. This is true of the modern American university. Its once impressive place on the landscape as a positive force in shaping society has been in question for several years now. While some of the criticism comes from pragmatists arguing, "it just isn't practical" other critics observe how the university has dug its own grave.<br />
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One of the most impressive, insightful, and at times caustic analyses of the plight of the loss of the university is agrarian, Wendell Berry. His essay "The Loss of the University" can be found in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Home-Economics-Wendell-Berry/dp/0865472750?tag=s601000020-20" target="_blank">Home Economics</a> and it was also recently released by the<a href="http://www.ttf.org/product/loss-university" target="_blank"> Trinity Forum</a> as a booklet. When I read it for the first time in 1991, I was struck by how much Berry understood some of the real enemies of the university. Enemies both inside the gates and beyond the borders. Reading it again recently, I despaired at the degree of erosion and fear that what Berry called loss may now be a lost cause.<br />
Of the items Berry described as contributing to the loss of the university, the long established practice that "the various disciplines have ceased to speak to each other."<br />
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Berry boldly asserts that "The thing being made in a university is humanity." Let me encourage you to pause here for a moment and consider this fact. In many universities, the prefaces to the appearance of the word humanity give a more accurate picture of what is being made. Terms such as un-humanity, anti-humanity, trans-humanity, and post-humanity communicate the business of many in the university. This is in large part why Berry notes that "language is at the heart of the problem."<br />
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In other words, one cannot find unity at the base of Babel. The tearing asunder of the once respected town and gown union, pervasive fragmentation, specialization, call the kids to always be playing constantly distracted from authentic study, education as one more commodity to be consumed, careerism, stress on technique over content, all breed the perfect environment of preparation for slavery not citizenship.<br />
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Of the many questions Berry asks in this article, too late to yield "Has the work of the university, over the last generation, increased or decreased literacy and knowledge of the classics? There was a time when universities would wag their fingers and click their tongues in disgust that the school system that ill prepared students to study at the university level. I can even remember hearing professors say, "many of these students cannot even read basic Freshmen level textbooks." The university needs to step back, look at the erosion all around our campuses and see that students are graduating from college now and cannot read, write, and certainly not think. We have passed the day of blaming others. The university is guilty, in large part, for its own demise.<br />
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Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-73481643671441896072015-02-28T14:17:00.002-08:002024-01-14T14:25:41.552-08:00Why I Left the Academy to Join the AcademyAfter twenty years on the college level I left to be part of a community of people deeply committed to learning. What?<br />
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Reword to make sections of what has declined in the university<br />
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">studying the liberal arts makes you a better citizen</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">studying the liberal arts makes you more empathetic and compassionate</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">studying the liberal arts teaches you critical-thinking skills</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">studying the liberal arts makes you a capable communicator, in speech and writing</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">knowledge is good for its own sake</li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">studying the liberal arts makes life richer</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">a liberal education is meant to teach you what the good life is and equip you to live it</span></li>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">"When properly pursued, they constitute something close to a way of life: a set of practices of inquiry conducted by people who share space and time with one another, whose conversations are extended and embodied. If you want to understand the value of a liberal education, in a very real sense you have to be there." (<a href="http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2014/10/defending-liberal-arts-once-more.html" target="_blank">Alan Jacobs)</a></span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-44912328501039363002014-08-29T10:05:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.104-08:00Faith, Hope, and Love in a Culture of Death: Lois Lowry's The Giver as Film<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEMM_zeqjzgADn4tObF0s_EOfhQ11sJ06nR9Hwjk8ZVXN8Gmd092D2l0BGoFjNGIaqX43yzaxBDZHKomnXMKMOLuEyjN4lrwdWuFMCVit1rC1Eg_0Rc3T6xLFoBqWjK-HAshFPNN0GT9lI/s1600/giver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEMM_zeqjzgADn4tObF0s_EOfhQ11sJ06nR9Hwjk8ZVXN8Gmd092D2l0BGoFjNGIaqX43yzaxBDZHKomnXMKMOLuEyjN4lrwdWuFMCVit1rC1Eg_0Rc3T6xLFoBqWjK-HAshFPNN0GT9lI/s1600/giver.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Let's begin with the film's single greatest obstacle: the culture Philip Rieff described as "the death culture" is not likely to assemble en masse to pay for viewing a morality tale. A central message in this film is that we have become "shadows." Indeed, those immersed in our death culture do not likely have ears to hear and eyes to see the hollow selves we currently are. In a time such as ours, where very little if anything signifies, it is not probable this movie will be understood. At one key moment The Giver declares, "we are living a life of shadows, of echoes." This sentence captures the essence of the death culture. Add to that the following minor problem of our nearly national obsession with spectacle, as evidenced in news shows and recent popular YA movies such as </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Hunger Games</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Divergent</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It is clear our current death culture is taken with the dystopian novel and dystopian movie version of said novel as long as it provides the story at break neck speed and as long as the actual neck breaking and other acts of violence are done with high levels of blood and guts and are absolutely absent of thought.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A first rate cast including Jeff Bridges as The Giver of memories, Meryl Streep as the ominous, and yet at times, vulnerable Chief Elder, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brenton Thwaites as Jonas and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Odeya Rush as Fiona portrays the ideas and emotions in Lowry's important novel.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> The Giver</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> offers a solid movie adaptation that insightfully captures the spirit and sensibilities of the novel. Our family did the bookish thing and re-read the novel before we went to see the movie. I already had to tell my college students that the novel was released in 1993, so do not ignorantly say, "this movie is a rip-off of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Hunger Games</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Divergent</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It is the other way around." As a matter of truth, the knowledgeable reader and movie goer should see The Giver as the grandmother of our current fixation with all things dystopian. However, the themes and spirit of the book are more humane and call for both an engaged mind and heart. All of this was fresh in our minds when my wife, oldest daughter and myself went to see the movie. We anticipated some changes in terms of elements dropped and some added or expanded, and this occurred. In addition to the characters of Fiona and the Chief Elder having more fully developed roles, there were other minor adaptations that did not distract from the message of the novel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The slower pace of the movie perfectly mirrors the predominately docile feel of the novel. It is clear that one item that sets </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Giver</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> movie apart from other dystopian novels and movies, is that the community is portrayed as a tranquil setting for everyone, not just the elite. One masterful move was filming the first portion in black and white to convey the colorless lives of these people. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> There are numerous moments of startling beauty that convey the truth that even in a fallen world beauty will save the world. The dialogue is rich with humane truths and several instances of the highest goodness we humans are capable of as image bearers of the divine. As in the novel, when Jonas comes to the realization that life has become meaningless and he takes action to protect the most innocent, such heroic transcendence is all too rare in contemporary culture. Sadly, many more religious Americans will turn out in droves to see the newest sports movie which it is highly probable that seeing this movie will be urged by preachers and priests for the sheep to go feed upon. Actually, such maudlin amusement should be avoided.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-5b4f67bd-1fe4-580f-e013-fb76b3402f4f"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The movie and the novel, <i>The Giver</i>, exalt life as a gift to be treasured and to be fully lived. It reminds us what we forget all to easily when we are “sunken in our everydayness” (Walker Percy). Human freedom is a joyous burden. All of life is rife with risks. For all of its rewards there are perils. One cannot finish the novel, or see the movie without being reminded the greatest truth that pain and suffering, our happiness and our choice, are woven together into the tapestry of human existence. One is reminded, this world--fallen, and in need of redemption--is a marvelous unfolding drama that should move the soul to celebrate our very being and its very existence. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The Giver helps us call to memory an all-too-forgotten truth that "with love comes faith and hope." Yes, and the greatest of these is love--love of God, love of neighbor, love of the innocent, love of the infirmed, love of life in all of its glories and frailties. </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While it is highly improbable Walker Percy's </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Thanatos Syndrome</i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> will be made into a film, the novel contains an impassioned plea from Father Smith to Dr. Thomas More to love life. Smith also makes the astute observation that we in the modern world have lost the azimuth, we have lost our lone star. In the death culture we no longer have a fixed reference point to inform our convictions about what matters the most (Section two, chapter six, <i>The Thanatos Syndrome</i>, 114 ff). </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without giving away the ending of the movie version of <i>The Giver</i>, which is very similar to the novel, when Jonas approaches a particular house, he hears singing--we hear singing, we hear hints of hope. Listen very carefully and rejoice. Here is the azimuth, the lone star faintly manifested, faintly, but clearly. It has become common now at the end of movies to stay and get that extra treat. While there are no upcoming teasers of a possible sequel, there is the song, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ordinary Human</span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Onerepublic. Listen again and hear a popular song with a message that is a step above the usual mundane noise in theaters and on our radios.</span></div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-30201455555302355632014-07-17T13:08:00.001-07:002017-08-10T06:13:26.879-07:00My Interview with William James on the New Atheists<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYxRCWk1cPNe4_HPeiGdyrhLpKzzV4xw4E72pEsmNgjUDWHYpmL8so7dTSzSsW7cgqKpA9QyuACyIfM7D44-nfzn2brJ5Pd9IGSBN5-ECUBNObA-Ng0k4kzQdUoUfaT7AgiNvdo_2yL2jk/s1600/james.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYxRCWk1cPNe4_HPeiGdyrhLpKzzV4xw4E72pEsmNgjUDWHYpmL8so7dTSzSsW7cgqKpA9QyuACyIfM7D44-nfzn2brJ5Pd9IGSBN5-ECUBNObA-Ng0k4kzQdUoUfaT7AgiNvdo_2yL2jk/s1600/james.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.1" role="menuitem" style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;" tabindex="-1">Ok</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, I begin with a disclaimer. This is not an actual interview in the technical sense. Since William James passed from this world in 1910, many decades before I was even born, it is not possible that I interviewed him. However, here is what really did happen. After spending the last few months pouring over key books by Professor James, it caught up with my unconscious mind and I did indeed dream that I met him and we talked. The following is an imagined conversation based on significant engagement with some of his writings and an unusual dream. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Robert Woods: This is a most unexpected honor to meet you Dr. James and be able to ask you some questions about some things you have written.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">William James: My pleasure. I am glad to discover that some are still reading my writings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: I think what most impresses me about your education is that you are a philosopher and psychologist, but were trained as a physician which gives you an extraordinary advantage over some who only have more limited education or training.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">James: I do think that I have acted to allow various truths and insights from philosophy, psychology, and medicine to shed light on the fullness of what it means to be a human being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: I wanted to discuss something with you that has occurred within the past few decades- a group of academic Philosophers, Scientists, Cultural Critics who have been labeled the new atheists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">James: I suspect that there is very little new in their thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: That is certainly true, what is new about them is that they lack the general humane spirit of previous atheists. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">James: With the new atheists being 'fundamentally,' (pun intended), scientists in the most modern sense of the term scientists we need to reorient ourseleves on this matter. It should be remembered that "science... has ended by utterly repudiating the personal point of view. She catalogs her elements and records her laws indifferent as to what purpose may be shown forth by them, and constructs her theories quite careless of their bearing on human anxieties and fates. Though the scientist may individually nourish a religion, and be a theist in his irresponsible hours, the days are over when it could be said that for Science herself the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament </span><span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" data-emoji_font="true" id=":ki.10" role="menuitem" style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif , "segoe ui emoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "symbola" , "emojisymbols important";" tabindex="-1">showeth</span><span style="background-color: white;"> his handiwork. Our solar system, with its harmonies, is seen now as but one passing case of a certain sort of moving equilibrium in the heavens, realized by a local accident in an appalling wilderness of worlds where no life can exist. In a span of time which as a cosmic interval will count but as an hour, it will have ceased to be. The Darwinian notion of chance production, and subsequent destruction, speedy or deferred, applies to the largest as well as to the smallest facts. It is impossible, in the present temper of the scientific imagination, to find in the </span><span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.11" role="menuitem" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;" tabindex="-1">driftings</span><span style="background-color: white;"> of the cosmic atoms, whether they work on the universal or on the particular scale, anything but a kind of aimless weather, doing and undoing, achieving no proper history, and leaving no result. Nature has no one distinguishable ultimate tendency with which it is possible to feel a sympathy. In the vast rhythm of her processes...she appears to cancel herself. The books of natural theology which satisfied the intellects of our grandfathers seem to us quite grotesque, representing, as they did, a God who conformed the largest things of nature to the paltriest of our private wants. The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals. The bubbles on the foam which coats a stormy sea are floating episodes, made and unmade by the forces of the wind and water. Our private selves are like those bubbles—epiphenomena, as (W.K.) Clifford, I believe, ingeniously called them; their destinies weigh nothing and determine nothing in the world's irremediable currents of events."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Woods: I think one quality of your writings on religion is occasional whimsy, but always a gracious tone. Much of modern philosophical reflection on religion is both mean and arrogant, and generally humorless.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">James: That is an intellectual <span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.14" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1">shame</span>. I think that “good-humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Woods: Some philosophers, many professors of religion, and most scientists who address religion and philosophy have reduced all such endeavors to glitches in the human genetic make-up. I have been struck that your writings often move in the opposite direction from reduction. </span><br />
<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">James: “Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: <span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.16" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1">Ok</span>, here is another major difference between you as a philosopher, psychologist and explorer of religious truth--you place yourself in the place of yielding to reality and not imposing yourself onto that reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">James: Yes, indeed. You should keep in mind that the person doing the reflecting on reality, including religious reality is only part, but nonetheless a part of the process. I have long held that “Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: So, are you saying that humans are more complex than we normally think.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">James: Not just humans, but human relationships and all human musings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: I do wish that the new atheists would read your books or at least those who read the new atheists would also read your writings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">James: If your portrayal of these new atheists is correct, one key difference between me and them is that personally, "<span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">I fear to lose truth by the pretension to possess it already wholly.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Woods: What error or errors are the new atheists making?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">James: Likely an error of one of the "isms." Essentially, "<span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.39" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1">r</span></span><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="background-color: white;">educed to their most pregnant difference, empiricism means the habit of explaining wholes by parts, and rationalism means the habit of explaining parts by wholes. Rationalism thus preserves affinities with monism, since wholeness goes with union, while empiricism inclines to pluralistic views. No philosophy can ever be anything but a summary sketch, a picture of the world in abridgment, a foreshortened bird's-eye view of the perspective of events. And the first thing to notice is this, that the only material we have at our disposal for making a picture of the whole world is supplied by the various portions of that world of which we have already had experience. We can invent no new forms of conception, applicable to the whole exclusively, and not suggested originally by the parts. All philosophers, accordingly, have conceived of the whole world after the analogy of some particular feature of it which has particularly captivated their attention." So, my suspicion is that they are committing the error of either empiricism or of rationalism. Possibly </span><span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" data-emoji_font="true" id=":ki.116" role="menuitem" style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif , "segoe ui emoji" , "segoe ui symbol" , "symbola" , "emojisymbols important";" tabindex="-1">scientism</span><span style="background-color: white;"> also.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: This is most helpful in considering that some of the new atheists only see from one view and have eliminated other views entirely.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">James: “There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Woods: What might be an example of what you are describing?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">James: Let's take prayer for example. </span><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">“Through prayer, religion insists, things which cannot be realized in any other manner come about: energy which but for prayer would be bound is by prayer set free and operates in some part, be it objective or subjective, of the world of facts.”</span><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Woods: In other words, there is more to reality than our natural world and that this unseen realm generates practical effects in this world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #23262a; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">James: It seems from your description that these new atheists do not realize it but, "a</span><span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">ll our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;">Woods: In their writings and debates the new atheists rail against the subjective nature of faith and speak fervently about the objective nature of their scientific studies.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;">James: "Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?"</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">Woods: That is a great question. So are you saying that a key problem with the new atheists, beyond saying nothing new, is that they seem to be profoundly ignorant of religion and the very nature of how we know in general and understand religion specifically?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #23262a; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">James: Indeed. Again, if you have correctly characterized them. They seem to me woefully unaware of religion as a human reality and the strong evidence through human history that religious beliefs hint at and point to transcendent reality. They seem to be unaware that for the truly religious person, "</span><span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">religion...is a man's total reaction upon life." </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">Woods: Most of the new atheists argue for an evolutionary explanation of religion. Actually, everything has an evolutionary explanation. In essence religion is a bio-electrical, chemical, evolutionary oops.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">James. Well, I have dealt with this before. It is not a new idea. Simply, "<span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.237" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1">t</span></span><span style="line-height: 21px;">o plead the organic causation of a religious state of mind, then, in refutation of its claim to possess superior spiritual value, is quite illogical and arbitrary, unless one havs already worked out in advance some psycho-physical theory connecting spiritual values in general with determinate sorts of physiological change. Otherwise none of our thoughts and feelings, not even our scientific doctrines, not even our dis-beliefs, could retain any value as revelations of the truth, for every one of them without exception flows from the state of their possessor's body at the time."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;">Woods: So if they are right about religious knowledge, then the same argument could be made against all knowledge, including much of scientific knowledge?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;">James: Correct. We all really should spend more time on the matter of epistemology.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">Woods: Based merely on our conversation, what might you say to the new atheists to help them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #23262a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #23262a; line-height: 21px; text-align: justify;">James: I experienced this and this truth is key. </span><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">“Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.” The new atheists should listen more to the religious world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Woods: Do you have any final words, as I feel I have imposed too much upon your time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">James: No imposition at all. I would only add that, "<span aria-haspopup="true" class="J-JK9eJ-PJVNOc" id=":ki.323" role="menuitem" tabindex="-1">w</span></span><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">hen all is said and done, we are in the end absolutely dependent on the universe; and into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort, deliberately looked at and accepted, we are drawn and pressed as into our only permanent positions of repose. Now in those states of mind which fall short of religion, the surrender is submitted to as an imposition of necessity, and the sacrifice is undergone at the very best without complaint. In the religious life, on the contrary, surrender and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case is necessary; and if it be the only agency that can accomplish this result, its vital importance as a human faculty stands vindicated beyond dispute."</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">Woods: Thank you again for your time and your ideas. I do hope that the new atheists or any atheists, and all believers can read more of your ideas and find your books on their reading lists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18px;">James: Me too.</span></span></div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-63017291838398568392014-06-29T12:48:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.486-08:00If Dostoevsky Had Written Science Fiction<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Sounding like a modern, the Greek writer Callimachus once penned an epigram where he quipped, “a large book is a great misfortune.” Does not the legitimacy of such an assertion depend on the author and the reader? Novelist Michael O’Brien gives all lovers of fine novels another marvelously large book.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> As one who enjoys good science fiction, it is always a treat when a first rate novelist ventures into a genre different than what is the norm for that novelist. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheV5vcjexStlmmV-N_erHhacBj9Dqn7k6Obi8Qhp3Sdu9F-rokZ8aF1-FHj2ckV79b5eS-6BXzXNkXrAsgy4z4DKCyzPyYq0Igswnf305xNkLkzTdVj9YlhDcGEF0-yLuZKBlDLZKUvOip/s1600/alpha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheV5vcjexStlmmV-N_erHhacBj9Dqn7k6Obi8Qhp3Sdu9F-rokZ8aF1-FHj2ckV79b5eS-6BXzXNkXrAsgy4z4DKCyzPyYq0Igswnf305xNkLkzTdVj9YlhDcGEF0-yLuZKBlDLZKUvOip/s1600/alpha.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Often when talking about literature, someone will ask, “what is it about?” This question is sometimes confused with the more important question of, “what are the possible meanings of this work?” </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the storyline of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Voyage to Alpha Centauri</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is about a trip of the spaceship Kosmos to Alpha Centauri and given to us primarily in the form of the diary of Neil de Hoyos, one might be able to say that the novel is really about what it means to be a human being, the human civilizations that we make, and the civilizations that make or unmake us.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Voyage to Alpha Centauri</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a sci-fi dystopian novel which functions as an aesthetic critique of what is wrong with the world and how all might be as it should. O’Brien offers the reader part critique of totalitarian governments and part examination of how such social disorders come to exist. Similar to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Solzhenitsyn, O’Brien’s work is philosophically and theologically rich dealing with the fullness of our humanity considering such issues as life, death, habits, longing for order, and our fallen human nature. How many other novelists would put Virgil's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eclogues</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Joseph Conrad's </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heart of Darkness</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> into conversation with one another to demonstrate the Biblical truth of the glory of creation and the fallen nature of humans? The greatest novels, by the truly great novelists, look at human aspirations, longings, dreams, the goodness of the particulars of our existence, human finitude, zeal for freedom, and our recurring tendency to get it wrong, and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Voyage to Alpha Centauri </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does just this. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The big picture setting of this novel spans almost 400 years and the territory from Earth to Alpha Centauri. While the practically minded may be able to take a journey across the cosmos without contemplation of the divine, not all the characters can escape such Pascalian questions posed of the infinite by the finite. “Whoever looks deeply into the cosmos, and continues to look, cannot rest content with what he observes through the telescope. If he persists with courage and honesty, he will ask himself about the meaning and end to which the whole of creation is oriented." Again, while philosophical truths can be eclipsed by the gadgets and gizmos in some futuristically imagined literary works, O’Brien has characters who think beyond the superficial matters. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Does relativity relativize </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">existence</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? We may </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that it does, since our psychological/perceptual/conceptual bearings are determined by planetary–based measurements, and tend to blur and even disorient us in the face of principles of cosmic physics. Yet relativity has no pretensions to being an ontological system. Indeed, philosophy may in the end prove to be a more coherent model of existence than physics.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> By its very nature, science fiction as a genre, tends to either celebrate the science or demonize science. As with much else in the work, a theologically acumen calls for a different approach. O’Brien does not refrain from reflection of the nature of applied science. He is conscious of the truth that some of the tools we design to give us power over nature and other humans can act back upon the makers and bring unintended consequences. There is much in this novel that stands as critique of the big technologies that affect our lives (bombs and spaceships), and also the little technologies that affect our everyday in ways that we are often unaware. Such is the content of the discussion between the characters Dwayne and Neil de Hoyos, “plebian mind-nummers,” are mentioned and the conversation continues, "The old maximum e–drug. Surfing, vids, films, holo–porn.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Digital environmental chambers?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“DECs? Yup, there’s a lotta people hooked on them too.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Examining the grand role and the everyday place of human technological power calls for more than efficiency. In truth, the more efficient our tools and techniques are, the more harmful they may be. The spirit of utilitarianism trumps careful consideration. Questions of “should we do this” are superseded by “can we do this.” Regardless of the functional role of various technologies, all tools have an ideological bias and O’Brien’s novel demonstrates through the lives of the characters that sound reasoning is imperative for tools to be used wisely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> While this writing will likely be classified as science fiction, it bends toward the dystopian. In the currently popular genre of dystopian fiction (one does wonder why so many are writing and reading works that explore a world gone wrong), the novelist calls into question ideas and assumptions that are pervasive. As a deeply spiritual writer, O’Brien recognizes the increasing intolerance against a robust expression of that faith that engages all of life and every area of culture and society. However, like Bradbury in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fahrenheit 451</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, totalitarian government is not all or even first to blame. Speaking of a key character, “He was a dedicated man, since in those days the churches were closed, due to the indifference of a once religious nation and, sporadically, government crackdowns on organized religion." Part of the real genius of this novel is the realization that government, by its very nature, tends to become all encompassing. “We confuse imposed governance for legitimate authority. What, then, is legitimate authority? Is it not a mutual contract between free beings who agree to apportion their fields of responsibility and levels of decision–making, according to their gifts, while maintaining accountability, and placing above all other social considerations the necessity of mutual respect? If this is so, we must conclude that rare indeed has been its exercise in the history of mankind.” Taking a cue from Christopher Dawson, there is the recognition that humans need properly sanctioned order or government. Notice here again, a sharp observation about proper and improper authority.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Voyage to Alpha Centauri </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">also keeps the human being and human condition in clear focus throughout. The novel conveys a clearly articulated religious anthropology. Insightful reflection and commentary given on the distinction between communicating truth though various humane means, propaganda, and the key distinction between uniformity and unity and how that occurs within human civilizations. What is most edifying within this novel is the ongoing reflection and appropriate criticism of a dehumanizing, reductionistic, mechanistic, naturalistic worldview where,"they think everything about humanity is biology." A most ennobling anthropology is proposed in this work in contrast to an animalistic dehumanizing view that has become all too common in our age. “Every person who enters our lives is present as unique phenomena, radiational, gravitational, altering the symphony.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That Hideous Strength</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, O’Brien boldly rethinks the idea of social engineering. It is the notion that since humans can control some of nature and physical matter, the assertion and practice is that humans can also easily control human beings since they are merely an extension or variant expression of matter. "We can harness the atom, but we cannot attempt to absolutely control men's wills, nor their capacity for rational thought, nor their hunger for freedom, without grave risk to man himself.”</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In a Delphic moment, the question is asked, "One wonders constantly how it happened, he said. How did man cease to know himself?" </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Another religiously keen insight regarding human nature is, “behind every anthropology there is the lure of ideology. By the same token, behind every ideology you will find a determining anthropology–and this latter is the more dangerous.” </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Voyage to Alpha Centauri </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does consider humans as religious beings, longing for transcendence and desirous of community. O’Brien writes with prophetic tone and within the Judeo-Christian tradition when he has one character declare, "Man without God becomes a slave of the old gods, those demons, or else he becomes his own god and falls into another kind of darkness." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> An observation within the novel that is so true is that, “The power of culture is immense, especially when it is sensually rewarding.” O’Brien provides a novel rife with the good, the true, and the beautiful. There are works of great literature, great art, and great music, referenced throughout as markers or signposts and are used in a variety of ways to reinforce a particular truth embodied or uttered.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6d8bf197-e91b-7301-e7f8-747120b67e1c"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Michael O’Brien gives us a work of science fiction in the tone and texture of the great novelist of the modern world. If C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy conversed with Dostoevsky while Christopher Dawson also joined the conversation, this is what it would look like. For all of us who enjoy a thick read that gives us much more than mere entertainment, but delights us and profits us, this should be added to your “must read” list.</span></div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-17673392916057632082013-12-10T15:35:00.000-08:002024-01-14T14:25:41.022-08:00Christopher Dawson's Religion and Culture: The Expansive Lens of Cultural Interpretation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> He was among the brightest students I have taught. We had just finished talking about how and why Freudian or Marxists interpretations of reality are suffocating in their reductionistic interpretations. The conversation moved to the writings of Christopher Dawson that are happily being reprinted by Catholic University Press of America. As our discussion meandered, he questioned, "why are Freudian and Marxist ideologies reductionistic, but Dawson's assertion that 'religion is the key to history' not reductionistic?" Bravo, I thought, a marvelous question. Now we were onto a grand quest. My first response was that, religion, as understood by Dawson is not a mere accident of human nature, but an essential characteristic or quality of the human condition that manifests itself throughout culture. Additionally, human cultures as envisioned and developed by various people through history act back upon and shape our religious impulse.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Having read most of Dawson's works after I was blessedly introduced to them in graduate studies by an aging professor who declared, "more people need to read him and hopefully we will one day see a resurgence of interest in his writings," I can confirm the wisdom of the desire of my professor. My wise old professor did not live to see the rebirth of admirers, but he would have been encouraged more by the truth of the occurrence than his prediction. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Dawson wrote extensively about the interplay between religion and culture. Better stated, he examined the interdependence of religion and culture as a subject that is sorely absent from modern historians and cultural scholars. Dawson asserted in various ways that religion is the key to truly understanding human history and human cultures. In truth and practice, with growing secularization comes increased disdain and hostility toward religious reality and social expressions of that </span><span style="line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">reality</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">. There is no need to look any further than the rhetorical expressions of fundamentalist atheism. Dawson warned about those who practice </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">"any so-called science of comparative religion which treats its subject in terms of </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">psychopathology</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> or economic determinism is sterile and pseudo-scientific." </i>Instead,<i> c</i></span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">alling for an openness to </span><i style="font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;">"the science of religious truth."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In addition to writing extensively about the interplay between religion and culture, Dawson was also intrigued and somewhat taken with the ways in which culture transitions from one movement to another or from being one thing into being something else. He also called for examining religion as a unique manifestation of human experience. Unlike many modern critics, Dawson examined rituals, practices, superstitions, and mystical experiences as these are part of understanding humans and religious expression. Transcendence and human consciousness should not be separated in analysis. The reason that observers of cultural change give attention to religion is </span><span style="line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">because</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">, <i>"a culture is a spiritual community which owes its unity to common beliefs and common ways of thought...."</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Whether analyzing ancient primitive cultures or the high culture of Christendom during the Carolingian renaissance, Christopher Dawson recognized the intricate and profound relationship between life and religion. His stress on the<i> "spiritual culture--the training of the mind in the way of divine law"</i> and even a rebellion of that way, is most important toward a proper </span><span style="line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">interpretation</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of culture. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Thus the scientific revolution has been almost </span><span style="line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">inseparable</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from movements of social and political revolution and with a far reaching secularization of social life which produces a new type of conflict between religion and culture."</span></i><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Between the acts of worship associated with religious practices and the beliefs themselves that stem from religious practices and worship. As with all things, Dawson saw a keen connection that few others have noted. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> While most of Christendom (especially Protestants and even more so Evangelicals) focus solely on ideas (a rather gnostic impulse), there is much more to understanding society and culture than disembodied ideas. In a sense, Dawson was using the insights of the sociology of knowledge, found in Durkheim, before it became standard among cultural historians. Simply put, sociology of knowledge is the recognition that there is keen interplay between the </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">way</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> people think and the social context of that thinking, and the way such thinking influences that very same society. It is the recognition that the </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">way</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of thinking is as important as </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is being thought. Where many stress the particular ideas, this approach stresses the manifestations of these ideas in habits, actions, and institutions. One contemporary sociologist employing this tool noted that “the microwave generation cannot understand the virtue of patience.” The genius of this example is that it recognizes the technological ingenuity which produced a device that in turn affects the daily habits of people. Dawson's analysis of the Enlightenment and Industrial revolution make similar observations. These same people do not realize how their new “instant” culture is counter to the habit of deliberative contemplation and the essential good of being hesitant before engaging in some actions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15;"> The wide world of scholarship is not likely to rise up and say, "Dawson was right about religion and culture and we were wrong." Despite the astonishing discoveries at Gobekli Tepe and what should be a universal rethinking of the ways religion shapes culture and not the other way. It is also not probable with the trendiness of the new atheists, that religion will get proper respectful attention anytime soon. However, if Dawson is right, and the sense from many is that he is right, religious </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">reality</span><span style="line-height: 1.15;"> and our <i>"</i></span><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>transcendent</i></span><span style="line-height: 1.15;"><i> intuition"</i> provide cultural manifestations all around us. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15;"> Back to the astute student who asked, "why </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15;">is Dawson's assertion that religion is the key to history not reductionistic, unlike others who commit the all too common metaphysical</span><span style="line-height: 1.15;"> fallacy of 'nothing but.'" Religion is nothing but a longing for the absent daddy, culture is nothing but repressed human sexuality, society is nothing but a way to use and abuse others, and the human being is nothing but a meat puppet. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.15;">Dawson did not say culture is nothing but religion. He keenly observed that in human history, religion was key to human culture. Dawson offered an expansive lens, not a reductionistic lens, for understanding religion and culture.</span></div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-1526766446352751632013-12-05T21:01:00.001-08:002024-01-14T14:25:40.955-08:00Andrew Klavan's Nightmare City and the Moral Gothic Imagination<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In literary terms, Gothic typically refers to that frame of mind and soul that embraces the strange, the mysterious, and the irrational, specifically terror. Gothic novels are often set in the dark and wild. This is what one encounters in Andrew Klavan's most recent novel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> As I consider this novel written for a popular audience, there are no empty cliches for Klavan. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nightmare City</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a pulse pounding, page turning, plot twisting engaging work that will be enjoyed by all who love a rich suspenseful novel. This is not a mere bump-in-the-night, goose bump, chills producing novel; rather </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nightmare City</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has the capacity to move the soul toward reflection. The reality of death and evil are all around us and even within us. While there is the true, the good, and the beautiful received with joy, sometimes the true and good are met in the dark. Ignoring evil does not make it vanish. In addition to our contemporary culture being taken with dystopian fiction, we seem also to be fascinated with zombies and vampires. It has been said that vampires are about sex and zombies are about death. Just a cursory knowledge of graphic novel series and the television show, The Walking Dead, one is struck by the pervasive nihilism. Klavan gives us suspense without despair, fear without hopelessness, and lessons about courage and morality in the midst of human mortality.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Author, Russell Kirk, writing of his own ghost stories says, "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I have attempted, rather, are experiments in the moral imagination. Readers will encounter elements of parable and fable...literary naturalism is not the only path to apprehension of reality. All-important literature has some ethical end; and the tale of the preternatural...can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order." The key here is the ethical end toward which great literature often aims, but has been rejected in our own moment. Klavan is very counter cultural in this regard.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Just as in the natural order there are laws that must be yielded to, in "ghost stories" there is a parallel principle within the supernatural order. These accompanying laws have equally real results when adhered to or when dismissed. Again Kirk, "The better uncanny stories are underlain by healthy concept of the character of evil. Defying nature, the necromancer conjures up what ought not to rise again this side of Judgment Day. But these dark powers do not rule the universe: by bell, book, and candle, symbolically at least, we can push them down under." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It is so important to stress here, for the reader of this blog that the realities these stories in general, and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Nightmare City</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in particular, speak of are not merely symbolic or allegorical, as it is the case that a symbol (by the nature of being a symbol) points to or hints at a reality beyond itself. In other words, an allegory is parallel to something that is other than itself. If this is not the case, then allegories and symbols merely refer to other symbols and allegories, and the mirror maze becomes a prison.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Additionally, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Russell Kirk</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> gives further insight into another value of the "ghost tale" which is also true of liberal arts grounded in fine letters. "The story of the supernatural or mystical can disclose aspects of human conduct and human longing to which the positivistic psychologist has blinded himself." The human heart longs for "transcendent perception" and "arcane truths about good and evil" that answers questions we have about the meaning and truth of things. Kirk adds, "as a literary form, then, the uncanny tale can be a means for expressing truths enchantingly." Many are drawn to this literary genre as it affirms what most of us know, and that is </span><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the truth that our senses are not capable of apprehending all that was, is, or will be. While the 'scientists' or 'materialists' will not acknowledge it, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'nature' is something more than mere fleshly sensation, and that something may lie above human nature, and something below it–-why, the divine and the diabolical rise up again in serious literature."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> So the scientists, mechanists, or fundamentalist who resists these tales of transcendence, and the eerie novels such as </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nightmare City </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">should more resist the ignorant order that loses touch of the ultimate reality to which these parables are set next to and offer a glimpse into. It is our narrow, shallow, and hollow view of reality that should be resisted by those of us drawn to the dark, scary, otherworldly and mysterious tales such as these that point us to what is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The synopsis of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nightmare City</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"Tom Harding only wants the truth. But the truth is becoming more dangerous with every passing minute. As a reporter for his high school newspaper, Tom Harding was tracking the best story of his life—when, suddenly, his life turned very, very weird. He woke up one morning to find his house empty . . . his street empty . . . his whole town empty . . . empty except for an eerie, creeping fog—and whatever creatures were slowly moving toward him through the fog. Now Tom’s once-ordinary world has become something out of a horror movie. How did it happen? Is it real? Is he dreaming? Has there been a zombie apocalypse? Has he died and gone to hell? Tom is a good reporter—he knows how to look for answers—but no one has ever covered a story like this before. With the fog closing in and the hungry creatures of the fog surrounding him, he has only a few hours to find out how he lost the world he knew. In this bizarre universe nothing is what it seems and everything—including Tom’s life—hangs in the balance."</i></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-59b78a4c-c63c-0dae-0c68-e65f7ceca05f"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Klavan has said in more than one interview that his ideas often begin with a "what if question." Human life is filled with mystery and the “what if” calls us beyond ourselves toward something else. Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Williams, Ray Bradbury, and Russell Kirk are grand writers who blend both moral and Gothic imagination. With a keen eye for action and adventure, Klavan joins their ranks. </span></span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-66070543883206269442013-12-03T21:13:00.001-08:002024-01-14T14:25:41.503-08:00Why Read?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-59994004832655706412013-10-26T15:09:00.003-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.157-08:00Holding Firm to a Conservative Mind When Facing the Borg<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> I have never acted to conceal the truth that I am a Trekkie. Additionally, I have never hidden my conviction that I am a traditionalist and a conservative in the way defined by Russell Kirk. While there are thematic and ideological elements worthy of criticism in the Star Trek worldview, there is much that can be redeemed. On the 60th anniversary of Russell Kirk's magnum opus, <u>The Conservative Mind</u>, it is certainly worth the time and energy to revisit this essential reading. My reexamination of the key points in this most important work has been shaped recently, in part, by my rethinking of how much some of our current political, cultural, and social moment is reminiscent of the Borg.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> While there is much for mind and soul in this volume, I would like to rethink the essence of conservatism, as discovered by Russell Kirk, and contrast it with collectivism and consumerism as an antidote to these contemporary toxins. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">No doubt many have been taken with Kirk's examination</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of conservatism by simply understanding the six canons of conservatism he proposes. Before we look at these, it is worth remembering that at the heart of Kirk's conservatism is the assertion that </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"The essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions of humanity."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Russell Kirk, "the benevolent sage of Mecosta," does indeed serve us as a most worthy example and guide. From the true statesman Edmund Burke through the literary giant T.S. Eliot, those desire to know what authentic conservatism is and is not, Kirk said, that i</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">n "a world that damns tradition, exalts equality, and welcomes change..." the conservative mind must be made known. <span style="background-color: white;">For those who may not know of the infamous </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">Borg, their notorious reputation comes from their nature to assimilate, by force, other species into their collective and compel them into "the hive mind."</span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">The new collectivism that Kirk and others warned about is equivalent to a group think. All attempts to offer dissent from the collective is not tolerated. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Returning to Kirk's <u>The Conservative Mind</u>, h</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">ere is a summary (one must really savor Kirk's fuller explication) of his six "canons of conservatism:"</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Belief in a transcendent order (not surprisingly rooted in tradition, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">divine revelation</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, or </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">natural law)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Persuasion that property and freedom are linked;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Recognition that change may not be salutary reform and traditions as well as customs must be considered before political action is deemed prudential.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">Add to the above six canons, Kirk's five characteristics of "radicalism since 1790" and you get a sense of both the meaning of conservatism and its enemies.</span></span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">The perfectibility</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"> of man and the illimitable progress of society;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">Contempt for tradition;</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Political leveling;</span></span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Economic leveling;</span></span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Common radical view of the state's function.</span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Without being reductionistic, one might be able to propose that the essential difference between the conservative mind and the radical (progressive) mind, is regarding givenness of what is. The conservative sees and embraces natural diversity and distinction and aspires to yield to what is. The radical, mocking the very notion of givenness, acts to construct a tower to the heavens and force everyone to join the project. Again, referencing the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">Borgs and comparing to the radicals, they insist on sameness. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"> While resistance to the modern political, cultural, and social Borg may be futile</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">, it is imperative that all those who treasure the humane, must resist as long as possible and not give into the modern social construction of human reality.</span></span></div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-49509932625071688282013-10-05T10:44:00.002-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.116-08:00How Reading Thucydides During Government Shutdown Tends Toward Wisdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<i>And if we should know what government is, we should observe, in Thucydides' laconic account of the revolution at Corcyra, what happens when it fails.</i>" Stringfellow Barr</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Most keen observers would say that our government has been in failure mode for a number of decades, and this is not easily refuted on empirical grounds. Readers of the Great Books might suggest we begin not with Thucydides, but with Plato and Aristotle. One should not quibble over such matters. Instead, go now, and get a copy of Thucydides' <u>The History of the Peloponnesian Wars</u>. Turn and read book III, chapter X. The only immediate background needed is this: The time and place of the revolution is at Corcyra in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian War. We find ourselves in a trial of sorts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Thucydides describes a world where words have little to no meaning. With the collapse of communication, so comes the collapse of community. The spiral from order to chaos is inevitable. It is clear from Thucydides that events leading up to and the consequences following a revolution cast a dark shadow on human endeavors. The specific results of the Corcyraean revolution were famine and ongoing civil strife. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The careful reader is held from the powerful opening when the Plataeans plead with extraordinary rhetorical flare to the Lacedaemonians to the line which concludes, "<i>Such were the words of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid that the Lacedaemonians might be <span style="background-color: white;">moved by what they had heard, came forward and said that they too desired to address them, since the Plataeans had, against their wish, been allowed to speak at length instead of being confined to a simple answer to the question.</span></i><span style="background-color: white;">" (Thucydides, 3.60.1)</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Rhetoric and pragmatism is in high form throughout this event. Thucydides speaks of politics as backroom bargains, and all the scheming motivated by the pragmatic. What was absent then and absent today is statesmanship which was dismissed so brute force could be enacted and people could be executed. </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E85" qowt-eid="E85" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">“<i>The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passion</i></span></span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E86" qowt-eid="E86" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">s</span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E87" qowt-eid="E87" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E89" qowt-eid="E89" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">proceeded</span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E91" qowt-eid="E91" style="line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the violence of parties once engaged in content</span></span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" qowt-eid="E91" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">ion. The leaders in the cities made the fairest professions: on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy; but they sought </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E92" qowt-eid="E92" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">prizes</span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E93" qowt-eid="E93" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for themselves in those</span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E94" qowt-eid="E94" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E95" qowt-eid="E95" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">public interests which they pretended to cherish and, stopping at nothing in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in direct excesses. In their acts of vengeance or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E96" qowt-eid="E96" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">only</span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E97" qowt-eid="E97" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"> standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict of the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining the quarrel, or </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E98" qowt-eid="E98" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">because</span></i><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E99" qowt-eid="E99" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> envy would not allow them to escape.</i>” (Thucydides, </span><span class="qowt-font3-TimesNewRoman" id="E100" qowt-eid="E100" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">3.82.8) Possibly the key phrase is in reference to "the moderate part of the citizens" perishing. It is certainly a lesson of history and wise letters that the plight of the moderate is to be crushed by the extremists.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> By looking at what can happen when political and social order falls below the lowest level among humans, we can take some peace, that we are not there yet. Right? Let us conclude this reflection in a different place. For Thucydides, revolutions give us insight into human nature and the loss of all important social order. It is eerie how familiar his words are considering our context. <i>"Th</i><span style="background-color: white;"><i>us every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defense and capable of confidence. In this contest the blunter wits were more successful."</i> (</span>3.83.1,2)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> More than once, over the past few decades, I have had to defend why I stay focused on reading the Great Books when many others watch hours of news. The news, at best gives the pre-digested data of the moment according to the leanings of the source. For me, news tends toward befuddlement and poisons the soul which inhales the noxious vapors of the blind soothsayers, while wisdom, sometimes painful to embrace, sustains the human soul. The words of G.K. Chesterton seem more pertinent than ever when he spoke about democracies that are born as the result of a revolution. "<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i>You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy.</i>" Here we are more than two hundred years after our revolution with the pervasive illusion that we are fee, equal, and always changing for improvement. </span></span></span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-64292351838913001612013-09-24T08:08:00.003-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.496-08:00Interview With Michael Desiderius: Former Liberal Arts Professor<b>Note to reader:</b> In addition to working very closely with Dr. Desiderius for years, I did and still do count him as the dearest of friends. We are open and direct with each other, as this interview will show. He left the academy a few years ago because, in his words, there was no longer a point to teaching. I also interview him about fifteen years ago, and sadly he has become "more jaded" (his words, not mine). This interview is equal parts, cautionary tale, reflection on the wonders and purpose of the liberal arts, and the deep sadness of a spurned lover. I can attest that there was a time when Professor Desiderius was passionate about humane learning.<br />
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Robert Woods: It is always a joy to converse with you and I appreciate your time, as I know you are busy.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Michael Desiderius: I use to be busy, when I was teaching, now I finally know leisure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: Well, I thought we would have a few moments before you took a dig at the university.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: I'm sorry. Let me begin again. It is also a pleasure to speak with you my friend, as conversation is among the greatest gifts. Since this gift was discarded by the university years ago, I always appreciate these occasions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: Let me return to a question I asked you more than fifteen years ago. Why did you want to teach liberal arts?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: Like the apostle said of preaching, "I could not do other wise." I had this sense of calling to teaching. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: Do you miss teaching? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: I barely remember teaching at all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: What do you mean, you only quit last year?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: As I travel back in my mind, I can tell you that I remember being in inferno like meetings that lasted for hours and did little to no good for the true end of education.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: What is the true end of education?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: To lead the soul from darkness to wisdom and I worked on the factory line for years and saw little of this. When I walked around in the manner of Diogenes, with lamp in hand, I did not see it anywhere. I survived on the hope that there was somewhere, at some time, real education occurring.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: What went wrong?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: We forgot the purpose of education! Let me layout briefly what I chronicled. I taught at one school where the highest academic ranking official was a manager. He was completely ignorant of humane learning. If you employ a manager to lead academics, you may have a well organized business, but you will not have a university. Now, I understand that the trend is to hire lawyers. Obviously, boards that place lawyers in charge of academics have never read Shakespeare. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: So much of the decline of education is the result of poor leadership?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: O<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">nce the camel gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow. The camel in this case is the complete confusion of what a school, college, or university is. Managers, manage. They manage people, money, and the bottom line.</span></span> Lawyers are technicians of a different sort, but their limited filter also funnels in a narrow manner. The academic, when truly an academic, considers the wisdom of the ages. Effieicny, immediacy, and relavancy are consider in light of the consensure of humane learning for thousands of years, not the last fifteen minutes. Most technicians only see what is right in front of their faces and since that is always changing, so is the nature of education.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: So do you not think that institutions of learning should keep up with the times?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: Absolutely not! If and when places of authentic learning do what they are supposed to be then they become timeless and continuously relevant. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: What do you mean?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RW: What about today's students?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">MD: Since human nature has not changed from the beginning, in many ways students are today what they have always been. In short, teachable However, the modern moment has placed some astonishing obstacles before those who desire to know. The distractions offered to the modern student, and many come from the administrations of schools, are daunting. I stronly suspect that these distractions are crippling. What this means</span><br />
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<br />Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-60303075110090908942013-09-09T18:30:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.164-08:00Thinking Christianly About the Liberal Arts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The incarnation calls us to the things of this world. So when we consider the following quotes about the liberal arts we must begin and end there:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.1500000000000001; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.1500000000000001; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What has Ingeld to do with Christ”?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <br class="kix-line-break" />-Alcuin (when catching some monks reading Beowulf)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What has Horace to do with the Psalter? Or Virgil with the Gospel? Or Cicero the Apostle?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <br class="kix-line-break" />- Jerome </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Just as the Logos, God Himself, became flesh, and just as God’s words and wisdom were penned by human hands in particular times and places, Christians, as embodied beings, are called to be in the world. We are called to a healthy, robust terrestriality, without compromising our calling. Engagement with the world–in all of its God–imbued glory intertwined with human wretchedness–requires wisdom from God, a wisdom that assists us to be faithful. Just as the incarnation was ultimately about redemption, it is the task of the Christian to redeem all that can be redeemed. Paul tells the very worldly Corinthians to “take captive every thought for Jesus Christ". We can do this by imitating the enfleshed Word of God and by dwelling in God’s Words while we live in God’s world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It is grand news indeed that we are not alone. There have been many who have been faithful in this endeavor for thousands of years. Remember the examples of John of Salisbury and what he did with his </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Metalogicon</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hugh of Saint Victor’s </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Didascalicon</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or Dorothy Sayers’s The </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lost Tools of Learning</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The shape, tone, contours, and content of the Liberal arts in the West has been thoroughly developed by the Christian worldview. It is the Bible, more than any other writing, that informs the great intellectual liberal arts tradition, to such a degree, that ignorance of the Bible, virtually makes apprehension of our humane past nearly impossible. Indeed the Bible was institutionalized in the Western intellectual tradition until the modern world, and the modern world’s reaction to the Bible can be seen as persistent mass rebellion of that tradition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The Liberal Arts have been in decline for a number of decades and the attacks on this tradition come from various fronts. There are those who have called for all education to be “immediately practical” and “eminently usable”, who have called for the end of these “irrelevant studies” that “waste our time on fruitless” intellectual endeavors. These utilitarians are the modern day equivalent of the ancient slave owners. All considerations about the issue of what it means to be human are framed in terms of “man as worker” who is best educated when pragmatism governs the work week and consumption is the chief end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Not all the enemies of liberal learning are managers of middle class America. There are those in the Academy, who have been “educated” in modern day “wisdom” to have a posture of disdain toward the Great tradition. In fact, much of the attack begins there. We should recognize these enemies of the permanent things as anti-traditionalists. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I once had an exchange with an individual who claimed there was no great tradition or western intellectual heritage. I assured him that the Great Tradition is as real as Narnia and my birth city of Rochester, NY. All real in different ways, but real nonetheless. These are all places we can inhabit and that, in turn, inhabit us. Unfortunately, there are those who would state that since they have never been to Rochester or Narnia they do not exist. This is modern narcissistic folly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Much like Christianity in twenty-first century America, liberal learning has fallen to the wayside due more to sheer apathy than overt attacks. The masses care little about anything that happened fifteen minutes ago, let alone fifteen-hundred years ago. This apathetic posture has done tremendous damage. And the people in the academy have come to passionately embrace it. Instead of the good, the true, and the beautiful, one can now major in the relative, the mundane, and the insipid. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Possibly the worst enemy, both omnipresent in the academy, and pervasive throughout society, is an extraordinary level of ignorance about the Liberal Arts. Shortly after I received my PhD in Humanities, a well-intentioned but astonishingly ignorant fellow asked me in the most sincere tone, “Why would a Christian get a PhD in humanism since humanism is opposed to God?” After several minutes of trying to explain to him that I did not spend years pursuing a degree in Humanism, but in the Humanities, I yielded to him and said, “I’m not sure.” Willful ignorance trumps learning and persuasion almost every time. Within the academy, I gave up years ago trying to explain the value of the study of the Humanities to my colleagues in the "Hard and Social Sciences." As they have boldly declared in various ways, “we know how things really work in the world with the aid of our disciplines.” I have decided that there are certain treasures that ought not to be placed before certain critters where mud-like ignorance is the grime of their habitation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> There are things many humans desire toward a different end than merely knowing those things. Most college students now attend college, not to learn for the sake of learning, but to acquire the skills necessary for gainful employment. Times have indeed changed. Not many decades ago, the primary motivation for attaining a college education turned toward the immediate end of earning wages. Oddly, we are at a moment when many, if not most, graduate with neither.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> To paraphrase scripture, “what does it profit a person to go to college for four years?” It seems the answer now is to establish the beginning of twenty-five years of student loans and a certificate of achievement, still called a diploma. The sad fact is that the college diploma has become synonymous with the elementary school award, “Everyone Is A Winner.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In the best and highest sense, a liberal arts education is a liberation </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> something and </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> something. It is liberation from the kind of narrow training that restricts one to a single trade, or skill, and a myopic vision of all that is good, true, and beautiful. Humane learning is that which moves us toward a life of happiness beyond labor, feeding, and rest. When a human soul has been expanded and ennobled by liberal learning, he is able to recognize, and desires to embrace, that which makes him distinctly human. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A human who has reaped the full benefits of a liberal arts education knows how to recognize the true even when swimming in a sea of propaganda. He knows the good even in an age that humorously declares there is no good. The privileged human who has received that rarest of education will know and treasure the beautiful in an age of crass consumption.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Ideally, a liberal arts education, fully informed by Christian conviction, will make students unfit for the modern world. Much of our western world, shaped by the odd marriage of Enlightenment arrogance, Romantic consciousness, and Industrial consumerism is contrary to the virtues of those who inhabit the kingdom. While there are tensions and some inconsistencies intellectually within the Great Tradition, ones that Mortimer Adler argued should be forced to speak with one another so that the truth can be heard, there is much more of compliance, agreement, and derivation to be found here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Thinking Christianly about the liberal arts is not merely to giv</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: line-through; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">e</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> attention to the content, but is the very means of thinking about that content. In other words, in addition to what is analyzed, it is the process of analysis that was historically, thoroughly informed by the Christian faith. Within the history of the Christian intellectual tradition, the liberal arts have been appreciated first and foremost as pillars of wisdom and also as intrinsic goods gifted from God, even when discovered in Egypt and Babylon. The consensus among early Christian thinkers was that all truth is God’s truth and this remains consensus to this day among those who have learned from the one greater than Solomon. When faithfully adhered to, this conviction provides freedom.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A major contention of thinking Christianly about the liberal arts, implicit throughout the west until the Enlightenment, is that if the Liberal arts are to survive in a meaningful manner or even thrive with new and significant scholarship, it must be among Christians–unique communities, and institutions shaped by Christian conviction. While I know and trust that there are those old school Humanists still fighting the good fight, their days are numbered. I desire to be counted among a people who recognize the eternal value of this kind of education rooted in the permanent things. It is to those people I offer encouragement: you are not alone. There is hope and help from the great cloud of witnesses to the Great Tradition. We are strengthened and aided if we have but ears to hear and eyes to see.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: line-through; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-67963649043250696902013-08-28T06:34:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.517-08:00Reading Christopher Dawson in Religiously Hostile TimesSecularism and its offspring tolerance is selective in both its secularization and toleration. Christianity is the specific target for many. Not one jot or title will remain if some have their way.<br />
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They leave no stone unturned in their effort to overthrow.<br />
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One professor of Medieval history who declared to his class that he refused to even mention Thomas Aquinas becuase he was too Christian. So the class was exposed to all the efforst to dimantel Thomas withoout ever reading Thomas.<br />
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Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-15523017348863543992013-08-25T18:33:00.002-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.007-08:00Humanities As A Way of Knowing<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/tljOsDeSzsS386XZvFAQG9UUMPr8U4UQAwW4YWF5CBIr41AIyynD3GKj00iOasmnqG8HQipejyxQqUPdCKu6vPqjzEP1jZUB_6BKNPfeFlfpDgAY_6wwYoPLYQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/tljOsDeSzsS386XZvFAQG9UUMPr8U4UQAwW4YWF5CBIr41AIyynD3GKj00iOasmnqG8HQipejyxQqUPdCKu6vPqjzEP1jZUB_6BKNPfeFlfpDgAY_6wwYoPLYQ" width="256px;" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"> For years, I would begin my Introduction to Humanities course by trying to clear up some muddled ideas about the term Humanities. Of course, most of my students did not get the weightiness of the lecture. For them, Introduction to Humanities was merely a course in the core that was an academic requirement. In a most impassioned manner, the goal was to get the students to apprehend that the humanities was not really a discipline or set of disciplines, but a way of knowing. When fully embraced, the humanities could be a way of living and being. To provide a reference point of historical import, they would hear me implore, that "the humanities" more so than anything else they would experience at the university, would assist them in the plight to "know thyself," and if embraced as a way of knowing and understanding, would assist in the great good of seeking and obtaining wisdom. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Mortimer Adler, in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Guidebook to Learning</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> powerfully stated, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"The word 'humanities' should not be used, as it is now generally used in our universities and colleges, and even our high schools, to stand for particular set of subject matters. Rather it should be used as José Ortega y Gasset used it in his Revolt of the Masses, published in 1930. This is the book which so eloquently denigrates the barbarism of specialization in the twentieth century, the cultural malady that only the humanities, properly understood can alleviate." </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(87)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The modern academy, seems to have few, if any once esteemed professors of humane letters serving as the amiable generalist guide toward the good, the true, and the beautiful. So, the privileged medieval college faculty, in contract to the impoverished modern college faculty, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"might, therefore, have been more appropriately called the philosophical faculty or even, perhaps the faculty of the humanities or of humane letters. But once again we must guard against the current use of these terms by remembering that the Latin word "humanitas," translating the Greek word "paideia," signifies general as opposed to specialized learning. Thus understood, it includes all branches of learning, not just those that remain after we have named the various sciences, natural and social." </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(20, Adler)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Of course the university catalog, campus chatter, academic advisers and common misuse identifies the humanities as a cluster of disciplines. It has always been difficult when answering the question, "so what is a PhD in Humanities" or the most troubling, "what does one do with a Humanities degree?" Of recent years, I simply answer, "be more human" when asked about the utilitarian role of a humanities degree and "the most misunderstood and least lived education" to the question of what a PhD in Humanities actually is. Adler, assists again on these matters, but the question of being able to hear what is said seems more pressing today. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"The word "humanities" or the phrase "humanistic learning" should stand for a generalist approach to all departments of knowledge as against a specialist competence in this or that particular branch of knowledge. It is accordingly incorrect and misleading to identify the humanities with the branches or departments of knowledge that remain after the various natural and social sciences have been enumerated." </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(86)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Much has happened since Adler published these ideas twenty-seven years ago. My own students, having specialists in other departments who neither understand, nor care about such learning, and some who openly berate the impracticalities of the humanities, sway these students toward the mundane, imminently useful, and servile. Adler and other historians of education have observed, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"The faculty of arts represented general as opposed to specialized learning, and learning for its own sake rather than for its useful application to some field of practice or action. This faculty consisted of teachers who bore the title Master of Arts. The students they succeeded in initiating into the world of learning or certified as Bachelors of Arts."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (20)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The modern university characterized by the narcissistic consumerist smorgasbord approach to life and our general contemporary ethos fully shaped by the triumph of the therapeutic, offers less and less in terms of the permanent things and more and more in terms of the momentarily relevant. It really is difficult to imagine that, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"when universities came into being in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in Padua and Paris, in Oxford and Cambridge, the main divisions of learning were manifest in the four faculties that constituted them. One of these was the faculty of arts. The other three were the professional faculties of medicine, law, and theology." </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(19) Adler elaborates in a manner that shows another stark difference between the original university and its very different decedent. Even with the value attached to the older faculties of medicine, law, and theology, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"the latter, in the order named, corresponded to practical concerns of less and greater importance: the care of the body, the conduct of life and society, and the salvation of the soul. In referring to these three areas of concern as practical, I am calling attention to the fact that men who became doctors of medicine, of law, and theology were not only men of learning, but also the practitioners of learned professions."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (19, Adler) This loss has no doubt contributed to diminished loss of the presence of the fully educated and truly humane in medicine, law, and even theology.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In that opening lecture I aspired to provide a touch of history of select terms and give the philosophical roots to the liberal arts that could free, even today's students from a life of slavery spent spelunking in the cave of ignorance, trivialities, and the merely menial. Employing the best of ancient rhetoric the students would hear that the humanities, when truly encountered,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "signifies the general learning that should be in the possession of every human being – learning that embraces or includes all the ways of knowing...."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (86)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> As the semester moved along, some came to understand that their poor humanities professor was a wayfarer without a sense of place, including even in the very academy that used to foster such persons. More than once I confessed, and sometimes apologized (due to the moment) for being a generalist. In modern parlance, being a "jack of all trades, and ace of none" is an academic professional hazard. For these young people who had as their "reason for being" to become an expert or specialist in some trade that would get them a paycheck, the gap grew greater with every passing lecture. Even when informed of the value of the humanities and that, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"in the meaning of the word "humanities" or "humanistic" ...that preserves its original significance as it comes down to us from antiquity and the Middle Ages, any subject that is approached in the manner of the generalist belongs to the humanities or is humanistically approached. The subject that is studied in the manner of the specialist does not belong there,"</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (87) they seemed unimpressed.</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-66a4c864-e639-48a0-2256-8966d68a0041"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Adler, toward the end of his guidebook, observes, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"At the beginning of the century William James anticipated Ortega's insight. He pointed out that any subject can be seen in a humanistic light by being approached historically or philosophically." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(87) Neil Postman says nearly the exact same thing in his book </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and offers a prescription to remedy some of the ills facing modern education by suggesting that all disciplines should be approached historically </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> philosophically. It is most certainly true that this approach of history and philosophy of all disciplines would go toward correcting many of the perversions and distortions found whether it be in the field of astronomy, biology, through physics and zoology.</span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">_________________________________________________________________</span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All quotations taken from </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mortimer Adler's, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Guidebook to Learning.</span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-45335494346496740472013-08-20T07:51:00.002-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.110-08:00On Avoiding Intellectual SomnolenceOf course we all recognize that look. Sometimes it is comical. You are in a gathering of some sort and you look at another who has that droopy eyed<br />
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What is intellectual somnolence<br />
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Causes<br />
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Cures<br />
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Hope for recoveryMusings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-91994970052061316802013-08-18T11:48:00.003-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.594-08:00A Case for the Quaint: Mortimer Adler and The Great Ideas Program<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Studying and leading conversations on the Great Books for more than twenty years still produces that sense of awe and wonder, especially when I discover a new tool to aide in the exploration of wisdom. Unfortunately, this excitement is often curtailed when I engage many of those within the academy. Once, an educationist from our Education Department, with arms folded humphed at me the term "perennialist" which he meant pejoratively, but which I heard as praise. More than once, I have seen the term "quaint" applied to what we do in our Great Books based programs. Of course, the secularists and dehumanized masses deem these writings down right dangerous. It is the notion of being quaint that I seek to ponder for a bit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The term quaint, like perennialist, traditional, and related terms are often uttered with contempt today, but these terms have meaning that call for reconsideration. While quaint can be used in a dismissive manner, quaint can also mean attractively unusual or charmingly odd. Spending a bit more time with quaint, we discover that this word's history has good company and was associated with cunning, well-informed, knowledgeable, clever, elaborate, skillful and even old-fashioned but charming. With this in mind, I share with you, some parts of a quaint tool that accompanied The Great Ideas Program first published in 1959. Keep in mind that the booklet, <i>The Great Ideas Program Family Participation Plan for Reading the Great Books of the Western World</i>, was published in that same 1959. As I read this I kept thinking how far we have "progressed" regarding education and the family in the past fifty some years.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Entitled "A confidential memorandum" from Robert Hutchins to parents "regarding being educated by your children," the words in this "memorandum" are most assuredly quaint. <i>"Yours is a literate home because you are a literate people. And you are literate people not only because you read great books, but also because you are interested in great ideas. Literacy of course, involves far more than merely the ability to read and write. Many people are not literate, in the full sense of the word, who can read and write very well. The kind of literacy that means something, however, is the kind that produces intelligent thought and action. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> It is this kind of literacy that you want your children to have. Unfortunately, their chances of acquiring it in the school today are small and may become smaller if schools become more narrowly technical and vocational. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> Of course the <u>true vocation</u> of a man or woman should be the intelligent use of freedom, and, as a matter of fact, our survival depends upon this vocation. So does the happiness of each individual. It appears quite certain, then, that if your children are to be educated for freedom and its enjoyment, their education must be substantially aided and abetted by their parents. Remember, children <u>go</u> to school, but they <u>come back </u>home. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> This is one of the prime reasons for your ownership of <u>Great Books</u> and your enrollment in the Great Ideas Program. Certainly other sets of books are decorative, and you might have purchased them. But you didn't buy just books. Instead you bought a family home education program that will effectively help you to have a literate home environment for the care and formation of literate children. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> You may well think that you cannot educate your own children. My parents thought that they could not educate theirs, and I often think that I cannot educate mine. But parents can educate themselves, and children are always willing to help educate their parents. This Family Participation Plan tells you how to involve your children in <u>your </u>education. What you must remember is that your children cannot help to educate you without learning something themselves in the process. It may sound like an underhanded trick to play on your own flesh and blood, but the result will be an education for all concerned. This is the purpose of this Plan.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> </i>This first memorandum was followed by "a very confidential memorandum" to the children in this family, also from Robert Maynard Hutchins. <i>"This is a conspiracy to get you to do some reading and thinking. It is based on the assumption that you believe you don't like books, and this assumption is false. You may not like the books that you have been given to read. They are mostly textbooks, and often textbooks are not good books. As yet you probably haven't had a chance to learn how interesting good books can be.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> Your parents are now enrolled in the Great Ideas Program and are proud owners of the <u>Great Books</u> – the best books ever written. They have every intention of reading them. (They read some of them when they were your age, and one of the sure signs of a great book is that one who has read it wants to reread it.) The trouble is that your parents may insist that they have no time. You can help them by making them take time to read these books. Of course you must play a trick on them, for the way to help is to make <u>them</u> read and discuss the books with <u>you</u>. This is the kind of program that you will enjoy participating in, and these are the kind of books you will enjoy reading. Also, this Plan and its accompanying Personal Consultation Service will answer practically any questions your parents may ask that you can't answer. Don't be afraid to use the services. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> One thing is sure. These are readings that you will benefit from all the rest of your lives – just as young people have done for hundreds of years before you. These are not the easiest books you have ever read; but I can assure you that they are the most interesting.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> I know you're busy. But you will be even busier later on. Take my advice – don't wait. </i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> The teachers cannot make you wise – much as they would like to – because these books are seldom read in school. You will have to help yourself, and here is one chance to do so. The world is going to belong to you, but it is a hard world. You will need to know everything you can to get along and to understand at least some of it. Through this Plan and the Great Ideas Program, the wisdom of the world lies open to you – just waiting for you to tap it. I envy you.</i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> More than fifty years since these words circulated, we have advanced to the place of wide-spread ignorance--a level of mass educational trendiness that is stupefying. Of course the American family today is not sitting around reading the Great Books and discussing the Great ideas. Whatever family means today, if sitting around, it is likely absorbed in this season's sitcom. The need for what is quaint is strong in our common and ordinary day. The old-fashioned may indeed rescue us from our abyss of the drab, dull, cutting-edge, and up-to-date. </span></span></div>
</div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-82994099257634876452013-07-23T23:29:00.001-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.571-08:00Wisely Reading The Adages of Erasmus in Foolish Times<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Reading wisdom literature in any age is wise. Reading wise sayings in a foolish age will mark one quickly as a contrarian, but being wise where folly is as pervasive as oxygen is essential for survival. Of all the gifts that Desiderius Erasmus passed on to western civilization, his collection of adages, useful sayings, ranks among his least known, but most esteemed in his day. While not all adages are wise sayings, there is much wisdom in his labor. Even in Erasmus's day, Niccolo Sagundino, wrote about them, "I can hardly say what a sweet nectar as honey I sip from your delightful Adages, rich source of nectar as they are. What lovely flowers of every mind I gather thence like a honey-bee.... to their perusal I have devoted two hours a day."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The Adages can be enjoyed along with Erasmus's <i>Praise of Folly</i> and <i>Colloquies</i>. The work demonstrates the unique genius of this prince of the Christian humanists. It demonstrates his scholarship and imaginative wit as he reflects on a range of Greek and Roman sources. An additional value of the adages is that Erasmus often provides philosophical and religious insight with social and political commentary. It is stunning how relevant many of the adages are to our own time. Maybe it should not surprise us that this is true because human nature, being what it is, will produce scenarios where leaders and citizens are acting out the same comedy of errors as our human ancestors. Here are just a handful of the more than 4,000. </span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To drive out one nail with another (on how solving problems may occur when placed next to similar problems)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So many men, so many opinions (think "know it all pundits" and this one has modern application)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You write in water (before there was a Tweet, which gave new meaning to wasting time, this adage conveyed that very notion) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You are building on the sand (the call to seriously consider where we place our hope and confidence)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The blind leading the blind (take virtually any political issue and this proverb comes alive)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One swallow does not a summer make (a rousing call for character formation)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To exact tribute from the dead (before the "death tax," an indictment against usury and taxation)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Time reveals all things (offering hope that even the follies of our moment will one day be revealed)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Erasmus says that there are a number of things knowledge of proverbs provides but he highlights four things that knowledge of the adages may contribute to those who read and meditate on these maxims: "philosophy, persuasion, grace and charm in speaking, and understanding the best authors." To make the case that anyone seeking wisdom would indeed benefit from reading this work, here are just a few things that Erasmus says about two of the wisest words ever uttered, "Know Thyself" and "Nothing in Excess." In the various contexts of the phrase "know thyself," Erasmus infers this saying as a recommendation for "moderation and the middle state, and bids us not to pursue objects either too great for us or beneath us...to recognize our own blessings." Regarding "Nothing in Excess," Erasmus concludes that "there is nothing in the whole world in which one cannot go wrong by excess, except love of God, as Aristotle too admits in different words, putting wisdom in the place of God."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*All quotes taken from, The Adages of Erasmus Selected by William Barker. University of Toronto Press, 2001.</span><br />
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<br />Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-3240174087305533322013-07-20T20:45:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:40.964-08:00Wrecked Upon The Reef of Justice: The Most Relevant Oresteia by Aeschylus<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> I was talking with a friend a few days ago, and he asked me what I thought about a particular news story. He was surprised when I responded that I knew a good bit less than him, and he seemed even more surprised as I was describing with what he considered a high level of apathy. Despite my best efforts to persuade him that the most recent "news" event or political scandal about unlawful government actions toward its citizens, current wave of political or social propaganda, government sideshow, national media silliness, or Presidential diversion was far less engaging and meaningless than the extremely engaging and meaningful Oresteia by Aeschylus. So, I urge you as I urged my friend, make a conscious decision to be a liberated citizen and step away from the noise and the confining distortions of this particular moment, and be free to think about important issues in an equally important manner. I guaranteed him that reading the Great Books will give him a way to look at the distortions, perversions, and social atrocities with eyes that truly see and ears that clearly hear. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So, let me encourage you to read the Oresteia and make your way through these questions provided by Mortimer Adler.</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I. Aeschylus’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Agamemnon</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Choephoroe</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eumenides</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2a667b0f-ff37-139f-66d8-7e09adf96663"></span></span><br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Was justice done to Orestes?</span></span></div>
</li>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Did Orestes act justly?</span></span></div>
</li>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: square; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Was Orestes just in killing his mother, avenging his father, obeying the command of Apollo, and/or killing Aegisthus?</span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Did Clytaemnestra act justly?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Was Clytaemnestra just in killing her husband, revenging the death of her daughter Iphigenia, and/or being unfaithful to her husband?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Did Apollo act justly in urging Orestes to kill Clytaemnestra?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Did Athena act justly in casting her vote for Orestes?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Did the Furies act justly?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Were the Furies just in pursuing Orestes, in not pursuing Electra or Clytaemnestra after she killed her husband, and/or in resting satisfied with the judgment of the Athenian court, as the result of Athena’s persuasion and flattery?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What if you substitute the word “justly” for “lawfully”?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lex talionis</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the law of retribution and revenge, really a law?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is human law placed above divine law?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In terms of what law are you judging the justice of the verdict?</span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What do you think of the court procedure?</span></span></div>
</li>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Does the court follow the rules and customs that are used in British or American courts?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First of all, is the court duly constituted?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How can one decide what “duly constituted” would mean?</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is there any assurance that this was a fair jury?</span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is the existence of law a good or an evil?</span></span></div>
</li>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Are Agamemnon, Clytaemnestra, and Orestes better off because they live in a lawless condition, or anarchy?</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is there a sense in which men are freer in a civil society, with laws, than they are in a lawless condition?</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is that society best which has the most laws?</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Is the best society halfway between the extremes of anarchy and regulating everything by laws?</span></span></li>
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<br />Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-54823182827827807672013-07-06T18:51:00.001-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.150-08:00The Wisdom of Mortimer Adler on Tradition and Progress in Education<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Wise people seek to avoid excess in all areas of life, including education. The history of education is mired with the excesses of "isms." Adler says, "Progressivism has become as preposterous as classicism was arid." </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It has substituted information for understanding, and science for wisdom." (67) the trouble with most reforms is that they start out to remove flaws and end by throwing the good away with the bad." (67) The permanent studies, then, are those which cultivate humanity of each student by disciplining his reason, that power in him which distinguishes him from all other animals. Such discipline is accomplished by the Liberal arts, the arts of reading, writing, and reckoning – the three ours. And since wisdom does not change from generation to generation, or even from epoch to epoch the permanent studies include the funded wisdom of European culture as that reposes and it's great works, it's great books,</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-28664509042995859762013-07-06T14:37:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.049-08:00Mortimer Adler and James Schall on Education Sometimes having two authors who never conversed on the same topic do so can be most fruitful. I was wondering recently, what would happen if I interviewed Mortimer Adler and James Schall. While this is a completely fictitious interview, the content is what I would ask them and how they might answer based on select Adler and Schall writings....<br />
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In a place beyond time and space as we typically measure those sorts of things, I sat down with Dr. Mortimer Adler and Dr. James Schall to discuss learning and what it means to be educated.<br />
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Woods: gentlemen, I cannot thank you enough for your willingness to meet with me and discuss what I know is dear to all three of us, and that is the real meaning of education.<br />
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Adler: My pleasure.<br />
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Schall: Gladly<br />
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Woods: I have told people for as long as I have been teaching that I owe a great debt to both of you. In your writings I have been encouraged, instructed, and inspired to stay diligent to the life of the mind.<br />
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Schall: If you have given me, "trust, docility, effort, and thinking" then you have given me what you owe.<br />
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Adler: I do not want to begin with quibbling, but, "there are no teachers, only different degrees of learners" so I hope you have been a student of the highest degree.<br />
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Woods: This is already delightful!<br />
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<br />Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-62165404602711339012013-05-29T07:28:00.000-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.473-08:00The Whipping Boy for Conservative Education; On Being Partly Wrong About John Dewey<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> The book which more than any other has misled millions of American teachers and distorted American education is Dewey's <i>How We Think</i>, for it is concerned only with learning by discovery and the sort of thinking that there goes on....In so far, therefore, as I restrict myself to the basic education of youth</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> – </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">youth incompetent to discover anything by itself – I can say that there is no significant operation of thinking apart from such operations as reading and listening, writing and speaking, and there is no art of thinking other than the three liberal arts as arts of language or communication. (Mortimer J Adler, Reforming Education, 154)</span></span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-33696075719880542022013-05-08T11:24:00.002-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.064-08:00Religion and Culture: Christopher Dawson as Superlative Guide<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">There is a popular series of books entitled, "Eat This, Not That." The premise of the series is that of all the foods out there, some are healthier for you than others or some are not as unhealthy as others. We can classify this essay as a "Read This, Not That." With the growing number of published works by fundamentalist atheists, let me suggest when trying to think through the complex issues of religious reality and human cultures, one should read Christopher Dawson and not the venomously ill-informed works of those who seem driven primarily by profit and not generous, well informed scholarship.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Historically speaking, as a humane discipline, History and all of its variant emphases experienced decline when the mind of the modern inquirer into the past was clouded by the myopia of enlightenment consciousness of the 18th century. Those blinded by the narrow Enlightenment lens could feel little interest and no spiritual sympathy for transcendent reality and its religious manifestations. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Christopher Dawson had the unique ability to look at the fullest view of an era or time as being more than a mere continuation or break from the previous one, but was able to see it in relationship to a former cultural expression or one that would follow while discerning the uniqueness of a given culture.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It has been recounted that Christopher Dawson would at times spend, on average, an intense and uninterrupted five hours each day in his reading, writing, and research. There are also those who speak of Dawson having, at any given time, twenty some books open in front of him as he was making his way through the various material.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Distinct from the tendency of modernist social sciences to pervert and distort a social era by the reductionistic and mechanistic impulses of modernism inherited ideologies from the Enlightenment and Industrial revolutions, Dawson would rather use the analogy of a living organism to examine the way culture comes into being and the way cultures develop. With this in mind, this is why one will always encounter in the writings of Christopher Dawson the tendency to expand and integrate one aspect of the culture with another and not the atomistic fragmentation common today. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">While Christopher Dawson would frequently examine the specifics and particulars of history, it is clear that Dawson himself could be classified as a meta-historian. While this notion has come to be a great shame in the modern world of specialization, Dawson himself wanted to protect history from the dividing, subdividing, and even more narrow dividing specialist. Indeed Christopher Dawson is a historian who was able to see both the trees and the forest.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">In essence, it could be said that Christopher Dawson had an incarnational view of history. Dawson recognized that culture is embodied in religion, and that as such, you can understand a great deal about a culture by looking intently at the religion of that culture. It seems that Dawson recognized something that very few understand, including some Christian historians, and that is every culture has its roots, it's very foundation, in religious sensitivities and reality.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Among the many things that attracts those who would understand Western cultural history, Christopher Dawson was willing to look at and discuss issues of meaning and continuity throughout the ebb and flow of human history. Dawson saw this as being a key theme that he was willing to examine and that others frequently neglected.</span><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Christopher Dawson’s “style” as a historian was much more like that of one who would explore than who would analyze. Dawson was certainly not into selecting various polemical issues and making those the main issue. This is best represented in the way in which Christopher Dawson, a brilliant Catholic historian, spoke of the Protestant Reformation. He did not do so by having hammer pounding out the errors, flaws, and the unintended cultural consequences of the Reformation. There are even occasions where he spoke of the Reformation as a detached historian seeing some of the value that came to cultural change within the Reformation.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Dawson defended passionately against the various ways which academic disciplines bring unique insights into the human condition. And while he saw that different disciplines can assist other disciplines in their research, there should not be a gross territorial encroachment. One such case is how Dawson was influenced by the insights of sociology and anthropology, while not buying all the goods of these disciplines, he appreciated the value, but also questioned and refuted some ideas expounded by say Emile Durkheim. Durkheim believed that fundamentally religion was a projection toward a group of the deep human need to provide meaning for the individual. Dawson, a much more astute student of history and ancient cultures, saw that religion was not an inward movement, but was an outward movement toward the world and primarily a recognition of the spiritual reality that under-girds all of physical reality.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Dawson’s way of doing history does, in many ways, represent a transition from the perceived role of the discipline of history. He himself embodied what we often talk about in the nature of history and historical and cultural change. He learned well from the ways in which the social sciences could offer some assistance and understanding to intellectual history. His realization that historical eras, moments and people have a social context was ground breaking. In other words, not only do ideas have consequences, but ideas have embodiment in social institutions and cultural artifacts. Dawson was essentially, in the best sense of the term, an old-school humanist engaged in humane studies.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Where Dawson is most distinct from other historians, including cultural historians, is that he often is observant of both the religion and theology of a given time, as he examines the philosophy, economics, and the relationship between religion and culture. Additionally, it is not uncommon for Dawson to consider the science and literature of an era. With the aid of sociological insights, he examines the whole social working of that time.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The simple definition of culture within Dawson’s writings is that it culture requires a community of work, community of ideas, a community of place, and a community of kinship. All four of which will interact in mutually deepening ways in most healthy of societies. Additionally, each one acts on the other to shape them all in an organic manner. Essentially, culture is a fundamental social unity. Culture is a “tradition of knowing the way in which things are accumulated.” It is what modern sociologists recognize at the core of norms and folkways manifested in human artifacts and institutions. Of the cultural expressions, Dawson gave special attention to educational institutions.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Dawson wrote extensively about the interplay between religion and culture. Better stated, he examined the interdependence of religion and culture as a subject that is sorely absent from modern historians and cultural scholars. In truth and practice, with growing secularization comes increased disdain and hostility toward religious reality and social expressions. There is no need to look any further than the rhetorical expressions of a fundamentalist atheism.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">In addition to writing extensively about the interplay between religion and culture, Dawson was also intrigued and somewhat taken with the ways in which culture transitions from one movement to another or from being one thing into being something else.</span><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Whether analyzing ancient primitive cultures or the high culture of Christendom during the Carolingian renaissance, Christopher Dawson recognized the intricate and profound relationship between life and religion. Between the acts of worship associated with religious practices and the beliefs themselves that stem from religious practices and worship. As with all things, Dawson saw a keen connection that few others have noted. While most of Christendom (especially Protestants and even more so Evangelicals) focus solely on ideas (a rather gnostic impulse) there is much more to understanding society and culture than disembodied ideas. In a sense, Dawson was using the insights of the sociology of knowledge, found in Durkheim, before it became standard among cultural historians. Simply put, sociology of knowledge is the recognition that there is keen interplay between the way people think and the social context of that thinking, and the way such thinking influences that very same society. It is the recognition that the way of thinking is as important as what is being thought. Where many stress the particular ideas, this approach stresses the manifestations of these ideas in habits, actions, and institutions. One contemporary sociologist employing this tool noted that “the microwave generation cannot understand the virtue of patience.” The genius of this example is that it recognizes the technological ingenuity which produced a device in turn affects the daily habits of people. These same people do not realize how their new “instant” culture is counter to the habit of deliberative contemplation and the essential good of being hesitant before engaging in some actions.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Within the collected writings of Christopher Dawson, we see that the study of culture as a whole is the best plan of action yielding the greatest insights and the wisest conclusions. Any piecemeal approach will most assuredly end in distortions and perversions. Additionally, there is an intimate relationship between religion and social expressions clearly apprehended when ideological bias is replaced with open examination. Among the many stunning and counter-post Enlightenment assertions is that even the most “other-worldly” religions have a connection to culture and demonstrate a keen influence on culture and a strong shaping by culture.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">At it's very best relationship between religion and culture, culture can bear religious truths or culture can represent religious truths. The truth is that culture shapes religion and religion shapes culture. It would be worth the consideration to examine the religious in the most expressly non- or anti- religious cultures or social institutions. In other words, hints of religion may be present; think Peter Berger’s signals of transcendence or George Steiner’s wagers of transcendence.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">There are too numerous brilliant insights from Christopher Dawson to list. Constantly being exposed to keen observations or beneficial connections rank among the great pleasures of reading his writings. It is worth noting though that Dawson did recognize some patterns, and he was a sound observer of his own time. As we look to the writings of Dawson and our own moment we can learn one very important lesson. Totalitarian government, in any form, usually occurs when the momentum of the culture is in decline. In other words, the state becomes surrogate religion and source of all meaning when we see a decline in society as a whole.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Another insight that Dawson brings to the study of cultural history is the recognition that when one is looking at a civilization, say ancient Egyptian, Sumaria, or medieval Christendom, one is also looking at a culture in the fullest sense. While examining these civilizations (cultures) the astute reader can ask parallel questions of our own civilization (culture).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Dawson as a historian did what few others were able to do. He combined in the most intriguing manner the analytical and synthetic skills that are almost never found within the same intellectual figure. Again, on the Renaissance, one point that profoundly separated Dawson from other historians of his day and even of this day is that Dawson did not see the Renaissance as being primarily pagan or the seeds of secularized society. Rather, he saw that what occurred in the Renaissance was a continuing influence of the Christian faith from its inception through and beyond the Renaissance.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">There are numerous examples of the interplay between religious convictions and earthly engagement, but possibly none more impressive in the west than the learned, religious, and cultural men of the Renaissance. For Dawson, it was their connectedness with the temporal order, their Christian heritage, and their tacit awareness of their cultural and intellectual heritage that led to a rebirth of a new spiritual culture called the Renaissance. Here it is helpful to remember that Jarslov Pelikan observed how the very notion of rebirth among numerous Renaissance authors, has its fountain in the rebirth mentioned in John chapter three. Dawson, more so than most, saw that the Renaissance never would have occurred had it not been for the profoundly spiritual Carolingian Renaissance.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; display: inline;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Long before the theory of secularization became an item where entire volumes were dedicated, Christopher Dawson recognized the process of secularization as being one where anyone could observe the diminishing influence of the Christian faith on social institutions, particularly educational institutions and that this shaping force has been in decline as Western civilization “progresses” to our collapse.</span></span>Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-53525355387534573712013-04-11T19:04:00.004-07:002024-01-14T14:25:41.129-08:00Sam Harris, Foolish Beliefs, and The Great Books<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It has long been argued by readers of the Great Books that the reading, studying, and knowing of said Great Books can actually inoculate one from foolishness. When people speak in a novel or trendy way about the "dangerous ideas" of Sam Harris, those who have read the Great Books know that they are more foolish than dangerous. Foolish for a few reasons. These ideas are not new, they are not reasonable, and they are not provable. Harris has argued in more than one of his books that if an idea is not reasonable and not provable, then it should be rejected. He is Orwellian in his push to change the meaning of words, and merely affirm without arguing. He seems to be extremely confused on this same point many fundamentalists get wrong. To simply state something does not make it so. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> So how can reading the Great Books protect us from the foolish beliefs of Sam Harris? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">First and foremost, there is the stark reality that there is nothing new under the sun. <span style="background-color: white;">For those of us who had read the ancient Great Books, and the previously well articulated various forms of the determinism-freewill debate, Harris represents contemporary expressions of silly old ideas already refuted. T</span>hese issues are explored in the book of Ecclesiastes, and writings of Cleanthes, Zeno, Chrysippus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. All of these issues and arguments (minus post Enlightenment dogmatic scientism) more artfully argued, and with greater respect, generally, of divine reality. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> One of the greatest joys I have had for more than a decade reading and leading discussions on the Great Books is when a student says, "wow, I thought this was a modern idea, but this guy thought of this 3,000 years ago." That is when I usually joke that most scholars with "new insights" are usually unethical or ignorant plagiarist. Mr. Harris is certainly committing plagiarism and it is yet to be determined if he is ignorant, unethical or both. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> The Great Books also help us avoid the logical fallacy of reductionism. Taking something as complex as the issue of human freewill and reducing it to electrical chemical and environmental interactions is not a dangerous idea, it is silly reductionism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Instead of spending ten minutes with Mr. Harris (unless you have to), I would encourage you to spend several hours with Mortimer Adler's <i>The Idea of Freedom</i>. There is a great deal more intellectual humility in this work that is both encyclopedic in scope and philosophically informed in depth. B<span style="background-color: white;">oth of these qualities are seriously lacking in Harris's tiny treatise on the indefensible assertion that freewill is an illusion. There are key qualities that separate these two works in a most telling manner. Adler's volume is a thick, deep, and richly informed read, shaped by the great conversation. Harris's is different. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> So, I freely suggest that you freely read the Great Books, which address the heavy debate about the realities of freewill and various determinisms freely read Adler's masterpiece which takes serious those brilliant authors who took this issues very seriously, and then freely read Harris's diminutive volume and freely draw your own conclusion about human freewill, but only if you want to.</span><br />
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Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7294638704762524539.post-44273347551076514882013-03-07T17:46:00.002-08:002024-01-14T14:25:41.097-08:00Andrew Klavan's Crazy Dangerous and The Moral Imagination<div dir="ltr">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> There are those lovers of Great Books who would speak so well of the fine, beautiful and good letters, that they implicitly denounce common letters. I am not in that camp. I still remember my sweet, dear grandmother Lila, giving me money from her tips where she worked at a local restaurant, so I could buy the most recent edition of Spiderman, Thor, or Daredevil comics. For a number of years of my youth, that was all I read, but read hundreds of comic books, I did.<br />
If I were teenager today, I would hope that I had a family member who would encourage me to read the young adult fiction of novelist Andrew Klavan. Why? Beyond being true page turners, they are peopled with characters who are often driven by a keen and accurate moral purpose. Sam Hopkins, while flawed in his youthful misdirected desire to be accepted, has a turning point where not only does he do the right thing, he does lots of little things that are right. Popular works that ultimately are morality tales can help shape the moral imagination of the readers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> One could defend the YA fiction of Andrew Klavan on the same ground that G.K. Chesterton defended the penny dreadful. Chesterton noted this key point about the penny dreadful, "It is always on the side of life." That is why lovers of Great Books can love good books that are so "on the side of life " When young Sam comes to the conviction that he must, "Do Right. Fear Nothing" he is on the side of life. When Sam defends "mentally disturbed" Jennifer, he is on the side of life. When Sam, aided by "mentally challenged" Jennifer, realizes that the bully thug and the most popular jock in the school are essentially the same, he is on the side of life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Similar to some of Klavan's adult fiction, there is a this world--other world blending and blurring of lines that in the subtlest of ways is reminiscent of Russell Kirk's ghost stories or Charles Williams's spiritual thrillers. Klavan is a master of the psychological thriller. This is a powerful and thoroughly sympathetic portrayal of a person struggling with hallucinations. In an insightful manner, Klavan demonstrates that even a person suffering from schizophrenia may not be completely broken from reality and how not all mental illnesses are the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Among the key points of redemption within this work is the poignant way Klavan depicts the power and magic of real friendship and how God uses friendship to manifest His presence as God protects and assists us through others. Klavan does not seem to set out to write morality tales, but when people aspire to do the right things, in the right manner, toward the right ends, spiritual fables unfold.</span></div>
Musings of a Christian Humanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03886230117171886507noreply@blogger.com