Musings of a Christian Humanist

     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.      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 Home Economics and it was also recently released by the Trinity Forum  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 ins...

     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, The Conservative Mind , 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.      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.  No dou...

" 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. " Stringfellow  Barr      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' The History of the Peloponnesian Wars . 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.      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 orde...

Note to reader: 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. Robert Woods: It is always a joy to converse with you and I appreciate your time, as I know you are busy. Michael Desiderius: I use to be busy, when I was teaching, now I finally know leisure. RW: Well, I thought we would have a few moments before you took a dig at the university. MD: I'm sorry. Let me begin again....

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: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?   - Tertullian “What has Ingeld to do with Christ”? -Alcuin (when catching some monks reading Beowulf) What has Horace to do with the Psalter? Or Virgil with the Gospel? Or Cicero the Apostle? - Jerome        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...

      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.     Mortimer Adler, in A Guidebook to Learning powerfully...

     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."      The Adages can be enjoyed along with Erasmus's Praise of Folly and Colloquies . The work demonstrates the unique genius of this prince of the Christian humanists. It demonstrates his scholarship and i...

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."  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,

    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.       So how can reading the Great Books protect us from the foolish beliefs of Sam Harris?  First and foremost, there is the stark reality that there is nothing new und...

     A colleague in our Great Books program shared an article with me me over the recent Christmas break, and as I was buried in reading some of the Great Books and a few seasonal works, I was hard pressed to read this article. The article was published in First Things and entitled, Against Great Books Questioning Our Approach to the Western Canon . When I finally did get a chance to read it, I found several points of merit, a few points that I simply disagreed with and one common error with such arguments, but it is a major and recurring error when some address the Great Books.     The Great Books may be a source of their own undoing (inherent contradictions across the canon). On the first point of agreement (which is also ultimately the main problem in the argument), I do agree that when read together there becomes a babel-like clamoring calling for assent to a particular truth and sometimes simultaneously calling for...

      My habit was this--wake up, make breakfast with my wife, and as she was going to work, I would read the day's headlines from the "news," and we would talk about it over the phone. Over recent months, especially the last several days, I felt like I was reading more news, and watching more news, and getting dumber as I slipped into a greater ennui.     So taking a partial cue from Walker Percy's Dr. Thomas More in Love in the Ruins who gathered "cases of Early Times and Swiss Colony sherry . . . [and] the Great Books" for what More felt might be the end of the world, I plan on a modified version of this activity. Minus the Early Times, Swiss Colony, and staying at a Howard Johnson's, but certainly with a mega dose of the Great Books, a resolution has occurred.     Some additional motivation comes from remembering a Neil Postman book I had read some years ago. Going back and looking at that marked up book, I was ashamed how much I had f...

     Finally, after years of planning and a great deal of hard (mental) work, the PhD that is profoundly grounded in the Great Books is here. It was a dream I had about five years ago to offer a fully accredited Great Books based PhD. Originally the degree was to be a DLitt, but with some possible confusion out there, the degree was slightly altered to conform to the requirements of a PhD.      We received word late afternoon on Oct. 29th. We have everything in place and will be taking applications immediately. With already more than 100 people having seriously inquired about the program for the past year, we anticipate admitting the top forty-five. A candidate can opt to concentrate in History, Literature, Philosophy, or aspire to be a generalist in the Liberal Arts. The tutorials are ideal for in-depth research in an era, person, idea, or select writings.       This PhD is literally o...

      "His was no Enlightenment mind, Kirk now became aware; it was a Gothic mind, medieval in its temper and structure.                         Russell Kirk, The Sword of Imagination , 68      As J.R.R. Tolkien assisted many with his most informative essay, On Fairy Stories , Russell Kirk provides a short, but helpful primer into the genre of "ghost stories." Now, of course, reading the essay, "A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale," the reader realizes that "ghost stories" are not merely about "ghosts" just as "fairy-tales" are not merely about "fairies."      As with G.K. Chesterton's assertion in his "Ethics of Elfland," fairytales are inherently moral as they reflect a universe of moral order and consequences when good is dismissed and evil embraced. Russell Kirk writing of his own ghost stories says, " What I have attempted, rather, are experiments in the moral imaginatio...

     Among the many words penned or spoken by the late and truly great Jacques Barzun, my favorite came in an interview where he gave his defense and definition of a Liberal Arts education. In truth, Barzun's words stand as a refutation to all who would pervert the Liberal Arts and all who would strive to extinguish the Liberal Arts. Cultural historian Jacques Barzun, in an interview with Charlie Rose (May 29, 2000), addressed the question of the value of a liberal arts education that is specifically grounded in the Great Books and the Great Tradition of the West. Barzun responded as follows:     Properly taught, and learned—acquired—a liberal education awakens and keeps alive the imagination. By the imagination, I don’t mean fanciful things, but I mean the capacity to see beyond the end of your nose and beyond the object in front you. That is to see its implications, its origins, its potential, its danger, its charm. All the things ...

      Clement calls for his readers to meet Jesus as the “Word” and “Educator” that “forcibly” compels people from the “worldly way of life and educates them to the only true salvation: faith in God.”   The Educator is the one “who leads the way” to “improve the soul” not just in knowledge but to guide in virtue.  The Educator does not focus solely on knowledge, but leads his “children” toward a life of virtue.  The “Word” perfects his disciples “in a way that leads progressively to salvation” through persuasion, education, and lastly, through teaching.  The teaching of the Educator “educates” people in the “fear of God,” i nstructs in “the service of God” and provides “knowledge of truth” toward living the virtuous life which ensures salvation.       For Clement, “The education that God gives is the imparting of the truth that will guide us correctly to the contemplation of God, and a description of holy deeds that ...