From a review of de Jouvenal's book, On Power: It's Nature and the History of Its Growth, by Jude P. Dougherty:
"One of the pitfalls of democracy is its lack of accountability. The popular will is easily manipulated. It recognizes no authority outside itself that possesses the strength to limit its excesses."
"The kings of old, the personification of power, were possessed of personality, possessed of passions good and bad. More often than not, their sense of responsibility led them to will 'the good' for their people. Power within a democracy, by contrast, resides in a faceless and impersonal bureaucracy that claims to have no existence of its own and becomes the anonymous, impersonal, passionless instrument of what is presumed to be the general will."
"Writing in France when the Roosevelt administration was barely 10 years old, de Jouvenal feared the long range danger posed by the many regulatory commissions created by that administration. He saw that agencies possessing at once legislative, executive, and judicial control could operate largely outside of public control and become tyrannical."
I thought of this this when I read that the PBS Board of Directors recently decided that no new religioius programming would be allowed on the "public" airways. It grandfathered in existing religious programming, like Mass For Shut-ins in various locations, but will not allow new overtly religious programming in its outlets. Its justification is that when it comes to religion, there's no pleasing anyone.
For more, see Fr. Barron's recent column and his argument that since PBS allows overtly anti-religious programming, its new position is unfair.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
This from the Wall Street Journal on June 26, 2009:
One response is that reason itself is a reflection of God's presence and guiding hand. Where could the "reasonable" come from?
Another is that science as a methodology is limited to evaluating material causes, and thus never gets to God because God is outside nature and his workings are utterly beyond our comprehension. Humility about human reason's ability to comprehend God seems eminently reasonable.
Yet another is that science is just one example of man's concerns, to which he applies his reason, if he can. Other, more important concerns about birth and death, right and wrong, justice and injustice, suffering and mercy, and all of the immensely important imponderables, are not amenable to determination by science, because they are not material. Perhaps they may not be penetrated by human reason at all. Yet these concerns are the most important we face as humans.
In this regard, I read this recently by Edwin O'Connor, a Catholic novelist, in The Edge of Sadness (p 128 - 129). (The narrator is a Catholic priest, and in this passage talks about the death of his father. The novel was published in 1961.)
"And so my father died. All through his illness I had said my Mass for him each morning; every day and every night I had prayed that he might be allowed either the miracle of recovery or the blessing of a happy death. These prayers were not answered. My father did not recover, and he died witless and in pain. Any why this should have been I have no idea at all. He was a very good man who had lived a very good life -- yet he died a very cruel death. This is the hardest sort of thing to accept; for some, it's impossible. Because here is the old, baffling problem which has always been with us and will be until the end of time: the problem of reconciling pain and suffering with an omnipotent and merciful God. There are all sorts of answers suggested to this problem, most of which are as old as the problem itself; some oare foolish, others are as reasonable as the mind of man could possibly devise. But here it seems to me we deal with something reason cannot reach, and with that part of man which reason does not touch, for when someone stands fixed and helpless before another's suffering -- especially in those cases when those who suffer are plainly innocent of any guilt -- then the cool like of reason may not be of much help. A syllogism does not support a mother who has seen her baby burned. And here, I think, faith comes in. I myself believe there is no such thing as purposeless pain or suffering, though I must confess that for much of it I can see no purpose at all. But the point is that if one accepts God, one accepts Him totally, accepts what He does and what He permits. One accepts it, but one does not necessarily understand it. Surely it's a question of vision, for as we are, we can see, but only to the corner; we cannot begin to see the whole design. . . "
Kraus' view of science seems imperialistic in that he places science in the driver's seat and places "faith" in the realm of darkness and superstition. It sounds like scientism, which holds that science is the only way that reality can be grasped rationally. But we know that science can build bombs but not keep them from being used. Only a different kind of wisdom can solve the human dilemmas we face.
I also find no basis for Kraus' claim that all "religious dogma" is essentially the same, and that Christian beliefs are essentially no different than the extreme Islamic beliefs of the Iranian state's mullahs. It should be obvious to all except the most prejudiced that religious beliefs are not identical. We may think our beliefs are right, but reason also tells us that opposing views cannot both be right. Both can be wrong, and one can be right.
If it only were so easy as Kraus suggests.
By Laurence Krauss, a cosmologist, is director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. His most recent book is "Hiding in the Mirror" (Viking, 2005).
"Messrs. Harris and Dawkins are simply being honest when they point out the inconsistency of belief in an activist god with modern science.
"J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionary biologist and a founder of population genetics, understood that science is by necessity an atheistic discipline. As Haldane so aptly described it, one cannot proceed with the process of scientific discovery if one assumes a "god, angel, or devil" will interfere with one's experiments. God is, of necessity, irrelevant in science.
"Faced with the remarkable success of science to explain the workings of the physical world, many, indeed probably most, scientists understandably react as Haldane did. Namely, they extrapolate the atheism of science to a more general atheism.
"While such a leap may not be unimpeachable it is certainly rational, as Mr. McGinn pointed out at the World Science Festival. Though the scientific process may be compatible with the vague idea of some relaxed deity who merely established the universe and let it proceed from there, it is in fact rationally incompatible with the detailed tenets of most of the world's organized religions. As Sam Harris recently wrote in a letter responding to the Nature editorial that called him an "atheist absolutist," a "reconciliation between science and Christianity would mean squaring physics, chemistry, biology, and a basic understanding of probabilistic reasoning with a raft of patently ridiculous, Iron Age convictions."
"When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.
"Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Moreover, the true believers in each of these faiths are atheists regarding the specific sacred tenets of all other faiths. Christianity rejects the proposition that the Quran contains the infallible words of the creator of the universe. Muslims and Jews reject the divinity of Jesus.
"So while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God, and thus to conclude that claimed miracles like the virgin birth are incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature.
"Finally, it is worth pointing out that these issues are not purely academic. The current crisis in Iran has laid bare the striking inconsistency between a world built on reason and a world built on religious dogma.
"Perhaps the most important contribution an honest assessment of the incompatibility between science and religious doctrine can provide is to make it starkly clear that in human affairs -- as well as in the rest of the physical world -- reason is the better guide."
How does one respond to a position like this?One response is that reason itself is a reflection of God's presence and guiding hand. Where could the "reasonable" come from?
Another is that science as a methodology is limited to evaluating material causes, and thus never gets to God because God is outside nature and his workings are utterly beyond our comprehension. Humility about human reason's ability to comprehend God seems eminently reasonable.
Yet another is that science is just one example of man's concerns, to which he applies his reason, if he can. Other, more important concerns about birth and death, right and wrong, justice and injustice, suffering and mercy, and all of the immensely important imponderables, are not amenable to determination by science, because they are not material. Perhaps they may not be penetrated by human reason at all. Yet these concerns are the most important we face as humans.
In this regard, I read this recently by Edwin O'Connor, a Catholic novelist, in The Edge of Sadness (p 128 - 129). (The narrator is a Catholic priest, and in this passage talks about the death of his father. The novel was published in 1961.)
"And so my father died. All through his illness I had said my Mass for him each morning; every day and every night I had prayed that he might be allowed either the miracle of recovery or the blessing of a happy death. These prayers were not answered. My father did not recover, and he died witless and in pain. Any why this should have been I have no idea at all. He was a very good man who had lived a very good life -- yet he died a very cruel death. This is the hardest sort of thing to accept; for some, it's impossible. Because here is the old, baffling problem which has always been with us and will be until the end of time: the problem of reconciling pain and suffering with an omnipotent and merciful God. There are all sorts of answers suggested to this problem, most of which are as old as the problem itself; some oare foolish, others are as reasonable as the mind of man could possibly devise. But here it seems to me we deal with something reason cannot reach, and with that part of man which reason does not touch, for when someone stands fixed and helpless before another's suffering -- especially in those cases when those who suffer are plainly innocent of any guilt -- then the cool like of reason may not be of much help. A syllogism does not support a mother who has seen her baby burned. And here, I think, faith comes in. I myself believe there is no such thing as purposeless pain or suffering, though I must confess that for much of it I can see no purpose at all. But the point is that if one accepts God, one accepts Him totally, accepts what He does and what He permits. One accepts it, but one does not necessarily understand it. Surely it's a question of vision, for as we are, we can see, but only to the corner; we cannot begin to see the whole design. . . "
Kraus' view of science seems imperialistic in that he places science in the driver's seat and places "faith" in the realm of darkness and superstition. It sounds like scientism, which holds that science is the only way that reality can be grasped rationally. But we know that science can build bombs but not keep them from being used. Only a different kind of wisdom can solve the human dilemmas we face.
I also find no basis for Kraus' claim that all "religious dogma" is essentially the same, and that Christian beliefs are essentially no different than the extreme Islamic beliefs of the Iranian state's mullahs. It should be obvious to all except the most prejudiced that religious beliefs are not identical. We may think our beliefs are right, but reason also tells us that opposing views cannot both be right. Both can be wrong, and one can be right.
If it only were so easy as Kraus suggests.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
"84 Charing Cross Road"
This 1987 film depicts the post-WWII correspondence between a Jewish NY script writer interested in British literature and a London bookseller operating from the address that is the title of the movie. It shows how two unlikely aficionados of antiquarian books strike up a warm-hearted correspondence and the inner and outer life they share as a result. I heartily recommend the movie, which you can get at the library.
One scene in the film shows Joan Bancroft, who plays the Jewish scriptwriter, carefully cradling and caressing a leather bound volume, with pages trimmed in gold, as she ponders its heft, its richness and beauty, and its history and contents.
This is how beauty is to be appreciated, as I read recently in an article about Iris Murdoch's views on art, which reflected Simone Weil's views as well. The article states, "learning to appreciate beauty is a matter of learning to attend properly to beautiful things, which means learning to contemplate both their integrity or unity, their independent reality, and often learning to contemplate the aspects of reality to which they direct us by their truthful representation of the world."
The author of the article goes on to say, "[t]he thought of Simone Weil behind this . . . is that to recognise an object as beautiful is to refrain from consuming it, to want it not to change; the experience of the beautiful thus places a check on the ego's desire to ingest reality, to project its own fantasies and desires upon the world in which it finds itself. It works to disrupt the self's addiction to illusion and its refusal to accept reality as it truly is, and thereby purifies our consciousness."
The author states that this "orientation to the truth" requires the discipline of truthfulness, a transcending of egotism, "a deepening capacity to place the self properly in the world, which can only be done by recognising the reality and value of that which is not the self." This, says Murdoch, is a "spiritual pilgrimmage (transformation-renewal-salvation)."
This transformation, the author says, is at the "centre and essence of morality." "The essentially egoistic energies that permeate and generate the texture of the self's everyday inner life . . . can be transformed only by transforming their orientation; they must be re-directed, away from the ego and its interests and toward that which is not the ego. The broadest characterization of the various techniques by which this transformation can be effected is that of attending to particulars: we must either attune our consciousness to its objects, or (if we fail) those objects will be attuned to one's consciousness, to its fantasies and distortions, for on Murdoch's account, the reality of our world is determined, the facts are set up as such, by the morally inflected discriminations of our consciousness. In this sense, every subject has the objects it deserves."
In other words, the subjective willingness to let things (and persons) be what they are, an attitude called truthfulness (and respect), is what permits the world (and persons) to be experienced as they truly are. The enjoyment of beauty is the fruit of that attitude since goodness and beauty are garmets of the true. Responsibility for truthfulness is at the core of human morality, and requires self-mastery and renunciation. Says the author, truthfulness "often feels like deprivation, since it demands that we deprive ourselves of consoling pictures of reality in favor of ones less gratifying to our egos."
A religious dimension in the discipline of truthfulness isn't hard to detect. Conversion is the same process of turning away from (ego-induced) falsehood to the truth. The pain suffered from this conversion ushers us into the temple of truth, with its sacred beauty and goodness, experienced in joy, together with the silent, transcendental Being that is its inhabitant, source and foundation. Thus appropos is another comment of Simone Weil: "All art of the highest order is religious in essence."
Stephen Mulhall, "Misplacing freedom, displacing the imagination," p. 258-260 in Philosophy, the Good, the True and the Beautiful, Ed. Anthony O'Hear (Cambridge University, 2000). The references to Simone Weil are to Gravity and Grace, pp. 137.
One scene in the film shows Joan Bancroft, who plays the Jewish scriptwriter, carefully cradling and caressing a leather bound volume, with pages trimmed in gold, as she ponders its heft, its richness and beauty, and its history and contents.
This is how beauty is to be appreciated, as I read recently in an article about Iris Murdoch's views on art, which reflected Simone Weil's views as well. The article states, "learning to appreciate beauty is a matter of learning to attend properly to beautiful things, which means learning to contemplate both their integrity or unity, their independent reality, and often learning to contemplate the aspects of reality to which they direct us by their truthful representation of the world."
The author of the article goes on to say, "[t]he thought of Simone Weil behind this . . . is that to recognise an object as beautiful is to refrain from consuming it, to want it not to change; the experience of the beautiful thus places a check on the ego's desire to ingest reality, to project its own fantasies and desires upon the world in which it finds itself. It works to disrupt the self's addiction to illusion and its refusal to accept reality as it truly is, and thereby purifies our consciousness."
The author states that this "orientation to the truth" requires the discipline of truthfulness, a transcending of egotism, "a deepening capacity to place the self properly in the world, which can only be done by recognising the reality and value of that which is not the self." This, says Murdoch, is a "spiritual pilgrimmage (transformation-renewal-salvation)."
This transformation, the author says, is at the "centre and essence of morality." "The essentially egoistic energies that permeate and generate the texture of the self's everyday inner life . . . can be transformed only by transforming their orientation; they must be re-directed, away from the ego and its interests and toward that which is not the ego. The broadest characterization of the various techniques by which this transformation can be effected is that of attending to particulars: we must either attune our consciousness to its objects, or (if we fail) those objects will be attuned to one's consciousness, to its fantasies and distortions, for on Murdoch's account, the reality of our world is determined, the facts are set up as such, by the morally inflected discriminations of our consciousness. In this sense, every subject has the objects it deserves."
In other words, the subjective willingness to let things (and persons) be what they are, an attitude called truthfulness (and respect), is what permits the world (and persons) to be experienced as they truly are. The enjoyment of beauty is the fruit of that attitude since goodness and beauty are garmets of the true. Responsibility for truthfulness is at the core of human morality, and requires self-mastery and renunciation. Says the author, truthfulness "often feels like deprivation, since it demands that we deprive ourselves of consoling pictures of reality in favor of ones less gratifying to our egos."
A religious dimension in the discipline of truthfulness isn't hard to detect. Conversion is the same process of turning away from (ego-induced) falsehood to the truth. The pain suffered from this conversion ushers us into the temple of truth, with its sacred beauty and goodness, experienced in joy, together with the silent, transcendental Being that is its inhabitant, source and foundation. Thus appropos is another comment of Simone Weil: "All art of the highest order is religious in essence."
Stephen Mulhall, "Misplacing freedom, displacing the imagination," p. 258-260 in Philosophy, the Good, the True and the Beautiful, Ed. Anthony O'Hear (Cambridge University, 2000). The references to Simone Weil are to Gravity and Grace, pp. 137.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Therese of Lisieux, Theology and Love
I read a review on the First Things website of a new biography of St. Therese that, while the reviewer was appreciative of the author's fleshing out of the setting of 19th century French Catholicism, he was a bit critical of the author's approach to Therese's spirituality. The last three paragraphs of the review are what struck me:
The proper images for understanding Little Thérèse are not those of modern theology, which tends to promote unfortunate and untenable dichotomies between official church teachings and a living faith, or, as Nevin put it, between “the historical complex of creeds, council statements, theologies, and decrees,” which he suggests “fade before a radical intimacy with Jesus.”
Instead, if we attend to her writings, we see that Thérèse suggests an illuminative rather than critical method. Thérèse takes church teaching about heaven and hell, sin and grace, Christology and ecclesiology and puts them into strikingly fresh forms. She is not critiquing the male priesthood when she imagines her priestly vocation; she is helping us see the universal priesthood of all believers. She is not denying the existence of hell; she is testifying to the omnipotent power of divine love. The truths of the faith are servant truths—they serve the Truth of Christ. They do not fade or fall away. Instead, when used properly, they become ever more luminous with the light of Christ.
As John Paul II observed when he announced Thérèse as a doctor of the church, her radical awareness of her spiritual childhood teaches a fundamental truth. The breath of Christ’s love fans even the smallest spark of desire for him in our hearts. It’s something we all need to hear. But Thérèse also has a lesson for theologians. We should beware the modern tendency to explain the dry limitations we so often feel in the official language of church teaching with easy dichotomies between spirit and letter. The problem is not in the obvious fact that a creed or a council decree is not the living Word of God. As Thérèse’s “little way” suggests, the dryness comes from the poverty of our love.
I thought this was an excellent reminder when we too often try to pit the Church and her teachings against "faith", or organized religion against spirituality.
The proper images for understanding Little Thérèse are not those of modern theology, which tends to promote unfortunate and untenable dichotomies between official church teachings and a living faith, or, as Nevin put it, between “the historical complex of creeds, council statements, theologies, and decrees,” which he suggests “fade before a radical intimacy with Jesus.”
Instead, if we attend to her writings, we see that Thérèse suggests an illuminative rather than critical method. Thérèse takes church teaching about heaven and hell, sin and grace, Christology and ecclesiology and puts them into strikingly fresh forms. She is not critiquing the male priesthood when she imagines her priestly vocation; she is helping us see the universal priesthood of all believers. She is not denying the existence of hell; she is testifying to the omnipotent power of divine love. The truths of the faith are servant truths—they serve the Truth of Christ. They do not fade or fall away. Instead, when used properly, they become ever more luminous with the light of Christ.
As John Paul II observed when he announced Thérèse as a doctor of the church, her radical awareness of her spiritual childhood teaches a fundamental truth. The breath of Christ’s love fans even the smallest spark of desire for him in our hearts. It’s something we all need to hear. But Thérèse also has a lesson for theologians. We should beware the modern tendency to explain the dry limitations we so often feel in the official language of church teaching with easy dichotomies between spirit and letter. The problem is not in the obvious fact that a creed or a council decree is not the living Word of God. As Thérèse’s “little way” suggests, the dryness comes from the poverty of our love.
I thought this was an excellent reminder when we too often try to pit the Church and her teachings against "faith", or organized religion against spirituality.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Easter Hope
I went to the Confirmation Mass tonight. I went to see some of my kids confirmed; kids in the flock that I've had the good fortune to be able to share my faith with for the past two years. The following reading was given by one of the confirmandi, Katherine Janoski. I know Katherine, not very well, but, well enough to be assured that the passing on of our faith is in good hands.
The first reading, though, is one that has always imbued me with a profound sense of family. Of being part of a family lead by someone who loves me and wants me, someone who is willing to look past my transgressions and in spite of them hugs me and pulls me to his bosom.
From Ezekiel Chapter 36,
24 For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. 28 You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
He has made us his own. Does not that invoke in you that feeling of safety and comfort you felt as a child when pulled into your mother's bosom, all insecurities vanished, the pain went away, and all fears receded to nothingness. What an awesome God we have. How greatly he elevates us despite our unworthiness.
What a great message for our confirmandi! Perhaps, as those who have been born into a loving family, as those who have always been approached as having an innate sense of self-worth, the message of Ezekiel does not hold much impact. But, for those of us who have accumulated experiences that show how alone we can be and how much our own destructive inclinations can pull us away from God, we can see and feel in these words a deeper meaning and a great comfort.
What an awesome God we have! I see it in his mercy and I see it in our children.
The first reading, though, is one that has always imbued me with a profound sense of family. Of being part of a family lead by someone who loves me and wants me, someone who is willing to look past my transgressions and in spite of them hugs me and pulls me to his bosom.
From Ezekiel Chapter 36,
24 For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. 28 You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
He has made us his own. Does not that invoke in you that feeling of safety and comfort you felt as a child when pulled into your mother's bosom, all insecurities vanished, the pain went away, and all fears receded to nothingness. What an awesome God we have. How greatly he elevates us despite our unworthiness.
What a great message for our confirmandi! Perhaps, as those who have been born into a loving family, as those who have always been approached as having an innate sense of self-worth, the message of Ezekiel does not hold much impact. But, for those of us who have accumulated experiences that show how alone we can be and how much our own destructive inclinations can pull us away from God, we can see and feel in these words a deeper meaning and a great comfort.
What an awesome God we have! I see it in his mercy and I see it in our children.
Monday, April 27, 2009
To "act" is to live!
One purpose of a retreat is to awaken us to the truth that the truth is to be lived, acted out, not only thought. Unless I live the truth I think, my truth is not incarnated. But thinking is needed too because our emotions and passions must be informed and trained by reason. And reason tells me that parts must be understood together with their wholes in order to be really understood, so they can really be lived.
In order to see a whole one must see "ends." An end is that for which a thing exists. As an example, the end of the art of medicine is the restoration and maintenance of the condition called health. I can have many "purposes" in practicing medicine -- to gain wealth, for prestige, to help people -- but unless I conform my art of medicine to its "end" -- securing health -- I am not respecting the nature of medicine, its true end, in my actions. The morality of our actions is determined by the ends of the material of our actions, not by our purposes. As Aristotle said in the Poetics, "all human happiness or misery takes the form of action." (Poetics 5.1450a17-19). In other words, our actions will make us miserable or happy, depending on whether we respect the ends inherent in our actions.
Another topical example of ends is sex. A "part" of sex, of course, is pleasure, but its "end" is the unity open to procreation (the birthing and rearing of children). To restrict our focus to pleasure, to use technology to eliminate the end, in effect, to make the part the whole, is to misunderstand the nature of the sexual, its proper end, and to warp it, by human purpose, away from what it is by nature. That is living a fiction, a similitude, a "sin."
Francis Slade* mentions the films of Quentin Tarentino (Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers) as depicting a world in which there are only the purposes of human beings, a "world without ends." Such a world is a world of purposes and cross purposes, a world of violence, "the definition of fiasco." "A world of fiasco is a world in which guilt is impossible, because guilt requires responsibility for actions, and there are actions only if purposes are measured by ends." In a world without proper actions, the world degenerates into a despairing meaninglessness. Another term is nihilism.
To restate, living requires reasoned actions, which in turn require an understanding of the "whole" of things, including things' proper "ends." Our calling is to act, to incarnate our "holistic" reason into action, respecting things' ends. That is to live!
*Francis Slade, "On the Ontological Priority of Ends And Its Relevance to the Narrative Arts."
In order to see a whole one must see "ends." An end is that for which a thing exists. As an example, the end of the art of medicine is the restoration and maintenance of the condition called health. I can have many "purposes" in practicing medicine -- to gain wealth, for prestige, to help people -- but unless I conform my art of medicine to its "end" -- securing health -- I am not respecting the nature of medicine, its true end, in my actions. The morality of our actions is determined by the ends of the material of our actions, not by our purposes. As Aristotle said in the Poetics, "all human happiness or misery takes the form of action." (Poetics 5.1450a17-19). In other words, our actions will make us miserable or happy, depending on whether we respect the ends inherent in our actions.
Another topical example of ends is sex. A "part" of sex, of course, is pleasure, but its "end" is the unity open to procreation (the birthing and rearing of children). To restrict our focus to pleasure, to use technology to eliminate the end, in effect, to make the part the whole, is to misunderstand the nature of the sexual, its proper end, and to warp it, by human purpose, away from what it is by nature. That is living a fiction, a similitude, a "sin."
Francis Slade* mentions the films of Quentin Tarentino (Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers) as depicting a world in which there are only the purposes of human beings, a "world without ends." Such a world is a world of purposes and cross purposes, a world of violence, "the definition of fiasco." "A world of fiasco is a world in which guilt is impossible, because guilt requires responsibility for actions, and there are actions only if purposes are measured by ends." In a world without proper actions, the world degenerates into a despairing meaninglessness. Another term is nihilism.
To restate, living requires reasoned actions, which in turn require an understanding of the "whole" of things, including things' proper "ends." Our calling is to act, to incarnate our "holistic" reason into action, respecting things' ends. That is to live!
*Francis Slade, "On the Ontological Priority of Ends And Its Relevance to the Narrative Arts."
Friday, April 17, 2009
This week's meeting
Bob's out of town, so I've been put in charge of the meeting for the week (Oh, boy!).
We'll try to finish up Screwtape this Saturday, so read to the end if you can. I'll try to remember to grab some donuts and coffee on the way.
Thanks!
Matthew Popkes
We'll try to finish up Screwtape this Saturday, so read to the end if you can. I'll try to remember to grab some donuts and coffee on the way.
Thanks!
Matthew Popkes
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