Overall: 3.25/4 Stars
Wow. Simply, Wow. As impressive a WWII movie as I have ever experienced, right up there with Saving Private Ryan. Dare I say it, Brad Pitt plays the hard-bitten, war-scarred sergeant who leads a tank crew of men who would be best described as one step down from freaks extremely well, with the fresh faced newbie put the ultimate baptism of fire, the horrors of war on full display. It's over the top gore, blood, explosions, and heavy machinery. It's the tank movie I've longed for.
And yet...from barely five minutes in, I become more and more horrified at the portrait David Ayer paints, not at the war itself (if there is anything I have learned from studying history, it is that Wardaddy's (Pitt) assertion that "ideals are peaceful, history is violent") but rather at how men, even ostensibly "good" men, are twisted, beaten down, corrupted, and scarred to the point that what stands before us is not a complete human being, but rather a fragment thereof. Ayer rips apart the idea of the noble soldier and instead shows us a monster, and it's all the more terrifying that the monster is us. Even the best of them is dehumanized to the point that, despite my almost sick pleasure at watching SS soldiers die by the dozens, mowed down by machine gun fire and blasted to pieces by tank shells, I have no pleasure watching the untainted soldier of the group, Norman, dragged into the abyss and back out. To be honest, it sickened me to watch as the other crew members around him show little to no real signs of humanity, save for "Bible" (Shia LeBoeuf) and Wardaddy, and those only sparingly.
I realize that this was not a movie meant to glorify war or America's place in it. No, this war is carnage. This WWII is not noble, not the "good fight;" no, this is HELL. But be that as it may, it was a human war, and with that comes every possible human emotion and every conceivable kind of human act of compassion and mercy as well as cruelty and hate. It would have been nice to see more than the quaint and fleeting moments of true humanity in the film, and even those were blown to pieces in form or another (watch the film to see what I mean). It's as if Ayer is saying that civilization, anything remotely civilized, has no place in war. War, it seems, is off the map, the domain of monsters and demons. He is, in my opinion, both right and wrong: right because it is the domain of monsters and demons, but wrong in that humanity and civilization have no place in it. Without those restraining qualities, what would remain after a total war like the one Ayer shows us? T.S. Eliot knew: a wasteland. Tacitus tells us the same: "They make a desert, and call it peace." I personally would be no more at home in the world after the kind of war that Ayer seems to entreat that we fight than I would be in a world where Germany was victorious (thank God it was not so).
What I take away from the movie is a more complete hatred of modern industrial warfare and of modern political ideology, a hatred and contempt that I share with my philosophical mentor, Russell Kirk. It churns out death on a scale that is unfathomable and is the ruin of nations and cultures and communities, of morality, ethics, and true religion and faith. I hate it with every fiber of my being. But more than war, I hate ideology. War must sometimes be fought-that's flat. But ideology kills just as easily as war-perhaps easier. After all, ideology could (and did) kill 10 or 20 or 50 million people at a time on an industrial scale without the loss of a single life among those doing the killing. And those that it does not kill outright it will maim mind and soul.
Modern political ideologies exacerbate our inhumanity and harness it for their own ends, ends that often require a blood sacrifice of millions to achieve. That is on full display in Fury, with American soldiers and German civilians serve as the sacrifice by the truckload on the altar of modernity and ideology and "progress." May God spare us such a future.
Concluding remarks: Fury is a movie that grabs you by the neck, beats the ever-loving crap out of you, kicks you with steel-toed boots, shoves your face in the blood-choked mud, then picks you up, dusts you off, gives you a drink, and then does it all over again. The battle sequences are superb, the acting hit and miss (exceptions: Pitt and Logan Lerman, who play the two main characters), the atmosphere greasy, iron-hulled, and psychotic. The perfect movie for war junkies, not recommended for those with sensitive souls (or stomachs). What humanity is shown is not enough to fill the shell-sized hole that Ayer's portrait of WWII takes out of us, and we are left hollow and fighting nightmares at the end.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Thursday, July 31, 2014
"We Never Really Die": A Review of "Lucy"
Sigh. Where to start on Lucy? (WARNING: SPOILERS)
The film starts out well enough: a young lady studying abroad in Taiwan gets caught up in a drug smuggling ring that nearly kills her. But instead of killing her, the triad running the ring decides to use her as a carrying case for their latest drug, guaranteed to be the stuff "European kids will go crazy for." This new stuff, however, proves to be something far more potent than even the triad boss and his cronies could have imagined: synthetic CPH4, which after it leaks into Lucy's (played by Scarlett Johanssen) bloodstream gives her superpowers by unlocking the potential of her neurons and brain, allowing her inhuman amounts of access to her cerebral cortex and other parts of the brain. With those powers she ultimately defeats the bad-guys and is able to stop the drugs from going mainstream.
If only it ended at that, I would have enjoyed the movie more. Unfortunately, it goes far beyond that into the realm of quantum physics, of philosophy, and the nature of the universe, with Lucy coming to the conclusion that it is time, not God, not experience, not love, not mere existence, that gives life meaning. Time becomes god, and by transcending time via the drug and achieving 100% use of the brain's capacity, Lucy somehow unlocks the deepest secrets of the universe by becoming one with time, diffusing her existence across time and space and even into the time before Time to the point of her dissolving into matter and sending a text message to her French partner at the end, saying "I am everywhere."
While the graphic and cinematic artistry is great, the entire message of Time being the giver of meaning made me sick. So...that's it? Nothing more? It's this kind of pseudo-scientific rubbish, worthy of Richard Dawkins, that makes me question theoretical science and all the power that Scientism claims to have. Lucy should become Scientism's commercial face, for all the good it will do. It's essentially Transcendence with a much better looking lead (Sorry Johnny Depp: you're a great actor, but you're not my type or gender preference). It is one of the most blatant modernist messages I have witnessed in years: if only man could harness the power of science and unlock the power of the brain, we may become as gods ourselves. That's the claim that the modernists and progressivists propagated for most of the XX Century, and the history shows that humanity is all the worse for having bought into the mantras of charlatans spouting false science and scientific ideology. The body count is all the evidence one needs to come to that conclusion.
Beyond the naked propaganda for bad science, what really sickened me was how Lucy becomes less and less human the more and more CPH4 she ingests. The more powerful she becomes, the more and more she resembles a monster; no, worse, a machine: cold, calculating, utterly ruthless, unburdened by morality and ethics, and murderous. In effect, she becomes a beast-machine, burdened only by natural needs such as food and...entertainment. The message of the ascension of the beast-machine with control over all things is terrifying but more to the point outrageous and disgusting to those of us who believe in something More than mere existence.
It is true that we exist in Time and Space, but that fact is not the sum total of our existence. Our choices, our beliefs, our loves, our hates, our being, means more than that. Further, I would like to point out that everything that Lucy experiences is sensate: derived from the senses. And that, she seems to say, is all one needs. But human nature and history reject this notion: from the paleolithic age to this day, man has been aware of a higher existence, something that transcends, in the truest sense of the word, the sorrows and shocks of mortal life. Man, endowed with a soul, has not been satisfied with his mere material existence. And he has come into contact with that Higher Form, in one way or another, that Christians and Jews and Muslims call "God." So did the Greeks, Sumerians, Egyptians, Harrapans, and ancient Chinese. The Romans drew upon the Greek understanding and applied the laws of heaven to nature, noting that life adheres to orders that had to have a beginning, that could not have existed or come into being on their own. Thomas Aquinas makes the same observation.
If Time the Devourer was the sum of everything, then why do we exist? We are just some cosmic joke or anomaly, according to that logic. Yet no civilization has ever believed that. Something had to have changed their minds or have given them the initial impression. We Christians call that Divine Revelation; call it what you want, it has existed in every civilization, and since I don't believe in coincidences, that each action and idea has a distinct consequence, something is there, beyond time and beyond space and yet also of them. For me, that is God. And do we really slip into time, forgotten? What about memory? What of the soul? Lucy seems to reject the notion of the soul. Can we really be so callous and cynical about the truest essence of our Self? One of my favorite authors makes the observation that yes, man might just be a bundle of atoms and cells. That energy, though, never is destroyed, but is converted. What is to say that the only energy we are converted into is the dirt beneath our feet? What if the energy of our soul continues to exist beyond the mortal realm?
I also take issue with Lucy's final act: the conversion of the sum of all knowledge into a computer chip and then saying "Now you know what to do with it (all the information in the universe)." To quote Eliot, "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" Here's my question to Lucy: You never told us what to do with it. We have it, but we have no way to apply it. And guess what? Humans being what they are, will soon abuse the information you have given us and use it to destroy themselves, if not in physical existence than in spiritual being. Conceivably, the knowledge would destroy our planet. You're a false prophet: in Christianity, Jesus explains to us what our purpose is and how to apply God's grace and gifts to better ourselves and those around us and our planet. You would reduce us to beasts, something less than human, not more.
The fact that humans only use 10-12% of their brain's capacity is not a handicap. Look at what we've been able to accomplish with it at just an average 11%! We've built great civilizations and systems and works and machines. We are pushing the boundaries in everything. We are greater when we are human, capable of so much. Yes, we might be so much more if we had more brainpower, but then again we might be so much less, as well, as Lucy's beast-machine goes to show. I firmly believe that there are some things that we humans are better off not knowing, and that to try and make ourselves into something we are not would destroy our identity and uniqueness as creations made in the image of God. So thanks but no thanks for the claims to godhood.
Pros: Great cinematography, graphics, interesting premise initially
Cons: forgettable characters, half-baked science, unrealistic finale
Final Grade: 4/10
The film starts out well enough: a young lady studying abroad in Taiwan gets caught up in a drug smuggling ring that nearly kills her. But instead of killing her, the triad running the ring decides to use her as a carrying case for their latest drug, guaranteed to be the stuff "European kids will go crazy for." This new stuff, however, proves to be something far more potent than even the triad boss and his cronies could have imagined: synthetic CPH4, which after it leaks into Lucy's (played by Scarlett Johanssen) bloodstream gives her superpowers by unlocking the potential of her neurons and brain, allowing her inhuman amounts of access to her cerebral cortex and other parts of the brain. With those powers she ultimately defeats the bad-guys and is able to stop the drugs from going mainstream.
If only it ended at that, I would have enjoyed the movie more. Unfortunately, it goes far beyond that into the realm of quantum physics, of philosophy, and the nature of the universe, with Lucy coming to the conclusion that it is time, not God, not experience, not love, not mere existence, that gives life meaning. Time becomes god, and by transcending time via the drug and achieving 100% use of the brain's capacity, Lucy somehow unlocks the deepest secrets of the universe by becoming one with time, diffusing her existence across time and space and even into the time before Time to the point of her dissolving into matter and sending a text message to her French partner at the end, saying "I am everywhere."
While the graphic and cinematic artistry is great, the entire message of Time being the giver of meaning made me sick. So...that's it? Nothing more? It's this kind of pseudo-scientific rubbish, worthy of Richard Dawkins, that makes me question theoretical science and all the power that Scientism claims to have. Lucy should become Scientism's commercial face, for all the good it will do. It's essentially Transcendence with a much better looking lead (Sorry Johnny Depp: you're a great actor, but you're not my type or gender preference). It is one of the most blatant modernist messages I have witnessed in years: if only man could harness the power of science and unlock the power of the brain, we may become as gods ourselves. That's the claim that the modernists and progressivists propagated for most of the XX Century, and the history shows that humanity is all the worse for having bought into the mantras of charlatans spouting false science and scientific ideology. The body count is all the evidence one needs to come to that conclusion.
Beyond the naked propaganda for bad science, what really sickened me was how Lucy becomes less and less human the more and more CPH4 she ingests. The more powerful she becomes, the more and more she resembles a monster; no, worse, a machine: cold, calculating, utterly ruthless, unburdened by morality and ethics, and murderous. In effect, she becomes a beast-machine, burdened only by natural needs such as food and...entertainment. The message of the ascension of the beast-machine with control over all things is terrifying but more to the point outrageous and disgusting to those of us who believe in something More than mere existence.
It is true that we exist in Time and Space, but that fact is not the sum total of our existence. Our choices, our beliefs, our loves, our hates, our being, means more than that. Further, I would like to point out that everything that Lucy experiences is sensate: derived from the senses. And that, she seems to say, is all one needs. But human nature and history reject this notion: from the paleolithic age to this day, man has been aware of a higher existence, something that transcends, in the truest sense of the word, the sorrows and shocks of mortal life. Man, endowed with a soul, has not been satisfied with his mere material existence. And he has come into contact with that Higher Form, in one way or another, that Christians and Jews and Muslims call "God." So did the Greeks, Sumerians, Egyptians, Harrapans, and ancient Chinese. The Romans drew upon the Greek understanding and applied the laws of heaven to nature, noting that life adheres to orders that had to have a beginning, that could not have existed or come into being on their own. Thomas Aquinas makes the same observation.
If Time the Devourer was the sum of everything, then why do we exist? We are just some cosmic joke or anomaly, according to that logic. Yet no civilization has ever believed that. Something had to have changed their minds or have given them the initial impression. We Christians call that Divine Revelation; call it what you want, it has existed in every civilization, and since I don't believe in coincidences, that each action and idea has a distinct consequence, something is there, beyond time and beyond space and yet also of them. For me, that is God. And do we really slip into time, forgotten? What about memory? What of the soul? Lucy seems to reject the notion of the soul. Can we really be so callous and cynical about the truest essence of our Self? One of my favorite authors makes the observation that yes, man might just be a bundle of atoms and cells. That energy, though, never is destroyed, but is converted. What is to say that the only energy we are converted into is the dirt beneath our feet? What if the energy of our soul continues to exist beyond the mortal realm?
I also take issue with Lucy's final act: the conversion of the sum of all knowledge into a computer chip and then saying "Now you know what to do with it (all the information in the universe)." To quote Eliot, "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" Here's my question to Lucy: You never told us what to do with it. We have it, but we have no way to apply it. And guess what? Humans being what they are, will soon abuse the information you have given us and use it to destroy themselves, if not in physical existence than in spiritual being. Conceivably, the knowledge would destroy our planet. You're a false prophet: in Christianity, Jesus explains to us what our purpose is and how to apply God's grace and gifts to better ourselves and those around us and our planet. You would reduce us to beasts, something less than human, not more.
The fact that humans only use 10-12% of their brain's capacity is not a handicap. Look at what we've been able to accomplish with it at just an average 11%! We've built great civilizations and systems and works and machines. We are pushing the boundaries in everything. We are greater when we are human, capable of so much. Yes, we might be so much more if we had more brainpower, but then again we might be so much less, as well, as Lucy's beast-machine goes to show. I firmly believe that there are some things that we humans are better off not knowing, and that to try and make ourselves into something we are not would destroy our identity and uniqueness as creations made in the image of God. So thanks but no thanks for the claims to godhood.
Pros: Great cinematography, graphics, interesting premise initially
Cons: forgettable characters, half-baked science, unrealistic finale
Final Grade: 4/10
Friday, April 11, 2014
Did I Botch It? Contemplating Experiences (with Rhythms)
As I sit here, caught in the thoughtful daydream that remains ever-present in the back of my mind, I wander into my subconscious and beg the question to the gentleman seated at the desk in my mind-study: did I botch my life already?
The man glances up, then returns to his writing, but does ask me back, "What do you think?" He dips his quill into an ink-bottle, and the scritch-scratch of letters continues.
Me: "Well, you are me, so what do you say?" I flop myself down into the large chair opposite the Second-Empire desk and dejectedly scan the volumes of the surrounding bookcases. Every book an experience and the lessons gleaned from it.
He doesn't look up. "I am merely a figment of your subconscious, a small part of you developed to manage your mind. See here, I don't really have time to go too deep into the realm of the metaphysical today, so stop beating about the bush and just spit it out: what's on your mind?"
I look at him and look away. "I feel like I have wasted a good portion of my life."
He finishes his record-sheet, puts it in a drawer, and draws out his pipe. "How so?"
"Mind you, it could just be my insecurities, but I can't help but feel like I'm going nowhere and have gone nowhere."
He puffs on his pipe a little. "Nonsense." He gets up and spins the large globe next to his desk. "You've had experiences some people would kill for, and no I'm not exaggerating too much when I say that." He looks me dead in the eye. "What's this about?"
I sink further in the chair, 'cause I know he's right. "Well...I just don't know where I am going, and that bothers me."
A small smile of sympathy crosses his face and he puffs on his pipe some more. "That's nothing unusual, old boy. I'd say that's pretty par for the course for everyone."
"Yes, it is," I say, "but I'm not just anyone. I need a plan, I NEED to know where it is I'm going. I feel like the wonder of the world, the so many varied experiences of life are passing me by because I'm too cowardly to seize it."
"Enough of that coward talk. You aren't and shant be, if I and the Good Lord have anything to say about it." He leans against the desk and we both settle into a brooding silence.
At length, he responds: "I certainly understand how you feel. I've been there every step of the way, so I understand better than anyone, save One. You want to be important, you want to be remembered, you want to leave a legacy for others to remember you by. You want to be a moral man, an upright man, and you are correctly prudent with your life." At this the small smile returns. "But you are a man, and men are made for action. You long to break the chains of modernity and go and experience the world. And I can't blame you." He looks at the globe again. "The world is a big place, and there is so much to see and do in it."
I look at him and say "I'm sensing a 'but..' somewhere..."
"The 'but' is this: you are young, and indeed your life has barely begun. You stand on the cusp of adult independence, which is a mighty precipice to be sure, but every man, every woman, comes to it at one point or another in their life. Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything, and just so: your time will come yet, my boy, as will the adventures. Others have said that Fate and God have big plans for you, and of that I am sure. But you must be patient, and in the meantime not lose your sense of self, your sense of who you want to be, of who you are meant to be." He leans forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Until that day when Fate calls upon thee, seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. By what choices you make each day, you will be a good man...or not."
He returns to his chair and pulls out his quill and a clean sheet of paper. "Now off with you! You keep adding new articles to this collection and I can barely keep up! I've got much work to do and not enough time to do it."
I get up to go, but he does add "...though I should say do come by more often. You and I share an affinity for good scotch, and as Chesterton says about burgundy and beer, though we shouldn't have too much of it, we should thank God for them with a proper appreciation."
I smile as I open the door and respond. "Will do. Ступай с Богом."
"Amen."
(This article best read while listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFsSz4-UYw)
The man glances up, then returns to his writing, but does ask me back, "What do you think?" He dips his quill into an ink-bottle, and the scritch-scratch of letters continues.
Me: "Well, you are me, so what do you say?" I flop myself down into the large chair opposite the Second-Empire desk and dejectedly scan the volumes of the surrounding bookcases. Every book an experience and the lessons gleaned from it.
He doesn't look up. "I am merely a figment of your subconscious, a small part of you developed to manage your mind. See here, I don't really have time to go too deep into the realm of the metaphysical today, so stop beating about the bush and just spit it out: what's on your mind?"
I look at him and look away. "I feel like I have wasted a good portion of my life."
He finishes his record-sheet, puts it in a drawer, and draws out his pipe. "How so?"
"Mind you, it could just be my insecurities, but I can't help but feel like I'm going nowhere and have gone nowhere."
He puffs on his pipe a little. "Nonsense." He gets up and spins the large globe next to his desk. "You've had experiences some people would kill for, and no I'm not exaggerating too much when I say that." He looks me dead in the eye. "What's this about?"
I sink further in the chair, 'cause I know he's right. "Well...I just don't know where I am going, and that bothers me."
A small smile of sympathy crosses his face and he puffs on his pipe some more. "That's nothing unusual, old boy. I'd say that's pretty par for the course for everyone."
"Yes, it is," I say, "but I'm not just anyone. I need a plan, I NEED to know where it is I'm going. I feel like the wonder of the world, the so many varied experiences of life are passing me by because I'm too cowardly to seize it."
"Enough of that coward talk. You aren't and shant be, if I and the Good Lord have anything to say about it." He leans against the desk and we both settle into a brooding silence.
At length, he responds: "I certainly understand how you feel. I've been there every step of the way, so I understand better than anyone, save One. You want to be important, you want to be remembered, you want to leave a legacy for others to remember you by. You want to be a moral man, an upright man, and you are correctly prudent with your life." At this the small smile returns. "But you are a man, and men are made for action. You long to break the chains of modernity and go and experience the world. And I can't blame you." He looks at the globe again. "The world is a big place, and there is so much to see and do in it."
I look at him and say "I'm sensing a 'but..' somewhere..."
"The 'but' is this: you are young, and indeed your life has barely begun. You stand on the cusp of adult independence, which is a mighty precipice to be sure, but every man, every woman, comes to it at one point or another in their life. Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for everything, and just so: your time will come yet, my boy, as will the adventures. Others have said that Fate and God have big plans for you, and of that I am sure. But you must be patient, and in the meantime not lose your sense of self, your sense of who you want to be, of who you are meant to be." He leans forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Until that day when Fate calls upon thee, seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. By what choices you make each day, you will be a good man...or not."
He returns to his chair and pulls out his quill and a clean sheet of paper. "Now off with you! You keep adding new articles to this collection and I can barely keep up! I've got much work to do and not enough time to do it."
I get up to go, but he does add "...though I should say do come by more often. You and I share an affinity for good scotch, and as Chesterton says about burgundy and beer, though we shouldn't have too much of it, we should thank God for them with a proper appreciation."
I smile as I open the door and respond. "Will do. Ступай с Богом."
"Amen."
(This article best read while listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFsSz4-UYw)
Friday, February 28, 2014
A Plea to both Ukraine and Russia
Friends, brothers, sisters,
The latest news out of the Ukraine is nothing short of disturbing: a floundering government in Kiev and armed incursion in the Crimea by mercenaries are just the latest signs that Europe is once again standing on a precipice. I understand from my studies and own experience that feeling and tension on both sides is high and exacerbated by long-standing grievances and crimes by anyone's estimation. And yet I feel that I must write this post, overlooked and ignored though it may be, to plead for peace.
Why must both sides continually bicker over territory and the blood that flows in one's veins? Are these the sole factors that determine one's fate and identity? Are you both so deeply entrenched that the only way to settle the issues is to end up fighting one another? Because from where I sit it very well looks like you both seem to feel this way. WHY???
The questions that nobody seems to be asking are twofold: one, why must it be Europe or Russia? Why can't Ukraine decide her own destiny without being bullied or badgered by one side or another? The other is the one that is most crucial, so I ask, here and now, to both Ukraine and Russia, as a fellow Christian:
WHICH MATTERS MORE, BLOOD OR FAITH?
Face it, those you might see as your adversaries are not only your fellow man, who Christ calls to love and forgive and show grace to, but they are also mainly your Brothers in Christ. You both worship the same God, you both pray to the same kinds of saints and angels, you both follow more or less the same rituals, you both read the same Holy Scripture...I could go on and on. So why are you so ready to shed your brother's blood? Will you be a modern Cain, slaying your brother or neighbor Abel? Is land and blood more important than salvation and shared faith? Can there be no recourse but to war over things that matter nothing when one stands before God?
If blood runs thicker than the current of your faith, then you both deserve what happens. But if faith is stronger than blood, if love and grace are stronger than hate and bitterness, then perhaps we as a world can avoid a conflagration which would do little than to set brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, destroy what so many have endeavored to build, to tear sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, apart and to destroy the lives of children and the helpless. You would do nothing more than to scar your own souls and cause Christ to weep. If you truly love your countries, your families, your neighbors, your faith and your God, then by all that is Holy, do not let the Night take hold and the unholy fire ignite. Go with God, друзья.
The latest news out of the Ukraine is nothing short of disturbing: a floundering government in Kiev and armed incursion in the Crimea by mercenaries are just the latest signs that Europe is once again standing on a precipice. I understand from my studies and own experience that feeling and tension on both sides is high and exacerbated by long-standing grievances and crimes by anyone's estimation. And yet I feel that I must write this post, overlooked and ignored though it may be, to plead for peace.
Why must both sides continually bicker over territory and the blood that flows in one's veins? Are these the sole factors that determine one's fate and identity? Are you both so deeply entrenched that the only way to settle the issues is to end up fighting one another? Because from where I sit it very well looks like you both seem to feel this way. WHY???
The questions that nobody seems to be asking are twofold: one, why must it be Europe or Russia? Why can't Ukraine decide her own destiny without being bullied or badgered by one side or another? The other is the one that is most crucial, so I ask, here and now, to both Ukraine and Russia, as a fellow Christian:
WHICH MATTERS MORE, BLOOD OR FAITH?
Face it, those you might see as your adversaries are not only your fellow man, who Christ calls to love and forgive and show grace to, but they are also mainly your Brothers in Christ. You both worship the same God, you both pray to the same kinds of saints and angels, you both follow more or less the same rituals, you both read the same Holy Scripture...I could go on and on. So why are you so ready to shed your brother's blood? Will you be a modern Cain, slaying your brother or neighbor Abel? Is land and blood more important than salvation and shared faith? Can there be no recourse but to war over things that matter nothing when one stands before God?
If blood runs thicker than the current of your faith, then you both deserve what happens. But if faith is stronger than blood, if love and grace are stronger than hate and bitterness, then perhaps we as a world can avoid a conflagration which would do little than to set brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, destroy what so many have endeavored to build, to tear sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, apart and to destroy the lives of children and the helpless. You would do nothing more than to scar your own souls and cause Christ to weep. If you truly love your countries, your families, your neighbors, your faith and your God, then by all that is Holy, do not let the Night take hold and the unholy fire ignite. Go with God, друзья.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Like I Roll: A Short Meditation on Temporal Happiness
It's been a while since I've last written a blog post, and now I return with a new post. In the meantime I've experienced many things, visited many places, met many people. I've done things I'm proud of, and some I'm not so proud of. And yet, through it all, in the end, I'm happy. You really don't appreciate life's experiences until, at the end of one of life's many marathons, you look back and reminisce. No small part of happiness, I think, is looking back on the obstacles and roadblocks and realizing just how far you've come. I feel like I've come so very far these past few months.
And yet, the realization hits that I am not truly happy. For some folks, this is a crushing revelation, but for me, it's an opportunity to pause and ponder why I'm not truly happy. The obvious answer, for me, is that I have not fully achieved what Aquinas calls the "Beatific Vision," that perfect union with the Almighty that transcends mortal reason and imperfect faith. Consolation comes when I smile and remember that such sublimity is not mine to have in this life, for it is something that only exists when my frail and fallen mortality is shed for the cloak of Eternity.
But, besides the determination to at least in a small way earn my Redemption (though such a race is futile on my own merits), what keeps me going, congenial and merry (mostly) in this insane world? What comes to mind to answer that query is a quote from Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper, and the other is a realization from just leisurely listening to a slice of life song by the Southern rock band Black Stone Cherry.
Pieper's quote runs thus: "Happiness,... even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is sharing in Eternity." Even the smallest happiness shakes us out of our reverie of life's monotony and opens us to the symphony of being, that even when the night seems at its darkest, all it takes is a small light to turn night into flickering shadows cowering before the Light.
As for Black Stone Cherry, their song Like I Roll gave me a small epiphany: that life is meant to be lived, not just for your's or my sake, but for its own sake. It's a gift, really the most precious of gifts, and as Seneca admonishes, it should not be wasted but rather fulfilled with noble pursuits that seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Life's temporal happiness is found in cherishing the things
that matter beyond the here and now, and experiencing life is in and of itself a small happiness.
"I roll like the hills under the California sun
Burn through the desert like a devil on the run
I'll be flying high until the day that I die
No matter what they say
At the end of the day
I will roll like I roll"
But, besides the determination to at least in a small way earn my Redemption (though such a race is futile on my own merits), what keeps me going, congenial and merry (mostly) in this insane world? What comes to mind to answer that query is a quote from Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper, and the other is a realization from just leisurely listening to a slice of life song by the Southern rock band Black Stone Cherry.
Pieper's quote runs thus: "Happiness,... even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is sharing in Eternity." Even the smallest happiness shakes us out of our reverie of life's monotony and opens us to the symphony of being, that even when the night seems at its darkest, all it takes is a small light to turn night into flickering shadows cowering before the Light.
As for Black Stone Cherry, their song Like I Roll gave me a small epiphany: that life is meant to be lived, not just for your's or my sake, but for its own sake. It's a gift, really the most precious of gifts, and as Seneca admonishes, it should not be wasted but rather fulfilled with noble pursuits that seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Life's temporal happiness is found in cherishing the things
that matter beyond the here and now, and experiencing life is in and of itself a small happiness.
"I roll like the hills under the California sun
Burn through the desert like a devil on the run
I'll be flying high until the day that I die
No matter what they say
At the end of the day
I will roll like I roll"
Saturday, November 2, 2013
A Little Wonder
In this post, I'm going to try something new. Before I've described what comes into my mind, the visions I see, when I listen to music. I stop trying to hold back my imagination and let it go and follow where it takes me. Now, I'm asking you, dear reader, to do the same.
Find a quiet, darker spot. It could be later in the evening, looking up at the stars, or in your room, or by a fireplace. I leave it to your discretion.
Now, hit Play on the attached Youtube clip and close your eyes. Let your imagination take you where it will.
Experience a little wonder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6sGByR46t4
Find a quiet, darker spot. It could be later in the evening, looking up at the stars, or in your room, or by a fireplace. I leave it to your discretion.
Now, hit Play on the attached Youtube clip and close your eyes. Let your imagination take you where it will.
Experience a little wonder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6sGByR46t4
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
The Art of Resignation
Sitting as I am here in Croatia, and being a contemplative sort, I couldn't help but let my mind wander to things that I have heard and things that I have learned.
Today, in my Political Theory class, we discussed two of the major "ideologies" of the modern world: Liberalism and Conservatism. Now, as most of you might guess, I am somewhat annoyed by some peoples' assertion that conservatism is an ideology for I believe, as Russell Kirk did, that conservatism is not an ideology at all, but rather the negation thereof, it being rather a collection of sentiments and an outlook on life rather than a body of abstract principles. One of the features of conservatism that the professor outlined is the idea of human imperfection. Indeed, as he explained it, I couldn't help but agree with him, as I did with Kirk, that we humans are fallen beings, corrupt, greedy, and often violent. Any look at history and the current state of world affairs will vindicate this belief. However, I couldn't help but feel that many, perhaps most, people would still like to think that through our own efforts, through the application of our reason and our good intentions, we might rise above this imperfection. Pondering this, and listening a trance/chillstep song, I could not help but be reminded of the opinion of a far wiser man than I on what I will call "the art of resignation."
Epictetus was one of the preeminent Stoic philosophers of antiquity, standing on equal footing with his fellow Stoics Zeno, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius as well as the proto-Stoic Cicero in his wisdom and prescience. It was Epictetus who, advising his students on how to find a source of happiness in this fallen world,
"There is only one road to happiness and that is to cease worrying about those things that are beyond the power of our will to control."
Now, this is a restating of elements of two of his quotes into one, but the meaning and the underlying principle are the same: if man is to find a semblance of happiness in this world, he must first gain an understanding of what aspects of his existence he can control through the application of his will and understand what aspects of life he cannot control, whether they be elements of himself or stark reality.
I am sure that many will take issue with this sentiment: in no uncertain terms, it means, for many, a kind of capitulation to whatever Fate throws at you. There is no escaping it entirely (whatever "it" might be). In my case and for the purposes of this post the case presented in class is that man cannot escape his imperfection, as it is something more than genetic and less than metaphysical. I would assert, however, that it is not really a "capitulation" to Fate, but rather a kind of resignation, a sentiment based on realism and necessary reflection on the state of the world we view.
To be resigned to something is, I believe, not something that is inherently negative. Often, when we find ourselves resigned to whatever situation we find ourselves in, we find a release, a burden lifted. The situation thus becomes what we make of it, granting us more freedom than we would have otherwise if we simple rejected the reality and turned our face from it. When we reject reality, it often becomes a consuming aspect in that we are forced to constantly run into it. But if we accept it for what it is, then we are "within," and thus have the ability to adapt and adjust. Taking a Christian perspective, when we acknowledge our fallen state and seek repentance, we resign ourselves to the truth that we are less than we like to think we are and that we are, by our very nature, less than we ought to be (and were at one point). When this happens, when we accept the reality of that which we cannot control (our sin and our need for redemption), we are, in effect, granted a measure of control over the remainder of our Self. This stems from the freedom found in Christ's mercy and the control over the state of our souls that He grants us. We thus have the freedom in Knowing: we are fallen, but have the freedom to choose redemption and a life truly Good. But all this hinges on the resignation to the Reality of our Self and, by extension, the Reality of the world we inhabit and have dominion over.
Going further, Kirk asserts in his "Ten Conservative Principles" that only when the inner order of the Soul is given harmony and structure will the outer order, the Commonwealth or the World, be ordered. This order will not be perfect, as that would require the perfect order found only in perfect humans. Seeing as humans are far from perfect, in fact fallen, we can only resign ourselves to making a tolerable order of the world and to making our inner Self, our Souls, as ordered as possible in our state. In this we are granted far more freedom than we realize, as our eyes are opened to the reality. Yes, much of what we see will make us shudder. But also we will see things with new clarity, and open our imaginations and self to the wonder and beautiful mystery of Creation, not to mention the myriad of ways that we can attempt to improve not only our own lot in this temporal existence but also be awakened to the needs and care of our fellow man. This is part of why I pity men who think they know everything and proclaim themselves to be "experts:" In doing so, they shut themselves off from this new world, unable and unwilling to see the greater picture of existence that is wider than they could have imagined. Again, to have new eyes is to first resign ourselves to the fact that we only see a small picture of the eternal tapestry of Creation. This is not to say that there are not aspects of life that we should not strive to change (Lord knows there is much of those in life) but these are granted fuller vision when we strive to accept what we can't change and discern them from those we can.
And thus, in the words of Blackmill's "Let It Be," I resign myself to the Reality of Existence, and that I will "Let it come and let it be," as I cannot change the sad facts, but I can control my destiny in the freedom I find in resignation to the need for salvation. I end with this thought that stems from the resignation:
"There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind." -C.S. Lewis
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Not All Fun in the Sun: Notes From a Troubled Mind
"Can you tell that I hurt?
It's critical,
All I can smell is the burn
of chemicals..." -"Chemicals," Love and Death
The wail of sirens...
The blast of bombs...
The crack of rifles from above...
The cold grip of fear...
The choking fist of smoke and fire...
These are just some of the images I saw as I visited Dubrovnik's War Museum, a stunningly-picturesque memorial to sacrifice and fortitude in the face of overwhelming odds during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. For ten months, the Pearl of the Adriatic was subjected to a kind of siege that its medieval walls were never built to stand against and offered the only defense for the city itself. As the walls and Old City weathered a terrifying barrage from Serbian/Montenegrin forces on the heights overlooking the town from the south, the city's small garrison fought desperately from the Napoleonic Imperial Fort overlooking the town directly above to keep the city from being encircled completely. I can't in my darkest nightmares imagine for a moment what that must have been like, for either the poor civilians in the town or the soldiers forced to fight for their lives...
The War Museum experience has only added to the increasing clouds of my mind. It began with my discovery of the song "Chemicals" by the band Love and Death, headed by former-Korn leadman and born-again Christian Brian "Head" Welch. The song is Welch's story of his years-long fight with substance abuse and the haunting undercurrents and disturbing imagery (both in the song and in the music video) leave me tossing and turning, wanting, nay, craving a strong drink to kill the empty, hollow feeling that creeps into my subconscious...
Now let me be clear: I'm not a drug-addict, nor will I ever be one. But I couldn't help but reflect about the concept of what Welch sings: the things we put into our bodies. In a way like Welch, I can't help but look deeper, beyond the superficial changes that affect us from what we take in and am left standing at a precipice above my inner dark. I look down and see a deranged, disfigured beast that otherwise lives in the corners of my soul. He stares up at me and lays my sin bare before me. It's terrifying: one look and I stare into Hell. And not the cliche of Hell that we all know, but that kind of Hell that only our minds can construct. Considering how wide-ranging my mind can be, this kind of Hell is a nightmare that haunts my subconscious and leaves me crippled in grief and near-depression when I glimpse it because it is the Hell that I construct. What I feed my soul affects it in a near-molecular level that, when positive, molds and gives form and order. But if it be negative, it twists, distorts, and otherwise renders ugly what God made in his Image.
Perhaps it is this that leaves me most despondent: as a Human Being, I am made in the Image of God, and yet all I do is corrupt this Image and continually feed the monster with the chemicals of this fallen world. When my Hell is laid bare before me I am forced to see what I would be were I not redeemed by Grace: burning in sin's chemicals, a freak, a monster driven mad by pain and rage. My visits to St. Blais' Church and Dubrovnik Cathedral only accentuated my dark cloud feelings. How can I walk into a House of Christ, twisted as I am? Who am I to beseech Mercy when I have done nothing to merit it, indeed reveling in the chemical cocktail of depravity, eschewing Virtue and Grace? I am no better than those who spat on Christ as He struggled to carry His cross, hearing but neither understanding nor caring for longer than was necessary...such a revelation, as I stare at my anti-soul, is crushing.
Forgive me for publishing such a dark post. I felt moved to post it as I needed an outlet for my feelings of late as I pore into theology, politics, philosophy, and ethics. I promise that this, too, shall pass. I will overcome it, as the One from Whom I draw strength and in Whom I find my help has "...Overcome the world."
It's critical,
All I can smell is the burn
of chemicals..." -"Chemicals," Love and Death
The wail of sirens...
The blast of bombs...
The crack of rifles from above...
The cold grip of fear...
The choking fist of smoke and fire...
These are just some of the images I saw as I visited Dubrovnik's War Museum, a stunningly-picturesque memorial to sacrifice and fortitude in the face of overwhelming odds during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. For ten months, the Pearl of the Adriatic was subjected to a kind of siege that its medieval walls were never built to stand against and offered the only defense for the city itself. As the walls and Old City weathered a terrifying barrage from Serbian/Montenegrin forces on the heights overlooking the town from the south, the city's small garrison fought desperately from the Napoleonic Imperial Fort overlooking the town directly above to keep the city from being encircled completely. I can't in my darkest nightmares imagine for a moment what that must have been like, for either the poor civilians in the town or the soldiers forced to fight for their lives...
The War Museum experience has only added to the increasing clouds of my mind. It began with my discovery of the song "Chemicals" by the band Love and Death, headed by former-Korn leadman and born-again Christian Brian "Head" Welch. The song is Welch's story of his years-long fight with substance abuse and the haunting undercurrents and disturbing imagery (both in the song and in the music video) leave me tossing and turning, wanting, nay, craving a strong drink to kill the empty, hollow feeling that creeps into my subconscious...
Now let me be clear: I'm not a drug-addict, nor will I ever be one. But I couldn't help but reflect about the concept of what Welch sings: the things we put into our bodies. In a way like Welch, I can't help but look deeper, beyond the superficial changes that affect us from what we take in and am left standing at a precipice above my inner dark. I look down and see a deranged, disfigured beast that otherwise lives in the corners of my soul. He stares up at me and lays my sin bare before me. It's terrifying: one look and I stare into Hell. And not the cliche of Hell that we all know, but that kind of Hell that only our minds can construct. Considering how wide-ranging my mind can be, this kind of Hell is a nightmare that haunts my subconscious and leaves me crippled in grief and near-depression when I glimpse it because it is the Hell that I construct. What I feed my soul affects it in a near-molecular level that, when positive, molds and gives form and order. But if it be negative, it twists, distorts, and otherwise renders ugly what God made in his Image.
Perhaps it is this that leaves me most despondent: as a Human Being, I am made in the Image of God, and yet all I do is corrupt this Image and continually feed the monster with the chemicals of this fallen world. When my Hell is laid bare before me I am forced to see what I would be were I not redeemed by Grace: burning in sin's chemicals, a freak, a monster driven mad by pain and rage. My visits to St. Blais' Church and Dubrovnik Cathedral only accentuated my dark cloud feelings. How can I walk into a House of Christ, twisted as I am? Who am I to beseech Mercy when I have done nothing to merit it, indeed reveling in the chemical cocktail of depravity, eschewing Virtue and Grace? I am no better than those who spat on Christ as He struggled to carry His cross, hearing but neither understanding nor caring for longer than was necessary...such a revelation, as I stare at my anti-soul, is crushing.
Forgive me for publishing such a dark post. I felt moved to post it as I needed an outlet for my feelings of late as I pore into theology, politics, philosophy, and ethics. I promise that this, too, shall pass. I will overcome it, as the One from Whom I draw strength and in Whom I find my help has "...Overcome the world."
Monday, September 16, 2013
A Thousand Year Story: From Ragusa to Byron's "Pearl"
It's been a hectic two days here in Dubrovnik.
For now, that's all I have on the monastery, which is really only a small (but nonetheless important) part of the city. If you exit the monastery and walk south, eventually you'll pass under the original city gate and enter the main square of the Stradun, or essentially Main Street in Dubrovnik. Just off the square is the famous Sponza Palace, where an important merchant family held lived and conducted business, specializing in the sale of sponges (hence the name Sponza, a derivative of Italian). Within the Palace's walls is what I would call a "Hall of Heroes," a small museum of the 1991-1992 siege of Dubrovnik by Serbian/Montenegrin forces during the Balkan Wars. Adorning the walls are the names and photos of the over 200 locals who died defending their homes while a slideshow plays on the small TV in the corner showing the pictures of the fires and destruction of this beautiful city. It's sobering to think that this was less than twenty years ago, and the only reason that Dubrovnik was not turned to ash was its status as a UNESCO World-Heritage Site. The Ploce Gate fortress played host to the several thousand locals seeking refuge there, and the city suffered withering fire from the mountains above the city. To think that in this day and age that women and children would have to endure siege is not only tragic but shows how little we humans have changed in over three thousand years of civilization.
On the other end of the square stands the beautiful Baroque Church of St. Blais, the patron saint of Dubrovnik. Designed by an Italian architect whose name escapes me at this time, the interior is beyond description. Though relatively quaint compared to the massive cathedrals of Russia that I visited last year, it nonetheless shares their majestic splendor and sense of holiness, that this is a space not meant for man, but for God. Beautiful Baroque paintings make up the altarpiece, while vibrant stained glass windows play a tapestry of color on the floor of the church. Unfortunately I did not stay long in the Church, as a Mass was going on and I did not want to disturb the worshipers. I will post the pictures I got at a later time.
After our introduction to DIU, we met up with our tour guide, Dijana, for a walking tour of the city. Let me just say that if the Dos Equis man is the Most Interesting Man in the World, then Dijana is most certainly the Most Interesting Woman. She endured the siege, joined up with the infant Croatian Army, smuggled weapons into the city to aid the defense, and ended up becoming a high-level subordinate of the Southern District Commander. Later, she worked on a Caribbean cruise ship as a dealer in the on-ship casino. She now gives tours in her home city and in the surrounding countries and areas. Yesterday, she took our group on a tour of neighboring Lokrum Island, a paradise if there ever was one. She nearly walked our legs off, marching us up a 45-degree incline to see a spot seen on the show Game of Thrones. She then took us down to see the rest of the Island, which has its own fascinating history involving Benedictine monks, a medieval curse, Habsburg emperors, and even Richard the Lionheart (more on that later). Lush botanical gardens and peacocks were common sights around the island, as are stunning cliffs fifty feet above crystalline blue seas, which (go figure) we spent a LOT of time in. Back to the city tour: she showed us various sites around the city, including one of the first (if not THE first) state-run orphanage in the world, one of the first public pharmacies in the West (which still functions as such today), and the Franciscan monastery. Then we climbed the walls.
The views from the walls are beyond description. The walls were specially designed by an Italian engineer to reflect cannonballs and feature various gate houses and formidable keeps at the corners. Simply put, as I discussed with an API coordinator, the city walls are nigh impregnable: they can't be assaulted from the mainland, as during the Middle Ages there were no modern roads lining the slopes, thus making moving troops almost impossible for all but the most determined attackers. Further, the local trees, save for the oaks, aren't suitable for making siege engines. The best bet for an attacker was, as the Venetians tried, to assault from the sea. But the various keeps and sea-side fortifications, not to mention the sheer cliffs that the city is built upon, made this a very risky endeavor, as did the well-armed and trained city militia. (Fun fact: never in its history did Dubrovnik or its Medieval incarnation, the Republic of Ragusa, have a standing army; instead, it relied on the citizen guards and local militias to come to man the walls in case of threat).
Some of you may be asking, so what? What makes Dubrovnik so important anyway? Why should we care? I can cite one reason: The Republic of Dubrovnik was the FIRST SOVEREIGN STATE to recognize the United States of America as an independent nation. Further, as mentioned before, Dubrovnik never had a standing army, nor did it need one. Amazing as it may seem, Dubrovnik was never conquered and remained independent from its birth in the 7th Century to the 1800s, when in 1812 Napoleon tricked the City Rectors into giving in to his army. Needless to say, they desecrated the Pearl of the Adriatic and when they left they took what they could and gave nothing back. Dubrovnik was independent for over a thousand years, relying not on military force but on its merchant wealth, its veritable army of spies all over Europe and the Middle East, and its diplomatic expertise. Ragusan merchants and envoys were known and respected all over the Old World, with its trade ships spanning the globe selling the city's beautiful coral, salt, and gold crafts, as well as their local wines, fruits, and timber. It is very much an important city in European history, and (I'm not joking very much when I say this) very much a city of "firsts." It's a very, very beautiful city, and a perfect place for those who prefer the "Laid-back" kind of life (note: THIS DOES NOT MEAN "LAZY"-Looking at you, Mom!) and leisure. It's not a fast-paced kind of place, and the locals frown on those who give too much attention to work and getting things done. It's this kind of tension between the new globalized emphasis on productivity and the old spirits of knowing the time and place for work and play-that is, traditional culture, where leisure and enjoyment of life's finer (or little) things (and giving thanks for them) are almost more important than productive work that is fascinating to me. Truly, Lord Byron was right when he described Dubrovnik as the "Pearl of the Adriatic."
For now, that's all I have. More to come. For now, I lay down my stylus.
For starters, I finally met my fellow Americans and my roommate. They're a great bunch to be around, and I really look forward to spending the next few months getting to know them and hanging out. On Saturday we were introduced to DIU properly. DIU is located in the historic Dominican Monastery, just inside the east (Ploce) Gate to the Old Town. It has a fantastic inner courtyard, or cloister, where the monks would go for a peaceful escape from their day to day tasks. Beautiful flowers, trees (including a grapefruit tree, complete with fruit) and white limestone walls with a well made it quite inviting. The monastery we're in right now is not the original-unfortunately that was destroyed in a 17th Century earthquake. Further, the Ploce Gate and the accompanying military fortress on that side was built to protect the new monastery from attack and to prevent attackers from using the monastery roof as a way onto the city walls. As a professor explained, the Dominicans housed a massive number of manuscripts and medieval books in their library, which is still famous for it's collections.
For now, that's all I have on the monastery, which is really only a small (but nonetheless important) part of the city. If you exit the monastery and walk south, eventually you'll pass under the original city gate and enter the main square of the Stradun, or essentially Main Street in Dubrovnik. Just off the square is the famous Sponza Palace, where an important merchant family held lived and conducted business, specializing in the sale of sponges (hence the name Sponza, a derivative of Italian). Within the Palace's walls is what I would call a "Hall of Heroes," a small museum of the 1991-1992 siege of Dubrovnik by Serbian/Montenegrin forces during the Balkan Wars. Adorning the walls are the names and photos of the over 200 locals who died defending their homes while a slideshow plays on the small TV in the corner showing the pictures of the fires and destruction of this beautiful city. It's sobering to think that this was less than twenty years ago, and the only reason that Dubrovnik was not turned to ash was its status as a UNESCO World-Heritage Site. The Ploce Gate fortress played host to the several thousand locals seeking refuge there, and the city suffered withering fire from the mountains above the city. To think that in this day and age that women and children would have to endure siege is not only tragic but shows how little we humans have changed in over three thousand years of civilization.
On the other end of the square stands the beautiful Baroque Church of St. Blais, the patron saint of Dubrovnik. Designed by an Italian architect whose name escapes me at this time, the interior is beyond description. Though relatively quaint compared to the massive cathedrals of Russia that I visited last year, it nonetheless shares their majestic splendor and sense of holiness, that this is a space not meant for man, but for God. Beautiful Baroque paintings make up the altarpiece, while vibrant stained glass windows play a tapestry of color on the floor of the church. Unfortunately I did not stay long in the Church, as a Mass was going on and I did not want to disturb the worshipers. I will post the pictures I got at a later time.
After our introduction to DIU, we met up with our tour guide, Dijana, for a walking tour of the city. Let me just say that if the Dos Equis man is the Most Interesting Man in the World, then Dijana is most certainly the Most Interesting Woman. She endured the siege, joined up with the infant Croatian Army, smuggled weapons into the city to aid the defense, and ended up becoming a high-level subordinate of the Southern District Commander. Later, she worked on a Caribbean cruise ship as a dealer in the on-ship casino. She now gives tours in her home city and in the surrounding countries and areas. Yesterday, she took our group on a tour of neighboring Lokrum Island, a paradise if there ever was one. She nearly walked our legs off, marching us up a 45-degree incline to see a spot seen on the show Game of Thrones. She then took us down to see the rest of the Island, which has its own fascinating history involving Benedictine monks, a medieval curse, Habsburg emperors, and even Richard the Lionheart (more on that later). Lush botanical gardens and peacocks were common sights around the island, as are stunning cliffs fifty feet above crystalline blue seas, which (go figure) we spent a LOT of time in. Back to the city tour: she showed us various sites around the city, including one of the first (if not THE first) state-run orphanage in the world, one of the first public pharmacies in the West (which still functions as such today), and the Franciscan monastery. Then we climbed the walls.
The views from the walls are beyond description. The walls were specially designed by an Italian engineer to reflect cannonballs and feature various gate houses and formidable keeps at the corners. Simply put, as I discussed with an API coordinator, the city walls are nigh impregnable: they can't be assaulted from the mainland, as during the Middle Ages there were no modern roads lining the slopes, thus making moving troops almost impossible for all but the most determined attackers. Further, the local trees, save for the oaks, aren't suitable for making siege engines. The best bet for an attacker was, as the Venetians tried, to assault from the sea. But the various keeps and sea-side fortifications, not to mention the sheer cliffs that the city is built upon, made this a very risky endeavor, as did the well-armed and trained city militia. (Fun fact: never in its history did Dubrovnik or its Medieval incarnation, the Republic of Ragusa, have a standing army; instead, it relied on the citizen guards and local militias to come to man the walls in case of threat).
Some of you may be asking, so what? What makes Dubrovnik so important anyway? Why should we care? I can cite one reason: The Republic of Dubrovnik was the FIRST SOVEREIGN STATE to recognize the United States of America as an independent nation. Further, as mentioned before, Dubrovnik never had a standing army, nor did it need one. Amazing as it may seem, Dubrovnik was never conquered and remained independent from its birth in the 7th Century to the 1800s, when in 1812 Napoleon tricked the City Rectors into giving in to his army. Needless to say, they desecrated the Pearl of the Adriatic and when they left they took what they could and gave nothing back. Dubrovnik was independent for over a thousand years, relying not on military force but on its merchant wealth, its veritable army of spies all over Europe and the Middle East, and its diplomatic expertise. Ragusan merchants and envoys were known and respected all over the Old World, with its trade ships spanning the globe selling the city's beautiful coral, salt, and gold crafts, as well as their local wines, fruits, and timber. It is very much an important city in European history, and (I'm not joking very much when I say this) very much a city of "firsts." It's a very, very beautiful city, and a perfect place for those who prefer the "Laid-back" kind of life (note: THIS DOES NOT MEAN "LAZY"-Looking at you, Mom!) and leisure. It's not a fast-paced kind of place, and the locals frown on those who give too much attention to work and getting things done. It's this kind of tension between the new globalized emphasis on productivity and the old spirits of knowing the time and place for work and play-that is, traditional culture, where leisure and enjoyment of life's finer (or little) things (and giving thanks for them) are almost more important than productive work that is fascinating to me. Truly, Lord Byron was right when he described Dubrovnik as the "Pearl of the Adriatic."
For now, that's all I have. More to come. For now, I lay down my stylus.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Dobrodosli u Hrvatska And Random Thoughts
"The world is like a book, and those who do not travel only read the first page."
-St. Augustine
It is with great pleasure that I send you greetings from the BEAUTIFUL city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. I knew that it would be amazing when, as I step off the plane, what greets you is an amazing view of coastal mountains flecked with trees and small bushes towering over the valley where the airport is with a crystalline blue sky playing host. So far, everyone I've met on the same program as I is very nice and my roommate (the one I've met and have gotten to know a little bit) is a real cool guy. The taxi ride with my program director from the airport to my apartment was great. What made it great? THE VIEW. We drove up a coastal road with mountains and cliffs to our right and the Adriatic Sea to our left. Bathed in the muted gold of the setting sun, the water a shimmering blue, such a view was awe-inspiring. Large islands straddled the coast, covered in green, while sailboats bobbed lazily in the bays and inlets as we drove by.
The city itself, particularly the Stari Grad, or "Old City" which Dubrovnik is so famous for, is a wondrous view to behold. Modern apartments like mine are inter-spaced between age-old traditional homes of white sandstone (?) in the "new" city, while the medieval walls of the Old City center are impressive and still seem like they could hold out in a siege, the buildings either the same sandstone or marble with red terra-cotta roofs in an Italian-esque flair. My landlord is a very sweet woman and my apartment is better furnished than I could have possibly expected.
Don't think it was an easy journey here. And thus I begin my random thoughts.
1. A big thank you to the group that I tagged along with from Tulsa to Washington. Without they're help I'd probably still be stuck in line at Dulles.
2. Dulles. Oh, Dulles. A modernistic monstrosity that can't hold a finger to Reagan International and less than half of the departure/arrival boards of any other airport I've been to.
3.It's amazing how a few thunderstorms can effectively shut down air travel along half the eastern seaboard. The sheer size of the lines at the Dulles United Customer Service desk needing reroutes was mind-boggling. Due to the weather issues and some fuel adjustments we had to make in Tulsa, my flight to Vienna was taxiing for take-off when we were pulling into the gate at Dulles, so needless to say I missed my flight to Vienna. Instead, thanks to only what I can describe as Divine Providence, the United people in Tulsa gave me a reroute through Frankfurt, Germany and from there to Dubrovnik. What a God-send.
4. Germanophiles, cover your ears and stop reading for a bit: I HATED Frankfurt airport. Don't get me wrong, I've been there before. And I remember it being a lot nicer. But, for one, it is typically German in that it sacrifices aesthetics for functionality: conrete, concrete, concrete. It is not a welcoming airport, or at least it wasn't to me. Secondly, for whatever reason, (friends from Germany excluded, of course) I don't really like Germans. Even at their happiest they seem...angry. Perhaps its just the language, but interactions with Germans leave me feeling cold.
Well, that should cover everything right now. I'll definitely be posting more in the future. For now, good night.
-St. Augustine
It is with great pleasure that I send you greetings from the BEAUTIFUL city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. I knew that it would be amazing when, as I step off the plane, what greets you is an amazing view of coastal mountains flecked with trees and small bushes towering over the valley where the airport is with a crystalline blue sky playing host. So far, everyone I've met on the same program as I is very nice and my roommate (the one I've met and have gotten to know a little bit) is a real cool guy. The taxi ride with my program director from the airport to my apartment was great. What made it great? THE VIEW. We drove up a coastal road with mountains and cliffs to our right and the Adriatic Sea to our left. Bathed in the muted gold of the setting sun, the water a shimmering blue, such a view was awe-inspiring. Large islands straddled the coast, covered in green, while sailboats bobbed lazily in the bays and inlets as we drove by.
The city itself, particularly the Stari Grad, or "Old City" which Dubrovnik is so famous for, is a wondrous view to behold. Modern apartments like mine are inter-spaced between age-old traditional homes of white sandstone (?) in the "new" city, while the medieval walls of the Old City center are impressive and still seem like they could hold out in a siege, the buildings either the same sandstone or marble with red terra-cotta roofs in an Italian-esque flair. My landlord is a very sweet woman and my apartment is better furnished than I could have possibly expected.
Don't think it was an easy journey here. And thus I begin my random thoughts.
1. A big thank you to the group that I tagged along with from Tulsa to Washington. Without they're help I'd probably still be stuck in line at Dulles.
2. Dulles. Oh, Dulles. A modernistic monstrosity that can't hold a finger to Reagan International and less than half of the departure/arrival boards of any other airport I've been to.
3.It's amazing how a few thunderstorms can effectively shut down air travel along half the eastern seaboard. The sheer size of the lines at the Dulles United Customer Service desk needing reroutes was mind-boggling. Due to the weather issues and some fuel adjustments we had to make in Tulsa, my flight to Vienna was taxiing for take-off when we were pulling into the gate at Dulles, so needless to say I missed my flight to Vienna. Instead, thanks to only what I can describe as Divine Providence, the United people in Tulsa gave me a reroute through Frankfurt, Germany and from there to Dubrovnik. What a God-send.
4. Germanophiles, cover your ears and stop reading for a bit: I HATED Frankfurt airport. Don't get me wrong, I've been there before. And I remember it being a lot nicer. But, for one, it is typically German in that it sacrifices aesthetics for functionality: conrete, concrete, concrete. It is not a welcoming airport, or at least it wasn't to me. Secondly, for whatever reason, (friends from Germany excluded, of course) I don't really like Germans. Even at their happiest they seem...angry. Perhaps its just the language, but interactions with Germans leave me feeling cold.
Well, that should cover everything right now. I'll definitely be posting more in the future. For now, good night.
Monday, April 29, 2013
"Infinite" Issues: A Response to a Thematic Analysis
Allow me to first say that this is not a normal occurrence for me: responding to video game reviews is not something that strikes me as normally productive or all that worthwhile, but in this instance I feel that something had to be said.
A little bit of background: yesterday I was browsing Facebook when I came across a friend's message to a mutual friend regarding a review of the recently-released video game Bioshock Infinite. (The analysis can be found here: http://peripsuche.blogspot.com/2013/03/bioshock-infinite-thematic-analysis.html) I found the review oft times fascinating but also aggravating, particularly in regards to the reading into the political themes of the game. Now for the caveats: 1) I have only ever watched the game played-I haven't played it myself but I watched over half the game and have read into the themes of it; 2) THERE ARE SPOILERS here.
My overarching problem with the analysis is that of the straw-man caricatures of "conservative" America as seemingly portrayed by the villain Comstock and the very existence of the city of Columbia (the setting of the game-a flying city created for the Chicago World's Fair to show the might of the new American Empire). The analysis shows that the reviewer, who I do not know personally, is easily misled by the propaganda of the modern media and the Left that caricatures the Right as, in his words, "Their religion is a cult of personality based around worshiping modern political leaders and in deifying the founding fathers as infallible. It borrows aesthetics from Christianity while ignoring the messages of tolerance and kindness found in the New Testament in return for Old Testament morality and the apocalyptic imagery of Revelations. They glorify war, xenophobia, isolationism, and American exceptionalism. They accept economic inequality as just, even explicitly deserved. They've even seceded from the actual political entity of the United States because of their “more American than thou” attitude."
This entire diatribe strikes me as unfair, exceedingly biased, and furthermore completely detached from the lessons of history. My response is that he has the entire thing ass-backwards (or perhaps back-asswards?): the game is not an indictment of conservatism per-se, but rather a poignant and vividly-detailed example of what happens when a civilized society is poisoned by ideology.
Conservatism, as explained by Russell Kirk, is "the negation of ideology." Contrary to what the reviewer would have many believe about us conservatives, we are not, at heart, glorifiers of war, xenophobia, isolationism or American exceptionalism. The only thing of that list that might even have half a grain of truth is the charge of exceptionalist sentiment: but is that not a characteristic of all nations and peoples: the feeling that your nation, your culture, your community is in someway special from all others? After looking at the history of America, it is hard not to think that maybe there is something about America that separates it from all other nations in history. Kirk chronicles the rise of America as the accumulation of human wisdom and experience from Jerusalem and Athens through Rome, the Germanic nations, the British Empire, and the colonial experience leading to what he calls the "Philadelphia experiment." We are the latest inheritors of a long line of wisdom and experience from the very beginning of human history, including all the great achievements and horrific mistakes. Conservatives (or, I should say, true conservatives) look upon these accumulated honors and curses as a benediction, not as a messianic crusade or charge, and far from trying to create a mythic American Utopia, we seek to rehabilitate the older, established, intrinsically-human institutions, traditions, and customs for what we know is a different time. Edmund Burke, that great conservative statesman of England, acknowledged that change is a law of nature and is the "means of our preservation." But he cautioned against radical change, the kind that demolishes all that stands in its way of creating a new world.
It is this that Infinite seeks to show and warn us of: the destruction of the old world that we knew (in a sense the devil we knew) and in its place the creation of a new, unpredictable world (the devil we don't know). It is a direct reflection of the sentiments that captivated the American psyche at the turn of the Twentieth Century, that of Progressive Nationalism. Columbia itself is a wonder of science, industry, and human achievement-ergo, Progress. It also shows the might of the American Empire, young, budding, and backed by industrial might that characterized the Progressive vision of the new America. This is neither restricted to the United States (this is the age of Nationalism and the idolization of Progress) nor is it in any way "conservative." In much the same vein as Rapture, Columbia is a testament to man's folly, the difference being that where Rapture showed the consequences of making man unto a god using "objective" reason and science, Columbia and Infinite show the dark side of the cult of personality, the attachment of utopian ideology with pagan mysticism, as well as, with the Vox Populi, the common threat of ideological populism best exemplified by socialism of the Marxist variety.
Now, people may wonder why conservatism of late has commonly assumed the incarnation of what the author described above. The answer is that they are NOT true conservatives. They are neo-conservatives, who are neither new nor conservative. One conservative thinker labeled neocons as "liberals mugged by reality," and are the modern reincarnation of the progressives of yesteryear, with the false god Progress replaced by the idol-worship of "Freedom." As for the so-called idolatry of political thinkers, let's be honest: we conservatives hold Ronald Reagan in high esteem because he embodied many things that true conservatives support. However, it would be foolish to accuse us of "worship": we recognize that no man is inherently a saint, nor do we think that all men are without blemish, a problem that the Left has that few want or deign to acknowledge. No man, no matter how great he may be, escapes Final Judgment before God. If one desires a true version of cult-worship of personality, one only need to hearken back to 2008 and the Cult of Obama. We do not think that the Founding Fathers were infallible, nor were they gods among men. They were men, imbued with what Kirk calls the "unbought grace of life" and were instructed and kept at heart the wisdom of those who came before, made great by their faith in a higher calling and their adherence to the moral principles and ethical lessons learned long before, with the uniquely American experience adding zest to already noble lives. But even a noble life is often one made so by experience, not all of which is happy and oft times stern. Experience, particularly that which is aided and consoled by example is, as Burke noted, the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Apart from the political contentions, I largely agree with the author's notes on the religious themes present, with one major exception. The author likes to stress baptism and the need to acknowledge past sins as part of the process that America needs to go through to cleanse herself of her past. My objection is that of Leopold von Ranke: "History is not a criminal court." What is done is done, and though we deal with the consequences of those that came before, we also have the lessons gleaned from them. It is neither our place nor our duty to castigate our ancestors from over a hundred years ago, only to learn from their accomplishments and mistakes and use them to continue to breathe life into the immortal institutions and traditions, the "permanent things," so that they may be alive for future generations to enjoy. The part of the process that the author forgets is that one is not simply baptized and everything is "fine." The process of redemption is one that takes years, and one must not relapse. The problem with the infinite universes in Infinite is the possibility of relapse lest we forget the lessons of the past. With human nature a constant, it is not unrealistic to think that perhaps a majority of the multiverse planes follow the pattern of human nature: without the guiding light, and the constant attention to the path one treads, even after taking the narrow path at the fork of life, one may fall off into Despond.
In conclusion, I think the lesson of all the Bioshock games is the one that humanity needs to take itself less seriously. God did not create us to be serious and pessimistic: He created us to be happy, and to be joyful stewards of His Creation. As G.K. Chesterton noted, "The angels can fly because they take themselves lightly." And it is with that quote that I lay aside my proverbial pen.
A little bit of background: yesterday I was browsing Facebook when I came across a friend's message to a mutual friend regarding a review of the recently-released video game Bioshock Infinite. (The analysis can be found here: http://peripsuche.blogspot.com/2013/03/bioshock-infinite-thematic-analysis.html) I found the review oft times fascinating but also aggravating, particularly in regards to the reading into the political themes of the game. Now for the caveats: 1) I have only ever watched the game played-I haven't played it myself but I watched over half the game and have read into the themes of it; 2) THERE ARE SPOILERS here.
My overarching problem with the analysis is that of the straw-man caricatures of "conservative" America as seemingly portrayed by the villain Comstock and the very existence of the city of Columbia (the setting of the game-a flying city created for the Chicago World's Fair to show the might of the new American Empire). The analysis shows that the reviewer, who I do not know personally, is easily misled by the propaganda of the modern media and the Left that caricatures the Right as, in his words, "Their religion is a cult of personality based around worshiping modern political leaders and in deifying the founding fathers as infallible. It borrows aesthetics from Christianity while ignoring the messages of tolerance and kindness found in the New Testament in return for Old Testament morality and the apocalyptic imagery of Revelations. They glorify war, xenophobia, isolationism, and American exceptionalism. They accept economic inequality as just, even explicitly deserved. They've even seceded from the actual political entity of the United States because of their “more American than thou” attitude."
This entire diatribe strikes me as unfair, exceedingly biased, and furthermore completely detached from the lessons of history. My response is that he has the entire thing ass-backwards (or perhaps back-asswards?): the game is not an indictment of conservatism per-se, but rather a poignant and vividly-detailed example of what happens when a civilized society is poisoned by ideology.
Conservatism, as explained by Russell Kirk, is "the negation of ideology." Contrary to what the reviewer would have many believe about us conservatives, we are not, at heart, glorifiers of war, xenophobia, isolationism or American exceptionalism. The only thing of that list that might even have half a grain of truth is the charge of exceptionalist sentiment: but is that not a characteristic of all nations and peoples: the feeling that your nation, your culture, your community is in someway special from all others? After looking at the history of America, it is hard not to think that maybe there is something about America that separates it from all other nations in history. Kirk chronicles the rise of America as the accumulation of human wisdom and experience from Jerusalem and Athens through Rome, the Germanic nations, the British Empire, and the colonial experience leading to what he calls the "Philadelphia experiment." We are the latest inheritors of a long line of wisdom and experience from the very beginning of human history, including all the great achievements and horrific mistakes. Conservatives (or, I should say, true conservatives) look upon these accumulated honors and curses as a benediction, not as a messianic crusade or charge, and far from trying to create a mythic American Utopia, we seek to rehabilitate the older, established, intrinsically-human institutions, traditions, and customs for what we know is a different time. Edmund Burke, that great conservative statesman of England, acknowledged that change is a law of nature and is the "means of our preservation." But he cautioned against radical change, the kind that demolishes all that stands in its way of creating a new world.
It is this that Infinite seeks to show and warn us of: the destruction of the old world that we knew (in a sense the devil we knew) and in its place the creation of a new, unpredictable world (the devil we don't know). It is a direct reflection of the sentiments that captivated the American psyche at the turn of the Twentieth Century, that of Progressive Nationalism. Columbia itself is a wonder of science, industry, and human achievement-ergo, Progress. It also shows the might of the American Empire, young, budding, and backed by industrial might that characterized the Progressive vision of the new America. This is neither restricted to the United States (this is the age of Nationalism and the idolization of Progress) nor is it in any way "conservative." In much the same vein as Rapture, Columbia is a testament to man's folly, the difference being that where Rapture showed the consequences of making man unto a god using "objective" reason and science, Columbia and Infinite show the dark side of the cult of personality, the attachment of utopian ideology with pagan mysticism, as well as, with the Vox Populi, the common threat of ideological populism best exemplified by socialism of the Marxist variety.
Now, people may wonder why conservatism of late has commonly assumed the incarnation of what the author described above. The answer is that they are NOT true conservatives. They are neo-conservatives, who are neither new nor conservative. One conservative thinker labeled neocons as "liberals mugged by reality," and are the modern reincarnation of the progressives of yesteryear, with the false god Progress replaced by the idol-worship of "Freedom." As for the so-called idolatry of political thinkers, let's be honest: we conservatives hold Ronald Reagan in high esteem because he embodied many things that true conservatives support. However, it would be foolish to accuse us of "worship": we recognize that no man is inherently a saint, nor do we think that all men are without blemish, a problem that the Left has that few want or deign to acknowledge. No man, no matter how great he may be, escapes Final Judgment before God. If one desires a true version of cult-worship of personality, one only need to hearken back to 2008 and the Cult of Obama. We do not think that the Founding Fathers were infallible, nor were they gods among men. They were men, imbued with what Kirk calls the "unbought grace of life" and were instructed and kept at heart the wisdom of those who came before, made great by their faith in a higher calling and their adherence to the moral principles and ethical lessons learned long before, with the uniquely American experience adding zest to already noble lives. But even a noble life is often one made so by experience, not all of which is happy and oft times stern. Experience, particularly that which is aided and consoled by example is, as Burke noted, the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Apart from the political contentions, I largely agree with the author's notes on the religious themes present, with one major exception. The author likes to stress baptism and the need to acknowledge past sins as part of the process that America needs to go through to cleanse herself of her past. My objection is that of Leopold von Ranke: "History is not a criminal court." What is done is done, and though we deal with the consequences of those that came before, we also have the lessons gleaned from them. It is neither our place nor our duty to castigate our ancestors from over a hundred years ago, only to learn from their accomplishments and mistakes and use them to continue to breathe life into the immortal institutions and traditions, the "permanent things," so that they may be alive for future generations to enjoy. The part of the process that the author forgets is that one is not simply baptized and everything is "fine." The process of redemption is one that takes years, and one must not relapse. The problem with the infinite universes in Infinite is the possibility of relapse lest we forget the lessons of the past. With human nature a constant, it is not unrealistic to think that perhaps a majority of the multiverse planes follow the pattern of human nature: without the guiding light, and the constant attention to the path one treads, even after taking the narrow path at the fork of life, one may fall off into Despond.
In conclusion, I think the lesson of all the Bioshock games is the one that humanity needs to take itself less seriously. God did not create us to be serious and pessimistic: He created us to be happy, and to be joyful stewards of His Creation. As G.K. Chesterton noted, "The angels can fly because they take themselves lightly." And it is with that quote that I lay aside my proverbial pen.
Monday, April 1, 2013
The Time is Right
I'll say it if nobody else will: we on the Right have no clue how to win a peace.
How do I mean? I mean that when it comes to political wars, mostly mid-term elections, we can talk a big talk and, seemingly, walk a big walk. We can win elections...and then do nothing with them (best case scenario). It is the same here in America as in Britain to our Tory brothers and sisters.
Why do I think we lost the last election? In a nutshell, we lost because we are adrift. We have fallen, so to speak, into a lie and a folly. That folly and lie is near-akin to the lie propagated by our adversaries for over fifty years that seemingly won't die. And it is this: that all human problems can be solved by either A) more "liberty," more "freedom," and more "stuff"; or B) that a new government program or initiative can bring about more happiness...by giving away more stuff and services.
This is the false dilemma that the GOP (and conservatives in general) are facing: become little more than liberals in all but name or go hard right and become a wholly "libertarian" party.
Here's the rub for my free-market friends and my big-government buddies: both capitalism and socialism are unhealthy in their unrestricted forms as we see them today. They both have the same ending: collectivization, either by the all-encompassing state or by a small number of ultra-massive corporations who set the prices and distribution of all goods and services. We on the Right lost the last election because we fell into the overriding folly of current political discourse: that all things in life must be discussed and addressed in material terms, that everything can be bought at a price, and that material wealth resolves all problems.
And this is just in regards to the economy. Don't get me started on the cultural and social problems.
Our plight, as it were, is that once in power, we continue on with the same old policies of our predecessors or enact policies even more damaging.
The issue is thus: the libertarians are so secular and so materially-minded that to elect them would only hasten the collapse of the GOP. And to become liberals in all but name...well, we know how that turns out.
What is being drowned out is, essentially, the conservative "Third Way": the so-called "Crunchy-Conservatives" that Rod Dreher speaks of in his book of the same name. And this could be their moment.
The GOP drifts without direction, arguing against itself on which direction to take, all the while the Left marches past closer and closer to the cliff at the "end of the world" (as in the flat-earth concept) with their social-democratic utopianism. And to many Americans, the choice between the ineffectual and divided GOP, the party of Big Business and Foreign Intervention and Legislative Morality on the one hand, and the Democrats, the party of Big Government, Judicial-Activist Fiat, and Obamacare is a turn-off. Conservatives who would vote for the GOP don't because they see it as becoming the bipolar clone of the Democratic Party. Its platform of Low Taxes and Small Government, while appealing, fail to address the mess of problems that America faces.
If there was ever a time for the Third-Way Conservatives to exert influence, NOW is the time. Their answers, while probably unpopular with many, will appeal to the majority of thinking persons in the country. It's time for the radical answers (which are actually more conservative than the current answers of the GOP) of conservatism to ascend. A humane economy, the restoration of true justice and natural law, a return to a real understanding on politics and its limits, a smart and less-strong arm foreign policy, the return of federal power to within its proper jurisdiction...I could go on and on. It's a shame that few if any conservatives are seeking out these kinds of answers.
The old answers don't cut it anymore. Time to think outside the box and return to first principles.
How do I mean? I mean that when it comes to political wars, mostly mid-term elections, we can talk a big talk and, seemingly, walk a big walk. We can win elections...and then do nothing with them (best case scenario). It is the same here in America as in Britain to our Tory brothers and sisters.
Why do I think we lost the last election? In a nutshell, we lost because we are adrift. We have fallen, so to speak, into a lie and a folly. That folly and lie is near-akin to the lie propagated by our adversaries for over fifty years that seemingly won't die. And it is this: that all human problems can be solved by either A) more "liberty," more "freedom," and more "stuff"; or B) that a new government program or initiative can bring about more happiness...by giving away more stuff and services.
This is the false dilemma that the GOP (and conservatives in general) are facing: become little more than liberals in all but name or go hard right and become a wholly "libertarian" party.
Here's the rub for my free-market friends and my big-government buddies: both capitalism and socialism are unhealthy in their unrestricted forms as we see them today. They both have the same ending: collectivization, either by the all-encompassing state or by a small number of ultra-massive corporations who set the prices and distribution of all goods and services. We on the Right lost the last election because we fell into the overriding folly of current political discourse: that all things in life must be discussed and addressed in material terms, that everything can be bought at a price, and that material wealth resolves all problems.
And this is just in regards to the economy. Don't get me started on the cultural and social problems.
Our plight, as it were, is that once in power, we continue on with the same old policies of our predecessors or enact policies even more damaging.
The issue is thus: the libertarians are so secular and so materially-minded that to elect them would only hasten the collapse of the GOP. And to become liberals in all but name...well, we know how that turns out.
What is being drowned out is, essentially, the conservative "Third Way": the so-called "Crunchy-Conservatives" that Rod Dreher speaks of in his book of the same name. And this could be their moment.
The GOP drifts without direction, arguing against itself on which direction to take, all the while the Left marches past closer and closer to the cliff at the "end of the world" (as in the flat-earth concept) with their social-democratic utopianism. And to many Americans, the choice between the ineffectual and divided GOP, the party of Big Business and Foreign Intervention and Legislative Morality on the one hand, and the Democrats, the party of Big Government, Judicial-Activist Fiat, and Obamacare is a turn-off. Conservatives who would vote for the GOP don't because they see it as becoming the bipolar clone of the Democratic Party. Its platform of Low Taxes and Small Government, while appealing, fail to address the mess of problems that America faces.
If there was ever a time for the Third-Way Conservatives to exert influence, NOW is the time. Their answers, while probably unpopular with many, will appeal to the majority of thinking persons in the country. It's time for the radical answers (which are actually more conservative than the current answers of the GOP) of conservatism to ascend. A humane economy, the restoration of true justice and natural law, a return to a real understanding on politics and its limits, a smart and less-strong arm foreign policy, the return of federal power to within its proper jurisdiction...I could go on and on. It's a shame that few if any conservatives are seeking out these kinds of answers.
The old answers don't cut it anymore. Time to think outside the box and return to first principles.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Despair Is An Unwelcome Companion: Staying Merry While the World Around You Burns
It is probably pretty sad, but the best conservative bumper sticker I've ever seen reads "Losing Slowly :)."
And while I smile and laugh and agree completely, I find it hard to, as a fellow conservative once advised, "stay merry" while the world around me goes to hell in a hand-basket. The sticker perfectly sums up the fact that to be of a conservative persuasion is to be fighting an eternal losing battle. And that can be pretty depressing, let me tell ya.
Especially in today's world. Everywhere I look I see the things I once took for granted being hammered at from the base or completely demolished in the face of the "general will" (see mob mentality) while good men and women watch on or walk past, oblivious. I see groups that once stood for what was good and true do an about-face and show the world their lack of spine or conviction. I see craven cowardice and unabashed greed. Appalling arrogance leads people to believe that they can achieve anything-only to show, in the end, how feeble and petty men really are when they fall. I see how men, seemingly benign, are actually selling their fellow man either down the river to oblivion or to a form of subservience little better (if at all) than enslavement, the only difference being servitude to the all-encompassing "State" apparatus as opposed to an individual, leading, instead of exploitation of labor a hollowing nihilism that kills the soul, leaving nothing but a husk of a man or woman incapable of independent thought or, for that matter, independence at all.
Our country's children are receiving the worst that human depravity has to show, our schools inundated with violence, drugs, sex, and amorality, with any attempt to rectify it being demonized on high. And it's only getting worse.
In the case of higher education, the situation is as bad as its ever been. If anyone ever bothered to see what passes for education in some of our educational institutions, they would return to reality with a piece of their humanity missing, whatever innocence was left gone forever, stolen by our "popular" culture and culture of death. The monstrous Nothing is pervasive in college. Instead of noblesse oblige, Ability, and "to each his own" (in the sense of classical distributive and commutative justice), our universities teach a crushing leveling that destroys not only aspiration but also imagination, reducing us to pawns and replaceable parts in the great machine, denying us our very humanity.
Truly, Pride is the source of all sin. In our arrogance to believe we can create an earthly Utopia, we have instead built the engines of Hell itself. And have willingly chained ourselves to them, selling our souls for trinkets and prizes that will not follow us in Death.
As you can tell, it can be very hard to stay "merry" with Despair and Melancholy greeting you as you rise every morning. So then, how do we go on? How are we not pulled down by our chains and torn from our souls?
Because we realize that the sting of Death is gone. That every Night must, inevitably, give way to Morning. And that even in a world as broken as ours, as fallen as ours, as unlivable as ours, we Are, we Live, and we CAN Rise above it. And that is why, in spite of the host arrayed against us, we continue to be merry and find comfort in the fact that we CAN, indeed, reclaim the age; that we can, in the end, "Redeem the Time."
And while I smile and laugh and agree completely, I find it hard to, as a fellow conservative once advised, "stay merry" while the world around me goes to hell in a hand-basket. The sticker perfectly sums up the fact that to be of a conservative persuasion is to be fighting an eternal losing battle. And that can be pretty depressing, let me tell ya.
Especially in today's world. Everywhere I look I see the things I once took for granted being hammered at from the base or completely demolished in the face of the "general will" (see mob mentality) while good men and women watch on or walk past, oblivious. I see groups that once stood for what was good and true do an about-face and show the world their lack of spine or conviction. I see craven cowardice and unabashed greed. Appalling arrogance leads people to believe that they can achieve anything-only to show, in the end, how feeble and petty men really are when they fall. I see how men, seemingly benign, are actually selling their fellow man either down the river to oblivion or to a form of subservience little better (if at all) than enslavement, the only difference being servitude to the all-encompassing "State" apparatus as opposed to an individual, leading, instead of exploitation of labor a hollowing nihilism that kills the soul, leaving nothing but a husk of a man or woman incapable of independent thought or, for that matter, independence at all.
Our country's children are receiving the worst that human depravity has to show, our schools inundated with violence, drugs, sex, and amorality, with any attempt to rectify it being demonized on high. And it's only getting worse.
In the case of higher education, the situation is as bad as its ever been. If anyone ever bothered to see what passes for education in some of our educational institutions, they would return to reality with a piece of their humanity missing, whatever innocence was left gone forever, stolen by our "popular" culture and culture of death. The monstrous Nothing is pervasive in college. Instead of noblesse oblige, Ability, and "to each his own" (in the sense of classical distributive and commutative justice), our universities teach a crushing leveling that destroys not only aspiration but also imagination, reducing us to pawns and replaceable parts in the great machine, denying us our very humanity.
Truly, Pride is the source of all sin. In our arrogance to believe we can create an earthly Utopia, we have instead built the engines of Hell itself. And have willingly chained ourselves to them, selling our souls for trinkets and prizes that will not follow us in Death.
As you can tell, it can be very hard to stay "merry" with Despair and Melancholy greeting you as you rise every morning. So then, how do we go on? How are we not pulled down by our chains and torn from our souls?
Because we realize that the sting of Death is gone. That every Night must, inevitably, give way to Morning. And that even in a world as broken as ours, as fallen as ours, as unlivable as ours, we Are, we Live, and we CAN Rise above it. And that is why, in spite of the host arrayed against us, we continue to be merry and find comfort in the fact that we CAN, indeed, reclaim the age; that we can, in the end, "Redeem the Time."
Friday, January 25, 2013
Dreams
It is truly amazing to me what comes to mind when my imagination meets great music. Not long ago I found myself becoming quite enamored with "chillstep" and other "chill" music. Now, this is not the kind of "chill" that you play when you're out with your "homies" smoking joints. Far from it. There's a melody and a harmony and an order that I find in this music that speaks to my soul, in the same way that Javert and Valjean make me weep when I watch Les Miserables.
Fine, go ahead and call me a Romantic at heart.
This music brings such visions to my mind, a peace that I can only find...well, really nowhere, 'cept maybe a church. If someone ever commented that Music is a path to finding God, they were right. Give that man/woman a raise!
Just a few minutes ago, I was listening to a section of a mash-up of "chill piano" with orchestral mixes. There was woodwinds (saxophones?) playing, and all I could imagine was walking along the beach, watching the sun set and the waves of the Mediterranean wash ashore. I think I imagined France, since I do remember quite a bit of my stay there.
Here's some "urbane" piano: I imagine strolling in a long coat (navy peacoat, mind) in NYC circa 1950. The notes are the rain that falls.
A few minutes ago, the tune playing at the time had me envisioning that I was walking with God, transcendent, in a time out of space and a space out of time, with the stars as my step-stones.
Now we're getting a bit darker. A lonely soldier, slouching homeward, head down and shoulders heavy with weariness, beaten in body and mind, though his spirit propels him back to his family and hearth, the silent stars his map, his guide. He hears the voice of the universe, sharing his grief and pain, and all seems like it can't go on. But he can, and he does. He quickens his step, and all he can imagine in his darkened countenance is the warm embrace of his beloved. The night draws near, and he must find shelter. And a beacon shines: a Cross, atop a high steeple, reflecting the light of both Sun and Son. He stumbles forward, his vision clouding as he nears the Eternal Embrace. He weeps at the doors of the church, thinking of his failings, his wife and children and all the things he never achieved. But a warm note emanates from the inside: an organ plays a homily, and a gentle priest answers the knock. He carries the soldier inside, and the soldier begs for mercy and confession, his eyes moist with the tears he never shed before, for himself, for his fellow men, broken by war, for his lord and king, for the children who bear his blood in their veins. But the priest smiles, and comforts him. The soldier asks that the music go on. The organ, playing softly now, continues. And a new music meets his ears: unearthly, a beauty he's never known before. He confesses to the priest, his spirit light and whole as a feeling like the warm sun as it rises on the world embracing him. He leaves his body, flying as if held by eagles, soaring. He lands at his door, and his wife greets him with loving eyes, and his children's delight, and he knows: He is home.
Now I hear a kind of Oriental quality, and imagine a garden. A Feng-Sui garden, all order and harmony, but the peace...delicate, temporal, fleeting.
Now, the death of a star. Exploding with brilliant rays, such destruction. But is it really death? Can Hell's bell really have the final say? For even as the nova signals death, it heralds something new and beautiful: the rays of destruction dance in all the shades of color of the universe, like a dream from God.
Now a sentinel, sure in his duty and stout in his heart, stares out from his keep. He cannot know the darkness that awaits but is sure of his place and of his faith, the knowledge that light shines in even the blackest of nights. He imagines trumpets sounding, and he smiles, eager to manifest his destiny.
Now I see Earth, in all her ephemeral glory, as viewed from above. Such peace, such tranquility, from so high up. No war, no death, no chaos...and yet I see the movement of the clouds, the rotation of the planet, the great system working in its capacity. Order even in chaos.
Please do not be alarmed. These are my musings, the visions I see, the dreams I dream.
Almighty God, thank you for your gifts. Thank you for music. Thank you for dreams. Thank you for making them one and the same. Amen.
Fine, go ahead and call me a Romantic at heart.
This music brings such visions to my mind, a peace that I can only find...well, really nowhere, 'cept maybe a church. If someone ever commented that Music is a path to finding God, they were right. Give that man/woman a raise!
Just a few minutes ago, I was listening to a section of a mash-up of "chill piano" with orchestral mixes. There was woodwinds (saxophones?) playing, and all I could imagine was walking along the beach, watching the sun set and the waves of the Mediterranean wash ashore. I think I imagined France, since I do remember quite a bit of my stay there.
Here's some "urbane" piano: I imagine strolling in a long coat (navy peacoat, mind) in NYC circa 1950. The notes are the rain that falls.
A few minutes ago, the tune playing at the time had me envisioning that I was walking with God, transcendent, in a time out of space and a space out of time, with the stars as my step-stones.
Now we're getting a bit darker. A lonely soldier, slouching homeward, head down and shoulders heavy with weariness, beaten in body and mind, though his spirit propels him back to his family and hearth, the silent stars his map, his guide. He hears the voice of the universe, sharing his grief and pain, and all seems like it can't go on. But he can, and he does. He quickens his step, and all he can imagine in his darkened countenance is the warm embrace of his beloved. The night draws near, and he must find shelter. And a beacon shines: a Cross, atop a high steeple, reflecting the light of both Sun and Son. He stumbles forward, his vision clouding as he nears the Eternal Embrace. He weeps at the doors of the church, thinking of his failings, his wife and children and all the things he never achieved. But a warm note emanates from the inside: an organ plays a homily, and a gentle priest answers the knock. He carries the soldier inside, and the soldier begs for mercy and confession, his eyes moist with the tears he never shed before, for himself, for his fellow men, broken by war, for his lord and king, for the children who bear his blood in their veins. But the priest smiles, and comforts him. The soldier asks that the music go on. The organ, playing softly now, continues. And a new music meets his ears: unearthly, a beauty he's never known before. He confesses to the priest, his spirit light and whole as a feeling like the warm sun as it rises on the world embracing him. He leaves his body, flying as if held by eagles, soaring. He lands at his door, and his wife greets him with loving eyes, and his children's delight, and he knows: He is home.
Now I hear a kind of Oriental quality, and imagine a garden. A Feng-Sui garden, all order and harmony, but the peace...delicate, temporal, fleeting.
Now, the death of a star. Exploding with brilliant rays, such destruction. But is it really death? Can Hell's bell really have the final say? For even as the nova signals death, it heralds something new and beautiful: the rays of destruction dance in all the shades of color of the universe, like a dream from God.
Now a sentinel, sure in his duty and stout in his heart, stares out from his keep. He cannot know the darkness that awaits but is sure of his place and of his faith, the knowledge that light shines in even the blackest of nights. He imagines trumpets sounding, and he smiles, eager to manifest his destiny.
Now I see Earth, in all her ephemeral glory, as viewed from above. Such peace, such tranquility, from so high up. No war, no death, no chaos...and yet I see the movement of the clouds, the rotation of the planet, the great system working in its capacity. Order even in chaos.
Please do not be alarmed. These are my musings, the visions I see, the dreams I dream.
Almighty God, thank you for your gifts. Thank you for music. Thank you for dreams. Thank you for making them one and the same. Amen.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Ditching the Tea Leaves and Savoring the Brew: And Life Went On
As many of you can probably guess, I was disappointed at the results of the latest presidential election. And as I write this, after reading a number of articles from many voices within the conservative community (for that is what it is, less a movement and more a community) and having an imagination that knows practical limits, I imagine myself writing this on a sheet of paper in a small pub or brew-house somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic Coast area or small-time urban area (preferably South Carolina, Virginia, or Georgia, though New Hampshire and Western Pennsylvania come to mind as well), sitting and musing about the current state of affairs of my intellectual preference over a lovingly-brewed craft beer. I can see myself: dressed like I'm from the Fifties, pen in hand, fingers cupping my chin in thought, my eyes glazed in contemplation (or perhaps too much to drink...). Thus I begin to write.
Now, more than ever, do I fully understand that to be a conservative is to largely run against the grain of the zeitgeist. Conservatism as a community and as an strain of thought is not meant to, as The National Review stated in its mission, "Stand Athwart History, Yelling "Stop!" because trying to stop the illusion of progress (and that is what most of what we see today is illusion) is like trying to stop a freight train. Rather, we should shout "Slow Down! Come on over and have a beer and put up your feet! Sunset's about to happen and Ma's got some pie ready! Relax and enjoy the moment!" Perhaps this sounds too much like something that is naive or unattainable. But it is the essential spirit of a conservative; that, and a Sunday service and blessed meal afterward.
I said not too long ago in a Facebook discussion that "...wealth is neither the end nor the means in regards to happiness and life; it's the icing on the cake." Too many people in the US have forgotten this, or worse, never knew it. We all aspire to greatness and wealth and power: it's natural. I have worried about this myself: I don't want to be just another soul to add to a list, loved in life (and perhaps hated, but I hope not) but ultimately forgotten by time. But even the most minuscule influence I can have in the development of not only a good son or daughter, but a beloved neighbor and a virtuous citizen and faithful Christian is worth more to me than all the gold in the world. I aspire to be prosperous, but I must remember that there are many faces of prosperity, the same as there are many faces to conservatism and to good beer and pie.
The vitality of conservatism is its infinite variety, the same variety that Russell Kirk spoke so lovingly of in his magnum opus, The Conservative Mind. And we must keep in mind that we are all human: we make mistakes. Perhaps we as a community have made too many mistakes in the past several decades, so rabidly anti-Left that we failed to treat our own cancers. A true conservative understands that he cannot be perfected, nor is he infallible. That's fine by me. The more we understand our limits not only as men but also as a community, the better we can serve our local communities, our families, our churches. That means looking at things from a dozen different perspectives.
The most important thing that I believe that most conservatives have missed is that, unlike our competitors, we are not political animals. Politics may be important, ideas may be important, but the tantamount point of life is to bring oneself closer not only to God but to our fellow man through contact and relationships-in essence, true brotherhood and fraternity, not the false ragdoll presented as fraternity by the other side. And in spite of our setbacks of late, we must remain as we are: merry folk, hard workers, sober thinkers. Instead of quarreling amongst ourselves and pointing fingers, what is really needed is a congenial sit-down and ironing out of our problems. It's time to look at our places in our nation with clarity and humility, but also with congeniality.
The intellectual choices and reading lists for conservatism read like an overview of craft-brews from all over the nation, but they do share something in common: I much prefer the variety and soul of the many ideas and thinkers and books that I find, much like the craft brews I find, over the massive, the conglomerate, the universal with destroys individual identity. I believe that Wilhelm Ropke coined the term "enmassement," and I do believe he knew what he was talking about. We have a treasure trove of excellent and thought-provoking ideas and thinkers that we have largely neglected. That must change above all else.
Further, we must stop the entirety of our focus upon economics. I realize, as does any thinking conservative, that the economy and economics is a looming figure in our lives. But I argue that it should not consume us. We may be economic creatures, but we have allowed ourselves to be defined by our class and status and wealth and our character, virtue, and dignity sorely neglected. We are created in God's Image, and it's about time we remembered this.
In conclusion, on November 7, I awoke disappointed and, to be honest, quite angry. I felt cheated, I felt abandoned, I felt betrayed. I wept a little at the thoughts of the future and the clouds of the storm looming there. But these thoughts, though shared by many friends, were dispelled by the simple joy and humor of being amongst my fellow Delts and students. In short, I stopped trying to read the tea leaves of politics (to an extent) and savored the joys of life's brew. Life went on on that Nov. 7 morning, and so it shall, come hell and high water. And while I don't condone naivete, optimism is optimism.
Now, more than ever, do I fully understand that to be a conservative is to largely run against the grain of the zeitgeist. Conservatism as a community and as an strain of thought is not meant to, as The National Review stated in its mission, "Stand Athwart History, Yelling "Stop!" because trying to stop the illusion of progress (and that is what most of what we see today is illusion) is like trying to stop a freight train. Rather, we should shout "Slow Down! Come on over and have a beer and put up your feet! Sunset's about to happen and Ma's got some pie ready! Relax and enjoy the moment!" Perhaps this sounds too much like something that is naive or unattainable. But it is the essential spirit of a conservative; that, and a Sunday service and blessed meal afterward.
I said not too long ago in a Facebook discussion that "...wealth is neither the end nor the means in regards to happiness and life; it's the icing on the cake." Too many people in the US have forgotten this, or worse, never knew it. We all aspire to greatness and wealth and power: it's natural. I have worried about this myself: I don't want to be just another soul to add to a list, loved in life (and perhaps hated, but I hope not) but ultimately forgotten by time. But even the most minuscule influence I can have in the development of not only a good son or daughter, but a beloved neighbor and a virtuous citizen and faithful Christian is worth more to me than all the gold in the world. I aspire to be prosperous, but I must remember that there are many faces of prosperity, the same as there are many faces to conservatism and to good beer and pie.
The vitality of conservatism is its infinite variety, the same variety that Russell Kirk spoke so lovingly of in his magnum opus, The Conservative Mind. And we must keep in mind that we are all human: we make mistakes. Perhaps we as a community have made too many mistakes in the past several decades, so rabidly anti-Left that we failed to treat our own cancers. A true conservative understands that he cannot be perfected, nor is he infallible. That's fine by me. The more we understand our limits not only as men but also as a community, the better we can serve our local communities, our families, our churches. That means looking at things from a dozen different perspectives.
The most important thing that I believe that most conservatives have missed is that, unlike our competitors, we are not political animals. Politics may be important, ideas may be important, but the tantamount point of life is to bring oneself closer not only to God but to our fellow man through contact and relationships-in essence, true brotherhood and fraternity, not the false ragdoll presented as fraternity by the other side. And in spite of our setbacks of late, we must remain as we are: merry folk, hard workers, sober thinkers. Instead of quarreling amongst ourselves and pointing fingers, what is really needed is a congenial sit-down and ironing out of our problems. It's time to look at our places in our nation with clarity and humility, but also with congeniality.
The intellectual choices and reading lists for conservatism read like an overview of craft-brews from all over the nation, but they do share something in common: I much prefer the variety and soul of the many ideas and thinkers and books that I find, much like the craft brews I find, over the massive, the conglomerate, the universal with destroys individual identity. I believe that Wilhelm Ropke coined the term "enmassement," and I do believe he knew what he was talking about. We have a treasure trove of excellent and thought-provoking ideas and thinkers that we have largely neglected. That must change above all else.
Further, we must stop the entirety of our focus upon economics. I realize, as does any thinking conservative, that the economy and economics is a looming figure in our lives. But I argue that it should not consume us. We may be economic creatures, but we have allowed ourselves to be defined by our class and status and wealth and our character, virtue, and dignity sorely neglected. We are created in God's Image, and it's about time we remembered this.
In conclusion, on November 7, I awoke disappointed and, to be honest, quite angry. I felt cheated, I felt abandoned, I felt betrayed. I wept a little at the thoughts of the future and the clouds of the storm looming there. But these thoughts, though shared by many friends, were dispelled by the simple joy and humor of being amongst my fellow Delts and students. In short, I stopped trying to read the tea leaves of politics (to an extent) and savored the joys of life's brew. Life went on on that Nov. 7 morning, and so it shall, come hell and high water. And while I don't condone naivete, optimism is optimism.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
A World in Black and White: My Own Issue
It is with a heavy heart that I pen this post.
A tragedy befell my hometown, in a school whose halls I once traversed.
Most others are grieving and in mourning in their own way.
My way...seems a bit heartless.
Now why would I say this? I like to think that I'm a pretty emphatic person. I enjoy sharing emotions with others, in good times and in bad. To be utterly honest, I'm a pretty emotional person easily worked up by music with a message on one end of the spectrum and, I'm embarrassed to admit, easily stoked into boiling anger on the other end. But one thing that people can never accuse me of is being dishonest or insincere.
So let me be honest in saying that my impression of what has happened today is saddening and sickening. But let me also be honest in saying that I don't feel sorrow at these events. I feel...pity. Pity and disappointment.
I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself, nor do I aim to speak ill of the dead.
...I almost feel like I can't write this, for fear of bearing the label of a heartless bastard or, worse, becoming an outcast myself.
However, I must be true to myself.
I see the world in black and white. Absolutism. One is good, the other evil. I regard the action-not the actor-of what happened today to be nothing short of evil. It is the most evil of all evils: the destruction of an innocent life by its own hand. By all that is good and Holy, where was his help?! Why?! Why must this happen?! Why is it that people-good people with their entire lives ahead of them-feel that to relieve themselves of pain-of any kind-they must KILL THEMSELVES?!
Do they not realize what they are doing?! They were given life for a purpose! A glorious purpose! Life can be good and beautiful! Indeed, it has its bad moments and potholes, but is DEATH really the ANSWER to that?!
NO!!! A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!!!
DEATH is the antithesis of LIFE! It is what we all face in the end! Why do people wish that it come so soon, when they have so much more to live for?! WHY?!
CURSE YOU DARKNESS! CURSE YOU, AUTHOR OF WOE, YOU PRINCE OF DEATH! Why must you drag us with you into Oblivion! How can you find joy in destruction?! How can you cackle as we weep?! TO HELL WITH YOU!
Please realize: I don't say this to be dramatic. These are my true feelings. Life is sacred. It is one of God's greatest gifts to us. And I would like to think that he who left us today left us a message:
Life is a gift.
Live it to its fullest potential.
A tragedy befell my hometown, in a school whose halls I once traversed.
Most others are grieving and in mourning in their own way.
My way...seems a bit heartless.
Now why would I say this? I like to think that I'm a pretty emphatic person. I enjoy sharing emotions with others, in good times and in bad. To be utterly honest, I'm a pretty emotional person easily worked up by music with a message on one end of the spectrum and, I'm embarrassed to admit, easily stoked into boiling anger on the other end. But one thing that people can never accuse me of is being dishonest or insincere.
So let me be honest in saying that my impression of what has happened today is saddening and sickening. But let me also be honest in saying that I don't feel sorrow at these events. I feel...pity. Pity and disappointment.
I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself, nor do I aim to speak ill of the dead.
...I almost feel like I can't write this, for fear of bearing the label of a heartless bastard or, worse, becoming an outcast myself.
However, I must be true to myself.
I see the world in black and white. Absolutism. One is good, the other evil. I regard the action-not the actor-of what happened today to be nothing short of evil. It is the most evil of all evils: the destruction of an innocent life by its own hand. By all that is good and Holy, where was his help?! Why?! Why must this happen?! Why is it that people-good people with their entire lives ahead of them-feel that to relieve themselves of pain-of any kind-they must KILL THEMSELVES?!
Do they not realize what they are doing?! They were given life for a purpose! A glorious purpose! Life can be good and beautiful! Indeed, it has its bad moments and potholes, but is DEATH really the ANSWER to that?!
NO!!! A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!!!!
DEATH is the antithesis of LIFE! It is what we all face in the end! Why do people wish that it come so soon, when they have so much more to live for?! WHY?!
CURSE YOU DARKNESS! CURSE YOU, AUTHOR OF WOE, YOU PRINCE OF DEATH! Why must you drag us with you into Oblivion! How can you find joy in destruction?! How can you cackle as we weep?! TO HELL WITH YOU!
Please realize: I don't say this to be dramatic. These are my true feelings. Life is sacred. It is one of God's greatest gifts to us. And I would like to think that he who left us today left us a message:
Life is a gift.
Live it to its fullest potential.
Monday, August 27, 2012
There Will Be No Quarter!-My Response to the Chick-Fil-A Inquisition
In one of my favorite video games, Killzone III, one of the two main antagonists, in a response to his counterpart and rival's suggestion that they pretend to negotiate with the protagonist forces, replies with a venom-laced and fanatical phrase: "There will be NO negotiating with the ISA. THERE WILL BE NO QUARTER!"
This is the kind of vibe I got as I witnessed the recent summer inquisition by gay rights activists and their far-left allies against Dan Cathy's Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain. And believe me, this sentiment was not coming from the Christian restaurant franchise.
It's always strange (and, to be honest, very annoying) to watch a group or an individual demanding certain things and then not reciprocating. It is a one-sided moral that cannot stand. I am talking, of course, about the LGBT community's demands to be heard and that others respect their choice of "lifestyle"-a oft-said and vaguely understood word if there ever was one-but they themselves denying the same right to conscientious objectors. Contrary to popular belief, my dear friends of the LGBT community (and yes, I have some), not everyone who disagrees with homosexuality is a member of Westboro Baptist (please, Westboro, change that name) Church (again, please drop it-it's an embarrassment to all other churches). Also, not all Christians will condemn your soul to hell for choosing to be gay or lesbian or whatever. We disagree with homosexuality because we believe it to be morally wrong, as well as going against nature (and no, I don't buy the argument that someone is "born" gay; provide scientific evidence beyond reproof and then I'll rethink it but until then, don't bother.)
Also, the whole situation was blown completely out of proportion over some comments that Cathy made in an interview several months before. He said simply that he supported the traditional concept of marriage: you know, the one that every culture and society up until the mid-20th Century supported and upheld-man and woman constitute a marriage, with the purpose of producing offspring and raising a family. This is the family unit prescribed by God Almighty, and from it His entreaty to "be fruitful and multiply". This statement of personal belief and conviction was taken to mean, in homophobe code that it seems only LGBTs can understand (?), "I hate gays".
My response: are y'all on drugs? I mean, more than usual?
Cathy never said such a thing, and the record proves it. But then it comes out that Cathy donated money to the Family Research Council, a pro-trad. marriage organization that seeks to bolster traditional marriage. This organization has, in an ironic twist, been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, itself one of the most bigoted organizations in the US that labels itself a "watchdog". Some watchdog.
What a man donates his own money to is his business. And a man's opinions are his own and nobody else's. It makes sense that someone who supports traditional marriage is going to support and donate to like-minded organizations, just as the reverse (gay-marriage supporters) is true with theirs. The gay community's attempts to label Chick-Fil-A a hate group are baseless and senseless, not to mention just plain damn ad hominem if there ever was any.
But this has become par for the course when it comes to the gay community: advance our agenda and attack/demonize anyone who disagrees with us. The part that is left out is that "anyone" means "everyone" to the LGBT. Thus the labels of "hate-monger", "homophobe" and "bigot" that are hurled at Christians or anyone else who disagrees with homosexuality or speaks out against the disturbing blitzkrieg of LGBT tactics pushing their agenda.
Here's the skinny, my LGBT friends: If you want respect, show some in return. You know, the "Golden Rule"-"do unto others as you would have done unto you". With the hate you show those who disagree with you, is it any wonder why fundamentalists of every stripe condemn you to hell? Honestly?
The fact of the matter is that most people, including myself, don't give (to be blunt) a bloody damn about what you do in your own house, much less who you do it with. Our problem is when you are flamboyant about it and rub it in our faces and then demand that we respect your choice of living life when we find it abhorrent. We don't appreciate it, and speaking for some, won't stand for it. Hence the backlash and the never-ending culture war.
And let's be real: what rights are you denied, apart from the whole "spousal benefits" and "hospital visitation" that you scream so loudly and obnoxiously about? You have, as American citizens, the same rights, spelled out in the Constitution, as every other American. The fact that you can have "gay pride" parades is directly tied to the 1st Amendment. In some countries (i.e. most if not all the Middle East, ad nauseum) you wouldn't be able to do that. You would be BEHEADED for living a homosexual lifestyle. Even the fundamentalist Christians recoil from such a fate and would never demand it for you all. So for all your lamentations about being "oppressed" (Please for all of us, don't compare yourselves to the Civil Rights Movement-most blacks argue that your "struggle" doesn't hold a candle to the struggle for equality that blacks fought for decades, and being a historian, I'm inclined to agree with them), you really have it better than 9/10 of the world.
In conclusion, I beg my LGBT friends (and to those who would hate on them) to stop acting like children, grow up, be civil, and talk calmly about the issues. Provide evidence to back up your positions (and yes, my Christian friends, we will still follow the Gospel, but today's world needs empirical proof-if you like I can point you to a source I found that solidified a position I held about this matter) and act like freaking adults. If you don't want to be marginalized or rendered irrelevant-and yes I'm speaking to both sides here-then end the hate-fest and meet in the middle. Enough is enough.
This is the kind of vibe I got as I witnessed the recent summer inquisition by gay rights activists and their far-left allies against Dan Cathy's Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain. And believe me, this sentiment was not coming from the Christian restaurant franchise.
It's always strange (and, to be honest, very annoying) to watch a group or an individual demanding certain things and then not reciprocating. It is a one-sided moral that cannot stand. I am talking, of course, about the LGBT community's demands to be heard and that others respect their choice of "lifestyle"-a oft-said and vaguely understood word if there ever was one-but they themselves denying the same right to conscientious objectors. Contrary to popular belief, my dear friends of the LGBT community (and yes, I have some), not everyone who disagrees with homosexuality is a member of Westboro Baptist (please, Westboro, change that name) Church (again, please drop it-it's an embarrassment to all other churches). Also, not all Christians will condemn your soul to hell for choosing to be gay or lesbian or whatever. We disagree with homosexuality because we believe it to be morally wrong, as well as going against nature (and no, I don't buy the argument that someone is "born" gay; provide scientific evidence beyond reproof and then I'll rethink it but until then, don't bother.)
Also, the whole situation was blown completely out of proportion over some comments that Cathy made in an interview several months before. He said simply that he supported the traditional concept of marriage: you know, the one that every culture and society up until the mid-20th Century supported and upheld-man and woman constitute a marriage, with the purpose of producing offspring and raising a family. This is the family unit prescribed by God Almighty, and from it His entreaty to "be fruitful and multiply". This statement of personal belief and conviction was taken to mean, in homophobe code that it seems only LGBTs can understand (?), "I hate gays".
My response: are y'all on drugs? I mean, more than usual?
Cathy never said such a thing, and the record proves it. But then it comes out that Cathy donated money to the Family Research Council, a pro-trad. marriage organization that seeks to bolster traditional marriage. This organization has, in an ironic twist, been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, itself one of the most bigoted organizations in the US that labels itself a "watchdog". Some watchdog.
What a man donates his own money to is his business. And a man's opinions are his own and nobody else's. It makes sense that someone who supports traditional marriage is going to support and donate to like-minded organizations, just as the reverse (gay-marriage supporters) is true with theirs. The gay community's attempts to label Chick-Fil-A a hate group are baseless and senseless, not to mention just plain damn ad hominem if there ever was any.
But this has become par for the course when it comes to the gay community: advance our agenda and attack/demonize anyone who disagrees with us. The part that is left out is that "anyone" means "everyone" to the LGBT. Thus the labels of "hate-monger", "homophobe" and "bigot" that are hurled at Christians or anyone else who disagrees with homosexuality or speaks out against the disturbing blitzkrieg of LGBT tactics pushing their agenda.
Here's the skinny, my LGBT friends: If you want respect, show some in return. You know, the "Golden Rule"-"do unto others as you would have done unto you". With the hate you show those who disagree with you, is it any wonder why fundamentalists of every stripe condemn you to hell? Honestly?
The fact of the matter is that most people, including myself, don't give (to be blunt) a bloody damn about what you do in your own house, much less who you do it with. Our problem is when you are flamboyant about it and rub it in our faces and then demand that we respect your choice of living life when we find it abhorrent. We don't appreciate it, and speaking for some, won't stand for it. Hence the backlash and the never-ending culture war.
And let's be real: what rights are you denied, apart from the whole "spousal benefits" and "hospital visitation" that you scream so loudly and obnoxiously about? You have, as American citizens, the same rights, spelled out in the Constitution, as every other American. The fact that you can have "gay pride" parades is directly tied to the 1st Amendment. In some countries (i.e. most if not all the Middle East, ad nauseum) you wouldn't be able to do that. You would be BEHEADED for living a homosexual lifestyle. Even the fundamentalist Christians recoil from such a fate and would never demand it for you all. So for all your lamentations about being "oppressed" (Please for all of us, don't compare yourselves to the Civil Rights Movement-most blacks argue that your "struggle" doesn't hold a candle to the struggle for equality that blacks fought for decades, and being a historian, I'm inclined to agree with them), you really have it better than 9/10 of the world.
In conclusion, I beg my LGBT friends (and to those who would hate on them) to stop acting like children, grow up, be civil, and talk calmly about the issues. Provide evidence to back up your positions (and yes, my Christian friends, we will still follow the Gospel, but today's world needs empirical proof-if you like I can point you to a source I found that solidified a position I held about this matter) and act like freaking adults. If you don't want to be marginalized or rendered irrelevant-and yes I'm speaking to both sides here-then end the hate-fest and meet in the middle. Enough is enough.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Breaking the Chains: The Egalitarian Idea and Radicalism
In a recent column from the New Criterion, man of letters Roger Kimball commented on the "egalitarian impulse" and its effects upon the problem of dealing with iniquity. Kimball stated,
"The problem today is that the egalitarian imperative threatens to overwhelm that other great social impulse, the impulse to achieve, to excel, to surpass: “always to be best and to rise above others,” as Homer put it in one classic expression of the agonistic spirit. Radical egalitarianism—egalitarianism uncorrected by the aspirations of excellence—would have us pretend that there are no important distinctions among people; where the pretense is impossible, it would have us enact compensatory programs to minimize, or at least to paper over, the differences."
Kimball's point is that no matter how much or how loudly one pushes total equality, there will always be those who are not satisfied and will seek to rise out of the dust to achieve and excel. It is a fundamental part of the human psyche, partly, I believe, because of our inherent closeness to the Image of the Almighty. For centuries Christ was a paragon of virtue, the penultimate example of a noble life, and this desire to be "as Christ was" has now become a part of the Western spirit as integral as DNA. We strive to be better men and women because complacency breeds arrogance, and that arrogance breeds discontent that feeds the fury, the same fury that caused Heaven's Rift and Lucifer's defeat and exile.
This is not to say, however, that the egalitarian idea in and of itself is evil. Far from it. Part of the reason I am a staunch Unionist when it comes to the Civil War is because I believe that slavery of any kind is evil and morally reprehensible, among the most heinous being slavery based on skin color. It is not the main reason of my support for the Union, but it is a fundamental part. Sometimes lauded, sometimes ridiculed, the egalitarian idea is, itself, a reflection of Christ's teachings and the American idea that "all men are created equal" by their Maker. The problem arises when people mistake "equal" for a command that all men be equal in everything, especially income. Christ never spoke of "spreading the wealth around". He never demanded that society, much less the state, take from the "haves" and give to the "have-nots". And the much quoted "camel through a needle" parable about the rich is completely misunderstood by those who use it to further their ideological agenda.
Christ's mercy and salvation is offered to all, regardless of station, class, skin, gender, or political affiliation. It was assurance that every Soul would be given a fair hearing and honest judgement by God Himself and that those who lived by His Commandments and declared Him the Savior of their Soul would be saved (but even God gave special considerations to noble, virtuous souls who had never heard the Gospel). And this salvation went beyond economic circumstances. The egalitarian ideal-that of the abolitionists, that all men have the same constitutional rights and the ability to make decisions on their own without interference-has, unfortunately, been hijacked into a neo-socialist mantra. This bastardized ideal is lethal to productive society, and ultimately to civilization.
I got to thinking about the idea of progress the other day, and it occurred to me that progress in society, in culture, in civilization, is unattainable if the spirit to excel, to rise above, is dead. And true progress comes from hard work and a noble ethic, with the lessons of the past providing a blueprint and rubric on how to march forward. The new egalitarianism that our radical left loves to propagate is a false copy, a doppelganger to be reviled. It represents not forward movement, or progression, but regression, because it seeks to put chains on those who would improve our culture and society and drags them down into the morass, what Churchill called "the equality of misery".
And any "equality" in misery is, in my humble opinion, not equality at all. It is, beyond a doubt, the closest thing to Hell.
"The problem today is that the egalitarian imperative threatens to overwhelm that other great social impulse, the impulse to achieve, to excel, to surpass: “always to be best and to rise above others,” as Homer put it in one classic expression of the agonistic spirit. Radical egalitarianism—egalitarianism uncorrected by the aspirations of excellence—would have us pretend that there are no important distinctions among people; where the pretense is impossible, it would have us enact compensatory programs to minimize, or at least to paper over, the differences."
Kimball's point is that no matter how much or how loudly one pushes total equality, there will always be those who are not satisfied and will seek to rise out of the dust to achieve and excel. It is a fundamental part of the human psyche, partly, I believe, because of our inherent closeness to the Image of the Almighty. For centuries Christ was a paragon of virtue, the penultimate example of a noble life, and this desire to be "as Christ was" has now become a part of the Western spirit as integral as DNA. We strive to be better men and women because complacency breeds arrogance, and that arrogance breeds discontent that feeds the fury, the same fury that caused Heaven's Rift and Lucifer's defeat and exile.
This is not to say, however, that the egalitarian idea in and of itself is evil. Far from it. Part of the reason I am a staunch Unionist when it comes to the Civil War is because I believe that slavery of any kind is evil and morally reprehensible, among the most heinous being slavery based on skin color. It is not the main reason of my support for the Union, but it is a fundamental part. Sometimes lauded, sometimes ridiculed, the egalitarian idea is, itself, a reflection of Christ's teachings and the American idea that "all men are created equal" by their Maker. The problem arises when people mistake "equal" for a command that all men be equal in everything, especially income. Christ never spoke of "spreading the wealth around". He never demanded that society, much less the state, take from the "haves" and give to the "have-nots". And the much quoted "camel through a needle" parable about the rich is completely misunderstood by those who use it to further their ideological agenda.
Christ's mercy and salvation is offered to all, regardless of station, class, skin, gender, or political affiliation. It was assurance that every Soul would be given a fair hearing and honest judgement by God Himself and that those who lived by His Commandments and declared Him the Savior of their Soul would be saved (but even God gave special considerations to noble, virtuous souls who had never heard the Gospel). And this salvation went beyond economic circumstances. The egalitarian ideal-that of the abolitionists, that all men have the same constitutional rights and the ability to make decisions on their own without interference-has, unfortunately, been hijacked into a neo-socialist mantra. This bastardized ideal is lethal to productive society, and ultimately to civilization.
I got to thinking about the idea of progress the other day, and it occurred to me that progress in society, in culture, in civilization, is unattainable if the spirit to excel, to rise above, is dead. And true progress comes from hard work and a noble ethic, with the lessons of the past providing a blueprint and rubric on how to march forward. The new egalitarianism that our radical left loves to propagate is a false copy, a doppelganger to be reviled. It represents not forward movement, or progression, but regression, because it seeks to put chains on those who would improve our culture and society and drags them down into the morass, what Churchill called "the equality of misery".
And any "equality" in misery is, in my humble opinion, not equality at all. It is, beyond a doubt, the closest thing to Hell.
Friday, July 27, 2012
They Are Legion: Bane and the Demonic Potential of the "99%"
I recently read a review of the politics of the new movie "The Dark Knight Rises". In that review, the author remarked that the movie was politically vague and disjointed. He criticized the movie in that there was no clear cut political agenda in the movie and was upset at the way it portrayed the poor of Gotham City.
As for me, I went and saw the movie and was left chilled to the core.
The source of my discomfort and anxiety was the parallel I saw between Bane and so many real-life figures who shared his agenda. SPOILER HERE-Although Bane's agenda on the surface turns out to be false, the way he implements it is synonymous with such catastrophes as the French and Russian Revolutions. He "empowers" the poor to take their revenge upon the successful and rich. What follows is riots, the sovereign property of citizens being taken from them, with the consent of the powers-that-be, police-state martial law, and "utopia"-and by that I mean squalid communal living where everyone is desperately trying to survive. On top of that, by using the "truth" against the Gotham police, Bane releases hundreds of dangerous criminals back out onto the streets, armed and dangerous as his own private army.
I don't think I have to begin listing the real world analogues here to Bane, but what is startling is how fast the "have-nots" flock to Bane and take advantage of his offer. The Devil is among them, and he offers to give them everything they want, the price being control. Not only that, the "have-nots" set up their own "peoples' courts" and sentence or exile those who they feel-not convict of any crime, but feel-have too much or they think oppressed them. They are the 99%, alright, and they are Legion.
What the TDKR shows is the power of the mob in its true form. That demonic emotionalism that carries everything before it is unleashed, with horrific consequences, the most horrific being that they make "examples" of those who try to stand against them or try to maintain law and order. And the saddest thing about the poor? They are turned on those who could do the most to help them (no, I don't mean corrupt Wall Street brokers or the exponentially more corrupt government bureaucracy). They could take away so much from the example of successful people who came by their wealth by the strength of their backs, the sweat of their brows, and the resolve of their wills. But instead of doing so, they are like sheep: mindless, and thus easily swayed by nice whispers and grandiose pledges by ideologues. Bane is not so much a terrorist but the ultimate personification of banal evil: he mocks tradition and order and society and then proceeds to show us just how fast it can fall. He uses our Divine Gifts and twists them to his own purposes. He is so much the Devil it is easy for me to look back in hindsight and understand why I was chilled to the bone.
In the movie, Bane remarks that he is "Gotham's reckoning". I believe that this is his way of making his claim to being the "god" of his new world, much as Satan is referred to as the "king of this world", and Bane's world is a reflection of its master: hollow, violent, cruel, and worthless to the point of deserving destruction. It's not hard to imagine that that is what Lucifer said to God about humanity when he objected before the Holy of Holies. But the difference is that Lucifer rebelled against God; we humans didn't rebel so much as we broke a rule, but not, I think, in a spirit of rebelliousness as Lucifer did. And God loved us and cared about us, we pathetic creatures who have fallen so far, that he gave us a way out. And Batman is Nolan's Jesus-willing to do whatever it takes, suffer any injury, bear any burden (the truth about Harvey Dent and make himself the murderer, the outlaw, the criminal) in order that Gotham may live in a society of peace and order. And Bruce Wayne stops at nothing to protect all Gotham's citizens, even when they demand his head and hunt him.
In conclusion, TDKR is about potential, the potential of humanity. It is asking a question of us, and that is "what will you do when the defecation hits the oscillation?" Will we fall into the Devil's trap, and become just another mindless blob of flesh, bone, and unending rage? Or will we act in the Image of our Maker and rise above it, to restore and/or maintain a better, nobler kind of existence? Humanity has so much potential, let's not waste it.
As for me, I went and saw the movie and was left chilled to the core.
The source of my discomfort and anxiety was the parallel I saw between Bane and so many real-life figures who shared his agenda. SPOILER HERE-Although Bane's agenda on the surface turns out to be false, the way he implements it is synonymous with such catastrophes as the French and Russian Revolutions. He "empowers" the poor to take their revenge upon the successful and rich. What follows is riots, the sovereign property of citizens being taken from them, with the consent of the powers-that-be, police-state martial law, and "utopia"-and by that I mean squalid communal living where everyone is desperately trying to survive. On top of that, by using the "truth" against the Gotham police, Bane releases hundreds of dangerous criminals back out onto the streets, armed and dangerous as his own private army.
I don't think I have to begin listing the real world analogues here to Bane, but what is startling is how fast the "have-nots" flock to Bane and take advantage of his offer. The Devil is among them, and he offers to give them everything they want, the price being control. Not only that, the "have-nots" set up their own "peoples' courts" and sentence or exile those who they feel-not convict of any crime, but feel-have too much or they think oppressed them. They are the 99%, alright, and they are Legion.
What the TDKR shows is the power of the mob in its true form. That demonic emotionalism that carries everything before it is unleashed, with horrific consequences, the most horrific being that they make "examples" of those who try to stand against them or try to maintain law and order. And the saddest thing about the poor? They are turned on those who could do the most to help them (no, I don't mean corrupt Wall Street brokers or the exponentially more corrupt government bureaucracy). They could take away so much from the example of successful people who came by their wealth by the strength of their backs, the sweat of their brows, and the resolve of their wills. But instead of doing so, they are like sheep: mindless, and thus easily swayed by nice whispers and grandiose pledges by ideologues. Bane is not so much a terrorist but the ultimate personification of banal evil: he mocks tradition and order and society and then proceeds to show us just how fast it can fall. He uses our Divine Gifts and twists them to his own purposes. He is so much the Devil it is easy for me to look back in hindsight and understand why I was chilled to the bone.
In the movie, Bane remarks that he is "Gotham's reckoning". I believe that this is his way of making his claim to being the "god" of his new world, much as Satan is referred to as the "king of this world", and Bane's world is a reflection of its master: hollow, violent, cruel, and worthless to the point of deserving destruction. It's not hard to imagine that that is what Lucifer said to God about humanity when he objected before the Holy of Holies. But the difference is that Lucifer rebelled against God; we humans didn't rebel so much as we broke a rule, but not, I think, in a spirit of rebelliousness as Lucifer did. And God loved us and cared about us, we pathetic creatures who have fallen so far, that he gave us a way out. And Batman is Nolan's Jesus-willing to do whatever it takes, suffer any injury, bear any burden (the truth about Harvey Dent and make himself the murderer, the outlaw, the criminal) in order that Gotham may live in a society of peace and order. And Bruce Wayne stops at nothing to protect all Gotham's citizens, even when they demand his head and hunt him.
In conclusion, TDKR is about potential, the potential of humanity. It is asking a question of us, and that is "what will you do when the defecation hits the oscillation?" Will we fall into the Devil's trap, and become just another mindless blob of flesh, bone, and unending rage? Or will we act in the Image of our Maker and rise above it, to restore and/or maintain a better, nobler kind of existence? Humanity has so much potential, let's not waste it.
Monday, July 9, 2012
The Conservative Bucket-List: 25 Things Every Conservative Should Attempt to Do before Death
This is the beginning of a long series of posts. I've been thinking a little bit about this and the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. So here it is: the beginning of the Conservative Bucket List.
1. Read "The Conservative Mind" by Russell Kirk.
For conservatives, this book might as well be the other Holy Writ. It is Kirk's seminal work and the guide to the intellectual history of the modern conservative movement. It outlines the principles of conservatism, what Kirk calls the "canon" and explains its precepts in detail with a depth that makes one believe it is true. He goes on to explain the contributions of the great conservative statesmen, poets, writers, and thinkers from our roots in Edmund Burke to Santayana and T.S. Eliot. TCM defines the model conservative and what kind of man it takes to embody the conservative spirit. But above all Kirk defines a conservative as one who believes in an objective Truth, a transcendent moral order in history that transcends time and space, that order that, for the true conservative, is found in a personal knowledge of and relationship with the Transcendent God. And this relationship, this covenant between Man and God, can and will translate into a greater existence for one and all.
Well, number one is down. Twenty-Four more to go!
1. Read "The Conservative Mind" by Russell Kirk.
For conservatives, this book might as well be the other Holy Writ. It is Kirk's seminal work and the guide to the intellectual history of the modern conservative movement. It outlines the principles of conservatism, what Kirk calls the "canon" and explains its precepts in detail with a depth that makes one believe it is true. He goes on to explain the contributions of the great conservative statesmen, poets, writers, and thinkers from our roots in Edmund Burke to Santayana and T.S. Eliot. TCM defines the model conservative and what kind of man it takes to embody the conservative spirit. But above all Kirk defines a conservative as one who believes in an objective Truth, a transcendent moral order in history that transcends time and space, that order that, for the true conservative, is found in a personal knowledge of and relationship with the Transcendent God. And this relationship, this covenant between Man and God, can and will translate into a greater existence for one and all.
Well, number one is down. Twenty-Four more to go!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)