How low can they go?
Month: August 2018
Capital Punishment
On August 2, 2018, Pope Francis announced an update to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, making a prohibition on the death penalty official Catholic teaching. Prior to this change, many scholars believed that the historic teaching of the Church did not declare capital punishment intrinsically immoral, even if the practice is, as a matter of prudence, not required in countries with modern prison systems that can safely isolate dangerous criminals. Other scholars argued that the natural law duty to respect all human life does in fact render any intentional taking of human life morally unacceptable, and that this development of doctrine does not contradict any infallible teaching.
The articles below lay out this debate, with clear summaries of the arguments on both sides.
Rod Dreher comments on the Pope's announcement and quotes extensively from the writings of our friend Ed Feser.
Is Ora et Labora Enough? Or do Christians Need Leisure Too?
Paul J. Griffiths maintains a strikingly wrong-headed thesis in an article entitled, Ora et Labora: Christians Don't Need Leisure. The Latin translates as "Pray and Work.' The thesis is in the second paragraph:
The deleterious effects of narcissism are evident in the work of many, Christian and otherwise, who advocate leisure as good for us, appropriate to us, necessary for us, a blessing to us, an aid to contemplation, the foundation of culture, and so on. Christianity is more bracing than this: we Christians think, when we are thinking clearly, that between conception and death in this cataclysmically damaged world we should neither expect nor seek leisure. What we should expect, and will certainly find, is the double curse of death and work. Each of those involves pain, so we should expect a lot of that as well. Our task as Christians is not to look for islands of leisure-for-contemplation exempt from the eddy [ebb] and flow of work and suffering and death; were we to do that . . . we would become fascinated by phantasms, especially those of our own inner life . . . and would, too quickly, learn to close our eyes to the pressure of pain and the imminence of death—our own, that is, and all else’s, too.
The main thesis is the one I bolded above, namely, that Christians should not seek leisure. A subsidiary thesis is that the pursuit of leisure is an effect of narcissism.
Upon reading this, the philosophically literate will immediately think of Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture (Pantheon, New York, 1964, tr. Alexander Dru, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot.) This book contains two essays, "Leisure: The Basis of Culture," and "The Philosophical Act." Griffiths appears to be alluding to the first of the essays in this wonderful old book with his phrases "an aid to contemplation" and "the foundation or culture." I would be very surprised if Griffiths was not at least aware of Pieper's book. But if he has read it how could he write the article before us? How could he maintain something so absurd as that the pursuit of leisure is an effect of narcissism?
Griffiths doesn't have a clue as to the classical conception of leisure found in Aristotle and Aquinas and explicated by Pieper. Griffiths writes,
Suppose we understand leisure as otium, which is to say the state or condition of doing nothing, of being otiose, of occupying a place in which nothing is expected and there is nothing to do but . . . what? If there were a place of otium for human creatures, it would be hell: a no-place capable of occupation only by the solipsist who has reached the end of narcissism, which is to be the only thing there is, to live in a world in which relation with others, animate and inanimate, is impossible because they have been abolished.
Otium liberale in the classical sense has nothing to do with narcissism or doing nothing or being idle or indolent or lazy or sunk in acedia (cf. Pieper, p. 24 ff.) or otiose in the wholly pejorative sense that this word has in contemporary usage. Leisure in the classical sense is disciplined activity in pursuit of non-utilitarian ends. It issues in contemplation which is an end in itself and the basis of culture. It was the contemplative monastic orders that preserved and transmitted the culture of the ancients to the moderns. On the classical view, the servile arts subserve the liberal arts. The vita activa is for the sake of the vita contemplativa. We neg-otiate the world to secure a space within it to pursue otium iberale. The worldly hustle is for the sake of contemplative repose.
The non-utilitarian is not eo ipso worthless. On the contrary, the truly and finally worthwhile is precisely the non-utilitarian. Griffiths needs to read Pieper.
Related: Why I Resigned from Duke. Curiously, I agree entirely with Griffiths' explanation of his resignation.
Classical leisure is this:
Not this:
Czeslaw Milosz on Lev Shestov
Trump Delivers
We conservatives who voted for Trump in November 2016 have been vindicated in spades. His accomplishments are manifold and multiplying. A list is in order. I'll essay one later on. For now I draw your attention to the indelible conservative stamp President Trump is placing on the judiciary which includes but is not restricted to the Supreme Court.
What do you say now, Never Trumpers? Man up and admit you were wrong. It is sickening to watch George Will, a man I once respected for his erudition and insight, dissolve into a mewling, puling crybaby as if someone stole his bow tie and the propeller on his beanie.
From October 2016:
The Pussy Cat Bows of the Yap-and-Scribble Bow Tie Milquetoasts
Pussy Bow is elliptical for 'Pussy Cat Bow,' the latter a well-established term in the world of women's fashion. Melania Trump sported one at the second debate. Was she out to implant some sly suggestion? I have no idea. But it occurred to me this morning that bow tie boys such as George Will also sport pussy cat bows. (As you know, pussy cats are both male and female.) And given the currency of 'pussy' in the politics of the day, it seems entirely appropriate to refer to the signature sartorial affectation of effete yap-and-scribble do-nothing quislings like Will as a pussy bow.
George Will is a good example of how Trump Derangement Syndrome can lead to cognitive meltdown.
I used to respect Will. No more.
The Culture War’s Battle Lines
Matthew Schmitz at First Things:
These are the culture war’s true battle lines. On one side are well-scrubbed members of the managerial class who believe that any constraint on the free movement of labor, goods, and capital is a violation of “global values.” They are fully committed to the central project of neoliberalism: the insulation of markets from democratic pressure. They also wish to protect desire from any legal, cultural, or moral restraint. On the other side are unwashed people of varying political stripes who intuit that economic life should be subject to political authority, which today rests in the nation. They believe in moral norms and national boundaries.
Christians need to practice cultural realpolitik. No explanation of the meaning of marriage, however rigorously argued or scrupulously secular, can overcome the power of a managerial elite that is wholly opposed to the kind of society for which Christians hope. Refusal to see this has been fatal to the traditionalists’ cause. While arguing against liberal social changes, they have cheered economic policies that harm their natural allies and aid their opponents. They have handed a shovel to their own gravedigger.
Progressives now stand with global capital, as the Pride Parade so clearly shows. Christians in turn should stand with the working class, which is more religious, more diverse, and more patriotic than the managerial elite. Only by reducing inequality and restraining corporations can Christians avoid being buried. Only by challenging the ideology of free markets and open borders can they advance their view of the common good. The struggle between woke capital and the working class will determine the outcome of the culture war.