The Guild Review

Bishops Defend Freedom of Conscience

2012-01-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

I need a bumper sticker that says "I support my bishops." Media criticisms of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops notwithstanding, they have delivered a cogent defense of conscience in the face of the Obama administration's recent attempt to stamp it out.

At stake is whether or not the Church must provide contraception at no cost to the employees of its various institutions. The Church does not ask that it be permitted to impose its morality on its employees or anyone else. The Church asks only that it not be compelled to participate in the commission of acts which its conscience cannot tolerate.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the USCCB, delivered a clear defense of the Church's freedom of conscience in the Wall Street Journal:

Religious freedom is the lifeblood of the American people, the cornerstone of American government. When the Founding Fathers determined that the innate rights of men and women should be enshrined in our Constitution, they so esteemed religious liberty that they made it the first freedom in the Bill of Rights.

In particular, the Founding Fathers fiercely defended the right of conscience. George Washington himself declared: "The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them." James Madison, a key defender of religious freedom and author of the First Amendment, said: "Conscience is the most sacred of all property."

Scarcely two weeks ago, in its Hosanna-Tabor decision upholding the right of churches to make ministerial hiring decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously and enthusiastically reaffirmed these longstanding and foundational principles of religious freedom. The court made clear that they include the right of religious institutions to control their internal affairs.

Yet the Obama administration has veered in the opposite direction. It has refused to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good—including Catholic schools, charities and hospitals—from its sweeping new health-care mandate that requires employers to purchase contraception, including abortion-producing drugs, and sterilization coverage for their employees.

Last August, when the administration first proposed this nationwide mandate for contraception and sterilization coverage, it also proposed a "religious employer" exemption. But this was so narrow that it would apply only to religious organizations engaged primarily in serving people of the same religion. As Catholic Charities USA's president, the Rev. Larry Snyder, notes, even Jesus and His disciples would not qualify for the exemption in that case, because they were committed to serve those of other faiths.

Since then, hundreds of religious institutions, and hundreds of thousands of individual citizens, have raised their voices in principled opposition to this requirement that religious institutions and individuals violate their own basic moral teaching in their health plans. Certainly many of these good people and groups were Catholic, but many were Americans of other faiths, or no faith at all, who recognize that their beliefs could be next on the block. They also recognize that the cleverest way for the government to erode the broader principle of religious freedom is to target unpopular beliefs first.

Now we have learned that those loud and strong appeals were ignored. On Friday, the administration reaffirmed the mandate, and offered only a one-year delay in enforcement in some cases—as if we might suddenly be more willing to violate our consciences 12 months from now. As a result, all but a few employers will be forced to purchase coverage for contraception, abortion drugs and sterilization services even when they seriously object to them. All who share the cost of health plans that include such services will be forced to pay for them as well. Surely it violates freedom of religion to force religious ministries and citizens to buy health coverage to which they object as a matter of conscience and religious principle.

The rule forces insurance companies to provide these services without a co-pay, suggesting they are "free"—but it is naïve to believe that. There is no free lunch, and you can be sure there's no free abortion, sterilization or contraception. There will be a source of funding: you.

Coercing religious ministries and citizens to pay directly for actions that violate their teaching is an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience. Organizations fear that this unjust rule will force them to take one horn or the other of an unacceptable dilemma: Stop serving people of all faiths in their ministries—so that they will fall under the narrow exemption—or stop providing health-care coverage to their own employees.

The Catholic Church defends religious liberty, including freedom of conscience, for everyone. The Amish do not carry health insurance. The government respects their principles. Christian Scientists want to heal by prayer alone, and the new health-care reform law respects that. Quakers and others object to killing even in wartime, and the government respects that principle for conscientious objectors. By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.

This latest erosion of our first freedom should make all Americans pause. When the government tampers with a freedom so fundamental to the life of our nation, one shudders to think what lies ahead.

A number of other bishops - including Bishop Conley of Denver, Bishops Vann and Farrell of Ft. Worth and Dallas, Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix, and Bishop Loverde of Arlington - have reechoed Archbishop Dolan's appraisal.

The bishops are urging Catholics - and, indeed, all Americans concerned about the freedom of conscience, to write to their congressmen asking them to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179, S. 1467). While you're at it, contact the president and implore him to reverse this decision. (And don't mark this down as a "health care" concern, because it is not; for your subject, choose "civil rights." Because that is what is at stake.)

And then say some prayers. Not least for our bishops, who bear a tremendous burden in their work as shepherds.

For Washington's comments on conscience, see his Letter to the Quakers. For the full text of Madison's comments, click here.

How I'll Be Voting - An Update

2012-01-22T14:50:00.000-05:00

In August of last year I sketched out some issues I thought key for this presidential election. With South Carolina's Republicans voting yesterday, it seems like a good time to take stock.

For the sake of discussion, I'll assume a three way race between President Obama, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. This ignores the other Republican challengers and third party candidates. A third party vote can be a powerful message, and may even be necessary in the present climate, but we'll leave that topic for another day.

One more caveat: I've drawn heavily on candidate's own official policy statements. A fuller consideration would include their campaign statements, policy history, and analysts' predictions of future actions. One could write a dissertation on many of these questions. I mean only to start a discussion, not give the final word.

So how do the candidates stack up?

Debt. Will they balance the budget? That may require raising taxes, cutting spending, or both. That may mean reforming the procurement process or passing a balanced budget amendment. The specifics can vary, but we need to see a plan.

Romney is calling for a program of "cut, cap, and balance." He wants to reduce spending, capping government expenditures at 20% of GDP, and then pass a balanced budget amendment. He acknowledges that entitlement reforms will have to be part of the picture. He argues that "we have a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in." To do so is a cruel burden on our children and grandchildren. If one wants to be cautious, however, we might note that Romney has criticized the president's stimulus spending as adding to the debt, but - from what I can gather - Romney is more concerned about the spending part of that equation than the debt. His basic plan is to cut taxes to revitalize the economy, thereby raising revenue. The Laffer Curve sometimes looks like that, and it might work, but it might not. I worry that he may not be willing (1) to cut expenditures as deeply as he wants to cut taxes, and (2) to raise taxes to avoid Greek-style debt.
Gingrich states that balancing the budget is one of his goals and has put forward a white paper on entitlement reform. The budget is, however, 7th of his 9 economic priorities. Moreover, he proposes to balance it by "growing the economy" (through tax cuts and deregulation) and "controlling spending". Newt's first economic priority is to "stop the 2013 tax increases." While I'm no fan of taxes, this maniacal emphasis on cutting them seems unlikely to lead to a balanced budget. Yes, economic growth is part of the long-term solution to the debt, and low taxes are part of that equation, but they are not the whole story. Nevertheless, Newt gets points for his real work during the 1990s to balance the federal budget. Past performance is no guarantee of the future - balancing the budget in the boom years of the '90s was certainly easier than in today's economic climate - but it counts for something.
Obama's position page on the economy does not mention the national debt, our credit rating, or the problem of the deficit. Instead, he discusses jobs, the auto industry, Hispanic families and women. I don't mean to be cynical, but this is a naked appeal to some pretty specific interest groups, without consideration of the big picture. Given the way the national debt has ballooned under President Obama, he offers little on this issue. The one thing that can be said for the president is this: much of the debt that has accumulated during his years in office came from two wars he inherited, one of which he has ended, the other of which he is drawing to a close. This will lead to substantial savings, though it hardly amounts to a concerted deficit plan.
Winner? I think Romney edges Gingrich out on this one, but all three candidates could focus more clearly on the debt.

Tax Code. Put simply, ours is too large and too complicated. It's a drag on the economy, a distortion of market forces, an invitation to corruption, and a revenue sieve.

Romney advocates tinkering with the tax system, but hardly the overhaul it needs. This may be politic, but it's not leadership. His stated long-term goal is to "pursue a fairer, flatter, simpler tax structure," but his articulated policy details all pertain to modest tax cuts, not closing loopholes and shortening the tax code.
Gingrich advocates an "optional flat tax of 15% that would allow Americans the freedom to choose to file their taxes on a postcard." This is good. The problem is that it's optional. Individuals and companies will still have an incentive to lobby for special exceptions.
Obama only appears interested in closing loopholes if they're advantageous to Wall Street. His own campaign website promises special tax incentives for clean energy technologies and small businesses. I'm not opposed to either, but the president is doing nothing to fundamentally reform the tax code.
Winner? A Romney-Gingrich tie. Both seem to have the right idea, but insufficient plans to execute at this time.

Immigration. We need to secure our borders, reform the system for legal entry, and address the problem of the large illegal population currently living in the States.

Romney hardly has an immigration plan. He vows to "explore with Mexico, in his first 100 days, the need for enhanced military-to-military training cooperation and intelligence sharing to combat drug cartels and criminal gangs. Mitt Romney will complete a border fence protecting our southern frontier from infiltration by illegal immigrants, trans-national criminal networks, and terrorists." So he's serious about securing the border. But we need more. I see little interest in immigration reform, and on the touchy issue of the present illegal population, he has taken a hardline stance that either ignores the size of the problem or implies a police state.
Gingrich hits the nail on the head, directly addressing the issue - unlike Romney's comments, buried in his foreign policy positions - and calling for all three elements of a solution. He might not get his way, or particular elements of his policies might not work, but this is the best I've seen of the mainstream candidates.
Obama certainly styles himself a friend of the Hispanic community, but his website makes no mention of the immigration issue. That may be because he's set the record for deportations. This powerful stick has not been accompanied by the carrot of comprehensive immigration reform or a push therefore.
Winner? Gingrich unambiguously comes out ahead.

Education. We're looking for school choice, open enrollment, more charter schools and vouchers, and a willingness to fight the NEA.

Romney is a firm supporter of school choice. Excellent.
Gingrich also supports school choice (though a few details differ).
Obama has made education a major element of his campaign. However, his education policy page primarily trumpets the spending of money. Considering the NEA's massive contributions to the Democratic Party, don't expect the president to rock the boat.
Winner? Another Romney-Gingrich tie. The biggest unknown here is how far either one could get on actual reform before Washington chokes it off.

Marriage. Late, and somewhat reluctantly, I have found myself placing this issue in the top tier. I tire of the culture wars, but I have become ever more convinced of the centrality and importance - not to mention sanctity - of the institution of marriage. Attempts to foist so-called same-sex marriages on the nation are ultimately a violation of conscience for those who cannot support them.

Romney's tangled history of positions on abortion call into question his adherence to the moral positions of his Mormon faith. Nevertheless, the fact that he comes from a church famed for its strong families, and the fact the he remains married to his first wife, are good signs. However, Romney was once known as a supporter of same-sex marriage. He now opposes it, and explains that he was "firmly in support" of protecting gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons (GLBT) from discrimination, but he always opposed same-sex marriage. If that's an accurate representation of his views and policies over the years then I think he's right on target. But this may simply be waffling.
Gingrich has a tumultuous personal history of failed marriages. That's troubling, though (1) I do believe in conversion and (2) nothing says a personally flawed leader cannot produce good policies for the nation, though I would be skeptical of such an outcome. Nevertheless, he has come out strongly against same-sex marriages. I do worry, however, that his position on this matter risks alienating moderate voters by sounding hateful; this is a difficult issue and any candidate should tread with care.
Obama has positioned himself as a champion of the GLBT community. He has highlighted his opposition to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though this is one of the least controversial issues in the field of GLBT rights. The president has carefully avoided using the M word with regard to same-sex relationships, but he trumpets his support for "lesbian widow Edith Windsor in her suit
against DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act]."
Winner? Gingrich, by a nose. His personal life notwithstanding, he's probably the most likely to sign pro-marriage legislation.

A couple final notes on two important issues that didn't make the short list. In the realm of foreign policy, I find President Obama to have been fairly impressive. He brought the hunt for Osama bin Laden to a conclusion, brought the troops home from Iraq, and toppled Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without putting American boots on the ground and while making our European partners take the lead. That's a fairly impressive record, one I would be surprised if either Republican could surpass.

As I've argued before, the right to life - particularly the life of the unborn - is terribly important in a general sense, but is largely out of the hands of the president. The one exception is the appointment of Supreme Court justices. President Obama's appointments have been in favor of abortion; given Romney's checkered history of positions, I worry he might appoint the next David Souter. Gingrich is the only candidate of the three I feel confident would appoint an anti-abortion justice.

What do you think? Please, share your thoughts in the comment field!

Today's image of the 2008 Democratic National Convention comes via Reuters.

Review of Joseph Roth's Letters in the Wall Street Journal

2012-01-21T15:52:00.007-05:00

This weekend's Wall Street Journal features a review of a new English translation of a selection of Joseph Roth's letters. The review does a good job of conveying how tenuous Roth's hold on life and reality sometimes was. For example, the review mentions that Roth asked for money from Stefan Zweig for several years in the 1930's but would then berate him for interfering in his writing. But unfortunately (from my point of view), it concentrates on the purely political aspect of Roth's writing. While there is no doubt that politics meant a great deal to Roth, and that much of his oeuvre is concerned with politics in one way or another, the elegiac quality of his greatest works points to something more important than politics.

Anyone whose interest is piqued by the review may want to read three earlier posts about Roth (parts 1, 2, and 3). Maybe someday I'll finally get around to writing something about The Radetzky March as I've been planning for some time.

Foreign Samurai

2012-01-12T00:14:00.002-05:00

Samurai have an iconic Japanese identity. There have, however, been a handful of foreign samurai across the centuries.

The first, and probably best known, was William Adams (1564–1620), an English sailor. He was the first Englishman to visit Japan and became an adviser to Tokugawa Ieyasu, then a local lord, but later shogun (military ruler of Japan). Adams built Japan's first western-style ships; helped establish trade with New Spain, the Dutch East India Company, and English East India Company; and fostered Japanese trade with Southeast Asia (in vessels such as that pictured left). Adams was ultimately presented two swords, the signs of a samurai's office, for his service. In addition, he was given the Japanese name Miura Anjin (三浦按針) and the title of hatamoto (bannerman).

If this story sounds vaguely familiar, you may have heard it before. James Clavell's novel Shōgun and its hero, John Blackthorne, made famous by the miniseries of the same name, are loosely based on the life of William Adams.

One of Adams' sailing companions, Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn (1560 – 1623), also became an adviser to the shogun. He too was granted the two swords of a samurai and the title hatamoto.

More than two centuries later, Jules Brunet, a French army officer, arrived in Japan as part of Napoleon III's efforts to help modernize the shogun's army. When the emperor's supporters overthrew the shogun and Japan erupted into civil war, Brunet chose to stay and fight alongside the shogun's forces. He was present at the creation of the Republic of Ezo, serving as second in command of its army, and fighting in the Battles of Toba-Fushimi and Hakodate. Although not a samurai in any proper sense, Brunet certainly cast his lot with a Japanese cause, defending it on the field of battle.

Again, if this story sounds familiar, you may have seen it before; Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, is inspired, in part, by Brunet's life.

At the same time Eugène Collache, a French sailor, deserted his ship while in Japan and joined the shogun's forces, then fighting a rearguard action on the island of Hokkaidō. Collache was given the task of fortifying the mountain chain which protected their position, and he later fought in the Battle of Miyako Bay, in which he commanded one of three vessels that launched a surprise attack against the imperial navy. During the battle his ship was wrecked, and Collache was captured and imprisoned. He was eventually released back to France. Throughout his time with the shogun's faction, Collache always wore his samurai dress (pictured right).

Are these men mere historical curiosities, examples of cultural eclecticism? Perhaps. But they also strike me as interesting examples of the interconnectedness of the world, proof that broad national categories don't always make sense.

Ortega y Gasset & Newspapers

2011-12-31T16:01:00.016-05:00

Writing in December 1937 from exile in Paris, Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset addressed his essay "With Respect to Pacifism" to the English people, in an attempt to explain to that nation how wrong their foreign policy between the wars was. And this affected him personally because of the attitude many Englishmen were adopting towards the civil war raging in Spain at the time. One of the problems that worried Ortega most was that the Englishmen he read and spoke to thought they knew everything they needed to know about Spain from the newspapers, without knowing much about Spanish history:

The quantity of news that one people is constantly receiving about what it is happening with another people is enormous. How will it be easy to persuade an Englishman that he is not informed about the historical phenomenon that is the Spanish Civil War or another similar crisis? He knows that the English newspapers spend huge sums of money to maintain correspondents in all countries. He knows that, even though there are not a few correspondents who carry out their duty in an impassioned and partisan way, there are many others whose impartiality cannot be questioned and whose grace in relating exact facts cannot easily be beat. All this is true, and because it is true, it turns out to be very dangerous.

What's dangerous is the resulting mix of ignorance and influence. Ortega specifically cites Albert Einstein as an example of the type of European intellectual who, while he may be a genius in his own field, feels that he has a right to speak about other fields, even if he possesses none of the necessary background knowledge. How could anyone, even a man as smart as Einstein, dare to judge an event as messy as the Spanish civil war when he knows nothing about Spain's history?

Ortega cites in a footnote one more frightening example of a journalist for The Times of London reporting all the current events up to the minute, but then constructing an entire analysis on the premise that all Spaniards were descended from the Moors!

What Ortega's complaint about newspapers shows is that without a knowledge history one cannot even properly understand the newspaper. The dispassionate study of history is the only thing that can cast the proper light in which to understand current events. The danger of newspapers, then, is that by feeding the masses lots of information about current events, they give them the illusion of understanding those events.

Or, as Nietzsche might have said, without a knowledge of history, all newspapers do is load us down with "indigestible knowledge-stones."

Goethe & Newspapers

2011-12-27T04:00:00.007-05:00

Earlier in Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe warns of the danger of withdrawing from political life. Goethe’s own life and his own characters show that Goethe wrestled with the question of how to balance the responsibilities of an active life and the need to withdraw into solitude.

Yet, in the fourth part of Dichtung und Wahrheit (published after his death), Goethe recommends reading newspapers as a way for ordinary citizens to become involved in politics, even if they do not hold office. He suggests that newspapers serve two important functions. First, they allow citizens to view current events as one would watch a play at the theater; they can enter into the partisan spirit of events, but “in an innocent way.” For Goethe, newspapers can play a role similar to that of catharsis in Aristotle’s Poetics. Second, reading newspapers helps citizens learn how to make moral judgments, so that they will praise what is good and condemn what is bad.

But, do newspapers really encourage prudence and catharsis? Perhaps they did in Goethe’s day. Reading newspapers was once a much more genteel and leisurely activity than it is now. In the mid-nineteenth century Schopenhauer every day (after playing the flute and walking his poodle) would leave his apartment to stroll to a nearby café to peruse the foreign dailies in order to collect more evidence for his pessimistic worldview. Schopenhauer taking a break while reading the paper projects an image of thought and not mere gossip-mongering.

Today, though, it is much harder to agree with Goethe’s positive assessment of newspapers. In the internet age, it is difficult to appreciate just how influential newspapers became in the decades after his death in 1832. But, back in the day when newspapers competed for readers in every major city in America and Europe, a breaking news story was like a video going viral today; newspapers were the catalyst for mass enthusiasms. Becoming too involved with newspapers, then, would seem to represent exactly the danger that Goethe was warning against earlier in Dichtung und Wahrheit. The partisan spirit would not be innocent, but would lead to rash reactions, and there would be little catharsis but much anxiety from attending to current events. Indeed, newspapers then and today often contain shoddy fact-checking, shallow analysis, and pure sensationalism, which, instead of cleansing the reader’s emotions, make the reader keep returning for updates. Newspapers can inflame the partisan spirit, as Goethe said, but they hardly produce catharsis or prudence. This partisan spirit becomes a passion as base as any other.

To avoid arousing the partisan spirit and to develop an aesthetic experience of politics, the simple solution is to stop reading newspapers so much and to start reading good histories. If writing history is an art, much of the art consists of telling a story about a specific crisis. In English, the word "crisis" can be used to indicate any important moment, usually involving stress for the actors involved. This definition, though, does not fully describe what a crisis is. The original Greek meaning of the word--"judgment"--gives a better idea of how reading history can lead to catharsis. A crisis is an important moment because it gives us the necessary opportunity to pass judgment on the character of a person; how the person deals with this moment in his life reveals more about his character than other moments because life is lived more intensely at certain moments than at others. Witnessing the intensity of a crisis through the eyes of a sympathetic historian can produce catharsis in the reader, who participates in the character's actions. History draws the reader deeper into the action, while news stories are content to leave the reader at a superficial level. And it is the depths of history which can teach us about politics better than any newspaper story.

Of Men, Angels, and the Incarnation

2011-12-11T17:51:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, while studying in Rome, I had the opportunity to attend several events with Bl. Pope John Paul II. On one occasion several large choirs were in attendance, and filled the first quarter or so of the audience hall. Each of these choirs was just a tad smaller than the block allotted to it. Somehow the organization Regnum Christi ended up with the tickets to these few extra seats, and one of my classmates, a Regnum Christi member, acquired half a dozen shortly before the audience began. They were spread out all over the hall, one here, a couple there. And so I ended up seated, along with another classmate, in the midst of an Italian men's choir singing for the pope. I am sure that, as a blond American, I stuck out, but at least my black coat more or less blended with the choir's uniforms; my female classmate, with Irish-American red hair, no doubt seemed even more out of place. Our neighbors, who did not speak more than a word or two of English, were good-natured about our presence and shared their music. We had a grand time.

I was reminded of that experience when reading the sermon of St. Bernard which I posted a couple weeks ago. In it he contends:

The angels, we know, sinned through malice, not through ignorance and frailty; wherefore, as they were unwilling to repent, they must of necessity perish, for the love of the Father and the honour of the King demand judgment. For this cause He created men from the beginning, that they might fill those lost places, and repair the ruins of the heavenly Jerusalem.

I find this an arresting notion. If Bernard is correct, we will stand alongside the heavenly hosts as we share the beatific vision. In the justice of God, we will merit this, of course; He will make sure that we are worthy of our new places, by His grace. But I cannot help but chuckle, and then tremble, at the idea that I might be placed alongside archangels and cherubim, dropped there as randomly as I arrived in the midst of my Italian choir. If this is the future that awaits us, by virtue of Christ' incarnation, we indeed have cause to celebrate Christmas!

But is Bernard correct? This idea of mankind replacing the fallen angels is not one we often hear, in Scripture or in preaching. I am no theologian, but I know a few, and they confirm that Bernard's suggestion, if not doctrine of the Church, is at least well-attested.

In Book 22 of The City of God, Augustine argues that God willed that

...from this mortal race, deservedly and justly condemned, He would by His grace collect, as now He does, a people so numerous, that He thus fills up and repairs the blank made by the fallen angels, and that thus that beloved and heavenly city is not defrauded of the full number of its citizens.

Is mankind merely a place-holder? This sounds rather unlike our loving and personal God. Augustine further notes, however, that the heavenly Jerusalem "perhaps may even rejoice in a still more overflowing population." Thus, humanity both fills the places left by fallen angels, as well as adding to the numbers of the heavenly choirs.

Writing nearly 700 years later, Anselm follows Augustine's thinking. In Cur Deus Homo,he contends,

Intelligent nature... was foreseen by [God] in a certain reasonable and complete number.... It was proper that God should design to make up for the number of angels that fell, from human nature which He created without sin.

Like Augustine, Anselm suggests that redeemed humanity may exceed the numbers of the fallen angels, according to the perfect design of God:

If that [perfect] number [of heavenly beings] were not found in all the angels together, then both the loss and the original deficiency must be made up from men, and more men will be chosen than there were fallen angels. And so we shall say that men were made not only to restore the diminished number, but also to complete the imperfect number.

He goes on to explain:

Human nature was either made to consummate this perfection [of the original creation], or... it was superfluous, which we should not dare affirm of the nature of the smallest reptile. Wherefore, then, it was made for itself, and not merely to restore the number of beings possessing another nature. From which it is plain that, even had no angel fallen, men would yet have had their place in the celestial kingdom.

In other words, the choir of heavenly angels, like the Italian choir I encountered so many years ago, is not quite as big as its allotted space, leaving open seats whether the full choir is present or not.

More than a century after Bernard, this idea was again raised by Thomas Aquinas, although he demurs of any concrete knowledge:

Concerning the number of all the predestined, some say that so many men will be saved as angels fell; some, so many as there were angels left; others, as many as the number of angels created by God. It is, however, better to say that, "to God alone is known the number for whom is reserved eternal happiness."

In any event, the Church clearly teaches that, whatever our precise relationship with them, we shall spend eternity in the company of the angels and saints around the throne of God. Thus does God become a little Child, that we might share in the everlasting life of God.

Today's image by Gustave Doré of Dante, Beatrice and the Heavenly Host of Angels, from Canto 31 of Paradiso, is brought to you via Artsy Craftsy.

Why the Immaculate Conception Is the Patronal Feast of the United States

2011-12-07T05:49:00.001-05:00

A very short lesson regarding tomorrow's solemnity.

AMERICA [1792/1846]: Yes, the love of God is that ridiculously superabundant.

CRITICS: No, it's not quite that wildly awesome.

ROME [1854]: Actually, it is.

On the Advent of Our Lord - Part II

2011-11-28T14:10:00.001-05:00

Continued from Part I of St. Bernard's sermon.

Behold, you have heard Who He is that comes; consider now whence and to whom He comes. He comes from the heart of God the Father to the womb of a virgin mother; He comes from the highest heaven to this low earth, that we whose conversation is now on earth may have Him for our most desirable companion. For where can it be well with us without Him, and where ill if He be present? "What have I in heaven, and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart and the God that is my portion for ever" and "though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil" if only "thou art with me."

But here I see that our Lord descends not only to earth, but even to hell; not as one bound, but as free among the dead; as light that shines in the darkness, "and the darkness did not comprehend it." Wherefore His soul was not left in hell, nor did His holy body on earth see corruption. For Christ "that descended is the same also that ascended... that he might fill all things"; "who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil." And elsewhere we read, He "hath exalted as a giant to run his way... His going forth is from the highest heavens, and his circuit even to the end thereof." Well might St. Paul cry out: "Seek the things that are above,where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God." In vain would the Apostle labor to raise our hearts upwards if he did not teach us that the Author of our salvation is sitting in heaven.

But what follows? The matter here is indeed abundant in the extreme; but our limited time does not admit of a lengthened development. By considering Who He is that comes, we see His supreme and ineffable majesty, and by contemplating whence He comes, we behold the great high way clearly laid out to us. The Prophet Isaias says: "Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from afar." By reflecting whither He comes, we see His inestimable and inconceivable condescension in His descending from highest heavens to abide with us in this miserable prison-house. Who can doubt that there was some grand cause powerful enough to move so sovereign a Majesty to come "from afar," and condescend to enter a place so unworthy of Him as this world of ours. The cause was in truth great. It was His immense mercy, His multiplied compassion, His abundant charity.

For what end must we believe that He came? This question is the next in order to be examined; nor will the search demand much labor, for the end and purpose of His coming is proclaimed by His words and His works. To seek after the one sheep of the hundred that had strayed He hastened from the mountains. For our sake He came down from heaven, that His mercies and His wonders might be openly proclaimed to the children of men. O wonderful condescension of God in this search! O wonderful dignity of man who is thus sought ! If he should wish to glory in this dignity, it would not be imputed to him as folly. Not that he need think anything of himself, but let him rejoice that He Who made him should set so high a value on him. For all the riches and glory of the world, all that is desirable therein, is far below this glory nay, can bear no comparison with it. "Lord, what is man that thou should magnify him? and why settest thou thy heart upon him?"

I still further desire to know why He should come to us, and not we rather go to Him, for the need was on our side, and it is not usual for the rich to go to the poor, though otherwise willing to assist them. It was indeed our place to go forward to Him, but there stood a twofold impediment in the way; for our eyes were heavy, and He "dwelt in light inaccessible." We lay as paralytics on our beds, and could not raise ourselves to the Divineelevation. Wherefore this most benign Savior and Physician of souls descended to us from His lofty throne, and tempered His brightness to the weakness of our sight. He clothed Himself with His most glorious and spotless body as with the shade of a lantern, thus attempering to us His splendour. This is that bright and shining cloud upon which the Lord was to descend upon Egypt, as the Prophet Isaiah foretold.

It is now fitting that we should consider the time of our Lord's coming.

He came, as you know, not in the beginning, nor in the midst of time, but in the end of it. This was no unsuitable choice, but a truly wise dispensation of His infinite wisdom, that He might afford help when He saw it was most needed. Truly, "it was evening, and the day was far spent"; the sun of justice had wellnigh set, and but a faint ray of his light and heat remained on earth. The light of Divine knowledge was very small, and as iniquity abounded, the fervor of charity had grown cold. No angel appeared, no prophet spoke. The angelic vision and the prophetic spirit alike had passed away, both hopelessly baffled by the exceeding obduracy and obstinacy of mankind. Then it was that the Son of God said: "Behold, I come." And "while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, the almighty word leaped down from heaven from thy royal throne." Of this coming the Apostle speaks: "When the fullness of time was come, God sent his Son." The plenitude and affluence of things temporal had brought on the oblivion and penury of things eternal. Fitly, therefore, did the Eternal God come when things of time were reigning supreme. To pass over other points, such was the temporal peace at the birth of Christ that by the edict of one man the whole world was enrolled.

You have now heard Who He is that comes, whence, whither, and to whom He comes; the cause, likewise, and the time of His coming are known to you. One point is yet to be considered namely, the way by which He came. This must be diligently examined, that we may, as is fitting, go forth to meet Him. As He once came visibly in the body to work our salvation in the midst of the earth, so does He come daily invisibly and in spirit to work the salvation of each individual soul; as it is written: "The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord." And that we might know this spiritual advent to be hidden, it is said: "Under his shadow we shall live among the Gentiles." Wherefore, if the infirm cannot go far to meet this great Physician, it is at least becoming they should endeavor to raise their heads and lift themselves a little to greet their Savior. For this, O man, you are not required to cross the sea, to penetrate the clouds, to scale the mountain-tops. No lofty way is set before you. Turn within thyself to meet thy God, for the Word is nigh in thy mouth and in thy heart. Meet Him by compunction of heart and by confession of mouth, or, at least, go forth from the corruption of a sinful conscience, for it is not becoming that the Author of purity should enter there.

It is delightful to contemplate the manner of His visible coming, for His "ways are beautiful, and all his paths are peace." "Behold," says the Spouse of the Canticles, "he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." You see Him coming, O beautiful one, but His previous lying down you could not see, for you said: "Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou liest." He lay feeding His angels in His endless eternity with the vision of His glorious, unchanging beauty. But know, O beautiful one, that that vision is become wonderful to thee; it is high, and thou canst not reach it. Nevertheless, behold He hath gone forth from His holyplace, and He that had lain feeding His angels hath undertaken to heal us. We shall see Him coming as our food, Whom we were not able to behold while He was feeding His angels in His repose. "Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." The mountains and hills we may consider to be the Patriarchs and the Prophets, and we may see His leaping and skipping in the book of His genealogy. "Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob," etc. From the mountains came forth the root of Jesse, as you will find from the Prophet Isaias: "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." The same prophet speaks yet more plainly: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us." He Who is first styled a flower is afterwards called Emmanuel, and in the rod is named the virgin. But we must reserve for another day further consideration ofthis sublime mystery, as there is ample material for another sermon, especially as today's has been rather long.

On the Advent of Our Lord and Its Six Circumstances

2011-11-27T13:44:00.000-05:00

I sometimes get frustrated with our celebration of Advent and Christmas. Not only do I register the usual complaints about commercialism and how busy we all become, but I would also like to gripe about the fact that Christmas is too often about the music (folksy carols or classical choirs, take your pick), family, gift-giving, and the cuteness of baby Jesus. All of those things are good, but they pale in comparison to the Incarnation, from which they derive their goodness. So this year I asked a patristic scholar for some good homilies to read. Here is the first, broken into two parts, since St. Bernard of Clarivaux himself admits that it is "rather long."

Part I

TO-DAY we celebrate the beginning of Advent.

The name of this great annual commemoration is sufficiently familiar to us ; its meaning may not be so well known.

When the unhappy children of Eve had abandoned the pursuit of things true and salutary, they gave themselves up to the search for those that are fleeting and perishable. To whom shall we liken the men of this generation, or to what shall we compare them, seeing they are unable to tear them selves from earthly and carnal consolations, or disentangle their minds from such trammels? They resemble the shipwrecked who are in danger of being overwhelmed by the waters, and who may be seen catching eagerly at whatever they first grasp, how frail soever it may be. And if anyone strive to rescue them, they are wont to seize and drag him down with them, so that not infrequently the rescuer is involved with them in one common destruction. Thus the children of the world perish miserably while following after transitory things and neglecting those which are solid and enduring, cleaving to which, they might save their souls. Of truth, not of vanity, it is said: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Do you, therefore, to whom as to little ones God has revealed things hidden from the wise and prudent, turn your thoughts with earnestness to those that are truly desirable, and diligently meditate on this coming of our Lord. Consider Who He is that comes, whence He comes, to whom He comes, for what end He comes, when He comes, and inwhat manner He comes. This is undoubtedly a most useful and praiseworthy curiosity, for the Church would not so devoutly celebrate the season of Advent if there were not some great mystery hidden therein.

Wherefore, in the first place, let us with the Apostle consider in astonishment and admiration how great He is Who comes. According to the testimony of Gabriel, He is the Son of the Most High, and consequently a coequal with Him. Nor is it lawful to think that the Son of God is other than coequal with His Father. He is coequal in majesty ; He is coequal in dignity. Who will deny that the sons of princes are princes, and the sons of kings kings?

But how is it that of the Three Persons Whom we believe, and confess, and adore in the Most High Trinity, it was not the Father, nor the Holy Ghost, but the Son that became Man? I imagine this was not without cause. But "who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?" Not without some most deep counsel of the Blessed Trinity was it decreed that the Son should become Incarnate. If we consider the cause of our exile, we may perchance be able to comprehend in some degree how fitting it was that our deliverance should be chiefly accomplished by the Son.

Lucifer, who rose brightly as the morning star, because he attempted to usurp a similitude with the Most High, and "it was thought robbery in him to equal himself with God," an equality which was the Son's by right, was cast down from heaven and ruined; for the Father was zealous for the glory of the Son, and seemed by this act to say: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." And instantly "I saw Satan as lightning falling from heaven."

Dust and ashes, why art thou proud? If God spared not pride in His angels, how much less will He tolerate it in thee, innate corruption? Satan had committed no overt act, he had but consented to a thought of pride, yet in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he was irreparably rejected because, as the Evangelist says, "he stood not in the truth."

Fly pride, my brethren, I most earnestly beseech you. "Pride is the beginning of all sin," and how quickly did it darken and overshadow with eternal obscurity Lucifer, the most bright and beautiful of the heavenly spirits, and, from not only an angel, but the first of angels, transform him into a hideous devil! Wherefore, envying man's happiness, he brought forth in him the evil which he had conceived in himself by persuading man that if he should eat of the forbidden tree he would become as God, having a knowledge of good and evil. Wretch! what dost thou promise, when thou knowest that the Son of God has the key of knowledge yea, and is Himself the "key of David, that shutteth and no man openeth"; that "in him are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God"? Wouldst thou, then, wickedly steal them away to give them to men?

You see, my brethren, how true is the sentence of our Lord, "The devil is a liar and the father of lies." He was a liar in saying, "I will be like unto the Most High"; and he was the father of lies when he breathed his spirit of falsity into man. "You will be as gods." And wilt thou, man, "seeing the thief, run with him"? You have heard, my brethren, what has been read this night from Isaiah. The Prophet says to the Lord, "Thy princes are faithless, companions of thieves" or, as another version has it, "disobedient companions of thieves." In truth, Adam and Eve were disobedient companions of thieves, for, by the counsel of the serpent, or, rather, of the devil in the serpent, they tried to seize upon what belonged by birth right to the Son of God. Nor did the Father overlook the injury, for the Father loveth the Son. He immediately took revenge on that same man, and let His hand fall heavily on us all, "for in Adam all have sinned" and in his sentence of condemnation we have shared.

What, then, did the Son do, seeing His Father so zealous for His glory, and for His sake sparing none of His creatures? "Behold," He says, "on My account My Father has ruined His creatures: the first of the angels aspired to My throne of sovereignty, and had followers who believed in him; and instantly My Father's zeal was heavily revenged on him, striking him and all his adherents with an incurable plague, with a dire chastisement. Man, too, attempted to steal from Me the knowledge which belongs to Me alone, and neither doth My Father show him mercy, nor doth His eye spare him. He had made two noble orders sharing His reason, capable of participating in His beatitude, angels and men; but behold, on My account He hath ruined a multitude of His angels and the entire race of men. Therefore, that they may know that I love My Father, He shall receive back through Me what in a certain way He seems to have lost through Me. It is on my account this storm has arisen; take me and cast me into the sea. All are envious of Me; behold I come, and will exhibit Myself to them in such a guise as that whosoever shall wish may become like to Me; whatsoever I shall do they may imitate, so that their envy shall be made good and profitable to them."

The angels, we know, sinned through malice, not through ignorance and frailty; wherefore, as they were unwilling to repent, they must of necessity perish, for the love of the Father and the honour of the King demand judgment. For this cause He created men from the beginning, that they might fill those lost places, and repair the ruins of the heavenly Jerusalem. For He knew "the pride of Moab, that he is exceedingly proud" and that his pride would never seek the remedy of repentance, nor, consequently, of pardon. After man's fall, however, He created no other creaturein his place, thus intimating that man should yet be redeemed, and that he who had been supplanted by another's malice might still by another's charity be redeemed.

Be it so, dear Lord, I beseech Thee. Be pleased to deliver me, for I am weak. Like Joseph of old, I was stolen away from my country, and here with out any fault was cast into a dungeon. Yet I am not wholly innocent, but innocent compared with him who seduced me. He deceived me with a lie: let the truth come, that falsehood may be discovered, and that I may know the truth, and that the truth may make me free. But to gain the freedom I must renounce the falsehood when discovered, and adhere to the known truth; otherwise the temptation would not be human, nor the sin a human sin, but diabolical obstinacy. To persevere in evil is the act of the devil, and those who persevere in evil after his example deservedly perish with him.

Part II.

Three Films I'm Looking forward to Seeing

2011-11-12T04:00:00.000-05:00

On 9 December John la Carre's 1974 novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy comes to the big screen in the US. I recently re-read the novel in preparation. This has got to be one of the most classic spy novels of all time.

(Those reading this post on Facebook, click here to see the trailer.)

Then on 21 December The Adventures of Tintin hits the US. If you are not familiar with these comic books by Hergé, you should be. They are beautifully drawn, with compelling plot lines, often inspired by historical events such as South America's Chaco War, the Japanese invasion of China, and the Anschluss. Sadly, the film draws on some of the non-historical strips, but it should be good fun anyway.

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And finally, next spring, opening on 9 March, we have John Carter, a film adaptation of The Princess of Mars (1917), by famed pulp fiction writer Edgar Rice Burroughs (best known for creating Tarzan). I intend to read this one before watching the film.

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And if that's not enough cinematic anticipation for you, don't forget that The Hobbit and the Red Dawn remake are coming in 2012, and there are rumors of a District 10.

Goethe's Father and Aestheticism

2011-11-06T20:36:00.029-05:00

As a brief addendum to my most recent post, this passage from Book II of Goethe's autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, shows that Goethe was well aware of the danger of withdrawing from politics and choosing to live an apolitical, "aesthetic" life because of the example of his own father:

In a city like Frankfurt, where the inhabitants are divided among three religions into three unequal groups, where only a few men, even from among the ruling classes, can join the regiment, there must be many a prosperous and educated man who retreats into himself and constructs for himself his own closed-off existence with his studies and hobbies...Now, my father was one those men who had retreated, who never form a partnership among each other. They assume a position as isolated from each other as from the whole [of society], and even more so because in their isolation they develop idiosyncratic qualities that set them off even more starkly from each other. My father had acquired on his journeys and in the free world a conception of a more elegant and more liberal way of life than was perhaps usual among his fellow citizens. He certainly had predecessors and companions [in this regard].

Goethe then proceeds to describe a number of men from his childhood in Frankfurt who, in one way or another, lived a quieter, more "aesthetic" life. They were men of means who enjoyed poetry and who often collected antiques, paintings, and plants, to the point that their houses must have been small museums. Goethe's father, for example, had a room filled with pictures of Italy and had very strong views concerning poetry (he hated Klopstock).

But, as devoted as these men were to their own private hobbies, they did not abandon the public sphere. One wrote didactic novels in an attempt to foster morality among the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, and another wrote a book advocating toleration for Calvinists as well as Lutherans in Frankfurt. One man gave alms regularly and encourage the poor to reform their lives. A doctor transformed his large home into a state-of-the-art medical school. Goethe characterized all these men as having withdrawn from public life, but they were by no means hermits. What made them unusual for their time and place was that they were wealthy yet did not enter into politics or assume a public office.

The example of these apolitical, yet publicly-minded men leaves open the question of what kind of life a publicly-minded man should lead, a question that concerned Goethe throughout his life. Goethe's ideal in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre was the active (tätig) man. But, what kind of activity was ideal? Should the active man vie for public honors, or should he simply carry out his profession well? Should he perhaps establish a private association intended to benefit the public, such as providing medical care to the poor? As Goethe recognizes, it is impossible in our age for many of those who enjoy some modicum of financial security to enter into politics. Yet what Goethe here criticizes in Dichtung und Wahrheit would actually seem better than the alternative: it is better to find some small way to increase the common weal rather than to indulge in what Goethe calls the bourgeois tendency to become engaged in politics simply by giving an opinion on every distant world event.

The Festal Fortnight!

2011-10-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

Here in the Linderman household, it is almost time for the Festal Fortnight. That is what I have tentatively decided to call this string of autumnal holidays we have coming up.

These holidays are an odd mix of pagan and Christian, historical and political. Some people might say the mix is coincidental, eclectic or even dangerous. In my mind, two things make these holidays cohere.

First, the pagan can be subsumed into the Christian. This is not simply religious or cultural plagiarism. Rather, in Christianity, grace builds on nature. And it is quite natural to reflect on the reality of death in early November, as the world around us dies. Likewise, it is natural to reflect on the reality of spirits (both good and bad) among us, as the shadows lengthen and an air of mystery begins to settle. I am quite happy to give Christian answers to pagan questions, so to speak.

Secondly, I believe history is divinely ordained (if not always in ways we can perceive). Thus, to say that several holidays "coincidentally" fall near one another is simply to say that the hand of God has brought them together, rather than the hand of man. I lose no sleep on this point either.

31 October: All Hallow's Eve/Samhain.Halloween is no doubt the best known of this string of holidays. Scholars argue that the Christian feast of All Saints Day has its roots in - or at least owes its timing to - the earlier Celtic festival of Samhain, which marks the end of the harvest. This holiday has become woefully commercialized, but when you place it in its larger autumnal context, I think some of its richness begins to return.

1 November: All Saint's Day/Calan Gaeaf. Calan Gaef is the first day of winter in Wales, which seems a fitting day to think about those who have died (and are now in glory). However, the holiday has a rather dark hue - involving hags, evil spirits in the form of a black sow and a headless woman, and predictions of death - so we'll be celebrating this day along fairly traditional Christian lines, perhaps with mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

2 November: All Soul's Day. Time permitting, my wife and I will visit the local cemetery to pray for the dead. I have done this for several of the past few years, and I can say that it is a slightly odd experience, simply strolling among graves of people you do not know, who are of no particular significance to you. It brings home the reality of Death as a general phenomenon, apart from the particular ways it affects us. Praying for strangers can also remind us that we too may be the beneficiaries of strangers' prayers. We should probably return the favor.

5 November: Bonfire Day. Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Day are the motif running through V for Vendetta, the comic book made into a movie (which my wife and I first watched last year). Admittedly, this has traditionally been an anti-papist day, but I'm sure there's some way we can baptize it.

6 November: Gustav Adolfsdagen. In honor of the great 17th century king and general, this is a national holiday in Sweden, a country from which some of my ancestors came. (See the recurring connection with the dead!) I have not celebrated this holiday before, but I am intrigued by its pastry, Gustav Adolfsbakelse, for which, alas, I have not yet found a recipe.

11 November: Armistice Day/Veteran's Day/Feast of St. Martin. It is fitting that the First World War ended on the feast of one of the patrons of soldiers. Some might say that wars should begin on such days, but I think not. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux explains, ‎"The true Israelite is a man of peace, even when he goes forth to battle." St. Martin's Day is traditionally marked by carrying candles and lanterns, which seems a fitting seasonal defense against the creeping darkness, and also a fitting memorialization of the millions of war dead. That toys are traditionally given to children on St. Martin's Day in some Germanic countries might seem at odds with the somber remembrance of the war's end and the shortening days of the year. Not that we'll be giving toys in our home, but I think this too is fitting: such toys are a reminder that the harvest has been gathered and (God willing) we are abundantly stocked for the months ahead. Giving toys to children is also a useful reminder of the healing and rebirth that must follow a war: if only sorrow remains, the fallen have died in vain.

Some places serve goose on St. Martin's Day, on account of how the saint hid, while trying to avoid the episcopate, but had his position given away by geese. A goose might be a bit much for us, but I am intrigued by this recipe for Martinshörnchen, the traditional hoof-shaped pastries. Damassine is the traditional St. Martin's Day liqueur in Switzerland. In the US, ravioli was once a kind of Veteran's Day tradition, since President Wilson fed it to 2,000 returning soldiers who dined at the White House. (Though, frankly, I've never heard of this custom, so I'm not so sure how widespread it ever became.)

And if you've not already used up all the firewood on the 5th, bonfires are traditional on St. Martin's Eve.

13 November [this year]: Remembrance Sunday. Observed on the Sunday nearest 11 November, this is a kind of second Armistice Day, but with the particular purpose of praying for the fallen. It may be sheer coincidence, but it seems fitting that we pray for the souls lost in the 20th century's first great bloodbath mere days after All Soul's Day.

Today's image of the Vigil of All Saints at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington comes via the Dominican Province of St. Joseph.

Politicism and Aestheticism

2011-10-25T04:00:00.001-04:00

In histories of German literature, there is an idea one hears quite a bit, which attempts to explain the sudden flourishing of German literature beginning in the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, dating roughly from the publication of the first three books of Klopstock's Messias in 1748 to the revolutions of 1848. According to this theory the writers of the Sturm und Drang and the Romantics, in particular, devoted themselves to literature because they had no other outlet for their energies, as the ascendant German bourgeoisie was still excluded from political life. This theory has at least three important effects. First, it establishes aesthetics and politics as completely inimical to each other, rather than simply in tension with each other. Second, this theory implies that all aesthetics is really just aestheticism and leads to political quietism. Lastly, and most importantly, it precludes the possibility that politics can degenerate into what, for lack of a better term, can be called "politicism," where the daily struggle of party politics becomes the good citizen's only concern.

This interpretation of German literature probably originated with Heinrich Heine, the self-named "last Romantic poet." Heine was certainly not a man without a strong aesthetic sensibility, as any reading of his Buch der Lieder (Book of Songs)will prove. Yet even early in his career Heine began to make controversial political statements, with his opinions leaning toward socialism (he became acquainted with the young Karl Marx in Paris). His radical opinions and his penchant for ridiculing his enemies meant that he had to endure censorship in Germany nearly his entire life. While Heine appears to have already formed his revolutionary political views by the time he left university, part of his disenchantment with the apolitical nature of German literary culture, and above all with Goethe, may stem from his disappointing visit to Goethe. After publishing his first poems as a law student, Heine sent a copy of the book to Goethe, and two years later made something of a pilgrimage through the Harz Mountains to Goethe. In Weimar, though, the great poet gave Heine a cool reception, and Heine, rather uncharacteristically (since he loved to talk about himself), never spoke of the incident again. But among the writers of the Vormärz, Goethe came to be regarded as the epitome of a conservative German aestheticism that refused to sully itself with politics and rejected all reform movements out of hand.

This interpretation of German literature before Heine is certainly not indefensible. The frustration felt by the rising generations at being unable to take on political responsibility comes through in certain authors, such as in Friedrich Hölderlin's Hyperion. The young, idealistic title character joins in a Greek rebellion against the Turks (a couple decades before Byron). But, more importantly, Hyperion falls in love and explores his emotions in the letters he writes to his German friend Bellarmin. After suffering defeat in battle and the death of his lover, Diotima, Hyperion returns to Greece to live as a hermit contemplating the beauty of nature while nurturing his sorrow over Diotima's untimely death. The conclusion of the novel indeed leaves the impression that Hölderlin saw devotion to the aesthetic as mere consolation for failure in politics and love.

The frustration seething in the writers of the Sturm und Drang took even more dramatic form than the early Romanticism of Hyperion. For instance, in Friedrich Schiller's Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love), the protagonist Ferdinand, as the result of a court intrigue, decides to kill himself and his love, Luise. Here, not even aesthetics can save the young idealist and make life tolerable after failure in affairs both public and private. Indeed, even though he later became the symbol of German political passivity, Goethe first came to the public's attention as an enfant terrible, whose Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther) ends once again with the protagonist's suicide after he has been thwarted in his ambitions by a court society prejudiced against the middle class, and by an unhappy love affair. This epistolary novel was so shocking to contemporaries in part because it inspired a wave of copy-cat suicides who dressed as Werther before discharging pistols into their (already empty) brains. Werther is perhaps the most famous expression of political frustration that came out of the Sturm und Drang and is still the epitome of Liebestod in German literature before Wagner's operas.

But, the later Schiller and especially the later Goethe show the limits of the idea that German literature before the Vormärz was simply a means for the ascendant bourgeoisie to sublimate its political aspirations into safer activities. While Schiller is sometimes remembered, especially in the English-speaking world, primarily for his "Letter on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind," he also taught history at the University of Jena. He was deeply interested in the political history of the Netherlands whose republicanism he admired, as well as the Thirty Years' War. His most famous plays, such as Wilhelm Tell, Wallenstein, and Maria Stuart, are all classical in aesthetics, but take their inspiration from politics and history.

Goethe's case is more complicated than Schiller's because he took a sharper turn towards aesthetics. Goethe came from a family of lawyers (his maternal grandfather was something like the chief justice of the city of Frankfurt) and even became a lawyer himself, first as an intern at the supreme court of the Holy Roman Empire in Wetzlar, and then as a private attorney in Frankfurt for a couple years before entering the service of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Once in Weimar, he became one of the Duke's chief advisers and filled many administrative posts. However, Goethe was never completely happy as a man of action. In 1786, without asking permission first, he left Weimar and Carlsbad and traveled to Italy, touring most of the peninsula as well as Sicily for a couple years. It was in Italy that he matured as a writer and a man, rejecting the excesses of his Sturm und Drang phase and re-founding his aesthetics on the classicism of his day.

Nevertheless, upon his return to Weimar, while he was relieved of certain administrative duties, the Duke still entrusted him with the direction of the court theater and of the University of Jena. Moreover, in his later classically-inspired works, Goethe does not present complete withdrawal from the world as his ideal. In Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, the prototype of the Bildungsroman) the hero rejects the aesthetic life of a wandering actor for a more settled life of responsibility. Even the life of quiet contemplation, which is presented sympathetically in the famous diary of the schöne Seele ("beautiful soul"), is ultimately rejected as an evasion of responsibility. Even in Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities), Goethe introduces Eduard as a man who has chosen to retire to his country estate, a decision, however, that would lead to the end of his marriage. Despite his clearly conflicted feelings about the desirability of living in society--Goethe became known for treating strangers (such as Heine) very coldly in an attempt to protect his privacy--as well as his later avoidance of political questions, it can be said that Goethe recognized that it was good to live among others and to assume responsibility in life. As much as he devoted himself to aesthetics, the charge against him that he was uninterested in politics is false.

The Weimarer Klassik of Schiller and Goethe represents not a flight from reality into aestheticism but rather an attempt to unite life, including politics, with aesthetics. Schiller and Goethe advocated a politically involved life, but also insisted on keeping involvement in politics within certain bounds. In the French Revolution and in their own experiences they saw how a certain type of passion for politics and social change could harm the common good and blind the individual soul. Before accusing Schiller and Goethe of aestheticism, then, one must first eschew politicism.

Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo-Fly Pie

2011-10-19T08:24:00.000-04:00

If you have not already picked up the lessons of this little excursion through American cooking and American identity, let me spell it out: our cooking, like our nation, is a mix of deep-held family traditions, often stretching back to the "old country," and eclectic innovation, usually involving taking other people's best ideas and then tinkering with them. The results can be confusing and incoherent, but also quirky and delightful.

This final recipe neatly embodies that lesson. I was once invited an an Oslava, thrown by some Slovak-Americans. They asked everyone to bring an item of food made from an old family recipe. So I sent my grandmother a note and asked her if she had a recipe that would fit the bill. In response, she sent me a recipe for Shoo-Fly Pie, and reminded me that my great-grandfather (and countless generations before him) had been Pennsylvania Dutch, a people who enjoy shoo-fly. This all made good sense to me, since I knew about our family's roots in Pennsylvania, and I had first seen shoo-fly pie in Lancaster County, PA.

Having made the recipe a time or two, I sent my grandmother a note, thanking her for this family recipe. I do not recall the precise words of her reply, but she as much as said that she simply found the recipe in a cook book. At this point, the story breaks down. I am not sure if this was a family cookbook, and so the recipe had come from Great-Great Aunt Mathilda or some such, or if Grandma was simply trying to guess what our family might have baked a few generations before, and then found any old shoo-fly recipe. (My father says his mother never made it when he was a child.)

In spite of this historical confusion, several facts remain: (1) My family were Pennsylvania Dutch for about two centuries, (2) this recipe comes from my grandmother, and (3) I have become quite a fan of shoo-fly pie, and make it any chance I get.

Alas, this pie is not for everyone. It is pretty hearty, filling stuff. I don't know if those old Pennsylvania farmers actually ate it, but I can certainly imagine they did.

Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo-Fly Pie

Filling:
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. plus 1 Tbsp molasses
1 egg
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 1/2 c. hot coffee
3/4 c. flour (I usually use a combination of white and whole wheat)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Crumbs:
2/3 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. butter (unmelted)

Mix first three ingredients, then add all the rest from the filling list. Pour into 9" pie crust. Cut the butter into flour and sugar for the crumb topping, and sprinkle on top. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until set. Consider serving with whipped cream.

Today's image comes from Kitchen Kettle Village.

Scandinavian Vegetable Soup - A Revival?

2011-10-17T19:59:00.000-04:00

Some of my mother's family was Swedish. As a thoroughgoing fan of genealogical diversity, I relish this Scandinavian connection. Perhaps that is part of the reason why some years ago I took to the Scandinavian soup recipe that is the third installment of this four-part adventure in American cooking.

In the name of full disclosure, I must confess that this recipe did not come through a long family. Instead, it came through that stalwart aid of American gastronomy: a cookbook. Specifically, this recipe came from Mr. Food Cooks Like Mama, a book I think my brother received for his high school graduation. I have no idea if anyone in Scandinavia actually eats anything like this - I don't remember seeing it during my short visit there, though I was mostly living on bread and cheese at that point - nor do I have a shred of proof that any of my ancestors ever made anything of the sort. Still, it is a possibility my over-active imagination is willing to entertain. And the version we make is a tasty meal, particularly when the weather gets cooler.

Scandinavian Vegetable Soup

1/2 c. butter or vegetable oil (or some combination thereof - I usually go half and half)
1 Tbsp wet garlic
2 c. chopped cabbage, or half a head, or whatever you have laying around
1 chopped onion
1 c. chopped celery, or as much as you have (because what else can you put it in before it gets floppy?)
1 c. frozen peas
2 c. thin-sliced carrots
2 cans creamed corn
3 c. milk
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. thyme
2 c. cubed cheese (you can shred it, but why bother, when it's just going to melt?)

In a very large pot, saute garlic, cabbage, onion, celery, peas and carrots in butter/oil until tender (usually 10-15 minutes). Add corn, milk, pepper, and thyme. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add cheese, stirring until melted. Serve.

Whole Grain Coffee Cake - a Paternal Tale

2011-10-07T23:56:00.001-04:00

For as long as I can remember, my father has been making breakfast on Saturdays: muffins, biscuits, cornbread, pancakes, waffles... The custom of special Saturday breakfasts is one I have brought into my own family as well (though I've added cheese grits to the line-up).

Among my father's repertoire of breakfast foods is coffee cake. He has been baking it since my earliest days, and maybe even earlier. And, I must day, coffee cake is one of my favorites. So when I came home from college at the end of one semester, I was deeply disappointed to discover that coffee cake had been declared a forbidden food. Apparently it was deemed too high in cholesterol, something the doctor was trying to bring down in my father. Unsatisfied with this change of events, I set out to craft a new, cholesterol-friendly version. I do not know if I succeeded - I am certainly no nutritionist - but I did end up with a recipe I rather liked.

What was my source? Well, my father had two recipes, one for regular old coffee cake and one for "cowboy coffee cake." Now I have poked around the internet a little, but I have yet to find out what connection cowboy coffee cake has to cowboys. Perhaps none. I may have asked my father about this at some point, but if I did he didn't know the answer. Not that this bothered me too much. I guess I assumed it was an old cowboy recipe, and at one time there were plenty of cowboys on the Plains and out West.

Anyhow, my new recipe more or less merged both of my father's and added generous amounts of whole grains and substituted some of the white sugar for brown. As I said, I'm not sure it's healthier, but it's certainly tasty!

Whole Grain Coffee Cake

1 1/2 c. white flour

2 T ground flax seed*

3/4 c. white sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3/4 c. brown sugar, divided

3/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/4 c. wheat bran*

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

2/3 c. vegetable oil (or apple sauce)

1 c. sour milk (if no sour milk is on hand, add 1 tsp vinegar to 1 c. milk)

2 eggs

butter or margarine, as needed for crumbs

*These ingredients, while quite good, are not essential to the recipe; whole wheat flour may be substituted.

Mix 3/4 c. white flour, flax seed, white sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside 1/3 c. for crumbs. To the main mixture, add 1/4 c. brown sugar and remaining ingredients (including remaining 3/4 c. white flour). Pour batter into two greased 8" x 1 1/2" round pans. Mix remaining 1/2 c. of brown sugar with crumb mixture and cut in butter/margarine as needed (approx. 3 Tbsp) for a crumbly consistency and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

Once again, our picture is not original. This one comes from Food.com.

Red Beans & Rice - an American Odyssey

2011-10-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

This is not a recipe blog. However, I spent a goodly while in Britain over the past few months, as this blog bears out. I wrote about my favorite British regiments, observed Empire Day, did some hypothetical casting for a movie about Brits, celebrated an English saint and reflected upon a British philosopher of history. A raging Anglophile I may be, but all this talk of Britain got me a little concerned. Am I not American? Is everything simply better over there? Does America have nothing I want to celebrate?

As these questions rolled around in my mind, I was struck by one particularly American aspect of my life: food. Many of the foods I make on a regular basis are staples of "traditional" American menus. A fair number actually have their roots in other countries or cultures, though they have been adopted with typically American assimilation. Likewise, most of these recipes came to me through a mix of family, cook books and good old tinkering. Perhaps the same results could have come about in another place, but these foods and their stories strike me as quintessentially American. And so I plan to share a few.

Today's recipe has a slightly odd genesis. I began making beans and rice because it was cheap, filling and kept well. I just threw together some ingredients. If there was any inspiration, it was probably my father's Ham & Beans recipe. But this was certainly a different creation, a vaguely Southwestern dish for the hungry bachelor. But after I got married, I discovered that my wife - whose mother is from Mississippi and whose father is from Louisiana - expected "beans and rice" to be New Orleans-style red beans and rice. With the guidance of her poking and a few pointers from my mother-in-law, my bachelor recipe evolved into something of which I am rather proud. It looks more Southern than Southwestern now, but I think it retains hints of its origins (in both my homeland and my hungry bachelor phase). Enjoy!

Red Beans & Rice

3 cups dry beans (I often use one each of kidney, small red and pinto beans, but sometimes I use black too)
2 cans diced tomatoes (I usually use one "Mexican style" and one with green chilis)
14 oz kielbasa sausage, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp ketchup
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Soak beans overnight or quick soak (ie, bring to rolling boil, turn off and let soak for 1 hr). Begin simmering beans with tomatoes and lots of water. Saute sausage, onion, green pepper and garlic in vegetable oil. Add sausage mixture and remaining ingredients to beans. Cook until beans are tender (2-3 hrs, usually). Serve over rice.

Unfortunately, no, today's picture is not of my own making. It comes from Simply Recipes.

Rising Expectations and Narcissism

2011-09-22T04:00:00.003-04:00

The Atlantic recently published a collection of letters from readers, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, documenting their reactions to the widespread unemployment among recent college graduates. (H/T: First Things.) The letters evince a stark division between the soon-to-retire Baby Boomers and the so-called "Millennials" who now find themselves without work or struggling to advance upward from entry-level jobs.

The young and old, of course, will always view life through different lenses, and when it comes to the process of forging one's way in life their perspectives can differ dramatically. But, in recent years, this difference in perspective seems to have grown into a complete blindness toward the others' position. Here is the extreme version of the disagreement:

The younger, college-educated generation looks up to the older generation, and sees that its parents have reached stable positions in society. They may not be rich, but they certainly have made enough money to raise a family and to purchase a comfortable home. And that is all the younger generation wants: a chance to earn a decent living, do interesting work, and start a family. That's the American Dream. Yet now, after earning a college degree and perhaps even a professional degree, they find themselves unemployed and in serious debt. Even if they do eventually find work, it will be some kind of soul-less office work and most of their paychecks for the foreseeable future will go toward paying down their student loans and covering rent and the utilities. Life is bleak.

The older generation, on the other hand, can remember working its way up through the ranks in its younger days and can't understand what all the whining is about. They remember stagflation, when the interest rates for a mortgage were astronomically high, and the OPEC oil embargo, when it was difficult just to fill the car with gas. They haven't always felt fulfilled by their jobs but they sucked it up and through their hard work they got where they are today. Moreover, once they had some money, they spent it on their children. No generation ever had it easier growing up.

Although there will always be tension between parents and their children and there will be rivalry for jobs in every economy, the older generation does deserve a lot of the blame, and the younger generation should be up in arms.

Why? Because the older generation spoiled us with all its talk of self-esteem. One correspondent seems to be aware of the problem of rising expectations but curiously, and implausibly, denies that he had any expectations of succeeding in life:

Some say that we should not expect things to be handed to us, and that we should just stop whining. That may be the case for some, but what about those of us who never expected anything? There are thousands of us who worked hard and did everything that we were supposed to do. We were told, "If you push yourself and work harder than everyone else, you will succeed."

The problem of rising expectations arises precisely in the kind of situation that this writer describes, when children are given definite ideas what it can hope to receive from their parents when they reach their majority. In the case of America, the parents of the last generation were encouraged by "parenting experts" and professional pedagogues to make their children believe in themselves, no matter what. This boosting of the younger generation's self-esteem is not entirely new, of course; it is part and parcel of what Christopher Lasch called America's "culture of narcissism." A brief perusal of the letters shows that many members of the younger generation are struggling with the issue of narcissism. One admits that he belongs to a "me-first generation." An older writer blames Generation Y for its self-centeredness. One Millennial, though, turns the table and condemns the Baby Boomers for their own selfishness and hypocrisy in telling the rising generation to suck it up. But all the writers agree that the central battle in this generational warfare is whether the younger generation is too spoiled or whether the older generation is unable to empathize with their children's plight.

And the consequence of feeding youngsters' self-esteem is fairly predictable: rising expectations accompanied by a sense of entitlement. And when those expectations are not met, the younger generation reacts with anger towards its parents. After years of being given awards for trying--though not always achieving--in school, many Millennials are being confronted with failure for the first time at the time in their lives when it matters most, when they are starting their careers and forging the relationships that will (hopefully) last the rest of their lives. They are visited by a "sense of inner emptiness" when they no longer receive the attention that was practically their birthright.

The emphasis on self-esteem in education and the consequent inability to deal with disappointment in life lead to the conclusion that America today is being devastated by what a recent book has labeled The Narcissism Epidemic. (Disclaimer: I have not read the book and cannot speak to the details.) But, if the younger generation really is suffering from a narcissism epidemic, the worst approach to the problem would be to cast all the blame on the older generation, thus absolving itself of all responsibility for its problem.

Is there any solution? Unfortunately, this is the type of dilemma that a narcissist cannot find his way out of without a willingness to forgive others and to change his life. But, that is precisely what narcissism makes so hard.

Herodotus, Thucydides and The Idea of History

2011-09-12T19:21:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year I read R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History. The book is quite insightful, a "must read" for any philosopher of history. On the whole, I quite enjoyed it.

However, one passage hit me hard, like watching one friend knife another friend. You see, Collingwood insists that Thucydides is not really a historian. Herodotus gets the honor, but not Thucydides.

Ever since I first read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War I have been a fan. Not a historian? No, Collingwood explains, Thucydides is really a philosopher. Historians, Collingwood says, recreate the thoughts of past men. That is their task. It is a fundamentally particular task, dealing with men individually. Philosophers, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with the general, those things which are true of all men. Herodotus is often criticized for repeating legends and hear-say, and he deserves the criticism. However, his approach is fundamentally particular, asking here about the Persians and there about the Egyptians; though he makes connections across cultures, he is also willing to accept them with their differences.

Thucydides has a rather different approach, though the difference is not always obvious. In his introduction, Thucydides notes that when he had no report of a given speech, he has filled in the gap with what must have been said. In other words, if we know the speech was preceded by A, and followed by C, the speaker must have said something along the lines of B - it's the obvious way to get from one to the other. Thucydides' method is broadly sound; after all, we infer things all the time, in history and in life. However, this method reveals a disregard for the messy details of life, and leans on broad statements about men generally. Why do men go to war? Thucydides asks. Only three reasons: fear, greed or honor. This is profound insight into the human person, but it is not history. History is more concrete than that.

Must history simply involve disconnected facts? Can it never approach the general? The philosophic historian - and by that I do not mean one that belongs to the discipline of philosophy, but one that desires the deepest truths - must constantly hold together the tension between the particularities of history and the desire for general knowledge. To stray too far from this tension produces something other than good history. The unthinking particularist becomes a kind of antiquarian, collecting factoids and minutia, content never to connect them to one another. This person has no concept of or desire for knowledge of mankind as a whole or justice as a virtue. The more thoughtful man who becomes a particularist is likely a kind of agnostic, someone who recognizes that history cannot produce complete knowledge of general things, but concludes that there is no reason to try to hold together the tension. He is typically a bitter soul, someone who longs for general knowledge but does not believe it possible. The unthinking generalist becomes a Whig historian in the most pejorative sense of the term, shoehorning the complications of the past into broad categories that are inadequate to describe it. The thinking generalist is ultimately a philosopher, someone who realizes that history is always bound up with the particular and lays it aside in favor of another vocation.

History, then, is a curious thing, with one foot in the mud of earth and another on the clouds of heaven. It's not for everyone, but I'm rather happy with that tension.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to read some Herodotus.

Today's image of R. G. Collingwood comes from Ovi Magazine.

Irish Catholicism

2011-08-30T04:00:00.002-04:00

I recently came across a series of blog posts written by a priest who lives and works in England but whose family hails from Ireland. Occasioned by a visit to his family across the Irish Sea, the series is a set of personal reflections on the roots of the sexual abuse scandal in Ireland and the wider crisis afflicting the Church there (or being inflicted by the Church on herself). The series starts with 500 (and continues with parts b, c, d, e, f, g, and h).

The series consists mostly of anecdotes rather than systematic inquiry, but it does touch on some of the history of the Church in Ireland and its effect on modern Irish religiosity. Interestingly enough, many of the anecdotes reflect stories I've heard from my own family.

Besides any personal interest it has for me, this series should also be of interest to American readers because of the great influence that the Irish have had on the Church in America. That influence is obviously waning as fewer Irish immigrate and more Hispanics cross the Rio Grande, but it endures nonetheless, especially in cities in the North. From stories about strict, ruler-wielding nuns and priests with no sense for liturgy to grandmothers mumbling the rosary during Mass and eccentric old men attending the wakes of complete strangers, Irish immigrants are often silently assigned the role of the bogeyman in a history of the American Church. Equally characteristic of the Irish, however, was their fierce determination to stay true to the faith in the midst of largely hostile Protestants and even to build up this country's network of parochial schools from nothing. For good and for bad, the Irish legacy cannot be ignored.

How I'll Be Voting

2011-08-21T04:34:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I wrote about a raft of policy positions; with another presidential race around the corner, it is time to think seriously about the criteria by which I will be judging candidates. Here are the issues I will be looking at. But first, the red herrings.

The Right to Life. I am firmly committed to the rights and dignity of every human being and I am profoundly opposed to the legalization of the murder of unborn children. With such strong convictions, you might expect this to be a major issue for me this election cycle; after all, for many people of similar convictions, this is the litmus test. But the problem I have come to see is that few pro-life candidates are in a position to do much. As things stand, the question of abortion is primarily a matter for the judiciary, not the legislature or the executive. Moreover, cynics would say that the Republican Party uses the pro-life issue to get votes, but drags its feet on actually ending abortion, lest it lose this powerful source of votes. I wouldn't go that far, but I certainly concede that merely saying one is pro-life, or even voting the right way on certain bills, will effect little change. If I see a true pro-life campaigner - and I haven't yet - I'll take note, but otherwise this issue is low on my radar.

Foreign Policy & Defense. A robust foreign policy is close to my heart for a variety of reasons, but it will not be a major issue for me this cycle. Why? Even in lean and unpopular years, the Department of Defense will likely remain well-funded. This does not mean that certain items which ought to be funded always will be, but at the general level - and when are elections really about specifics? - Congress and the American people will not stand for the total evisceration of the DoD. In some ways the more important questions involve funding of intelligence (especially counterintelligence), public diplomacy and other matters which are unlikely to make their way into the debate. But the other reason I'm not paying much attention to foreign policy positions is that they change. Presidential campaigns are run almost entirely on domestic issues; foreign policy positions are little more than fluff, and are usually overtaken by events. George W. Bush campaigned against Clinton-style nation-building projects. Then September 11th happened and the calculus changed. Barack Obama was perceived as the candidate to get us out of foreign wars; while there has been draw-down in Iraq, one is hard pressed to believe that a Republican would have wielded the military in a significantly different way. While his Cairo speech got him off to a good start engaging the Muslim world, that project was eventually swamped by unfolding events and long-standing realities on the ground.

So if those issues will receive only limited attention, where will I be looking?

Debt. This issue has been in the news of late; I think as a country we are finally beginning to understand the overwhelming size of our government's debt and the dangers it poses to our economic well-being. More than high or low taxes or spending, I want to see balanced budgets. A balanced budget amendment - as a serious measure, and not just a symbolic campaign - may be in order. Bringing the debt under control will ultimately require reform of entitlements and DoD's procurement process (which eats up massive portions of the defense budget with little gain), though for now I simply want to see a commitment to solvency.

Tax Code. America's tax code is mammoth. A last count it was roughly ten times the length of the Bible, and still growing. Aside from keeping accountants employed, this labyrinthine code does our country no good. It erodes transparency, wastes resources and imposes a daunting barrier to opening a new business. Reforming the tax code will be a huge undertaking, but it needs to be done. If cutting down the current version is too much, perhaps we could simply borrow Estonia's or Georgia's. Georgia has only half a dozen taxes, with a code shorter than an undergraduate paper. The result has been strong economic growth and a dramatic drop in corruption, often eclipsing developed countries of Western Europe on both counts. And this from a post-Soviet republic starting from a very poor position. Estonia's story is quite similar.

Immigration. I have written about immigration once or twice before. There are three basic issues here that must be addressed, more or less together: (1) Our borders must be secured and illegal immigration brought under control. Sovereign countries have a right to decide who does and does not enter, and to exercise that right for the good of their economy and security. (2) The immigration process must be reformed. High-tech companies are constantly having to lobby for more H-1B visas and less red tape, as they are having trouble bringing in skilled workers from overseas. Likewise, the difficulty of legally entering the US as an unskilled guest worker is a constant encouragement to illegal immigration. (3) There are millions of illegal aliens living in the US, somewhere on the order of 10 or 12 million. Their presence cannot be ignored in the process of comprehensive immigration reform.

Education. We have tried to make our schools accountable through No Child Left Behind and various state-wide testing and incentive programs. The effort has generally been judged a failure due to (a) bureaucratic bungling, (b) cheating and (c) an unwillingness to hold feet to the fire. But, frankly, the greatest obstacle to school reform have been the unions (as the recent documentary, Waiting for Superman, points out). There is little doubt that a confrontation with the NEA and other major unions will have to be fought before we have real school reform. Any candidate who vows to smash the NEA certainly has my attention. Less dramatically, I'll be looking for candidates who advocate school choice, with open enrollment, more charter schools and vouchers.

Marriage. I find may aspects of the culture wars off-putting. However, recent events have begun to convince me that so-called gay marriage may be the key moral question of our day. I am not opposed to equal taxes or hospital visitation rights for same-sex partners - be they sexual partners, of the sort who get all the media attention, or simply life-long bachelor roommates. What I find disconcerting, rather, is the attempt to use the government to re-define marriage, apart from any benefits it might carry. Some argue that the distinction between state-sanctioned marriage and church-sanctioned marriage will always exist, and churches are welcome to define marriage however they like. In the first place, I do not trust that churches will be allowed to define marriage for themselves. We have already seen in the Diocese of Washington attempts by the civil government to impose its definition. Moreover, I pose the following scenario to you: what if Congress passed laws for the "ordaining" of certain "ministers" to "consecrate the Eucharist". Clearly, a violation of the prerogatives of churches and an affront to most Christians. Some might argue that it is primarily the buzz words here that make this proposition outrageous. But I would argue that this is because words carry meaning. Ministers are different from officials or counselors; that's why we have different terms for them. I can accept same-sex unions, but not same-sex "marriages". This is not, as some have argued, a matter of natural rights, since (a) no one has a right to a vocation (cf. CCC 1578) and (b) same-sex attraction is contrary to nature. Within the American context, same-sex unions may be a civil right, an outgrowth of our social contract, but as such they are subject to debate and should be recognized as conferred by the will of the polity, and not by right. I'll be looking for a candidate who can articulate some of that.

Christ, Present in the Scriptures and in the City

2011-08-10T04:51:00.000-04:00

This video received plenty of play in Catholic circles a couple months ago. So why share it again? What struck me then, as now, is just how Franciscan it is. It warms my heart to know that, shortly after their return to England after a hiatus of half a millennium, the Capuchin friars were immediately back at it, being very Catholic, and a little goofy, and in the thick of human life. There are times and places for high liturgy and for complex theology and for hermits. But those things are for other orders. This is the Franciscans doing what they do best. If you have not seen this video, or if maybe even if you have, give it a look.

Four Films Worth Mentioning

2011-07-30T04:10:00.000-04:00

On a recent flight back to the US from Albion I watched four (count 'em - FOUR!) films. All were fairly decent, and worthy of a mention. If they have anything in common, it was that all four did something slightly different than expected.

I expected District 9 to be a standard aliens v. humans film (ala Independence Day), with standard battle scenes and some political overtones relating to apartheid and private military contractors. Instead, it is much more of a drama, centered on a small number of characters. There are some fun action moments, but that is hardly what the film is about.

Sticking with aliens, I next watched Battle Los Angeles. Small, intimate stories must be in: this movie followed a single small unit of Marines through the battle. Although there were occasional allusions to the larger conflict, really all we as viewers care about is the fate of roughly a dozen men and women. Humanity as a whole is not really a factor. The other surprising thing here was that when there were not aliens in the frame, much of this looked like a war about Iraq today. In that sense it is much more of a war movie, and less of what you might traditionally think of as sci fi. (Oh, yes, the aliens also have crew-served weapons.)

Aakrosh (2010, not to be confused with the 1980 and 1998 films of the same title) is a fairly standard story: two cops from the central government visit a small town where the locals are kept in the thrall of corrupt leaders due to fear and ignorance. Outsider cops have to win the trust of locals and solve the murder mystery before all the witnesses end up dead. The unusual thing here is that it is set in India, and most of the film is in Hindi. (Yes, there are also a couple musical numbers - could it be Bollywood without them? - but they're integrated fairly well.) In fact, I learned afterward that the film is a scene-by-scene recreation of Mississippi Burning.

I finished the flight with The Adjustment Bureau. If you are expecting Dark City or The Matrix, you are likely to be disappointed. The plot is simply too predictable, the weirdness not nearly compelling enough. Curiously, if all you ask for is a romantic drama with a few moments of comedy, and you don't mind a strange sci-fi type resolution, it works considerably better.

I doubt any of these films will go down in the annals of cinematic history as canonical works. If you never saw them you'd do all right. But all four have points of interest in terms of genre and expectations and what they do (or don't do) with that.

The Men Who Opposed Hitler

2011-07-20T13:47:00.005-04:00

Rebecca Haynes has recently produced a volume I am keen to read: In the Shadow of Hitler: Personalities of the Right in Central and Eastern Europe. As the title suggests, we often forget that Hitler was not the only politician of the Right in the interwar period. Some of the men Haynes considers were Nazi-sympathizers, but others were rivals or even bitter enemies of the National Socialists.

Today is the anniversary of the July 20 Conspiracy (about which I have written before). The conspiracy was an attempt to kill Hitler in 1944 and remove the Nazis from power. Its center of gravity lay in the Germany army, but extended to other segments of German government and society as well. By and large, these were men of the Right, men who believed in tradition and in German greatness. They opposed Communism and had no desire to see anything like a Soviet state established in the Fatherland. Some of them were anti-Semitic; many were not.

Today I'd like to briefly mention two men who opposed the Nazis, and did so from the right wing of the political spectrum. Neither was a among the most important members of the plot against Hitler, nor is either one a well-known figure, even among history buffs. But perhaps that makes them all the more typical (if we can use the term for such extraordinary men) of those who opposed the Nazis. The first is Friedrich Gustav Jaeger. Born in Württemberg in 1895, his father was a doctor. With the outbreak of World War I he quickly completed his secondary studies (with honors) and joined the German army, seeing service in both Flanders and Italy, and being decorated numerous times. After the war he studied agriculture and joined the National Socialist German Workers Party - the Nazis.

But then an interesting thing happened. Although Jaeger was a member of the Freikorps Oberland and later re-joined the army in 1934, he refused to participate in the Kapp Putsch and left the Nazi Party, becoming a fierce critic before World War II.

During the war Jaeger fought in Poland, France and Russia, receiving Germany's highest military honor. All the while, however, he was making contact with anti-Nazi elements of the German army. It was only with reluctance, however, that he agreed to the plan to try to assassinate Hitler: Jaeger's Christian faith caused him to prefer a trial before a proper court.

On the day of the attempted assassination, Jaeger had a variety of tasks, commanding reserve troops, arresting key Nazis and seizing a radio station. All this fell apart as the conspiracy was discovered, and Jaeger was eventually executed for his role on 21 August.

Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg was born in Eferding, Austria in 1899. A prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he served in the army during World War I, seeing action in Italy. Like Jaeger, he joined the Freikorps Oberland. Though the Austrian monarchy was abolished at the end of the war, he was keen to enter Austrian politics, joining the local branch of the Heimatschutz (an organization dedicated to protecting Austria's borders, but also its culture). He was intrigued by both Mussolini and Hitler, but gave up on the Nazis after the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

Starhemberg briefly served as Austrian Interior Minister in 1930 and became Deputy Leader of the conservative Christian Social Party in 1932. He then became Vice Chancellor in the right-wing government of Engelbert Dollfuß. Say what you will against Dollfuß - and there is probably much that can be said - he was no Nazi, as evidenced by the fact that they assassinated him in a failed bid to seize Austria. Starhemberg briefly served as acting Chancellor until a new government could be formed.

When the Nazis finally succeeded in annexing Austria, members of the Heimatschutz and various political parties with which Starhemberg had been associated were sent to concentration camps. He fled to Switzerland and eventually fought with the British and Free French air forces. Starhemberg was not a member of the July 20 Conspiracy. He abandoned the war effort when the Soviets joined the Allied side - what was the point of defeating Nazism if it were only followed by Soviet domination? - and moved to Argentina, staying until the year of Juan Peron's coup, and then returning to Austria.

Were these men heroes? The case for Jaeger is probably stronger than for Starhemberg. Both men certainly have associations that cause some raised eyebrows. But if they were not unqualified heroes, they were not villains either. They were men trying to make the best of difficult situations, men subject to all the human weaknesses. But in extraordinary circumstances, these men and other conservatives like them not only resisted the allure of Nazism, but opposed it. That is worth remembering.

Learning about Language & Understanding the Universe

2011-07-17T16:40:00.004-04:00

When this video came across my desk a month or two ago, I sat up and paid attention. You should too. Give it a watch.

(For people reading this on Facebook, which doesn't like videos, click here.)

The notion that the arts and sciences are not at odds, but both ask fundamental questions about the most important things, is not news to me. But like hearing the Gospel once more and being born again for the 10,000th time, this hit me pretty heavy. Why? Two reasons.

First. I had not read any math lately. Or anything about math. Or numbers. There was a chapter about the Enigma machine I read a day or two before watching. It had quite a bit about combinations and numbers, but I glossed over that when I could have engaged it, and pressed on to the next bit of history. Now I have gone back and given Enigma a little more numerical consideration.

Second. I had been spending all day - indeed, about six weeks - deep in British archives, doing research. I was living the arts, you might say, being a good historian. But I realized that my history was often failing to ask the great questions of language and of the cosmos. Please, do not misunderstand: I was doing excellent history, with all kinds of primary sources and keen analysis. But my history was just that, and not more. And it should have been more.

One further thought comes to mind: When our video's narrator speaks of "math", what he really means is "pure math" or "philosophy of math," as opposed to "applied math". In some ways a minor detail, but oh so big. At most universities, though the Math Department is housed in a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, it is engineers who take its classes and thereby pay its budget. So although said department may strive to consider numbers as language, as clues to the nature of the universe, it is usually reduced to calculating how heavy the truck can be before the bridge collapses. This is sad.

The Martyrs of Compiègne

2011-07-14T06:00:00.004-04:00

Today is Bastille Day. But in three days the Carmelite calendar will commemorate the martyrs of Compiègne, sixteen nuns who were killed on this day in 1794 during Robespierre's Reign of Terror. They went to the guillotine singing, and were then buried in a mass grave in Paris in the Cimetière de Picpus.

Sex, Drugs, and Mysticism

2011-07-10T06:00:00.048-04:00

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.
—St. Teresa of Avila, Autobiography, chapter XXIX

A common objection to St. Teresa’s mysticism is that it is too sexual. The erotic overtones of the passage describing St. Teresa’s transverberation and the sensuality of Bernini’s sculpture are rather obvious. This imagery can shock many pious Christians, especially Protestants, but also many Catholics who are (understandably) disquieted by a middle-aged nun who makes a mystical experience of God’s love sound like a sexual encounter with an angel.

St. Teresa’s use of sexual images to describe her experience, while shocking at first, is actually not blasphemous, when properly understood. Even today in a culture that is saturated with sex and largely agnostic about any kind of ultimate meaning, sex is apparently one thing that strikes most people as existentially important precisely because it points the way to transcendence. People still sense that sex can take them outside themselves—in a sort of ecstasy—and give them love, and perhaps even a foretaste of divine love. This desire to achieve transcendence in sex is reflected in G.K. Chesterton's aphorism, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” Because sex possesses this awesome power to open man up to transcendence, to God's grace, it is the most apt point of comparison that St. Teresa (and other mystics) can use in trying to express the ineffable.

Another point of comparison that St. Teresa makes use of in her Autobiography, which might also strike the pious as overly sensual, is drunkenness. A number of times St. Teresa compares what she feels during her mystical experiences to being drunk. The similarities between a mystic trance and intoxication (whether from alcohol or drugs) are numerous: both can induce a kind of trance in which time seems to be suspended; both can result in visions; both states are hard to describe to someone who has not experienced them, etc. Because of these similarities, some Native Americans use peyote in their religious rituals, and the more idealistic hippies of the 1960’s (and even Ernst Jünger) used LSD as a way to induce mystical experiences.

Despite these superficial similarities, though, it is probably more accurate to say that alcohol and drugs mimic, rather than induce, mystical experiences because they represent the exaltation of technique over transcendence. Many people (at least those who seek more than mere physical pleasure) apparently think that the right mixture of chemicals or the right position in bed will endow their lives with new meaning. They think these techniques can work as a short-cut to transcendence. These techniques, however, will fail because all they do is produce a subjective feeling of transcendence, rather than objectively transform the person, making him more open to God's grace. St. Teresa emphasizes often—as opposed to Luther’s teachings on grace—that mystical experiences do us no good, and may actually come from the devil, if they do not objectively bring us closer to God. St. Teresa’s mysticism, then, follows the Church’s consistent teaching (as formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas): “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.”

One of St. Teresa’s fundamental precepts (which she gives in a slightly different context) could be applied to alcohol and drugs: “People should not try to rise unless they are raised by God” (ch. XII). Indulging in sex and drugs is nothing like the hard work required in a life of prayer. St. Teresa frankly acknowledges that she spent decades struggling before ever really achieving prayer. She also warns her readers that they must be prepared to endure this aridity (sequedad) for their entire lives. According to St. Teresa, it is less difficult to suffer a quick martyrdom than it is to lead a life of contemplative prayer. In other words, openness to God's grace often requires enduring a certain agony while one waits to be raised by God.

Nevertheless, St. Teresa also assures her readers that prayer can have many rewards even in this life, and many readers, wary of a life of aridity, may latch onto these passages. Can all her talk of sex and alcohol, then, be taken too far or be understood in the wrong way? Of course it can. But, St. Teresa herself provides us with one of the key safeguards against this potential danger: she repeats throughout her Autobiography that anyone who is serious about prayer needs a wise spiritual director. It is a spiritual director's job to keep the individual grounded, away from the danger of subjective whims, and, most importantly, open to God's grace.

Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor

2011-07-04T01:31:00.000-04:00

Being in Britain for Independence Day is slightly odd. If all goes according to plan, my wife and I today will travel from Ipswich, visit the site of Sutton Hoo and then make our way back to London, hopefully arriving in time for a drink in the local pub. There will, however, be no fireworks. I doubt anyone will be singing "The Angry American Song", or even "The Star-Spangled Banner". Indeed, to do so might be a little offensive to our hosts. (After all, the third verse of the National Anthem does refer to the British as "hireling[s] and slave[s]" who "so vauntingly swore" but whose "blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution." Ouch!)

Nevertheless, though I may be an Anglophile (as any reader of this blog could fast discern), and one currently in Britain, today is a day for remembering when the British were in the wrong, denying British subjects their due rights. But the full splendor of Independence Day is not simply the winning by Americans of their due rights as subjects. Nor is it simply a commemoration of the blood, sweat, toil and tears which Americans shed to secure those rights. (Yes, I stole that line from Sir Winston. No, he would not mind. Yes, I'm happy to let him have it back on any other day.) What American Independence Day truly is - or ought to be - about are universal rights. That was the great insight of the American Founders: that their cause, though just within the terms of the British legal tradition, was ultimately about natural rights, rights given by God.

This year I have omitted the list of grievances, fun though the repetition of "He has..." may be. But here is the rest of the Declartion's text. Give it a moment's consideration:

* * *

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal,

That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,

That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world....

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare,

That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states;

That they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and

That all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and

That as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Today's image is John Trumbull's Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Future Casting

2011-06-29T05:18:00.001-04:00

If ever someone makes a movie about the founding of Britain's Special Operations Executive, Joan Bright Astley, who was a secretary at one of SOE's precedessor agencies, should be played by Carey Mulligan. The resemblance is striking.

Happy Feast of St. Thomas More!

2011-06-22T01:19:00.003-04:00

St. Thomas More is everything I aspire to be: husband, father, scholar, statesman, saint. He was a man of courage and zeal but also self-deprecating humor. At his trial, all his virtues were on display. He showed himself to be a master of the law, forcing his opponents to use perjury and illegal means to have him killed. He showed himself the king's good servant, but God's first. And he showed himself a man capable of laughter and forgiveness to the very end. St. Thomas More, pray for us!

From Fred Zinnemann's Man for All Seasons, based on the Robert Bolt play of the same name:

The Trial

The Execution

If you are interested in St. Thomas More, let me also suggest Sir Thomas More, a play written by a team of London playwrights, likely including William Shakespeare. Though the play treads lightly on the question of More's execution, it paints a vivid portrait of a man of the highest character who never took himself too seriously.

A tip of the hat to Gerard Wegemer, whose love of More stoked my own. As any student who has ever encountered him knows, Prof. Wegemer is a man of the the greatest kindness, with a sharp mind, a deep faith and a zeal for the truth - a mirror of the saint he studies.

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

2011-06-12T05:48:00.001-04:00

Twenty four years ago today Ronald Reagan leveled this bold challenge to the Premier of the Soviet Union. But rather than trying to editorialize about this speech, I will let it speak for itself:

Happy Empire Day!

2011-05-24T05:04:00.003-04:00

Today is Queen Victoria's birthday. It would have been her 192nd, but all good things must come to an end, and in the case of her life, that happened in 1901. However, the day lived on as Empire Day, a celebration of the British Empire.

Perhaps you are wondering why I, an American, am celebrating the Empire. After all, isn't American Independence Day a repudiation of the Empire? Americans sometimes think of themselves as heirs to the British tradition of representative government, trial by jury and free enterprise. Less often do modern day Americans think of themselves as heirs to the Empire, but I am willing to argue just that.

Let me highlight this phenomenon with regard to just one imperial possession, India. As a child, I grew up playing both Parcheesi and Carrom; at the time I knew that the former was Indian in origin (known there as "Pachisi"), but I found out only last year that the latter is also an Indian game. As a child I also played chess (a game of Indian origin, though much earlier than the Empire) and I once came upon a special variant of the game called Maharaja. What is striking, in retrospect, is that at a young age I knew what a maharaja was, probably because of this comic. Likewise, as a child I was taught to despise thugs, wash my hair with shampoo and wear pajamas, though I had no idea that any of these words came from Hindi. As an adult I took to wearing seersucker, including on my visit to Jordan (another imperial holding, taken from the Turks by imperial troops, but I digress); this too is a product of the Raj. The world is simply too interconnected for Americans to think they have nothing to do with Britain's historical role in Africa, Asia and far-flung corners of the world.

In 1958 Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth Day and since 1976 the Commonwealth has celebrated it on the second Monday in March. But being a man of history, I have a certain nostalgia for the old things. This is not to say that all the Empire did was good or right, but today we choose to remember it at its best; tomorrow we can criticize, if we must.

Today's image of Queen Victoria comes from BritishMonarchs.co.uk. The lovely map comes from the University of West Georgia's Readings in the History of the British Empire. Lovely though it be, it does not show the Empire at its fullest extent; for that, click here.

Speaking the Truth About Homosexuality

2011-05-17T17:59:00.008-04:00

This week there has been a bit of a storm in the Texas A&M History Department, one in which I find myself somewhat conflicted.

The story began when Rep. Wayne Christian introduced an amendment into the Texas legislature requiring that if universities use state money to fund "a gender and sexuality center," they must also spend an equal amount on a center promoting "family and traditional values". The amendment passed the Texas House. In an age of tight budgets, that means organizations like A&M's GLBT Resource Center would likely get the ax, rather than adding another center to the university's costs.

The A&M Student Senate then introduced and passed a resolution supporting Rep. Christian's amendment, though the Student Body President vetoed it.

On May 9th the faculty of the Department of Anthropology unanimously issued a statement:

We ask that the administration address the recent series of events surrounding the Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender (GLBT) community on campus. We, as faculty, condemn the recent TAMU Student Senate Bill.... By suggesting that students seeking guidance from the GLBT Resource Center are not represented by the terms “family”, “tradition”, or “values”, this bill blatantly goes against Texas A&M’s commitment to a diverse, unified campus that incorporates multiple perspectives as part of Aggie tradition and values. Other recent events -- such as the secret recording and then broadcasting of GLBT meetings on YouTube -- ostracize GLBT students from the safe space that the TAMU campus should be.... We acknowledge that these current events have incited a sense of fear and mistrust among the GLBT community. We reach out with empathy to all those affected and remain committed to addressing injustice as members of the campus community and as anthropologists.... We ask that the administration provide accountability by releasing a statement expressing the University’s commitment to GLBT and other underrepresented groups.

This was followed by letters of support for the GLBT community and Resource Center from the Dean and the Vice President for Student Affairs. Prof. Killingsworth, Head of the English Department, stated that "a groundswell of support from faculty, staff and students in the Department of English" had prompted him to write as well. "Many members of the English Department have expressed a desire to sign a petition," he wrote, "but in the interest of acting quickly, I have decided not to collect those signatures at this time."

Then the History Department got in on the act, writing its own letter. The draft, currently collecting feedback and soon signatures, reads as follows:

In 1965, Texas A&M head football coach Gene Stallings claimed that adding African American football players to the team would promote disunity. The same year, the first thirteen women to enroll at A&M appeared in the yearbook with their portraits arranged in the form of a question mark, illustrating the student editors’ anxiety about the place of women in Aggieland.

We, members of the Department of History, wish to add our voices to those who have spoken out against the attacks on the GLBT Resource Center. These attacks echo the divisive sentiments voiced four decades ago, that diversity somehow threatens the unity of the Aggie community. Since then, Texas A&M has grown richer through welcoming and recognizing the diversity that is Texas and the nation.

We wish to expose the lie that a GLBT resource center somehow resides outside of the values that define the Aggie community. GLBT students have been struggling for a home on campus since 1976. The university must ensure that GLBT students are a welcome part of the Aggie community. That women and African American students are an indispensible part of Texas A&M has been answered with a resounding yes. This process of inclusion must continue. Texas A&M is not complete without its GLBT members.

The chorus of supportive emails from the faculty was thunderous. But I did not join it.

The teaching of the Catholic Church is both clear and moderate. It is not bigoted or hateful, but it is uncompromising:

Homosexuality... has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Per this teaching, I am happy to affirm the dignity and respect due to everyone on our campus. Indeed, I am called to do so. But I cannot suggest that homosexual behavior is anything other than what it is: disordered, unnatural and immoral. If a university cannot teach the truth about the human person, what are we doing?

A colleague commented to me, "Well, we have to show that we're progressive." I was reminded of recent comments by Pope Benedict XVI. (He spoke primarily about liturgy, but his statement applies here as well): "Not infrequently tradition and progress are clumsily opposed. In reality, the two concepts are integrated." There is no need for conflict here: one may uphold the dignity of all people - including members of the A&M GLBT community - without abandoning the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church and all Christendom that homosexual acts are wrong.

Yet the History Department's draft - whether its writers intended it or not - potentially encourages that conflict by stating that "we wish to expose the lie that a GLBT resource center somehow resides outside of the values that define the Aggie community." It is only a small step to conclude that Christian faith is not an Aggie value, and may even be opposed to them.

I was also reminded of J. M. Wilson's comments on the proposed legislation. No one backing the amendment actually expects universities to set up "family and traditional values" centers. But why not? As he points out, living chastity on a college campus - where hormone-fueled singles are surrounded by attractive scantly-attired sex-seeking young people - is hardly an easy thing. But while universities offer support for all manner of sexual activity, there is precious little support for abstinence. Nor, for that matter, is there any support for those living the married life. Perhaps the argument is made that various churches support such groups off-campus, but there are also off-campus groups supporting the GLBT community. Likewise, one might ask: does having Christianity supporting you somehow make the chaste no longer members of the university community? And if they are members of the community, should they not be supported? This has been the argument in favor of the GLBT Resource Center; why can it not also be used in favor of "family and traditional values"?

With all this in mind, I was strongly inclined to reply to the faculty and graduate students of my department - in the most careful Thomas More-esque language I could muster - but I declined to do so.

When Prof. Killingsworth, Head of the English Department, wrote about a petition in support of the GLBT Resource Center, he noted that "many others do not feel that they can safely sign their names to such a petition". I fear just the opposite - that those who oppose such a petition, for whatever reason - will be labeled bigots and homophobes and shunned by their academic colleagues. The Vice President's letter quoted Ernest Boyer's definition that "a college or university, at its best, is an open, honest community, a place where freedom of expression is uncompromisingly protected and where civility is powerfully affirmed." It is a sad comment on the academy that I did not feel I could entrust my professors with honest views.

Hat tips to Earthly City, The Magdalene Sisters and the ever-vigilant Maggie Perry for the links.

They Don't Build Them Like They Used To

2011-05-17T10:00:00.002-04:00

The Abbey of St. Wandrille is located in Normandy and was originally founded in 649. Looted by the Vikings in 858, sacked by the Huguenots in 1562, secularized by the Jacobins in 1790, and suppressed by the Third Republic in 1901, the monastery has had a stormy history. The monks have had to abandon it and go into exile on several occasions, most recently from 1901 to 1931.

This Benedictine abbey once boasted a magnificent Gothic church, but a tower collapsed in 1631 and in the 1800's the church was quarried for its stone. Only ruins remain. Rather than try to restore it, the monks in the 1960's purchased a 14th-century farm building from a nearby manor, transported it to the monastery grounds, and converted it into a chapel. The stone exterior is similar enough to that of many old rural churches, except for the somewhat unusual set of double doors in the west façade.

The light flooding in through the windows above the altar and the central location of the crucifix give this church an austere beauty.

The rafters, though, are a reminder that the church used to be a barn. And that is the most remarkable fact about St. Wandrille: This medieval barn, which was originally intended simply to store grain, was constructed so sturdily that it has stood for over half a millennium, and was designed with such grace that it could be turned into a church in the 20th century.

The photograph comes from this site.
The abbey's French Wikipedia page gives a detailed history.

Who Should Govern?

2011-05-09T05:56:00.001-04:00

One of the most important and enduring questions of political philosophy is, ‘Who should govern?’ If we take ‘politics’ to refer not only to government but to the whole life of the city, the question of who should govern includes not only who should be president or mayor, but also admiral, CEO, high school principal and countless other roles.

The question of who should govern is often intertwined with the question of how they should be selected. Democracy is an answer to the question of selection, but it does not tell us whom we should elect, or why. Likewise, the ancients enjoyed dividing regimes into those governed by the one, the few and the many. This distinction, though helpful, most directly answers the question, ‘How many should govern?’ Shy of truly universal and direct democracy, someone will be excluded from some portion of governing; on what basis do we select those who do participate?

These matters were rattling around in my head when a friend asked me to name historical heavyweights (of the modern era) who were born into privilege. The question implied that those descended from previous governors ought to govern, and are broadly capable of doing so, by virtue of nature or training. I was surprised, however, to find that some of the first people to come to mind were self-made men, whose titles followed, not preceded, their success. William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke’s father was only a minor nobleman. Sir Francis Drake, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Lord Burghley were all more or less middle class men who were knighted for their hard work and intelligence. Admiral Lord Nelson was the son of an Anglican priest; Sir Winston Churchill was not born a knight (though he was the grandson of a duke). This is not to say that those born into privilege cannot also be accomplished leaders; Pitt the Younger, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Carl Gustaf von Rosen, Otto von Habsburg, Fra’ Andrew Bertie and Fra’ Matthew Festing come to mind.

Who, then, should govern? Are we limited to exploring historical examples, or are there principles we can identify?

Having turned over the question a few times, I have settled on a three-fold answer: Equality. Hierarchy. Merit.

There is a logical sequence to these three ideas. Before all else, we must acknowledge the fundamental equality of all men. Common experience teaches that death comes for all of us; divine revelation teaches that we are all made in the divine image. Any further statement about who should govern or in what manner must take into account this basic equality, in dignity and in death.

Though all men are equal, they are not the same. Some are stronger, some are faster, some are more intelligent. A football coach would be a fool to consider his linemen and wide receivers interchangeable; likewise, he would be a fool to play his first and third strings for equal amounts of time, simply on the basis of their equal human dignity. The natural result of such differences among men is hierarchy. We must be clear that this hierarchy is circumscribed by the deeper human equality, and pertains only to certain qualities or functions. The fastest receiver may have a right to be in the starting line-up; he does not have a right, by virtue of his speed, to dictate morality to the third string receivers. Thus, those who reject hierarchy altogether are in error, but so are those who slavishly support it in all things.

If hierarchy naturally exists, within a broader framework of equality, who should be in its upper echelons? Here I contend that merit is the operative principle. This may seem obvious; if we are to have three strings on a football team, who wouldn’t put the fast receivers in the first string? But if this is obvious with regard to football, it is often less clear with regard to politics. As already suggested, the question of who is meritorious is often confused with how they are selected. This is not simply a matter of semantics, but can cloud our thinking.

The democrat, for example, is interested in experience and honesty, but would usually tell you that he votes for someone with whom he agrees on key issues. Notice, however, that the question has become self-referential: merit is defined primarily by views, which are measured against the individual voter. The voter does not ask, ‘Does this candidate conform himself to reality?’ but ‘Does he conform to me?’ (I have observed similar behavior from my colleagues in the historical profession. When asked what they thought of a given author, they frequently reply, ‘I liked Smith. I agreed with his main points.’ To which I sometimes respond, ‘I don’t care if you agreed with him or not. Is he right?’) While most voters would like to think that their own views conform to reality, and therefore candidates who conform to the voter also, by extension, conform to reality, I cannot help but think that our discourse has become so self-referential as to forget about the broader criteria of merit or reality.

Aristocrats are liable to be similarly confused about merit. They would, of course, argue – as my friend’s question implied – that a family history near the top of the hierarchy produces men who are more meritorious. But this too is frequently reduced to a shorthand that tradition or birth should dictate who governs, and as a consequence is in danger of forgetting why they should govern. Even so-call meritocrats often reduce merit to the means by which it is measured: civil service exams, years of experience or outcomes of one’s previous work. These may be good measures, but can easily become fossilized, forgetting about merit. Likewise, one must remember that poor examinations or faulty rubrics will inadequately assess merit.

Frankly, I have no silver bullet for determining merit. It is an elusive thing which is not easily defined, measured or agreed upon. But I think we would do well to at least keep the discussion focused on merit, rather than allowing peripheral matters to take center stage.

The prudent man, when choosing a leader – of a city, a nation, an academic department or a business unit – should recall that leaders govern those who are fundamentally their equals, though it is permissible and even advisable that particular individuals exercise leadership in certain areas. Finally, those choosing leaders, seeking that elusive quality of merit, would do well to find someone who conforms himself to reality, who comes from a tradition of excellence and who has demonstrated his capacity in education and outcomes.

If you want to accuse me of giving a bland and platitudinous conclusion to one of the most lively questions of political philosophy, next time you are at a political rally, try shouting, ‘Equality! Hierarchy! Merit!’ You might have some explaining to do.

Open Letter to the President and Board of UD

2011-05-02T18:16:00.005-04:00

President Keefe and Members of the Board of Trustees,

Two months ago Pat Fagan's article, "Trouble at the University of Dallas?", set off a firestorm of criticism of the new undergraduate pastoral ministry major. I was among those critics, and I remain skeptical of the program. Nevertheless, I would like to highlight two positive elements of this brouhaha, and suggest a lesson learned.

Firstly, the outpouring of comments from current students and alumni should be seen as a strength. The UD community takes pride in its school, is committed to its orthodoxy and is concerned about its future. Those are good things, things of which the administration of any Catholic university should be proud. I have no doubt that some criticisms may have been imprudent, impolite or ill-informed. I apologize if my own were. But this should not blind us to the positive dimensions of this outpouring nor to the many thoughtful and sincere discussions it prompted.

Secondly, I was very grateful to see the strong response of our bishops, particularly Bishop Farrell's comments. The active engagement of the bishop is a significant element of the university's life, one that has sometimes been missing in the past. Hearing him articulate a forceful commitment to orthodoxy and to evangelization was welcome indeed.

Finally, however, let me suggest that the university's strong defense of the new program was late in coming. I take a keen interest in the affairs of my alma mater, but never saw any communication about the new program. An early announcement that the new program was being considered, and that it had the approval of both bishops, the faculty senate and a committee including members of the Theology Department, would have gone a long way toward denting criticism and grounding the subsequent discussion. The absence of information is, sadly, not an invitation to silence, but to conspiracy theory and rumor. I, and the overwhelming majority of alumni, would like to think the best of our university and its administration. Communicating early and often helps us do that.

Just this morning I spoke with a faculty member of the Bush School of Government and Public Service here at Texas A&M. On learning that I had attended the University of Dallas, he praised its education. Clearly, our reputation precedes us. My thoughts, prayers, and, yes, dollars, are with UD; I hope that the best years are yet to come.

Faithfully yours,

Aaron Linderman, ‘06

Those just now joining the discussion may also find some of these stories of interest:

* Crack in the Wall of Orthodoxy? - National Catholic Register
* Announcement of new Pastoral Ministry Major - University of Dallas
* About the Pastoral Ministry Major - University of Dallas
* UD grads: What's Going On? - And Sometimes Tea blog

Historical Comparisons

2011-04-27T04:00:00.005-04:00

Those of us who take a long view of philosophy, art, politics, etc., sometimes argue that one historical period was better than the contemporary world in some respect. It is depressingly common, though, to hear someone try to refute such an argument by saying, or, as is more often the case, shouting, "The past wasn't perfect!"

What a stupid objection! Of course, the past wasn't perfect. Perhaps there are some people out there who really think the past was perfect, but no reasonable person does, and this objection generally just obfuscates more than it illuminates.

Unfortunately, this objection, as stupid as it is, seems to be convincing to a lot of people, probably because in history it is so easy to find a counter-example to every general statement. This game of objecting to every general statement about the past on the basis of a single counter-example can be carried to absurd lengths:

If some historians one day decided to discredit maternal love, they would be able to produce a long enumeration of cruelties exercised by heartless mothers upon their young children. [1]

Given how difficult it is to generalize about the past, why do we bother making comparisons to the past at all? What are we trying to achieve?

All I can do, of course, is state my own position. When I base my argument on a comparison of the past and the present, I am usually trying to compare ideals and types. The gist of the argument is that while the past wasn't perfect, at least the past had the right ideals. It may not always have lived up to these ideals, but at least it did try to live up to them, and even produced a number of outstanding individuals.

One way of looking at this question is to ask: What was the "representative type" of an historical period? What type of man did it try to produce, and what type of man did it actually produce? Every epoch will have its fair share of sinners, criminals, mountebanks, scoundrels, wastrels, and good-for-nothings. What matters in this kind of historical analysis, though, is what kind of good that culture in a given historical period was aiming at. What was its idea of a good person? That part is empirical. Then, the questions become more philosophical: Was a medieval monk or king better than, say, the modern financier or industrialist? Was an ancient Greek philosopher better than all of these men? Or, was a Roman citizen-farmer superior? What about a Chinese mandarin?

Another way of looking at the question is to compare not just individual types but also "systems," or broader social arrangements in which the individuals lived and acted. How did oligarchy function in ancient Greece or in Carthage? How did the Senate rule in Rome, and how did the emperors change that? How does feudalism compare to capitalism? Why was China so stable for so long?

The broad, interdisciplinary sweep of these questions does not mean that empirical research is unnecessary, or that an historian can approach history with his conclusions already made. On the contrary, it is only from detailed study of the interaction between individual persons and social structures, between ideals and actual lives, that an historian can gain a clearer picture of the age and individuals he is studying. Only careful historical research can give contour to these ideals, and put the individual in his context. But while a true historian is always respectful of the diversity of history, he is not unduly afraid to make judgments, and it is by virtue of these judgments that he can make comparisons between historical epochs.

[1]Frédéric Le Play, Social Reform in France, in Christopher Olaf Blum (ed. and trans.), Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counter-Revolutionary Tradition (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2003), p. 220

You, O Death, Are Annihilated!

2011-04-24T00:05:00.000-04:00

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Good Friday

2011-04-22T12:00:00.001-04:00

You cannot mean to forget us for ever?
You cannot mean to abandon us for good?

Make us come back to you, Yahweh, and we will come back.
Renew our days as in times past,

unless you have utterly rejected us,
in an anger that knows no limit.

Lm. 5:20-22

My Favorite British Regiments

2011-04-13T14:03:00.007-04:00

Having recently been in Britain for a spell, studying military history, I have decided that it is high time to choose some favorite regiments.

If this strikes you as something completely foreign to your own experience, let me suggest an analogy: it is as though I have been a huge fan of college football for several years, but have no school I call my own, no team I really pull for.

Before I continue, let me anticipate an objection. "Why favorite regiments (plural!)?" you ask. A fair question, but one easily answered. How many favorite college football teams do I have? Several. Nebraska (my father's home state) and Texas A&M (my current school) top the list, but my wife's family are affiliated with Mississippi State and I have various connections to Arizona State and Kansas as well. Can they all be favorites? There might need to be a hierarchy, but college football is big enough that these teams rarely play one another (except within the Big 12, especially the North, but Nebraska's departure changes that). So, yes, one may have several favorite football teams. Considering that there were scores and scores of regiments - 100, perhaps? - during the Great War, I think a couple favorites is allowed. Even today there are 17 infantry regiments, plus 12 cavalry regiments and Territorial and support units, in the British Army.

As previously discussed on this blog, my family's Scottish heritage is a bit of a mystery. Are we from the western Isles or from the border, near Dumfries? Rather than choosing between them, I embrace both. Now, these two regions correspond to two regiments: from the Isles we get the Seaforth Highlanders (pictured left, advancing across France in 1944), and from the border we of course get the King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB - cap badge pictured right). The former was formed in 1881 (though by amalgamating two similar regiments raised in 1778 and 1793 to fight the French), while the latter was raised in 1689 to fight against James II on behalf of William & Mary. However, both have now been amalgamated into the new Royal Regiment of Scotland, with the Seaforths (amalgamated with two other regiments) becoming the 4th Battalion and the KOSB (amalgamated with the Royal Scots), the 1st Battalion.

My family's Irish heritage is no less confusing than the Scottish. Again, we have two options. Why? Because there are two bunches of Kennedys running around Ireland. In the south there are Kennedys centered around the ancient Kingdom of Ormond (later a peerage), in the region of Munster. But a second group of Kennedys can be found in the north, in Ulster. These are Scotch-Irish decedents of plantation settlers, related to the Clan Kennedy of Scotland. If I had to pick between them, I'd guess our family is from the Ulster bunch (since the Kennedys are found in a Protestant branch of the family, though I know nothing of their own religion). But that's a bit of a problem, since a fair number of regiments have come out of Ulster. One approach would be to look to Clan Kennedy's Scottish roots; where do they come from? Ayrshire. Which is undoubtedly the traditional recruiting ground for the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Not surprisingly, the Royal Scots Fusiliers have been amalgamated with the Highland Light Infantry and now form the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. But there is more than one way to skin a cat. While Ulster is cluttered with a history of regiments, southern Ireland has comparatively few. The area that was once the ancient Kingdom of Ormond was the recruiting ground for the Royal Irish Regiment, raised in 1684. Sadly, in 1922 the regiment was disbanded. Not amalgamated, but disbanded outright. Had I been the British, I would have pressed hard for its amalgamation with an Ulster regiment, thereby preserving its legacy (and also continuing to exercise a symbolic hegemony over the south). But the Irish were wise to such possibilities and the Anglo-Irish Treaty stipulated the disbandment of all regiments with traditional recruiting grounds in the south. (Today the 1st Southern Brigade is heir to the Royal Irish Regiment's traditional territory, but not its legacy. The modern Irish Army has no infantry regiments.) Finally, it is worth noting that the modern Royal Irish Regiment (pictured above left), an air assault unit created in 1992, amalgamated a whole bunch of historic Ulster regiments. So why choose between them, when they've all been merged now anyway?

Two other veins of thought deserve mention. Being of German extraction, I have a special fondness for the King's German Legion, an outfit formed by German expatriates to fight against Napoleon. That the unit was a "legion", a mixed force of infantry (including two battalions of light infantry), cavalry (both hussars and dragoons), artillery and engineers, only makes them that much more nifty, as does their presence at both the Peninsular Campaign and Waterloo. (Pictured right, you can see a regular infantryman in red, a light infantryman in green, and a hussar in blue.) Alas, the unit was disbanded in 1816 and has no real heirs (though a few bits and pieces apparently found their way into the Imperial German Army).

The other unit that captures my attention is the King's Royal Rifle Corps. Originally raised in the American colonies in 1756 as the Royal Americans, the unit's first officers were mostly German and Swiss. Its purpose was to lend some forest fighting skills to the British forces then fighting the French in North America. The unit came into its own as the King's Royal Rifle Corps during the Napoleonic war, when it followed the Rifle Brigade and adopted the more accurate Baker rifles and the famous "Rifle green" uniforms. After the Napoleonic Wars they fought pretty much everywhere in the Empire and in both World Wars. After World War II a series of mergers began which culminated in the 2007 creation of a single regiment of light infantry, The Rifles. You've got to admit, the Rifles have some neat uniforms, with the Croix de Guerre worn as an arm badge (inherited from the Devonshire Regiment) and a badge on the back of their cap (inherited from the Gloucestershire Regiment), symbolic of fierce fighting at the Battle of Alexandria where the front and rear ranks of one regiment were simultaneously engaged. The Rifles (pictured above left, laying one of their own to rest), like the Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Royal Irish Regiment, continue to serve to the present day.

If this extended discussion has lefty you dizzy, allow me to recap.

Traditional favorites:
King's Own Scottish Borderers
Seaforth Highlanders
King's Royal Rifle Corps

Modern favorites:
Royal Regiment of Scotland
Royal Irish Regiment
The Rifles

Historical favorites (without modern heirs):
Royal Irish Regiment (pre 1922)
King's German Legion

Jan Dismas Zelenka: Officium Defunctorum

2011-04-12T19:56:00.005-04:00

An hour-long live recording of Jan Dismas Zelenka's setting of the Office of the Dead:

Those who would like to hear the different parts of the Officium Defunctorum on separate videos can go here.

I have nothing to add, except that as much as I enjoy sacred music from the Baroque, I have a hard time listening to it in an actual liturgical setting.

H/T: The Western Confucian

Wardour Chapel

2011-03-28T04:00:00.011-04:00

Recently, the New Liturgical Movement website ran a few posts about Wardour Chapel, a place with a fascinating history. New Wardour Castle was the home of the Arundells, a family of recusants in Wiltshire, and features a fairly large neo-classical chapel that has room for a congregation of about 300.

What is most interesting about Wardour Chapel is that it dates from the period of English history when Catholics were not actively persecuted anymore (so there are no priest holes at Wardour) but were still not allowed to erect freestanding churches. The Arundell family, then, built a chapel in their home between the bedrooms and the laundry room. The family also opened the chapel up to the local Catholics in Wiltshire.

Here are two photographs of the interior. The first focuses on the altar, and the second shows more of the interior.

The chapel is also renowned for its collection of fine antique vestments, including this (I believe) 15th-century chasuble.

More photographs can be found here.

The New Liturgical Movement's posts can be found here, here, here, and here.

The Lion of Münster

2011-03-22T02:00:00.002-04:00

Today is the feast day of Blessed Clemens August Graf von Galen, who died on this day 65 years ago. Cardinal von Galen, who earned the epithet "the lion of Münster" for his courage in speaking out against Nazi atrocities during World War II, is of special importance to me personally since I spent a year after college in Münster teaching at a high school named in his honor.

Clemens August Graf von Galen was born in 1878 into a prominent Westphalian family. (The word Graf in his name is a title of nobility roughly equivalent to a count or an earl.) One of his ancestors, Christoph Bernhard von Galen, was the bishop of Münster during the Thirty Years' War. While some historians have doubted Christoph Bernhard von Galen's personal piety, none have ever doubted his determination; it took all his resolve to free the area around Münster from foreign occupying troops. Cardinal von Galen inherited that same fighting spirit, but also a great deal more piety.

Despite this noble lineage, the young Clemens August von Galen did not seem destined for greatness. He was never more than an average student, and not particularly gifted in public speaking either. As von Galen himself later remarked about the first sermon he preached to a church full of farmers on a hot summer morning, when he finally looked up at the end he saw that he had put everyone to sleep. Later, as a parish priest in Berlin, when von Galen noticed that Eugenio Pacelli, the papal nuncio to Germany (who later became Pope Pius XII), was sitting in the congregation, he began to stutter and was barely able to finish his sermon.

Moreover, what would later be recognized as his tremendous courage in the face of Nazi persecution was in his youth mere stubbornness. Indeed, even as he grew older, this stubborn streak stayed with him. Josef Pieper, writing many years later, recalled that as a struggling young academic he did not much care for von Galen because the churchman could never admit to being wrong. Not much had changed since the days when his teachers complained that young Clemens thought he possessed the charism of infallibility.

Von Galen's initial assignments as a priest, then, corresponded to his modest abilities and his personal flaws. His first assignment after being ordained in 1904 was to serve as a personal chaplain to an auxiliary bishop of Münster who happened to be his uncle. Von Galen seems to have come into his own, though, after he was reassigned to Berlin in 1906, where he worked in several parishes that served the Catholic "diaspora," those workers from all over Germany who had moved for the sake of factory jobs to Berlin, the heart of Protestant Prussia. He spent his last nine years in Berlin as the pastor of St. Matthias.

After 23 years in the capital, von Galen was finally recalled to his beloved Westphalia in 1929 and made pastor of St. Lambert's in Münster, the most prestigious church in the city after the cathedral. Four years later, von Galen was elected bishop of Münster. This almost never happened, though, in part because of his stubbornness and brusque manners. The nuncio in Germany who had succeeded Pacelli regarded von Galen as unsuitable for the position because of his "schoolmaster's" tone.

Von Galen was consecrated bishop in 1933, a fateful year in German history. Although he was always a nationalist in his politics and even initially expressed cautious optimism that the new regime might solve some of the problems of the Weimar era, he nevertheless soon became a leading critic of Nazi totalitarianism. He revered the Vaterland, but never excessively; indeed, it is the distinction between patriotism and idolatry of the state that lies at the heart of his witness. From the beginning of his episcopate, he was an outspoken critic of the Nazis, and probably was one of the German bishops who assisted Pius XI in the drafting of Mit brennender Sorge, the encyclical that called on German Catholics to reject Nazi race ideology. Likewise, von Galen was a stout opponent of Nazi eugenics and euthanasia programs. Finally, von Galen always insisted on the liberty of the Church and on the government's need to work for justice: "Justice is the foundation of all states."

Von Galen is most famous today for four sermons he preached as bishop. He delivered the first sermon in 1936, after consecrating a new altar in Xanten. In this sermon (pp. 9-15), he reminded his flock of the example set by the patron saint of their church, St. Victor, who, though a loyal and courageous soldier in the Roman army, suffered martyrdom for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods. He then used the example of St. Victor to strengthen his flock's resolve in the face of the summary imprisonment without trial of several German clergymen.

While von Galen early on recognized the threat the Nazis posed to the Church and to all Germany, it was only in the summer of 1941, when Hitler's power had not yet begun to fade after the failed invasion of Russia, that he delivered his three most powerful sermons, all blistering attacks on the Nazi regime. On July 13, he returned to the parish church of St. Lambert's, where he denounced the Nazis for their attack on the religious orders in his diocese (pp. 17-26). He began the sermon with the announcement that the Gestapo had recently confiscated the Jesuits' residences and expelled them from the province, and then done the same to a group of missionary nuns. After delivering the bad news, though, von Galen condemned the Gestapo for the injustices it committed. He ended the sermon with an appeal to justice and a prayer "for our German people and fatherland and for its leader," the same way he would end his next sermon.

On July 20, 1941, he preached at the Überwasserkirche in Münster, denouncing the Gestapo's continued persecution of the Church (pp. 27-36). It was in this sermon that he compared contemporary Christians to an anvil that stood firm against the Nazi hammer (pp. 32-33):

Become hard! Remain firm! At this moment we are the anvil rather than the hammer. Other men, mostly strangers and renegades, are hammering us, seeking by violent means to bend our nation, ourselves and our young people aside from their straight relationship with God. We are the anvil and not the hammer. But ask the blacksmith and hear what he says: the object which is forged on the anvil receives its form not alone from the hammer but also from the anvil. The anvil cannot and need not strike back: it must only be firm, only hard! If it is sufficiently tough and firm and hard the anvil usually lasts longer than the hammer. However hard the hammer strikes, the anvil stands quietly and firmly in place and will long continue to shape the objects forged upon it.

The anvil represents those who are unjustly imprisoned, those who are driven out and banished for no fault of their own. God will support them, that they may not lose the form and attitude of Christian firmness, when the hammer of persecution strikes its harsh blows and inflicts unmerited wounds on them.

Those who could remember the bishop as a stammering young chaplain hardly believed that he could speak with such eloquence.

Finally, on August 3, once again preaching in St. Lambert's, von Galen denounced the Nazi euthanasia programs (pp. 37-48), exposing the abominable efforts to eliminate "unproductive members of the national community," those who in the Nazis' eyes were "unworthy to live." This time, sensing perhaps that no appeal to justice would move the Gestapo or Hitler to relent in their persecution of the Church and their murdering of innocent human beings, von Galen, instead of ending with a prayer for "our German people and fatherland and for its leader," asked his flock: "Did the Son of God in his omniscience on that day see only Jerusalem and its people? Did he weep only over Jerusalem?. . .Did he also weep over us? Over Münster?"

In response, the Nazis, instead of arresting Bishop von Galen, arrested and harassed many priests and religious orders in his diocese, a fact that weighed heavily on his conscience, as he survived the war when some of his own priests did not. (This suppression of religious orders as retaliation for the bishops' public criticism of the Nazis is not unlike what happened in the Netherlands, where it resulted in the martyrdom of Edith Stein.) After the war, in February 1946, in recognition of his courage, von Galen was made a cardinal by Pius XII in Rome. He returned from the consistory in triumph to the ruins of his cathedral in Münster on March 16, 1946, but died only six days later of a burst appendix. He is buried in a side chapel of the cathedral. He was beatified in 2005.

Credits:
The picture was taken by Gustav Albers and comes from the diocesan archives of Münster.
The original German version of these four sermons can be found here.

Happy Solemnity of St. Joseph!

2011-03-19T01:07:00.000-04:00

Joseph, son of David, you are the just man who blossoms like the lily,
the prudent steward whom the Lord placed over His household.
The Incarnate Word was pleased to dwell in your home;
by your prayers, may we love and serve Him always. Amen.

As the watermark indicates, today's image comes from Orthodox Images Iconography and Fine Art Reproductions. So go peruse their website; there's some great stuff!

St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-17T00:00:00.015-04:00

It's time once more for a little music in honor of St. Patrick's Day, just as in 2009 and 2010. This year's post is dedicated to a wonderful little instrument: the concertina.

The concertina is a type of squeezebox. To those who are unfamiliar with the concertina, it could probably best be described as a mini-accordion: it is smaller both in size and in sound. Unlike most types of accordion, the concertina has buttons rather than a keyboard. The typical Anglo concertina, which is the type most widely used in Irish music, has 30 buttons, 15 on each side. Each button plays one note at a time, but the note produced when the player pushes the bellows in is a different note from that produced when the player pulls the bellows out. It is possible to push more than one button at a time, which gives the player the ability to produce chords.

The concertina has never been as popular in Irish music as the accordion, and until recently it was confined mainly to County Clare. For whatever reason, as well, the concertina was very popular among women. One of the most important concertina-players before the folk revival of the 1970's was Mrs. Crotty of Kilrush. While not much of her music was recorded, her legacy lives on in the playing of her nephew Michael Tubridy, one of the original members of the Chieftains, who, though best known for his flute playing, could also knock out a tune on the concertina.

Another good concertina player is Mary McNamara of Tulla. Her slow, steady pace in the next video (as well as in this video) is typical of the County Clare style.

Two other fine female concertina players today are Ernestine Healy and Niamh Ni Charra.

Probably the best known concertina player over the last thirty years, though, is Noel Hill, also from County Clare.

Finally, the concertina tends to be played solo; for whatever reason, it has not featured prominently in many bands. One exception to that statement is Niall Vallely's Buille, which in the next set manages to combine Irish traditional music with jazz influences, all with the concertina up front and center.

Assisi

2011-03-03T04:58:00.003-05:00

Seven years ago I visited Assisi on two different occasions, separated by a couple months. This Italian hill town is a curious place, one that everyone said was somehow magical. A bit of a skeptic at heart, I was ready to be disappointed. Instead, I was captivated. This poem captures just a little of what Assisi and its most famous citizen are about. Having discovered a devotion to my patroness, Clare, in the years since I visited Assisi, I would love to return some day.

Assisi
by Robert Cording

Even in February the buses came and climbed the hill,
The Umbrian light an angel's wing in cloud,

Glowing from some unknowable source in an Italian painting.
No wonder some gave a life's savings to see St. Francis's

City of pink stone. No wonder we couldn't help loving
Those arching crypts, blue and storied as a child's heaven.

What we want to remember, we do. How he could keep on giving
His one robe, unashamed by love. How his love never failed

The sick, the poor, the criminal. Even a war in Arezzo
Simply disappeared, like rain into sunlight, St. Francis

Undoing the daily harm no one could ever alter in his life.
The demons said to be in all of us laid down their weapons,

Taken by such tenderness. Everyone was forgiven in Giotto's picture.
Saint Francis went on, unable to sleep, so many blessings

Still needed to be given. He walked all the way to Mt. La Verna.
When we close our eyes, we can see him hold out his hands.

The wounds bleed into them and into his body, the marks
Of another life. From then on, he grew thinner until he was

Gone, his love absolute. At least once, some one saw him
Come back, robed in light. Giotto would have us believe

It was only a dream of what we cannot stop imagining.
We came back all winter; listening to the monks tell his story

Until word for word, we could repeat it.

Picture from Famous Wonders.

Bureaucracy: Isn't It Strange?

2011-02-17T12:00:00.004-05:00

Has it ever struck you as just a little strange that the world today is governed by bureaucracies, in other words, that modern nations are run out of offices? For that is what the word literally means: rule from an office. According to dictionary.com, the word is first attested in French in the 18th century, and was coined by physiocrat Vincent de Gournay (1712-1759). Gournay presumably coined the word to name a phenomenon that had not yet been named. In other words, bureaucracy was a mode of governance that was relatively new in the world and had yet to be described.

But, since when were we ruled by a race of pale-faced men who spend their days sitting behind desks? In days of yore, kings held court and did justice for the common man in the open air. And they didn't get bogged down in technical details either, because it must have been difficult to keep track of files when a gust of wind could blow all the papers away at any moment. For example, according to Jean de Joinville, St. Louis

after hearing Mass, went to the wood of Vincennes, where he would sit down with his back against an oak, and make us all sit round him. Those who had any suit to present could come to speak to him without hindrance from an usher or any other person. The king would address them directly, and ask: "Is there anyone here who has a case to be settled?" Those who had one would stand up. Then he would say: "Keep silent all of you, and you shall be heard in turn, one after the other."

(Quoted in Antonin Scalia, "The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules," 56 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1175 (1989))

Besides doing justice for their subjects, many kings were renowned for their martial prowess. William the Conqueror earned his epithet at the Battle of Hastings. Richard the Lionheart wasn't going to stare all day at some dusty parchments when he could be fighting the infidel in the Holy Land. Frederick Barbarossa died a rather inglorious death--drowning in a stream on his way to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade--but he had already spent a considerable part of his reign on the battlefield.

Not only did medieval kings act this way, this was how they were expected to act, as reflected in popular tales from the Middle Ages. The King Arthur stories tell us of knights errant who delighted in rescuing damsels in distress, not in negotiating legal settlements with villains and knaves. The closest King Arthur himself ever came to becoming a bureaucrat was when he sat down once in a while with his wisest counselors at the Round Table to discuss some pressing matter. Once that was done, he was free to return to the jousting tournament or the banquet hall.

The average medieval court, of course, was not Camelot, and real medieval kings were supposed to take care of their fair share of administrative duties, but which most of them seem to have avoided by going out hunting. For example, relatively soon after the Norman invasion, the kings of England found themselves so overwhelmed by these mundane tasks that they had to delegate them to others. Over time, the Lord Chancellor became in effect England's chief justice and "keeper of the king's conscience." The Exchequer was assigned the duty of collecting revenue for the royal household. Nevertheless, these medieval bureaucracies were nowhere near as large as their modern equivalents. Moreover, the stories that have come down to us always show the ideal ruler as either a man of action or a man of wisdom, or in a really ideal word as both: a wise warrior. They never portray the king as a pencil-pusher, or even as the pencil-pushers' boss. And this ideal had some basis in reality.

What would happen if a contemporary American or European ruler tried to act more like a medieval king? The effect would not necessarily be that which he intended. For instance, were most Americans really impressed by George W. Bush when he landed a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier (or rather sat in the cockpit while a real pilot landed it for him)? Would we respect Barack Obama more if, after playing a pick-up basketball game (no jousting permitted), he took a seat on the White House lawn and listened to federal inmates' petitions for habeas corpus? Do we fear Vladimir Putin because he likes to be photographed shirtless while horseback riding? Did Benito Mussolini inspire awe in his people, or his enemies, because he liked to ski shirtless?

My guess is that most people just laugh at these examples because they're somehow ridiculous. Nowadays we expect our highest-ranking government officials to act less like kings and more like business executives. First of all, they need to keep their clothes on. Second, their chief domestic concern is usually the national economy, such as ensuring job growth and overseeing government entitlement programs. Indeed, when presidents go to economic summits or visit foreign leaders, they could almost be seen as traveling salesmen drumming up interest in their product, or in this case their country (albeit traveling salesmen with huge expense accounts and bodyguards). Third, while they may retain power as the "commander in chief," they usually have little or no military background; most senators or cabinet secretaries, I suspect, are not accomplished sword-fighters.

There was obviously a significant shift that took place, from the earlier conception of the ruler as a wise warrior to that of the ruler as a business executive at the head of a vast bureaucracy, but I don't know anything about the causes and ultimate importance of this shift. I apologize for not giving any answers here, but I do have two questions, which are probably better than any answers I could offer:

1. When and why did this shift from the king as man of action and wisdom to the president as business executive take place? My hunch is that this modern preference for business executives as national leaders is simply one aspect of the transition from feudalism to mercantilism (and beyond).

2. Have we lost something importance with this shift? Granted that some administration will always be necessary, it nevertheless seems that the world has lost some of its romance. Many people, for instance, who work primarily in an office still itch at the opportunity to get out.

So, next time you see a picture of Vladimir Putin strutting his stuff, ask yourself: Is he simply a misunderstood soul trying to revive medieval kingship? Or, is he just a peacock?

Crafting a National Epic

2011-02-11T05:04:00.001-05:00

America has no national epic. Nor mythology. Nor even a novel of particular distinction (hence the reason every author can aspire to write the Great American Novel). J. R. R. Tolkien was concerned that Britain had a similar lack of national mythology, so to rectify the problem he created Middle Earth, cobbling together pieces of Anglo-Saxon mythology, adding bits of English history and dashes from Roman, Celtic and other mythologies, and then giving the whole thing the original touch of a single author. If one were to undertake such a project for the United States, where would you begin?

In a previous thought experiment, involving the boys of St. Boniface College, I asked if America has a canon. The result included Homer, the Bible, and the works of Shakespeare, among other things. But none of those were written by Americans, you might say. Right you are. The curious thing about the United States is that it is overwhelmingly a nation of immigrants. So we should expect that our deep cultural roots run beyond our own shores. Indeed, even the Roman epic, the Aeneid, locates Roman origins in the Greek world, though it also draws upon elements of more local Italic history. It seems to me an American epic should draw on our indigenous pre-Columbian history, the history of the colonies and United States themselves, and the literary heritage of our primary parent cultures in Europe.

In addition to the works named above, where might an author of a great American mythological epic look? Virgil looked to Homer, so why don't we take a look at some other national epics? I turned to the Wikipedia page on the matter.

First there are the ancient roots: Homer, Virgil and Scripture. All these are fairly well known to most educated folks.

But then I started looked at more modern works. The great works of England are not so obscure: Beowulf, the Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost and Shakespeare. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) is not nearly so widespread, though known to students of early English history.

But the national epics (or contenders for that title) of the other British nations are lesser-known. For Scotland, John Barbour's The Brus - about Robert the Bruce and Scotland's fight for independence throughout the Middle Ages - and James Macpherson's Ossian cycle - a retelling/translation of Scottish mythology (pictured above left) - are the leading contenders. I'd never heard of either, but both look like fun (at least if I can get through the old Scottish of The Brus). Ireland's Táin Bó Cúailnge - the story of an ancient raid to steal a magic bull (pictured below right) - I have never read, but I remember shelving it at the city library; does that count? Of course some would argue that James Joyce' stream-of-consciousness Ulysses is the real national epic of Ireland these days. The mythical Mabinogion of Wales I am familiar with, but only because of some poking into Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles.

And what of the Germans, that largest ancestral group in America. I started to read the Nibelungenlied - the story of the hero Siegfried, his murder and subsequent avenging by his wife - one break, but did not finish. I have never picked up Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, nor am I sure I want to; Romantic though I be, I'm not sure I want to read about the the sturm und drang of an angst-ridden young man.

Or what of the Norse, the bold folk who were the first Europeans to come to the New World? I think I own a copy of the Eddas somewhere, but I have never read it.

I was as lost among the various works that have tried to be or have been held up as some sort of American national work: Joel Barlow's Columbiad? Never heard of it. It doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page! Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass? It may be a collection of poems, but could make great source material for an epic writer. Alas, I confess I've never read it. Several works I read in part or whole in high school: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I enjoyed; To Kill a Mockingbird was all right (though hardly epic, but perhaps I need to read it again) and I hated The Grapes of Wrath. I never made it through Moby-Dick (a second attempt may be in order) and I have never even picked up The Great Gatsby or Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. But at least we've all heard of these.

So what does all this mean? Let me suggest several possibilities:

The epic, or at least the national epic, is dead. If people cared more we would have at least heard of these. In fact, if people cared, we'd already have one, right? But although England has several great contenders for the title, I think Tolkien was right that none of them quite synthesized England and its habits in the way that the Aeneid did for Rome. Work remained to be done, as evidenced by the run-away success of Middle Earth.
I have a lot of reading to do when I retire. Some day if I find myself independently wealthy and feeling inspired, perhaps I'll start writing that American epic. In fact, I might start sooner.
Perhaps we all have a lot of reading to do. This may have been an imperfect catalog of our roots as Americans, but was something of the sort. If we are so cut off from our own heritage we are culturally adrift, a dangerous thing.

The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God

2011-02-03T08:59:00.004-05:00

Trailer to the new remake of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock.

The FT liked it. As long as they didn't cut my favorite line, it should be good.

Christopher Lasch on Advertising and Narcissism

2011-02-01T12:00:00.003-05:00

Advertising pervades our lives. Almost from the moment we wake up, we are confronted with it. Whether we get our news from an old-fashioned newspaper or from the Internet, the news is paid for by the advertisements on the page. Our daily commute--whether by car, bus, or train--bombards us with advertisements. If we turn on the radio or TV, there it is: more advertisement. If we go to the movies, we are subjected to ads before the movie and product placements in the movie. We seek out diversion, but while we are trying to relax we have to listen to someone tell us, subtly yet insistently, that we need to go out and buy more stuff. Indeed, it could be said, without exaggeration, that the news and entertainment media are nothing more than vehicles for advertising.

This ad-saturation is usually condemned, when it is condemned at all, because it leads to materialism and consumerism. This criticism is certainly true, as far as it goes, but a more accurate explanation of the danger of advertising is that it leads to narcissism:

Society reinforces these [narcissistic] patterns [of behavior in the family] not only through “indulgent education” and general permissiveness but through advertising, demand creation, and the mass culture of hedonism. At first glance, a society based on mass consumption appears to encourage self-indulgence in its most blatant forms. Strictly considered, however, modern advertising seeks to promote not so much self-indulgence as self-doubt. It seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them; to generate new anxieties instead of allaying old ones. . .Yet the propaganda of commodities simultaneously makes [contemporary man] acutely unhappy with his lot. By fostering grandiose aspirations, it also fosters self-denigration and self-contempt.

--Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1978), pp. 180-181

Narcissism, as Lasch uses the term, is more than simply a tendency to daydream about oneself or to look at oneself in the mirror for too long. True narcissism is a way of compensating for “a sense of inner emptiness”; it is characterized by “dependence on the vicarious warmth provided by others combined with a fear of dependence.” The narcissist may often come across to others as “full of himself,” but he actually turns out to be profoundly insecure. The narcissist’s self-deprecating sense of humor is not a sign of modesty, but rather a cover for his general unease. He may seem full of energy and ambition, but what motivates him is not confidence but fear of his inner emptiness. And in contemporary society advertising is the engine that drives many of our decisions, by making us think that we are lacking as individuals and that the only effective way to fill this lack is to buy a certain product. In short, advertising, by encouraging us to fantasize in order to overcome the gnawing emptiness it manipulates us into feeling, brings out any latent narcissism lurking within us.

The specter of a society fueled by narcissism--perhaps not narcissism in the strict clinical sense, but certainly narcissism in a broader sense--is what makes The Culture of Narcissism one of the most frightening books written in America in the past half-century. It is up to every reader to decide whether Lasch succeeded in his attempt to psychoanalyze an entire culture. But, even if only half of Lasch’s diagnosis is correct, it still means that America is emotionally dominated by, and is economically dependent on, narcissism. What hope can there be for such a country?

Divine and Worldly History

2011-01-28T05:52:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I began a consideration of the theology of history, how a Catholic historian might approach his work. I offered a distinction between spiritual and mundane history, and probed both the strengths and weaknesses of this distinction. Today I’d like to consider another distinction, between divine and worldly history.

If spiritual history concerns all the working of God, the angels (including demons) and men, divine history concerns specifically those spiritual realities which are good. One might be tempted to conclude that divine history, together with a counterpart perhaps called “satanic history”, is a subset of spiritual history. Let me contend, however, that the divine/worldly distinction stands apart from the spiritual/mundane.

Many of the Church Fathers argue that evil does not exist; existence itself, they argue, is good, and so evil is a privation, a lack of good, and therefore also a deficiency in being. Whatever one makes of these metaphysical claims, I think we can agree that evil is more of a lack than a positive thing. Thus, rather than talking about the presence of evil, we might more accurately refer to the absence of God. Likewise, while St. John refers to “the Anti-Christ” (1 John 2:22, 2 John 7), he also refers to “many anti-Christs” (1 John 2:18. These anti-Christs all lack a positive identity of their own; they are defined in opposition to Jesus and His work.

Thus, the opposite of divine history is not satanic history, but anti-divine history. Put another way, active hostility to God (of the demonic form) and apathetic rejection of God both constitute an absence of God. This is what I mean by “worldly history.”

When trying to understand the most important happenings in history, we may see the hand of God wherever there is truth, beauty, goodness, self-giving, joy and other such qualities. We find these in abundance in the lives of the saints: Frances of Assisi, Thomas More, Teresa of Calcutta and countless others. But when trying to understand that which opposes God, we should look not only for the horrors of child-immolating Carthage or Nazi Germany, but also for the apathy and relativism common in our own age and many before it.

A historian would be laughed at if he offered a paper on “Why the 17th Century Saw Divine Victory and the Retreat of Satan”. Nevertheless, the historian should be driven by the desire to understand, an understanding which should not preclude the highest things. (That the academy is so hostile to any consideration of spiritual or divine history shows how far it has strayed from an interest in profound understanding or first principles.)

We should not forget, however, that all this is simply a framework for thinking about history, not a method for approaching it. The method of the historian is humble: he collects stories, facts and bits of data and then assembles them, trying to make sense of it all, like trying to piece together the fragmented pages of some lost epic. But in so doing, he may take confidence from the knowledge that the epic indeed exists, that it has an Author, and that the Author’s loving ways are, to some extent, known.

Finding a Theology of History

2011-01-27T04:36:00.003-05:00

It is somewhat common in the history profession – or at least in graduate school – to be asked about one’s philosophy of history. What is your guiding framework? Economic determinism? Marxism? Gender theory? The Annales school?

I don’t generally think of myself as having a philosophy or overarching theory of history. I just read about the past and tell stories, trying to make sense of what happened, and why. But lately I’ve decided to think more about the biggest questions in history. After all, I am a Catholic and a historian, but am I a Catholic historian? Does my faith inform my work? Some days I think I have a better sense of what it would mean to be a Catholic physicist than a Catholic historian. So I’ve picked up Joseph Ratzinger’s The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure.

Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) is a theologian, not a historian, but he became interested in history for a very simple reason: our salvation occurs in history. This might seem trite, but in fact it is a major question with which Ratzinger wrestles. Most theology is grounded in metaphysics and asks questions about things that are eternal and universal, such as the Holy Trinity or the nature of man. But the key moments in salvation are moments, particular events. Jesus Christ was made incarnate at a particular time in the town of Nazareth in the womb of a woman named Mary. He was not made incarnate in an earlier age, nor in another land, nor was He born of another woman. His birth, ministry, death and resurrection also occurred as discrete events in particular places. What then is the relationship between theology (universals) and history (particulars), Ratzinger asks.

I have not finished reading The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, nor am I expecting it to definitively answer this quandary. Still, I am beginning to sketch out two distinctions that I think might be useful.

The first distinction is between “spiritual history” and “mundane history”. The former involves all things non-material: the working of God, the angels (including demons) and men (at least in their spiritual capacity). Mundane history, in contrast, involves things that are of little spiritual or eternal consequence. The Incarnation clearly belongs to spiritual history, while the fluctuations of the price of rye are fairly mundane. (To clarify, this is not a distinction between a history of the Church and the secular world. Ecclesiastical history can be just as mundane as the price of rye. Just ask any parish secretary.) There are, however, events which are not so easy to place, such as disasters which prompt men to turn to God in prayer. Rising water levels or spiraling inflation are, of themselves, mundane, but may take on spiritual significance. This is because man is himself a hybrid, possessing a spirit like the angels but also a body like the animals. To divorce these two aspects of man from one another is a grave danger; we should expect similar dangers if we try to divide history.

Moreover, Bonaventure notes that sapientia omniformis (omniform wisdom) perceives the traces of God’s work in all things. As St. Paul writes to the Romans, “What can be known about God is plain to [the nations]…. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (1:19-20). Thus, if all creation points to God, it becomes problematic to label any of it “mundane”.

Still, I think the spiritual/mundane distinction has its merit. Most of the history that is written today is terribly mundane, though occasional works on the Civil Rights Movement in America or the battle against Nazism in Europe may touch the spiritual. Still, historians should be reminded that much of what they study, though interesting in its way, is of only passing importance. Moreover, they should be encouraged to push through the mundane and at least aspire to charting the spiritual, when possible.

Alas, that “when possible” may be the hang-up. C. S. Lewis argues in his essay “Historicism” that charting spiritual history by means short of divine revelation is impossible. First there is the problem of collecting data: how do you know if or when God has touched the hearts of men? Few people keep spiritual diaries, and I know of no World Bank of the spiritual world which tabulates such information, telling whether or not the spiritual life has enjoyed a good year. But even if we somehow had access to all the right data, Lewis points out that it would be overwhelming. Important things in politics get written down; key moments in art are recorded by the works of art themselves. Thus it is fairly easy to pick out the high points of political or cultural history, or at least to collect some events which are of arguable importance. But the spiritual life is both fuller and more subtle. At any moment of your life, you are experiencing life with all of your being: the five senses, recent memories, more latent concerns, a history of experiences and your particular intellectual and emotional formation. To see a picture of a place you have been is not the same as returning to a past visit. Even a second visit to the same place cannot recapture the old moment. If somehow you could be re-inserted into a past experience, it would take the whole of your being to re-live it properly. Thus, Lewis contends, for the spiritual historian to properly reconsider a single day of a single life would take him an entire day himself. He could never properly survey even his own life, much less a century or two of an entire nation.

Still, Lewis leaves the door open to spiritual history by freely conceding that his comments do not apply to those who claim knowledge by revelation. Indeed, Lewis clearly knows that Christianity makes just such a claim, contending that God has revealed Himself throughout the centuries and has made known His actions through Scripture. Thus, at least with regards to events discussed by Scripture, the Christian can claim knowledge of spiritual history by revelation.

But can we hope for a spiritual history of the 20th century, or must we settle for mundane history? Bonaventure’s understanding of “revelation” gives us hope for more recent spiritual history. He contends that the revelation of Scripture is not in the words on the page, but the spiritual understanding of the individual reading them. (After all, there are anthropologists and literary critics who have read Scripture inside and out but remain atheists; nothing has been revealed to them.) Bonaventure does not claim that any interpretation of Scripture has equal claim to being “revelation”; the authoritative interpretation is that found within the Church and her life of faith. Still, his definition may be seen as an invitation to consider “revelation” in a broader sense, one which allows us to apply the principles of Scripture to more recent events. I would not claim such an interpretation as authoritative or “revealed” in the same way as the Trinity is revealed, but I think it suggests a way out of Lewis’ dilemma.

Finally, we must consider the possibility of direct revelation, that is, spiritual insight apart from Scripture. The Church teaches that the revelation of doctrine is closed – expect no news flashes about a Fourth Person of the Godhead – but interpreting the events of history need not be a doctrinal matter. Thus, the historian who is faithful to prayer might reasonably consider the possibility of the Holy Spirit guiding his efforts.

This may sound a bit far from history as it is practiced in the academy. In fact, it may sound more like staring into a crystal ball. I advocate no such thing. But I do advocate an approach to history which is not divorced from faith. At the bottom of things I desire to understand history in a why that is meaningful, as are all things in a world created and sustained by a loving God.

That second distinction, you ask. Where is it? Today’s discussion has gone on long enough. Tomorrow we will consider divine and worldly history.

Where Is My Village Militia?

2011-01-20T04:56:00.000-05:00

For some time I have been intrigued, perhaps even troubled, by today's title question. In days past, every adult male - or nearly every - would serve in his village militia. Something of the sort existed in Anglo-Saxon England, when the Normans invaded in 1066, and continued to exist into the 19th century in the United States. The primary purpose of this militia was to defend the village, either from marauders (such as American Indians) or to participate in a larger defensive effort against an invading army. On the side, the village militia might be called out from time to time to help with manhunts or crowd control. Nevertheless, this was fundamentally a civilian organization, and so it served only occasionally.

Participating in the village militia was once an integral part of republican life, but where is the village militia today? How do I fulfill this long-standing duty?

The simple fact of the matter is that my village - College Station, TX - has no militia. Even if it did, it would be largely pointless. If a Chinese army comes rolling through College Station, America is in serious trouble, probably something far bigger than a militia could handle. As for marauders, thankfully there are none these days. And modern policing means manhunts are few and the forces to conduct them already in place. (Admittedly, I could become a police officer or sheriff's deputy, but these are full time jobs, no the part time work of a republican citizen.)

The most obvious candidate for the modern militia is the National Guard. While this is an admirable force which does many important things, even it is something different than the militia of old. This is, in large part, the result of the changing nature of conflict. In Anglo-Saxon England, an army consisted almost entirely of village militia (fyrd) members, with a sprinkling of professional housecarls in the king's retinue. That was it. No air support, no supplies, no intelligence service. Maybe a couple stray monks acted as messengers and diplomats, if their services were needed. It was a pretty lean operation. Even in the 19th century, the villager with his musket remained of primary importance.

But the nature of conflict has changed. While the infantryman remains central and essential to warfare, he now has artillery, armor and air support aiding him. He is backed by a massive logistical tail. And behind the logicians stand an army of bureaucrats who file paperwork on benefits, write contracts for equipment and manage massive budgets. Engineers design gizmos of every sort to support the war effort. And then there are those beyond the military and its supporting elements: there are countless intelligence agencies, diplomats, economists and analysts of every strip involved in our nation's national security process. If they could all be tabulated, we would find that not only is the infantryman in the minority, but even the military itself no longer plays the overwhelming role it once did. Thus, joining the National Guard would provide support to one aspect of our nation's security, but only one.

The second problem with the village militia/National Guard parallel is that today's Guardsmen are really professional - if part time - soldiers. They fight in distant wars, not in the environs of their home. One can argue that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being fought to protect American homes, and perhaps they are, but this is hardly the same as standing within sight of your own property and bodily defending it. Not only is the obvious motivation for fighting lost, but so is a certain advantage. The militiaman knows his home terrain and draws his supplies from his own home and neighbors. Today's Guardsmen, fighting halfway around the world, enjoy no such advantages.

To find the modern parallel to the old republican militia, we must first ask: what threatens my home and family? The answers are many: burglars and muggers, flooding, Chinese cyberattacks, Russian cybercriminals, Islamic terrorists, manipulation of oil prices by foreign powers... The list could go on and one. Suffice it to say, we can identify two qualities of these threats: they are generally unlikely and they are incredibly diverse. And, with few exceptions, there are no militia to meet them. There might be a neighborhood watch I could join or a county emergency volunteer program, but there are no weekend cyberwarriors of which I am aware, nor militias which participate in part time economic warfare. Nor have I seen any signs of an on-call intelligence outfit of citizens-spies.

Where is my village militia?

Perhaps the village militia is gone for good. Perhaps it has become defused over countless volunteer and professional organizations. For now, I shall keep looking. And if you find it, please send me a note.

Today's image depicts a Massachusetts militia muster, c. 1637. The work was done by Don Troiani for the National Guard Heritage Series.

Reviving Languages in the Classroom

2011-01-14T14:00:00.003-05:00

In much discourse today, "tradition" looms in our minds as a monolith, imposing and utterly unmovable. But traditions are actually much more fragile than we often think, and even the best-intentioned attempts to preserve them can alter them radically.

A good example to illustrate this point is language. Language is the means by which we interact with people, without which no other tradition would be possible. Language obviously does not live by itself; it must be taught to each child that comes into the world, and must be cultivated by adults. Most people, though, never consciously thought, as they grew up themselves, about what language they were learning, nor do they consciously decide what language they will teach to their children. Children simply take their language in with their mother's milk--which is why the Germans call their native tongue their Muttersprache. Yet there are times when individuals and communities must make a conscious choice to hand down the language they have spoken for generations. This usually happens when another language has become dominant in the area, whether through demographic change or some socio-political reason. How many extinct languages in the world today are nearing extinction, supplanted by other languages?

Sometimes, the language will not die but will linger on its deathbed until it can be revived. Today languages are usually revived by means of classroom instruction. But traditions, such as a language, cannot really be revived in a school without changing the tradition itself. The moment formal instruction is needed to maintain the basic elements of a tradition, that tradition has changed significantly: the tradition is neither entirely old, nor entirely new, but a tertium quid. The drive to preserve the tradition, while it can save the tradition from extinction, never preserves the tradition entirely intact.

One example of such a language that nearly died out before being revived in the classroom, but has undergone great changes because of its revival, is Irish. By 1900 the Irish language was largely confined to poor rural areas in the west, such as the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry, Connemara and the Aran Island in Galway, parts of Mayo, and northwest Donegal (see the parts in green on the map to the right). These regions are known today as the Gaeltacht; Irish is still the ordinary means of communication in daily life there and is spoken on local radio and television. After gaining independence from Ireland, the new government made Irish an official language and introduced it as a mandatory subject in the schools. The language has even made something of a comeback in the towns and even in Dublin itself, often among the highly-educated. Because of these official efforts, Irish is enjoying something of a renaissance.

But, a strange thing has happened to the language, according to Brian Ó Broin: he has fears that there will be a "schism" between rural Gaeltacht residents and urban speakers, between those who grew up with the language and those who originally learned it in school. When members of the two groups meet, they actually prefer to speak in English because they cannot easily understand each other's Irish. As Ó Broin explains, Irish has many subtly different sounds, especially guttural sounds, that are very hard for a native English speaker to distinguish. And all these subtle differences are important:

Irish has a fairly sophisticated morphological system. That is to say, words can change form in several ways. The noun cainteoir, for instance, can mutate to gcainteoir, cainteora, chainteora, cainteoirí, and gcainteoirí, depending on its grammatical function. As we saw earlier, if the pronunciation of these mutations alters or fails, the entire grammatical system of the language becomes endangered.

One example that Ó Broin gives is that urban speakers did not "mark any masculine nouns that were in the plural or genitive." In this example, the urban speakers' failure to pronounce certain sounds correctly has led to a drastically simplified system for the declension of masculine nouns. What is being born is a new pidgin Irish spoken primarily by urban speakers, as opposed to the older, more complex form spoken in the countryside.

All this is interesting in itself (at least to amateur linguists), as an example of a language experiencing major changes in real time. It is also interesting, though, as an example of the unwitting harm preservationism can do to what it seeks to preserve. There is much reason for rejoicing at the successful revival of Irish through classroom learning, but Irish's shift from being the language of the poor to being a marker of middle-class education shows that much is lost even as a tradition is saved.

Hauschka's One-Man Ensemble

2011-01-10T04:25:00.000-05:00

Volker Bertelmann - aka "Hauschka" - has jury-rigged his piano to produce a wide variety of sounds, allowing him to play what sound like a swelling ensemble. Quite impressive.

H/T to Nathan for bringing this video to my attention.

Life Imitates Art

2011-01-05T13:14:00.006-05:00

One year ago I took a look at the classic Britcom Yes, Minister. And just today I was reminded of how great that show really was.

It turns out that the state of Virginia has built a brand-new prison...but has no prisoners to put in it. Administering an empty prison can be quite complicated, as well as quite expensive: it cost $715,000 this year alone just to maintain the facility in its current condition.

Just in case you never could have imagined a bureaucracy so bumbling as to do something like construct a prison without being able to fill it, the writers of Yes, Minister did. One of the best episodes tells the story of a hospital that is brand-new, and fully staffed, but without patients.

The minister decides he needs to investigate the hospital, and is taken there to meet with the directress and the labor union's representative:

For those of you who haven't watched the show before, a linguistic note: very often the crazier characters are given regional accents, such as the maniacal Scots trade unionist in this episode.

Apocalyptic Imagery

2011-01-03T06:00:00.002-05:00

Here's an open question to start off the new year.

Aaron's Christmas Eve post, particularly his description of how the natural world rejoiced at Christ's birth, how the very molecules danced in delight, brought to mind something I have been pondering for a while now. I'm sure one of you literary types out there knows more about this than I do and will be kind enough to enlighten me.

One prominent trait of apocalyptic literature seems to be that key moments in man's history are accompanied by and reflected by similar events in nature. Why is such imagery so powerful?

Here's an example from Lk. 21:24-27, when Jesus speaks about a great persecution; he predicts that

They will fall by the edge of the sword,
and be made captive in all nations,
And Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles
until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Then, immediately after speaking about the fate of men, he spaks about the signs in nature:

And there will be signs in the sun
and moon and stars,
and distress of nations on the earth in despair
at the roaring of the sea and waves,
Men fainting from fear and foreboding of what
is coming upon the world,
for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
And then they'll see the Son of Man
coming on a cloud with power and great glory.

Another good example comes from the Exsultet sung at the Easter vigil, when the earth is told to rejoice in the splendor of the eternal king. This moment is perhaps not eschatological in the strict sense, since Easter marks not the end of the world but a re-birth in Christ, but the situation is similar, since a great change in man's history has come about. The imagery, then, is also similar:

Gaudeat et tellus, tantis irradiata fulgoribus:
et æterni Regis splendore illustrata,
totius orbis se sentiat amisisse caliginem.

This imagery of nature somehow cooperating, or at least reflecting, the events of man's history is not an exclusively Christian phenomenon either. Here is an example from Virgil's first Georgic (ll. 466-471, translated by David Ferry):

When Caesar's light was quenched, the shining face
Of the sun, in pity for Rome, was covered with darkness,
And that impious generation was in fear
That there would thenceforth be eternal night.
And not only the sun but the earth and the sea gave signs,
And dogs and birds gave signs, of ill to come.

This kind of imagery has great emotional resonance, but I'm not sure exactly why. Any ideas?

He Has Come!

2010-12-24T11:30:00.003-05:00

This evening we celebrate the Vigil of Christmas, when we consider the Incarnation. On this night, more than twenty centuries ago, the world was changed.

On this night stones began to rouse one another, for in the humble Child they saw a glory not seen since the misty depths of the past, when God had brought them forth out of nothing. From one stone to another the message was whispered, "He has come!" The murmur swelled to a roar, as the stones shook off their slumber: "He has returned!"

On this night the colors of Bethlehem, indeed of the whole world, shone more brightly. Molecules danced and waves of light stretched as the fabric of existence celebrated its Maker's arrival. One star, perched over the City of David, was now joined by thousands - millions! - in announcing with trembling and wonder that their Creator had stooped to join the ranks His creatures.

On this night the forces of darkness worried and fretted. "Perhaps He has not... Perhaps He will not..." But they knew better: the long night that had covered mankind was receding at last.

Legions of angels guarded the lowly stable, but there was no need. The faint cry of a newborn baby pierced the night and demons fled, overcome by the light of His presence.

The physical world, near and far, rejoiced: the dying flames in Bethlehem hearths burst into new life, while on distant planets, wonders yet undiscovered blossomed to herald the coming of the King.

The spiritual world too rejoiced:

Behold an angel of the Lord stood by [the shepherds], and the brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared with a great fear. And the angel said to them: "Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David...." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: "Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will." (Luke 2:9-11, 13-14, Douay Rheims translation)

Tonight's images are of the star HD 44179 and Messier 104 (M104), the Sombrero Galaxy. They come from NASA's Hubble Advent calendar (Day 5, 2010 and Day 9, 2009, respectively).

Advent Music

2010-12-17T12:36:00.008-05:00

We don't hear much about Advent at this time of year. Once Thanksgiving passes, we pass over Advent in the rush to get to Christmas. We have forgotten that we must first patiently wait and ask for God's grace to prepare for the birth of Jesus.

One result of forgetting to live Advent is that we start listening to Christmas songs well before Christmas. But, if you want to hear some actual Advent music that expresses the Church's longing for the coming of the Savior, there is some out there. This week I discovered this setting by Bach (BWV 62/1) of Martin Luther's chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, which is a German translation of Veni, Redemptor Gentium, a much older hymn traditionally attributed to St. Ambrose of Milan.

The videos for the remaining movements can be seen here.

Finally, today begins the singing at vespers of the so-called O antiphons.

A Curious Case of Christmas Censorship?

2010-12-15T17:40:00.006-05:00

I recently finished reading science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Star". I read it in The Other Side of the Sky, though it may appear in other collections as well. The tale is well-written, thought-provoking and short (always a virtue!). The main character is a Jesuit astrophysicist living in the 27th century, returning from an expedition to outer space, where he recently studied the remains of a supernova. The story has a vaguely holiday theme, though not warm or fuzzy or in the way you'd expect. For anyone with a modicum of interest in sci-fi literature, I'd recommend it.

Curiously, the copy of The Other Side of the Sky which I checked out from the Texas A&M library had sustained unusual damage: the entirety of "The Star" had been cut out of the book. Where the original pages would have been, were photocopy replacements which the library staff had carefully grafted onto the book. No other pages were missing or damaged. Why would someone remove "The Star" from a university library?

*** WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW ***

If you have read the short story, or you're electing to forgo the joy of an untainted first reading, continue on.

While studying the remnants of this supernova, our protagonist encounters a Vault left by a now-extinct civilization. Realizing their star was going to explode into a supernova, these humanoids built a massive repository of information about themselves, for later explorers to find, before they were obliterated. This alone is tragic, but not new to the Jesuit, who has seen other extinct civilizations in distant space. Rather, the stunning conclusion is his realization of the precise timing and nature of the this star's destruction:

I know how brilliantly the supernova whose corpse now dwindles behind our speeding ship once shown in terrestrial skies. I know how it must have blazed low in the east before sunrise, like a beacon in the oriental dawn. There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?

Did our mysterious book trimmer steal a copy of the story because it was so fascinating? Perhaps, though this seems unlikely, given that the other two dozen stories were left intact; were none of them worth stealing? No, my theory is that someone removed the story because they thought it blasphemous.

This strikes me as a curious misunderstanding, both of the story and of the science fiction genre. Clarke is not actually arguing that the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova which destroyed an innocent alien civilization. Rather, he is asking what if evidence were discovered that this was the case? Would this constitute proof that God is not love? Or could such a thing be reconciled with the Christian faith? (If not, we would have to declare it heresy, though "astroclarkeianism" is a rather awkward term.)

So far as I can tell, this speculative quality is at the heart of the sci-fi genre. Sci-fi proposes situations which - under present conditions - are impossible, and then uses these situations to gain unique perspective on enduring questions about man, his nature and his place in the cosmos. Clarke's question in "The Star" is a subset of the "can scientific discovery radically shake theology?" question, which C. S. Lewis also considered in his essay, "Will We Lose God in Outer Space?" While Clarke is suggesting that such a discovery is a possibility, this short story neither argues that such as discovery has been made, nor that it necessarily will be. Is posing the question such a crime?

Oddly, in the mind of our book vandal, I suspect it was. Indeed, I wonder if he did not pull the book off the shelf precisely because someone told him it contained this blasphemous story (which he may not have even read). Why do I suspect this? Because, while I have not yet read any other works by Arthur C. Clarke, I would be surprised if he manifests a dramatically different world-view in other writings. Would a Clarke fan really get through a few hundred pages, only to suddenly be offended by this work? Perhaps. Perhaps Clarke alluded to similar questions in earlier stories, but in a way that an unalert reader missed. Perhaps Clarke is most explicit in this story about his religious doubts. Still, I worry there's an overzealous pastor out there who needs to read a little more sci-fi and encourage a little less censorship.

Announcement: Al Gore and Russell Kirk Agree on Something!

2010-12-03T04:00:00.006-05:00

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal ran a review by Nick Schulz, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, of Vaclav Smil's new book Prime Movers of Globalization. Smil's book is, as the subtitle puts it, a study of the "history and impact of diesel engines and gas turbines." The book would appear to be of interest to a history and economics buff who has a mechanical bent and a desire to learn more about the technical innovations that have driven globalization forward in the past two centuries. Besides explaining the role these devices have played in making it easier to travel long distances and transport great loads quickly, though, Smil also acknowledges that there are environmental drawbacks to these devices. Smil himself, according to the review, does his best to maintain a balanced perspective.

The review, on the other hand, is anything but balanced and can only be termed disingenuous. Schulz's rhetorical strategy is to frame his summary of Smil's book in a denunciation of environmentalism. He begins with Al Gore's utopian call (in Earth in the Balance) for the elimination of internal combustion engines by 2017. Then, at the end of the review, Schulz mentions that Smil addresses some of the environmental damage caused by diesel engines and gas turbines as well as "social disruption that their inventors could not have imagined." But if the "creative destruction caused by global trade" is so extensive, why then has Schulz just penned an ode to the internal combustion engine? How can he simply shrug off these problems? A hint comes in his final line, a variation on Irving Kristol's well-known quip about neoconservatives, saying that Smil, as opposed to environmentalists, "has been mugged by the reality of physics and engineering."

This phrase "mugged by reality" is obviously meant to show that Schulz is a realist, not a deluded "hard-line environmentalist." But what the last paragraph of the review really shows is that Schulz is dismissing out of hand concerns about social upheaval on a previously unimagined scale because they are not part of his reality, the "reality of physics and engineering." Since when, though, did any environmentalist deny the reality of the internal combustion engine, or of global trade? Do environmentalists believe that physics is an illusion?

Obviously not. Why, then, does Schulz resort to such dishonest rhetoric when discussing environmentalism? Schulz names Al Gore as the archetypal environmentalist because he can show that Gore's proposed cure would be just as bad as the disease. By holding up one prominent environmentalist for ridicule, Schulz can then sidestep the serious questions posed by Gore and others concerning the environment, such as: Is it possible that humans cannot be trusted to use internal combustion engines responsibly? Would it have been better if they had never been invented if the risk of serious damage to the environment is so great?

Schulz also resorts to dishonest rhetoric so that he can studiously avoid, while pretending to acknowledge, the social disruption caused by the internal combustion engine. But it is precisely this allegation of social disruption that forms the heart of the complaint against the internal combustion engine that Schulz refuses to answer. This allegation was leveled by at least one conservative thinker strongly opposed to all utopian fantasies: Russell Kirk, who famously called automobiles "mechanical Jacobins" on account of their revolutionary effect on society. If Schulz honestly faced Kirk's critique, he would have to ask himself more uncomfortable questions, such as: Is commercial prosperity perhaps bad for society because it chips away at solidarity among people? Is the decrease in social cohesion caused by modern modes of transport actually more harmful than the benefit of unrestricted mobility?

As strange as it may sound, Al Gore and Russell Kirk actually share common concerns about technical progress, though Kirk very likely would have rejected Gore's solution to the problem. This strange agreement should at least give Schulz pause to consider the morality of technology in addition to its creative power. But by ignoring Gore's and Kirk's questions Schulz shows that his ultimate fault is that he willfully equates what is technologically possible with what is morally good.

That anyone should make this mistake after the 20th century is sad indeed. The reality of the 20th century should have mugged Schulz and jolted him out of his complacent faith in technical progress. What, then, could prevent him from seeing that technical progress often poses difficult moral questions? Schulz, apparently a neoconservative, would likely answer that the "creative destruction caused by global trade" maximizes freedom through the increased production of wealth. But freedom and wealth are not ends in themselves, and neither is technology.

Creating Colleges

2010-11-30T21:00:00.004-05:00

At Texas A&M, the Aggie Ring is a big deal for undergraduates. On the ring there are five stars, symbolizing development of mind and body, spiritual attainment, emotional poise and integrity of character. That sounds a great deal more like formation than simple technical education. But I am afraid that well-rounded sense of formation has largely been lost at our massive technical university.

We have our share of sharp students, but one would be flabbergasted to overhear in the dining hall, "After four years of study, I'm only now beginning to really grasp the meaning of the medieval synthesis." Love of learning rarely goes that deep. In spite of all the talk about "honor, the guiding star" around here, any TA or professor can tell you that cheating is no less common here than at most state universities. And while tens of thousands of Aggies go to church each Sunday morning, as many or more stay home and nurse their hangovers. Something is lacking.

While chewing on this problem, it occurred to me that formation is very difficult in a school this big, in part because it is no longer really residential. A number of students live on campus; a good many live in officially sanctioned private off-campus dorms, while others still live in various apartments, duplexes and houses throughout the area. The result is that there is no single shared life among Aggies. So far as I can tell, there is very little guarantee that two Aggies took the same courses (much less with the same professors), lived in the same building, engaged in the same extra curricular activities or knew the same people. (This explains, by the way, much of the appeal to the Corps of Cadets. In a sea of 48,000 students, these 1,700 or so students lead a tightly disciplined life which forms a shared experience.) This is not unique to A&M; it is a fact of life at any university with this many students.

But what, I thought, if we had residential colleges? This is the arrangement found at the ancient universities, which are federations of various autonomous colleges, each having their own students and faculty members. Departments, which focus on a single field, cut across the various colleges and include people from all of them (though certain colleges are known for strengths in certain areas). Why not create a collection of colleges here?

(To avoid confusion of terms, we could simply force the "colleges" as they now exist, such as the College of Liberal Arts, to become "faculties," thus the "Faculty of Liberal Arts.")

Within the broader context of the university, its history and its rules, imagine twenty autonomous colleges, each of about 2,400 students. The Corps of Cadets could have their own Military College. But an invitation could be made for proposals for the other 19 colleges, each with a unique character and certain strengths. All would be non-profits, and each could require 2 years of physical residency, as well as whatever other requirements the particular college thought necessary. They could be funded through a mixture of university fees and particular college fees (encouraging, by the way, competition, since who wants to join the most expensive college?). I can easily imagine the Diocese of Austin sponsoring a St. Mary's College. Indeed, there are so many Catholics here perhaps SOLT or the IVE would found one too. Other religious communities would be welcome to do likewise. Philanthropic donors could as well; I see no problem with a Gates College and its neighbor, Buffett College.

Of course, at a school as tradition-conscious as Texas A&M, such a scheme would probably be eschewed as too innovative and an attack on the Aggie spirit. And then there is the practical problem of all the land swaps that would be needed, selling or renting existing dormitories (along with many of the affiliated facilities for dining and recreation) to the new colleges, constructing more buildings near campus, etc. Still, it seems to me an idea with real value. This is, after all, the basic concept behind many schools trying to create an "honors dorm," though that strikes me as a half measure. Go all the way, I say, and return some focused character to American mass education.

Gottfried Benn: Poetry and Nihilism

2010-11-23T04:00:00.010-05:00

The other evening it was in the upper 30’s: cold, but not cold enough to snow. Instead, it drizzled as I walked home from the train—without an umbrella, of course.

An Anglophile would have found the cold rain bracing and a welcome reminder of London. I just felt miserable, and given my Germanophilia and general pessimism, what came to mind was not of a thick mist lying low over the Thames like in a Sherlock Holmes story, but rather a poem by Gottfried Benn (1886-1956).

Benn first rose to prominence as an expressionist before World War I with a morbid series of poems based on scenes from the morgue where he worked as a young doctor. Benn wrote many of his early poems in free verse and, even more unfortunately, wrote some of them to shock his readers for shock’s sake. Later in life he dropped this adolescent pose, though not his grim outlook on life, and concentrated on well-crafted verse. Benn’s later poetry is often marked by a stark contrast between his beautiful language and his frightening, nearly nihilistic Weltanschauung. I say "nearly nihilistic" because for Benn there were perhaps two things of value in life: beautiful language and flowers, which figure in many of his poems.

The following poem is a perfect illustration of the contrast between beauty and emptiness in Benn’s poetry. Perhaps because German is not my first language I am able to dissociate the sound of words from their meaning more easily than I can with English, which would explain why the contrast between the language and the content of this poem has always made such a deep impression on me. The very literal and very rough translation below the original German should give some idea of why this poem came to mind the other night as I trudged home through the rain, as well as give an impression of Benn’s nihilism:

In einer Nacht

In einer Nacht, die keiner kennt,
Substanz aus Nebel, Feuchtigkeit und Regen,
in einem Ort, der kaum sich nennt
so unbekannt, so klein, so abgelegen,

sah ich den Wahnsinn alles Liebs und Leids,
das Tiefdurchkreuzte von Begehr und Enden,
das Theatralische von allerseits,
das niemals Gottgestützte von den Händen,

die dich bestreicheln, heiß und ungewaschen,
die dich wohl halten wollen, doch nicht wissen,
wie man den anderen hält, an welchen Maschen
man Netze flicken muß, daß sie nicht rissen –

ach, diese Nebel, diese Kältlichkeit,
dies Abgefallensein von jeder Dauer,
von Bindung, Glauben, Halten, Innigkeit,
ach Gott – die Götter! Feuchtigkeit und Schauer!

—Gottfried Benn, Sämtliche Gedichte (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1998), p. 299

One Night

One night, that no one knows
Made out of mist, dampness and rain,
In a place with no name,
So unknown, so small, so out of the way,

I saw the madness of all love and sorrow,
The futility of desires and purposes,
The theatrical on all sides,
[I saw] how the hands had never been supported by God,

[Those hands], hot and unwashed, which want to caress you,
Want to hold you, yet do not know
How one should hold the other, on which stitches
One must sew nets so they don’t tear—

Ah, this mist, this coldness,
This falling away from all endurance,
From all bonds, faith, support, intimacy,
Ah, God—the gods! Dampness and shivering!

The final line expresses Benn's despondence over the failure of love, but the language provides a faint glimmer of hope. The soft sounds of ch, g, and sch in Feuchtigkeit und Schauer is a wonderful contrast to the hard guttural sound of ach Gott: it initially softens the exclamation of disgust, but gives way in the end to a silent, morose despair. Yet, the fact that Benn thought it worth the trouble to express his sorrow with such care and so much attention to the richness of the sounds in this poem and so many others, as if in an attempt to transfigure his sorrow, would indicate that he thought there was ultimately some meaning worth giving voice to.

One can only hope so, for Benn's sake.

Money, Creepy Criminals, and Respectability

2010-11-17T06:00:00.010-05:00

Why do we equate money with respectability?

Maybe money has not always equaled respectability, but it certainly does now. I myself unconsciously assume that a man wearing a nice suit must be more trustworthy than a man wearing a blue-collar work uniform with his name tag sewn onto his shirt. Maybe some people are less prejudiced in favor of wealth than I am, but I know I am certainly not unique in this respect. There is a reason, after all, why professionals dress well—most of us would not place our confidence in, or give our money to, a man who dressed like a bum, or like a used car salesman.

This equation of wealth with respectability is so deeply entrenched in our society that we don’t notice it until something makes us examine this prejudice. When I was growing up, I was surrounded by government employees, university professors, businessmen who could afford to be country club members, etc. I didn't know any criminals. Criminals were people who did horrible things, like rob and murder people, in poor neighborhoods. I only knew about them because their crimes were reported in the local newspaper. That changed, though, once I started working for lawyers. But, before I started working for lawyers, I also didn't know anyone who embezzled tens of thousands of dollars. Over the last few years, I’ve realized that we underestimate the injury caused by the breach of trust that is at the heart of white-collar crime.

What first made me examine my prejudices about wealth was that I realized that money is not necessarily a predictive factor for "creepiness" among criminals. One of the occupational hazards of working for criminal defense lawyers is that you meet some real creeps. Some of the creepiest defendants I’ve met have been quite wealthy, or at least middle-class, not the poor street criminals I thought of as a child. The creepiness that emanates from all criminals comes from two sources. First, the initial meeting between a client and a criminal defense lawyer is always uneasy because (in my experience with criminal defense) there is generally not much doubt that the client at the very least did something bad, if not always criminal. Both client and lawyer do their best to dance around the question of guilt, and that dance produces a strange sensation in the onlooker.

Second, each individual criminal gives off his own weird vibe. Different sorts of criminals, though, are different sorts of creeps. And white-collar criminals have been among the creepiest, in my experience. What makes some white-collar criminals so creepy? The answer comes back to society’s equation of wealth and respectability. The fact that a man can maintain a façade of respectability for years, all the while defrauding those who trust him because of his respectable wealth, means that at a very fundamental level of his personality he must be extremely devious. This deviousness I find just as frightening as the lack of remorse in a cold-blooded murderer; in both cases it is a sign of a complete lack of conscience. It is this lack of conscience, which leads to a willingness to violate any confidence, or any ethical boundary, that is truly creepy and even more disturbing than a street criminal who can’t restrain his anger over a failed drug deal or his frustration in his personal life. These street criminals possess a certain simplicity. It’s obviously not a good type of simplicity, but at least these men are not devious and manipulative like most white-collar criminals.

(On a side note, pedophiles are especially creepy because they combine the worst aspects of both kinds of criminals. Their actions are violent and repulsive, like those of street criminals, but like white-collar criminals they usually first build up a great amount of trust between themselves and their victims before committing their crimes.)

* * * * *

The special creepiness of white-collar defendants prompted me to examine my prejudices, and led me to conclude that their violation of trust is in some ways worse than what common street criminals do. But we are rarely outraged over white-collar crime, usually because the criminal has money, even though we should be more outraged because the criminal has betrayed a trust.

The result is that somehow it's more "respectable" for an investment banker to steal money through fraud, e.g., through the use of complex financial instruments he doesn’t understand (see “master of the universe” Fabrice Tourre of Goldman Sachs), than it is to mug a pedestrian. It's even more respectable for a bank to commit usury, or for a lawyer to overcharge his clients. These are all forms of theft, and they often involve a breach of trust when one person relies on the professional for help. The 7th commandment makes quite clear that all theft is wrong, yet too often we make nice distinctions based on the criminal’s wealth where the 7th commandment doesn't.

Unfortunately, most of the time we view these behaviors in abstract economic terms; this makes us afraid to call a thief a thief. It takes some up-close experience to see that theft is theft, no matter who the thief is.

Lawyers for a prominent trust company can get away with depleting half the assets of a sizable trust in questionable fees—they were paying themselves directly from the trust until the primary beneficiary asked to see some invoices. Jarndyce and Jarndyce may be not a completely fictional case, after all.

A man can write checks to himself and embezzle from a charity for mentally disabled children. He may not get away with it forever—the IRS might want to ask him about his new personal airplane—yet, because such a man can pay for his defense, he is more respectable in most people's eyes than the simple street criminal who has to rely on the public defender.

On the other hand, there are men who rob jewelry stores who are not very clever—as well as oblivious to the fact that the entire robbery has been caught on videotape—and the police generally have little difficulty in recovering the jewelry within a couple days. They certainly deserve to spend some time behind bars, but I have a hard time seeing that what these armed robbers do is necessarily any worse than what white-collar criminals do. What these armed robbers do is obviously more traumatic for the victim in the short term but they generally steal less money than white-collar criminals; people like Bernie Madoff have easy access to lots of money. Finally, will those trust beneficiaries or charity beneficiaries ever be able to recover the money stolen by their trustees? It’s highly unlikely.

You can call me a soft-on-crime bleeding-heart liberal, if you want, but I am simply asking why we do not stigmatize white-collar crime as much as street crime. Is the physical injury the street criminal inflicts on his victim always worse than the breach of trust committed by a white-collar criminal? True criminality does not depend on a person’s violence. Rather, it depends on a person’s willingness to transgress basic ethical commands without compunction. And that lack of conscience is often more evident in a wealthy white-collar criminal than it is in a poor street criminal.

Looking for the King

2010-11-14T04:24:00.002-05:00

I'm naturally skeptical of novels that have their own trailer, but I'm intrigued by Looking for the King, by David Downing.

The book is not another group biography of the Inklings. In fact, it sounds more like an imitation of That Hideous Strength or one of Charles Williams' novels, in which supernatural events in modern Britain evoke the island's ancient past and speak to the contemporary threat of evil. The background is Nazi-occupied Europe, the protagonists are two young Americans at Oxford, the object of desire an ancient relic and the wise old men who aid our protagonists are the crew you've been waiting for: the Inklings.

A variety of reviews have been positive, praising the novel for its measured action, its historical research and its decision to leave the Inklings in the wings, rather than trying to put them on center stage.

If you'd like to read a passage before buying a copy for yourself or a loved one, you can do so here. I found the excerpt a bit flat at first, but soon I was reading out of genuine interest, and not simply as a test. I ended by deciding not to finish reading the passage, since I'll probably read the book some day and it would make more sense to do it in order.

H/T to Maggie Perry for sharing this post.

Nietzsche: Erudition vs. Wisdom

2010-11-07T20:40:00.005-05:00

Back in April I wrote a post about the Great Books as a system of education, and argued that education should be about the formation of the individual within a tradition, and not just the amassing of knowledge.

Just the other day, though, I re-read a passage from Nietzsche's Schopenhauer as Educator and was struck by its relevance to the contemporary debate over the value of the Great Books. In section eight of the essay, Nietzsche denounces those philosophers, especially those in the Kantian tradition in Germany, who had let the state buy them off with cushy jobs as tenured university professors and thus became unwilling to question, much less criticize, the existing order. This easy accommodation with the state led to a grave danger:

This is actually the third, and the most dangerous, concession made by philosophy to the state, when it is compelled to appear in the form of erudition, as the knowledge (more specifically) of the history of philosophy. The genius looks purely and lovingly on existence, like a poet, and cannot dive too deep into it;—and nothing is more abhorrent to him than to burrow among the innumerable strange and wrong-headed opinions. The learned history of the past was never a true philosopher's business, in India or Greece; and a professor of philosophy who busies himself with such matters must be, at best, content to hear it said of him, "He is an able scholar, antiquary, philologist, historian,"—but never, "He is a philosopher."

The distinction Nietzsche draws between studying the history of philosophy and doing philosophy, between attaining erudition and wisdom, is what should guide the debate about the Great Books. Knowledge--or, as we say today, information--is of course necessary, but without a tradition to give form to that information, it will only become, as Nietzsche said On the Use and Abuse of History, "indigestible knowledge-stones." Without a coherent philosophy we will not be able to digest all the information and historical knowledge we already have and be nourished with wisdom.

Why Are There No Christian Democrats in America?

2010-11-02T05:05:00.000-04:00

The other day I happened upon the Wikipedia article about Christian Democrats. I clicked through to the list of parties, and was surprised by the complete absence of American parties from the list, not even some minor third party outfit. (The closest we get might be the more-or-less defunct New York State Right to Life Party, the Jefferson Republican Party and the amorphous Working Families Party.)

Why is this? Why are there no Christian Democrats in the US?

Admittedly, Christian Democracy is not a monolithic concept. Using the Wikipedia article as a rough guide, we see that it can draw on Catholic social teaching or Calvinist ideas. It can be organized around Christian corporatism, subsidiarity, sphere sovereignty, communitarianism, the stewardship of the Christian believer or the dignity of the human person. (Or lots of those!) Its economics can be of the simple market variety, a social market economy or distributist.

Perhaps it is a bit much to ask that such a diverse - if interrelated - group of ideas spawn a single party in the US. Perhaps there are political, cultural or historical reasons why Christian Democracy lacks a following here. But it strikes me as odd that such a body of ideas have little play in the American arena, where Christians are generally assumed to belong to the hawkish semi-libertarian Republican Party, or are seen as hippie lefties opposed to war, industry and any kind of authority. What a pathetically shallow representation of the political implications of Christianity. Yet that is all we seem to find.

Reclaiming Metaphysics from the Mushy-Headed

2010-10-27T21:00:00.002-04:00

One of the "problems" with a UD education is that the UD graduate likes to use certain "fancy" words that not many other people necessarily understand. (I write this as a UD graduate, but I'm sure anybody with a decent liberal arts education has encountered this problem too.) When he leaves "the bubble," he sometimes forgets that these words are not in everybody else's vocabulary. The careless UD graduate in his conversations occasionally lets drop a word which for him is rich in associations and encapsulates his point nicely but which only confuses his interlocutors; pretty soon he finds himself re-formulating his entire argument in order to make himself understood. One such fancy word is "metaphysics," and I recently ran up against the problem of trying to use the word in a conversation with someone from "outside the bubble."

After a lecture event sponsored by a certain libertarian-conservative student group, I went out for a drink with some other members of the group. In the ensuing discussion, I told a libertarian that one of my disagreements with libertarians is that they draw too rigid a distinction between the individual's private life and the public realm, and that this stark dichotomy has its roots in libertarians' arbitrary distinction between ethics and politics, on the one hand, and metaphysics on the other. I thought I had made my point relatively clear, but when my libertarian interlocutor heard the word "metaphysics" come out of my mouth, he looked at me as if I had just grown a nose in the middle of my forehead. He was under the impression that I was referring to old ladies with crystal balls charging me a few dollars to read my fortune, or maybe to some New Age fad. He thought I had a head full of mush!

When I saw his face, I hastened to explain that I was talking about a branch of philosophy. He replied, "I have zero background in philosophy. Why don't you just say 'reason' or 'logic'?" For half a second I entertained the idea of explaining that logic and metaphysics are distinct branches of philosophy, and for another half-second I considered mentioning something about "the study of being," but then I remembered that I had a train to catch. So, I just answered, "Yes, reason!" Of course, his conception of reason was probably a purely modern, instrumental conception of reason...but that was a discussion for another night.

Do so few people understand what "metaphysics" really means? What will happen to public discourse when members of a "learned profession" (yes, I actually am referring to lawyers) who believe they have a special calling to study and resolve the most pressing questions concerning men's relations with one another have no clue what "metaphysics" means?

It probably was always the case that the majority of lawyers were not familiar with philosophy. But, to hear such an open avowal of ignorance from someone who appeared to be interested in larger questions of philosophy was frightening. It wasn't so much his ignorance that frightened me, though, as his lack of shame at his own ignorance.

This ignorance and this lack of shame do not bode well for public discourse. We are left, then, with only one choice: We must reclaim the word "metaphysics" from the mushy-headed!

What Tarantino Is Doing

2010-10-21T04:34:00.000-04:00

Around the third grade I took to writing a series of short stories set during my favorite conflict, World War II. They were all written in the first person, and although I knew that the exploits of the protagonist were not exactly my own, this form of narrative had an extra thrill for me. And thrilling these stories were. Their protagonist was a sort of super hero of the conflict, seeing action in all theaters, on land, at sea and in the air.

In one of these stories, the narrator, while flying his fighter plane, encountered a flight of Nazi aircraft. He engaged them and shot down the flight leader, who managed to bail out. As the enemy pilot bailed out, the narrator recognized him as none other than Adolf Hitler!

When I submitted this particular story to my father for his comments, he said he was nigh certain that Hitler was not a pilot, and even if he was, he would not have been flying patrols along the front. At the time I thought this a rather unnecessary fixation with historical detail. Moreover, I found this bit of information about Hitler rather disappointing: we all know he was the leader of the Nazis, a fearsome band of warmongers. So why wasn't he out front personally warmongering, like a modern-day Alexander?

When I recently saw Quintin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, I immediately recognized what he was doing. The film, about which I have written here and here, centers on a group of Jewish-Americans who operate behind enemy lines, scalping Nazis. Their plans to kill all the top Nazi leaders - who are in Paris for a film debut - merge with the efforts of the French Jew who owns the cinema in question.

Not only does the visual style of the film hearken back to an earlier age of pulp comics and movies, but the basic notion of over-the-top pseudo-history is something I think you can find in the childhoods of most little boys. Why do we dream in this kind of way? I have not yet definitively answered this question to my own liking, but I have some theories.

The kind of super pseudo-historical character I created as a child lends a certain clarity to the historical narrative. No single historical individual actually served in all theaters, fighting every enemy, engaging in every form of combat; thus, to tell the story of the war as a whole we are forced to tell the story of vast forces, of military committees and other impersonal bodies which waged this global conflict. By creating a decidedly unhistorical character, my third grade stories were able to capture the entire war in a single person's experience. The other day I was reading an essay from a collection in honor of M. R. D. Foot, which noted that Foot enjoyed writing the history of the resistance during World War II precisely because it placed the focus on individuals rather than the divisions, corps and army groups of the conventional forces. I suspect that Tarantino's unhistorical tale accomplishes something similar: we know that Hitler was the single most important element in the Axis bid for power, so why not put him in the sights? We know that the Jews were some of the most hounded victims of the Nazis - and vigorously hunted them down after the war - so why not makes Jews the Nazi's face-to-face enemy? And why not tell this story with roughly a dozen characters, to keep things neat?

I think a second reason I wrote counterfactual stories as a child was that I wanted to be able to change things. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to have a role in the victories and reverse the defeats. But in writing historical fiction of the usual sort, characters' actions have to fit within the framework of what actually happened. They are prisoners, in a sense, of history; their actions are not allowed to change anything significant. Hitler may not have been a pilot who was shot down, nor was he ever ambushed by Jews in a Paris cinema, but these kinds of stories allow their authors, readers and viewers to partake in new outcomes, not simply reading about the defeat of evil in the past, but defeating it in new ways in the present. For a child in the third grade, the present age has rather few evils; if there are dragons to be slain, Nazis make excellent candidates. But even for adults, the evils of the modern age can be quite complicated. A story like Tarantino's may not provide detailed programs for solving modern ills, but it does provide moral clarity and the possibility that evil can be defeated again and again, in ever new ways. And that's not such a bad lesson, now is it?

On a related note, Sally Menke, Tarantino's editor on every film he has ever made, passed away the same day I happened to watch Inglourious Basterds. May she rest in peace.

Joseph the All Comely

2010-10-20T20:51:00.004-04:00

No, this is not another post about Joseph, the husband of Mary, one of my favorite saints. No, this is about a different Joseph, Joseph the Patriarch, otherwise known as Joseph the All Comely.

The other day I stumbled upon this intriguing image, and clicked through to find this Orthodox priest's blog.

Joseph, the son Jacob, who was sold into slavery by his brothers and rose to be a major official in Egypt, is venerated in a number of branches of Christianity. Eastern Catholics and many Eastern Orthodox commemorate him on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (two Sundays before Christmas) and on the Monday of Holy Week (known as Holy and Great Monday). The Armenian Apostolic Church venerates him - along with the other Holy Forefathers - in July, whereas the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church does so on 31 March.

The title "the All Comely" refers to Joseph's good looks - which got him in trouble with the wife of an Egyptian official - but even more to the beauty of his interior life. Similar images of him can be found here and here.

He Had the Right Stuff - 63 Years Ago

2010-10-14T04:59:00.002-04:00

On this day in 1947, Chuck Yeager set one of the most tantalizing aviation records, becoming the first man to travel faster than sound. Yeager had the good sense to name his rocket-powered plane, the Bell X-1, after his wife, the "Glamorous Glennis". (Unfortunately her parents did not have the good sense to spell her name with a Y, but neither she nor her husband can be held responsible for that.)

Two days before the flight, Yeager broke two ribs while riding horseback. Fearful of being pulled from the mission, he told only his wife and another pilot, Jack Riley. Riley cut a broom handle for Yeager to use to close the plane's hatch, since raising his arm that high over his head resulted in excruciating pain. For his achievement, Yeager won the Mackay, Collier and Harmon Trophies. Breaking the sound barrier on 14 October 1947 was but one episode in Yeager's long and distinguished career.

On a personal note, my father had been born just days before. I like to think of Yeager's flight as a kind of good omen, like being born under a lucky star.

The Right Stuff's depiction of Yeager's accomplishment can be seen below.