Rossetti's "A Better Resurrection"

Currently taped to my bathroom mirror is the poem, "A Better Resurrection," by the British poet Christina Rossetti. It is a poem about death and rebirth, one that underscores the weakness of the human condition and our need for grace. I think it is apt for autumn or winter, Advent or Lent.

Very slowly, I am working on memorizing the poem. One of the benefits of memorization is that you are able to carry within you a small scrap of civilization, a little bit of culture that you can call upon wherever you are, whenever you need it. Another benefit is that it forces you to think about every word, to go over the contents again and again. It is an invitation to deep reflection. If you don't care to memorize this one, let me suggest that you find another poem and give it a try.

A Better Resurrection

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

Christina Rossetti is an interesting individual. Among her poems is "In the Bleak Midwinter," which was set to music by Gustav Holst and is now a beloved Christmas hymn. Her father, Gabriele Rossetti was an Italian nobleman, poet, and revolutionary nationalist who was forced into exile in Britain. Her uncle was Lord Byron's physician. Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was a painter, illustrator, and translated.  (The portrait of Christina, left, was painted by him.)  Two other siblings were also writers. Quite the family!

Teaching Medieval History: How Should We Do It Today?

In an age when controversies and commentary happen at the speed of Twitter, I do not profess to have kept up with all the twists and turns in the saga of Rachel Fulton Brown, a medievalist at the University of Chicago. But, so far as I can tell, the story went something like this: A couple years ago Prof. Brown wrote a blog post noting that medieval white men had done some good. In light of recent white supremacist shenanigans, another medievalist left a comment on this old blog post, essentially asking Prof. Brown what she was doing to set the record straight and fight racism. Prof. Brown took issue with this perceived politicization and the whole thing descended from there.

There are three questions (possibly more) at issue here: How do we teach medieval history? How do we interact as professional historians? And how should history be employed to political ends?

I am currently teaching medieval history to high school students (specifically, a British history survey; the first semester is medieval, the second modern). My basic approach is to point out some of the good things going on - we discuss literary achievements, religious life, and the role of women such as Etheldreda and Leoba - while also acknowledging the shortcomings in justice, knowledge, and material standards of living. So far as I can tell, Prof. Brown has taken a similar approach. She has not claimed that medieval Europe was a paradise, but neither is she willing to suggest - as some in academia do - that the thousand years of medieval history are one long record of unbroken oppression. Likewise, she has not claimed that European or Western civilization is, in every respect, superior to all other cultures of the world; but neither has she characterized Western civilization as inherently bad. One may quibble with some details, but her overall approach is very sound history; to deviate from it would be a shame.

In lashing out at her critics, Prof. Brown has not always used kind or professional language. For that, she deserves a stern talking to from her department head. But calling for her job is a bit much. Her opponents should know that you cannot publicly criticize someone without expecting them to respond, possibly disproportionately, possibly in an unprofessional manner. This is unfortunate but not the end of the world.

But the crux of the controversy seems to be the role of history in contemporary debates. Some people argue that there is an imperative duty for all academics to wield their professional tools in a partisan manner; their central task, the argument goes, is to fight injustice. The error here is not in presuming that academics can weigh in on current debates. Rather, the error is two-fold: presuming that academics must engage in such debates and failing to appreciate the deep long-term contributions of academia to the cause of justice, without mentioning contemporary issues. Teaching students how to reason; how to think deeply about culture, politics, and religion; teaching them to express themselves clearly in speech and in writing - these are profound contributions to the common life of our country. Indeed, I would argue that over emphasis on the latest subject of protest risks undermining the very important work of fostering these necessary habits of thought.

So far as I can tell, Prof. Brown shares the my understanding of the role of history. She has not, to my knowledge, insisted that academics avoid all discussion of current controversies or politics; rather, she simply asks that her non-participation in such crusades not be held against her while she is busy carrying out these other essential tasks of history. I hope, for everyone's sake, this tempest ends soon so that we can stop the comment wars and get back to more important work.

"Under God" - On Its Necessity

In 1954 a joint resolution of Congress added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.  Among those pushing for this addition were the Knight of Columbus, an American Catholic fraternal organization.

To secularists, these words are anathema, an attempt to establish an official religion and overturn the First Amendment.  To others, these words nail America's flag to the mast of Christianity, underscoring that this country is, and always has been - at least in their view - a Christian nation.

I am both less confident and less interested than this latter party in America's Christian heritage.  This is not a debate I wish to enter today.  Rather, I would like to contend that the words "under God" are essential for Christians, or indeed probably any people of theistic faith, to say the pledge.

My hang up is the word "allegiance."  Christians owe their allegiance to Jesus Christ, their Lord and their God.  He is king of the universe and king of their hearts.  All Christians are, rather literally, monarchists.

This does not necessarily mean that Christians should be theocrats, endorsing government by bishops or other clergymen.  Indeed, Jesus Himself insisted that that which is Caesar's should be rendered to him.  But I would contend - as I tried to flesh out some years ago - that the republics we establish by the consent of the governed must exist under the larger kingship of Christ.  He has granted us, so to speak, the right and responsibility of looking after the affairs of our particular polities. But this does not change the fundamental reality that He is the ultimate lawgiver, judge, ruler, and commander.

So when a Christian - or, so far as I understand, a Jew or Muslim as well - is asked to swear allegiance, the natural question would be, "Do you mean allegiance in the ultimate sense, or in the local, political sense?  If you mean in the ultimate sense, my allegiance is to God alone."

Perhaps, you say, it is obvious that a political pledge is concerned with allegiance in the local, political sense, and not in the universal, theological sense.  Perhaps that should be obvious.  But across the centuries - and certainly in the 20th - regimes have made claims that exceed the political.  They have demanded that their own fiat should trump the consciences of citizens, that the good of the state is more important than the moral law.  In such cases, the political has claimed an unholy, idolatrous precedence.

Let me be clear: I do not think America is on the verge of becoming a totalitarian dictatorship along the lines of the Communists or the National Socialists.  But it never hurts to make clear, long in advance of any problems, the terms of our discussion.  And let us not forget that the dictatorship of relativism is quite strong and that it must be opposed, in culture and, yes, sometimes in politics.

Concerns about the First Amendment's establishment clause are not to be taken lightly, but neither should we overlook the fact that, absent these two little words, large swaths of America would rightly have serious questions about taking the Pledge of Allegiance in good faith.

Donald Trump & The Emperor's Clothes

At the end of his most recent post, Aaron dismisses the commentators on both sides of the party divide hyperventilating about this year's presidential election as an "extraordinary crisis." But, while Aaron certainly has a valid point about the ubiquitous hyperbole in our political discourse, I think he actually missed a good opportunity to examine why Donald Trump is such a polarizing figure and really may represent a turning point in our politics, especially for the relationship between conservative Christians and the Republican party.

Donald Trump, in his blunt, outspoken (not to mention "vulgar") way, has been able to expose the problem of political correctness in a way no other politician has done in the last 25 years. Before this year it was practically verboten to speak about certain topics, much less advocate for certain positions. The most obvious issues all have to do with Trump's "America First" platform: mass immigration, unfavorable trade agreements, and endless foreign wars. (Another key issue would be his opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement.)

On each of these issues Trump is smashing idols of both the left and the right, as we generally conceive them in America. This is the more substantive reason why--and not just because of his objectionable style--that the GOP establishment fought so fiercely and for so long to prevent his nomination. Trump chose for the ground to fight on issues where there was a broad consensus between the Republican and Democratic parties that was opposed by a large proportion of the country. For instance, on immigration, he has shown that much of the country is deeply dissatisfied with current immigration policy (which is basically just "let them all stay here if they manage to get in"). The Democratic Party favors changing the composition of the electorate in order to dilute the European Christian heritage of the United States; but the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Republican Party favors importing cheap labor for its constituency. This means that both parties are supporting a policy that artificially suppresses wages for workers born and raised in America. On the issue of foreign policy, Trump is the first and most prominent Republican (that I can think off of the top of my head, at any rate) to question all the wars we have been fighting since September 11, 2001; most mainstream Republicans were in thrall to the neoconservatives' push for regime change across the globe, just like the Democrats' presidential nominee is.

What confuses and frightens so many conservative Republicans about this election is that it took such a thoroughly disagreeable man as Donald Trump to attack the bipartisan consensus on so many important issues and actually restate positions that are more conservative than those of the GOP's establishment. He has discredited the party's current economic policy, which seems to be an unintelligent re-hashing of Manchester Liberalism's insistence on laissez faire, with a few concessions to special interests mixed in to spice things up. On foreign policy, Trump, though far from perfect himself, at least recognizes that most of what the U.S. has done in the past 20 years has been counterproductive and the result of a hubristic, Wilsonian desire to transform the Middle East one country at a time with an invasion and a few years of occupation, willfully blind to millennia of internecine slaughter there.

I could continue in this vein and analyze all the separate issues that have emerged in this election--and they are important. But here at the Guild Review we have another concern, which is just as, if not more, pressing than all those issues: What effect will this election have on the life of Christians (particularly conservative Christians) in the United States? Will he usher in a revival of Christian morality in our country, or will he at least stem the onslaught of the liberal, anti-Christian forces gaining strength in America?

Donald Trump, it must be said, has actually done conservative Christians a great service. He has exposed us as "losers," to use one of his favorite insults. We had no idea, but we really were losers!

In the last couple decades conservative Christians have pinned their hopes for at least a modest Christian renewal in this country on the Republican Party but have nothing to show for it except a few fruitless wars in the Middle East, more mass immigration from parts of the world that are culturally very different from the U.S., and more suffocating political correctness (especially on sexual issues). And now we are being asked to support for president a man who does not care at all about social conservatism! This is a man who has enjoyed flaunting in the New York tabloids his various girlfriends and wives (including his most recent wife who did nude lesbian shoots before she met The Donald). In the past few months he has had to work very hard just to pretend that he cares about abortion. And on the specific issue of Christianity, he admitted to the nation that he could not even fake being a Christian, and one of the most prominent speakers on the last night of the Convention, Peter Thiel, told the Party not to get "distracted" by culture wars.

The best we could hope for from Trump, then, is a general policy of laissez faire or maybe him throwing us a bone to keep us from whining too much. This means that the real challenge for conservative Christians from this point forward is twofold. First, we must admit that we supported many Republican positions that really may not have been that conservative or that Christian, and that Trump is right in some important ways. Second, we will have to find new way to fight for conservative Christian social issues now that it is clear that the Republicans are not really willing to make them a priority and that liberals appear to have gained the upper hand for the foreseeable time to come.

I wish I could offer a solution here, but these are all issues that I still need to ponder, and which don't have any simple solutions. Most importantly, though, these issues require us to honestly ask whether we have been duped, and what we plan to do about it.

Finally, as a bonus for readers who made it all the way to the end and who are wondering how I could think this way, I am providing two links to pieces by writers who have a generally similar outlook but can express some of these concerns better than I can: R.R. Reno's "Why I'm Anti-Anti-Trump" and Rod Dreher's "Trump & The God Vote."

The Church on War and Peace

Like the previous post, this column originally appeared on the Truth & Charity Forum as part of their series on electoral issues.


The Catholic Church’s teachings regarding war and peace are challenging. While we happily affirm the general superiority of peace over war, violence has become so commonplace–abroad, on our streets, and in our entertainment–that it seems inevitable. We have accepted it as a problem to be managed and not an evil to abhor. But the Church calls us to a sharper moral awareness, one which actively strives for the good of peace, while permitting, in very limited circumstances, defensive warfare. Leaders and everyday citizens alike need to rediscover the mind of the Church in this matter.

The Good of Peace and the Evil of War

The Bible lavishly praises peace, which produces prosperity (Is 48:19, 54:13), takes away fear (Lev 26:6), and brings about joy (Pr. 12:20). The prophet Isaiah described Jesus as the Prince of Peace (9:5), a vision echoed by St. Paul (Eph 2:14-16). St. John Paul II explained that Christianity ushers in “a new model of the unity of the human race,… [a] supreme model of unity, which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons.” Inspired by the peace of Christ and the unity of the Trinity, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches that “working for peace can never be separated from announcing the Gospel.”

Vatican II reminded us that “peace is not merely the absence of war,” as contemporary society often understands it, frequently maintained by nothing more than a balance of power. Rather, peace is the order of tranquility. Recent popes have made clear that peace is predicated on respect for human rights, pursuit of justice, and the fostering of “a true culture of peace.” But even justice is not sufficient. In our fallen world of sin and injury, “true and lasting peace is more a matter of love than of justice,” as Pope Pius XI reminded us in 1922.

Just as the Bible praises peace, it clearly teaches that violence is the fruit of sin, a rupturing of the harmony that God created (cf. Gen 1:4-31, 4:1-16). The Church forcefully teaches that “violence is evil…, that violence is unworthy of man.  Violence is a lie,” as John Paul II put it. “Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings.”  Thus, any recourse to violence–and the Church does permit such recourse, in limited circumstances–must be understood as part of a larger failure of morality and of statecraft.

Waging Just War

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that states which have been attacked by foreign aggressors have the right–indeed the duty–to defend their people, even to the point of waging war. Likewise, the Compendium, following the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, explains that “it is legitimate [for those being oppressed] to resist authority should it violate in a serious or repeated manner the essential principles of natural law.” Nevertheless, it goes on to explain, “There can be many different concrete ways this right [of resistance] may be exercised; there are also many different ends that may be pursued,” ranging from legal changes to revolution or revolt.

In order for war to be legitimate, the Catechism identifies several conditions which must be met:

The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain. Paul VI noted that recourse should only be made to arms when there is a “manifest, longstanding tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good.” Thus the Compendium specifically notes that “engaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions.”

All other means of putting an end to [the damage] must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. The Church encourages “general, balanced and controlled disarmament.” While this may, in the long term, reduce conflict, arms control negotiations are apt to prove fruitless in the face of imminent hostilities. But merely because this tool cannot solve all problems does not mean that it is useless or that Catholics can simply lay it aside. In the short term, states have other tools to be tried or considered before war; among these the Compendium makes particular mention of sanctions. States can also employ both traditional and public diplomacy, while individuals and groups can engage in passive resistance in the economic, cultural, and political realms.

There must be serious prospects of success. The Church frequently warns of the propensity for violence to beget additional violence. The Compendium describes war as “an adventure without return” that “creates new and still more complicated conflicts.” Thus, any recourse to arms must be supported by robust diplomacy and intelligence, to adequately understand the situation, coupled with vigorous efforts to contain the conflict and ultimately bring about peace.

The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The Church has long taught that a just cause (jus ad bellum) is insufficient to make a war just; it must be accompanied by just conduct (jus in bello). As the Second Vatican Council put it, “the mere fact that war has unhappily begun” does not “mean that all is fair between the warring parties.” The Catechism teaches that “non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely” and that soldiers are obligated to disobey orders to commit genocide or other crimes against humanity. “The violation of human dignity can never be justified by military necessity or political strategy,” John Paul warned.

In addition to just wars waged by states, the Compendium also teaches that “the international community as a whole has the moral obligation to intervene on behalf of those groups whose very survival is threatened or whose basic human rights are seriously violated. As members of an international community, States cannot remain indifferent.”  Should all other methods prove fruitless, John Paul noted that it is “legitimate and even obligatory” in such circumstances, “to take concrete measures to disarm the aggressor.”  While such actions should be taken in accordance with international law, the Compendium clarifies that claims of national sovereignty alone do not suffice to prevent such international intervention.

Working for Peace

Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mt 5:9).  As the Compendium reminds us, “peace is built up day after day” and is the duty of everyone.  In the spirit of subsidiarity, peace should be “a value rooted deep within the heart of every person. In this way it can spread to families and to the different associations within society until the whole of the political community is involved.” Authentic development–which includes not only economic concerns but also political, cultural, and spiritual–is one of the primary means by which peace is promoted, removing many of the underlying causes of war.

While admitting the occasional permissibility of war, the Compendium teaches that “the contemporary world too needs the witness of unarmed prophets, who are often the objects of ridicule.” Such individuals might be clergy or laity, missionaries or diplomats, journalists or aid workers. When thinking about both our everyday engagement with the international community and our prosecution of war, we must not only allow a place for such voices, but even encourage them and incorporate them into broader policies, lest we risk forgetting that just war is an exception and not the Christian norm.

Ultimately, the Christian search for peace is not simply a diplomatic or humanitarian effort, though it includes these. Jesus tell us, “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give” (Jn 14:27). We are reminded that “true peace is made possible only through forgiveness and reconciliation.”  This is something that requires supernatural grace. For man, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible (cf. Mt 19:26). This is our hope and our calling amidst a broken world.

The Church on Politics: Solidarity and Subsidiarity

With a fever pitch of political debate swirling about the various primary races, I thought it was worth reposting here a column that I wrote for the Truth & Charity Forum last month, as part of their larger series on election issues.

Solidarity and Subsidiarity

Much of contemporary political discourse consists of a debate between two camps: those who argue, “We need to do something about…” and those who contend that, “It’s not the government’s responsibility to…” The Catholic Church teaches that each approach, by itself, is inadequate. Ideologies derived from such sentiments should not be the yardstick of Catholic political activity. Rather, the Church presents to us two principles – solidarity and subsidiarity – which, together, provide a balanced and holistic means of thinking about political and social topics.

Solidarity is not a “feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 38). Nor is it simply interdependence, which is a circumstance in which we find ourselves, whether we like it or not (CSDC, 193). Rather, solidarity is an active concern for the good of society as a whole, as well as all of its individual members. Because all men are equal in “dignity and rights”, (CSDC, 192) all men have a legitimate claim on our concern.

In the life of Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, we have the ultimate model of solidarity: a God who stoops to become one of us, “like us in all things but sin” (Heb 4:15). He “takes on the infirmities of his people, walks with them, saves them and makes them one” (CSDC, 423). Jesus teaches us not to lord over our neighbors, but to love them, for when we love our neighbors we love Him (Mt. 20:25, 25:40). In the light of Jesus’ concern for all humanity, we discover that society itself, “despite all its contradictions and ambiguities, can be rediscovered as a place of life and hope” (CSDC, 196). As Christians, we are called to embrace society.

But human society is a broken place. Solidarity requires that we overcome the “structures of sin” which divide society and replace them with new structures that embody a “firm and persevering determination to [seek]… the common good” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 36, 38). St. John Paul II warned that the path toward overcoming structures of sin “is long and complex, and what is more it is constantly threatened because of the intrinsic frailty of human resolutions and achievements, and because of the mutability of very unpredictable and external circumstances. Nevertheless, one must have the courage to set out on this path, and, where some steps have been taken or a part of the journey made, the courage to go on to the end” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 38). The Church reminds us that we are “debtors of the society of which [we] have become part” (CSDC 195). Culture, scientific knowledge, and other goods – both material and immaterial – have been produced and shared with us by the rest of humanity, across generations and often across borders. Thus, solidarity is not an act of generosity on our part toward the less fortunate, but an act of justice.

Any Catholic thinking seriously about politics must bear in mind our fraternal concern for all mankind and the concrete ways in which it can be realized. The Church demands no less.

Complementing this teaching on solidarity is the doctrine of subsidiarity. Pius XI explained subsidiarity in this way: “It is an injustice,… a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do” (Quadragesimo Anno, 203). Or, as John Paul put it, “Needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need” (Centesimus Annus, 48).

The Church’s long-standing affirmation of subsidiarity is rooted in her concern for families and the various local associations which naturally arise in human society (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1882). Such relationships among individuals promote creativity, strengthen society, and are the basis on which higher forms of social activity are built (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 15; Centesimus Annus, 49). Thus, the Church clearly teaches that the state should not impinge upon the legitimate freedom and responsibility of smaller bodies (CSDC, 186). While still affirming the importance of solidarity and of state support to local institutions, John Paul cautioned that overly centralized social programs can become dominated by bureaucracy, rather than fraternal concern, and, like big business monopolies, sap individuals and local organizations of their energy (Centesimus Annus, 48). Even when the state must carry out functions which it alone can provide, these “must not continue any longer than is absolutely necessary,” so that smaller associations are safeguarded (CSDC, 188).

Rather than simply offering a negative message – that the state should mind its own business – Christian subsidiarity should be understood as a call to strengthen and enliven local institutions, among them families, parishes, school boards, small business associations, artists guilds, charitable groups, and more. Such groups must be reminded that, though largely private in nature, they serve a broader function for the good of society (CSDC, 187). They are the primary means by which we fulfill our duties of solidarity. When parishes house the homeless, local businesses offer training to immigrants, or fraternal organizations raise money for their neighbors harmed by natural disasters, they are simultaneously living out both solidarity and subsidiarity.

This is the mindset of the Church. Though similar, at points, to some elements of contemporary political ideology, it is markedly different in its overall outlook, which is rooted in the dignity of individuals and our common good, which is ultimately found in God. Catholics voters, bombarded by increasingly shrill demands on their allegiances, would do well to take solidarity and subsidiarity to heart as they seek to provide faithful witness in the political and social sphere.

Auden's "September 1, 1939"

Earlier this year I discovered W. H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939," thanks to an article in the Financial Times. The poem records Auden's reaction to the news that the Germans had invaded Poland. I found the text at this website. You can also find comments on some of the more esoteric lines here.

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

My Short Reading List - Foreign Policy

As you might have guessed, I am a bibliophile.  I collect not only physical books but also lists of them: favorite books of various genres, books I recommend, books I'd like to read.  At one point my Amazon Wish List fulfilled this last function.  In some sense it still does.  But over the last several years this Amazon list has grown far faster than I could possibly keep up with.  It has been subdivided into various daughter lists, each of which now grows at a similarly impossible pace.  It is no longer primarily a collection of titles I would like to own or even read any time soon; rather, it is home to various titles I would like to remember for various reasons, mostly because they come strongly recommended by authorities I trust (though, admittedly, often very diverse authorities).

Hoping that perhaps others could make use of this conglomeration, even if I can do so only rarely, I have decided to share these lists here, for your perusing pleasure, in several installments, beginning with foreign policy.  I think you'll find them a far-flung bunch.  Perhaps you'll see something of interest to you and pick it up.  If you do, please, let me know what you thought.  And if you've already read some of these titles, likewise, please, share a short review.


Military History, pre-1900.  So vast is my interest in military history that I eventually had to bifurcate it.  This list runs the gammut from the ancient world, through the medieval period, all the way to the likes of the American Civil War.  It includes Michael Decker's The Byzantine Art of War, William Dalrymple's Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42, Robert Tonsetic's Special Operations in the American Revolution, and others.

Military History, 1900-present.  This list is my natural intellectual home.  My dissertation on the origins of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) included discussions of conflicts in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia in the four decades preceding the Second World War and how lessons from those conflicts were applied by the Allies.  This list covers similar ground.  It's heavy on the Second World War and the British Empire in the 20th century (yes, including decolonization).  It includes a look at the Polish-Soviet War, studies of the role of the US Navy in the Allied Intervention against the Bolsheviks and on the Yangtze in the 1930s, several works on Japan and its war in China, and a history of the Stauffenberg family, one member of which tried to assassinate Hitler (about whom I have written).  Other intriguing reads on this list include David French's The British Way of Counter-Insurgency and an account of Karen rebels in Burma (for whom I have a soft spot).  The list also includes works on the Global War on Terror.

Diplomacy & International Affairs.  This list includes theoretical works (such as The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security), books on historical case studies (including Foreign Affairs and the Founding Fathers and The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the Treaty of Berlin), and biographies of both American and foreign statesmen (among them Castlereagh, T. E. Lawrence, and the little-known Frank McCoy).  You'll see that, among other topics, I'm intrigued by Southeast Asia.

Intelligence.  Much of this list's potential material is covered in the above categories, but it includes a few intriguing titles, some critical (e.g. The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture), some historical (The Archaeologist Was a Spy), others decidedly non-Western (Intelligence Elsewhere: Spies and Espionage Outside the Anglosphere).

Texts That Will Save Civilization

During World War II, Karol Wojtyła helped found the underground Rhapsodic Theater, believing that, so long as Polish culture existed, the Polish state could eventually stage a comeback against the Nazis (and subsequently Soviets). But without a culture, there would be no soul left to animate the body politic.

That got me thinking about the defining characteristics of cultures, ours in particular. One of the curious wrinkles is that the most important texts in one sense may not be the most valuable. A work with which people can engage - and I realize that engagement is culturally conditioned; different people interact with texts and one another in different ways, including dramatic performances, poetry readings, morning newspapers, sacred proclamations - may be more important than the intellectual insights of a particularly erudite, but inaccessible, text.

We come then to a thought experiment: If our own country were overrun by tyrants, which works would you preserve for the sake of preserving our particular form of civilization? And why?

A bit Fahrenheit 451, I'll admit. The one parameter I'd place is this: we might as well assume that the tyrants of this little scenario are either foolish enough to permit the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, or so thorough in their thuggery as to prove them untenable for salvaging. There's no point filling our list with obvious choices; I think unusual ones provide far more food for thought.

One problem I have in approaching this question is how to define civilization, our civilization. American civilization? Western civilization? Christendom? Which of these is the most serviceable category? To which do I feel the most connection? Which is most worth saving? After all, I have multiple identities. My Catholic faith does not fit neatly into my American nationality; indeed, for much of American history, many people would have said the two were at odds. My status as an Anglophone (and, yes, Anglophile) links me to a variety of countries around the globe, though America initially defined itself in opposition its Anglophonic cousins.

I have no easy answers to these conundrums, at least not today, though I do have a few texts to offer for discussion:

Homer, The Iliad. This work is foundational to Western literature for a good reason. It does not simply come before later works; it engages with a variety fundamental questions about pride, friendship, free will, heroism, and loss. Little surprise, then, that G. K. Chesterton commented that, "if the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die." Or, as my friend Wondrous Pilgrim explained, "Hundreds of generations have read this and wept. Who am I to argue with them. (And I've wept as well!)."

Shakespeare. When considering the Bard's work, I must confess the inability to choose a single work, or even a single class of works. The histories exert a strong pull on me, not only because I love all things historical, but also because so many deal with questions of public life. But the comedies may prove just as insightful on this account - who would argue that The Tempest is not, among other things, about politics? - while also offering a lightheartedness that may be especially valuable in difficult times. Moreover, I think that drama offers two virtues worth mentioning. First, it is something one does. Whether one actually acts it out or simply reads it in a group, it invites a form of social participation beyond mere reading. Second, and related, drama invites discussion. The conversation over food and drink which follows a performance of Richard III or Julius Caesar may be some of the best civic discourse one can find.

Russell Kirk, Roots of American Order. In some ways, including this work is a cheat. Kirk surveys the origins of the American way of life, reaching from ancient Israel and Greece, through Rome, medieval Christendom, and the English liberal tradition, and on to the American Founding, all the way to Abraham Lincoln. Thus, in one vast sweep, this work encompasses the ideas and cultures of many other works which might appear on this list. At times I suspect Kirk indulges in a bit of wishful thinking, romantically claiming connections which are not quite so clear. But there is much to value in the history here surveyed, and even if America was not founded with all this in mind, modern Americans would do well to consider it.

G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man. Doubtless, this work benefited from the fact that I recently re-read it. But Chesterton's survey of human civilization, from its earliest origins to the Christian age, a survey which greatly influenced C. S. Lewis, makes a number of important arguments regarding the place of religion in society. Moreover, Chesterton reminds us that civilizations can progress but also regress, a worthwhile caution. Most importantly, Chesterton points to the supernatural power of God, which can reanimate humanity in ways even the best of merely natural civilizations cannot. And he writes with a very enjoyable flourish.

Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail. I have written about this letter before. I think it is worth including here for three reasons: (1) it gives a glimpse of America in the latter half of the 20th century, (2) it draws extensively on the Western intellectual tradition, demonstrating how it can be applied to contemporary issues, and (3) it encourages reflection on how the tools of faith and reason should be applied to political injustice, certainly a worthwhile topic in difficult times.

Walter Miller, Canticle for Leibowitz. This is another work I have praised elsewhere. Although a very different genre, like Letter from Birmingham Jail it invites consideration of how people of faith many carry on in difficult times. This novel of monks in post-apocalyptic America also raises important questions about how the remnants of civilization are preserved, suggesting that the work of preservation should be carried on even in the absence of tangible benefits, though preservation should never be assumed to be complete nor should it become an end in itself.



Suggestions for other inclusions?

Yes, Virginia, There Is Metaphysics

Although most commemorations of the jolly old elf, at least in the US, are past, the Church continues to celebrate Christmas. In that spirit, I want to share a bit of text I am ashamed to say I only recently read: the 1897 editorial from the New York Sun which includes the famous line, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

I recall, as a child, watching one of the films of the same name. I do not recall the precise age at which this occurred, but it was one of those awkward years of elementary school during which most of the students had come to discover the truth about Santa, but several children - frankly, the slower and more childish - still persisted in their belief. This placed teachers, administrators, and the unbelieving majority of students in the position of having to profess at least agnosticism, in spite of their own better knowledge. In such a climate, my young rationalist self found this film and its catch phrase a poor rearguard defense of ignorance, a blatant lie in the face of the evidence.

But a few weeks ago a Dominican student brother brought to my attention the actual text of the Sun editorial. It takes Santa as its ostensible subject, but is about much more. Specifically, it is a defense of the idea that there may be more than that which can be measured or physically identified. I find this terribly refreshing, particularly in an age which frequently indulges in a rationalist denial of all that is immaterial.

To be fair, this editorial offers an incomplete argument. As my wife points out, belief in things unseen, any and all manner of things, can be terribly dangerous. Such unseen objects of belief, in addition to being false, can be horrifically evil. Thus, let us not fall into the fideist belief that belief itself, irrespective of the essential truth of its object, is virtuous. Nevertheless, I think the editorial, now more than a century old, may offer some interesting opportunities to engage with our culture and raise important questions about the limits of our knowledge what lies behind the physical world.

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun.

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Tradition & Historical Consciousness: A Few Random Observations: Part One

Dear reader: I apologize in advance for the disjointed, rambling nature of my next two posts, but my vanity tells me that they are interesting enough and just barely coherent enough to merit publication here.

 Here at the Guild Review one of our abiding interests is the place of tradition in the modern world and in what way we can shape that tradition. The very idea of shaping tradition, however, may seem problematic to some. Most of us reading this blog, I assume, are Catholics, for whom the most important tradition is the deposit of faith, which was complete upon the death of St. John, from which nothing can be subtracted and to which nothing can be added; it can only be more perfectly understood and expressed by the Church. One is rightfully hesitant to shape that tradition; much safer simply to assist in handing on that deposit of faith to future generations unchanged. As graduates or friends of the University of Dallas, we went to college to learn from the tradition, not necessarily to “shape” it. It is arrogant in the extreme for a youth to think that he will revolutionize any particular field of learning; much better to listen in respect to our elders before setting on a lifelong journey of learning. Finally, the phrase “shaping tradition” also smacks of poorly-disguised novelty, usually imposed upon an indifferent group of people to encourage more “enthusiasm.” How often have we heard school administrators trying to win support for an unpopular program by proclaiming that “the tradition begins now”?

But, hopefully, all of us here would recognize that there is a legitimate place for all of us to “shape” our tradition, to one degree or another. Unfortunately, however, we tend to think of tradition as a culture’s or religion’s roots in history and not as the flower and fruit of the plant which spread the seed and preserve that plant for the future. To understand tradition and how we should shape we need to understand its relation to historical consciousness.

More precisely, we need to develop a historical consciousness that is in harmony, not in conflict, with tradition. Christianity can supply us with that proper understanding of historical consciousness and tradition. In more primitive cultures, tradition is opposed to historical consciousness in the form of myth. According to Mircea Eliade, in a pre-historical culture everything relates back to illud tempus, “that time” when the gods walked the earth. (Eliade uses the phrase “in illo tempore,” which he takes from the customary beginning of the Gospel in the Latin Mass: “At that time [Jesus]…”) Myths are concerned with origins. Any deviation from the example of the gods set forth in the myth is a sin.

Christianity clearly shares some of these qualities of myth. However, there are two crucial distinctions between Christianity and other ancient myths. The first is the distinction that Tolkien explained to C.S. Lewis in 1931: Christianity is a myth, but it is a true myth. And by “true” we of course mean “historically true.” Our God actually did create the world and then entered into that world and performed the actions that form the basis of our Christian myth. For Christians the origin with which we are concerned is not just the creation of the world, but also the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in history. But, as Catholics, each time we attend Mass, we also enter into what Eliade calls “mythical time”: we are present at the un-bloody renewal of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What happens at Mass is essentially the same event as happened on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago.

The second crucial distinction is that Jesus preached that he would come again at the end of time. He ends the history of this world by judging the living and the dead. Our actions on earth matter—we are not condemned to endless cycles of reincarnation. The time between our origin, redemption, and eschaton has a direction in which we are free to move closer to or further from God. Through the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Second Coming Christianity gives history a movement from beginning to end; eschatology transformed myth into history. Christianity gives history a shape; it is up to us—with God’s grace—to shape our Christian tradition within history.

But, how should a Christian shape a tradition? One way Christians have always shaped their tradition is by reclaiming their principles—their origins—in the creation, redemption, and continuing sanctification of the world. Every time a Christian meditates on the life of Jesus and ponders how to apply that true myth to his life he is shaping the tradition in his own life and those around him. But, Christianity also allows its followers to subject the principles of other cultures and religions to itself; everything that is good can be referred back to Jesus Christ in some way.

An example should make this second way of shaping tradition a bit clearer. In Scholasticism: Problems and Personalities of Medieval Philosophy, Josef Pieper depicts scholasticism as a twofold endeavor: to recover the learning of the ancient world and to synthesize it with Christianity. The barbarian invasions had devastated scholarship in the late Roman Empire and many authors have been lost in part, if not in whole. All this is well known. But, then, in a somewhat surprising move, Pieper compares the project of medieval theologians with the Great Books programs of mid-20th-century America. In both instances, there was sufficient source material, but this source material needed to be catalogued, understood, and finally synthesized. The cultures undertaking these projects were arguably intellectually underdeveloped and in need of spiritual roots to prepare them for them for the role they were to play on the world stage. Both projects sought to rescue the ancient wisdom from the barbarism of the present age.

However, there is one important difference between the intellectual atmospheres of these two periods that needs to be emphasized: in modern America, historical consciousness is far more developed than it was in medieval Europe. Until relatively recently in history, it was possible to be considered learned while having only a very general idea of the past; that is impossible now.

One key effect of this increased historical consciousness is to turn anachronisms into glaring errors. While increased historical consciousness is generally good, it can also overshadow the main point in a novel, a piece of art, or in philosophy. For instance, when he employs examples from etymology, St. Thomas Aquinas loves to explain the origin of the Latin word lapis (“stone”) as a compound of laedere (“injure”) and pes (“foot”). This etymology is, of course, incorrect. But, how many readers will lose trust in Aquinas once they find out inadequate his knowledge of historical linguistics was, even though it really has no bearing on his philosophy? Likewise, it can be more difficult to appreciate past works of art when we recognize their anachronisms. For instance, any visitor to Charlemagne’s cathedral in Aachen with even a minimal knowledge of the history of architecture will notice the incongruity between the original octagonal Romanesque chapel (and its distinct Byzantine influence), the high Gothic apse, and the Baroque side chapel (the Ungarnkapelle). Finally, certain ideas about art become laughable when viewed in their historical context. Opera, for example, began as a pet project of wealthy and learned Florentine noblemen who thought they were reviving ancient Greek music and drama, especially in the form of a singing chorus. This anachronism does nothing to affect the aesthetic value of any particular opera, but it may color moderns’ views of their forebears.

The Dangers of Other-Direction

OR

What Daycare and Prom Have in Common

Some of my co-workers have children in daycare.  At present, our son is not.  There are many sound arguments for placing children in such an arrangement, but I would instead like to address one fallacious argument.  Some people say they want to place their children in daycare to teach them good social skills, or - presented it its more striking opposite form - so that they don't turn out as unsocialized loner weirdos.

Sociability is a good thing so far as it goes, but as David Riesman points out in his 1950 classic The Lonely Crowd, sociability has its limits.  Riesman describes three, or rather, four, types of people.  Tradition-directed people live by the standards and customs of their culture, even if no other members of that group are around, or are even left alive.  Such people are virtually unknown in the modern industrialized experience.  The inner-directed person lives by the standards of a inner gyroscope spun up by his or her parents.  The other-directed person lives in accordance with the opinions of those around him or her.  As Riesman points out, a world of other-directed people can end up all trying to emulate one another, without anyone having a clear sense of purpose.  Hence the title.

I recently spoke with a social worker in the Federal City who said the young people she worked with precisely fit Riesman's description of contemporary other-direction.  They were utterly lacking in the drive and self-discipline which characterize the inner-directed person, instead constantly indulging their various whims.  However, these troubled youths were so other-directed that they could not even decide what it was they wanted, and thus frequently brought trouble on themselves in the course of seeking not their own desires, but the perceived desires of those around them.

Such a situation is not unique to difficult neighborhoods.  It should also be familiar to anyone who has considered the problem of high school proms.  As a student government faculty adviser once explained to me, no one wants to go to prom when no one is going to prom.  But once everyone is going to prom, everyone wants to go.  If one were to graph prom plans on the Y against time on the X, the result would be an inverted L: for a long time no one wants to go, then suddenly the zeitgeist shifts and interest soars.

This isn't really a post about daycare or prom; it's about that sudden shift in public attitudes.  The rapid turnover in fashions of all kinds - sartorial, dietary, technological - exhibits this phenomenon.  So too do American views on same-sex marriage.  As late as 2005, many polls showed that a majority of Americans - perhaps as much as two thirds - opposed same-sex marriage.  By 2012 a majority of Americans supported the recognition of such unions.  The pace of change has caught both supporters and opponents by surprise, prompting analysis among pundits and rapid position changes by politicians.  Let me suggest that this rapid change may be the result of our contemporary other-directed society.  Everyone now supports same-sex marriage because everyone supports same-sex marriage.

Opponents of same-sex marriage may rail against other-direction on this point, but other issues could be raised on which the left opposed the zeitgeist.  Rather than tallying partisan points, let me suggest that Americans of all political stripes should be concerned about this problem.

The answer is not to remove children from daycare or quit holding proms.  Rather, a solution begins first by recognizing the problem and then envisioning a solution.  I mentioned a few paragraphs ago that Riesman described four types of people.  Whereas the tradition-, inner-, and other-directed are all directed by other people, directly or indirectly, he posits a fourth kind who is not: the autonomous person.  Such a person makes decisions for him or herself.  If cultivating such autonomous reason is a difficult task - and surely it is - perhaps it can be tempered with a stern adherence to received values and a regard for traditional ways.  None of these are perfect guides which can guarantee a correct outcome, but at least they avoid the madness of the crowd.  It's something worth attempting.

Ernst Jünger on Technology (2)

In The Worker Jünger makes three key points about technology. Before going any further, however, I should add that while I disagree with Jünger’s positive evaluation of technology, I do agree in many respects with his analysis of technology.

The first point is the key to understanding Jünger’s analysis of technology: technology is “not a neutral power” (keine neutrale Macht). In most discussions of technology today, however, the key premise is exactly the opposite: technology is neutral, and everything depends on what use one makes of it. Indeed, this common starting-point makes some intuitive sense. Most people tacitly define technology as a machine or tool that gives us a method for doing X in the quickest, most effective way. Technology is simply a means to an end. Everybody wants to achieve their own ends, and they want to do so as soon as possible. If the same technology can be used to achieve two opposed ends, then the technology itself is neutral. By this view, the two opposing armies in a war have distinct ends, but both armies use guns. The guns themselves are neutral. It is the goodness, or evil, of the goal of the war which makes the guns either good or evil.

The best way to understand why technology is not neutral is through an analogy. On at least one occasion Jünger compares self-identification with technology to “mastering the language of the worker.” The idea is that technology pervades and shapes how we view the world, just as language does. This was certainly the case in Nazi Germany. Both Eric Voegelin and Josef Pieper laid great emphasis on the fact of the Nazis’ perversion of everyday language in the Third Reich. The importance of language should be obvious to any American who observes how PC language has penetrated into politics and academia in this country. Certain words that were in common use fifty years ago are now banned from polite conversation and neologisms deployed to change public opinion. When, for instance, was the last time a prominent politician or academic characterized sex acts between two members of the same sex as “sodomy”? Removing that term from the public vocabulary normalizes same-sex sex acts, as well as eliminates one more vestige of Christianity in our culture. (The exception proves the rule: One summer, while working on petitions for the involuntary commitment of sexually violent persons, I was struck by the number of times I came across the term “deviate sex” in the psychological reports.)

This does not mean that if technology is bad, then every discrete act that employs technology is necessarily bad. To take the analogy of language one step further, even if a language has become corrupted it is not evil to use that language at times. Or, to use a different analogy, even if a government has been thoroughly corrupted, not every action it takes is necessarily bad, though a government has tremendous power to shape its citizens’ worldviews and to implicate them in its crimes. And that is the important point for Jünger: technology is not neutral because it has a worldview of its own and shapes worldviews.

Second, technology has the power to shape worldviews because, as Jünger says, it has a “seductive logic” of its own, which is not a “pure” logic (keine Logik an sich)but one which leads to specific ends. The logic of technology alters our relationship to the world and to ourselves. For Jünger, the purpose of technology is to “mobilize matter.” (Note the similarity to Descartes’ desire to use science to make men “masters and possessors of nature.”) Matter becomes something that is to be put at the service of man or, for Jünger, the new man, the worker, so that the worker can attain power. The technological worldview demands submission of nature to man. The process of submitting nature to the worker’s rule does not end until the distinction between technology and nature is eliminated, until technology becomes our second nature. Technology must become something that seems obvious (a Selbstverständlichkeit) for the ordinary man. Indeed, Jünger goes one step further and says that the logic of technology will ultimately lead to the merger of man and machine.

This merger of man and machine no longer sounds as fantastic as it did when Jünger wrote The Worker. The manipulation of genes, the implantation of computer chips into the nervous system, the cloning of entire human beings—all of these may very possibly be realized within our lifetimes. And yet technology’s seductive logic has been at work among us for much longer with technologies that are much more familiar and that seem innocuous in comparison to modern biotechnology. For instance, mechanical clocks have been around for centuries. They were used in the Middle Ages primarily to help monks say the canonical hours at the correct time. However, clocks have ceased to be a tool which we use to measure time and are now machines that shape how we experience time in ways that are contrary to nature, such as standardized time zones and daylight savings time. Another example of the power of technology to make men conform to their machines is urban planning in the wake of the automobile. Most cities in the 20th century were laid out on the assumption that its inhabitants would be driving, rather than walking, through their streets. For those who live in big cities with rush hour traffic jams, the conception of how much time it will take to go somewhere depends on what hour one is leaving one’s house—the “distance” to one’s destination is further at rush hour.

Third, for Jünger technology is anti-Christian because it possesses its own “cultic origin” (kultischer Ursprung). Before dismissing this as mere hyperbole, one should at least consider an example of the cult of technology: Apple products. Apple’s laptops and phones are immediately identifiable because of their minimalistic, futuristic aesthetic. These devices have become objects of devotion among the masses of loyal Apple customers, much of whose success is due to the fact that they keep the modern worker connected to his job at all times. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, was practically canonized after his early death from cancer. (Part of this is due to the cult of the entrepreneur in America.)

But, even if it is true that technology has acquired certain cultic features in contemporary America, the question still remains: What exactly does it mean to say that technology has a “cultic origin”? The answer lies in the essence of religion. If technology has a “seductive logic,” and is a system capable of changing our relation to nature and to ourselves, it has a totalizing worldview. Just as Marxism is often characterized as a religion despite its atheism, so too the “technological way of thinking” can be called a religion because it subsumes widely varied areas of human activity under a general worldview.

If technology is a new cult, it necessarily sets itself at odds with Christianity. Jünger says that the orthodox Christian views technology as the “dominion of Satan.” And Jünger’s statement, while extreme, is defensible when we keep in mind that technology tries to eliminate nature or reconfigure it so that it changes in its very essence. When viewed this way, technology is another form of Gnosticism (as used in a broader way by Eric Voegelin): a deep-rooted dissatisfaction with creation that leads to the hubristic attempt to refashion the world.

Jünger in The Worker got many things wrong, and was in favor of many things a Christian should oppose. But, in some instances—and technology was one of them—his analysis should force us to consider some of our basic presuppositions about the modern world.

Ernst Jünger on Technology (1)

It is impossible to discuss the life and thought of Ernst Jünger briefly. Nearly 103 years old when he died in 1998, Jünger led an eventful life: he served with distinction as an officer in the German army in both world wars. He became known as a writer after World War I when he published his journals, In Storms of Steel. In the 1920’s he studied zoology, and in later life become an avid entomologist. He earned his living as a journalist until World War II, when he spent much of his time stationed in Paris. After the war, he moved to Wilflingen, but also continued to travel, often to Africa and Asia. Throughout his life he wrote about his varied experiences. Besides his wartime journals, Jünger also published an account of his early experiments with LSD, as well as a series of futuristic novels, most notably Eumeswil.

Jünger is a controversial figure because of his political views (as well as the delight he often takes in describing violence). Always a man of the right, he was a staunch opponent of the Weimar Republic. Today he is often grouped among the leaders of that amorphous movement in interwar German called the “Conservative Revolution,” who opposed the new democratic ethos and parliamentary system of government. One of his more ardent admirers in the 1920’s was Hitler, but after 1933 Jünger found polite ways to decline the dictator’s advances. The novel he published in 1939, On the Marble Cliffs, is usually interpreted as a disguised call to resistance against the Nazis. After World War II, he refused to fill out the British occupation authorities’ questionnaires about his political activities under Nazi rule and was therefore forbidden to publish. He moved to Wilflingen, in the French zone, to escape the British censors. After the war, he continued to oppose democracy. In his 1951 essay, Der Waldgang, Jünger develops a theory of resistance, implying that the Federal Republic of Germany needed to be resisted, just as the Nazis should have been resisted.

For most of his life Jünger elaborated his positions from a secular viewpoint. It was simply assumed that Christianity was dead and was merely of historical interest; any resistance to democracy must come from elsewhere. (This changed only late in his life—he converted to Catholicism when he was 101.) Jünger’s “conservative revolution” was essentially an anti-Christian conservatism, which he tried to elaborate in a few books, particularly The Worker, published in 1932.

The Worker is a difficult book to summarize because of its vagueness. (A decent summary of the main idea, though, can be found here.) Jünger sometimes explicitly refuses to give concrete examples of the social phenomena he is describing, instead giving tautological definitions and telling his readers that they must be blind not to see what he is pointing out. Of course, things which may have been clear to a German in 1932 are not necessarily clear to an American in 2012, especially when it requires plowing through pages of dense German prose. Essentially, Jünger is trying to give an outline of the new social form (Gestalt), the new type of man, he saw rising to predominance. The worker he describes is not a member of Marx’s proletariat or simply even a working man. Rather, he is a man for whom work is his form of existence, who lives in a “total work world.” (Incidentally, some of the phrases which Jünger employs in a positive sense are later used in a pejorative sense by Josef Pieper in Leisure the Basis of Culture.) Most importantly for this post, this new man, the worker, identifies with technology. For a significant portion of the book (§§ 44-57), then, Jünger tries to define technology as the way in which this new man realizes himself in history. What will follow soon are a few reflections on what Jünger had to say about technology, or rather reflections on technology occasioned by a reading of The Worker, since I make no guarantee that I have understood this book perfectly.

On Shared Experience

In ages past, most people enjoyed shared experiences with their neighbors. Many lived in small towns or villages. They often worked the same occupation (agriculture), or at least encountered one another's occupation on a regular basis (e.g. the farmer visiting the blacksmith). Many countries enjoyed a common religion, (and some still do). A great many people were of the same racial and linguistic background as those around them. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, men shared the experience of obligatory national military service.

As a result of shared experiences, people could implicitly understand one another; they shared common terminology, values, and ways of viewing the world. Except within small towns, most Americans no longer enjoy a shared set of experiences. Christianity occupies a shrinking share of America's religious pie, and that Christian chunk is less homogeneous than it once was, due to both the increased proportion of Catholics as well as the ongoing fractures within Protestantism. Men of various backgrounds are no longer drafted together. It is no longer a safe assumption that the folks next door speak English. And Americans are increasingly expected to interact with foreigners abroad.

None of these are bad things, but all of them chip away at our shared experiences. What do we all have in common? Reference to elements of popular culture such as Facebook might be your best bet for a common experience. ("It's like when you discover that someone has inexplicably unfriended you...") The problem here is that most such elements, although they put us in touch with our neighbor, leave us cut off from the past. Grandpa's diary, devoid of references to Facebook, will remain foreign, even if Facebook users in Japan no longer are.

What are the consequences of having lost our shared experiences? One of the most obvious are the ways in which different groups completely misunderstand each other with regard to politics (a problem further complicated by the enthymemic nature of discourse). Try placing a professor of performance studies from a major coastal university in a small town in the Deep South and see how well he or she can discuss politics with the locals...

How then are we to understand one another?

It seems to me there are two clear solutions: (1) Increase our shared experiences or (2) Increase our capacity for working across diverse experiences.

The latter is the option most often embraced. But while society has gone to great lengths to affirm that one who views the world different is not ipso facto in moral error, I worry that we have done far less to help people actually view the world in different ways. This is, essentially, an intellectual problem, one requiring intellectual dexterity. Can one employ multiple frameworks with regard to the same set of data? Can one recognize that different terms may have the same meaning, or that the same term may have multiple meanings? Some of this falls into the realm of contemporary "diversity" training (to use that very baggage-laden term). But much of this does not, since intellectual dexterity is not the same thing as tolerance. The intellectually dexterous may recognize that the person who uses the name Yahweh and the person who uses the name Allah may be referring to the same thing, God. This is the tolerant or integrative understanding of difference. But the intellectually dexterous might also recognize that when two people use the term God they may actually be referring to two very different things. This is the intolerant or divisive understanding of difference. Some differences are superficial, while others are profound; alas, so far as I can see society writ large simply tells itself that they are all acceptable, and in so doing does little to really help ourselves navigate a world of people with whom we have little in common.

Alternatively, we may increase those shared experiences. This can be done in a plethora of ways. Exchange programs of various sorts do just that. But I would like to consider another avenue, that of engaging with the great cultural icons of our various civilizations. Reading classic works of literature - or, for that matter, viewing famous art and architecture, listening to major works of music, or watching great films or performances of well-known drama - provides a set of reference points which one may share with people of distant lands, or distant ages.

The appeal I make here is not exactly for more Great Books curricula. In the first instance, schooling only occupies a small portion of most people's lives, so merely appealing to schools to teach from "the canon" (whatever that might be) is only a start. Going further, our everyday lives should be imbued with the culture of our fellow man, placing us in dialogue with a broader community. In a further departure from the typical arguments for the Great Books, I do not here contend that historically well-known works are inherently more true or virtue-forming than obscure or contemporary works. (Indeed, the Great Books, in their diversity, can give rise to relativism.) But if we are imperfect, finite thinkers, a degree of humility is required in our search for truth, and that humility demands that consider the insights of others, that we look for giants on whose shoulders we may stand. Participation in a wide-ranging cultural milieu is no guarantee one will find worthy guides to the truth, but I think it is a first step. Finally, while most apologists for the Great Books limit themselves to the writings of Western civilization, I would advocate the inclusion of the cultural highlights of all the world's major civilizations, with one caution. Cultural eclecticism, the phenomenon of taking bits and pieces of various cultures and stitching them together in a way which has no real integrity, poses a real danger to shared experience in that various cultural items, stripped from their larger context, lose their value as connectors. The films of Akira Kurosawa, for example, are best understood not by themselves, but in conjunction with the plays of Shakespeare, the history of Japan, the world of psychology, and that very American genre of film, the Western.

So go crack open that Bible, watch some Shakespeare - his plays are all over Netflix Instant - or simply light a bonfire. You wouldn't be the first person to take up such practices. And you just might find that, in so doing, you have a little more in common with your fellow man.