Chaste Spousal Love: Key to Western Civilization

Chaste love between a husband and wife is truly a beautiful thing to behold! It wants to call forth from us an aspiration to become our truest, highest, noblest selves. It has a hidden radiance within it, and when it shines into the hearts of others who are able to notice its beauty it can truly transform a culture for the better. This is not automatic. I am speaking of a spousal love that has its source in the pierced heart of Christ. It's at the very center of all that was and is best and most transcendent in Western civilization. Lord, may it not be too late for this now largely hidden, pure flame to be kindled again.

Is There Any Purpose for the Male Urge to Fight? Violent Anarchy or Heroic Virtue--Which Shall We Choose?

I got to thinking about this topic because of a very good February, 2011 article by Dan Lord at the Crisis Magazine web site, "What Is Fight Club?" I recommend reading it.

I saw the movie (it was released in 1999) perhaps two years ago and was quite intrigued by it. It is violent, and definitely not a family-friendly type of film. I would only recommend it to someone on an individual basis depending on the person. As Lord says, it is "a dark film about existentially desperate young men struggling to create meaning by way of consensual fistfights and controlled anarchy." Lord further tells us that the characters, "are reacting against a contemporary society that lacks a soul. . . . For a male audience, the film is an exhilarating reminder that there is something vital missing in their lives. It reminds them that they have suffered emasculation at the hands of a soft and lazy culture."

I agree. While the film is disturbing and rather nihilistic, nonetheless, I have to admit as a man that there is indeed something mysteriously attractive about it as a man.

While I do think there is truth to Lord's remark about a certain disgust at least in some men--perhaps hidden even to themselves--for suffering emasculation, "at the hands of a soft and lazy culture," there is more to the picture. Near the end, he concludes, "Sheer suppression was never the answer to man’s violent impulse. Letting God purify it and direct it toward its proper end is the only answer. It isn’t a chaotic fight club men need: It’s the Catholic Church." He is on to something here.

I very much agree. Contemporary Western society (and, forgive me, especially some women in Western society, perhaps especially urban professional women with degrees) seems to have largely lost the ability to place the male urge for a fight into its proper and healthy context--the fight against evil.

It's hard to even write this today, the fight against evil, without feeling a little silly. I'm actually very serious. But this indicates how far away from a traditional Christian perspective we have slipped as a culture.

There is truly real evil in the world. It is just as dark and destructive as it has ever been. It wants to destroy society, destroy human life, destroy peace, destroy God's image in the world--which is the human person transformed by grace.

There really is an interior, natural urge in men--especially evident in young boys!--to fight. But--and this is very important for women to understand--this urge is NOT simply a general urge to fight anything, for any reason. Boys (especially young boys where this urge is closest to its naturally more innocent state before being pulled in a dark direction by the world) do not, generally speaking, want to fight simply for the sake of fighting. The urge in young boys is not to fight for no reason at all. They want to fight--for the sake of what is good! They want to fight against evil, against the forces of darkness!

Yes, we men I would claim without apology, have a natural drive to fight. But despite the claims of contemporary culture to the contrary, this drive is NOT generic. It's an urge with a purpose--a reason--a desired destiny. We want (just as small boys) to fight against evil. We want to defend what we know is good and true and beautiful. We want, if and when appropriate, to be able to defend our families--to keep our wives and children safe. We want to be the mythical prince slaying the dragon who is trying to eat the princess. It is a very primal and deep instinct. It is very connected to simply being a man at a very root level. This is why, I believe, it is one of the earliest and most commonly and easily observed differences between boys and girls at a young age. The young boys (for the most part) are the ones running around with pretend swords raucously engaging in mock battles. There is a natural attraction to this in boys that is largely lacking in girls (at least to the same intensity). The attraction of boys to superheros is the very same desire in action. Superheros have a purpose. They fight against evil, they protect others from being harmed by evil forces that will harm and destroy if they are not aggressively and forcefully opposed.

But we live in a culture, more and more, that takes this healthy urge to fight for what is right and good and true, and calls it bad without qualification. It no longer knows what it is for. It squelches it, stuffs it away and is embarrassed about it. The only barely acceptable place for it to still be on display is in organized sports. But even there, with more and more restriction.

So, what happens? How does the culture respond to the denigration of men's proper desire to fight? Fight Club, for all its brutality and nihilism, is a powerful symbol of the deep inner drive to fight in the hearts of men. And it also shows in a fantastical way just how twisted things can become among men when our drive to fight is no longer embraced and valued by the larger culture in an ordered and healthy way.

Indeed, it is specifically Christianity which is able more than any other force of life on earth, to place fighting in a good context. Without the Christian understanding of standing up, with God's grace, for what is right and true according to Jesus Christ and His Church, this primal urge cannot help but to become itself easily twisted and deformed, becoming a source of harm rather than a force for preservation and protection.

But to realize and to live this in a healthy and balanced way, under God's grace, we first must not abandon the ancient awareness that there is indeed a force for great evil ever active in the world, at war with mankind, trying to enlist men to its cause against other men. When we first remember this, we can then realize that fighting on behalf of the good--in defense against an attacking evil, or even attacking evil first--is itself a good thing. A noble thing. A manly thing.

Update:  Might a Fight Club sort of ennui have had anything to do with the recent riots in London? Of course this is only part of a complex picture. The rise in fatherless homes, increasingly welfare-state policies that require little contribution to society from the young, and the decline in the sincere practice of Christian faith all play a major role.

Amy Winehouse's Sad, Untimely Passing: A Parallel to Western society?

I am very saddened by the death of the very talented and troubled British singer Amy Winehouse. I am praying for her soul. May she rest in peace.

While she was obviously haunted by self-destructive patterns of behavior, I don't assume she was trying to destroy her life. Like so many, she needed help, and never seemed to have the right people in her life who could give her the help she needed most. Perhaps she rejected the help she most needed. I don't know.

Something about Amy's very sad end makes me think that she was a sort of symbolic microcosm in one person of some segments of Europe's young--desiring to live a passionate life, wanting to contribute something notable, meaningful and beautiful to society, wanting to lift other souls to the potentially rapturous heights of human artistry that can become a reality in music, taking the pains and sorrows of human relationships in a fallen world and somehow redeeming them a little bit by letting the scars seep into the music and become something soulful. And yet, at the same time, experiencing a state of hopelessness, watching one's own life spiral out of control and not knowing how to stop it or what to do about it, perhaps even being somewhat indifferent about trying to arrest the descent. This, it seems to me from a distance, is what some of the youth of Europe are living. It's a very dangerous place to be. And it can be lethal.

In saying this, I do not mean to treat Amy's life only as having value to me as a mere parallel to the troubled young of Europe. She was her own, unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable, beautiful person. As is true of every human being, there is no one else like her--she was her own particular universe of value and meaning within herself and ought not be reduced by the shallow pundits of society to simply an occasion to try to say something that gets a few seconds of attention.

So, please say a prayer for Amy Winehouse, for the repose of her soul. And say a prayer as well, for the many troubled youth of today who struggle between the tension of wanting to live in the throes of passion, meaning, and love, and can't catch hold of how to do this, becoming trapped instead in an increasingly harmful life which they know on some level is pointed toward death, yet they stay there for lack of hope of finding a path which could take them toward that deeper passion, meaning and love which their hearts yearn to possess. And since they have lost hope for finding this path, they prefer the passions of a destructive life pointed toward death--at least it seems to be a life that is human in the sense of not being banal, even if hope of something fully worthy of the dignity of the human person has been lost.

In some way, this earlier post of mine seems relevant. When we try to encourage someone we love to alter a destructive pattern in his life, can we also truly be a wellspring of real compassion, can we truly suffer with him (or her) as he calls upon the grace he needs, without which he will be unable to shift the course of his life from aiming at death to aiming at life?

Multiculturalism: An Idea Promoting Unity or Divison?

[I take my train of thought here from remarks made by talk radio host Dennis Prager while I was driving in my car earlier today]

The idea known as "multiculturalism" has been very trendy for quite some time now. But, really, what the heck is this? What does it really mean? For a long time, there has been something about it--about what seem to be its social implications as it is usually promoted--that rubs me the wrong way.

It's not as though the United States has to be introduced to the idea that it is possible for a variety of people from a diverse array of ethnic and cultural backgrounds to live and work together in relative peace and harmony. There is no place on the planet as diverse and as relatively peaceful as the United States. It is one of our greatest identifying qualities that makes the U.S. special and unique. Just about everywhere else, significant differences of culture and ethnicity placed in close regular contact results in major strife and even violence.

There was a moment when this was made especially evident to me. It was while riding the Staten Island Ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island (at the time I was living on Staten Island and rode the ferry regularly to get to Manhattan). I surveyed the people around me on the ferry one day and I became suddenly amazed at how extraordinarily diverse the people on just that one, single ferry, truly were. That one ferry-load of people was a veritable United Nations of cultures. I'm not just talking about two or three. I'm talking probably a dozen, at least, different ethnic heritages were present on that one boat. People from seemingly every continent and every corner of the world. I'll bet there were easily 12--probably more--native languages spoken among the few hundred or so people. I was awestruck for a moment and thought to myself, nowhere but here--in the United States--could such an incredibly wide spectrum of people be together peacefully in one place and not only this, but that it might be a normal, everyday occurrence, so much so that no one particularly notices.

Sure, there are places in the world where different peoples live in proximity and intermingle regularly. But the sheer magnitude of the number of different heritages and the breadth of their diversity that is found frequently in American cities is unique to the United States. Nobody holds a candle to us on this front. We are human history's greatest living example of the peaceful coexistence of a vast multiplicity and diversity of cultures.

In light of this fact, what on earth is all this hubbub in the last 20 or so years of so-called "multiculturalism"?

I suspect that the term, "multiculturalism," is not meant merely to express positive sentiments about the peaceful and respectful coexistence of peoples of many cultures. If this were all it meant, it would be somewhat redundant; it would simply be a synonym for, "The United States of America." (And yes, I know that our history is not devoid of serious social clashes among us. But taking everything in our history into account we are still far, far more advanced on this than anywhere else).

So what, in the American context (the most diverse place on earth), is meant by this relatively new term, this supposedly new emphasis? What is implied in this term that is new or different from simply how America, on the whole, has been since our earliest days? What explains the perceived need for its use?

In the past, when people from other cultures settled in the United States, they desired to become American. They still had ties and maintained certain practices and customs from the places of their heritage. But, after making it here, they did not desire to remain associated above all else with the places from which they had come. Primarily, they wanted to be associated with being, simply, American. Living as and being an American was primary. Yes, secondarily, they were still Irish, or Italian, or German, or Vietnamese, or Korean, etc. Those things were not gone. They were still important. But they were no longer the most important thing about who they were. They were Americans first, and then (significantly, importantly, yet secondarily) Italian, Irish, etc.Would such people--our great-grandparents--be called multicultural by today's promoters of this idea?

I don't think they would. And here is the problem. Why not? "Multiculturalism" in today's lingo seems to imply that one ought to maintain your ethnic and cultural heritage as your primary identity and allegiance (especially if your heritage is from somewhere other than Western Europe). Your primary, personal, interior, psychological identity and highest value, in this view, is decidedly not placed upon American culture or being American. Rather, multiculturalism encourages a disregard for America as a singularly unique and special culture in its own right and puts in its place an allegiance to a (oftentimes, I suspect, more fantasy than real) largely imaginary bond to an overly romanticized notion of one's cultural heritage.

Why is this bad? Ironically, it creates division rather than unity. The older approach did not disregard the special and unique value of many aspects of one's own cultural heritage (though at times people were probably too quick to distance themselves from all of the particularly singular aspects of their cultural heritage). But, their continued identity as being a part of a unique heritage which is Italian, German, Cambodian, etc., was placed in second place to becoming and embracing life as an American. In other words, they were still Italian, but, willingly transformed by the unique set of values which are the foundational values of America. It seems to me that "multiculturalism" no longer even cares to recognize that there is such a thing as an American culture and values in itself. Rather, it seems to want us to maintain divisions among ourselves along ethnic-cultural lines to such an extent that there could be no other option but to live in a kind of lowest-common-denominator equality in separate enclaves. If there is no overarching culture which unites us together, how can the great melting pot which is America still be a single pot, with all the flavors coming together in harmony? The direction of multiculturalism's thrust does not envision different cultures coming together making one single, unified community (i.e. America, as based on founding American values). Rather, it seems to envision lots of small pots each with their own ingredients, never mingling together as one.

So, that's my issue (one, anyways) with so-called multiculturalism. I'm all for the ideal of many diverse cultures living together in peace and harmony and mutual respect, mutually benefiting from each other's rich cultural treasures. But if we are to do this in the context of the United States of America, it ought to be done in such a way that we truly come together under the big tent of shared values that are specifically American values. To the extent that multiculturalism does not support this (and may in fact even be hostile to this), I am of the opinion that rather than being a good thing, it is (as it is actually promoted) a cancer, instilling a potentially lethal sickness into our nation. This is a sickness that divides and pulls us apart in the name of "diversity."

The Cult of Female Sexual Power: A Boon to Women?

Today I came across a very interesting article: "Aging," by former supermodel Paulina Porizkova.

It seems to me that one of the things radical feminism has done, at least in years past, is to buy into the idea that women gain back power over their sexuality by deliberately flaunting it. It's something the whole fashion industry culture seems to take for granted. An overt, over-the-top focus on the sexual values of a woman's body is presumed to be a boon for women overall in the culture at large. Just look at the clothes in department stores for teen girls for evidence (I don't spend time doing this myself, but many others have commented on this phenomenon).

And closely connected to this is our culture's excessive and unbalanced worship of all things youthful. If it has to do with being young, a thing is presumed to be good. If something has to do with being old (especially looking old), it is presumed to be negative. The modeling and fashion industries, and advertising in general, promote these ideas. And there seems to be at least a kind of loose association in the culture between this and the progress women have made in society compared to years past.

It is true that things have become better in many ways for women over the last century. And this is, of course, a good thing. But consider the following excerpts from Paulina's article. I think she makes very prescient observations.

My first recognition of age setting in was exactly on my 36th birthday. I have no idea why, on this day of all days, I looked in the mirror and realized my face no longer looked young. I didn't look bad: only, the freshness had somehow disappeared. I immediately became hyper-conscious of my looks and went out and bought the most expensive cream on the market. (For your information, it did nothing.) And I began the battle of acceptance, something I have to do now almost every time I face a mirror. 

 And later,

But would I ever have dreamed that I would miss the time I couldn't walk past a construction site unmolested? These days when someone whistles at me, it's mostly a bike messenger about to mow me down.

And,

To me, to let yourself age means that you're comfortable with who you are. Yes, sorry, I do believe that all the little shots here and there, and the pulling of skin here and there and the removal of fat here and there, means you still have something to prove; you're still not comfortable in your skin. The beauty of age was supposed to be about the wisdom acquired and with it, an acceptance and celebration of who you are. Now all we want for people to see is that we have not yet attained that wisdom. Aging has become something to fight, not something to accept.

Contemporary fashion and marketing have made these negative experience worse for women. Does this indicate true progress for women?

According to the messages present in our popular culture (fostered at least in a background way by a radical feminist acceptance of the notion that control of sexuality is gained by flaunting it), the most important thing about a woman is her sexual power (and this is closely linked to her youthful appearance and exterior beauty). But in such a cultural climate what happens to society's valuation of women, and of women's own sense of worth to themselves, as they age?

I would suggest that the contemporary cult of female sexual power--the unbalanced hyper-emphasis of sexual values above all other human and personal values--has not been a boon to women. In the long run, it has turned into a curse, making them more vulnerable to abuse and to being seen as less than whole persons. The tendency to quickly demote and even disregard women as soon as they become less physically attractive with age plainly shows this. Women like Paulina know this. Do the rest of us?

An Irony of Today's e-linked Culture: Retaining Our Humanity in a Tech Savvy Age

Here is a comment that a Facebook friend (Jeff Mauriello) posted on Facebook today:

So I'm at this coffee shop and I continue to witness a rather disturbing trend in our tech savvy society -- people seem to care more about updating their lives on their cool phones rather than conversing with the people they are physically next to. The more connected we are, the more isolated we become.

Sadly, this is so true. "The more connected we are, the more isolated we become." A very good way of putting it.

We should all stop and ponder this. In our craze to have every e-gadget to be "connected" with other people, are we becoming less and less able to relate as human beings in the most basic and most important way--in a personal, face-to-face interaction with someone who is physically right in front of us?

It is fine to use technology in ways that truly enhance and add positively to our lives. But we should never forget that if we are not careful technology can actually drive us away from those persons who are beside us in the present moment. It doesn't have to do this, but we must be conscious of this danger and strive (and pray) to use all forms of technology in a virtuous way--in a way that does not diminish our ability to remain fully human in the simplest and most fundamental of ways of interacting with other human beings.

A couple questions to help in our quest for a healthy, virtuous use of technology: Is a certain piece of technology controlling me, or am I in full control of it? Does my use of this thing make me more, or less human overall in the way I relate to other people?

Are We Becoming Less Able to Connect to Other People?

Here is something I am concerned about. . . Are we citizens of the United States of America gradually as a society becoming more and more self-enclosed as individuals, each of us in our own little hermetically sealed worlds? Are we becoming less able on a person-to-person level to "connect" on a deep level with our fellow human beings?

Sadly, I suspect we are.

I hope I am wrong about this, but in my observation, younger adults today seem less capable of truly opening themselves up to the inner personal worlds of other people than perhaps was the case, say, 20 years ago. I don't mean a mere superficial connection, but something deeper and more significant.

Now, I suspect that this has always been a weakness of American society. But, nonetheless, I think it may be getting worse.

Why do today's teens and twentysomething adults seem to be so solipsistic in the way they travel the journey of life? Well, in part (I wouldn't claim to have anything like a full answer to this), perhaps it has to do with how today's American culture is such that it provides the conditions in which a young person's life can very easily be extremely self-centered and excessively self-involved.

Think about it. We can now control almost every waking moment of the day to a remarkably large degree so that we are constantly bathed in a universe of our own personal preferences. If we want to live this way, seldom do we have to endure moments not filled with some sort of pleasurable diversion of our own choosing. And it is largely technology that has made this possible. Computers and the internet, cell phones, mp3 players, video games, etc., are changing some of us into persons who do not know what it is like not to have idle moments always accompanied by our favorite music, favorite games, internet surfing, messaging, etc. We are seemingly masters of our own interior worlds. In other words, our inner experience of life as human persons is more and more filled with self--with being able to please our desires in some way during large stretches of our days. Our lives are like private movies accompanied by sound tracks of our own personal choosing.

So, we go through the day listening to music or radio, texting, surfing, or watching our favorite TV shows (which we record on DVR so we can watch them exactly when most convenient), etc. Ironically, we are often around other people, but we have no significant human connection with them. We are protagonists in a one-man show. The people physically near us for so much of our day might as well be on another continent. We rarely open a space for others to "break-in" to the carefully self-controlled sound track of our personal lives.

We have ready access to amazing technology that enables easy person-to-person communication. But it seems, as we are more "wired" electronically and thus able to text a friend any time of day no matter where he is on the planet, we are more and more distant from the human beings around us. We are islands, or ships, moving on long ocean voyages, crossing paths, but each ship is going to its own private destination.

I believe we are becoming as a society even less able than in the past--especially young people--to have truly significant and meaningful interpersonal connections with other persons. We may relate to many people in a day, but it is often very shallow, insignificant, detached. If we do communicate to people we care about and have more significant relationships with, it is frequently in a manner that we control--when we want and in the manner we want.

Are we (especially young Americans) losing the so-important human ability to "connect" to other human beings on a genuinely heart-to-heart level?

Because we can keep ourselves so amused and occupied by a running soundtrack of our choosing, I fear we can only dimly recognize the incredible depths of meaning and power of interpersonal relations of which the human person is capable. We think the high degree of control over our immediate conscious environment gives us great freedom. But do we consider that in reality, this is making us less human, less persons who can relate to others on a real and profound level, and more like automatons? Can we, any more, grasp the value and nuance of the authentic interior world of another human person? Can we truly connect heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit? Do we notice when we are merely talking at others or tuning them out, paying more attention to an ongoing effort to constantly satisfy our own interior desires to be entertained and pleasantly diverted?

We should be on guard for the person-diminishing scourge of solipsism and ask ourselves, do we really listen to others, do we really want to know them, do we want to serve others more than ourselves? And it should, as so often, be clear that we must be always begging our Savior for the many graces we need to turn away from a life of self-enclosure and instead open the door of our hearts to others. Let us try to diminish our preoccupation with tweaking the soundtracks for our own lives and permit other persons the opportunity to play songs of their choosing on the stage of our souls.

The "Suffering Artist" Idea Points to a Truth About Persons

Some artists, it seems, perhaps especially those who are young, have a tendency to wish for some sort of suffering to accompany their life as an artist. The idea of the "starving artist," enduring some sort of pain or inner turmoil (misunderstood, before his time, etc.) is a figure that holds a sort of romantic attraction. And perhaps it is not so much true suffering, but to be seen as suffering (for one's art), that holds an attraction for some artists.

Isolation of a sort goes along with this. The gifted artist lives in his own special world enduring a unique pain for the sake of his art. Or, at least, so goes this romanticized idea.

To the extent that some artists have a yearning for something like this (and I don't claim that many artists do; but, there is at least an image of the young artist in pop culture music and movies that inclines in this direction), their yearning is misguided. But is it completely so? Is the notion of the tormented artist (the more gifted, the more tormented) rooted in some sort of authentic truth about the human condition? I would say, yes.

Before expanding on this answer, first, I want to acknowledge that seeking after suffering for suffering's sake is wrong. Artificially bringing pain into one's life does not enhance one's humanity, but degrades it (and I am not referring here to the Christian understanding of voluntary penance, which is not the same as what I am referring to here). And this is where an artist who sabotages his life, somehow artificially adding to or bringing new sufferings into his life, goes seriously wrong. Nonetheless, his instinct is not entirely out of whack.

How so? The answer lies in a particularly Christian understanding of human suffering. Specifically, an understanding of suffering as found in the works of Max Scheler and John Paul II [and here I thank Peter Colosi and his article "John Paul II and Max Scheler on the Meaning of Suffering," published in the journal Logos, 12:3, summer 2009, for enlightening me about this.] In the experience of real suffering (note: not artificially enhanced suffering, but genuine suffering that comes into one's life independent from one's yearning), there is a potential (not necessarily always realized) for the heart to become bigger--for the spiritual center of the human person to become better able to enter into the heart of others who also suffer. In other words, the suffering person can, through his pain, become in turn a more compassionate human being in the way that he loves others. Peter Colosi put it this way, "the link between suffering and love is not merely that they can occur simultaneously, but that to an extent they depend on each other." (p. 21)

For a fuller explanation, please see Dr. Colosi's article. But for my purposes here I simply want to point out that there could be some glimmer of truth about persons hidden behind the twisted yearning that an artist might have for a life touched by suffering to the extent that he would go so far as to bring about circumstances that promise to enhance his suffering. Though he goes about it in a misguided way (i.e. by seeking suffering so that his suffering is in a sense artificial), such an artist intuits something true--that suffering (authentic suffering) has a mysterious potential to increase and enhance the powers of love in the human soul.

Why would an artist want this? Artists are about seeking a communion, a melding of hearts. They want their audience to be able to enter into their vision--to experience the world if only for a moment through their interior, spiritual eyes. They want to communicate something meaningful, something stirring, something worthwhile. And they know through a kind of intuition that somehow, suffering holds at least a mysterious potential to make them, as artists, better able to enter into what they seek to find and to communicate to other human hearts. A heart tempered by the flame of suffering is a heart that might have gained a greater vision into the the most gripping and poignant realities of life. And such a heart might then more effectively communicate and interpret these things to others through art.

Please note, I am in no way implying in this post that the greater the suffering, the greater the artist. It is not a quantitative, direct correlation. Every soul is unique. And again, I would stress that artificially creating suffering in one's life is not the way to achieve an enhanced spiritual vision. But, I do want to make an observation that perhaps the somewhat hidden desire for strife that some artists may have is connected to the truth observed by JPII and Scheler and brought to my awareness by Dr. Colosi, that unsought-for, genuine suffering, handled rightly and with the transforming balm of divine grace alive in the soul, can open up the heart to a deeper capacity to see, understand, and love other persons in all their human splendor. And this in turn can help artistically gifted persons become better artists as they become truer seers and deeper lovers of fellow human souls.

The path for Christian artists into this greater depth of vision and love is not by seeking pain as an end in itself, but through turning to the cross of Christ in the experience of whatever suffering comes into one's life, being open to and embracing grace in the midst of pain. Taking on the heart of Christ, uniting with Him on the cross, by His grace, in whatever crosses we are permitted to suffer--this is how our hearts are expanded and our spiritual vision deepened. And it is a mysterious intuition into this bittersweet reality which it seems to me lies behind any twisted desire of artists to artificially bring pain into their lives.

Isolation and Today's Culture

Here is an example of the sort of simply delivered wisdom for which Fr. Groeschel is known. He makes a point that I think is very relevant for the lives of many single adults.

Life's Purpose: Where Do We Find a Shared Vision? A Secular vs. Faith Approach

 I would like to reproduce here some thoughts I initially put down in the comments section over at The Linde (see this post), the blog of The Personalist Project. This pertains to the subject of what is needed for a human culture to be truly human. How do we keep society from degenerating in a downward spiral? Is there a difference between secular humanism and faith-inspired personalism? These thoughts relate closely to my previous post about the myth of utopia.

* * *

Human beings need to understand our common human purpose from a source higher than ourselves. We need our true end to be revealed to us from above. This begins with pre-Christian religious sensibilities and conscience (placed in our nature by God) and culminates in Christ. Without this, we only have our independent, human and worldly ideas about the purpose of human life. Without a source greater than ourselves we are left with a struggle for power as the only way to ultimately settle the problem of which ideas about life should be placed above others.

And again, it could be said this way: there is no “ought” without an “is.” In other words, if we do not have a shared understanding of our own human nature (which comes from God whether we explicitly acknowledge this or not), we cannot come to a peaceable agreement on how we ought to live. And this lack of some minimum shared vision of our nature necessarily devolves into a struggle for power. For unless we have a common “is” we have no rational means by which to unite in common moral obligations.

It goes perhaps without saying that having a shared vision about the purpose and nature of human life does not require explicit faith. It does require good will and openness to what life teaches and openness to one’s conscience and to the innate religiosity within us.

But of course, the highest possible perfection of human society in this world could only happen after the revelation of Christ and the new availability of the New Covenant graces which were unleashed into the world by His passion and resurrection.

The Myth of Utopia

I want to comment on a topic that is one of those issues that often declares its presence in the back of my mind. It is something I see as a critical factor underlying many of the social-political problems of contemporary western society. I tend to see traces of it everywhere. If any of us were asked, "What's wrong with the world?" there are probably three or four key themes that we would each gravitate toward. This is one of those for me.

It is the myth of utopia. Utopia is the ideal of a perfect world--a world without war or strife, a world in which everyone gets along nicely and all have what they need for a happy life.

There are two fundamental approaches to this idea. The first is the mindset that thinks a utopia is attainable if only we could find the right social system and the right people to run this system. The second mindset accepts the reality that a utopia is not attainable in this life and yet believes real progress in human society can always be made.

I am firmly of the second mindset. And as I get a little older and a bit more experienced in life, I observe that people of the first mindset are more likely (though I don't claim exclusively) to be those who have lost faith in God. People of the second approach are more likely to be people who have held on to a real faith.

Why the difference? A great deal could be said about this. In fact writing about this profound difference goes back at least to St. Augustine's great work, City of God. I will only attempt here a meager beginning.

Original sin. A classic Christian understanding of mankind knows that man is born with the stain of original sin. This view realizes that man, though not totally corrupted by sin, nonetheless is deeply wounded in his soul and because of this is not capable of acting in this world with perfect motives. Man cannot save himself from sin, and anything he does, no matter how hard he tries, will be tainted in some way by sin and imperfection. An inevitable consequence of this in the political realm is a realistic understanding that a perfect system of governance cannot be achieved in this life, no more than sin can be wiped out in this life.

I acknowledge that those who think a perfectly just social order is possible in this world do not use the term "utopia." But, I still claim that they really do, in practice, hold that it is attainable. They are forever acting surprised at corruption, injustice, dishonesty, and incompetence in others even as they are largely blind to these things in themselves.

What is the alternative to this implicit utopianism (which I think afflicts many on the politically hard left)? Should practicing Christians throw up their hands and say, "to heck with it!" because social perfection is impossible? Do we retreat to our homes and churches and pretty much leave the outside world alone? Some devout Christians do just this. But this is a serious mistake. And as I understand it, this has never been the attitude of Catholicism.

Why does Catholicism proclaim that quietism is wrong--that radical isolation from and lack of involvement with the world (apart from a monastic calling which is a particular detachment that is not without care for the world, but rather a separation from the world for the sake of spiritually benefiting the world) is not appropriate? In a word, the answer is grace! This is the key.

Serious Christians ought not despair about the world. Even though we know a utopia cannot be had--that hoping for such is a dangerous dream and a fantasy--we do know that grace is active. And because of this we know confidently, by faith and by experience of the Christian life, that human beings can truly be transformed for the better when we welcome and cooperate with the healing, elevating waters of grace.

And so here is the mindset of a properly aware Christian. It is the attitude upon which the culture of Christendom sprouted and grew. We look to the future with a balanced, hardened realism. On the one hand, we do not embrace naively idealistic political visions, imagining a social order of perfect peace and harmony could be realized if only we figured out how to structure society the right way. Nor do we indulge in a fantasy about finding and attaching ourselves to one special genius who would show us the way. On the other hand, we do not pull back in hopeless despair, washing our hands of the mess of today's political storms. Why? Because we know by faith, by the experience of our walk with Christ, and by the example of the Saints, that mankind can be transformed. We can, with God's help, overcome our demons. We can serve and love our neighbor. We can imitate Christ. We can be the Good Samaritan. Are we ever perfect? No. But, can we always become more loving, more like Christ? Yes! Even when we fall, grace is there to pick us up and help us start again on the path to wholeness.

We should look at society as a whole in a way similar to how we see ourselves as individuals being transformed by grace. It is a process. There are setbacks, even tragedies. But so long as we do not reject God, do not give up hope, and keep our eyes fixed on Christ, we can continue to be transformed. So too, society. There will be no perfection of the social order in this world. But there is always the possibility of genuine improvement. Though we cannot attain the social ideal we can always move closer to it, just as there is always the possibility of growth in sanctity for the individual person. And so we regard political leaders and political plans with a healthy awareness of the real condition of the human person--fallen, yet redeemed; tainted, yet transformed by grace. We are works in progress. And we never lose sight that two outcomes are possible--two extremes--sainthood, or depravity. The best leader can still fail and let us down. And the roughest slouch can rise to a greatness unforeseen.

So, two views of the world. Utopia as possible, or modest progress as possible. "Progress," not meaning something that will reach its zenith in this world but that will culminate ultimately in the life to come. Perhaps these two views boil down to this: Do we see this world as the sole endpoint of the human spirit's deepest hopes and aspirations? Or do we see this life as a preparation, a training ground, the antechamber, to that truly perfect society of unimaginable joy and vigor and peace which is life with God--heaven? One view, ignoring the full reality of the human person as fallen and then redeemed by grace, ironically leads to an endless struggle for power. The other at least makes possible an imperfect, though improving, society in which persons under grace may strive toward ever greater human flourishing until such time as this world ends and the next begins.

[For more on a related issue, see my post about the Catholic teaching on concupiscence.]

An Affirmation: great art is inherently public and involves a community between artist and audience

A few days ago I listened to a podcast of a lecture delivered in June, 2009, by David M. Whalen, Professor of English at Hillsdale College, titled "Richard Weaver: The Language of Conservatism." [available in the online lecture library of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a valuable free resource]

I was pleasantly surprised to find in this lecture a strong affirmation of certain elements of my own thinking about the nature of art and the artistic process. I am referring here to my two earlier posts, Art is Inherently Public, and, Art Needs the Engagement of Artist and Audience Both.

In the former post I remarked that artists, if they are to create great art, should not engage in the creative process in an overly self-enclosed way, as though walled-off from the world beyond themselves. To quote myself, I wrote, "art is created for the sake of being seen (or heard) by someone." The artist must continue to care about the world of his audience even as he explores his own unique, inner vision.

In the latter post I commented that the audience as well must be open to the artist and what the artist is communicating through his art. I wrote, "And so the audience also has to engage. They have to be receptive, open, willing to work to discover what the art has to say."

I attempted to sum up these complementary ideas, saying, "considering the whole context in which art truly serves as art including the creation, presentation, and reception by an audience . . . art, when it is fruitful . . . when it succeeds as art-- is endowed with a concurring spirit of openness and receptivity . . . in both the artist and the audience."

So, with this brief review, let us turn to the above lecture by Professor Whalen. His talk used the thinking of 20th century intellectual Richard Weaver as a starting point, especially as found in Weaver's 1948 book, Ideas Have Consquences. Several minutes into the lecture Whalen addressed ideas pertaining to the creation and reception of art. He explained that Weaver had lamented how our modern, industrialized Western culture was becoming less and less civilized. I transcribed the following from Whalen's talk:

Central to [Richard Weaver’s] work and thought, is the argument that a late medieval rejection of transcendentals or universals renders the idea of knowing anything not immediately perceived by the senses impossible.

[. . .] This is part of the gradual orientation toward endless stimulation and the exaltation of the purely imminent. Sensation itself, it seems, has taken the place formerly held by reflection. In modern art, we see the confluence of this tyrannical egotism on the one hand, and the primacy of comfort and transitory, material, or sensual pleasure, on the other. The thesis that somewhere in the past few centuries all forms of art came to be understood as exalted self-expression is hardly novel or terribly controversial. . . . Bereft of ordering concepts that give definition to the human person and to the idea of communities, art is left to express the self in isolation. Ideals pertaining to heroism, or the family, or the city or community, the good life, or even ideals pertaining to artistic form, genre, or type, traditionally animate artistic production. Attenuated by modernity’s turn from abstract ideals these animating principles fade from view, leaving the artist stranded.

Of course, this can be felt as an intoxicating freedom at first . . . no longer does the individual with talent have to deal with tradition. But the absence of ideals is critically compounded in its effects by the simultaneous isolation of the artist. That is, a tradition also is a kind of community. . . Untune that string, and hark what discord follows. The artist is free to express himself, yes. But, he does so in a vacuum; he expresses himself, to himself. Not only ideals are absent, but so is an intelligible audience or community. No longer does Demoticus [sp?], Homer’s bard, sit at the feast and sing his epics to a wondering audience. He sits alone, instead, or perhaps before a lifeless microphone, and chants faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon.

The egotism of this self-expression in isolation has a corollary at the other end, so-to-speak, of artistic production. How is art received? “Egotism,” says Weaver, “in work and art, is the flowering after long growth of a heresy of human destiny. The heresy . . . is that man’s destiny in the world is not to perfect himself, but to lean back in sensual enjoyment.” In other words, while the artist expresses himself to himself in isolation, the receiver of art, if I may say so, looks to amuse himself in isolation. . . . The essential observation is that what one does as a receiver of art [in contemporary society] is merely or purely sensual enjoyment rather than that same enjoyment in the course of participation in a public affirmation of a human ideal.

It seems to me that these remarks harmonize well with the ideas I put forth in my two blog posts about the artistic process. A pleasant affirmation!

And I would like to note that professor Whalen, via Weaver, explains why modern artists have tended to create art in an isolated, self-absorbed mode--and likewise why modern audiences have tended to look to art merely for an an experience of the imminent and for immediate pleasure. Sadly, our respect for the traditions and values of the past has diminished. The habit of self-reflection in light of perennial ideals has become devalued. The primacy of the immediate moment and the experience of pleasure has become dominant. This, for art, is a dual curse--to become detached from the values of one's culture while simultaneously becoming excessively preoccupied with self.

How can we contribute to establishing a culture that once again is capable of fostering and appreciating great art? Somehow, we need to relearn--reconnecting with our past, reaching out of ourselves toward others, and putting the merely pleasurable and immediate in its proper place--how to engage in art in a more fully and truly human mode. Connecting with transcendent reality is essential. This is a challenge which everyone, not only art producers, must strive to meet. If we make progress, perhaps once again we may be blessed by living in a community of persons in which the experience of art, for artists and audiences both, is a genuine "participation in a public affirmation of a human ideal."

Art is Inherently Public

Being someone who was very involved with the arts as a teen (music primarily, but photography as well), I remain very interested in art (in the summer after my freshman year I actually switched my college major to photography but switched again to biology before the semester started) and I like to ponder how the big questions of life intersect with the world of the arts. Art and philosophy seem to have a certain natural affinity with each other. (Aesthetics is considered a branch of philosophy.)

Here is a statement that I would claim is true about any form of art, if it is truly to serve as art: art is inherently public.

This statement probably either strikes you as obvious, or, you wonder what I mean.

Simply, I mean that art is created for the sake of being seen (or heard) by someone. The finished creation exists 'for' a public other--someone other than the artist himself.

Who has heard of a composer who writes music never intending any of it to be heard only so that he can play it to himself in his own mind? I am referring in this post to a person who has a vocation to be an artist, who understands art to be his (or her) primary work in life. Sure, an amateur may create something as a hobby or simply for his own enjoyment never intending it to be seen by others. But I am speaking here about the artist who works as a professional. Or, at least, someone who has genuine gifts of artistic talent which he develops seriously whether or not it becomes his main source of income.

My reason for stating that art is inherently public and what I mean by this is primarily to get to this: there are significant consequences for the process of artistic creativity that follow upon the fact that it is in the nature of art to be created for others--for a public to see/hear.

What are these consequences? There are probably several, but I would like to try to shed some light on at least one. The process of creating a work of art is both highly personal (in a way very particular to the individual artist), and, generous. Generous meaning selfless, humble before and deliberately mindful of the multifarious realities of the artist's (and his intended audience's) own culture, time, and place. Both he and his audience approach any work of art with a background. The artist and his society have a history with artworks of the past and communicate within a certain culturally influenced context of signs and symbols. There is a base of literary, historical, and traditional influences that significantly form the mental and spiritual world of the communities of which the artist is a part. If his art is to have enduring power and meaning for anyone other than himself, the artist must keep in mind this background as he creates. He must care about the world of his audience. In this sense, the vocation of a good artist, while remaining very personal, requires a certain ability to step outside of self and take upon himself the eyes of his "people," whomever they may be.

Why do I write about this? Because I think that the art world, at least that of Western societies, has over the course of the last century or so lost sight of this. Artists, it seems, are encouraged (or, perhaps they do this on their own) to create art in a way that cares only for the self. Some art, at least, seems to have lost any regard for the audience. Some art seems to be an exercise in solipsism--totally and exclusively wrapped up in the interior world of the artist and thus highly self-indulgent. Art that is made in this solipsistic mode does not make the effort of being interested in the cultural context of the viewing public. It is analogous to the artist talking to himself in a mirror in his own unique language; there is an onlooker to the side (the audience), but the artist doesn't care for he is interested in talking only to himself. If others want to look on, fine, but he is not concerned for whether they gain anything by it. An artist with real talent who makes this mistake does great injustice to his calling as an artist.

Some art (music as well as the visual arts, theater and dance) made in the Western world of the last century or so has this unfortunate quality of being essentially an exercise in solipsism--of the artist interacting solely with himself. When this happens, I would claim, genuine art is not being made. Because, as I said above, I don't think art is truly art, and cannot serve the inherently public role of art, if it is not made with the common inner world of some public--of some community beyond the artist himself--in mind. The genius of a great artist is displayed, in part, in how he can creatively and generously weave the interior world of the public 'for whom' he creates together with his own unique inner world. In so doing, he can make art that communicates something meaningful to the public. He may thus produce something which endures, which might be accessible to the minds and souls not only of the people of his era, but for generations to come.

This is harder than simply "being true to oneself" (a euphemism for self-indulgence). Art is supposed to communicate something meaningful to other people. To do this, you have to have something in the medium of communication that the audience can understand on some level. In other words, in the history of art (until recent times, anyways), art has never been understood primarily as a means of self-therapy for the artist. It may be this secondarily--but not primarily.

I have hope that there is positive development on this front. But the development is slow.

I conclude with a quote from the 19th century English artist (and socialist!), William Morris, which captures the spirit of what I am getting at:

I do not believe in the possibility of keeping art vigorously alive by the action, however energetic, of a few groups of specially gifted men and their small circle of admirers amidst a general public incapable of understanding and enjoying their work. I hold firmly to the opinion that all worthy schools of art must be in the future, as they have been in the past, the outcome of the aspirations of the people towards the beauty and true pleasure of life.
[as quoted in, "When art Was by and for the people," by John Robson, 6/20/09, mercatornet.com]

[Thank you, Rachel! Our recent conversation inspired this post.]

Frenetic, Distractible, Unfocused Minds

This is a big problem: (what seems to me, anyhow,) the growing lack of ability of young people to maintain focused attention upon one item for a prolonged span of time.

Not everyone has the same intellectual potential. But, among those who are at least average or above average in intellectual gifts, a very important part of becoming adult and a good citizen of our democratic society is developing the virtue of well-reasoned argumentation. This requires first the mental facility to engage a subject in a deep, significant way, to scrutinize it in one's mind against what one already knows, adding in the wisdom of experience and common sense, and thus to come to a reasonable conclusion about something which can then be articulated and defended competently in dialogue with others. This virtue of sound thinking and the effective communication of one's ideas to others is vital for a healthy democratic society. Without it, we cannot have real arguments. And arguments--authentic arguments (not the same as the alternating closed-minded monologues and empty personal attacks that often falsely pass for argumentation)--are crucial. If a democratic society cannot effectively engage itself in the sharpening of mind against mind that takes place with genuine argumentation, the replacement may eventually be some form of totalitarianism.

Witness in evidence of this negative trend: the mass media. Now, the major TV news shows have never been remarkable for their depth. However, it seems to me that in recent years this has been getting worse. One struggles in vain to gain significant context from the frenzied, here-there-everywhere "reports" as they jump around, presenting the viewer with a jumble of visual images along with word phrases that often do not contain complete sentences. The style of media reporting seems to increasingly assume that viewers do not want to think about anything, they just want a smattering of things thrown out to occupy the mind for a brief time. This passes for taking in the news.

What has brought us this decline in clear thinking? Many things, I'm sure. But, certainly one significant factor is the way we use the electronic communications media and how this impacts our habits of mind. Young persons, especially (say, under 30 or so?), have spent a significant part of their formative years attuned to electronic media (internet, texting, etc.) that specialize in packaging information into tiny snippets. Seldom do they, say, read an entire book; more likely to scan headlines, exchange cryptic texts, or watch a one minute video on You Tube. Such habits mitigate against being a people of sound reasoning and argumentation.

Among the many goals that are critical to curtailing the negative cultural drift in America is to raise up our youth to be men and women who can think clearly--who can focus upon something with their minds in a sustained and serious way. How to do this? How to stem this surging tide of ever more unfocused, easily distracted, unfocused minds?

[The post at Inside Catholic, "Turning Conservatism Into a Grunt," got me to thinking along these lines]

Is media annoyance at Letterman's sexual jokes targetting a young girl for real?

Probably just about everyone has heard of David Letterman's pathetic and perverse jokes aimed at Governor Sarah Palin's 14 year old daughter, Willow.

The Washington Post published on Sunday a laudable article by columnist Kathleen Parker, "Why Dave's Not Funny," critical of Letterman. Ms. Parker remarked, "children deserve protection from adults who have lost sight of their responsibility to be wardens of the innocent." I agree.

However, I wonder how committed Ms. Parker and other mainstream press people truly are to the admirable notion of bringing negative attention to anyone who would contribute to a social climate increasingly tolerant of using young girls as sexual playthings?

Why do I wonder this? I don't hear any criticism in the major media of the abortion industry for covering up the sexual abuse of young girls by adult men. Silence. Where is their concern for young girls when it would require saying something negative about abortion clinics?

I sent an email to Ms. Parker at the Post:

Thank you for your Sunday article critical of David Letterman. His sexual "jokes" about a 14 year old girl were beneath what any civilized adult should tolerate.

I would like to encourage you to follow-up on this admirable instinct to stand up against anything suggestive of the sexual abuse of minor girls by adult men. Perhaps you might do a feature article on how abortion clinics around the country routinely ignore--even aid--the statutory rape of young girls (who come for abortions to cover-up the ongoing abuse) by never reporting such abuse to the proper authorities even when they have obvious evidence that this is taking place. This is a very real thing that continues to go unnoticed by the major media. Hopefully, in your genuine concern for the abuse of minor girls, you will consider taking on this subject. It would be a great follow-up to the Letterman article. I wonder if he donates to Planned Parenthood?

I won't be holding my breath to see if this happens. It's OK for the Washington Post to chastise a comedian. But the major media loves abortion. They will not criticize it, even if it means turning a blind eye to the ongoing cover-up by abortion clinics all over this country of the sexual abuse of young girls by adult men who prey on them and take them for abortions to destroy the evidence when they become pregnant.

And so this is why I wonder. Is this apparent concern by the Washington Post that young girls not be the targets of sexual abuse for real?

Are You a Prude?

I would like to post here comments I made (with a few slight changes) on a thread at The Linde, the blog of my friends at The Personalist Project.

In her post, Katie van Schaijik asks, "What is prudishness?" What entails being prudish as contrasted with simply having a proper sense of decorum, modesty, propriety, social grace, etc.? It may seem a simple question, but it strikes at something rather deep in American culture and is very relevant to the complicated relationship between American culture and being a person who strives to live as fully Catholic a life as possible here in America.

__________

Is the following instructive to ponder in light of the subject of prudishness and American culture? Think of the example of the “Christian Temperance” movement of the early 20th century, which resulted in the (to me) very silly and ill-fated Prohibition laws banning alcohol. What does this show about the more fearful segments of (Protestant) Christian influence upon our culture? It seems to me that anything like Prohibition would have been considered absurd in any majority Catholic nation.

Wasn’t Prohibition roughly around the same time as a surge of Pentecostalism (born-again, spirit-led, Bible-only, morally heavy-handed) in America? (not to blame this on Pentecostalism alone)

American culture does suffer, I think, from its Christian roots being essentially Protestant (not denying that there are many good things in Protestant Christianity!). How? It seems to me (and I used to be one) that Protestantism has a very hard time seeing that potentially dangerous aspects of life do not have to be entirely walled up and kept at bay like dynamite in order to remain safe. This is why Prohibition is instructive. Instead of realizing that one can—through a grace-assisted cultivation of virtue—use alcohol in a culturally healthy, beneficial, even life-affirming way, America chose instead to deal with its potentially dangerous aspects by simply banning it altogether. This is an approach that makes a certain sense if you have little understanding of the real possibility of cultivating supernatural virtues (together with ordinary virtues) in any human life lived in close relationship with God. It gets down to having a truncated view of the interplay of nature and grace in this life.

So, while a fundamentalist Baptist, for example, might shun things like gambling (in any context), drinking, and dancing, as too dangerous to handle, a Catholic—in moderation—does not fear a decorous use of alcohol and dancing and gambling because he has hope in the possibility of grace and human virtue uniting in such a way as to transform the use of these things into not only acceptable, but positively beneficial, culturally enriching, sacramental signs in themselves.

Though I think many Catholics today do not have a sense of this, nonetheless, it seems to me from the witness of human history that believing, practicing Catholics have the fullest potential of attaining a firm hope for the possibility of baptizing many aspects of human culture in this life—a hope that flows from a healthy awareness of the power of grace-infused virtue to liberate culture from the severity of all types of prudishness.

True Chivalry--underlied by a fighting spirit

I just came across, via Dawn Eden's blog, the video commentaries available on the AirMaria web site. The following is a thought provoking and refreshing video comment on the subject of chivalry by Fr. Angelo Geiger, FI (and Fr. Geiger also blogs here). Take a look at this comment; it's good stuff! It's the sort of thing Catholics (and all Christians) need to think about and act upon if we are to become more effective instruments of grace in healing and transforming our declining culture.

For some reason which I do not understand, I can't get this video to embed. So, here is a link to it.

Jazz: Great American cultural gift; Diana Krall

When one is feeling down about our culture, it is tempting to bemoan the seeming paucity of America's cultural contributions to the world. And, I suppose, there may at times be cause for doing so.

But this is not the last word. Jazz music is truly an American gift to the world. And it is a great one at that. I don't think jazz could have originated in any other place on the planet than America.

Speaking of jazz, one of the great contemporary artists whose star is shining brightly in the jazz world now, is Diana Krall. She is originally from Canada. Those familiar with her know that she is one of those rare artists, even among great talents, who bring to their performances an uncanny sensitivity and subtlety. She seems to have a direct line to something absolutely ineffable, yet absolutely captiviating, in the human soul. Music seems to just oooze out of her like honey. She is both a fantastic singer, and, a great jazz pianist. The combination together is quite splendid. She married British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello in 2003; they have twin boys who were born in 2006.

As someone whose life was very centered around music when I was a teenager, I especially love the way great musicians when performing live--especially jazz--seem to "lock in" to each other in a spiritual way where they seem to transcend their individuality and become one, and yet still retain their uniqueness though in a new mode, each as one-among-the-group. It is a sublime coalesence of simultaneious self-transcendence and deepened self-possession. (For me, an intriguing instance of the capacity of human persons for high-level metaphysical "one and the many" experiences.) It reveals something special about the human person, about the capacity for community on a mysterious and deeply meaningful plane. And how community, in turn, gives the person back to himself.

So, if you like jazz, you probably know of her already. Enjoy this clip of her performing live, "Devil May Care." And enjoy the musicians' subtle interaction as they "lock in" and perform together.

Past and Present: both needed for your self-understanding

A week or so ago after attending an evening class with friends at The Personalist Project, I was asked (not in these exact words) what I thought about the topic of tradition vs. the now (i.e. custom vs. novelty; the past vs. the present; the old vs. the new). I didn't get to respond and so I'll offer a few thoughts here.

In recent Catholic history the following two terms have been used to capture the above notions in regard to how one approaches theology: aggiornamento, and, ressourcement. The former pertains to updating (using the new); the latter to recovery (of the old). Some would claim that those whom I'll call ultra-traditionalists want to return to an idealized past--using only the extraordinary form of the Mass (i.e. the "Tridentine" Mass used universally in the Latin rite until the Mass of Paul VI was promulgated after Vatican II) and eschewing modern theological and philosophical categories in preference for what had been taken in the early 20th century to be a strict Thomism of a pre-modern bent. In contrast to this are some (can they be called "progressive," theologians?) who seem to prefer ignoring any portion of the Catholic theological heritage seen as substantially rooted in pre-conciliar (as in, before Vatican II) thought.

Stepping aside from these extreme traditionalist and modernist camps, there is an idea that Catholicism, in order to be healthy, always needs both perspectives. This was indeed important for Pope John XXIII when he announced the Second Vatican Council.

I observe that clarity can be shed on this if one simply thinks about one's own personal experience as a unique, individual human being.

Who would say that what they think and believe, and how they behave in the present, has nothing to do with what they have done and thought in the past? Of course, at every moment of our time-bound lives, our experience of ourselves and our self-identity, our habits--our virtues and vices--are constantly informed by the sum total of our human experiences up to the present. Our present self, as we know ourselves, is never an isolated island of the present moment, disarticulated from our personal past. Rather, our self-identity and self-understanding are ever shaped and formed by our constantly expanding and living personal past. So, in regard to the individual person, there can be no isolated consideration of one's present self as cut off from (unrelated to) one's history. Likewise, our self-identity is never taken as merely equal to a frozen point from some past moment, static and unmoving. We, as human persons, are always a dynamic harmony of the present with the ever-expanding past. We cannot be otherwise.

It is the same with the Church and with any culture as a whole.

And so, my take on this is that it is very artificial to attempt to fix on an idealized reference point from past historical circumstances and try to bring it forward in static fashion as a model for today. This would be like preferring a single picture frame of a movie to the entire moving picture, thinking that one can understand the whole simply from the single frame, without taking the whole film into account. Therefore I think it is clear that in any human science wherein we want to have a sane understanding of who we are and what we are about as persons and as a people--because of the nature of human life (as both in time, but made for eternity)--we need to engage our minds continually on the new and the old, the past and the present, in a continually unfolding interplay.