Comments for A Tale of Two Concerts at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 24 out of 20 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 18 Jun 2013 02:24:34 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-10657 i am a fiddler.from.cape.breton island as well and have performed.the broad.cove concert in the woods you speak of.i have also travelled.the world played the acropolis carnigie hall and the small family.gatherings.all.around cape.breton.i was also told.i could no longer recive communion in my.church and was sent a excommunication lettrer in 1996 so as to not recieve comminion in Natalies church..bcause -im gay.-id rather play for millions at the superbowl.but here is my point.-i put together a great.group of fiddlers.to perform on the opening ceremonies ofthe olympics in canada and being bigger then the superbowl audience co sidered it both patriotic and an honour to the peace.canada wanted.to present thru its art and music to the world.natalie and donnel whom both were schedueled.to be.part.dropped out the week before.claiming religion prevented.them from being there..oh.amd that i was gay amd closing the number just didnt match up with thier rehersed.for.a.year.imagee becuase.it didnt praise.there starhood.enough.When you know the truth behind such peoples motives.you may.consider what gods plan is or even your own.but dont think becuase.someone smiles.with thier children on stage.ina fieod that you really.know what kind of a.spitful hateful.jealous person they really.areId prefre.listen to Janet jackson anyday to find the truth. - ashley macisaac Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:54:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-10336 Thank you so much for this article Prof. Esolen. And thanks too for the comments--all of them. Rising children in this day is so very difficult. Please pray for families! - Beth Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:02:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-10005 "When women dress immodestly, and men despise religion, it is the beginning of the end" -Seneca - UltraMontane Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:04:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9986 Yes, Dan, I am familiar with him but not well enough to trust him--or myself reading him. Since my reading list is a half-mile long already, I have removed any author whose works and thinking are not well regarded enough to be quoted or referred to often by people whose work I do trust. I'm too old to go wandering down untried paths. There is one more comment that I would like to add to what I said previously. The world that I knew growing up was not a world of my generation's invention, or even of my parents' or grandparents' invention. It was a world that we inherited, kept reasonably sane and intact by enough faithful people who lived what they professed. I see now that the generation that followed mine was too much influenced by the infiltration of post-World War II Marxist thought in the universities, into which the children of veterans marched in droves. There, whatever patrimony of Christianity remained was erased from the memories of the vast majority of young people whose every need was met by parents who had been determined never to let their children suffer or go hungry or go without as they had seen the suffering of the children of Europe and Asia. The Christian patrimony that survives today is found only in the pockets of family-oriented life that Dr. Esolen describes. It may well take another 2000 years to regain the lost heritage that my son once described to me (in raising his children) as "I thought was self-evident." It wasn't. - Louise Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:24:18 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9985 Louise, Thank you for your response. Are you familiar with Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? - Dan Deeny Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:01:39 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9980 "If the 50's (the time before the sexual revolution hit) were the epitome of the rock solid (as opposed to a rock candy) nation based on virtue and selflessness, why and how did all that was good and noble collapse so quickly in the 60's?" Good questions and well worth asking. It's not the case (as you seem to suggest) that the 1950s were just as decadent as today. Of course people were selfish, cruel, promiscuous, etc, back then. The difference today is that people are openly defending such behavior as normal, and even branding as intolerant those who dare to offer a different standard. Let me give you two things which illustrate the unprecedented nature of the breakdown of our culture. First, in 1930 the Anglican bishops said that contraception was OK in certain cases. This was the first time in all of Christian history that this had been allowed. It was not uncontroversial at the time - even some secular voices like the Washington Post (believe it or not) condemned it: "Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would sound the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality." Remember this is the Post, not the Pope, but it's fair to say that (unlike today) the bishops' decision was wholeheartedly accepted by society. Turns out these predictions weren't that far off. With the introduction of the Pill (my second point), artificial birth control became cheap, easy, and effective. This all happened in the case of a generation. You seem incredulous that such a sea change could take place overnight, but given these facts (among others) it shouldn't be that surprising. The mentality engendered by the Pill - that a child is not a gift to be accepted and cherished but a "choice" to be "planned" and, if necessary, "terminated" - has become the norm, and woe to you if you do not fall into line. This principle is then applied to every aspect of life: all must be planned, insured (ideally by the government), controlled, used, productive; if it cannot be, it is deemed useless. It is the very antithesis of the culture described by Dr. Esolen, and, I submit, the root of the sickness in our society. - Sam Schmitt Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:07:24 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9979 Dear Dan, I know Dr. Esolen only from his writing, but I can assure you that he is not a "grouchy old man", and neither am I a grouchy old woman (contrary to popular opinion). When one is forced to recollect and to contemplate what was lost and what can never be again, one's suppressed mourning tends to sound like grouchiness, and even anger. Like the parents who raised families through the Depression and then sent their children off to war (they followed the war news every day in the local paper, the battles won and lost; they wrote letters addressed to a nameless APO or NPO and read letters with lines and paragraphs blacked out; they saw the news reels before the movies that showed bombs falling from planes onto their sons' ships or field positions, like them, we too lost our children or nieces and nephews, friends and neighbors to another kind of war, but one just as lethal and, in a way, more deadly because there was only degradation but no honor attached, no gold-star flag to hang in the window, only sickening questions--Why? What happened? What did I do wrong? over and over again. So, if there is sadness that never quite goes away, forgive us for sounding grouchy. We didn't ask for this war that overtoo--and took away--our children. We never even saw it coming. But the suffering has been horrendous. Every time I read an obituary of a man or woman just slightly older than I, I wonder whether their children ever said to them, "I'm sorry for causing you so many years of grief and heartache and pain." Probably not. - Louise Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:10:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9978 Dr. Esolen's article is interesting. Yes, I too enjoy Natalie McMaster's music and the Leahy Family"s music and dancing. For example, Leahy Family/King's Dance on youtube is wonderful. You can see God. But Dr. Esolen's tone is a bit like a grouchy old man. Will this tone work? - Dan Deeny Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:24:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9976 Like Louise and Lauri, I too came from a large family -- not my own, because my mother and father had four children, but the whole collection of aunts and uncles and cousins. My siblings and I have 39 first cousins; many of them lived in our small town (all my mother's five siblings lived with their families within a few blocks of us, and another five cousins from my father's side lived in the same town). What with all those families -- 26 aunts and uncles -- we had an unusual opportunity to view the results of the bad decisions made after the sexual revolution (which cousins escaped them because they came of age earlier, or were more firmly committed to the faith). My wife, an only child, has 42 first cousins too, so we two have had a wide field to survey. It isn't a pretty sight. - Tony Esolen Thu, 16 Feb 2012 05:40:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9975 I have been reflecting on my emotional response to this essay, which was one of tearful nostalgia for the unfulfilled potential of my own extended family. My father was the oldest of ten children and there were about 60 cousins for my four siblings and me. While my parents (Catholics) chose to live about 300 miles away, the rest of the family (Mennonites)lived within about 20 square miles of each other until the nineties, when the majority of the children became adults. For the most part, they rejected the religion and culture of their childhoods in favour of that of the broader world. The results were, to say the least, very unpleasant for many of them. They, including my parents, believed they could escape the intimacy of these family relationships while maintaining the love. Like so many before us and our contemporaries, we are learning that ignoring our neighbours leads to an ever-increasing loss of real love in all of our relationships. - Lauri Friesen Thu, 16 Feb 2012 04:17:01 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9974 Jsmitty, I have not spoken well for Professor Esolen. I can assure you, that you have not understood him well. But perhaps you prove Kierkegaard’s point. - Achilles Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:39:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9973 'And I think Louise and Bangwell also confuse the City of God with the actual city they remember from their own childhoods. Augustine was far too brilliant to ever iimply that the City once--or a facsimile thereof once existed but was lost due to social decay or poor welfare policies or what have you. ' Growing up in the '30s and '40s, marrying in the mid-50s, I knew nothing about Augustine or the City of God, so I was not intending to bring that work into the discussion. I only knew that my father came home every night of my life (every father I knew did); my mother was at home almost every day when I came home from school; Sunday dinner was a weekly family occasion--even when it was "Depression food" on the table, as every evening meal was a family occasion. I had heard of divorce but never knew anyone who was. My brother and his wife were having troubles once and I remember my father roaring out: "THERE IS NO DIVORCE IN OUR FAMILY. WORK IT OUT." And they did, and had a long and happy marriage. Late in my life I was working as a book production editor. A sociology professor from Colorado State Univ. asked for a photograph for his textbook "of a corny 1950s family picnic." When I sent him photos of family picnics, I wrote a little note saying that "We didn't think we were being corny. We thought we were repeating what we had lived, providing a stable, loving home for our family, where we loved each other and enjoyed each other's company." BTW, we still do. Yes, one day in the 1960s the world turned upside down--in 1968 to be exact. You may think I am exaggerating or being sentimental, but I will defend the '50s' family until the end of my life, and the '30s and '40s family as well. Having just looked into some family history, I have a sense of what raising four growing children and an infant in the 1930s was all about. Ant, a decade later, the parents who lived through that decade sent those same children off to war less than a decade later. Some children came home. Many didn't. The parents who raised their families and lived through the '30s and '40s can be forgiven anything. City of God? No, I know nothing about the City of God. I know only of hard-working people who, in spite of pain, deprivation, suffering, loss, kept on keeping on, doing the best they could under very difficult circumstances. They weren't crying and complaining and running to the government because they couldn't afford an I-phone. They stuffed newspaper or cardboard in their children's shoes so they would last the school year when the kids could go barefoot until September. - Louise Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:30:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9971 My comment was actually not about my personal memories. It was about timeless things and specific meanings. The ground for the collapse referred to by "jsmitty" was prepared for such an event. There have been many collapses and recoveries throughout history. Societal virtue and personal goodness do not just happen. They have to be made to happen through daily, even hourly, effort to accept purification from God. Each member of a community has the opportunity to participate in the work. We teach and support one another, for good or for evil. - Bangwell Putt Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:00:05 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9969 What I do for a living, and have done for many years: I introduce freshmen, all year long, to the history, literature, theology, philosophy, art, and music of the west, from its beginnings in Palestine and Mesopotamia, to the end of the Renaissance. I am of course quite aware of the failings of every civilization that has ever existed. I am also aware of their glories. I know for a fact that before the Pill, almost all children in the United States were born within wedlock. Given the unreliability of condoms, and their association with low-lifes, that meant that a great majority of people expected something like chastity from women before marriage, and something like continence, if not chastity, from men. If the numbers don't persuade, then what their contemporaries said about the matter might -- including not only preachers but psychologists and sociologists not at all noted for their conservatism. What I was beholding there was the remnant of a culture. It is a new phenomenon in the world, what we have now -- mass entertainment, mass politics, mass education, mass sports. I'm not the first to note this. Romano Guardini and Gabriel Marcel were saying it already at the end of World War II... - Tony Esolen Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:15:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9968 Well I'm getting some different answer. Achilles you more or less make my point for me...The City of God after all never was real in the sense that one could travel there to attend a Celtic Concert. It was a literary figure of an ideal city in the Christian mind of Augustine. Its relationship to the actual city of man was always very tenuous, in no small part because the City of Man is very complicated and ever changing. And I think Louise and Bangwell also confuse the City of God with the actual city they remember from their own childhoods. Augustine was far too brilliant to ever iimply that the City once--or a facsimile thereof once existed but was lost due to social decay or poor welfare policies or what have you. And my argument against Anthony Esolen is NOT that we should not preserve the ideals of the City of God or inculcate them in the all generations, or strive to apply them better. Nor is it that the folks at the Celtic festival are not exemplifying values that others could learn from. It is the persistent narrative that our society HAD all of values of a noble society and then suddenly one day in the 60's cast them aside to pursue the pleasures of the flesh, pleasures which had been hitherto as a genie kept in a well corked bottle. In effect, Esolen's idealism gets ruined when he writes in a way such that it becomes reducible to a kind 50's nostalgia. If the 50's (the time before the sexual revolution hit) were the epitome of the rock solid (as opposed to a rock candy) nation based on virtue and selflessness, why and how did all that was good and noble collapse so quickly in the 60's? Could it be that the 50's in its own way turned out to be just as based on "rock candy" as Esolen thinks our society is today? - jsmitty Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:11:06 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9966 Dear Jsmitty, How old are you? Your comment calls to mind Belloc's method of studying history--by generational experience. When a generation comes to age in a decadent, depraved culture, that generation will never believe that a culture of faith and dignity ever existed. I can tell you that it did, not in perfection because perfection is saved for the next life, and maybe not in a catechetical manner of "knowing the Faith", but in the way that people understood their place in the world with common virtues of respect for oneself and for others and for society as a whole. In what city today could z 17-year-old girl walk a mile alone, get on a bus, then a subway to downtown Boston, then a half-mile walk to class, then repeat the journey homeward, all after dark. The subway stop was in what is today the roughest part of Boston but then I stood alone on the platform waiting for the train at 10:00 at night, finally ending the trip with a mile walk home, arriving about 11:00PM. I did this two nights a week for four months. Not today. That must tell you something about the way things were, although, sadly, you or your children may never experience such a society. That does not mean that it never existed. - Louise Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:15:44 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9965 Anthony Esolen describes a real community, a place in which faith, family, and tradition did (and still does) really matter. He describes a real place where people understand that the words "marriage," "mother," "father," "son," and "daughter" mean something specific; what was once meant by "family ties". This was understood, either in observance or in the breach, by everyone. No doubt there is trouble and strife within these families. There is suffering. There is doubt, even loss of faith. These things are unavoidable in the life of any family. The point is that the extended family described has endured together. There is hope for their future as a family unit. This is neither "symbolism" nor is it "sentimentality". It is a living reality. We have a witness to all this. Anthony Esolen was there and he has told us about it. - Bangwell Putt Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:51:38 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9964 I can vouch for the sincerity of Jsmitty’s vulgar sentiment- I grew up in a scientific home, sterile and antiseptic- all Truth Goodness and Beauty meticulously bleached out of our environment. It was university educated, will to power, brave new world and all that. The sexual revolution was only fruit of Darwin’s tree- my parents didn’t openly approve but wouldn’t dare interfere with evolution. My life, my marriage and my family were the train wreck Madonna would have been proud of until God, His Angels and Saints conspired to lift me out of the quagmire and show me the road to the world Professor Esolen describes. JSmitty, it is far from a figment of Professor’s literary imagination, he merely describes what countless others have described, and if you would like more information about it read St. Augustine’s opus City of God. The cost of citizenship is a broken heart. It seems like a steep price until you have a look at the welfare system- it is unimaginable! In fact, Kierkagaard would take it one further in asking “who cannot conceive of being born? Of course, those who have never been born at all.” He then says the same of those who have been reborn of the Spirit- those who have never been reborn cannot conceive of it. - Achilles Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:40:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9963 Well done, Professor. However, Madonna's vulgar halftime show had nothing on Nicky Minaj's mocking of Catholic ritual and the pope, which was aired during the Grammy awards. - Grump Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:24:03 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/a-tale-of-two-concerts.html#comment-9962 I read this and I can't help but wonder if the world Anthony Esolen conceives in his fertile literary imagination...the one of "faith" "family" "community" and "traditions" unvulgar in every way and utterly unsullied and untouched by the sexual revolution....ever really existed at all. Is this not again more symbolism and sentimentality dressed up as serious analysis? - jsmitty Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:21:38 +0100