Comments for Humanist, Where Art Thou? at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 35 out of 20 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 22 May 2013 15:02:37 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10905 Gian: "So the important point is that there is no context-free answer." I think you're right; even if someone posits the existence of universal moral principles, the duty of judging how those principles apply in a particular situation is an act of contextualized particular judgment - however, I think this is getting away from the point of the article, eh? But one could argue that what counts as a human education is not simply fixed and universal, that the particularities of the individual's time, place, and circumstance are important in determining how valuable it would be for him or her to read Homer or read a how-to-garden book (or how valuable it would be to simply garden rather than read a how-to-garden book). - Scotty Ellis Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:57:37 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10903 Prof. Esolen, The anti-ideology of true conservatism conforms to the idea, presented by you in Introduction to Paradiso, that Justice is a Person, not a Principle. For instance, last year, there was a big discussion of the ethics of lying and what is lying and whether it is licit to lie to a Nazi. The discussion was mostly done in Thomist terms of what a faculty of speech is for. But shouldn't Christians argue on the basis of "Have Charity and Do what you will"? Certainly, deceiving the Nazi at the door is charity to the victim and perhaps to the Nazi himself, don't you agree?. However, depending upon circumstances, it may be more loving not to deceive the Nazi. So the important point is that there is no context-free answer. Nazi has murder in his heart but still he hasn't actually committed the murder - Gian Sun, 15 Apr 2012 18:59:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10892 Dear Dr. Esolen, Thanks for all the great commentary here (and the translations of Lucretius). I'm always glad to read what you've written, and would be thrilled to work alongside you someday. —a former attendee of a talk you gave in Irving, Texas. - jy Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:40:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10879 @Tony Esolen Thanks for the response! See I had heard Kirk/Burke labeled as "classical liberals" before, so thank you for clearing that up for me! "I'll insist that true conservatism is anti-ideological." Amen to that! And amen to your description of what the consevative is, that is how I understand it as well. Too many reduce conservatism to an ideology, or reduce it to a specific moment in time. @Scotty Ellis I think you meant to direct your comments at Achilles, not me. You mistook the trojan for the greek :) - Aeneas Sat, 14 Apr 2012 15:16:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10874 For education, one should hear Beethoven symphonies, or some of the Beatles' songs; should see a sunrise, some starry constellations in a clear night sky and maybe some Ansel Adams photos. No matter that one will earn his/her bread by counting beans. There was a fable told of three laborers asked what they were doing. The first said, "I am carrying these bricks to the brick-layer." The second said, "I am building a wall." The third, also carrying bricks, replied, "I am building a cathedral." Even for manual labor, an appreciation of beauty is helpful in understanding. TeaPot562 - TeaPot562 Sat, 14 Apr 2012 11:02:15 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10851 Aeneas: I believe that neither Kirk nor Burke may properly be called a "classical liberal." Of course, they are both of them full of rich insights into the human condition, and they are lovers of tradition, not because tradition is always right, but because it is a deeply human thing, and we hardly thrive without that pious gratitude towards those who have come before us. Kirk dislikes the liberal systematizers intensely -- Mill, for example. He's fond of the same quote from Burke that I'm fond of, that there is nothing more purely evil in nature than the heart of a metaphysician -- by which Burke had in mind the "mathematical" philosophes of France, the reducers of all human questions to an abstract political system. It's not a just use of the word "metaphysician," but that's what the term meant at the time Burke got to it. Kirk was sufficiently conservative to believe in the presumptive rights of custom, so much so that you'll find him edging towards John Calhoun, without dealing forthrightly with the evils of slavery. I'm not saying that Kirk was pro-slavery; he certainly wasn't. Still, if you're going to have a chapter on Calhoun (in The Conservative Mind), you do have to address that issue and not skirt it. I'll insist that true conservatism is anti-ideological. Conservatives have ideas, sure; and they have a way of looking at the world. But the conservative, as it seems to me, addresses the world with a mingled wonder and obedience: I mean an attempt to hear the word of God, as spoken either in revelation or through the natural law. Such an attitude not only cannot be codified in legal prescriptions and constitutions good for all people at all times; it denies that there can ever be legal prescriptions and constitutions good for all people at all times. Human rights do not change; good and evil do not change; but our attempts to secure justice and the common good depend upon who and where we are. A constitution that might work for England would be absurd in India; positive laws in New Jersey that stand a decent chance of promoting genuine human flourishing would be destructive in the Philippines. More than that: it is inseparable from a truly human life that people, in their own persons and not submitting to unknown bureaucrats from thousands of miles away, should come together to work or play or celebrate or teach their children or police their streets; to take their largely local authority away from them, or to steamroller their customs, is to play the part of a tyrant, benevolent tyrant or otherwise. - Tony Esolen Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:53:38 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10847 Aeneas: "I took it to mean to make bricks that were only for temporary constructs that will not stand the test of time, just like the pseudo-intellectual sophistic propositions you put forward in your posts." Of course my propositions will not stand the test of time. Nobody's will. Eventually, the human race will be extinct, perhaps or perhaps not replaced by another species of rational being - and they will eventually go extinct as well. Eventually, even the light of the stars will die and become dust and ash. I think that your mistake is in believing that this fact would render their shining meaningless: I do not. I do not believe my propositions - or anyone's, for that matter - are any less meaningful because they are enmeshed in temporality. There's simply no other way for things to be. "Contrary to your assertion that these manual labors are a human education in themselves, which they are not, they are vocational and not worthy subjects of what the term education means." Tell that to HJ Elden above, who I am sure is a man familiar with what you call education but who also values his work as essential to his humanity. Or tell that to anyone whose life and meaning - and humanity - have come from their practice of a trade, maybe in complete ignorance of what you consider necessary to qualify as a "human education." Every trade - their "gear and tackle and trim" to quote G. M. Hopkins - are the signs of human culture and actually embody them. In the end, it is unclear to me who is better off: the man who reads Walden, or the man who lives Walden. Perhaps they are both well off in their own ways, but I hardly believe the man whose life is filled with action, practice, and techne is worse off in any way than the man of theory and poetry. "You think manual labor precedes Christ." Even Christ lived as a carpenter before He lived as the Messiah. Without the mechanical arts and their human artisans - no shepherds to greet him, no manger for his birth, no on to build the temple where he amazed the scribes, no one to build the cross - there would be no Christ story as we know it. - Scotty Ellis Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:42:58 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10844 "I agree with you entirely about the errors of classical liberalism (now mistakenly called conservatism)" Now that was an interesting quote! I have heard it before, and I'm inclined to believe it. But what about those people like Russel Kirk (who also fought the good fight) and others like him who are designated as consevative in the classical liberal sense? What do you make of them? The Imaginative Conservative is a great site, one which really adheres itself to Kirk and other conservative thinkers. I see articles by you posted on their all the time...am I missing something here? Granted I may be getting things a bit mixed up, but I thought Kirk and his posse were all classical liberals? And what about Edmund Burke? - Aeneas Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:18:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10839 Brian, it might be worth your while to consider who it is that is accusing Mother Church of the things you say. Certainly no one who has even a cursory understanding of Mother Church would say those things, rather, those steeped in monist ideologies and leftists certainly would, but that is only corroboration. Why would Mother Church have to work to convince those without the eyes to see or the ears to hear what can only be seen and heard by those who submit their wills and broken hearts to the Father through Christ? Mother Church is not a popularity contest and She is Truthful regardless of the opinions of disordered men. The ideas you express are steeped in ideologies of materialism and fly far afield from the universal truths of Mother Church. It is like you lost a quarter in a dark alley and are looking for it under a street lamp down the street because where you lost it has no light. I hope you find what you are looking for, but what is not under the lamp will not be found under the lamp. - Achilles Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:29:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10837 Dear Scotty, I can try to be more specific, but I don’t think specifics will be too helpful for you. I hope Professor Esolen corrects me if I am wrong, but I took the “wheel barrow full of clay to make bricks without straw” to mean what you do with your reason Scotty. I don’t think it was any slight to the nobility of manual labor which is necessary and vital human activity. I took it to mean to make bricks that were only for temporary constructs that will not stand the test of time, just like the pseudo-intellectual sophistic propositions you put forward in your posts. You construct your own meaning for yourself and because of skepticism assume that there is no absolute truth, your construct will fall and the labor will have been in vain. Please listen to what the good professor said, “ I want farmers and masons and carpenters and quarriers and miners and sailors and painters and bricklayers and janitors and cooks and everybody to have a genuinely human education.” Contrary to your assertion that these manual labors are a human education in themselves, which they are not, they are vocational and not worthy subjects of what the term education means. Scotty, as with most of your statements, you have it just upside down. You think manual labor precedes Christ. With Christ as the way the Truth and the Life, when we see primarily that Christ is our life, our manual labor proceeds from that and has incalculably more meaning. I can’t think of a way to give you a more substantial criticism, I wish I could. I think “modern education” has not been good for very many, it has served much more to sow seeds of confusion than to shed light. - Achilles Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:22:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10836 Scotty Ellis Thanks, BAC (bricklayers) Local #1 Detroit Mi - HJ Elden Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:11:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10830 Gian: I don't agree that the city is prior to the family; my Church doesn't teach that, but the reverse. And yet, of course, I agree with you entirely about the errors of classical liberalism (now mistakenly called conservatism) and the errors of collectivism. But I've written about the true meaning of the term "common good" before. I'd suggest Russ Hittinger's great book, "The First Grace," for an analysis of what politics is for -- and a nice definition of the common good. But again this is not exactly to the point ... - Tony Esolen Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:55:11 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10829 Scotty, Brian, Gian: You will never catch me cheering for Adam Smith (though I'll take him before Marx any day, because he was a wiser and better man; still, it isn't much to say that somebody was wiser and better than Karl Marx). On a human education: I have yet to encounter a single human being who was not, by nature, attracted to beauty, including the beauty of song. It wasn't university professors who invented folk song, and it was roving troubadours who gave us our long tradition of love poetry in the west. I believe that all people thrive when given an education that is human as I have described -- not simply utilitarian. I don't see how that is to undervalue the work of farmers and so on. Brian: You are arguing beside the point. All the people you describe, those who love the natural world, those who are suspicious of the depredations of business leviathans, and those who fight for the common good, would be assisted immeasurably by a genuinely human education. Indeed, it would prevent them from lurching into bizarre excesses -- or at least it would help to prevent that. As for the Church, it will always stand before Pilate and be scorned, but the fact is -- and it is a fact -- that the Church is the last really HUMANIST institution standing. Gian: Aristotle allowed for a polis eight or ten times larger than you suggest, but yes, I do believe that the exercise of genuine political activity must be local; we need to recover that activity. But that is an argument that my friends at Front Porch Republic proffer all the time, and I'll let them do it there, as that is their calling. - Tony Esolen Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:51:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10827 Thank you, Dr. Esolen. You have again affirmed our decision to home educate our children in a classical curriculum. I am learning as much if not more than my children in the process. Although I have always been a serious reader, I never would have dreamed ten years ago that reading and memorizing poetry would bring such joy into our home. Our nine year old is working on Tennyson's Spring (from In Memoriam). As she recites and repeats, you can just see the minds and souls of the rest of the children within earshot wondering, growing, sighing. I know you understand what I mean. Until you experience it yourself, you just can't fathom the profound effect beauty can have on a soul. Thanks again, and Happy Easter! - Beth Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:28:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10825 How do you explain pundits and protesters who clamor for democracy? What's love for liberty, is it not? How do you explain people who clamor for basic human rights and civil rights? Is that not love for the dignity of the human person? How do you explain those who criticize the excesses of big business? How do you explain those who try to help the natural environment? The sad fact is that the Church is routinely accused of being a theocratic, anti-humanist Pharaoh. The Church is accused of reducing humans to cogs or bricks or beans. The Church is accused of viewing the other person as a parasite to be feared rather than a person to be loved. Mother Church has a lot of work to do in convincing people otherwise. - Brian A. Cook Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:17:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10824 "I want farmers and masons and carpenters and quarriers and miners and sailors and painters and bricklayers and janitors and cooks and everybody to have a genuinely human education." I guess my point is that farming, carpentry, rock-quarrying, mining, sailing, painting, bricklaying, cleaning, and cooking are all themselves "genuinely human." Perhaps a carpenter has no interest in poetry or literature, no matter what your tastes in the matter might be? Perhaps he is illiterate, has not time or money for the leisurely arts - yet what he does in itself is part of genuine human education: the reception, participation, perfection, and handing-on of a distinctly and genuine human craft. - Scotty Ellis Fri, 13 Apr 2012 05:00:05 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10817 Mr Esolen, Is "Citizen of United States" also an oxymoron? Do you think Aristotle was right that the city could only have five thousand people. Bentham and Mills are not much revered but what will it take the Conservatives to stop revering Adam Smith? The essence of the liberalism is the view of neighbor as somebody to be feared rather than somebody to be loved. To tackle the fearsome neighbor, the liberal either tries to control everybody thus the collectivization response or he tries the mutual separation thus the libertarian response. Both of them are destructive of City, Family and Man in different ways. Collectivization yielded gulag and libertarianism is yielding abolition of man and abortion (offspring is also to be feared) --they explicitly view a fetus as an alien parasite. The libertarian tendency is unstable since man must live together and it actually promotes collectivization. The standard conservative view of society as an arrangement for mutual benefit is wrong. The human society is not an animal herd since man is a political animal. So the conservatives need to accept the classical dictum "City is prior to to the individual and the family" But of - Gian Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:00:11 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10815 I've written a lot about the nobility of manual labor, and I have done a fair amount of it myself. That's not the point here. I want farmers and masons and carpenters and quarriers and miners and sailors and painters and bricklayers and janitors and cooks and everybody to have a genuinely human education. I'm not simply talking about reading Milton (though I think that's a good thing). Note the works I mentioned: The Wind in the Willows, and The Minstrel Boy. That ain't ivory tower.... - Tony Esolen Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:14:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10814 We will never be able to see how much there is to learn, without the wisdom of the masters. I know when I read, poetry and literature, my mind is expanded to see more, much more,than the beans I have counted all my life... I pray we will be not settle to be bricks,but stones in the Makers hand,that he may carve us, to be a perfect arrow to pierce the souls of men. - Charlotte Baker Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:10:10 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/humanist-where-art-thou.html#comment-10813 But did you vote in your last school board election? - Mack Hall Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:54:06 +0100