Sunday, February 01, 2004
FT Highlights
I just got new First Things in and I thought i'd share a couple of good foods for thought. If that's a metaphor.
"A sure sign of our loneliness was the near-total absence of any genuine political discussion or debate within the univerity, whether in graduate seminars, public lectures, or less formal settings. All graduate students 'knew,' to take the most obvious and telling example, that 'conservitism' (rarely defined or actually discussed) was pathalogical and thus hideous and dangerous; this assumption ended up setting the ground rules . . . . My gut sense was that the culture of the univerity didn't have the strength to accomidate any serious challenge to the dominant liberal stantpoint. In this regard, Jean Bethke Elshtain's recent remark about the kind of self that has acompanied 'the triumph of the therapeutic culture' is apt; it is, she says, a 'quivering, sentimental self that gets uncomfortable very quickly, because this self has to feel good about itself all the time. Such selves do not make good arguments, they validate one another.'" -- Eric Miller, "Alone in the Academy"
I think the example from my life would be when me and Jon argue, we can go at it for hours pulling completely opposite positions sometimes, agreeing on other points, and be tight afterwards. Others, however, are so unwilling to consider other viewpoints besides their own that they ridicule anything else, despite claims of openmindedness. True openmindedness requires honesty and a search for truth, whereas much modern liberalism is often about a feeling good. Why we should feel good is less often addressed, I think, nor is the nature of good itself.
"All this being said, is it possible that untutored viewers will come away from the film with the distinct impression that "the Jews" killed Jesus? It is more than possible. The same impression is more than possibly gained by the Gospel accounts, especially the Fourth Gospel . . . . If the untutored viewer of The Passion of the Christ comes away thinking that "the Jews killed Jesus," the fault is not with the film. The fault is with the many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, who do not understand the inescapably Jewish matrix of the story of salvation. For that failure, Christian teachers bear the chief responsibility." -- Fr. Neuhaus
Movies don't kill people, people kill people. It's not the movie's fault. It's my fault. For not living these words:
Jn:4:22: "You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know. For salvation is of the Jews." (DRV)
"It is a strange argument that a society is certified as democratic when it has policies that can only be established by antidemocratic means" -- Fr. Neuhaus
Also present is an excellent exchange between Martin Rhonheimer and various readers about the Church's complicity in the Holocaust expanding on his article "The Holocaust: What Was Not Said." My deepest apologies to anyone if my attempts to correct the anti-Pius XII stuff floating around there have distorted the truth.
Dominus vobiscum.
"A sure sign of our loneliness was the near-total absence of any genuine political discussion or debate within the univerity, whether in graduate seminars, public lectures, or less formal settings. All graduate students 'knew,' to take the most obvious and telling example, that 'conservitism' (rarely defined or actually discussed) was pathalogical and thus hideous and dangerous; this assumption ended up setting the ground rules . . . . My gut sense was that the culture of the univerity didn't have the strength to accomidate any serious challenge to the dominant liberal stantpoint. In this regard, Jean Bethke Elshtain's recent remark about the kind of self that has acompanied 'the triumph of the therapeutic culture' is apt; it is, she says, a 'quivering, sentimental self that gets uncomfortable very quickly, because this self has to feel good about itself all the time. Such selves do not make good arguments, they validate one another.'" -- Eric Miller, "Alone in the Academy"
I think the example from my life would be when me and Jon argue, we can go at it for hours pulling completely opposite positions sometimes, agreeing on other points, and be tight afterwards. Others, however, are so unwilling to consider other viewpoints besides their own that they ridicule anything else, despite claims of openmindedness. True openmindedness requires honesty and a search for truth, whereas much modern liberalism is often about a feeling good. Why we should feel good is less often addressed, I think, nor is the nature of good itself.
"All this being said, is it possible that untutored viewers will come away from the film with the distinct impression that "the Jews" killed Jesus? It is more than possible. The same impression is more than possibly gained by the Gospel accounts, especially the Fourth Gospel . . . . If the untutored viewer of The Passion of the Christ comes away thinking that "the Jews killed Jesus," the fault is not with the film. The fault is with the many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, who do not understand the inescapably Jewish matrix of the story of salvation. For that failure, Christian teachers bear the chief responsibility." -- Fr. Neuhaus
Movies don't kill people, people kill people. It's not the movie's fault. It's my fault. For not living these words:
Jn:4:22: "You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know. For salvation is of the Jews." (DRV)
"It is a strange argument that a society is certified as democratic when it has policies that can only be established by antidemocratic means" -- Fr. Neuhaus
Also present is an excellent exchange between Martin Rhonheimer and various readers about the Church's complicity in the Holocaust expanding on his article "The Holocaust: What Was Not Said." My deepest apologies to anyone if my attempts to correct the anti-Pius XII stuff floating around there have distorted the truth.
Dominus vobiscum.
