Good Orion Magazine interview with a photographer who captures the consequences of American consumption on film.
Intolerable Beauty
Depicting the American way of life
photographs by Chris Jordan
interview by JÖrg Colberg
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036
From EB
Published on 1 Jan 2007 by UK Ministry of Defence. Archived on 27 Feb 2007.
The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036
by Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC)A fascinating 91-page document that probably represents some of the best thinking by the global elite. Below are a few selections that might be of particular interest to Energy Bulletin readers. For more see the full report (PDF).
Introduction (p.i)
Strategic Trends is an independent view of the future produced by the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), a Directorate General within the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD). It is a source document for the development of UK Defence Policy.This edition of Strategic Trends is benchmarked at December 2006. It is a live document and will be updated regularly on our website as new thinking emerges and trends develop.The findings contained in this edition of Strategic Trends do not represent an official position of Her Majesty’s Government or the UK MOD. The information is, however, Crown Copyright.
Sounds a bit like that report from the last season's finale of Spooks, though this doesn't contain any policy recommendations, as far as I know...
A different look at Amazing Grace
Whitewashing the Slave Trade
An Amazing Disgrace
By PETER LINEBAUGH
An Amazing Disgrace
By PETER LINEBAUGH
The two historical faults with the movie are first it does not show us that the English abolitionist movement owed its beginning, its thrust, and its ending to the activity of the slaves themselves. The second fault is that it does not consider the historical proposition that the abolition of the slave trade could only succeed at the moment in economic development when other sources of exploitation became available to English capital, namely, the working class in England. Now, those are themes of tragedy.
The Non-Thinking Enemy
Big, Slow, Centralized and Dumb
The Non-Thinking Enemy
By WILLIAM S. LIND
One of the rituals attending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when our opponents score a goal, is for an American general to materialize before the press and announce, in his best miles gloriosus manner, that "we face a thinking enemy." Wow. Who ever would have imagined that the enemy might think and learn?
The latest example followed the insurgents' success in shooting down seven American helicopters in Iraq. According to the February 18 New York Times, Major General James E. Simmons, an Army aviator, told reporters, "We are engaged with a thinking enemy." General Simmons should know; the mujaheddin shot down his helicopter on January 25, fortunately with no casualties.
One of the most basic phenomena of war is that the enemy thinks and learns. It doesn't always happen; an example of an enemy who did not think and learn was the Japanese submarine service in World War II. It kept on doing what it knew didn't work right through to the end. The result was about a 1:1 exchange ratio between Japanese submarines and their targets, a truly remarkable achievement in the annals of submarine warfare.
But it is so routine for an enemy to think and adapt that it is difficult to imagine one that did not. In fact, such an exercise might prove enlightening. What characteristics might a non-thinking enemy have?
First of all, such a military would have to be highly centralized. Decisions should be made as remotely from the battlefield as possible, with layers of middle and senior management given a veto over any new ideas or adaptations. Someone, in some headquarters, is bound to veto anything.
It would help if all headquarters were as large as possible. Not only would this maximize veto powers, it would also ensure that all decisions were made on a lowest-common-denominator basis. Usually, all large groups can agree on is maintaining the status quo.
Senior decision-makers should not be focused on the war. Their "real world" should be as disconnected as possible from battlefield results. Over-concern with bureaucratic empire-building, budget politics and personal career success are all useful tools for attaining this important disconnect.
A non-thinking military's feedback mechanisms should ensure that only good news is sent up the chain. The higher the level of command -- including the nation's political leadership -- the stronger the demand to suppress bad news should be. Messengers with bad news should routinely be shot, or at least exiled.
To maintain its opacity of mind, a non-thinking military should be insular. It should be careful not to look at the experiences of other militaries, historical or contemporary. A general spirit of false pride and bravado is always helpful in maintaining insularity. Past failures can be blamed on someone else.
An excellent means to ensure that thought is suppressed is to contract thinking out. Contractors could care less about truth; their measure of success is profits. Since the awarding of contracts is in the hands of senior officers whose desire to avoid adaptation is well known, contractors' unwillingness to suggest new ideas can be guaranteed. If most contractors are retired senior officers to whom any change would be an attack on their "legacies," so much the better. In the cause of not thinking, billions to contractors is money well spent.
Finally, a useful way to discourage thinking among junior leaders is to try to wage war by rote process. Those processes are developed and dictated downward by the same large headquarters whose inherent aversion to thought has already been noted. Better, those same headquarters control training; soldiers and junior leaders who have been trained in obsolete tactics will have more trouble adapting than people with no training.
Despite all these powerful institutional incentives to stifle thought, the regrettable fact remains that junior levels of command, up through company and sometimes battalion, will still want to think and adapt, because they want to stay alive and even to win. Every effort must therefore be made to ensure they have to fight the system each--step of the way in order to change something. The old bureaucratic rule, "Delay is the surest form of denial," is helpful here. This brings us back to the importance of centralization and large headquarters.
Some may object that a military so carefully structured not to think is hard to imagine in the real world. That is true, since its fate would be so sure. What kind of government would be so corrupt, so unconcerned about the security of the state it leads and the vast sums it would be wasting as to tolerate such a military? Simple self-preservation would dictate sweeping military reform.
Of course, it would be anyone's dream to have a non-thinking military like the one I have described as an opponent. Any thinking military, even one with the most paltry of resources, could look forward to victory presented on a silver platter.
Who might have such exquisite good fortune and vast favor of the gods as to acquire a non-thinking military as their enemy? Anyone who fights us.
William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Jean Twenge podcasts
Family Matters Radio with Jacquie and Caroline
Generation Me with Jean Twenge Part 1 (mp3)
Generation Me with Jean Twenge Part 2 (mp3)It's all about me, me, me
The Western Confucian posts, Self-Esteem Run Amok.
The title for the NBC news story on this topic: "Generation I." Some students were interviewed about the study. Did they think there was a problem? OF COURSE NOT. They tried to justify it by saying it would help them get results (this from the slacker generation), or that they were still "finding themselves" (naturally, since they have no real roots in family and community, no sense of duty and responsibility). And would the news crew have given the opinion of a student who agreed with the study? PROBABLY NOT.
NPR: Study Sees Rise in Narcissism Among Students
What will be the consequences of this continued growth in self-absorption and self-centeredness? What about all that talk about young people seeking to serve the country after 9/11?
Faculty page for Jean Twenge. Her book: Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before.
Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
The Gift of Christopher Lasch
The title for the NBC news story on this topic: "Generation I." Some students were interviewed about the study. Did they think there was a problem? OF COURSE NOT. They tried to justify it by saying it would help them get results (this from the slacker generation), or that they were still "finding themselves" (naturally, since they have no real roots in family and community, no sense of duty and responsibility). And would the news crew have given the opinion of a student who agreed with the study? PROBABLY NOT.
NPR: Study Sees Rise in Narcissism Among Students
Day to Day, February 27, 2007 · College students today are more narcissistic and self-centered than a generation ago, according to a study released by San Diego State University. Students' scores on the study's Narcissistic Personality
Inventory have steadily risen since the test was introduced in 1982.
In their study, researchers trace the phenomenon back to the
"self-esteem movement" that began in in the 1980s. And, they say, young people's self-regard is fueled by current technologies such as MySpace and YouTube.
Study psychologists worry the trend, attributable to the influences of schools, media and parents, could be harmful to personal relationships and American society. The study says narcissists are more likely to have short-lived romantic relationships and lack empathy.
Jean Twenge, the study's lead author, talks with Alex Chadwick.
What will be the consequences of this continued growth in self-absorption and self-centeredness? What about all that talk about young people seeking to serve the country after 9/11?
Faculty page for Jean Twenge. Her book: Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before.
Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
The Gift of Christopher Lasch
HPV infection common among females in US
HPV infection common among females in US
Of course, NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman advocates safe sex and the vaccine. It figures. Except the moronic shill (excuse the language) should have remembered that condoms are not at all effective against the transmission of HPV, since the virus may be found on any exposed part of the skin.
Of course, NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman advocates safe sex and the vaccine. It figures. Except the moronic shill (excuse the language) should have remembered that condoms are not at all effective against the transmission of HPV, since the virus may be found on any exposed part of the skin.
Varia, 27 February 2007
Ha Ji-won just finished university. After 10 years...
Ha Ji-won's latest movie, Miracle on 1st Street, is number 1 at the box office. Trailer: mms, dl; Kfccinema thread
I haven't found any reviews yet...
It's almost the end of February
My sister KK said she probably won't be visiting, if at all, until late next week, so that means that if I go to the Handel and Haydn concert this weekend, I will be going alone. Christopher Hogwood is guest-conducting, so I wouldn't want to miss it--it may be the last opportunity for me to watch him in action for a long time. I don't know if rush tickets are available--I'll call later this afternoon or tomorrow morning. They may not be, if a lot of tickets have been sold; they are usually for really bad seats in the back, but for $10, I wouldn't complain. It would be nice to get Mr. Hogwood to sign one of his CDs, but I haven't seen him stick around after a concert before, to meet people and so on... I haven't purchased any of the recent recordings by the Academy of Ancient Music for a while... won't be able to until I get a job.
The deadline for the submission of abstracts for the Aristotelian biology workshop is tomorrow--I'm still doing some last-minute reading, and will attempt to tweak my notes and draft enough so that I can produce an abstract from them. I think the abstract needs to be about 300 words or so; it shouldn't be difficult to write one, but these days, writing anything coherent is difficult for me.
Tonight The Unit is on. I wonder if there are any clips available on You Tube. Dennis Haysbert makes for a rather clunky operator--he's just too tall, and not as well-coordinated as Kiefer Sutherland. Tonight should be one of the more action-packed episodes. As I pointed out on the Boundless blog, The Unit does not approve of torture, and the debate hasn't even come up (though members of the team were subjected to torture by friendlies posing as the bad guys as a part of their SERE training). I think both Robert Baer and Eric Haney have made statements about how useless torture is. In that respect, it's better than 24; people have drawn the conclusion that because Joel Surnow, who is one of the show's producers and has recently made public his so-called "conservative" leanings, supports the use of torture in times of "emergency," that 24 is a pro-torture show, and is trying to convince the American public of its liceity. Certainly, whenever Jack Bauer uses it, it has proven to be effective, contradicting Haney, Baer, and what I take is the reality of the case.
Are the real members of CAG as upstanding as the show portrays them to be? Does it attract a higher quality of soldier than the regular Army? Certainly members of CAG have a more enhanced skill set, but what of their moral qualities? Jericho has gone after PMCs in making Ravenwood, a fictional contractor, perhaps like the real Blackwater, to be one of its bogeymen and having its employees commit not only various atrocities but treason as well. (On the other hand, Federal agents and local law enforcement have been shown working hard to discover the conspiracy to use the nukes on American soil; unfortunately as the series premiere indicates, they were not very successful.) I would like to think there are decent people working for the Federal Government, even if the Federal Government is the Leviathan. Still, with the military under the control of the Federal Government, and with local law enforcement being the coercive force of local metropolitan and state governments that are dependent instruments of the "Federal" State, it is difficult to think that committed civic republicans will not find themselves at odds with both, after being closely monitored for "traitorous" activities.
The Cross vs. The Shield
The Cross vs. The Shield
With “local” police departments falling prey to collectivist ethics, exemplary Christian officers are being forced out to make room for State-worshiping careerists.
By William Norman Grigg, Editor
With “local” police departments falling prey to collectivist ethics, exemplary Christian officers are being forced out to make room for State-worshiping careerists.
By William Norman Grigg, Editor
Paul Gottfried on Rudy Giuliani
Jonah Jumps the Whale--for Giuliani
Paul Gottfried archives
@ Lew Rockwell
@ VDare
An interview
His contribution to What is Left? What is Right?
Paul Gottfried archives
@ Lew Rockwell
@ VDare
An interview
His contribution to What is Left? What is Right?
Russell Kirk on Tradition
I had not read much of Mr. Kirk's writings before, and this was quite a pleasant read. He talks of tradition not being dead, unthinking, or unreflective. How does he compare with Edmund Burke? I will have to read more Burke to make that comparison (plus Mr. Kirk's The Conservative Mind).
from The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right, edited by Joseph Scotchie
pages 60-62
(He then talks about tradition in the sciences.)
pages 62-67
Pages 70-73
from The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right, edited by Joseph Scotchie
pages 60-62
Formerly the word tradition signified oral communication, as distinguished from books or documents; in the twentieth century, however, tradition has been widely employed to mean, also, prescriptive wisdom expressed in literature—and, by extension, to include old ways, beliefs, and even material objects that constitute a part of the modern age's cultural patrimony. The Latin verb tradere, meaning to "hand down" or "hand over," is the root of our word. Tradition implies acceptance, preservation, and passing on. It gives permanence to customs and ideas; it confers upon change the element of continuity, keeping the alteration of society in a regular train. Everything which the living possess has roots in the spiritual and intellectual achievements of the past. Everything man has—his body, his mind, his social order—is in large part an inheritance from people long dead. The passage of times brings new acquisitions; but unless men know the past, they are unable to understand distinctions between what is permanent and what is transient in their lives. Man always is beset by questions, of which the largest is the question of his own existence. He cannot even begin to think about his existence, and lesser questions, until he has acquired the command of means that come to him from the past, such as the names that people customarily use with reference to modes of being and acting.
Man inherits a physical world, a biological world, and a cultural world. Tradition is concerned principally with his cultural world—which, nevertheless, is closely joined to his physical and biological worlds. Tradition is the means by which man comes to understand the principles of his own nature and of society; it joins the individual with the generations that are dead and the generations that are yet to be born. In short, tradition is a way of preserving the wisdom of our ancestors and a means by which we can give some significance and application to our own private reason.
In every age, philosophers have spoken of the power of tradition. Cicero, in his Republic and his Offices, shows how the Roman commonwealth was dependent upon custom and inherited belief for justice, order, and freedom. Fulbert of Chartres, in the eleventh century, observed that "We are dwarfs mounted upon the shoulders of giants," able to see so far only because of the stature of the wise men who have preceded us in time. The present moment, in the eyes of men attached to tradition, is merely a film upon the deep well of the past, an illusory line of demarcation between history and futurity. It is upon tradition that the future must be built. The long essential continuity of culture and human intelligence can be maintained only if the past is conserved through living tradition. The man who respects tradition, then, is not a reckless reformer who would alter society and human nature upon some utopian design, but a thinker who tries to reconcile the best in tradition with the constant necessity for change. Burke said that his model of a statesman was one who combined the disposition to preserve with the ability to reform. A healthy society, he suggested elsewhere, is never wholly old or wholly new, but, like any living thing, is forever casting off its old fabric and acquiring new tissue. Prescription, or tradition, is the means by which this healthy society preserves the wisdom of our ancestors and applies that wisdom to the new problems which it faces.
The process of growth always involves the process of reform—the process by which the acorn becomes the oak. This process is always at work in human affairs. The problem which thinking men always face is the difficulty of distinguishing between necessary and desirable alteration, and unnecessary and undesirable destruction. Tradition is a guide to the permanent qualities in society and thought and private life which need to be preserved, in one form or another, throughout the process of inevitable change.
True progress, improvement, is unthinkable without tradition, as Vazquez de Melia suggests, because progress rests upon addition, not subtraction. Change without reference to tradition runs the risk of aimless alteration for alteration's sake, terminating in anarchy or nihilism. Real progress consists in improvement of private and public morality, private and public intelligence, the increase of justice, order, and freedom, and of those material conditions which contribute to human happiness. It is scarcely possible to judge of what humanity wants, or of what measures are calculated to make men better or happier, without knowledge of what benefits have been gained in the past, and of what mistakes have been made. Tradition is the means by which humanity filters out its mistake from its progressive discoveries. Every great institution among civilized men seems to have tried to recapture or preserve the values of the past. This is especially true of the Church, sifting the pre-Christian inheritance of Western culture and "baptizing" whatever might be adapted to Christianity.
(He then talks about tradition in the sciences.)
pages 62-67
Yet there can be error in tradition, and even a tradition made up of errors. Man always is compelled to choose among conflicting traditions, and to sort out from the mass of inherited precept the maxims and customs which truly apply to his present situation in the world. This is a problem which cannot be solved by any hard-and-fast role. There would be no problem of tradition if men were not in some important senses free. When men let their moral and intellectual freedom sink altogether into desuetude, and rely uncritically upon pure tradition, their society is liable to pass into decay, or at least find itself unable to resist the pressure of livelier societies: such appears to have been a condition in the civilization of ancient Egypt and of Peru. Routine without change, and change without routine, appear to be almost equally perilous.
Yet it does not follow that all traditions are evanescent. At the core of the body of traditions of any society is to be found a number of customs and precepts, described by some as natural law formulated into traditions, which that society ignores at its peril. And, far from being peculiar to a savage or barbarian condition of society, this seems to be especially true of complex civilizations, which are the more dependent upon certain underlying assumptions about man and society, the more complicated their activities become. Some of these traditions appear to be almost universal in essence, although they are formulated in various ways. The Decalogue expresses some of the more important of these, in the Judeo-Christian culture. The distinctions between good acts and evil acts; the duties within the family; the duties toward other men; the relationship between God and man: these concepts ordinarily are defined and maintained in any society by the force of ancient traditions, accepted almost without question from time out of mind. And when they are doubted or denied by the doctrinaire skeptic, any society is in peril of losing these moral sanctions which make the civil social order possible. Whether regarded as revealed truths or as necessary fictions (Polybius, in the Hellenistic world, took the latter view, as have various cultural relativists since his time), the traditions which govern private and social morality are set too close about the heart of a civilization to bear much tampering with. Skeptics like Hume, and rationalists like Voltaire, have acknowledged the necessity for conventions and traditions to make life in society tolerable.
The religious and ethical convictions which, however weakened in some quarters, still govern Western civilization in large part, are composed of Hebraic, Greek, Roman, and Christian elements; and are sanctioned and sheltered by a complex body of traditions. Shorn of tradition, our modern attitude toward the meaning of life would be meager and feeble. The Christian attitude toward the importance of tradition is suggested in the second epistle of Paul to Timothy, Chapters III and IV: "But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them. . . . For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." To the Christian, conformity to religious tradition is not superstition, but the part of wisdom; it is the doctrines of presumptuous private rationality and interest that are fables. Tradition, in short, to the religious man, is transcendent truth expressed in the filtered opinions of our ancestors.
What purported revelations are true, and what are false; whether revelation still is possible in human experience, or whether it has ceased to work among men; whether a new revelation could undo a major tradition, and by what tests such a revelation ought to be judged—these grave questions, and certain others, are not easily answered. But much of life always remains veiled in mystery, and the simple existence of a tradition, accepted for many generations by a people, logically creates a presumption that such a tradition has purpose and significance, unless proof to the contrary is very strong.
Traditions also have been defended upon empirical grounds. That a society seems to have thrived when it obeyed the dictates of tradition, and seems to have suffered when it sought to substitute some new moral or social scheme for prescriptive wisdom—this test has been applied again and again by philosophers and moralists. The decay of tradition is the theme of the Roman satirists and historians: they judge the importance of tradition by the consequences of the disregard of tradition. And this argument is advanced by the Hebrew prophets and the early Christian fathers. Unfortunately for a society which neglects tradition, this proof can be afforded only when the decay of traditional belief has brought society near to catastrophe, if not actually to positive ruin. A society may for a great while appear to be thriving, despite its rejection of tradition, when in reality that society is decaying, and moving toward dissolution; an outward prosperity may mask a cultural and moral decay, the end of which is as sudden as its progress toward disaster has been gradual. The respecter of tradition argues that to abandon tradition—that is, to abandon respect for prescriptive wisdom, what Chesterton calls ''the democracy of the dead," the voice of the wise men who have lived in ages past—is to commit a society inevitably to such dissolution.
The lamentations of Jeremiah very frequently are justified by the event, however much a complacent generation may have mocked at the adherents to traditions allegedly outworn. Yet sometimes such lamentations are merely splenetic or misguided, and some traditions actually do wear out. Each generation is compelled to judge for itself just how far to obey the letter of tradition, and just how far to modify tradition by the admission of salutary change. This faculty of distinguishing between needful and imprudent alteration seems to be granted only to a few persons in each generation. In general, the attitude of the respecter of tradition is that of the farseeing Lord Falkland, in the English Civil Wars: "When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change." The fact that humanity has lumbered along tolerably well in obedience to a tradition creates a legitimate presumption, in short, in favor of retaining that tradition; the burden of proof rests upon the innovator.
Most men and women are good only from habit, or out of deference to the opinions of their neighbors, the friend to tradition argues; and to deprive them of their habits, customs, and precepts, in order to benefit them in some novel way, may leave them morally and socially adrift, more harmed by their loss of ethical sanctions than helped by the fancied new benefit.
Tradition cannot suffice to guide a society, nevertheless, if it is not understood and expounded and, if need be, modified by the better intelligences and consciences in every generation. It is not possible for the living to see with the eyes of the dead. Whatever wisdom exists in any generation is, in a sense, born with that generation; and that generation's wisdom seeks sustenance in tradition, but cannot be kept alive merely by tradition. Wisdom has to be born over and over again; tradition is the element of continuity which enables each generation's wisdom to profit from the wisdom of preceding generations. The past exists only in the living; yet whether the living are aware of it or not, most of their experience and their apprehension of their own experience is determined by their legacy from the past. This is a condition peculiar to man. The vegetable, unaware of its inheritance, is unable to use its inheritance for its own improvement. Man cannot be like the vegetable, for he has reason, conscience, and consciousness, and he inherits an awareness of his ancestors. He is either better or worse than a vegetable, and whether he is better or worse depends upon his relationship to the sources of his being. It is tradition which makes it possible for him, short of mystical experience, to know his part in the "contract of eternal society" that joins him to those who are dead and those who are not yet born, and also to a nature that is more than material and more than human.
If tradition sinks into mere unquestioning routine, it digs its own grave; for man then approximates vegetal nature, disavowing reason and conscience as correctors and restorers of tradition. It was one of the more eloquent apologists for tradition, Chateaubriand (in his Memoires d'outre-tombe) who lamented "the mania for adhering to the past, a mania which I never cease impugning. . . . Political stagnation is impossible; it is absolutely necessary to keep pace with human intelligence. Let us respect the majesty of time; let us reverentially contemplate past centuries, rendered sacred by the memory and the footsteps of our fathers; but let us not try to go back to them, for they no longer possess a vestige of our real nature, and if we endeavored to seize hold of them, they would fade away." This is the traditionalist of elevation, appealing to his generation to hold by living tradition, but not to be governed by a letter from which the spirit has departed.
There exists no danger nowadays that Americans might sink into a social antiquarianism. The expectation of change has come to exceed the expectation of continuity nearly everywhere in the United States. For the annihilation of America's traditional architecture and town patterns moves on apace, though not so swiftly as it did during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, when purported "urban renewal" became obliteration of nearly everything worth preserving or restoring in America's cities. And so it goes in nearly all lands. In T. S. Eliot's sentence, we are "destroying our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanized caravans." It is so in things of the mind and the spirit, as well as in bricks and mortar, and the consequences are immeasurable, but ruinous. It might be possible to establish a direct ratio between the decline of order in the twentieth century, and the widespread decline of belief in the truth of tradition.
A consciousness of our spiritual inheritance, Gabriel Marcel writes in The Decline of Wisdom, is possible only in an atmosphere of diffuse gratitude: and gratitude not merely to the generations that have preceded us in this life, but gratitude toward the eternal order, and the source of that order, which raises man above the brutes, and makes art man's nature. Pietas, in short, the veneration of man's sacred associations and of the wisdom of man's ancestors—this spirit survives only in holes and corners of modern society; and for lack of piety, modern men are bored, impatient, and ready enough to subvert the civil social state which is the source of their own material prosperity.
Now "the contract of eternal society," that phrase which describes the concept of social obligation presently decaying among us, is the idea which forms the kernel of Burke's Reflections. Society is indeed a contract, Burke says, but not a contract in any mere historical or commercial sense. It is a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born. It is a contract, too, between God and man, "linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible worlds, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place." We have no right to break this contract of eternal society; and if we do, we are cast out of this world of love and order into the antagonist world of hate and discord. Burke does not believe that wisdom began with the eighteenth century. He employs the words "contract" and "compact" in their most venerable meaning, the bond between God and man. ''I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth." This is the thirteenth verse of the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis. This contract, this covenant, is the free promise of God, and its terms are obeyed by man in gratitude and in fear. Far from being a grandiloquent transcendence of real meaning, as some of Burke's critics have protested, Burke's employment of "contract" has the sanction of the Bible, the Schoolmen, and the whole body of ethical conviction which carries us back to Job and beyond Job.
Pages 70-73
The eternal contract, the sense of continuity among men, has been made known to succeeding generations, from the dawn of culture, by the agency of tradition. Tradition is the process of handing on beliefs, not so much through formal schooling, or through books, as through the life of the family and the observances of the church. Until the end of the eighteenth century, no one thought it conceivable that most men could obtain most of their knowledge in any other way than this; and though cheap books and eleemosynary schooling have supplanted to some extent the old functions of traditionary instruction, still tradition remains the principal source of our moral beliefs and our worldly wisdom. Young persons do not acquire in school, to any considerable extent, the sense of continuity and the veneration for the eternal contract which makes possible willing obedience to social order; children acquire this sense from their parents and other elders, and from their gradual introduction to religion, if they obtain any; the process is illative, rather than deliberate. Now let us suppose that parents cease to impart such instruction, or come to regard tradition as superstition; suppose that young people never become acquainted with the church—what happens to tradition? Why, its empire is destroyed, and the young join the crowd of the other-directed whom David Riesman describes.
In a looser sense, by "tradition" we mean all that body of knowledge which is bound up with prescription and prejudice and authority, the accepted beliefs of a people, as distinguished from "scientific" knowledge; and this, too, is greatly weakened in its influence among the rising generation by a growing contempt for any belief that is not founded upon demonstrable "fact.'' Almost nothing of importance really can be irrefutably demonstrated by finally ascertained "fact"; but the limitations of science are not apprehended by the throng of the quarter-educated who think themselves emancipated from their spiritual heritage. When we confront these people, we are dealing not merely with persons ignorant of tradition, but actively hostile toward it.
Now cheap books and free schooling are not the principal reasons for this decay of the influence of tradition. The really decisive factors are the industrialization and urbanization of modern life. Tradition thrives where men follow naturally in the ways of their fathers, and live in the same houses, and experience in their own lives that continuity of existence which assures them that the great things in human nature do not much alter from one generation to another. This is the mood of Ecclesiastes. But the tremendous physical and social changes that have come with the later stages of our industrial growth, and the concentration of population in raw new cities, shake men's confidence that things will be with them as they were with their fathers. The sanction of permanence seems to have been dissolved. Men doubt the validity of their own opinions, founded upon tradition, and hesitate to impart them to their children—indeed, they may thrust all this vast obligation upon the unfortunate school-teacher, and then grow annoyed when the teacher turns out to be incapable of bestowing moral certitude, scientific knowledge, and decent manners upon a class of fifty or sixty bewildered and distracted children. Most natural keepers of tradition, in short, abdicate their function when modern life makes them doubt their own virtue.
Though of course I did not understand all this at the time, it was this decay of the force of tradition which was sweeping away the old mill-pond almost before my eyes, as I lay on the hill under my oak. For my part, I still was a tradition-guided boy; but the planners who altered the landscape, presently, were Benthamites confident in the sufficiency of pure rationality, and the man who demolished the octagon-house was an other-directed individual who positively dreaded identification with anything dead and gone, and longed to be associated, however vaguely, with the milieu of Beverly Hills. The Utilitarians and the other-directed people were using up the moral and intellectual capital which had been accumulated by a traditionary society, I came to realize much later; and that process has been in the ascendant, with an increasing velocity, throughout the United States, for two generations now.
It cannot continue forever. Our guardians of tradition have been recruited principally, although not wholly, from our farms and small towns; the incertitude of the cities disturbs the equanimity of the tradition-guided man. And our great cities have been swelling at the expense of our country and village population, so that the immense majority of young people today have no direct acquaintance with the old rural verities. Our reservoir of tradition will be drained dry within a very few decades, if we do not deliberately open up once more the springs of tradition. The size of the United States, and the comparative gradualness of industrial development in many regions, until now saved us from a complete exhaustion of tradition, such as Sweden seems to have experienced. At the beginning of this century, Sweden had seven people in the country for one in the city; now that ratio is worse than inverted; and one may obtain some hint of what the death of tradition means to a people from the fact that the Swedes, previously celebrated for their placidity and old-fashioned heartiness, now endure remarkably high rates of abortion and suicide, dismayed at the thought of bringing life into this world or even of enduring one's own life.
I do not wish our traditions to run out, because I do not believe that formal indoctrination, or pure rationality, or simple imitation of our contemporaries, can replace traditions. Traditions are the wisdom of the race; they are the only sure instruments of moral instruction; they have about them a solemnity and a mystery that Dr. Dryasdust the cultural anthropologist never can compensate for; and they teach us the solemn veneration of the eternal contract which cannot be imparted by pure reason. Even our political institutions are sustained principally by tradition, rather than by utilitarian expediency. A people who have exhausted their traditions are starved for imagination and devoid of any general assumptions to give coherence to their life.
Yet I do not say that tradition ought to be our only guide, nor that tradition is always beneficent. There have been ages and societies in which tradition, stifling the creative faculty among men, put an end to variety and change, and so oppressed mankind with the boredom of everlasting worship of the past. In a healthy nation, tradition must be balanced by some strong element of curiosity and individual dissent. Some people who today are conservatives because they protest against the tyranny of neoterism, in another age or nation would be radicals, because they could not endure the tyranny of tradition. It is a question of degree and balance. But I am writing of modern society, especially in the United States; and among us there is not the slightest danger that we shall be crushed beneath the dead weight of tradition; the danger is altogether on the other side. Our modern affliction is the flux of ceaseless change, the repudiation of all enduring values, the agonies of indecision and the social neuroses that come with a questioning of everything in heaven and earth. We are not in the plight of the old Egyptians or Peruvians; it is not prescription which enslaves us, but the lust for innovation. A young novelist, visiting George Santayana in his Roman convent in the last year of the philosopher's life, remarked that he could not endure to live in America, where everything was forever changing and shifting. Santayana replied, with urbane irony, that he supposed if it were not for kaleidoscopic change in America, life there would be unbearable. A people infatuated with novelty presently cannot bear to amble along; but the trouble with this is that the pace becomes vertiginous, and the laws of centrifugal force begin to operate.
I know there are people who maintain that nothing is seriously wrong with life in the United States, and that we need not fret about tradition one way or the other; but I confess, at the risk of being accused of arrogance, that I take these people for fools, whether they call themselves liberals or conservatives. They have a fondness for pointing to the comfortable routine of our suburbs as a demonstration of our mastery over the ancient tragedy of life. Now I am not one of those critics of society who look upon residence in suburbia a stain worse than the mark of the beast; but neither am I disposed to think that a commuter's ticket and a lawn-sprinkler are the proofs of national greatness and personal exaltation. And I am convinced that, if the reservoir of our traditions is drained dry, there will not be ten thousand tidy little suburbs in America, very long thereafter; for the suburbs are dependent upon an older order of social organization, as well as upon an intricate modern apparatus of industrial technology, for their being.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Jesuits "Certain" About Superior's Exit in '08
Jesuits "Certain" About Superior's Exit in '08
General Congregation Likely to OK His Resignation
ROME, FEB. 26, 2007 (Zenit.org).- A spokesman for the Society of Jesus said it is "morally certain" that the upcoming general congregation will formally approve Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach's request to step down as superior general.
Father Kolvenbach received Benedict XVI's approval for his proposed resignation next year, though the Jesuit Constitution stipulates that the superior-general position is for life.
The Dutch-born Father Kolvenbach cited his age -- he will turn 80 in 2008 -- and his 25-year tenure as the superior of the Jesuits as reasons for his resignation.
In the wake of recent media reports, Father José de Vera, director of the Jesuits' information office, clarified the situation.
"A few months ago Father Kolvenbach obtained the Pope's permission to present his resignation," Father de Vera explained in a statement sent to ZENIT. "He will do so in the next general congregation which he has convoked for January 2008."
"Theoretically the congregation could reject the proposal of resignation presented by Father Kolvenbach," the Jesuit spokesman said. "Resignation from the office of superior general has no effect if it is not agreed to by the Society in general congregation.
"[P]ractically speaking, this will not happen because the superior-general has followed to the letter the process established for the case of resignation."
The Society of Jesus had recently asked the Pope if the organization's rule that superiors-general have a life term in their office should continue in force.
According to Father de Vera, the Holy Father chose to maintain the stipulation. This does not discard the possibility, the Jesuit added, that, "in special cases and after previous consultation with the Pope," the superior general "can present his resignation to the general congregation."
Persuasion
Currently it is still my favorite Austen novel... I think it does share a similar theme to Love in the Time of Cholera, but the treatment of the theme is so different--can we say that Austen is an exemplar of neo-classicism, while Love in the Time of Cholera is definitely in the Romantic vein? And that does reveal different understandings of what love is...
Ciarán Hinds (Yahoo movies--alt) as Wentworth in the 1995 adaptation--
From Sony Pictures:
More stills from the movie.
I have high hopes for the new adaptation that is coming out this year, starring Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones. We'll see which one is better. Having seen the teaser, some have commented that a proper lady would never have run through the streets--this is undoubtedly true, and I hope such anachronisms (inserted for the sake of the Romantic spirit--as I've said before, can a people dominated by feeling really understand the morals of the past and Austen on love?) are few and do not ruin what Austen is trying to convey.
Apparently the film adaptation of Love in the Time of Cholera is now in post-production. Photo Gallery.
The Lives of Others
Official website; Sony Pictures Classics website
Yahoo Movies
Apple trailer
Captain Gerd Wiesler of the Ministry of State Security, Stasi, is an expert interrogator and committed to the task of surveillance, zealous in protecting the DDR, the German Democratic Republic, from its enemies. At a performance of a play, his superior Colonel Anton Grubitz points out to him the Minister of Culture, Bruno Hempf, and to the main focus of the night, the playwright and author Georg Dreymann. Wiesler notes the vanity and arrogance of Dreymann, and is suspicious of him, while Grubitz responds by saying that Dreyman is the only non-subversive artist of the DDR, having received honors and favor from high ranking officials; nonetheless, he confirms that Dreymann is to be investigated.
Wiesler soon learns that the real reason for the investigation is that the minister wishes to have the actress Crista-Maria Sieland for himself and desires to eliminate his rival, Dreymann. Grubitz is all too happy to do what he can for a member of the Central Committee in order to rise higher in the ranks.
As Wiesler silently invades the privacy of Dreymann and listens in to his conversations, a transformation is slowly effected within him. The love between Dreymann and the actress and live-in lover Sieland is real, as is their passion for art. This is in stark contrast to Wiesler's own personal life, who is cold and detached from others, apparently having no real friends or personal contacts. He hires a prostitute, but hungers more for human intimacy and contact than the sex.
Wiesler realizes that the Party is an excuse for people to take advantage of others, Communism serves only to benefit the elites, the higher ranking members of the Party. His superior, Col. Grubitz, is interested only in being promoted, and will do whatever it takes. The State (and the Party as well) is a soulless abstraction, to which Wiesler has pledge his loyalty, but like the abstraction, Wiesler is devoid of life until he encounters Dreymann and Sieland.
Wiesler is slowly "corrupted" by the artists and by art -- by the music of the "Sonata for a Good Man"and a novel that he "borrows" from Dreymann and reads in his own apartment. While he is work for a government determined to monitor expression and to prevent the dissemination of "harmful ideas," he himself has become a captive of art and the beauty and truth that it conveys, offering a view of the world different from the official party line.
Wiesler's yearning for something truly meaningful conflicts with his loyalty to the State; he continues to serve as a member of the security forces and to monitor Dreymann, until he must make not just one decision, but a series, as to what he should embrace.
I tend to be a bit distrustful of artists, who tend to be leftists, but apparently artists who suffered in the Leftist experiment of Communism might be different in their worldviews and beliefs. One is at least sympathetic to their plight, and with their desire to speak the truth about the "human condition." (Especially if they wish to reveal what is happening under an unjust regime.)
The despair felt by artists who have been punished by the government is exemplified in the suicide of one of the minor characters. A quick death is preferable to a continued misery and suffering caused by being deprived of one's calling, one's purpose in life. After the death of his friend, Dreyman too must make a decision--whether he should unveil the truth about the system under which he lives and thereby honor the memory of his friend and all who have suffered, at whatever cost to himself and to Crista-Maria, or to continue living the "safe" and privileged life that he has had so far.
The movie does have some rated R material, but fortunately the sex scenes do not last long. (And despite their short length, they're still gratuitous.)
Recommended for its look at life on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Its theme about the use of art and beauty to inspire goodness in a Communist regime would no doubt be one that our late pontiff John Paul II would have appreciated, and I'm guessing that afficianados of von Balthasar would also enjoy it. While the morality of the artists is not totally unproblematic--after all they are unmarried, cohabitating and fornicating--this is somewhat minor in comparison to the points the movie is trying to make. (That Communist regimes, being officially atheistic, endorse the undermining of traditional morality and of the family, seems definite, but it also seems to be the case that European artists were at the forefront of such licentious behavior. Plus it also seems true that sexual morality had been on the decline in urban centers of Europe before World War 2.)
[Updated: I found out that the film did win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film last night.]
For EJK, from wiki:
Piano Sonata No. 23 (Beethoven), colloquially known as the Appassionata, is used as the main transformation point of the Stasi Agent Gerd Wiesler.
Another Shooter poster
photos; Filmstalker
Interview with Antoine Fuqua
Mackubin T. Owens reviews James Webb’s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America; critique of the book by Charles Oliver
Contemplating Christ Crucified
On Contemplating Christ Crucified
"Eloquent Message of Love"
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 25, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today before reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in St. Peter's Square.
* * *
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This year, the Lenten message is inspired in the verse of John's Gospel, which in turn goes back to a messianic prophecy of Zechariah: "They shall look on him whom they have pierced" (John 19:37).
The beloved disciple, present with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and the other women on Calvary, was an eyewitness of the thrust of the spear which pierced Christ's side, so that blood and water came out (cf. John 19:31-34). This gesture of an unknown Roman soldier, destined to be lost in oblivion, was imprinted on the eyes and heart of the apostle, who recounted it in his Gospel. In the course of the centuries, how many conversions have taken place precisely thanks to the eloquent message of love that he receives who contemplates Jesus crucified!
Therefore, we enter the Lenten season with our gaze fixed on Jesus' side. In the encyclical letter "Deus Caritas Est" (cf. No. 12), I wished to underline that only by gazing on Jesus, dead on the cross for us, can we know and contemplate this fundamental truth: "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16). "In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move" ("Deus Caritas Est," No. 12).
Contemplating the Crucified with the eyes of faith, we can understand profoundly what sin is, its tragic gravity, and at the same time the incommensurable power of the Lord's forgiveness and mercy. During these days of Lent, let us not distance our hearts from this mystery of profound humanity and lofty spirituality.
On contemplating Christ, let us feel at the same time that we are contemplated by him. He whom we ourselves have pierced with our faults does not cease to shed over the world an inexhaustible torrent of merciful love. May humanity understand that only from this source is it possible to draw the spiritual energy indispensable to build that peace and happiness for which every human being is ceaselessly searching.
Let us pray to the Virgin Mary, whose soul was pierced next to her Son's cross, to obtain for us the gift of a firm faith. That, guiding us on our Lenten journey, she may help us leave everything that impedes us from listening to Christ and his word of salvation.
In particular, entrust to the Virgin Mary the week of Spiritual Exercises that will begin this afternoon in the Vatican, and in which I and my collaborators of the Roman Curia will participate.
Dear brothers and sisters: Please support me with your prayer and I will be happy to do the same in the recollection of the retreat, invoking divine power on each one of you, on your families and your communities.
[Translation by ZENIT]
[After praying the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in six languages. In English, he said:]
I am happy to greet all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present for this Angelus, particularly the group of Missionaries of Faith from Samoa. Today, the First Sunday of Lent, we are invited to contemplate Jesus as an example of how to conduct our daily struggle against temptation. May this time of purification prepare our hearts to celebrate the saving mysteries of the death and resurrection of Christ. I wish you all a pleasant stay in Rome, and a blessed Sunday!
© Copyright 2007 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Archbishop Ranjith: "The Holy Father Must Decide" (Inside the Vatican interview)
Summary
Archbishop Ranjith: "The Holy Father Must Decide" (Inside the Vatican interview)
Feb. 23, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The following is the full text of an interview from Inside the Vatican magazine.
All who are interested in the Church’s liturgy are wondering if the Pope will soon issue a motu proprio allowing the celebration of the "Old Mass," and (if he does), what it will say. One of the Vatican’s liturgists sheds light on the Pope’s plans.
Anthony Valle Your Excellency, you have been generous in giving several interviews to the international press regarding liturgy since becoming the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. Some of your statements have been misinterpreted and aroused controversy rather than providing the intended clarity. Would you care to clarify anything?
Archbishop Malcom Ranjith: What I wished to insist on in those interviews was that the post-conciliar reform of the liturgy has not been able to achieve the expected goals of spiritual and missionary renewal in the Church so that today we could be truly happy about it.
Undoubtedly there have been positive results too; but the negative effects seem to have been greater, causing much disorientation in our ranks.
The churches have become empty, liturgical free-wheeling has become the order of the day, and the true meaning and significance of that which is celebrated has been obscured.
One has to, then, begin wondering if the reform process had in fact been handled correctly. Thus, we need to take a good look at what had happened, pray and reflect about its causes and with the help of the Lord move on to make the necessary corrections.
Valle: It seems as if Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) will release a motu proprio to liberalize the use of the traditional or Tridentine Mass. Some hope that the Pope’s motu proprio will institute a juridical structure enabling priests to celebrate the traditional Mass without being unjustly harassed and persistently thwarted by, ironically, not people of other faiths or secular authorities, but by their own pastors and bishops. Is this hope for a new juridical apparatus realistic? Is such an apparatus necessary?
Ranjith: Well, there is this rising call for a restoration of the Tridentine Mass. And even certain leading figures of the elite have made public appeals for this Mass in some newspapers recently.
The Holy Father will, I am sure, take note of this and decide what is best for the Church.
You speak of the possible realization of new juridical structures for the implementation of such decisions. I do not think that this would be so much of a problem. Rather what is more important in all of this is a pastoral attitude.
Will the bishops and priests reject requests for the Tridentine Mass and so create a need for juridical structures to ensure the enforcement of a decision of the Pope? Should it go that way? I sincerely do not hope so.
The appropriate question the shepherds have to ask themselves is: How can I as a bishop or priest bring even one person closer to Christ and to His Church?
It is not so much a matter of the Tridentine Mass or of the Novus Ordo. It is just a question of pastoral responsibility and sensitivity.
Thus, if the Tridentine Mass is the way to achieve an even better level of spiritual enrichment for the faithful, then the shepherds should allow it.
The important concern is not so much the "what" as much as the "how." The Church should always seek to help our faithful to come closer to the Lord, to feel challenged by His message and to respond to His call generously. And if that can be achieved through the celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass or the Pius V Mass, well, then space should be provided for whatever is best instead of getting down to unnecessary and divisive theological hair-splitting. Such things need to be decided through the heart and not so much through the head.
After all, Pope John Paul II (bio - news) did make a personal appeal in Ecclesia Dei Adflicta of 1988 to the bishops, calling upon them to be generous in this matter with those who wish to celebrate or participate in the Tridentine Mass. Besides, we should remember that the Tridentine Mass is not something that belongs to the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre only. It is part of our own heritage as members of the Catholic Church.
The Second Vatican Council, as Pope Benedict so clearly stated in his speech to the members of the Curia in December 2005, did not envisage a totally new beginning, but one of continuity with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and a new outlook that better responds to the missionary needs of the time.
Besides, we also have the serious question of the diminishing number of faithful in some of the churches in the Western world. We have to ask ourselves what happened in these churches and then take corrective steps as may be necessary. I do not think that this situation is attributable to secularization only. A deep crisis of faith coupled with a drive for meaningless liturgical experimentation and novelty have had their own impact in this matter. There is much formalism and insipidity visible at times. Thus, we need to recover a true sense of the sacred and mystical in worship.
And if the faithful feel that the Tridentine Mass offers them that sense of the sacred and mystical more than anything else, then we should have the courage to accept their request.
With regard to the timing and nature of the motu proprio, nothing yet is known. It is the Holy Father who will decide.
And when he does, we should in all obedience accept what he indicates to us and with a genuine love for the Church strive to help him. Any counter attitude would only harm the spiritual mission of the Church and thwart the Lord’s own will.
Valle: Like many Catholics today, my wife and I have found that we leave the celebration of the Novus Ordo Mass on Sunday exasperated and perplexed rather than spiritually invigorated. Why?
Ranjith: In the celebration of the Novus Ordo we have to be very serious about what we do on the altar. I cannot be a priest who dreams in his sleep about what I will do at the Mass the following day, walk up to the altar and start celebrating with all kinds of novel self-created rubrics and actions.
The Holy Eucharist belongs to the Church. Hence, it has a meaning of its own which cannot be left to the idiosyncrasies of the single celebrant.
Every element in the liturgy of the Church has its own long history of development and significance. It is certainly not a matter of private "traditions" and so cannot be the object of manipulation by all and sundry.
In fact, Sacrosanctum Concilium (doc) does state that other than the Apostolic See and the bishops, where this is allowed to the latter by the former, "absolutely no other person, not even a priest, may add or remove or change anything on his own authority" (SC 22). Even then, we note much free-wheeling in liturgical matters in some areas of the Church today, basically due to an incorrect understanding of liturgical theology.
For example, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist has often been misunderstood or partially understood, leaving thus the door open to all kinds of liturgical abuses. In the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, some place too much accent on the presidential role of the priest. But we know that the priest is really not the main agent of what happens on the altar.
It is Jesus Himself.
Besides, every liturgical celebration has also a heavenly dimension "which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem towards which we journey as pilgrims" (SC 8). Others explain the Eucharist in a way that places the accent on its banquet/meal dimension, linking it to "communion." This too is an important consideration, but we should remember that it is not so much a communion created by those taking part in the Eucharist as much as by the Lord Himself.
Through the Eucharist, the Lord assumes us unto Himself and in Him we are placed in communion with all the others who unite themselves to Him. It is thus not so much a sociological experience as much as a mystical one. Hence even as "communion" the Eucharist is a heavenly experience.
What is more important is the sacrificial dimension of the Eucharist. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we relive the sacrifice of Calvary, celebrating it as the moment of our salvation. And this very fact also constitutes the unique dignity and font of identity of the priest. He has been instituted by Christ to celebrate the wonderful mystery of turning this corruptible piece of bread into the very glorified Body of Christ and this little bit of wine into the Blood of Christ, enacting the sacrifice of Calvary for the salvation of the world. And this has to be lived, understood and believed by the priest each time he celebrates the Eucharist.
Indeed, Sacrosanctum Concilium placed accent on the sacrificial and salvific effectivity of the Mass. The priest thus becomes another Christ, so to say. What a great vocation! And so, if we celebrate the Eucharist devoutly, then the faithful will reap immense spiritual benefit and return again and again in search of that heavenly nourishment.
Valle: Some have contended that the solution to the liturgical crisis-- and at bottom the crisis of faith-- afflicting the Catholic Church today would be to implement the exclusive use of the Tridentine Mass, while others maintain that all we really need is a "reform of the reform," in other words, a reform of the Novus Ordo. What do you think?
Ranjith: An "either-or" attitude would unnecessarily polarize the Church, whereas charity and pastoral concern should be the motivating factors. If the Holy Father so desires, both could co-exist.
That would not mean that we would have to give up the Novus Ordo. But in the interaction of the two Roman traditions, it is possible that the one may influence the other eventually.
We can’t say everything is completed and finished, that nothing new could happen. In fact, Vatican II never advocated immediate change in the liturgy. Rather it preferred change to "grow organically from forms already existing" (SC 23). As Cardinal Antonelli, a much revered member of the Concilium that undertook the revision of the liturgy after the Council, noted in his diaries, some of the liturgical changes after the Council had been introduced without much reflection, haphazardly, and made later to become accepted practice.
For example, Communion in the hand had not been something that was first properly studied and reflected upon before its acceptance by the Holy See. It had been haphazardly introduced in some countries of Northern Europe and later become accepted practice, eventually spreading into many other places. Now that is a situation that should have been avoided. The Second Vatican Council never advocated such an approach to liturgical reform.
Valle: Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi ("The law of praying (is) the law of believing, (is) the law of living"). Is it true that how we worship and pray influences what we believe, and that what we believe influences how we live? In other words, liturgy ultimately influences our moral life, does it not?
Ranjith: Yes. How can we convince the faithful to make sacrifices in their ethical and moral options, unless they are first touched and inspired by the grace of God profoundly? And such happens especially in worship when the human soul is made to experience the salvific grace of God most intimately. In worship, faith becomes interiorized and brims over with inspiration and strength, enabling one to take the moral options that are in consonance with that faith. In the liturgy, we should experience the closeness of God to our heart so intensely that we in turn begin to believe fervently and are compelled to act justly.
Valle: What are some contemporary liturgical trends or problems that need correction?
Ranjith: One of these, as I see, is the trend to go for ecumenical liturgies in replacement of the Sunday Mass in some countries, during which Catholic lay leaders and Protestant ministers celebrate together and the latter are invited to preach the homily. Sunday Liturgies of the Word with the distribution of Holy Communion, which form is allowed in cases where a priest cannot be present, if turned into ecumenical events can give the faithful the wrong signal. They may get used to the idea of the Sunday without the Eucharist.
The Eucharist, as you know, makes the Church (Ed E. 21) and this is central to us Catholics. If it is so easily replaced by Liturgies of the Word, or worse still by so-called ecumenical prayer services, the very identity of the Catholic Church would be in question. Unfortunately, we hear also of cases whereby the Eucharist itself is being celebrated under various guises along with the Protestant pastors. This is totally unacceptable and constitutes a graviora delicta ("more grave offense") (RM 172).
Ecumenism is not something left to the ad hoc choice of individual priests. True ecumenism, such as the one espoused by Vatican II, comes from the heart of the Church. For example, the path to true ecumenism begins with serious reflection on the part of those who are deemed competent to engage in that type of reflection, such as the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and the Holy Father himself. Not everyone has the competence to know in what way this delicate search for unity is to be perceived. It needs much reflection and prayer. Hence, liturgical novelty in the name of ecumenism should not be tried out individually.
A second disturbing trend is the gradual replacement of the Mass celebrated by a priest with a paraliturgical service conducted by a lay person. This of course can legitimately happen when no priest is available and facilities for the fulfillment of Sunday obligation are scarce. However, this is an exception, not the rule. What is dangerous is to marginalize the priest even when he is available and some lay pastoral leader team arrogates to itself tasks that are reserved for the priests. I mean by this the trend to get the lay leader to preach the homily instead of the priest, even when he is present, or to distribute Holy Communion, leaving the priest to sit idle at the altar.
We have to stress here that, as the Second Vatican Council affirmed, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood "differ from one another in essence and not only in degree" (LG 10). And so it is gravely abusive to relegate to the laity the sacred obligations reserved to the priest.
What is unfortunate is the increasing tendency worldwide to laicize the priest and to clericalize the laity. This too is contra mentem ("against the mind" or "against the intention") of the Council.
There is also an increasing trend to shift the Sunday Mass to Saturdays almost as a "normal" practice. Rather than Sunday being the true day of the Lord, and so a day of spiritual and physical rest, there is a move to reduce its importance, making it become a day of worldly distractions. In Dies Domini, Pope John Paul II warned against this disturbing trend.
A final point I wish to make here concerns some practices introduced in mission territories, for example, in Asia, in the name of change, which are counter to its cultural heritage. In some Asian countries we see a trend to introduce Communion in the hand which is received standing. This is not at all consonant with Asian culture. The Buddhists worship prostrate on the floor with their forehead touching the ground. Moslems take off their shoes and wash their feet before entering the mosque for worship. The Hindus enter the temple bare-chested as a sign of submission. When people approach the king of Thailand or the emperor of Japan, they do so on their knees as a sign of respect. But in many Asian countries the Church has introduced practices like just a simple bow to the Blessed Sacrament instead of kneeling, standing while receiving Holy Communion, and receiving Communion on the hand. And we know that these cannot be considered practices congruent with Asian culture.
Besides, the laity whose role today is being enhanced in the Church are not even consulted when such decisions are made.
All these situations do not augur well for the Church and we need to correct these trends, if the Eucharist we celebrate is to become, as St. Ignatius of Antioch affirmed, "medicine of immortality and antidote against death" (Eph. 20).
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Not too broke to not go Baroque
I was on campus to attend a concert at St. Mary's Chapel and to print out some notes and drafts. (The Natalie MacMaster concert was just too expensive.) The concert was of various pieces by J.S. Bach and CPE Bach. The performers were flutist Fenwick Smith, keyboard artist John Gibbons, and cellist Laura Blustein.
Alas, I have difficulty appreciating the pieces--I couldn't really focus. This ADHD-like affliction is my own fault, and I need to do something about it...
Alas, I have difficulty appreciating the pieces--I couldn't really focus. This ADHD-like affliction is my own fault, and I need to do something about it...
She may have money
but she's still a barbarian.
Today I went to St. Ignatius Church (for reasons that will become apparent in the next post), and the sentimental music was just too much--talk about manipulating the feelings in order to create a fake religious experience. Anyway, a middle aged woman came in with her soccer-playing daughter--they're probably Newton residents. She slipped her hand inside her pants, adjusted them, her undershirt, and who knows what else twice, paying no attention to the fact that there were people standing behind her, like me. Unbelievable. I won't say anything about her religious education, except that some evidence of that can be found in the behavior of her daughter during Mass. (Who, btw, was an early teen wearing shorts in church--she probably just had soccer practice.)
The description of the new moneyed class could easily apply to American celebrities these days, especially those are famous for no reason at all, besides having a lifestyle we envy. There are plenty of examples among the 20-something crowd, and I won't name names. At least when the "elites" (those holding power and wealth) of the past took pretty young thing from "humble" origins in order to have them serve at court in whatever capacity, they took the trouble to introduce them to court etiquette. Our entertainment industry instead fosters and panders to our disordered imaginations and appetities, putting forth pretty young faces, and stoking our desire for beauty, without providing anything of substance with respect to character. With an industry churning out "entertainment" for the masses and the destruction of local culture, one should not be surprised that this is the result--after all, the purpose of the industry is to make money, not to foster an appreciation of the fine arts.
When those who state their aspiration to make a living by becoming a singer or actor, or to become a celebrity, how can one not laugh and have pity on them? In traditional village life, a singer or musician wouldn't be making a living from their talents, but instead offer it for the pleasure of the whole community when it came together to be festive or to enjoy some leisure.
Which reminds me, the Oscars are tonight.
Also, I note the loss of life smarts by the youth, who have a consumer mentality with nothing else to guide it. Just look at young people, even 20-something professionals--many will be wearing jeans with frayed edges at the bottom, not thinking that their jeans should be altered so that they don't trail on the floor and chafe. Unthinking robots.
Today I went to St. Ignatius Church (for reasons that will become apparent in the next post), and the sentimental music was just too much--talk about manipulating the feelings in order to create a fake religious experience. Anyway, a middle aged woman came in with her soccer-playing daughter--they're probably Newton residents. She slipped her hand inside her pants, adjusted them, her undershirt, and who knows what else twice, paying no attention to the fact that there were people standing behind her, like me. Unbelievable. I won't say anything about her religious education, except that some evidence of that can be found in the behavior of her daughter during Mass. (Who, btw, was an early teen wearing shorts in church--she probably just had soccer practice.)
The description of the new moneyed class could easily apply to American celebrities these days, especially those are famous for no reason at all, besides having a lifestyle we envy. There are plenty of examples among the 20-something crowd, and I won't name names. At least when the "elites" (those holding power and wealth) of the past took pretty young thing from "humble" origins in order to have them serve at court in whatever capacity, they took the trouble to introduce them to court etiquette. Our entertainment industry instead fosters and panders to our disordered imaginations and appetities, putting forth pretty young faces, and stoking our desire for beauty, without providing anything of substance with respect to character. With an industry churning out "entertainment" for the masses and the destruction of local culture, one should not be surprised that this is the result--after all, the purpose of the industry is to make money, not to foster an appreciation of the fine arts.
When those who state their aspiration to make a living by becoming a singer or actor, or to become a celebrity, how can one not laugh and have pity on them? In traditional village life, a singer or musician wouldn't be making a living from their talents, but instead offer it for the pleasure of the whole community when it came together to be festive or to enjoy some leisure.
Which reminds me, the Oscars are tonight.
Also, I note the loss of life smarts by the youth, who have a consumer mentality with nothing else to guide it. Just look at young people, even 20-something professionals--many will be wearing jeans with frayed edges at the bottom, not thinking that their jeans should be altered so that they don't trail on the floor and chafe. Unthinking robots.
Unhooked
Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both
Laura Sessions Stepp
official website for the book; her website
QA (pdf)
NPR
Houston Chronicle article on the book, "The Hazards of Hooking Up"
Come Home With Me, Baby! By Nona Willis-Aronowitz
2001 Center for Marriage and Family report, Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Dating and Mating Today
Laura Sessions Stepp
official website for the book; her website
QA (pdf)
A Conversation with Laura Sessions Stepp Author of UNHOOKED How Young Women Pursue Sex, Avoid Love, and Lose at Both
Q: What is “hooking up”? How do you define it?
A: Hooking up is a sexual interaction between two partners and it can be anything from kissing to intercourse. It’s deliberately undefined by this generation so that when you tell a friend you hooked up with someone, you’re really not telling them anything at all.
Q: What’s the significance of the term being deliberately undefined?
A: It’s convenient. It erases any guilt you may feel at what you’re doing. It’s a lot easier to say “I hooked up with someone last night,” than to say, “I gave Johnny a blow job.” It conceals what you’ve done, and you can talk yourself into thinking it really doesn’t matter. Words make a difference and this generation uses a lot of euphemisms for what they do. For example, girls will say, “I tea-bagged this guy.” That means she massaged a certain area of his private parts with her mouth. And speaking of how words are used, I also think it’s worth noting that in the book I use the term “girls”—even though these are young women up to age 22—because that’s how they talk about themselves. I found that interesting in and of itself. Those of us who grew up in the ‘60s hated the term, and wanted to be called women fromthe time we were 16.
Q: Where did the idea for this book come from? How did you first get involved in looking at this cultural shift?
A: It came out of my reporting for the Washington Post. Back in 1998, I learned about a situation at a Washington middle school that involved as many as a dozen girls performing oral sex on two or three boys for most of the school year. These were all 8th graders. That led me to write a story about oral sex in middle schools. It was clear to me in those transactions that the partners were not in love with each other. It seemed to be more about the physical act. So I became interested in sexual activity among younger adolescents. I followed up with, observed, and kept in touch with these kids as they got into high school and joined new groups of friends, and I started hearing phrases like “friends with benefits,” and “sex buddies” and eventually “hooking up.” I wasn’t quite sure what that meant and decided to investigate.
Q: You’ve written a number of stories about this for the Washington Post. What’s new in the book?
A: A newspaper story generally provides a snapshot of a limited time period in someone’s life. It includes perhaps the week before and the week after you’re actually writing the story. In this book I followed a group of young women in college and high school for an entire year so I could see how their relationships changed, how they started reflecting on what they were doing, or even whether they were reflecting on it. I was able to see how hooking up affected them over the course of that year: whether they become depressed, whether they enjoyed it, how many times they hooked up, and how it affected their thinking about relationships. What’s also new is that I was able to dig into how we got to this point. Newspaper journalism is really great at telling the “who,” “what,” and “when” but it rarely has the time to suggest the “why.” And I think that may be what this book does best.
Q: How did you conduct your research? And how did you choose your subjects?
A: The first thing I did was try to find scientific surveys to see what they could tell me about the population of adolescents that are hooking up, at what ages they’re doing so, how often, and so on. I found almost no data. “Are you hooking up?” is not a phrase that researchers use. Also, there’s little research about sex and dating on anyone under the age of 18, because the federal government makes it very hard to ask such questions. I ended up choosing to look at middle income to upper middle incomefamilies because they make up the largest segment of our population and are also the ones who set many of our cultural standards. The next step was to send out several hundred letters to teachers, parents and researchers I knew asking for ideas about who I should talk to. I got lots of suggestions and interviewed dozens of young people. I quickly realized I needed to limit the sample. I could either go broad or deep, and I chose to go deep. It wasn’t a scientifically random sample but it reflected much of what I found out later when I cast a wider net. And finally, in choosing the specific subjects, I looked for individuals who could illustrate something significant about the culture. I also looked for young women who were articulate and who I thought would open up to me. (I wanted to use their voices as much as possible in the book.) And I consciously chose a variety of backgrounds in terms of race or ethnicity, so the book includes two young African American women, a young woman whose parents are from Iran, several young Caucasian women, and so on. This is clearly a phenomenon that cuts across races.
Q: Why did you choose to focus on young women as opposed to young men?
A: This phenomenon would not have taken hold if it weren’t for girls buying into it. Girls and women have traditionally been the gender that said “No” to sex. You can argue whether it was right or wrong that they had do so, but that was the role they played. There was a good reason for that: They could get pregnant. Today, effective methods of birth control are available. And young women are being raised with the idea that they not only can but should go for everything guys go for. They have taken that message to heart and essentially said, “We deserve to have as much fun with our sexuality as guys do. We should be able to pursue guys like they pursue us.” I also chose to focus on girls because they have the most to lose, physically and emotionally. So they’re not only partly behind the cultural shift but also the ones who suffer most as a result of it. I have a son in this age group, so initially I wanted to write about young men as well, in order to learn more about him, but I ultimately decided that it would dilute the message. If we’re going to change things it’s going to have to be the women who do the changing. It’s not fair, but it’s the truth.
Q: Why did you choose Unhooked as the book’s title?
A: The defining characteristic of the hook-up culture is the ability to unhook from a partner at any time. That is its primary allure for both guys and girls. This is a generation that’s scared of commitment, that doesn’t want to get tied down, and that thinks relationships are messy. They want to be able to walk out the door at any time. Being able to do so is seen by young women as a sign of power. One young woman told me that when she hooks up with a guy for the night she wants to be the first one out the door in the morning, so she can see the look on his face when she leaves.
Q: How is “hooking up” different from the “free love” of the 1960s and early ‘70s?
A: The notion that everyone slept around back then is a myth. Only a small percentage of young Americans, primarily on the West Coast and in New York, took part in the free love movement. They caught the media’s attention and everyone assumed they were characteristic of the entire generation. Hooking up today encompasses a much larger section of the population. Another difference is that “free love” meant intercourse. Hooking up does not, although it can include intercourse. Finally, with the “free love” of that earlier era, there was at least a suggestion of love Hooking up carries no such suggestion.
Q: Are there positive aspects to hooking up?
A: Yes. Number one, it gives girls an opportunity to experiment with their sexuality and not feel guilty. Some of them may be having more fun with sex than past generations did. Number two: Hooking up enables them to walk away from a guy who’s not treating them well. Walking away is not always the right thing to do, but there are times when it is absolutely appropriate. Number three: Because of hooking up’s emphasis on the physical, young women talk more freelyabout sex and their bodies with each other and even with guys. I’ve heard conversations between girls and guys that just floored me. Conceivably, these three characteristics could build sexual confidence that would carry over into longer-term relationships.
Q: What’s so harmful about hooking up?
A: Judging by what I observed, it can lead to depression and low self-esteem. An epidemiologist explained it this way: When a male and a female have intercourse, the female receives a jolt of oxytocin, a chemical that makes the body want to hold and caress. The man, on the other hand, gets a jolt oftestosterone which inhibits oxytocin and makes him want to have sex and then run away and go chase bears or whatever. In a hook-up, the young woman may get up and walk out the door. But in doing so she’s denying what’s happening to her body and her emotions. The result may be that she starts to question herself and her motives. What she thought would make her feel powerful leaves her feeling weak. Girls have said to me, “I don’t know why I keep checking my cell phone to see if he’s called me. It’s just a hook-up. Why am I doing this?” It’s because their bodies are driving them to do it. And that’s something girls need to understand. The other thing that concerns me about hooking up is that it doesn’t encourage young women to practice some of the finer qualities of our humanness: our ability to care about someone, to sustain that caring over time, to commit to another person, to learn to trust, to communicate. These are all characteristics of a loving relationship.
Q: As part of your research you hung out with these kids as they partied. What was that like for you?
A: I confess I always had to take a nap before I went out. It just exhausted me. But it was fun. I was an anthropologist observing a culture in which I was very interested. One interesting thing was that both guys and girls—when they learned why I was at a party or club—would come up to me individually or maybe in pairs and just want to talk. One young man said to me, “If you put a sign above your head and a basket in front of you, you could earn $100 tonight.” Hearing their stories made me realize how confused many in this generation are about what they’re doing and how much they’d love to talk it through with someone other than a same-age friend.
Q: What should be done to help young people make good decisions about their sexuality?
A: The only people many young women and young men feel free to discuss sex and love with are their peers, who are doing the same thing they’re doing. There’s no one to give them an outsider’s perspective, no one who will allow them the safe space to clarify their perspective. If there’s anything I learned over the last several years, it’s that if you ask these young people the right questions, they’ll eventually get to the answers that are good for them. They intuitively know what works. But they have to be allowed to discover it and to be able to articulate it. So my short answer to your question is this: Older adults should be spending more time at home and in the classroom creating a conversational space where no topic is off limits. Sex education in school and home should be expanded beyond “Just say no” or the mechanics of avoiding pregnancy and disease. Parents, in particular, or aunts, uncles or older family friends, should not shy away from giving their point of view, but in ways that inspire dialogue. They should not hesitate to share some of their history and some of the mistakes, as well as good choices, they made.
Q: Schools and parents have always been poor at educating their kids about sex. What is that particularly problematic now?
A: The difference is that in the past, there were societal standards that kept many young women from doing what they’re doing today. Norms were enforced by churches, parents, teachers, and so on. Those norms have disappeared in all but the most conservative circles. At the same time, sexuality has spread through our culture like never before. Where are girls supposed to find the standards by which to live their lives? They’re making it up as they go along. There are no guardrails anymore to protect them.
Q: You say that asking “What’s wrong with these girls?” is not the right question. What is the right question? And what’s the answer?
A: The right question is, “What is wrong with this picture? What are we older adults not doing that we should be doing? What are we doing that is making things worse?” For example, one reason young women give for hooking up is that they don’t have time to have relationships. Their parents and other adults have encouraged them to be the best in everything they can do—meaning school, athletics, graduate school and career. Left out of the equation is having a boyfriend. Girls have taken this in andfeel indebted to their parents who have invested time and money in them. They say, “I don’t have time to play varsity lacrosse and maintain a good GPA, and have a relationship, too.
Q: But what’s wrong with encouraging achievement?
A: It’s a positive message, but it’s incomplete. There needs to be balance. There needs to be talk about how to fit all of this in, and whether you can fit all of it in. We push these girls so hard they’re exhausted. Why do you think the drinking rate of young women now matches that of young men? It’s a release, thus the phrase ‘work hard play hard.’ The rates of sexual activity between young men and women are equal as well. When young men and women of college age are asked, “How many of you see yourself as being married in the next ten years?” more men say they do than women . Women aren’t even thinking of marriage right now. There’s too much to do.
Q: Are you saying we shouldn’t encourage our girls and guys to achieve and be successful?
A: No. I’m saying we also need to round out their lives and make sure they understand that a full life includes intimate relationships Scientists say a key component of a healthy identity is the ability to feel love and to love in return. When children are young, it’s the parents who supply that love. In adolescence, the circle grows to include intimate others. As older adults, we need to ask how we can we help young people achieve that whole life. Q: Is this a feminist or anti-feminist book? A: It is a book that tells young women they deserve to get the best out of a relationship and that means they shouldn’t limit themselves to just the physical. Real power is not having sex with every Tom, Dick and Harry. That gets dull, boring, has no meaning and can hurt you. Real power comes from knowing when and with whom to have sex, and what good sex is. Sex within a loving, committed relationship is good sex. Hookup sex is not.
Q: What surprised you most as you began putting this book together?A: What surprised me is how hooking up has come to define a generation. Going into this I thought there would be pockets of girls who hooked up, but that they would be a significant minority. What I found was girls hooking up who don’t necessarily want to hook up but feel they have to because it’s the only available way to get to know guys. You go to a bar, meet a cute guy, hook up and then you decide whether you like him. In my day, at least you thought you liked the guy before you hooked up with him.
Q: What do you think will surprise readers most?
A: I think readers will be surprised by the same thing. They’ll challenge it. They’ll think, “It’s not my daughter who’s doing this,” or “It’s the lower-income young women who’re doing this” or “It’s the white girls (or black girls, or Asian girls, or Hispanic girls) who’re doing this” depending on their own ethnicity. Guess what? It’s all of them. Even those who don’t hook up are affected by the hookup culture. One of the last young women I write about in my book is a poised, smart, gorgeous girl who didn’t go out with a guy her entire freshman year at Duke because she was afraid she’d be put in a situation where she’d have to hook up, and she didn’t want to do that.
Q: Every now and then there’s a public firestorm about our increasingly sexualized media—movies, songs, the web, TV, etc. How much of the problem can be laid at the feet of pop culture and the media?
A: There is a lot more sex out there in culture including in the media and kids, to a certain extent, want to do what they see on TV, in movies, or on the Internet. But media are just one part of a larger diet. Research shows that parents and peers have much more of an influence on kids than the media. With sex, as with violence, parents have to be a mediating force, working hard to stay consistent with, and emphasize, our values.Q: Has the increasingly aggressive sexual behavior of young women prompted a change in young men as well?
A: As one young man said to me, “It makes it easier for us to be assholes.” Hooking up is a great deal for young men. They can have sex, are not expected to commit, can walk at any time, and their partners are supposed to fine with that. If one young woman isn’t interested, the next one will be.
Q: In the book, you talk about the impact of The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. You say the play has ushered in a movement, fully ensconced on many campuses, aimed at teaching young women how to enjoy sex. Are you blaming the Vagina Monologues for the hookup culture among girls?
A: I write about one production of the show and actresses who enjoyed being able to discuss their sexuality in front of a large audience. The production was well-done. But the play itself is incomplete. It divorces sex from love. There’s no sense of endurance, no value placed on of making a guy feel cared for and respected. It’s all about “me” and “my physical pleasure.” So now young women can act just as badly as young men. Is that success? Young women need to hold themselves and their partners to higher standards.
Q: What do you want readers to get out of this book?
A: I would like them to get beyond what they may consider the “shock value” of the book so they can think about what intimacy looks like in their own lives. What do they want out of their sex lives , love lives, and relationships? How can they get that—not just immediately but throughout their lives? What are the principles or core values they bring to their relationships, and how do those values play out? It’s like Alicia says in the preface of the book. “You may not agree with everything Laura says. I know I didn’t. But what she said made me have to decide what I believe.”
NPR
Houston Chronicle article on the book, "The Hazards of Hooking Up"
Come Home With Me, Baby! By Nona Willis-Aronowitz
2001 Center for Marriage and Family report, Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Dating and Mating Today
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