Holy Concert, Batman!

Enjoyed getting to be part of this one.

Commonplaces--February 2023

 “As regards discipline, when was not prosperity to the unwary what fire is to wax, or the rays of the sun to snow and ice? David was wise, Solomon wiser; but, flattered by unlooked-for success, the one in part and the other altogether acted foolishly.”—Bernard of Clairvaux, De Consideratione II.12

“If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would be changed.”—Pascal, Pensees

“When a soldier or laborer complains about his hard work, give him nothing to do.”—Ibid.

“Too much and too little wine. If you give someone none, he cannot discover the truth. The same happens if you give him too much.”—Ibid.

“We should see [justice] enacted by all the states of the world, in every age, instead we see nothing, just or unjust, which does not change in quality with a change in climate.

What Do I Think of Harry Potter?

 This was composed as an in-class essay for my 8th-grade Humanities students of 21-22. They were allowed to collectively come up with any four questions they wanted me to answer, from which I would select my favorite and write a one-hour reply. The question selected was "What do you think of the Harry Potter books?"

Most people have heard of the “elephant in the room.” That is, something that is well-known to everyone involved, but too embarrassing or prohibited from talking about. Some elephants, however, are too big to ignore. One of these elephants is the publishing phenomenon of J.K. Rowling—the Harry Potter series. Since 1998, Harry Potter has sold over 500 million copies (that’s one book for about every thirteen people on the planet, by the way). It’s been made into a play, eleven blockbuster movies, and enough themed parks, stores, and tourist attractions to fund a small country. No matter what you think of Harry Potter, it’s too big to ignore now.

Book of the Month January 2023: The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor

“Learn everything; you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous.”—VI.iii

This month was a tough pick. Honorable mentions go to both Cicero’s De Senectute and Littlejohn and Evans’ Wisdom and Eloquence. But the winner for the top book is Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon.

I’m a teacher, which makes me a sucker for books on teaching. Hugh, along with Quintilian and John Milton Gregory, is one of the best. He was the head instructor of a small but famous community—St. Victor’s—just outside of medieval Paris in the early 1100’s. His Didascalicon de Studio Legendi (translated as something close to “The Compendium of Teaching of the Study of Reading") focuses on the foundations of learning. What is the purpose of education? What are its essentials? How should these essentials be imparted to others? 

Commonplaces--January 2023

 “To me nothing whatever seems lengthy if it has an end; for when that end arrives, then that which was is gone; naught remains but the fruit of good and virtuous deeds. Hours may pass, and days and months and years, but the past returns no more, and what is to be we cannot know. But whatever the times given us to live, with the same we should be content.”—Cicero, De Senectute xix

“For even if the allotted space of life be short, it is long enough in which to live honorably and well. But if a longer period of years should be granted, one has no more cause to grieve than the famers do when the pleasant springtime passes and summer and autumn come. For spring typifies youth and holds forth the promise of future fruit; while the other seasons are designed for gathering those fruits and storing them away. And this same fruit of old age, as I have often said, is the memory and abundance of blessings previously gathered.”—Cicero, De Senectute xix

“But the most desirable end of life is that which comes while the mind is clear and the faculties are unimpaired, when Nature herself takes apart the work she has put together.”—Cicero, De Senectute xx

“Only the person who bows down and worships is wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. After all, and note this, because He is God, a necessary limit has been imposed on the omnipotence of God in his work of creation: God cannot create gods. That would have meant cancelling out his own unique being God. Thus a contrast, specifically a contrast of subordination, of inferiority, of a lower order, had to remain between God and his highest creature. Only in the image of God, not as God, could the rational creature be created. And it is from this contrast between God and the creature as not-God that all the anxiety of the broken moral life emerges.”—Kuyper, Common Grace II 

Love is Blind: A Review of Veritas Press' A Rhetoric of Love

Introduction 

Rhetoric is an ancient art, with a long and impressive history. Some of the most brilliant minds of any age—Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine—have practiced it and taught it. As classical schools have recovered the lost tools of learning, one of the rustiest has been rhetoric. Various approaches have been proposed to clean off that rust and return it to trusty service. These range from simply shoving the Ad Herrenium under a student’s nose to that put forward by authors Douglas Jones and Michael Collender, in Veritas Press’s A Rhetoric of Love, published in two volumes as the mainstay of a two-year high school course.

Rather than follow the traditional method of using the Greek and Roman pagans, A Rhetoric of Love (hereafter ROL) claims that it follows a distinctively Christian approach to rhetoric: one based on the Bible (and specifically Jesus as presented in the gospels). This allows them to move beyond the taint of power or manipulation, and instead focus on bringing the foundation of all believing activity—love—to bear on communication. It is an intriguing idea, reminiscent of Augustine’s claim that one could learn eloquence by merely studying the Scriptures. A thoroughly effective Christian reworking of classical rhetoric would be something to applaud. But I believe this ROL project, by poorly defining its terms, means, and genre, winds up with several significant issues that quickly bog it down. These issues group nicely under three major headings: first, definitional troubles and an unworkable antithesis between love and power—what we might call paradigm problems—mar the project’s scope and purpose. Second, practical issues would render the text difficult to use in actual high school classrooms. Third, ROL is not a “classical” textbook in most senses of the word, making it a poor choice for the intended audience: classical Christian schools. Though the text is graciously reasoned and wittily written, and has many praiseworthy points, I would not recommend it to any classical school trying to craft a high schooler into a rhetor; its flaws outweigh its foundations.

Commonplaces--November & December 2022

 "It seems to me of practical importance that the analytical and critical bent of our age should not be expended entirely on our ancestors and that confusions should sometimes be exposed while they are still potent. It is more dangerous to tread on the corns of a living giant than to cut off the head of a dead one: but it is more useful and better fun.”—C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words

 “Contamination and barbarism are one set of names for this sort of thing: another name is vitality. Everything which is alive tends to break out into vulgarity at times. Only the dead and embalmed can preserve for ever their changeless armorial dignity.”—Dorothy Sayers, “Ignorance and Dissatisfaction” Address to the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching, Aug. 26, 1952

 “The basis of wisdom is the wise disposal of time, and full wisdom will be the wise disposal of a whole lifetime.”—Comenius, Pampaedeia V.4 (in John Amos Comenius: A Visionary Reformer of Schools)

The Tyranny of Thanksgiving

Why bother?

 

A glance around my Facebook feed this morning produced some sharp contrasts.

There were all the usual suspects, rounded up and smiling: professional family portraits, amateur shots of glowing landscapes, pictures of pies galore. Most were captioned with some permutation of the word “thankful.”

Then there were the others. Quotidian. Candid.

“Just having stress-free cereal and playing Minecraft this morning because it’s what we like to do.”

“I used to try to do all the fixings, but this year I’m just doing what I like.”

“I’m going out for Chinese food.”

“The stress of the turkey fixings is on its last gasp in society. I just don’t care enough to bother anymore.”

“I made my pumpkin pie on Tuesday. Why wait?”

Why wait, indeed? In a society that can have anything at any moment, what value is there in being forced to mark special days off with food and feasting and fellowship? Isn’t it all just a bunch of unnecessary bother and work? And believe me, I know the sort of work Thanksgiving involves. You have to travel. You have to dress up, or clean up, or shut up about politics, or step up and volunteer to make the yeast rolls (even though you have two kids with the sniffles at home). Your mother interrupts your precious day off of school and demands that you hand-peel twenty pounds of damp potatoes. You have to plot and plan how to use the oven for days ahead of schedule—and then it breaks. Why put up with all those demands? Why put up with the tyranny of Thanksgiving expectations—familial, edible, or personal? Can’t we all just sit at home and eat Chinese in peace? 

Book of the Month October 2022: De Doctrina Christiana

 

You know, someone really needs to paint a good portrait of Augustine of Hippo that doesn't involve A) a miter or B) a flaming heart. One can only take so much Roman iconography, after all, but there doesn't really appear to be a viable alternative amongst the vast resources of the Googles.

But aside from the fact that he's been the subject of a rather terrible set of portraits, the man has a distinguished track record. Writing October's Book of the Month would be an example. While hardly known at all today compared to his even greater works Confessions and City of God, this was a key text for many men in the medieval period, such as Cassiodorus Senator.

De Doctrina Christiana (translated as either "On Christian Teaching" or "On Christian Doctrine") was composed in two major chunks: the first was finished about 397 A.D., and the last book was finally added about thirty years later. In it, Augustine set out to provide the reader with the knowledge necessary to understand and teach the Scriptures. Beginning with his famous distinction between things to be enjoyed (only God) and things to be used (everything else) he lays out a path that leads to wisdom. One major step on that journey is knowledge, and most human knowledge is gained though signs (such as, say, letters). Thus Augustine lays the groundwork for both medieval literary accumulation (particularly in the monasteries) and modern semiotics. [For a fascinating fusion of the two, see Eco's The Name of the Rose] He then proceeds to attempt to adjust the rhetorical training of his pagan career with Christianity's needs, leading to his famous "plundering the Egyptians" metaphor that is itself often plundered by the modern classical movement.

This was most fascinating to take in parallel with Benedict's Rule for Monasteries, although that will probably wind up being a separate post someday. Suffice to say I think there's some interesting connections in there, particularly about holiness, literature, and learning.

If you're interested in classical rhetoric or education, definitely take a look at this one. Just make sure to find a good guide--there's a lot flying under the surface of this text.

The Myth of the Silent Majority

 

It turns out all the assumptions of the Conservative political project were built on sand.

For years, the “normal folks” assumed that the small-town America of the 1980s was still lurking, unseen, around the corner. That when the crazies (on either end of the spectrum) raised one flag too many, pushed a little too hard, or assumed a bit too much, the “Silent Majority” would rise up and toss them all out. That A-mericuh—Land of the Red, White, AND Blue—would resume its customary sanity and we could all go back to normal. That folks just wouldn’t stand for any more of that s---.

They were wrong.