Introduction/Goals
Why I started this, what I hope to accomplish
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.”
I think about this verse often. As Jesus commissions the 12 Apostles, he gives them this advice immediately before warning them of their coming persecution. We may not be facing death at the hands of Roman authorities, but somehow this verse seems more relevant today than ever. With this in mind, I hope to explore ideas on this Substack that go further than only criticizing.
Above: Thomas Aquinas’ handwriting
Avoiding Dialectical Games
One, perhaps the main way I think being shrewd as a serpent is necessary is in the face of today’s Zeitgeist (Spirit of the age) is in avoiding dialectic games. When people discuss polarization, the implication is often separation, but a more accurate definition of the word would be two dimensional thinking (right or left, or other such false dichotomies). To take just one example, debates in the real and virtual world rage over capitalism vs. marxism. On the other hand, Cardinal Sarah says:
“Consumption has become an end in itself. Capitalist materialism has triumphed over Marxist materialism. The two are twin brothers. They cause the spiritual dimension of men to atrophy”1
Unfortunately, the ideas around dialectic (Thesis, antithesis, synthesis) dominate the philosophy of influential thinkers including, but not limited to Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and the Frankfurt school. They believe that truth will emerge only in time and through the dialectical process. Hegel said:
“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.”
This is contrary to the Christian teaching that God is perfect, unchanging, and outside of time.
However, in ferreting out (with nuance) good from evil, truth from lies – some words from within the Christian tradition are helpful:
“Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.”
– Hebrews 4:12
and
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart.”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Today’s Historical Moment
Surfing the web, it isn’t hard to find a wide variety of people marching to the beat of “the end is nigh,” but what I see bouncing around society from the elite (blasting Miley Cyrus at 100k+ weddings among a priceless collection of 19th century impressionist masterpieces, celebrity weddings, etc) to the working/lower class (teaching music to semi and illiterate children struggling with an addiction to Tik Tok, or playing the holiday party of a trucking company), to a few things in the middle (my blue collar urban neighborhood, or bourgeois bohemian jazz musicians stumbling towards middle age) gives me unique insight to certain sociocultural phenomena. In spite of our material progress, the spiritual, cultural, and social aspects of American life are in free-fall. Marriage is at an all-time low, single parent families are at an all-time high, fertility is at an all-time low (who will earn the money for our social security checks in three decades?), drug use, overdose, and suicide are at all-time highs, etc. In the broader Anglosphere, there is a creeping culture of death with the normalization of abortion (especially late-term abortions), promotion of euthanasia, antinatalism, and general misanthropy. While much hand-wringing is done on these issues by those insulated from their effects (looking at you, conservative think-tanks), I have not been tremendously affected by any of the above trends, but my job as a teacher in an inner-city school district gives me a front row seat to just about all of it, and it would be a betrayal of conscience to react only with silent indifference.
The liberal-humanist dogma taken as self evident in the modern western world is a hot-house plant carefully cultivated during a millennium of Christendom. While we cruise on the past like a flower cut from its roots,2 the glass of the hot-house has been broken (the religious worldview that propelled our civilization -- "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Mt. 6:33). The next big freeze could be severely damaging if not fatal -- figuratively speaking.
The silver lining around this crisis is that many are now prepared to re-examine dogmas that once seemed self-evident. The arts and the Christian tradition can help us chart a way forward.
Academic Siloing
In his book ‘The Closing of the American Mind,’ Allan Bloom laments the fact that various academic disciplines have been ‘siloed’ – isolated from each other. This problem has only accelerated in the past decades resulting in narrow-minded ‘experts’ who lack the well-rounded knowledge once regarded as elementary to develop common sense.
Speaking of those of my age and younger, how many musicologists can tell you how Calvinist theology and the Counter-Reformation relates to the development of polyphony? How many music historians can read neumes or sing a handful of Gregorian chants from memory? How many political scientists can tell you what century the Magna Carta was signed, who signed it, and what that has to do with the Crusades? How many linguists can tell you how Normandy got its name, who settled there, and what that has to do with the development of the English language? In my experience, even (or especially) when speaking with ivy-league students/graduates, questions that cross subject areas aren’t even asked, let alone answered. As an added irony, colleges across the country are furiously moving away from anything they deem “Eurocentric” when most of us know little or nothing about our own culture and history. You can more easily find discussions on Dostoyevsky within Substack or on Twitter than you can in an educational institution charging tens of thousands per year.
Based on these observations, and the low-quality of academic writing I’ve encountered in too many years getting too many degrees, when I inevitably say something dumb on a subject in which I lack credentials, I’ll claim the Science has changed or play some other get out of jail free card.
Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate
I can’t remember when or where I first heard this (researching this post, the quote is from Clark Terry) pertaining to learning jazz, but like many truisms regarding improvisation, it is applicable to life more generally. Everything I’ve said thus far is motivation to read and learn, but not necessarily to write. I’d been turning the idea over of starting this blog in my mind for a while when I came across this GK. Chesterton quote (from a book I’m still working through):
“The progressive child of the twentieth century, with his earphones or his loud speaker… When he puts the ear-phones to his ears he does in fact put a mouth-gag into his mouth; as compared with the normal conversationalist conducting normal conversations. There is no harm in it, of course, in its proper place and proportion. But to fill your house, and fill your head, with voices you cannot answer, with cries you cannot return, with arguments you cannot dispute, with sentiments you cannot either applaud or denounce, is to enter into a one-sided relation and to live a lopsided life. The five senses used to be called the five wits; and to depend wholly on the receptive side of them is to be in a real sense half-witted.”3
I’m not sure what kids had headphones in 1930 when Chesterton wrote this, but it speaks to me. I’ve also been collecting notes on some of the books I read for years now, and I like sharing them. Through this blog, I hope to assimilate some of the ideas and knowledge from some of my favorite books in ways that are applicable to my day-to-day life (maybe yours too).
Conclusion
Through this writing, I hope to clarify my thinking on a worldview that prioritizes authentic religious experience, honest personal interactions and relationships, and a deeper understanding of human nature through the arts and books. We’ll see how it goes.
And just in case I start taking this too seriously…
“All that I have written seems like straw.”
— Thomas Aquinas
‘The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise’ by Robert Cardinal Sarah and Nicholas Diat
https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/barron/spinoza-secularism-and-the-challenge-of-evangelization/
“The Story of the Family: G.K. Chesterton on the Only State that Creates and Loves Its Own Citizens” by Dale Ahlquist