The Classical Person knows that prudence is the queen of virtues, that charity is essential, that incentives matter, that choices make a difference, that beliefs change the world.
The Classical Person
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Yearly Archives: 2021
Religious Works Read 2020
| Populorum Progressio by Paul VI |
| Sollicitudo Rei Socialis by John Paul II |
| Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation by Joseph Ratzsinger |
| Witness to Hope by George Wiegel |
| Gaudium et Spes by Paul VI |
| Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil |
| Code of Canon Law 1983 Vatican, Pope John Paul II |
| Saint Louis Jacques LeGoff |
| Fratelli Tutti by Pope Francis |
| Pastoral Care by Pope Gregory the Great |
| Rule of St. Benedict by St. Benedict |
Fiction Read 2020
| Milton by William Blake. Wild bright eyed prophetic mythopoesis by the great seer of the Romantic era. Illustrations by the author are grand and delightful. |
| The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. With the first chapter featuring the persecution of a physicist during the Cultural Revolution in China, we have the set up of a solid novel. Coming from the perspective of an author whose country has come from killing scientists to enthroning them within a generation, optimism and belief in the possibility of progress pervades the story. This novel can stand alone without reading the next two books! Thus it’s not a huge commitment. |
| There Once Was A Mother who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back in by Ludmilla Petruvaskaya. From a Russian translation, comes three stories about the depressing psychology of desperate people. My wife and I read this in the hospital after childbirth. Our child has moved in, may he not move back in! |
| The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. The megalopsychoi war against decadence. |
| Death’s End by Cixin Liu. What is progress? We begin with environmental degradation on earth and end with environmental degradation of the universe. “Make time for civilization, because civilization doesn’t make time.” A wonderful meditation on the relationship between progress and civilization. In our novel, the quest for unyielding progress can diminish civilization. But civilization without progress leads to decadence. Ultimately only self-gift can save us. |
| The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. Inspiring philosophical novel blending music and philosophy into a rarefied community. Since I am a total sap for intellectual coming of age stories and this one is framed in the ironic mode of a well-researched biography, from the onset the philosophical musings of the book pulled me. The dialogue form did not survive Plato, instead it was elevated into the philosophical novel. Here is a philosophical novel without reservation. The book also features some wonderful poetry, translated from German, such as “After Dipping into the Summa Contra Gentiles.” This was the best novel I read this year. |
| The Man in the High Castle by Phil K. Dick. Unsettling escher-like look at the reality of history. Ultimately, however, I found the most interesting part of the book to be PKD’s notion of economics. He presents a world in which Nazi economics is doomed to inefficiency caused by centralization but stands superior to Japanese traditionalism. He also thinks New Deal economics would have worked well, or does he? That’s the question. |
| The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Want to be punched in the gut by depressing and potent visions of a failing America? This is your book, though it’s ultimate message is hopeful. I enjoyed it, but really stopped feeling strong emotions after the first half of the book, when circumstances improved. I am undecided on whether I will continue to the next book, Parable of the Talents. Though, I do love a good parable. |
The Child of Generations Responds to W. H. Auden’s “Under which Lyre”
‘Productivity Cult’ maligned
“A tumor on the consciousness of modern man defined
To drudgery to dredge away retail, data, ‘sembly lines.”
Proclaims my pastor poetaster
Hopped up on Hopkinisms, calling congregants to master
Shelley’s shoaly Naples verse: et al. Romantic disasters
In their cosmic solipsisms
Steering clear of beneficence, blessing with rarest chrisms
One gaudy bird. Lost in endless aphorisms.
I deserted Mercury?
I saw a city, heavenly yes, and amidst the endless artifice,
Sat the child of generations who told me this:
“Quicksilver cures our shaking knees,
Of syphilis, but rots the teeth, like Eve’s hollow candies.
Banned in Plato is he, because Aristophanes.
“Although his wit is clever,
He can dodge Apollo, and is caught nigh-never,
He lives a bitter retreat in a container lost forever.
“Apollo, as Auden alleged in school,
Is rude, base, vulgar, a fraud through and through.
Teaches technai, forsakes Truth. Only mundanity for him will do.
“Smash these idols! This idle chatter
Odious dichotomy between form and matter
Obscuring the obvious with vain plather.”
Thus, “Produce!” I shout. “Propagate!
Ensoul matter, ye rites rational!” For in utility’s gallant gait
Truth is put to use of soul and matter transubstantiates.
The productivity cult is mine.
Raising up to consciousness of modern man the fine,
Raising all the goods of man toward the One sublime.
Sebastian Garren 