In case you're wondering,

my long hair just can't cover up my redneck.

Ora Pro Nobis

From St. Thomas Aquinas, by Jacques Maritain: "When he went for a walk in the fields with his companions, the peasants turned to gaze in astonishment at his lofty stature. He was big, dark, quite portly, and erect. He was tanned the color of wheat, his head large and a bit bald. The Viterbo portrait, more or less well copied and restored, shows a countenance stamped with an admirable power, peaceful and pure; under the raised and open arches of the brows, the tranquil eyes of a child; the features regular, a bit heavy with fat, but strengthened by intelligence; the witty mouth with fine precise curves, one that never told a lie. He had, William of Tocco tells us, that delicate and tender flesh which is, according to Aristotle, characteristic of great intellectuals. His very keen sensibility made the least scratch on his body quite painful to him. But if he had to undergo a bleeding (bleedings were frequent in those hardy days, and even imposed by the constitutions of the Order) or a cauterization, he had but to begin to meditate, and straightway he entered into such abstraction of spirit that one could do as one pleased with him; he felt nothing more. In the refectory, he always had his eyes on things from above, and one could take his bowl from him and return it to him many times without his noticing it. His socius (companion), Reginald of Piperno, was obliged to assume the role of foster-brother, placing before him the dishes he ought to eat, and setting aside what could harm him. This faculty of being elsewhere, extraordinarily developed in him, sometimes played tricks on him. At the table of Saint Louis (to whose invitation he had to yield by order of the Prior, tearing himself away from the Summa Theologiae, which he was then dictating), he suddenly pounded on the table and cried: 'There is the clinching argument against the heresy of the Manichaeans!' --'Master,' said the Prior to him, 'pay attention, you are now at the table of the King of France,' and he tugged him vigorously by the cape to bring him out of his state of abstraction. The King had a secretary quickly summoned, and writing materials brought" (37-38). "Friar Thomas, Tocco tells us, was a man marvelously contemplative, vir miro modo contemplativus. If his sanctity was the sanctity of the intelligence, this is because in him the life of the intelligence was fortified and completely transilluminated by the fire of infused contemplation and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He lived in a kind of rapture and perpetual ecstasy. He prayed without ceasing, wept, fasted, yearned. Each of his syllogisms is as a concretion of his prayer and his tears; the kind of grace of lucid calm which his words bring to us springs doubtless from the fact that the least of his texts retains invisibly the impregnation of his longing and of the pure strength of the most vehement love. The masterpiece of strict and rigorous intellectuality, of intrepid logic, is thus brimming over from a heart possessed by charity. On his return to Naples after the death of Thomas, Reginald was to exclaim: 'As long as he was living my Master prevented me from revealing the marvels that I witnessed. He owed his knowledge less to the effort of his mind than to the power of his prayer. Every time he wanted to study, discuss, teach, write or dictate, he first had recourse to the privacy of prayer, weeping before God in order to discover in the truth the divine secrets, and, though he had been in uncertainty before praying, as a result of his prayer he came back instructed.' When doubtful points would arise, Bartolommeo di Capua likewise reports, he would go to the altar and would stay there weeping many tears and uttering great sobs, then return to his room and continue his writings. ... At Paris, consulted by the Masters on the manner of teaching the mystery of the Eucharist, he went first to place his answer on the altar, imploring the crucifix; the brethren who were watching him suddenly saw Christ standing before him on the manuscript he had written, and they heard these words: 'You have written well of the Sacrament of My Body and you have well and truthfully resolved the question which was proposed to you, to the extent that it is possible to have an understanding of it on earth and to ascertain it humanly.' And by the intensity of the rapture, the saint was raised a cubit into the air" (47-50). "He is the veritable apostle of modern times; his principles are sufficiently elevated and integrated to embrace in a superior and true, not eclectic, unity -- a unity of discrimination, of order, and of redemption, not of confusion and of death -- the immense diversities of race, of culture and of spirituality which divide the world of East and West. Beneath the Latin disposition of his form, the substance which he brings to men transcends every particularity of time and place; he alone can give them back the divine good of unity of spirit, where alone it is possible to attain it, in the light of the Incarnate Word" (59).

Don't Be Evil

Good old Google. I guess a motto like that is just too much to live up to. Background. More.

The Joys of Comps

Everyone should be required to read Wittgenstein. Why should I be the only one to have the pleasure (*ahem*) of reading pearls like these? (From Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) 3.1432 Instead of, 'The complex sign "aRb" says that a stand to b in the relation R,' we ought to put, 'That "a" stands to "b" in a certain relation says that aRb.' 4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions,' but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. 5.1311 When we infer q from p v q and ~p, the relation between the propositional forms of 'p v q' and '~p' is masked, in this case, by our mode of signifying. But if instead of 'p v q' we write, for example, 'p|q.|.p|q', and instead of '~p', 'p|p' (p|q = neither p nor q), then the inner connexion becomes obvious. 6.13 Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental. 6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental.

Walk for Life in SF *Updated*

*Update* Check out this site as well. It's excellent, and it really demonstrates the point I was getting at with the other pictures. The pro-abortion croud are verging on the manical, a sign of ultimate impotence. Check out these pictures. Is it me, or do the people who represent the pro-abortion crowd seem to be somewhere between aggressively rude and maniacally violent? I wonder if SFgate meant to convey that perception, but the images it has up show the pro-life folks as patient and kind, and the pro-abortion folks as mean-spirited, if not violent and dangerous. In particular, I was struck by this picture. Cute, huh? Humorous, lots of belly showing. But look at the tattoo on her neck peaking out from behind her scarf. Yeah, it's a little devil. Are we surprised? "They will call the good evil, and the evil good."

Canadians Kick Out Corrupt Scum

Canadians voted today to purge their government of corruption. Good for them. I still am skeptical as to their long-term dedication to conservative principles, but hey, an honest government is better than a corrupt one, conservative or liberal. Mark Steyn has been live bloging the election, as has the Captain. Here you can see the official results as they come in.

Plato's Apology

I just re-read the Apology, and I was struck this time by how much Socrates seems, not just to not care about death, but to actively desire to die. This struck me as strange at first, but then I realized the power that his death exerted in history: Socrates' death grounds the consciousness of the West in the ideal of Truth. Socrates could do nothing greater for philosophy than to die for it. Some quotes from the Apology: What Socrates imagines the oracle to mean when it declares Socrates the wisest of men: "This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless" (23b). "You are wrong sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man" (28c). "No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they know that it is the greatest of evils" (29a). "A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time" (32a). "The Olympian victor makes you think yourself happy; I make you be happy" (36d-e). "The unexamined life is not worth living" (38a). "A good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and ... his affairs are not neglected by the gods" (41d).

While studying for Comps ...

Today was like any other day. Dark, gloomy, wars and rumors of wars all around me. Ok, so it wasn't like that at all. But I decided I needed to get out of the house to study. (My room has the unfortunate capacity to connect me continuously to the internet, a deplorable fact which causes me much frustration. The consequence of this is that if I want to get any work done, I had darn well better not be in it. The consequence of that is that my room never gets cleaned. Etc.) So I went to Starbucks. You know, that idyllic place where infidels sacrifice their student loan checks on the altar of trendy coffee? Well I thought I'd blow off a Hamilton and toke up, so I went on over, to the one across from the mall. The day before yesterday, I had met a guy there, Wouldntyouliketoknowwhatmynameis (Woody, for short), who happens to be in the Politics department (suprise! and he seems like quite a good guy, too!). Well, today, while I was there, he came in talking on his cell phone. I made a friendly gesture in his direction, and he put his books by the window and went into the bathroom. I bent my head over my books and was lost to the world for some time. Suddenly, I realized that I was going to implode if I didn't eat something fast, so I rushed over to the counter to purchase a slice of Pumpkin loaf. (Yeah, $2. For a slice of bread. Gosh.) As I walked back to my table, I decided to chew the fat with Woody (did I mention that he's a really friendly guy?). And he informed me that he thought his cell phone had been stolen. He thought he had left it in the bathroom, and now it wasn't there. Well, I said, call Verizon right away, and offered my phone for his use. He said that he was going to walk over to the Verizon store, but could he use my phone to try and call his phone to see if it was around and he just was overlooking it? Sure, I said. You know, it's things like this that make me wonder how our culture can possibly survive another 50 years. I mean, there is no benefit to a stolen phone unless you have the technology to reprogram it, because Verizon right away will disable it if you report it stolen. But really folks, really, stealing a phone and then answering it when the rightful owner calls? At first I thought (pardon the salt) that the thief just had some serious balls. But then he demanded fifty bucks ransom (maybe he wanted to get coffee, too?). Woody started a conversation with the fellow, and it turned out that he was over at the mall. Woody couldn't hear him very well, so he walked outside. He still had my phone with him, so I kept paying attention as he stood by the trash can and stared off into the middle distance. Maybe ten minutes later, I heard some yelling and looked up, and the store manager was shouting at three or four pre-teen punks who had gathered around Woody and were hoping to make a little exchange. As I recall, the conversation was a bit one-sided. It went something like "Either you get the hell out of my store or I'm calling the police." She then came inside at a brisk trot and rushed back out, dialing furiously. The kids had decided that things just weren't really working out the way they had planned, so they chose the better part of valor and got the hell out. Woody followed after at a canter. He still had my phone. So, I returned to my study, and a bit later noticed a police car had pulled up to the store. More time passed, and then Woody returned, with a grin. He said he felt really bad for those kids. Which is a good point. I mean, they're in for some rough times if they don't know enough to not answer a phone they just stole. Apparently one of them had tried to return and had promptly gotten arrested. Unfortunately for him, he had a bag full of stolen merchandise from the mall, so things weren't looking too good. The other kids, uncaught, were still answering the phone when it rang, though the police were on the other end this time. The one kid they arrested had coughed up the names of the others, so the prospect of Woody getting his phone back was not as dim as it had been. But man, I just can't get over it. You know, I think this is what's the problem with movies like The Godfather or video games like Grand Theft Auto. They don't corrupt adults (at least, not as obviously) but the 12 year old knucklehead with a broken home? "Man, that's so cool. I just beat up that little old lady and took the $.55 in her purse." No sense, no common sense at all. Man If you're wondering, I managed to read two Platonic dialogues through it all. And I got my phone back.

the ceaseless rummaging for signs

This is very good.

Distributism

This was posted a while ago, but it's excellent, so I thought I'd link to it. Chesterton had quite a keen eye for the essence of modern life. I'm with Chesterton in the value of hard work (in the abstract, of course -- if you've seen my room, you'll know the truth). But still, what I want to know is how in fact is it possible to change things?

Holocaust Denial

Iran to host Holocaust denial conference. Why doesn't this surprise me? Why isn't the world enraged? Why are we letting Iran develop nuclear weapons? What the hell is going on here? I don't think I had ever heard of anyone denying the Holocaust until two or three years ago. But now it's becoming popular, it seems. The wacky Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four excommunicated with Archbishop Lefebre, apparently also denies it. This whole organization seems devoted to denying it. What the hell? If there's anything that defines the 20th century, it's that we perfected the means -- I suppose there's always been the will -- to slaughter millions of people in very short periods of time. Is there anything more frightening than a whole sovereign nation, devoted to the obliteration of Israel, denying that great evil, which now defines the Jews, and developing nuclear weapons? Do we really have to prove, once again, the capacity for evil in the human heart? Iran, unlike the USSR, believes that they are rewarded in the afterlife for killing infidels. In other words, MAD is not an option. Furthermore, they hate Jews. They deny the holocaust. What are nukes but a more efficient means of obliterating the infidel? Anyone else feel like the world is suddenly a bit to small? I'm moving to Mars.

Jets get new head coach

Jets hire Mangini as head coach. I am moderately excited about this, because I'm always excited to see the Jets gain at the expense of the Patriots, but I really liked Herm Edwards. I hope that Herm does well in Kansas City.

The Great Escape (with spoilers)

I just watched The Great Escape and enjoyed it very much. I wonder about the German Luftwaffe general (n.b.: I know nothing about the naming of officers in the military, much less the German military, so for all I know he could be a lieutenant or a chimney-sweep, but out of a need to have something to say, I'm calling him a general) in charge of the prison compound. He seems like a really stand-up guy, an honorable and worthy enemy. He is contrasted starkly with representatives of the Gestapo and the SS, who are brutish and vile, and unworthy enemies. The Luftwaffe general, however, is unable to deter the POWs from attempting to escape, while the brutish, villainous SS make at least some headway by slaughtering 50 of the captured officers with an anti-aircraft gun as they stretch their legs on their way back to prison camp. It makes me wonder about the dictum, "All's fair in ... war." Is it true? The allied officers have sworn to attempt to escape, but their attempts are predicated upon the universally held assumption that a civilized people does not slaughter its enemies captured on the field of battle. Thus, though putting themselves at risk in their escape attempts, they can reasonably expect, when captured, to simply be locked up again, not executed. In other words, nothing the German's have done while following the rules of civilized warfare has been able to deter these men's attempts to escape, and it seems likely that nothing will. Thus, the SS stoop to the slaughter of the POWs, to make an example of them. If you attempt to escape .... The question thus arises, is it better to lose a war than to use all means, whether they be "civilized" or not, to win? Loss means total subjection to the whims of the conqueror, which in times past in the battles between the moors and the Christians meant raping and pillaging. It's these kind of dilemmas the devil loves to trap us in, where we feel as if we have no choice but to sin. Of course, that trap is a false one. Sin is never necessary to achieve the good. This brings me back to the Luftwaffe general. Although in one sense he is the villain in the movie, I think in a more profound sense he is the tragic hero. At the end, when he is removed from his command, the implication that he is being sent to the Russian front, and thus to his likely death, is very strong. His suffering is the direct result of his being unwilling to use the methods of the Gestapo and SS. Many times he is seen treating his prisoners with respect, and though he is strict, he is not cruel and sadistic. His fall from grace is the direct effect of his refusal to sell his soul to keep the POWs behind the barbed wire. He is flawed, principally, I think, in lacking imagination. He could do a better job than he does in running the camp so that the POWs' movements are not so hidden. But the principle motivation, it seems to me, in his actions is that he knows that these men are officers, albeit of his enemy, and therefore worthy of dignified treatment. He loses his job, and perhaps his life, but he saves his soul.

Let it be known

that Lord Sebastian Flyte now blogs. Way to go, Dwight.

Books

I just spent a ridiculous amount of money on books, many of which I am not really excited about, all for the sake of studying for comps. The worst part about the whole thing is that I feel really intimidated by all of the books I've just purchased and am quite uncertain as to my ability to master them before the middle of March. Grrr.

Meme: Five Weird Habits of Myself

Sephora, the sneak, has tagged me.

Rules: The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits of yourself," and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says "You are tagged" (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1. I hate going to bed. I also hate getting out of bed. I am liable to do everything I can think of before I finally put on my pajamas and crawl between the sheets. The combination of these two habits has reduced the time I have to get ready in the morning before work to 10 minutes. Yes, folks, I am in my car on the way to teach 10 minutes after turning off my alarm clock.
2. I am obsessive in preserving precision in speech. Don't even think of being fast and loose with your words around me, buster. I cringe when my students ask if they can go to the bathroom, I twitch when I see the express lane at Kroger admitting only those with 15 items or less (fewer, damit, fewer), I sputter when asked who I will vote for. Of course, the consequence of this is that I'm terribly embarrassed when I myself make a verbal misstep.
3. I strongly dislike ketchup. I know that might lead you to think I'm un-American, but the converse is actually the case. An accident, I admit, of birth, I am violently patriotic. But I can't stand ketchup.
4. I take really long showers. Not on principle, mind you. I just start day-dreaming and pretty soon, it's 20-30 minutes later and I'm a pink raisin. I am particularly likely to take a long shower if I have been conversing recently with someone I disagree with and the argument is fresh in my mind. Then I'll think and think and think about what's been said and what should have been said and no washing occurs.
5. I waste hours and hours on the internet. This is the habit I hate the most about myself. In order to spend less time on the internet, I decided to blog. This is working out really well. Now I do absolutely nothing but stare at the computer, rather than simply doing pretty much nothing but staring at the computer. Ah, well...

I hereby tag benthegreen, Flannery, Annie, Sapientiae Amator, and Sacagawea.

Man and Woman: a hypothesis

Men and women are different. How, you ask?

I'm not sure that there can be in the end a real difference in "definition," since men and women both share a common essence, a common source, a common destiny. The material differences, however, are obvious, and point -- for all you Theology of the Body fans, this is part of the nuptual meaning of the body -- to the following general charaterization.

Man is creative.

Woman is nurturing.

Of course, there are nurturing men and creative women, but I think that it's less part of man's psychological makeup to be nurturing, just as it's less part of the woman's to be creative. I'm basing this characterization on the differences in our bodies. The woman's body is clearly made to be a domicile for the child as he comes into being and to feed him after he is born. The man's body is made to impregnate the woman and to protect and provide for the family. Thus, I take the body to be an exterior expression of a profound psychological distinction. What do you think?

The Free Market, continued

Though it's clear that the free market is harmful when isolated from all external influences, it's not at all clear that any other economic system is better. It may very well be the best of a bad lot. As a friend reminded me in a conversation a few months ago, every attempt to devise an economic utopia has been a disaster of epic proportions. Not only do the attempts at a utopia fail, but they cause greater evils in all facets of life than the flawed systems they were meant to replace, and not simply in materialistic "quality of life" terms.

Chesterton and Beloc at the beginning of the 20th century proposed an economic system known as agrarianism. I don't really know a lot about it (please leave a comment if you do), except that it seemed to be based on the farmer as the perfection of the human person. It is a really striking thing that we for the most part are ignorant of our farmers and the means used to bring us the food which keeps us alive. An economic system based on the idealization of the farmer has a lot of romantic appeal (consider, for example, Vergil's Georgics) but I'm unconvinced that it is a viable economic system in this day and age. Other modern equivalents have come up -- John Senior's work on Christian Culture is a clear example. But every time I think about these options, I am stymied by this question: What about national defense? Our economic system may be a disaster for the soul -- see the previous post -- but it has the advantage of providing the infrastructure necessary to build and maintain our elaborate defense systems, and I do not see how we can exist in this world without those defense systems. We enjoy extraordinary freedoms that are maintained by our military. But our military prowess is grounded in our technological advancement, which in turn is grounded in the motivational power of greed rooted in the free market.

The free market may be rotten, but I can't think what is better.

The Free Market

The free market corrodes the soul. In proof of which I offer the following argument: The essence of any market is reduce everything to a commodity which can be bought or sold. But to consider something as a commodity is to not love it (care for it) in itself, but only insofar as it can make you money. This is to treat everything the way a prostitute treats her body -- it's what Heidegger calls standing-reserve. Nothing is loved for itself, but only as the means for something else. Thus, to the extent that the market really is free and unfettered by anything other than supply and demand, to that extent the market tends to produce people who prostitute themselves and the world around them for monetary gain. This argument seems to me to be sound in the abstract and repeatedly confirmed in practice. Whenever something really beautiful is made, it's because there were forces other than economic involved. But whenever maximizing profit is the only concern, the product made is ugly and cheap.

Wow

I know

this has been up for a little while, but it's really good.

Captain's Quarters

This post is to highlight the most honest and hard working man in the blogosphere, Captain of Captain's Quarters. He has another excellent post today about the scandals in the Canadian government. I honestly don't know any other American that even pretends to care about Canadian politics, but the Captain's hard work is bringing to us the political stories from our friends to the north, even when it's a crime for the Canadians themselves to speak about it. This blog is a must read for anyone interested in an honest, reliable, conservative discussion of national and international affairs. Give it a read.

Operation VMMIM

Oh, isn't she beautiful! I am off to visit. No posts for a few days. Keep yourselves occupied as best you can.

Go Texas

Pictures Video

The Miner Tragedy

The Anchoress has an excellent post about the dangers the press face when under the pressure of an extraordinarly emotional story. Give it a look-see.

Free Choice and Free Will

Current thoughts on the will: Liberum arbitrium, free choice, is different from voluntas, will, not as two powers are distinguished, but as means are distinguished from ends. The will inclines towards the good to the degree that the good is apprehended by the intellect as an end -- this is the proper operation of the will. Free choice, however, concerns the means to that end, the good. And since the means to that end are indeterminate by their very nature, the will cannot be determined to any one of them of necessity. Thus the notion "freedom of choice" indicates the absence of absolute antecedent determination with respect to the means available regarding a given end. "Free will," on the other hand, indicates the power to pursue the unpossessed good and to rest in the possessed good. "Free will" indicates the autonomy of the self in the realm of agent cause. "Free choice" indicates the lack of formal determination (should I set my alarm for 6 am or 6:30?), which, while it must be grounded in the autonomy of the will, is nevertheless distinct from it in notion. I think.

Gorgeous, simply gorgeous

Hah

I have nothing to say.