Redeem the Time

There is a notion of the contemplative life that one could draw from modern undergraduate and graduate schools that is cartoonish and false. The implication is that contemplation looks down upon the active life and consists in scholarship that draws solely from a lifetime of quiet reception to wisdom. To be contemplative is defined in an extreme and negative way: it is seen as a life that is not active, whereas the so-called active life is seen to consist in politics, business, or the usual life of human beings in which they have to do lots of things other than study or navel gaze.

Part of the reason for this is that young people go to college and graduate school—young people who haven’t yet figured out exactly what they want to do with their lives—and thus they read what they perceive to be the various distinctions and differences of vocations and careers (that they are also ignorant of) into what the words “active” and “contemplative” mean. This is similar to the opinion of some of those who were against the early Dominican order.

According to Russell Hittinger, on page 270 of The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in the Post-Christian World (read a review here):

William of Saint-Amour, a doctor of the Sorbonne, charged that the “double spirit” of action and contemplation embodied by the mendicants was a novel way of life that perverted the principles of both civil and ecclesiastical society. The mendicants, he asserted: violate the principle of a society of contemplatives by seeking to act on others rather than being purely receptive of divine grace . . .

It is hardly ever appreciated that St. Thomas Aquinas lived and breathed in an order unlike most others. The more “contemplative orders” would not have allowed him to travel, teach, preach and write as he did. Hittinger continues on page 271 with a paragraph I wish every student of St. Thomas was required to understand:

Thomas contends that the “active life” consists of more than political rule and mercantile pursuits. Granted that religious are neither magistrates or businessmen, they are “active” in other ways, including the communication of knowledge and wisdom by teaching and preaching. The active life, generically understood, is the communication of gifts. In this, all agents imitate God. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a society that is in every aspect receptive. Although societas is an analogous term, every society, he argues, is constituted by “communications” whereby goods are given and received. In Thomas’s works, every analogous use of the word societas is mirrored by uses of the word communicatio: communicatio oeconomica, communicatio spiritualis, communicatio civilis, and so forth. The word communicatio simply means making something common, one rational agent participating in the life of another. Society, for Aquinas, is not a thing, but an activity.

Think about what St. Thomas actually did: he defended his order from those inside and outside the Church who hated it, wrote advice to political leaders, wrote a lengthy work of apologetics to convert Muslims, wrote commentaries about a philosopher almost completely new to the western world, wrote a “textbook” for beginning theology students, and generally sought and fought to answer the most pressing, cutting-edge theological and philosophical issues of his time. He did all this mostly by drawing on his vast knowledge of the Church Fathers and Sacred Scripture and employing the power of prayerful reasoning.

Again, when he wrote about Aristotle, and incorporated Aristotle’s thought into his own thinking, he was writing about something that was largely new to the western world. He made Aristotle part of the tradition again, because he dove headlong into the rancorous issues of his time and argued that Aristotle was largely right. To think we should imitate him in all ways is presumptous of both our abilities and our knowlege of our own time, but as he is one of the Saints and the Doctor of the Church his life and works ought to be taken as a sort of exemplar—particularly for those of us who wish to focus our lives on studying and teaching truth.

No morning news today, because I don’t feel like it and I don’t see anything interesting.

However, I did hear an interesting thought this weekend. A woman told my wife and I that too much time in graduate school takes a toll on men. The longer guys are in school, she said, the more they become inable to make decisions, obsessive-compulsive, perfectionist, insecure, overly-sensitive, and generally unhappy. Why? The reasons she gave included: graduate students are low on the totem pole and no one cares what they think; of the writing of papers and dissertations there is no end (or clear deadlines); and perhaps most significant, men in graduate school are completely beholden to others for everything. They are not providing for themselves or their families and are wholly dependent on the recognition and sustenance of others.

Heh. There is a lot more that could be said along these lines, but I think there is a lot of truth to this.

Trust me, I know how painful it is to read this stuff: but I like to remind readers that our worst societal problems are coming from the academy as often as I can. The academy, along with the Church, is supposed to provide Americans with so much that is essential for civilization, nevermind the promulgation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Instead, right under our noses, billions of dollars are wasted and millions of souls rubbed in ugliness, error, and evil.

For instance, I got an invitation from the “Institute for Signifying Scriptures” to a “Brown Bag Lunch Discussion” recently. I’m not exactly sure what the talk was about, as the email only gave the title, which deserves to win some kind of award:

Queering the Beast: The Antichrists’ Gay Wedding

The lecture is being given by an Assistant Profesor of Religious Studies at the 6th highest ranked liberal arts college in the nation.

Are there always new schools springing up like these, or is something happening here?

Southern Catholic College

Ave Maria University

University of Sacramento

John Paul the Great Catholic University

Living Water Arts College

Transfiguration College and blog.

I’m know I’m missing a bunch of others (feel free to name them off in the comments), but these are the newest ones I know of.

No, really. The following email is real. It is an invitation sent to college students for an event sponsored by a college. I’ve been saving it for the purpose of sharing with you all:

Subject: Call for Papers and Participants for International Anarchist Academics and Activists Conference

. . . anarchist academics and activists will gather for three days of culture jamming, music, film, art, panel presentations, discussions, lectures, and demonstrations. Whether you are an anarchist or just curious about anarchism, all are welcome to participate. The purpose of the conference is to strengthen connections among anarchists on the streets and in the academy, to sharpen the anarchist critique of the present, to deepen our understanding of the origins and history of anarchism, to stimulate further activism, and to present the anarchist vision to a wider audience. The conference will take place on the campus of ##### [also] the host of Anarchy Archives.

The conference will begin with some culture jamming of our own.

Students at ###### have begun organizing a “Whirl” down the aisles of a local marketing behemoth where we will form a conga line with empty shopping carts and raise awareness about the high cost of low prices. Then, for the next three days there will be continuous live music, films, presentations and discussions. The topics will be as wide ranging and diverse as the anarchist movement itself. If you would like to present a formal paper, make an informal presentation about activist projects, join a panel discussion, or simply soak up all the conference has to offer, please contact #### ##### as soon as possible. There is no formal deadline or format for proposals, but the earlier you respond, the easier it will be to schedule presentations. If all you want to do is attend the conference, it would greatly facilitate planning if you would also contact #### ##### soon. Space will also be made available for book sales and for activist groups to distribute literature and information about their activities.

Sounds like an awful lot of planning for an “anarchist” conference, but hey—times change. Time was when anarchists would rather bomb the leaders of the free world than dance at Wal-Marts.

Next time you wonder why there aren’t more people out there who understand virtue, ethics, politics, or American government, remember this conference.

If this is education, who needs education? To make up for inflicting this on you, I present you with one of the best online resources on American government there is—if you read and ingest it all you will learn more than you would getting a degree at most colleges.

The Jacques Maritain Center (see also the Ralph McInerny Center) is one of the few outposts of Thomism around today.

Plenty of papers of interest here, here, here, here, and here. The last two conferences I can find are titled: Ethics without God and St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law

What Dan says here about the liberal arts deserves a better response, for which I cannot sit down and collect my thoughts right now . . .
but I also cannot resist a few brief stream-of-conscious-words:

There is much to say in response. One of Mansfield’s most prominent students ripped into the modern university in a great little essay entitled “Who Will Teach The Teachers,” or something like that. It was a nice summary of the rotten start of the modern research university—the ideas behind its structure are all derived from or heavily influenced by Hegel and other Germans of the time. This no one denies. I can’t find it now (instead read this great little piece by said student). Mansfield’s essay that Dan refers to may not be entirely internally consistent itself—but if memory serves correctly, isn’t he arguing FOR Harvard to return back to its roots in the liberal arts, and isn’t that what he consistently fights for? Maybe he is speaking prudently at some points in that piece, but isn’t his point that Harvard needs the liberal arts?

To return to Hegel though (ewww), let’s consider that St. Thomas came to what was new by way of writing commentaries on what was old—this was the method of the scholastics (and is similar to the method of the Straussians), and is opposed to what most dissertations are encouraged to do nowadays: add their two cents to an inflated, ever-growing, completely disorganized and unprincipled body of atom-like, particular “truth-claims” that are constantly trying to say something “totally new.” And the world spirit gives great glory to itself . . .

But then, why the opposition between the liberal arts and research in the first place—who ever said that research is bad? The debate is only over how the university should be ordered, and hence the true place of research in education and man’s attempt to know what truly is. Of course St. Thomas (or for that matter, Aristotle or Plato), would be all for research for the sake of man coming to know truth. The real questions lurking in the background here are about the structure and end of the university, and in order to answer these questions and conceive of a university one must make a statement about the division and method of the sciences.

There was a time when Harvard was the heir of the medieval universities—many of our nation’s founders were required to prove the existence of God in Latin in order to graduate, and this despite the nominal rejection of Catholicism and Scholasticism of their day—back then the schools were still structured along scholastic lines. Over time they outright rejected this approach, and embraced a new way that—in part (like all things, not all of it was bad)—stemmed from new ideas. You must judge those philosophical ideas if you want to defend or oppose the concept of the modern research university.

TAC is only an undergraduate education, and a start. I don’t think that as an institution that college ever said they were opposed to graduate education, or a graduate school (properly set up—which Mansfield doesn’t think Harvard is). Of course there is a place for writing the sorts of books that he has written. It is truly unfortunate if TAC students think otherwise, but I don’t see what in their program or education would make them think such a thing.

No Time . . . no time . . . no. time.

And this means a lot of quicklinkingposts.

Check out these three new schools, all of which are verifiable, untelevised parts of the quiet revolution taking place against the modern academy:

Living Water Arts College combines a Thomas Aquinas College great books/liberal arts approach with the savory spices of the fine arts.

Transfiguration College combines a Thomas Aquinas College great books/liberal arts approach with an “East Side” focus to its Theology, offering up the best of Byzantine Catholicism. And hey, they even got a blog.

John Paul the Great Catholic University combines what looks like a sort of Thomas Aquinas College great books/liberal arts core curriculum with a school of technology, business, and media.

Of course, America is an intrinsically evil nation; most people are morons; none of these colleges will ever get off the ground (and even if they did they are tainted by bad, naughty modern philosophy and will only spread error); no one is as smart as, well, us (whoever “us” happens to be); and the world has already gone to hell in a handbasket and if only everyone knew . . . or maybe . . .

not.

God has a funny way of laughing last, especially at silly humans who take themselves too seriously.

Another excellent post from Fumare perfectly juxtaposing this famous Descartes quote against A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education.

UPDATE
Athough it needs to be drawn out further, I would also juxtapose this part of the bluebook v. Descartes (as I have done before in written work):

The view of liberal education which we have been arguing might be well summarized by a brief discussion of wonder, the proper human motive for higher education. Wonder involves two things simultaneously: ignorance and knowledge. It is because we at once know something and at the same time do not know everything that we find ourselves wondering. It should be carefully distinguished from mere curiosity, for it implies knowledge of a fact or group of facts, and it bears directly upon the explanation of those facts; it involves an acceptance, a certain delight and joy, a sort of fascination with the way things are, and a confidence in their ultimate intelligibility. Indeed, it is because he is so taken with the facts that a man who wonders lives in heightened expectancy of encountering the manner of their arrangement.

Mere curiosity, on the other hand, is not so much interested in the question “why”, but in the question “how”. It is more concerned to see how certain generalizations work or how they apply to varying circumstances. As opposed to wonder, it assumes the validity of a principle, in order to see how effectively it will exploit a given situation. This is not to say that the methods of verification in experimental science may not very well be an instrument of wonder of high order, but when those instruments are employed not in order to explain, but in order to expand experience, curiosity and not wonder is the immediate motive.

The proper satisfaction of wonder is knowledge of the causes. But causes are of two sorts: a cause may simply be primary within some particular order, or it may be primary without qualification, a cause of causes. Knowledge of the latter is called wisdom; the science which treats of the first causes in the light of the natural capacity…

_________________________________________________________
Speaking of those who know: Check out the “Grads” section in the column at left for many an interesting blog, likely by someone you know. If you know of any TAC graduates (or honorary, may-as-well-have-been graduates) that I am missing please let me know and I will update accordingly. I know I am missing a few that I lost in an unfortunate computer accident.

Is probably full of “Duh!” moments. But it still looks interesting.

Students who identify themselves as politically “conservative,” compared to those who self-identify as “liberal,” are substantially more likely to show high levels of religious commitment and activity, and they’re also more likely to show high self-esteem.

Liberal students, by contrast, are more likely to express high levels of religious skepticism and to be engaged in a spiritual quest.

Read the survey results here.