sábado, 24 de agosto de 2013

Why Chesterton Will Be a Saint - by Dale Ahlquist

In CWR

A review of Father Robert Wild’s The Tumbler of God: Chesterton as Mystic

Not every saint is a mystic. Not every mystic is a saint. And not every 300-pound, cigar-smoking journalist is both a saint and a mystic. But I’m quite sure at least one of them is. And I’m not alone in that opinion. 

Father Wild’s book is especially well-timed. I was recently taken to task by a reviewer because I had suggested in my book The Complete Thinker that G.K. Chesterton is a mystic. And so it is convenient to have suddenly at my disposal an entire book written in defense of that one statement. But the book is well-timed for another reason. Father Wild not only argues quite convincingly that Chesterton is a mystic, but by the end of the book he also makes the case that Chesterton is a saint. Things appear to be heating up in that regard, too. And Father Wild is not just blowing holy smoke. He knows what the Church requires for sainthood. He is the postulator in the cause for Catherine de Houck Dougherty, who, incidentally, was also a mystic. 

Like any good writer, including like Chesterton himself, Father Wild takes the trouble to define his terms. He surveys the work of the leading writers on mysticism and shows how they converge but also where they part ways. Mysticism has to do with a direct experience of the divine truth, an “acute awareness” not only of the Creator but of his creation. Certainly the mistake about mysticism is that we associate it with remoteness from the rest of us, a hermit in a cave, or a prophet on a mountain top. Mysticism may make a stop there, but it does not stay there. For almost every reason, Chesterton damages most of our preconceptions about mysticism, even going so far as to say that the common man is a mystic, because mysticism is sane. It grasps reality. It rejoices in the sunlight. It knows the balance and proportion of things, including the importance of important things and the unimportance of unimportant things. Or to put it in Chesterton’s own words (in a passage which unfortunately does not appear in the book): 

The common man is a mystic. Mysticism is only a transcendent form of common sense. Mysticism and common sense alike consist in a sense of the dominance of certain truths and tendencies which cannot be formally demonstrated or even formally named. Mysticism and common sense are like appeals to realities that we all know to be real, but which have no place in argument except as postulates. 

Chesterton tells us the things we already know, only we did not know that we knew them. The difference between him and us is that he is trying to give us the same vision he has, what Father Wild calls his “contagious happiness and inner peace…he was imbued with a kind of unpretentious beatitude that tended to convey itself to those around him.” He is trying to share his sense of wonder, his thankfulness, his joy. And the source of all these things is God. 

Indeed, Robert Hugh Benson, whose too-short life and writing career just overlapped with Chesterton’s, perceived as early as 1905 that Chesterton was a mystic because of his joy, his confidence, and his common sense. It would be almost another 20 years before Chesterton would become Catholic. The odd thing about Chesterton’s conversion is how little his perspective changed, and how little his writing changes. He knows he is finally at home in the Church, but it is, in one sense, merely taking the official position of all the things he has been defending all along. He knew he had ceased being a Protestant many years before, and he admitted that he was even standing at the door of the Church ushering other people in without having entered himself. Still, the final step was an extremely difficult one. He had to do it alone, without the accompaniment of his beloved helpmate, his wife Frances (who would take another four years to cross the threshold.) But how is it that Chesterton can think like a Catholic, write like a Catholic, fight like a Catholic (and eat, drink, and smoke like a Catholic!) without being a Catholic? Credit his mysticism. 

Hugh Kenner, a great American man of letters who wrote his first book on Chesterton, says that Chesterton has a “comprehensive intuition of being.” He does not fumble to reach a position. He simply “occupies a central position all the time.” 

The transition from non-Catholic to Catholic was much less dramatic than an earlier experience that Chesterton went through as a young man. He suffered a very dark period where he first had to come face-to-face with the blankness of non-existence before coming face-to-face with God. It was something similar to what St. Francis of Assisi went through (which Chesterton writes about in his book on that saint), passing through the “moment when there is nothing but God.” And what arises from this abyss is “the noble thing called Praise.” The endless thankfulness for the unexpected, undeserved gift of existence. Father Wild surmises that it was in coming through experience that Chesterton received a mystical grace. 

Astonishment has consequences. Chesterton not an ascetic mystic who gains his spiritual insight through the exceptional self-denial that is associated with those who embrace the religious life. He is a lay mystic who has gained his amazing insight through an “acute awareness” of God himself and an appreciation of God’s good gifts. Even in a cloud of cigar smoke, he can still see clearly, perhaps more clearly because he knows how to make each pleasure part of his praise. We recite in the Mass that it is right and just always and everywhere to give God thanks, that it is our duty and our salvation. We say those words. We hear those words. But here is someone who lives out those words, someone whose childlike wonder fills his words, fills the room, who tosses off the line, buried like a gem deep in a paragraph about history: “Thanks is the highest form of thought.” 

Father Wild’s great Chestertonian insight: “Reason alone is capable of such mysticism.” Or as Chesterton says, “If you think wrong, you go wrong.” The corollary is that if you think right, you go right. Right reason leads to mystical insight. What does mystical insight lead to? 

Contrast Chesterton’s view with that of Plotinus, for whom the mystical goal is “to be alone with the alone.” Chesterton’s mystical insight fills him with a deep and joyful compassion; he says he wants to throw a party and invite the whole world. And he realizes that one of his tasks is to teach the world “how to enjoy enjoyment.” 

Father Wild builds his case for Chesterton’s mysticism by getting us to take another look at his most familiar books. Any Chesterton book can be re-read with great benefit. In fact, the main purpose of reading a Chesterton book the first time is so you can read it again. There is simply no way to read a book like Orthodoxy too many times. It always yields more fruit. Father Wild demonstrates this by getting us to see new things in the text, things that have always been there but now jump off the page completely new. He is simply using the Chestertonian technique of getting us to see the familiar things with a fresh set of eyes and the wonder of welcome. 

Chesterton says in Orthodoxy, “What we want is not the universality that is outside all normal sentiments; we want the universality that is inside all normal sentiments.” This points to his thesis that mysticism is actually a normal condition. It is the sane condition of man. It is simply the ability to see what is really there, the glory of creation but also its strangeness. It is the loss of mysticism that leads to insanity. Modern philosophy is off kilter because it is detached from reality. Though Orthodoxy is a recognized tour de force of philosophical argument and intellectual fireworks, the great effectiveness of the book is that Chesterton constantly appeals to life; he takes his proofs from actual experience. It is a truth we can touch. 

But then Chesterton plunges deep, contrasting Christianity with Buddhism, with Islam, with explanations of God that are too shallow, too simple. The Trinity is not a simple idea, but it is an essential one. The cross may be a simple symbol, but the contradiction at its center represents the collision of time and eternity, of life and death. 

The theme of seeing familiar things as if for the first time continues in The Everlasting Man, where we encounter Christ, not as we have in our Christian and post-Christian civilization, encumbered with our pre-conceptions, but as he must have appeared when he stepped onto the stage, the most extraordinary character in history, appearing at the precise intersection of the great cultures of the world. And Father Wild points out a truth so obvious that we have missed it: if ever there has been a model mystic, it is Christ. He refers to things unseen, but his reality is enfleshed. He is a constant revelation. Chesterton says: “The moral of all this is an old one; that religion is revelation. In other words, it is a vision, and a vision received by faith; but it is a vision of reality. The faith consists in a conviction of its reality.” 

The image of “the tumbler of God” comes from Chesterton’s book on St. Francis of Assisi, in the chapter, “Le Jongleur de Dieu.” St. Francis, in his humility, is not only willing to be a fool for Christ, but an acrobat. The mystical experience, the pure encounter with God, is akin to being turned upside down, and seeing everything upside down, giving the shocking perspective that everything is hanging on the mercy of God, but then landing on one’s feet with a new appreciation of things, including of one’s feet. Francis goes from poet to saint. Both the poet and the saint have a universal vision and both tell truth, but Chesterton makes the distinction between the two: “For one the joy of life is the cause of faith, for the other a result of faith.” Faith sees things in their proper perspective and their proper proportion. It is a vision informed by overflowing joy and bottomless thankfulness. 

It is one thing to have a mystical encounter with truth. It is quite another to explain it to someone who has not had it. But this is what the real mystic tries to do. He does not keep the truth to himself. He does not speak in riddles that only he understands. The true mystic, says Chesterton, does not conceal mysteries; he reveals them. Chesterton’s entire life as a writer is a constant outpouring of his powers of expression to make the truth understandable. He makes it surprising with his paradoxes, he makes it delicious with his epigrams, he makes it wonderful with his poetry and even his poetic prose. He also makes it uncomfortable with his cries for justice and inescapable with his relentless reason. 

It is safe to say, though it is still sounds surprising to say it, that Chesterton could not write about the mystical vision of St. Francis without being a mystic himself. He writes not as a mere appreciative spectator. He writes as an insider. But he also writes about St. Francis’ holiness. He even muses that perhaps only a saint can write about a saint. This is only his humility speaking and his sense of inadequacy. But he has ironically told the truth. 

Father Wild says he wrote this book because there is no book about the most important thing about Chesterton: his friendship with God. He is a model of lay spirituality, but also of lay mysticism. The main argument of the book is that Chesterton is a mystic. But the ultimate argument is that he is a saint. 

Father Wild is one of many of a growing number of people who believe that G.K. Chesterton should be raised to the altars. And yes, I have been active in this movement. We think he is a saint for our times, who epitomizes his own line from The Everlasting Man: “A dead thing goes with the stream, only a living thing can go against it.” Chesterton is an eloquent voice against everything that is wrong in the world. But even better, he is a joyful voice in defense of what is right. What draws people to Chesterton and what changes their lives is his goodness. 

I have been petitioning the bishop of Northampton for years to open Chesterton’s cause. And after a series of very interesting events in the past few months, not the least of which was the election of Pope Francis, who happens to be a big Chesterton fan, I had the privilege of making the following announcement at our national Chesterton Conference on August 1: The Rt. Rev. Peter Doyle, the Bishop of Northampton has given us permission to say that he “is sympathetic to our wishes and is seeking a suitable cleric to begin an investigation into the potential for opening a cause for Chesterton.” 

And nothing pleased me more than the fact that Father Robert Wild was in the audience when I made the announcement and no doubt lent his voice to the loud cheering that followed. It was a mystical moment.  

The Tumbler of God: Chesterton as Mystic
By Father Robert Wild
Angelico Press, 2013
Paperback
228 pages

JONATHAN LAST’S What to Expect When No One is Expecting: America’s Coming Economic Disaster - by William E. May

In Culture of Life Foundation 

Last’s Thesis
America’s fertility rate is falling precipitously and if nothing is done to reverse this situation the nation’s population will no longer be able to care for the swelling numbers of the elderly, or have adequate financial resources to maintain a military force capable of resisting hostile and populous nations.  This is the thesis of Jonathan Last’s recent book, What To Expect When No One is Expecting.

America’s Falling Fertility
In Last’s Introduction, he describes the situation in Old Town Alexandria, VA where he and his wife lived until they had children and moved to rural Virginia.  In 2008, a children’s clothing store closed because of sluggish sales.  By 2012, “the average family in Old Town consist[ed] of a mother, a father, and 0. 57 children,” which means that “the average Old Town married couple has a bit more than half a child!”  More broadly, “the fertility rate for white, college-educated women (we’ll use them because they serve as a fair proxy for our middle class), is only 1.6,” almost as low as the fertility rate in China and far below the replacement level of 2.1.

Accompanying the decline in fertility is the proliferation of pet shops and facilities to care for pets. In Old Town, this growth was spectacular, but it is widespread throughout the country. In Old Town, when people went on holiday, they could leave their dog at “Dog Town,” where each dog had a “separate house complete with air conditioning.”

Opponents will say there’s no need to worry about America’s population, pointing out that in 2010, 50.5 million Americans were of Hispanic descent and that the fertility rate for Hispanic women was 2.3 in 2012.  Moreover, between 2000 and 2009, the total population of the U.S. increased by 27.5 million people—more than half of which were Hispanic.  In addition, the growing population of Americans of Asian descent also had healthy fertility rates.  But Last shows that this is not likely to continue.  The fertility of Hispanic women in the U.S. quickly trends downward toward America's national average.  Furthermore, the fertility rates of the Latin American nations from which these immigrants come, though higher than rates in the U.S., are falling even more sharply.

The decline of American fertility “is the result of a complex constellation of factors, operating independently, with both foreseeable and unintended consequences.  From big things—like the decline in church attendance and the increase of women in the workplace—to little things—like a law mandating car seats in Tennessee or the reform of divorce laws in California—our modern world has evolved in such a way as to subtly discourage childbearing.”  Last also notes the impact of the birth control pill, legalized abortion and the delay in marriage and child-bearing.

How to Make Babies, Wanted and Desired
Having described the many roadblocks to having children, Last makes several proposals to remove them, including:
1.  Reform Social Security. The present system distorts the “market value” of children and forces fertility rates down. Last describes several thoughtful ways to reform the system so that it recognizes the value of children for parents. These different schemes share the same goals: (1) “Let parents keep more of their money” now paid in taxes; and (2) “Reduce the fundamental distortion that Social Security now creates by giving everyone welfare state payouts, regardless of whether or not they bore the cost of creating the relatively few workers who now fund them. These reforms do not hand out money to parents; they simply lessen the economic disconnect created by the government in the first place.”

2.   Rethink College. Higher education is a major roadblock. It often delays marriage and results in enormous debts.  Since 1960 “the real cost of college has increased more than 1000 percent. Meanwhile the ‘value’ of a college degree has increased even in jobs where a college degree is not required and has no bearing at all on work-related knowledge. And all of this has happened as the objective quality of the average college degree has, by most standards, declined.”

Last proposes three measures to address the shortcomings of the current system:

a.  Eliminating the need for college.  In many instances, a college degree has little bearing on a person’s qualification for employment.  Employers require degrees in part because the 1971 Supreme Court decision Griggs v. Duke Power held that employers could not rely on IQ-type tests if minorities performed poorly on them, and Blacks and Hispanics show a persistent underperformance on such tests. “But colleges are allowed to use such considerations. The colleges get rich, students and their parents go into hock…If Griggs were rolled back, it would upend the college system at a stroke.”

b.   Encouraging the college system to become more responsive to market forces. One way to reduce exorbitant tuition and be more responsive to the market would be to create a no-frills, federal degree-granting body that would let students “leapfrog the four-year system” by getting certificates when they met standards for such courses as English, the sciences, mathematics etc.  After they gained sufficient certificates, students could receive a national Bachelor’s Degree Equivalency without going to college.  Government agencies would accept the Equivalency, and grad schools receiving any federal funds would be required to accept it.

c.  Government stipulation that public universities become family-friendly. One cannot, and should not, “try to force college students to marry and have children, but for some students starting a family while they’re in college is ideal.”  Last highlights Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, the “flagship school of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  BYU provides not only dormitory-style housing but family housing just off campus, and there is no reason why state schools should not provide such housing for the relatively few undergraduate married couples who desire such an arrangement.”

3.  Eliminate the “Dirt Gap.”  Most Americas live in large cities where real estate and associated costs are disproportionately much higher than in rural areas, and many must seek housing in the suburbs where real estate and a home are more reasonable; but commuting to jobs in the central cities is expensive and time consuming. The answer, Last argues, is not more public transportation for married couples both of whom  work and must get children to school, leave their car at the rail station, retrieve car when they return etc. Building more roads is the way to go, and Last points out that Dallas has twice as much road pavement as Los Angeles and a higher fertility rate.

An important way to overcome the Dirt Gap is telecommuting. Currently, over 40 % of American workers telecommute for a good part of their work week.  By increasing both the number or telecommuters and the number of hours they are able to telecommute, the Dirt Gap could be significantly reduced.
Conclusion
Last’s book counters forcefully the widespread secularist view that the greatest threat to the survival of Americans and, indeed, the planet, is people. Those holding this view still embrace the philosophy popularized by Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb. The idea that overpopulation is the greatest threat to the planet’s survival has led governments throughout the world to take steps to curb population growth, punishing couples who choose to have more than the replacement number of babies. Last presents compelling evidence to show that under-population is the real threat to our survival.
- See more at: http://www.culture-of-life.org/e-brief/jonathan-last%E2%80%99s-what-expect-when-no-one-expecting-america%E2%80%99s-coming-economic-disaster#sthash.oAfaN7yn.dpuf
Last’s Thesis
America’s fertility rate is falling precipitously and if nothing is done to reverse this situation the nation’s population will no longer be able to care for the swelling numbers of the elderly, or have adequate financial resources to maintain a military force capable of resisting hostile and populous nations.  This is the thesis of Jonathan Last’s recent book, What To Expect When No One is Expecting.

America’s Falling Fertility
In Last’s Introduction, he describes the situation in Old Town Alexandria, VA where he and his wife lived until they had children and moved to rural Virginia.  In 2008, a children’s clothing store closed because of sluggish sales.  By 2012, “the average family in Old Town consist[ed] of a mother, a father, and 0. 57 children,” which means that “the average Old Town married couple has a bit more than half a child!”  More broadly, “the fertility rate for white, college-educated women (we’ll use them because they serve as a fair proxy for our middle class), is only 1.6,” almost as low as the fertility rate in China and far below the replacement level of 2.1.

Accompanying the decline in fertility is the proliferation of pet shops and facilities to care for pets. In Old Town, this growth was spectacular, but it is widespread throughout the country. In Old Town, when people went on holiday, they could leave their dog at “Dog Town,” where each dog had a “separate house complete with air conditioning.”

Opponents will say there’s no need to worry about America’s population, pointing out that in 2010, 50.5 million Americans were of Hispanic descent and that the fertility rate for Hispanic women was 2.3 in 2012.  Moreover, between 2000 and 2009, the total population of the U.S. increased by 27.5 million people—more than half of which were Hispanic.  In addition, the growing population of Americans of Asian descent also had healthy fertility rates.  But Last shows that this is not likely to continue.  The fertility of Hispanic women in the U.S. quickly trends downward toward America's national average.  Furthermore, the fertility rates of the Latin American nations from which these immigrants come, though higher than rates in the U.S., are falling even more sharply.

The decline of American fertility “is the result of a complex constellation of factors, operating independently, with both foreseeable and unintended consequences.  From big things—like the decline in church attendance and the increase of women in the workplace—to little things—like a law mandating car seats in Tennessee or the reform of divorce laws in California—our modern world has evolved in such a way as to subtly discourage childbearing.”  Last also notes the impact of the birth control pill, legalized abortion and the delay in marriage and child-bearing.

How to Make Babies, Wanted and Desired
Having described the many roadblocks to having children, Last makes several proposals to remove them, including:
1.  Reform Social Security. The present system distorts the “market value” of children and forces fertility rates down. Last describes several thoughtful ways to reform the system so that it recognizes the value of children for parents. These different schemes share the same goals: (1) “Let parents keep more of their money” now paid in taxes; and (2) “Reduce the fundamental distortion that Social Security now creates by giving everyone welfare state payouts, regardless of whether or not they bore the cost of creating the relatively few workers who now fund them. These reforms do not hand out money to parents; they simply lessen the economic disconnect created by the government in the first place.”

2.   Rethink College. Higher education is a major roadblock. It often delays marriage and results in enormous debts.  Since 1960 “the real cost of college has increased more than 1000 percent. Meanwhile the ‘value’ of a college degree has increased even in jobs where a college degree is not required and has no bearing at all on work-related knowledge. And all of this has happened as the objective quality of the average college degree has, by most standards, declined.”

Last proposes three measures to address the shortcomings of the current system:

a.  Eliminating the need for college.  In many instances, a college degree has little bearing on a person’s qualification for employment.  Employers require degrees in part because the 1971 Supreme Court decision Griggs v. Duke Power held that employers could not rely on IQ-type tests if minorities performed poorly on them, and Blacks and Hispanics show a persistent underperformance on such tests. “But colleges are allowed to use such considerations. The colleges get rich, students and their parents go into hock…If Griggs were rolled back, it would upend the college system at a stroke.”

b.   Encouraging the college system to become more responsive to market forces. One way to reduce exorbitant tuition and be more responsive to the market would be to create a no-frills, federal degree-granting body that would let students “leapfrog the four-year system” by getting certificates when they met standards for such courses as English, the sciences, mathematics etc.  After they gained sufficient certificates, students could receive a national Bachelor’s Degree Equivalency without going to college.  Government agencies would accept the Equivalency, and grad schools receiving any federal funds would be required to accept it.

c.  Government stipulation that public universities become family-friendly. One cannot, and should not, “try to force college students to marry and have children, but for some students starting a family while they’re in college is ideal.”  Last highlights Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, the “flagship school of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  BYU provides not only dormitory-style housing but family housing just off campus, and there is no reason why state schools should not provide such housing for the relatively few undergraduate married couples who desire such an arrangement.”

3.  Eliminate the “Dirt Gap.”  Most Americas live in large cities where real estate and associated costs are disproportionately much higher than in rural areas, and many must seek housing in the suburbs where real estate and a home are more reasonable; but commuting to jobs in the central cities is expensive and time consuming. The answer, Last argues, is not more public transportation for married couples both of whom  work and must get children to school, leave their car at the rail station, retrieve car when they return etc. Building more roads is the way to go, and Last points out that Dallas has twice as much road pavement as Los Angeles and a higher fertility rate.

An important way to overcome the Dirt Gap is telecommuting. Currently, over 40 % of American workers telecommute for a good part of their work week.  By increasing both the number or telecommuters and the number of hours they are able to telecommute, the Dirt Gap could be significantly reduced.
Conclusion
Last’s book counters forcefully the widespread secularist view that the greatest threat to the survival of Americans and, indeed, the planet, is people. Those holding this view still embrace the philosophy popularized by Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb. The idea that overpopulation is the greatest threat to the planet’s survival has led governments throughout the world to take steps to curb population growth, punishing couples who choose to have more than the replacement number of babies. Last presents compelling evidence to show that under-population is the real threat to our survival.
- See more at: http://www.culture-of-life.org/e-brief/jonathan-last%E2%80%99s-what-expect-when-no-one-expecting-america%E2%80%99s-coming-economic-disaster#sthash.oAfaN7yn.dpuf


Last’s Thesis
America’s fertility rate is falling precipitously and if nothing is done to reverse this situation the nation’s population will no longer be able to care for the swelling numbers of the elderly, or have adequate financial resources to maintain a military force capable of resisting hostile and populous nations.  This is the thesis of Jonathan Last’s recent book, What To Expect When No One is Expecting.

America’s Falling Fertility
In Last’s Introduction, he describes the situation in Old Town Alexandria, VA where he and his wife lived until they had children and moved to rural Virginia.  In 2008, a children’s clothing store closed because of sluggish sales.  By 2012, “the average family in Old Town consist[ed] of a mother, a father, and 0. 57 children,” which means that “the average Old Town married couple has a bit more than half a child!”  More broadly, “the fertility rate for white, college-educated women (we’ll use them because they serve as a fair proxy for our middle class), is only 1.6,” almost as low as the fertility rate in China and far below the replacement level of 2.1.

Accompanying the decline in fertility is the proliferation of pet shops and facilities to care for pets. In Old Town, this growth was spectacular, but it is widespread throughout the country. In Old Town, when people went on holiday, they could leave their dog at “Dog Town,” where each dog had a “separate house complete with air conditioning.”

Opponents will say there’s no need to worry about America’s population, pointing out that in 2010, 50.5 million Americans were of Hispanic descent and that the fertility rate for Hispanic women was 2.3 in 2012.  Moreover, between 2000 and 2009, the total population of the U.S. increased by 27.5 million people—more than half of which were Hispanic.  In addition, the growing population of Americans of Asian descent also had healthy fertility rates.  But Last shows that this is not likely to continue.  The fertility of Hispanic women in the U.S. quickly trends downward toward America's national average.  Furthermore, the fertility rates of the Latin American nations from which these immigrants come, though higher than rates in the U.S., are falling even more sharply.

The decline of American fertility “is the result of a complex constellation of factors, operating independently, with both foreseeable and unintended consequences.  From big things—like the decline in church attendance and the increase of women in the workplace—to little things—like a law mandating car seats in Tennessee or the reform of divorce laws in California—our modern world has evolved in such a way as to subtly discourage childbearing.”  Last also notes the impact of the birth control pill, legalized abortion and the delay in marriage and child-bearing.

How to Make Babies, Wanted and Desired
Having described the many roadblocks to having children, Last makes several proposals to remove them, including:
1.  Reform Social Security. The present system distorts the “market value” of children and forces fertility rates down. Last describes several thoughtful ways to reform the system so that it recognizes the value of children for parents. These different schemes share the same goals: (1) “Let parents keep more of their money” now paid in taxes; and (2) “Reduce the fundamental distortion that Social Security now creates by giving everyone welfare state payouts, regardless of whether or not they bore the cost of creating the relatively few workers who now fund them. These reforms do not hand out money to parents; they simply lessen the economic disconnect created by the government in the first place.”

2.   Rethink College. Higher education is a major roadblock. It often delays marriage and results in enormous debts.  Since 1960 “the real cost of college has increased more than 1000 percent. Meanwhile the ‘value’ of a college degree has increased even in jobs where a college degree is not required and has no bearing at all on work-related knowledge. And all of this has happened as the objective quality of the average college degree has, by most standards, declined.”

Last proposes three measures to address the shortcomings of the current system:

a.  Eliminating the need for college.  In many instances, a college degree has little bearing on a person’s qualification for employment.  Employers require degrees in part because the 1971 Supreme Court decision Griggs v. Duke Power held that employers could not rely on IQ-type tests if minorities performed poorly on them, and Blacks and Hispanics show a persistent underperformance on such tests. “But colleges are allowed to use such considerations. The colleges get rich, students and their parents go into hock…If Griggs were rolled back, it would upend the college system at a stroke.”

b.   Encouraging the college system to become more responsive to market forces. One way to reduce exorbitant tuition and be more responsive to the market would be to create a no-frills, federal degree-granting body that would let students “leapfrog the four-year system” by getting certificates when they met standards for such courses as English, the sciences, mathematics etc.  After they gained sufficient certificates, students could receive a national Bachelor’s Degree Equivalency without going to college.  Government agencies would accept the Equivalency, and grad schools receiving any federal funds would be required to accept it.

c.  Government stipulation that public universities become family-friendly. One cannot, and should not, “try to force college students to marry and have children, but for some students starting a family while they’re in college is ideal.”  Last highlights Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, the “flagship school of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  BYU provides not only dormitory-style housing but family housing just off campus, and there is no reason why state schools should not provide such housing for the relatively few undergraduate married couples who desire such an arrangement.”

3.  Eliminate the “Dirt Gap.”  Most Americas live in large cities where real estate and associated costs are disproportionately much higher than in rural areas, and many must seek housing in the suburbs where real estate and a home are more reasonable; but commuting to jobs in the central cities is expensive and time consuming. The answer, Last argues, is not more public transportation for married couples both of whom  work and must get children to school, leave their car at the rail station, retrieve car when they return etc. Building more roads is the way to go, and Last points out that Dallas has twice as much road pavement as Los Angeles and a higher fertility rate.

An important way to overcome the Dirt Gap is telecommuting. Currently, over 40 % of American workers telecommute for a good part of their work week.  By increasing both the number or telecommuters and the number of hours they are able to telecommute, the Dirt Gap could be significantly reduced.

Conclusion
Last’s book counters forcefully the widespread secularist view that the greatest threat to the survival of Americans and, indeed, the planet, is people. Those holding this view still embrace the philosophy popularized by Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb. The idea that overpopulation is the greatest threat to the planet’s survival has led governments throughout the world to take steps to curb population growth, punishing couples who choose to have more than the replacement number of babies. Last presents compelling evidence to show that under-population is the real threat to our survival. 




Contraceptive Eating - by Randall Smith

In The Catholic Thing


As those who have been following this series may recall, a friend once asked the question:  “Let’s say there are two women who love one another and are committed to one another the way you and your wife are committed to one another, and let’s say they’re engaged in an act that, if their biology were different, might lead to children, but in this case cannot.  Why does the absence of this one, single dimension of the act – the possibility of having children – make it morally unacceptable?”

There are a number of challenges involved in answering such a question.  

First, many modern people think “sex” means any kind of sexual titillation, whereas the Church has a very specific understanding of what “sex” entails.  

Second, the Church does not think an “act” is defined simply by a certain arrangement of body parts, but by the formal object of the act, the intention with which it is done, and the relevant circumstances.  

Third, it’s important that questioners understand the Church will generally not be replying to this question in the usual ways: that is to say, the Church is neither utilitarian nor Kantian, so the answer to the question of why the act is morally unacceptable will not involve showing that it “harms” someone else or by demonstrating that the act is always and everywhere wrong.  

The act may not “harm” (at least physically) the two persons involved, nor are we going to say that “sex” is always and everywhere wrong or dirty or disgusting, something just barely made acceptable if done in marriage and then only for the purposes of having children, the advice being:  “Just close your eyes, and think of the Church.”  

Instead, the Church approaches moral questions by trying to get people to think differently about the way they live and about the nature and meaning of their acts.

Allow me, if I may, to use an example from an entirely different realm.  Suppose a young woman says to me:  “I’m a person who loves eating.  I derive great pleasure from eating. I just don’t want the food to become part of my body, so I purge the food after I’ve eaten it.  Why would the absence of this one, single dimension of the act of eating – namely nutrition – make  the act morally impermissible?”

The first thing we might say to such a person is:  “I’m not sure that’s actually eating.”  “No,” she may insist, “I chew, I swallow, and the food goes into my stomach.  Are you saying that whenever a person is sick and throws up, he or she failed to eat?”  At which point I might try going into a complicated discussion about the difference between involuntarily having something happen to one’s food because of disease and voluntarily choosing to purge it, although it might not help, especially if she’s already convinced that an act can be defined merely by what happens physically.  In both cases, someone physically throws up, thus to her it will seem that both acts are the same. 

Notice the oddity, however, of suggesting that the goal of nutrition is merely “one, single dimension” of the act of eating, one that “eating” may lack (she imagines) and still be called eating. 

Doesn’t it make more sense to suggest that while eating certainly (and agreeably) involves something more than merely nutrition, nutrition also seems to be one of the basic purposes of eating? And thus to cut out that dimension of the act is to violate its nature in a fundamental way, the consequences of which might not be altogether healthy.

“But I don’t want to get fat,” says our young woman.  “Getting fat isn’t healthy.”  No, it isn’t.  But there are other ways of not getting fat.  The problem is those involve temperance, and what our friend wants is the pleasure of eating without the consequences of eating.

Notice also how the “getting fat isn’t healthy” response ends up nullifying the “harm” principle.  If I suggest a possible “harm,” she can always trump my “harm” with one of her own – getting fat is bad for you – one that (surprise, surprise) allows her to continue doing what she wants to do.  Besides, no one else is getting hurt.  

Notice as well how feckless most Kantian unversalizability arguments would be:  eating is not intrinsically wrong.  Eating and throwing up is not intrinsically wrong.  Sick people do it involuntarily; people who have taken poison do it voluntarily.  

Can we do better?    

How about something like this:  What we want for you, young lady, is a different relationship with eating (to use the contemporary jargon), one that involves both nutrition and pleasure, that meets your physical needs and realizes your communal nature.  

Both of these dimensions of eating – the nutritional and the communal – are, as the philosopher and physician Leon Kass has shown admirably in his wonderful book The Hungry Soul, what characterize truly human eating.  

Take one dimension or the other out, and trouble begins.  Scarf down food alone, and you miss the joys of the social dimension of eating.  Eat and throw up and you destroy the nutritional dimension.  It is when both come together that we get truly human eating that will lead to true, human flourishing.
That sort of eating is what we want for our children and loved ones, isn’t it?  But let’s be honest:  that sort of eating requires discipline.  You have to choose the right foods and eat them in the right amounts to get the proper nutrition.  And you have to choose the proper times and places to eat communally with loved ones. If each person goes off on his or her own, there’s no communal meal.  In short, one has to develop the relevant virtues of both prudence and temperance in order to realize the human goods of eating.


Se credi nella castità, non fai l’avvocato - di Massimo Introvigne

In NBQ

Vedere come funzionano le leggi sull’omofobia all’estero è di grande interesse per prepararci alla battaglia che ci attende il mese prossimo in Italia. L’onorevole filosofa Michela Marzano ha messo in ridicolo in Parlamento chi teme che dalla legge sull’omofobia derivino limitazioni per la libertà di espressione dei credenti, affermando che sarebbe in corso una «campagna terroristica» ed esprimendosi in termini davvero pittoreschi, che non possono essere riportati su un quotidiano per famiglie. Anziché rispondere sullo stesso tono, dopo avere tanto parlato della Francia, vediamo come funziona per esempio la legge sull’omofobia in Canada.

Come ci spiegano i giuristi locali, i parametri sono ora definiti da una sentenza della Corte Suprema, Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott, del 27 febbraio 2013, che fissa i limiti entro i quali si può invocare la libertà religiosa quando si è perseguiti in base alle leggi contro l’omofobia. Il caso riguardava un’organizzazione cristiana che protestava contro l’insegnamento obbligatorio della teoria del gender nelle scuole canadesi. La sentenza, fra l’altro, afferma che l’espressione «sodomiti» è omofoba, che è omofobo sostenere che ci sono molti più casi di pedofilia fra gli omosessuali che fra gli eterosessuali, e che la citazione del brano del Vangelo di Matteo secondo cui «chi scandalizzerà uno solo di questi piccoli […], gli conviene che gli venga appesa al collo una macina da mulino e sia gettato nel profondo del mare» è gravemente omofoba se ristampata in una pagina di un opuscolo illustrata con annunci economici di un quotidiano dove uomini omosessuali cercano ragazzi «giovani e giovanissimi» per simpatiche e ben retribuite avventure sessuali.

Come spesso avviene, i giudici perseguono piccoli gruppi che si rendono poco gradevoli all’opinione pubblica per stabilire principi generali che sono poi applicati contro chiunque. Il gruppo cristiano in questione, Christian Truth Activists, sostiene anche la tesi – non provata, diciamolo subito – secondo cui l’ideologia del gender nasce ed è diffusa a causa di un «complotto ebraico», il che ha portato l’influente Canadian Jewish Congress a costituirsi parte civile di fronte alla Corte Suprema. Tuttavia altro è l’eventuale antisemitismo degli opuscoli di questo gruppo, altro è l’omofobia. E il risultato finale è che la Corte Suprema canadese ha stabilito – esattamente come temevano i vescovi cattolici del Paese in una lettera pastorale dell’aprile 2012 sulla libertà religiosa – che in caso di conflitto fra libertà di religione e leggi sull’omofobia sono le seconde a prevalere.

Non c’è solo la Corte Suprema. È venuto alla luce in questi giorni un caso molto interessante. Un’università protestante canadese, riconosciuta, la Trinity West University, si trova alla periferia di Vancouver. Questa università fa sottoscrivere agli studenti un codice di comportamento, che vieta – tra l’altro – l’accesso a siti pornografici usando la rete WiFi dell’ateneo, il consumo di alcool all’interno del campus universitario, e nei dormitori «l’astensione da forme di intimità sessuale che violino la sacralità del matrimonio tra un uomo e una donna». Questo codice è analogo a molti che sono in uso da anni negli Stati Uniti. Per esempio un impegno analogo contro l’attività sessuale nei dormitori universitari – molto frequente nelle università, tanto che altrove il vero problema è decidere se certe scorribande notturne di ragazzi nelle camere delle ragazze, magari dopo abbondanti bevute, portano a rapporti consensuali o a forme più o meno mascherate di violenza carnale – si trova nel «codice d’onore» della Brigham Young University, l’ateneo di Provo (Utah) che appartiene alla Chiesa Mormone ma che è frequentato anche da non mormoni ed è molto apprezzato per la qualità dei corsi e dei professori.

La Trinity West University è ora sottoposta a procedimento da parte di un organo amministrativo, la Conferenza dei Presidi delle Facoltà di Legge canadesi, il quale ha deciso d’intervenire chiedendo con una lettera – originariamente segreta, ma come tutti i documenti segreti che si rispettano, ora comparsa su Internet – in cui chiede agli Ordini degli Avvocati di non ammettere alla pratica forense i laureati in legge della Trinity West University, perché – se quando erano studenti hanno sottoscritto il codice di comportamento – sono fortemente sospetti di omofobia.

Che c’entra l’omofobia, si chiederà a questo punto il lettore. C’entra, rispondono gli esimi presidi, perché impegnandosi ad astenersi da rapporti prematrimoniali nei dormitori, gli studenti di legge della Trinity West University dichiarano di voler così onorare «la sacralità del matrimonio tra un uomo e una donna». Dal momento che in Canada c’è il matrimonio omosessuale, la frase sarebbe omofoba perché implicherebbe che solo il matrimonio «tra un uomo e una donna» sia sacro. Forse l’università potrebbe cavarsela – ed evitare di dover chiudere la sua facoltà di Giurisprudenza, perché nessuno s’iscrive a Legge sapendo che poi non potrà fare l’avvocato – chiedendo agli studenti di astenersi dall’attività sessuale nei dormitori per non violare «la sacralità del matrimonio tra un uomo e una donna, o tra un uomo o un uomo, o tra una donna e una donna».

Ma anche no. Perché la decisione dei presidi implica che la castità in genere crei un clima ostile a «gay, lesbiche e bisessuali» che, almeno nella loro grande maggioranza, della castità non sono grandi fan. E che chi chiede di astenersi dai rapporti sessuali prima e fuori del matrimonio sia già almeno sospetto di omofobia. Vede dunque come va a finire, egregia onorevole Marzano? O forse è proprio lì che vuole andare a parare? Del resto, non ha forse scritto Lei su Repubblica che è bene non celebrare più la Festa del papà, anche quella sospetta di omofobia perché discrimina i bambini che non hanno un papà e una mamma ma due mamme lesbiche?