Numenorean
To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Scrap metal sells for $23.8 million.
Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty.
We have rejected both, and necessarily so, because the two are inseparable. When the Greeks first began to see the beauty in the world, they were making a powerful statement. They appreciated and loved the human form, poetic meter, musical scales, mathematics, etc.
They found an order in the universe, a reasonable understructure, that gave men hope. As Edith Hamilton correctly pointed out, we have only to look at the mythology the Greeks produced to understand just how radical their way of thinking was.
Man, they discovered, is the measure of all things, in that he is a representation of this great universe that was created for him and his sake. He is ordered, rational, beautiful, an object of love. The Greeks perceived beauty and found a way to God (an incomplete one, naturally, which was made whole by Revelation; the Greeks moved way from a terrible world where hideous and malevolent gods demanded human sacrifice for fair weather and good crops; Christ gave us a world wherea Loving God was willing to be sacrificed for our sake).
"To the people who told these stories all the universe was alive with the same kind of life they knew in themselves. They were individual persons, so they personified everything which had the obvious marks of life, everything which moved and changed...[W]hen they told of the coming of love and light the early storytellers were setting the scene for the appearance of mankind..."
We have begun to love the world's ugliness. Is that progress?
Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty.
We have rejected both, and necessarily so, because the two are inseparable. When the Greeks first began to see the beauty in the world, they were making a powerful statement. They appreciated and loved the human form, poetic meter, musical scales, mathematics, etc.
They found an order in the universe, a reasonable understructure, that gave men hope. As Edith Hamilton correctly pointed out, we have only to look at the mythology the Greeks produced to understand just how radical their way of thinking was.
Man, they discovered, is the measure of all things, in that he is a representation of this great universe that was created for him and his sake. He is ordered, rational, beautiful, an object of love. The Greeks perceived beauty and found a way to God (an incomplete one, naturally, which was made whole by Revelation; the Greeks moved way from a terrible world where hideous and malevolent gods demanded human sacrifice for fair weather and good crops; Christ gave us a world wherea Loving God was willing to be sacrificed for our sake).
"To the people who told these stories all the universe was alive with the same kind of life they knew in themselves. They were individual persons, so they personified everything which had the obvious marks of life, everything which moved and changed...[W]hen they told of the coming of love and light the early storytellers were setting the scene for the appearance of mankind..."
We have begun to love the world's ugliness. Is that progress?
I can't help but look at world and feel depressed most of the time. What a cruel fate has been apportioned us, we who live in such a banal and corrupt age.
And yet, what a glorious fate has been apportioned us, we who live in such a banal and corrupt age. A world in turmoil, a world that is spiritually and culturally and intellectually bankrupt, is a world that cries out for great deeds and great men. When has the world been better positioned to embrace noble character? Perhaps we can understand the stunning life and career of Pope John Paul II in this way, as a refreshing splash of water on a parched and dying bit of earth.
In his youth, Alexander worried and complained when his father proved victorious. "What opportunities for great and noble deeds will be left to me and my friends, if my father keeps this up?" For better and worse, we of the twenty first century have many such opportunities.
Who among us can rise to the challenge? I wonder.
And yet, what a glorious fate has been apportioned us, we who live in such a banal and corrupt age. A world in turmoil, a world that is spiritually and culturally and intellectually bankrupt, is a world that cries out for great deeds and great men. When has the world been better positioned to embrace noble character? Perhaps we can understand the stunning life and career of Pope John Paul II in this way, as a refreshing splash of water on a parched and dying bit of earth.
In his youth, Alexander worried and complained when his father proved victorious. "What opportunities for great and noble deeds will be left to me and my friends, if my father keeps this up?" For better and worse, we of the twenty first century have many such opportunities.
Who among us can rise to the challenge? I wonder.
Friday, November 04, 2005
One often hears the words "leader" or "leadership" tossed around when people are talking about politicians.
When is the last time a politician actually led another human being?
But let's back up. What is leadership? Is it trading political favors to pass a new law? Is it ordering one's bureaucratic underlings to implement a new regulation?
No.
Leadership has always been about results, that's true. However, what makes leadership so special is the emphasis on character. A leader doesn't just want people to accept certain principles or act in a certain way. He wants them to be a great and noble as they possibly can, and then come to see the world as he does.
Do I want others to accept Christianity? Of course. Do I want to trick or manipulate them into doing so? No. Do I want slavish nincompoops, who have never had an original thought in their lives, to accept Christianity? No. I value God too much to make his worship the subject of propaganda.
Many men and women have led me. Authors, musicians, and the good people I am privileged to count among my family and friends. But a politician? I'm afraid not.
And that's precisely the problem. Our "leaders" are, in fact, our rulers. Is it a coincidence that public discourse is so thin and empty? Is it a coincidence that more and more people are willing to turn over more of their lives to government direction?
We need real leaders, men who seek to cultivate the human spirit and embrace the delightful chaos of decentralized action rather than subject the human person to centralized rule and order; men who can appreciate the beauty of the Shire before rules were posted on every door "for the common good."
And we need them now.
When is the last time a politician actually led another human being?
But let's back up. What is leadership? Is it trading political favors to pass a new law? Is it ordering one's bureaucratic underlings to implement a new regulation?
No.
Leadership has always been about results, that's true. However, what makes leadership so special is the emphasis on character. A leader doesn't just want people to accept certain principles or act in a certain way. He wants them to be a great and noble as they possibly can, and then come to see the world as he does.
Do I want others to accept Christianity? Of course. Do I want to trick or manipulate them into doing so? No. Do I want slavish nincompoops, who have never had an original thought in their lives, to accept Christianity? No. I value God too much to make his worship the subject of propaganda.
Many men and women have led me. Authors, musicians, and the good people I am privileged to count among my family and friends. But a politician? I'm afraid not.
And that's precisely the problem. Our "leaders" are, in fact, our rulers. Is it a coincidence that public discourse is so thin and empty? Is it a coincidence that more and more people are willing to turn over more of their lives to government direction?
We need real leaders, men who seek to cultivate the human spirit and embrace the delightful chaos of decentralized action rather than subject the human person to centralized rule and order; men who can appreciate the beauty of the Shire before rules were posted on every door "for the common good."
And we need them now.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
President Bush's recent bungling of a Supreme Court pick (which has since been corrected) prompted some to question Bush's commitment to conservatism. I think that was the wrong question to act, since the appointment of new justices to the Supreme Court is a question of law and not politics; we seriously undermine the independence and competence of the judicial branch if we decide on candidates based on the policy outcomes of their opinions, and not the opinions themselves.
Of course, it would be wise to not only pick intellectually honest and talented judges, but intellectually honest and talented judges that just so happen to agree with one's idea of proper jurisprudence. But I digress...
The episode was another episode that has prompted me to judge my own commitment to conservative. The short answer? I no longer think I have one. I remain a man of the Right. I remain a man deeply immersed in tradition. I remain, above all, a committed Christian.
But a conservative? It recently hit me: I am prepared to fight and die for a world I have never seen or felt. I seek to conserve nothing. Rather, I seek to overturn the established social order, which has only served to grind down the human soul and make it an unispired and libidinous cog in the mechanisms of the state.
I have never been led by a politician. More broadly, I have never been led by a man of the twentieth (or twenty-first) century. I dwell in the agoras of ancient Greece. I walk in the fields of Narnia. I will take Middle Earth over the Earth I have inherited, Sauron and all.
Some hardnosed "realists" may scoff. I live in a dream, they will argue. What of it? Alexander himself slept with the Illiad under his pillow. Herakles and Achilles were as real to him as his own parents. Yet, for all his "dreams," he was surprisingly good at understanding the world around him and conquering it at every turn, whether he dealt with the hearts of his men or the enemies on the battlefield.
When did realism become uninspired? When did those who drew strength from literature and music first become dismissed as unscientific fools who fail to appreciate reality?
For centuries now, the world has scoffed at those things that I hold dearest. What am I to conserve? I come with flame, to melt the cold iron fetters that have imprisoned the human imagination for so long.
Of course, it would be wise to not only pick intellectually honest and talented judges, but intellectually honest and talented judges that just so happen to agree with one's idea of proper jurisprudence. But I digress...
The episode was another episode that has prompted me to judge my own commitment to conservative. The short answer? I no longer think I have one. I remain a man of the Right. I remain a man deeply immersed in tradition. I remain, above all, a committed Christian.
But a conservative? It recently hit me: I am prepared to fight and die for a world I have never seen or felt. I seek to conserve nothing. Rather, I seek to overturn the established social order, which has only served to grind down the human soul and make it an unispired and libidinous cog in the mechanisms of the state.
I have never been led by a politician. More broadly, I have never been led by a man of the twentieth (or twenty-first) century. I dwell in the agoras of ancient Greece. I walk in the fields of Narnia. I will take Middle Earth over the Earth I have inherited, Sauron and all.
Some hardnosed "realists" may scoff. I live in a dream, they will argue. What of it? Alexander himself slept with the Illiad under his pillow. Herakles and Achilles were as real to him as his own parents. Yet, for all his "dreams," he was surprisingly good at understanding the world around him and conquering it at every turn, whether he dealt with the hearts of his men or the enemies on the battlefield.
When did realism become uninspired? When did those who drew strength from literature and music first become dismissed as unscientific fools who fail to appreciate reality?
For centuries now, the world has scoffed at those things that I hold dearest. What am I to conserve? I come with flame, to melt the cold iron fetters that have imprisoned the human imagination for so long.
