Jules Ferry fut l'artisan de l'école laïque, mais aussi un colonisateur.

Jules Ferry, un athée qui se croyait

 de "race supérieure"

Par MARC FAYAD

Jules Ferry fut l'artisan de l'école laïque, mais aussi un colonisateur. 

Pour lui, la France avait "le devoir de civiliser les races inférieures".

L'école, la République, la laïcité et la colonisation sont des piliers de notre histoire et de la société qui a émergé au XIXe siècle. Aujourd'hui, ces sujets suscitent de vifs débats, comme à l'époque de Jules Ferry. Athée, amoureux de la République et haineux envers la royauté, les idées de Jules Ferry ont donné à la France les traits de son visage actuel. Ce que l'on associe le plus souvent à son nom est sans aucun doute sa politique scolaire, qui a contribué à installer la République.

Lors de son mandat en tant que ministre de l'Instruction publique dans le cabinet Freycinet, puis comme président du Conseil de 1880 à 1881, Jules Ferry va éliminer l'influence de l'Église sur l'école et instituer un enseignement fondamentalement laïque. Le 15 mars 1879, il dépose à la Chambre deux projets de loi : l'un prévoyant une réforme du Conseil supérieur de l'instruction publique et le second un aménagement substantiel de l'enseignement supérieur. Une déclaration de guerre au clergé et les premières pierres de la laïcité. En effet, Jules Ferry veut éjecter les ecclésiastiques des conseils académiques et des facultés d'État. L'article 7 du second projet interdit aux membres des congrégations non autorisées d'enseigner : 500 congrégations sont concernées, dont les très influents jésuites, les maristes et les dominicains.

Renforcer la laïcité


Fervent républicain athée et franc-maçon issu d'une riche famille de libres penseurs de Saint-Dié (Vosges), Jules Ferry donne aux enseignants des congrégations catholiques le même délai pour se mettre en règle avec la loi ou quitter l'enseignement. Ces mesures viennent en réaction aux excès de la loi Falloux, votée trente ans plus tôt sous la IIe République, qui accordait aux congrégations religieuses une liberté totale sur l'enseignement. Le 29 mars 1880, le ministre de l'Instruction publique Jules Ferry prend deux décrets par lesquels il ordonne aux jésuites de quitter l'enseignement dans les trois mois. S'ensuit en 1880 une série de projets visant à renforcer cette laïcité, rendre gratuite l'école et transformer l'enseignement des jeunes filles (loi Camille Sée). Entre 1881 et 1884, plusieurs lois seront votées autour d'une pensée indissoluble : "gratuité, obligation, laïcité".


Dans un discours à la Chambre des députés le 6 juin 1889, Jules Ferry s'exprimait ainsi : "Ce système d'éducation nationale qui relie, dans un cadre à la fois puissant et souple, l'école élémentaire aux plus hautes parties du savoir humain ; ce système d'éducation nationale au frontispice duquel on n'a pas craint d'écrire que, de la part de la société, l'enseignement est un devoir de justice envers les citoyens, que la société doit à tous le nécessaire du savoir pratique, et l'avènement aux degrés successifs de la culture intellectuelle de tous ceux qui sont aptes à les franchir... Cette mise en valeur du capital intellectuel de la nation, de toutes les capacités latentes de tous les génies qui peuvent être méconnus ou étouffés, dans une grande et féconde démocratie, Messieurs, c'était le rêve de nos pères ; et nous avons le droit de déclarer qu'autant qu'il est possible de dire qu'une chose est accomplie, grâce à vous, grâce au pays, votre principal collaborateur dans cette grande oeuvre, grâce au pays qui en a été l'âme, ce rêve est devenu une réalité ! Voilà pourquoi nous ne pouvons remettre qu'à un pouvoir civil, laïque, la surintendance de l'école populaire, et pourquoi nous tenons, comme à un article de notre foi démocratique, au principe de la neutralité confessionnelle."
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Lire la suite: www.lepoint.fr

Beria: Le paravent de Staline

Beria, le Himmler russe

Par LAURENT LEGRAND

Incarnation du régime totalitaire de l'URSS, Beria, chef de la police politique de Staline, était l'homme de la torture et des déportations au goulag.

Il existe des atmosphères oppressantes, malsaines, où règnent l'incertitude du lendemain, la délation, les assassinats et où certaines personnes parviennent tout de même à s'épanouir et à gravir les échelons. L'hégémonie de Lavrenti Beria dans l'URSS de Staline est jalonnée de complots, de tortures et de meurtres. En cette période de 1936, inutile de prendre des précautions. Le tsar rouge lève le petit doigt et vous voilà enfermé dans un processus mortel dans lequel s'ensuivent accusations mensongères, aveux obtenus sous la torture et liquidations.

La terreur sanglante

Afin d'appliquer cette répression, Staline peut compter sur la docilité et les courtisaneries de plusieurs hommes, Lavrenti Beria en tête. Lors d'un congrès du Parti communiste au début de l'année 1934, celui-ci insistait sur "la clarté et la simplicité exceptionnelles et la clairvoyance géniale" de Staline. Pour Beria, il s'agit de renforcer le pouvoir central en éliminant les ennemis du peuple et, pour ce faire, il réduit l'accusation à un simple terme : "trotskyste". Staline dicte sa politique paranoïaque tandis que Beria exécute. Ainsi, au cours de l'année 1937,il propage une déferlante de terreur sur toute la Géorgie dont l'impensable liste de victimes se traduira par treize tomes lors de son procès en 1953.

En 1938, Staline nomme Beria chef de la NKVD, la police politique de l'URSS. Avec l'approche de la guerre avec l'Allemagne nazie, l'étau autour des "conspirationnistes" se resserre, que ce soit pour les clans locaux, les minorités nationales ou les membres du Parti communiste. Les goulags se remplissent et le ciel accueille chaque jour des centaines de milliers de "traîtres", de "saboteurs", dans l'optique d'épurer le Parti des éléments considérés comme instables et ainsi pallier toute théorie complotiste. Cette folie meurtrière est destinée à l'ensemble de la population. Depuis 1935, toutes les sanctions pénales sont dorénavant prononcées à l'encontre des enfants âgés de 12 ans.

Dans ce climat insoutenable, les dénonciations pleuvent, Beria vogue tel un poisson dans l'eau, et il n'hésite pas à mener lui-même les interrogatoires en présence de sociopathes tels que l'imposant tortionnaire Bogdan Koboulov, dont l'un des passe-temps favoris était de boxer les détenus, de les flageller ou encore de tomber de tout son poids sur ces derniers du haut de ses 140 kilos. Beria, lui, ne manque pas non plus d'ingéniosité puisque, dans le cadre de ses interrogatoires, il met au point "le supplice des talons", durant lequel l'enquêteur assène sans relâche d'innombrables coups de matraque en caoutchouc sur les talons des détenus.

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Lire la suite: www.lepoint.fr

Current Challenges of Free Society: Michael Novak's 14th Annual Seminar in Slovakia.

On the Fundamental Principles of Democracy and Current Challenges of Free Society.

Join great American and Slovak professors and students from July 4 - July 12, 2014 in Slovakia 

Along with Slovakia’s castles, cities and nature, we will explore the political, economic, and moral-cultural dimensions of a free society in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, The Federalist Papers, and Alexis de Tocqueville, among others.

FACULTY:
Robert Royal, President of Faith & Reason Institute, Washington D.C.
Fr. Derek Cross, The Oratory of St.Philip Neri, Toronto
Bill Saunders, Vice-President for Legal Affairs, Americans United for Life 
Martin Luterán,  Rector of Kolégium Antona Neuwirtha

Pavol Demeš, Transatlantic Fellow, German Mashall Fund

How to Apply (for American Students)

To apply send a statement (two hundred words) on the nature of liberty, your curriculum vitae, additional short writing sample, a letter of recommendation, and a short cover letter explaining your interest in attending the seminar, to info@frinstitute.org or to:

Faith & Reason Institute

1730 Rhode Island Avenue NW

Suite 212
Washington DC 20036

The deadline for applications for American Students is May 11, 2014. All admitted students receive fellowships, which include tuition, lodging, meals, and excursions.

Students are responsible for their own travel costs and pocket money. For more information email at info@frinstitute.org.

How to Apply (for Slovak Students)

To apply send a statement (two hundred words) on the nature of liberty, your curriculum vitae and a cover letter explaining your interest in attending the seminar, toinfo@kolegium.org or to: 

Kolégium Antona Neuwirtha

Nam. padlých hrdinov 7

P. O. Box 51

900 28 Ivanka pri Dunaji 

The deadline for applications for Slovak students is June 1, 2014. All admitted students receive fellowships, which include tuition, lodging, meals, and excursions. 

Students are responsible for their own travel costs and pocket money. For more information email atinfo@kolegium.org.

Who Organizes the Seminar

The seminar is organized by the Faith & Reason Institute based in Washington DC and Collegium of Anton Neuwirth in Bratislava.

The Faith & Reason Institute aims at bringing both Faith and Reason to bear on all the issues that confront us.

Confusing formality with formalism: formality conforms the individual to the larger reality of the Church worshipping in Heaven

The Sixties Are Still Here

By Bevil Bramwell, OMI 

Lent is a good time to see where our pet behaviors come from. 

In the Western Church, many people’s thoughts and behaviors are substantially shaped, even now, by what happened years ago in the Sixties. They follow ways of thinking that originated then, waste their time reacting to them, or they ignore them hoping they will go away.

As at other disruptive times in history, basic ideas and ways of behaving were driven so deeply into people’s psyches that those of us who were not affected by the 1960s keep tripping over the debris, even today. It’s not just that many present-day Catholics grew up then, but some pass on what they learned then as if it is the new gospel. For me, life sometimes seems a constant search to comprehend clergy and laity who are pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-homosexual marriage, you-name-it and who still regard themselves as “Catholic.” I found a lot of light in the late Tony Judt’s sketch Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. He wrote about Europe but much in U.S. society is derivative from what happens in Europe.

First, there was the exaggeration of the import of youthfulness. According to Judt: “At the very least, it seemed to many young people as though they had been born into a society reluctantly transforming itself. . .before their very eyes and at their behest.” There lies the rub. The Sixties young believed that they originated the meaning and the symbols of life. In their minds, at least collectively, they were separated from previous generations. So in brief – no tradition and no Church, even as Vatican II recognized it.

In addition: “The youthful impulse of the Sixties was not about understanding the world.” Yikes! Understanding would get in the way of our self-involvement! For Judt, the purpose instead was “to change it.” (a la Marx).

Two things followed: 

• the first was the change-for-change-sake approach to Church teaching and practice. 
• The other was a strange link to political agendas. 

In Europe, until the Eighties, the Church dominated some political parties. Then, with secularism, the parties themselves became dominant, and members twisted Church teaching to fit partisan positions. Sound familiar?

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Read more: www.thecatholicthing.org

Les jeunes des années 60 croyaient qu’ils étaient à l’origine du sens et des symboles de la vie.

Les années soixante sont toujours là

par le Père Bevil Bramvell

Le carême est une bonne période pour examiner d’où viennent nos comportements favoris. 

Dans l’Eglise occidentale, beaucoup des pensées et des comportements des gens sont formés, en substance, même encore maintenant, par ce qui s’est passé, il y a déjà longtemps, dans les années soixante. 

Ils suivent une manière de penser qui trouve son origine à cette époque-là, perdent leur temps à réagir contre elle ou l’ignorent en espérant qu’elle va disparaître. 

De même, à d’autres moments perturbés de l’histoire, les idées de base et les manières de se comporter ont tellement profondément imprégné la psyché des gens, que ceux d’entre nous qui n’ont pas été affectés par les années 60 ne cessent de trébucher sur leurs débris, même encore maintenant. 

Ce n’est pas seulement dû au fait que beaucoup de catholiques contemporains ont grandi à cette époque-là, mais certains font passer ce qu’ils ont appris à cette époque comme si c’était le nouvel évangile. 

Pour moi, j’ai l’impression de passer ma vie à essayer de comprendre des clercs et des laïcs qui sont favorables à l’avortement, favorables à la contraception, favorables au mariage homosexuel, et j’en passe, et qui se considèrent toujours comme catholiques. 

J’ai trouvé très éclairant la description de  Tony Judt dans Après-guerre : Une histoire de l’Europe depuis 1945. Il parlait de l’Europe, mais beaucoup de choses dans la société américaine découlent de ce qui se passe en Europe.

D’abord, il y a eu l’exagération de l’importance du « jeunisme ». D’après Judt, « Tout au moins, beaucoup de jeunes avaient l’impression d’être nés dans une société qui avait du mal à se transformer… devant leurs propres yeux et sur leur ordre. » C’est là que le bât blesse. 

Les jeunes des années 60 croyaient qu’ils étaient à l’origine du sens et des symboles de la vie. A leur avis, tout au moins en majorité, ils étaient convaincus qu’ils étaient séparés des générations précédentes. Aussi, pour faire bref, pas de tradition et pas d’Eglise, même celle reconnue par Vatican II.

De plus, « L’impulsion des jeunes des années soixante n’avait rien à voir avec la compréhension du monde. » Oh non ! Comprendre dérangerait notre autosuffisance ! Pour Judt, l’idée était plutôt de « le changer. » (à la Marx). 

Deux choses ont suivi : 

• la première était le changement pour le plaisir du changement dans l’approche de l’enseignement de l’Eglise, et de la pratique religieuse. 
• La seconde était un lien étrange avec l’action politique.

En Europe, jusqu’aux années 80, l’Eglise a dominé certains partis politiques. Ensuite, avec la sécularisation, les partis eux-mêmes sont devenus dominants et leurs membres ont tordu l’enseignement de l’Eglise pour qu’il s’accorde aux positions partisanes. Cela ne vous rappelle rien ?

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Lire la suite: www.france-catholique.fr

L’idée qu’un individu pourrait juger de la validité de son propre mariage, avec la conséquence juridique qu’il pourrait en déclarer l’invalidité et donc se remarier à l’église, est proprement révolutionnaire

Fidélité - entre époux et envers

 la parole du Christ

par le Père Gerald Murray

Le fait que l’Église ne juge pas approprié pour les catholiques divorcés et remariés de recevoir la Sainte Communion est-il actuellement le problème le plus sérieux pour les familles catholiques ?

Je ne pense pas, ni, à mon avis, la plupart des catholiques. Mais au cours de la préparation pour le Synode sur la famille en octobre prochain un certain nombre de clercs influents semble d’avis que c’est le problème le plus significatif qu’il faudra traiter, et traiter comme jamais l’Église ne l’a fait auparavant. La pression est mise par ceux qui plaident pour un changement de l’enseignement et de la pratique de l’Église sur ce sujet.

Cet enseignement et cette pratique concernent la nature indissoluble du mariage, et donc le caractère adultérin d’un remariage alors que l’ex-conjoint est toujours vivant. En 1994, la Congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi a énoncé selon une directive de S.S. Jean-Paul II une déclaration parfaitement nette : « les fidèles qui vivent maritalement avec d’autres personnes que leurs époux légitimes n’ont pas le droit de recevoir la Sainte Communion. »

Cet enseignement et son application concernent également l’interdiction à quiconque se sait en état de péché mortel de recevoir la Sainte Communion. Quelqu’un se sachant en état de péché mortel et recevant la Saint Communion commet le péché mortel d’accueil sacrilège du Corps du Christ.

Cet enseignement et son application concernent également la nature visible du mariage, et donc toute déclaration d’invalidité d’un mariage doit être prouvée devant un tribunal ecclésiastique. Il ne suffit pas que l’un des deux époux, ou les deux, déclarent en conscience l’invalidité de leur mariage, et se jugent libres de contracter un nouveau mariage. Si on acceptait ce critère de jugement, comment traiter le cas d’un des éoux se réclamant d’invalidité alors que l’autre soutient la validité de leur mariage ?

La Congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi a statué en 1994 : « La conviction erronée d’une personne divorcée et remariée qu’elle peut recevoir normalement la sainte communion présuppose que la conscience individuelle est considérée comme apte, en analyse finale, selon ses propres convictions, à décider de l’existence ou non d’un mariage précédent, et de la validité d’une nouvelle union. Une telle position ne peut être qu’inacceptable. »

Le mariage est règlementé en Droit Canon afin de sauvegarder la sainteté du sacrement, d’établir et maintenir les droits et devoirs du couple, et de soutenir pour le bien commun la défense de la nature et de la raison du mariage. Les catholiques doivent se marier à l’église, et se soumettre aux lois de l’Église sur le mariage. Il s’agit là d’une partie et d’un élément de la vocation de chrétien, vivre comme membres du Corps Mystique du Christ, en pleine soumission aux pasteurs de l’Église et aux lois édictées pour sauvegarder la Foi et l’unité de l’Église.

Le code de Droit Canonique rappelle (canon 1134) : « Du mariage valide naît entre les conjoints un lien de par sa nature perpétuel et exclusif ; en outre, dans le mariage chrétien, les conjoints sont fortifiés et comme consacrés par un sacrement spécial pour les devoirs et la dignité de leur état. »

Ce qui amène la question : Comment savoir si un mariage est valide ? Le Canon 1060 précise : « Le mariage jouit de la faveur du droit ; c’est pourquoi, en cas de doute, il faut tenir le mariage pour valide, jusqu’à preuve du contraire. » Cette présomption de validité est absolument cruciale pour la vie de l’Église. Votre vœu prononcé devant l’autel a un effet véritable : vous devenez mariés pour la vie. Ce n’est pas du chiqué, ce n’est pas un évènement contingent réversible. Vous êtes mariés, et serez considérés colmme tels par l’Église. S’il existe un motif susceptible d’annuler ce vœu, il faut le prouver, et non simplement l’énoncer.

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Lire la suite: www.france-catholique.fr

One of the most powerful tools the Kremlin has in its secret arsenal of Special War is provocation, what they call provokatsiya.

Russia Has Perfected The Art Of Provocation

by JOHN SCHINDLER

One of the most powerful tools the Kremlin has in its secret arsenal of Special War is provocation, what they call provokatsiya.

While Moscow cannot claim to have invented this technique, which has existed as long as there have been secret services, there’s no doubt that Russians have perfected the art and taken it to a whole new level of sophistication and deviousness. At times, it can become a strategy all on its own (not always, mind you, with edifying results).

Provokatsiya simply means taking control of your enemies in secret and encouraging them to do things that discredit them and help you. You plant your own agents provocateurs and flip legitimate activists, turning them to your side.

When you’re dealing with extremists to start with, getting them to do crazy, self-defeating things isn’t often difficult. In some cases, you simply create extremists and terrorists where they don’t exist. This is causing problems in order to solve them, and since the Tsarist period, Russian intelligence has been known to do just that.

While this isn’t a particularly nice technique, it works surprisingly well, particularly if you don’t care about bloody and messy consequences. Credulous Westerners are a big help. Perhaps the most infamous Kremlin case of provokatsiya was the TRUST operation of the 1920s.

In the aftermath of the Russian Civil War, Bolshevik control was incomplete and Moscow faced the problem that a large number of Whites, their recent enemies, had gotten sanctuary in Europe, where they plotted the reconquest of Holy Russia.

Soon the White emigration klatched in the cafes of Paris and Berlin was invigorated by tantalizing rumors that there existed a secret anti-Bolshevik movement underground in the USSR, calling itself the Monarchist Union of Central Russia. Before long, prominent Whites gave this shadowy group their political and financial support, as did several Western intelligence services who desired the end – or at least the harassment – of Bolshevism.
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Read more: www.businessinsider.com

We should not allow our disdain for the fallen world to overflow into a kind of self-righteous eagerness to vacate the field, removing ourselves to cultural “bunkers” in which we can live out our personal convictions in private

The Peril of Total Political Disengagement

by Rachel Lu

In a recent column, I argued that Catholics should willingly lend political support to the Republican Party. The focus of that piece was on the contention that there is no particular principle on which the Republican Party and the Church are clearly and intractably at odds.

For many serious Catholics, I suspect that that argument will come across not as wrong, but rather as dissatisfying or unresponsive to their true concerns. In my experience, anti-Republican resentment is fairly strong among Catholics, but the antipathy is not a response to the party’s formal commitments so much as the lackluster way in which it pursues them. Republican politicians pay lip service to certain cherished principles of religious conservatives, but relatively few seem to be committed pro-lifers, and even fewer seem genuinely to care about protecting marriage, the family or the autonomy of the Church. These issues, Catholics feel, are reluctantly included in the Republican platform merely for the sake of winning votes. Republican leaders have no serious intention of pursuing a socially conservative agenda in the foreseeable future.

I’ve heard this analysis time and again from Catholic friends who are disillusioned with the Republican Party. And in fact, there’s an element of truth in it. The reality is that America is at present a deeply divided country in which religious conservatives represent a counter-culture. High-ranking political personalities tend to be immersed in an elite culture that fears and reviles traditional religion along with traditional values and mores, so they aren’t always well-versed in, or sympathetic to, the concerns of serious Christians (or serious religious people of any stripe). Also, politicians are perpetually looking for ways to win elections, and it understandably seems to them that it will be difficult to win with a social message that is increasingly out of sync with modern popular culture.

This predictably creates some tension within the party, and it’s fair to say that prominent Republicans don’t all hold religious conservatives in high esteem. Some, to be sure, are genuinely eager to hold onto a fusionist vision that combines a small government agenda with a robust commitment to virtue, community and family. For others, accommodating social conservatism is just a necessary evil. It’s a crude oversimplification but not entirely wrong to suggest that Democrats have “bought” a winning coalition by supporting welfare and organized labor. As the party of fiscal austerity, Republicans are unwilling to match Democratic spending commitments, and consequently they are “stuck” with religious conservatives as the only remaining voting block large enough to keep the party viable.

Nobody likes feeling like the last kid picked for the team, and considering the matter from this perspective, it’s hardly surprising that religious conservatives feel used. It’s not very thrilling to think of ourselves as microscopic cogs in a political machine mostly dedicated to preserving the elite status of the power-hungry. I’ve known many who were sufficiently discouraged about this that they stayed home on election day, or cast “voting my principles” ballots for powerless third parties.

Others call for a kind of grassroots revolt from the traditional party structure. This perspective was reasonably well summarized in a recent article from American Conservative’s Noah Millman. Angered by the way in which the elite exploit the rhetoric of the culture wars to entrench their own positions of privilege, he recommends that we ignore the charged rhetoric, denying political parties the opportunity to take us for granted.

It sounds appealing on its face, but there are some problems with this position. First of all, political parties are not hive minds. They are big, messy conglomerates of wildly diverse people and groups, each with their own sets of concerns. Political strategists endeavor to meld these varied interests together into a reasonably coherent political message, but since no single person has absolute control over the entire political process (much less the media), the resulting product is still typically quite diffuse. Late in his article, Millman attempts to pinpoint what each party “really” values (he mostly sees the parties breaking on size-of-government lines), but any effort to do that will be fairly arbitrary, because the party isn’t a single organic entity. Different members value different things, which is why so much negotiation goes into developing a platform and political message.

Of course, it’s also quite true that the entire political process is awash in greed and empty ambition, and that many people (whether politicians, pundits or political operatives) will say or do almost anything to maintain their own status and position of privilege. So it has always been in our fallen world, and ever shall be.

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

La démarche intellectuelle du philosophe : logique et méthodologie, exigences intellectuelles requises pour la réflexion philosophique

Apprendre à penser à l'école du réel

Source: lesalonbeige.blogs.com

Jean de Rouen vient de publier une initiation à la philosophie (tome 1).


Voici l'avant-propos :


"Le premier tome de cette initiation à la philosophie, Tout passe. Ne faut-il pas que quelque chose demeure ? comprend trois parties distinctes :

A la découverte de la philosophie introduit le lecteur à la science philosophique : il y découvre que la philosophie est une connaissance dans ce qu’elle a de plus élevé et de plus ultime. L’esprit du philosophe épouse en effet la richesse et la densité du réel ; il s’introduit dans son intimité, pénètre ses secrets et le rejoint finalement dans ses principes les plus hauts et dans ses causes les plus profondes.

Origine, balbutiements, essor de la philosophie : histoire et cheminement de la pensée grecque fait observer au lecteur, à travers les premiers bégaiements de la pensée, le questionnement et la recherche philosophique prendre forme et aboutir en s’inscrivant dans la trame et les méandres du temps, en s’immisçant dans les vicissitudes de l’histoire. Genèse et développement d’une pensée qui, trois siècles durant, va mûrir un trésor intellectuel dans lequel puisera abondamment l’âme de notre civilisation européenne.

Le christianisme lui-même assumera finalement les ressorts de la pensée grecque, tant il est vrai que toute théologie repose sur une structure de pensée philosophique et que la Révélation s’adresse à une intelligence formée et disposée à la recevoir. Comme la grâce se greffe sur la nature et la chrétienté s’enracine dans l’ébauche d’une cité temporelle, la Révélation suppose l’intelligence à laquelle elle s’adresse et dont elle sollicite moins l’abdication que l’adhésion. Nous admirerons en quoi et comment la philosophie grecque, portée à son achèvement par Aristote, s’avérera être le terreau intellectuel providentiellement le plus favorable et le plus fécond pour recueillir avec fruit le joyau de la Révélation chrétienne.

La démarche intellectuelle du philosophe : logique et méthodologie exposera les exigences intellectuelles requises pour construire et mener à son terme une réflexion philosophique. La méthodologie ainsi étudiée, qui se conforme à la démarche de l’intelligence qui opère, s’enracine dans la logique dévoilée par Aristote, laquelle sera par conséquent esquissée. Quelles dispositions l’intelligence doit-elle adopter face à une question philosophique ? L’étudiant trouvera dans cette partie les armes intellectuelles pour réaliser une dissertation ou un commentaire de texte.

Quant au deuxième tome à venir, dans le prolongement de celui-ci, il consistera dans une approche notionnelle et thématique :

Car la philosophie jette les plus hautes lumières de la raison naturelle sur l’ensemble des réalités, des plus communes aux plus ultimes. Elle répond ainsi aux questions fondamentales que se pose l’intelligence humaine à propos, tout aussi bien, de la nature, de l’homme, de Dieu, de la vérité, de la morale, de la politique, ou encore de l’art.

L’ouvrage soulèvera alors les grandes problématiques que rencontre et formule l’intelligence lorsqu’elle affronte ces différentes réalités. Ces problématiques sont l’expression de l’étonnement et du questionnement de l’homme face au réel : car l’homme, fondamentalement en quête de sens, cherche à comprendre.

L’ouvrage exposera ensuite les pistes de réflexions qu’apportent les différents courants philosophiques, ainsi que les divergences qui les distinguent : c’est précisément dans la confrontation des idées qu’apparaissent avec davantage d’évidence, et que sont révélés avec plus de clarté, les problèmes philosophiques.

Viendra enfin le temps d’éclairer la résolution des problèmes à la lumière de la tradition philosophique européenne dont la sagesse puise ses racines dans la Grèce antique.

Se dessinent alors, à travers l’étude de ces différentes notions, les grandes structures de pensée, sous-jacentes aux différents positionnements, ainsi que la vision dernière de l’homme et du monde sur laquelle elles reposent."

Billionaire candy manufacturer Petro Poroshenko may well be elected president of Ukraine in May. His mission: Take his country into Europe while making peace with Putin.

The ‘Chocolate King’ 

Who Might Save Ukraine

Interview by Anna Nemtsova

Billionaire candy manufacturer Petro Poroshenko may well be elected president of Ukraine in May. His mission: Take his country into Europe while making peace with Putin.

According to opinion polls, the most popular leader in Ukraine and very possibly its next president is Petro Poroshenko. To be sure, he’s less well known abroad than the mediagenic Yulia Tymoshenko—she of the blond braids—or the towering former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko. But the square-faced 48-year-old Poroshenko is famous inside the country for his confident character, his aura of calm, and the fortune he made making chocolate before he went into politics. (His little gold-foil-wrapped bonbons called "Kyiv Vechirniy," or Kiev in the evening, bring a hint of luxury to daily life in a near-bankrupt nation.)

In the last decade, Poroshenko held several government posts, perhaps most importantly the position of foreign minister for a critical five months in 2009 and 2010 when he managed to complete the text of the now-famous “association agreement” with the European Union. In 2012 he even served as minister of trade and economic development under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, trying to shepherd the accords toward implementation.

It was the decision by Yanukovych to walk away from the EU association agreement in November 2013 that started the protests that became a revolution and resulted Yanukovych’s overthrow at the end of February. Russia then retaliated by amputating and annexing Ukrainian Crimea and deploying combat troops on the Ukrainian border, bringing on the most dangerous European crisis confronting NATO and the United States in more than a generation.

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Read more: www.thedailybeast.com

If we end up in Hell, it really is because we chose to be there

On Hell

by Michael Davis

Like every mortal, I often catch myself thinking about death. At times I wonder if I don’t more than most, but there’s no way to know for sure. It’s a frightening idea, and for Christians especially, because Hell always comes into the conversation. Hell is rather a poltergeist sort of terror—we assume it’s the worst thing imaginable because… Well, it’s Hell. I happened to be having one such conversation with a group of friends earlier this week, right in the middle of one of my anxieties about the Afterlife. “I think death is so frightening because it would be so boring. It’s very much a, ‘Well, I suppose that’s all’ sort of thing,” one offered.

I blinked. “I find it rather terrifying, to be honest. I’m not worried in the least about being bored. Hell is always a serious possibility.”

“But maybe Hell is scary because it would be so boring,” another said.

I was taken back to my first year in college where, lazily browsing a bookstore in Georgetown, I picked up Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell. Flipping through, I found it to be totally useless. There were a few good lines—”You will stay a hyena, etc…,” shouts the demon who once crowned me with such pretty poppies—but it seemed to me this Rimbaud wasn’t taking Hell very seriously at all. ‘Yes, well,’ you say, ‘Rimbaud wasn’t exactly Mother Theresa.’ All right. But are Rimbaud and I even talking about the same thing? He sounds like he’d be up there with my university friends, as though the most horrible thing he can really imagine is being bored—having nothing to flaunt, no rules to break, no locked doors to barge through. Which leads me to wonder: can someone be that pathologically afraid of boredom, or do they just have no idea what eternal and unimaginable suffering would be like?

This brought me back another year prior—the year I thought I began to understand what Hell was.

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Read more: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

Argentina: ex terrorista en el juicio Esma

"Es la guerra...." 

María Luján Bertella. 

Ex terrorista en el juicio Esma, hoy dirigente del Pro

Putin has been tactically astute and ruthlessly opportunistic. At home and abroad, he wants Russia to regain the prestige it held when he was growing up.

Vladimir Putin: 

The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia

by Oliver Bullough

The world was stunned when Russia invaded Crimea, but should it have been? Author and journalist Oliver Bullough says President Vladimir Putin never kept secret his intention to restore Russian power - what's less clear, he says, is how long the country's rise can continue.

On 16 August 1999, the members of Russia's parliament - the State Duma - met to approve the candidacy of a prime minister. They heard the candidate's speech, they asked him a few questions, and they dutifully confirmed him in the position.

This was President Boris Yeltsin's fifth premier in 16 months, and one confused party leader got the name wrong. He said he would support the candidacy of Stepashin - the surname of the recently sacked prime minister - rather than that of his little-known successor, before making an embarrassing correction.

If even leading Duma deputies couldn't remember the new prime minister's name, you couldn't blame the rest of the world if it didn't pay much attention to his speech. He was unlikely to head the Russian government for more than a couple of months anyway, so why bother?

That man was a former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, and he has been in charge of the world's largest country, as president or prime minister, ever since. Few realised it at the time, because few were listening, but that speech provided a blueprint for pretty much everything he has done, for how he would re-shape a country that was perilously close to total collapse.

Just 364 days previously, Russia had defaulted on its debt. Salaries for public sector workers and pensions were being paid months late, if at all. Basic infrastructure was collapsing. The country's most prized assets belonged to a handful of well-connected "oligarchs", who ran the country like a private fiefdom.

The once-mighty Russian army had lost a war in Chechnya, a place with fewer inhabitants than Russia had soldiers. Three former Warsaw Pact allies had joined Nato, bringing the Western alliance up to Russia's borders.

Meanwhile, the country was led by Yeltsin, an irascible drunkard in fragile health. The situation was desperate, but Putin had a plan.

"I cannot cover all the tasks facing the government in this speech. But I do know one thing for sure: not one of those tasks can be performed without imposing basic order and discipline in this country, without strengthening the vertical chain," he told the assembled parliamentarians.

Born in Leningrad in 1952, Putin came of age in the Soviet Union's golden years, the period after the USSR's astonishing triumph in World War Two. Sputnik, the hydrogen bomb, Laika the dog and Yuri Gagarin all bore witness to Soviet ingenuity. The crushing of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 bore witness to Soviet resolve. Soviet citizens were enjoying a time of peace and prosperity. Life was stable. People got paid. The world respected them. Everyone knew their place.

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Read more: www.bbc.com

“Beauty” is the only one of the ancient “transcendentals” that still speaks to us through modern culture. But she has become separated from her sisters, Truth and Goodness, and thus relativized and subjectivized

Beauty Won’t Save the World Alone

by Stratford Caldecott

The title of Gregory Wolfe’s excellent collection of essays, Beauty Will Save the World, is based on a much-quoted line from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. In its context it appears only in indirect speech, being attributed by one of the other characters to the “Idiot” of the title, Prince Myshkin. Thus in its original context its meaning is ambiguous, or at least ill-defined. That makes it doubly appropriate for Greg’s title, since he is arguing against the “ideologues” of today’s culture wars in favour of a literary and imaginative approach to the truth. Conservatives have succumbed to philistinism, and fail to appreciate modern art, he argues. Great literature, and art in general, explores the world—and today that means the modern world—from the inside. It is not preachy or moralistic; as a result, conservatives of a Puritan or pragmatic bent often find it unedifying, or even profane. But it is legitimate, Greg believes, for art to shock, to revolt against established conventions, to make explicit what others may hesitate to look upon. In many cases this may the only way for the artist to discover a “redemptive path toward order”.

A particular target of the book seems to be those conservatives who can see nothing good coming out of modernity except the Inklings. I suspect Greg numbers me among them, although in reality my tastes are much broader than the things I tend to write about. But it is the case that my interest is less in literature and the arts, important though these are in posing the right questions and exploring the ambiguities of our time, than in philosophy and theology, where we legitimately search for answers to those very questions. This is not the same as seeking an ideology, though of course a theology can be rendered ideological easily enough. Theology at its most authentic is not a fortress of ideas, but more like a path across a landscape, a route map, or a system of signposts. It is intrinsically mystical, it is of the spirit not the letter.

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Read more: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

Vienna Islamica: elle scuole medie e superiori (ginnasio escluso) di Vienna ci sono 10.734 studenti musulmani contro 8.632 cattolici

A Vienna ci sono più studenti 

musulmani che cattolici. 

Cambiano i libri di testo

Leone Grotti

Presto avverrà il sorpasso anche alle elementari

Nelle scuole medie e superiori (ginnasio escluso) di Vienna gli studenti musulmani hanno superato per numero quelli cattolici, nonostante la popolazione islamica rappresenti appena il 6 per cento del totale, secondo le statistiche pubblicate dal Vienna Board of Education.

NUMERI DEL SORPASSO. Quest’anno ci sono 10.734 studenti musulmani nelle scuole citate della capitale austriaca contro 8.632 cattolici, 4.259 serbi ortodossi e 3.219 ragazzi senza religione. Molto presto dovrebbe anche avvenire il sorpasso dei bambini musulmani su quelli cattolici alle elementari, se si conta che nel 2030 la popolazione musulmana dovrebbe passare dalle 500 mila unità di oggi alle 800 mila (9,5 per cento del totale).

VIENNA ISLAMICA. La religione islamica, insomma, ha già conquistato Vienna. Come ricordava a Milano il cardinale Christoph Schonborn: «La decrescita dei cattolici a Vienna è drammatica, siamo ormai sotto il 40 per cento e tra non molto arriveremo al 30 per cento». Per adeguarsi, l’Austria sta introducendo un nuovo libro per insegnare l’islam in tedesco ai bambini delle elementari, come riportato dalGatestone Institute di New York.
Il testo si chiama Islamstunde (Ora islamica) ed è stato redatto dall’Autorità religiosa islamica austriaca (Iggio), associazione finanziata dallo Stato che si occupa dell’educazione islamica nelle scuole pubbliche e private.

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Leggi tutto: www.tempi.it

Cardinal Bagnasco : ne pas se laisser intimider par la dictature du Gender

Le gender à l'école a pour but 

d'inculper les enfants contre la famille

Source: lesalonbeige.blogs.com

Le président de la Conférence Épiscopale italienne 

appelle les familles italiennes à résister à l’idéologie LGBT.

Lundi 24 mars, lors de l’ouverture du Conseil permanent de la Conférence Episcopale italienne, le cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, qui la préside, a abordé l’idéologie du genre :

• « La préparation au synode sur la famille, en deux phases en 2014 et en 2015, ainsi que le récent consistoire sur ce même thème ont providentiellement mis l’accent sur cette réalité tant ‘méprisée et maltraitée’, termes qu’a utilisé le Pape même : j’irais jusqu’à préciser « méprisée » sur le plan culturel et « maltraitée » sur le plan politique ».
• « Il est frappant de constater que la famille est devenue un bouc émissaire, à l’origine des maux de notre époque, plutôt que la défense universelle d’une humanité meilleure et la garantie d’une pérennité sociale. Ce ne sont pas les lois qui garantissent la vie commune – mais elles sont plus que nécessaires – mais c’est la famille, une crèche naturelle d’humanité et de justice ».
• « Cette logique tordue et idéologique, engage une nouvelle initiative de trois volumes intitulés « Eduquer à la diversité à l’école », sur lesquels les écoles italiennes se penchent, notamment destinés aux écoles primaires et aux collèges. En théorie, ces trois volumes visent à mettre fin à l’harcèlement et la discrimination – chose tout à fait juste. Mais en réalité, ils ont pour but d’ « inculper », et j’utilise ce terme exprès, les enfants contre la famille, l’autorité parentale, la foi religieuse, la différence entre un père et une mère… Des mots magnifiques qui semblent aujourd’hui avoir perdu tout leur sens,devenus même gênants, que l’on souhaite même peut-être éliminer de notre vocabulaire ».
• « C’est la lecture idéologique du « genre » - une véritable dictature – qui souhaite écraser la diversité, tout homologuer, jusqu’à traiter l’identité de l’homme et de la femme comme de pures abstractions. Alors, l’on peut se demander avec amertume si l’on veut faire de l’école des « camps de rééducation », d’ « endoctrinement ». Mais les parents n’ont-ils pas le droit de donner l’éducation qu’ils souhaitent à leurs enfants ? Ou sont-ils désormais chassés de ce rôle ? Leur est-il demandé leur opinion ? Les enfants ne sont pas des choses à expérimenter. Les parents ne doivent pas se laisser intimider, ils ont le droit de réagir avec détermination et clarté: il n’y a pas d’autorité qui tienne sur ce point ».

70 years under Communism have damaged generations of Russian families.

Still recovering

Pavel A. Parfentiev

The history of 20th century Russia is one of social and political upheaval, and the family, being the “natural and fundamental group unit of society” (Article 16.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), could not escape being profoundly affected.

Society’s development and its stability and prosperity depend, among other things, on the continuous growth or, at the very least, stability of population size. This piece of common knowledge is complemented by a vast body of research indicating that the stability and security of the natural family are vital to such development. The environment provided by the natural family plays a crucial role in the social well-being and productivity of younger generations. In other words, securing society’s prosperity requires not only reversing the current depopulation trend, but also ensuring that most children are being born and raised in intact, two-parent (mother-father) families.

This is especially important in Russia, where the birthrate continuously lags behind replacement levels. According to official Rosstat figures, natural population loss in 2010 amounted to 239,600 people. The aggregate birthrate in 2009 was 1.54, compared to the replacement level of 2.1, a figure even the most optimistic Rosstat forecasts say Russia will not be able to reach before 2030. Meanwhile, Russia leads the world in abortions, with abortion rates in 2010 reaching 1,186,100 per year. The institution of the family in Russia is, too, undergoing a crisis—in 2011, 51 marriages out of 100 ended in divorce.

Today’s Russia needs to develop and implement a comprehensive family policy that would strengthen marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, and with it family life and family values. This need makes it worthwhile to study the history of family policy in Russia, both to observe the roots of some of the current issues and to avoid serious mistakes in the future.

The Revolution and Its Consequences (1917 — 1921)

The first signs that industrialization in Russia and the processes related to it were beginning to drag the family into a systemic crisis began appearing as far back as the end of the nineteenth century. Cities and industrialized regions of the country saw birthrates decreasing, children increasingly born outside of marriage, marriages becoming less stable, and multigenerational families and family ties weakening.

Laying what later became the ideological groundwork for the post-1917 Communist authorities in Russia, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are widely known to have entertained largely negative views of the traditional family. According to Marx and Engels, under Communism the “bourgeois” family would have to “disappear,” just as “the capital” would. The practice of parents “exploiting” their children would be abolished, and family education would be replaced by public education.

These ideas were taken up and further radically developed into early post-revolutionary Russian ideology. The new authorities’ first steps were to “liberalize” family relationships—and thus simultaneously to undermine the influence of religious institutions such as the Russian Orthodox Church.

The year 1917 saw the Soviet government passing decrees “On Civil Marriage, Children, and Registries” and “On Dissolution of Marriages.” The decree “On Dissolution of Marriages” granted spouses unconditional freedom to a divorce, performed by a local court, at the desire of either one or both parties. “On Civil Marriage” decreed that all except civil marriage (including religious marriage) would cease to be recognized by the state, while at the same time abolishing all distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children. (It should be noted that the sole aim of introducing civil marriages was to undermine religion. Writing in 1922, one Soviet lawyer stressed that “[t]he institution of Registrars was necessitated by the fight against the Church.”

Affirming such moves, the 1918 Family Code introduced a whole new morality, contravening the existing practices of marital and family law. In its provisions for divorce, the new legislation granted spouses rights to separate property and thereby abolished shared, family property. The Code also included vague criteria for deprivation of parental rights. Article 153 stated that “[p]arental rights are exercised exclusively in the interests of the child, with courts invested with the right to deprive the parents thereof in case said rights are exercised improperly.” Article 183 prohibited adoption, replacing it with a system of state-appointed foster caretakers. The Soviets were also the first government to proclaim complete freedom of abortion.

All of these steps were in line with the new authorities’ ideology of considering the family the backbone of the oppression of women. Russian Communists thought the liberation of women required destroying family households and family education for public versions of both, while drawing women en masse into public production. Writing in 1919, Lenin argued that “true liberation of women, true Communism comes about only when and where the masses rise up . . . against . . . small-scale households.”

In his 1920 work The ABC of Communism, Nikolay Bukharin and Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, ideologues of the new order, wrote:

In a bourgeois society, a child is viewed as being exclusively, or at the very least, largely a property of his parents. When parents speak of a child as “their daughter, their son,” it implies not only their parenthood, but also the right to educate their own children. From a Socialist point of view, this right is entirely and completely unfounded. An individual does not belong to itself, but to society—humankind.

This view is seconded by Lenin, writing in 1920: “We are serious in delivering on our manifesto commitment to transfer the economic and educational functions of the individual household to the society.”

The new ideologues explicitly stated the need to destroy the family. A. M. Kollontay, one of the Communist party’s most active family policy makers, formulated this need in no uncertain terms as far back as 1918: “The family is doomed. It will be destroyed.” N. Bukharin also wrote that “in a Communist society, when private property and oppression of women finally come to an end, so, too, will prostitution and marriage.”

As a natural consequence of the new authorities’ antifamily policy, a rapid disintegration of the family followed. Freedom of divorce led to serial polygamy and prostitution masquerading as marriage. In 1920 Petrograd (now St Petersburg), 41% of marriages lasted only three to six months, 22% less than two months, and 11% less than one month. Open prostitution was rampant.

The number of divorces skyrocketed. While in 1913 there were 0.15 divorces to 1,000 marriages for Russian couples, 1926-1927 saw 11 (almost 100 times more). In 1920 Petrograd 92 marriages out of 1,000 ended in divorce,9 and in 1926 Moscow it was 477 per 1000. The state widely advocated freedom of sexual relations.

One can say with certainty that the period dealt the natural family a devastating blow, one from which Russian family policy is still recovering.

See also:

• The “New Economic Policy” Period (1921 — 1929)
• The Stalin Period (1929 – mid-1950s)
• The “Full-fledged Socialism” Period (1950s – mid-1980s)
• The Perestroika and Post-USSR Period (late 1980s – 2010)
• The Modern Period (2010 – the present)

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Read more: www.mercatornet.com

Una intervista che doveva servire ad accordare gli strumenti fra la Casa Bianca e il Vaticano in tempi di aperte dissonanze su vita, famiglia e libertà religiosa Leggi di Più: Obama-Papa. A tema non la poverta ma la libertà religiosa

Obama voleva chiacchierare della «povertà nel mondo», papa Francesco lo ha «incastrato sul suo laicismo»

Come era prevedibile, l’operazione simpatia del presidente Usa verso i cattolici nell’anno delle elezioni mid term è fallita: il Pontefice ha voluto parlare dei suoi attacchi alla libertà religiosa, altro che “sperequazione”

Obama e papa Francesco? Nello storico incontro di ieri in Vaticano il Pontefice “ha incastrato Obama sul laicismo, altro che sperequazione”. In un articolo che compare sotto questo efficace titolo, Mattia Ferraresi conferma sul Foglio quello che abbiamo anticipato ieri, ovvero che l’operazione “alleanza Usa-Chiesa per la lotta alla povertà”, studiata e annunciata strumentalmente dal presidente degli Stati Uniti per riavvicinare i cattolici nell’anno delle elezioni di metà mandato, è fallita.

ACCORDO MANCATO. «Il comunicato diffuso ieri dalla Sala stampa vaticana dopo l’incontro», spiega Ferraresi, «non contiene riferimenti ai temi su cui Obama e i suoi spin doctor intendevano virare la conversazione: non compaiono la “sperequazione” e la “giustizia sociale”», e neanche «si fa riferimento ai “poveri”». Insomma, non sono mai citate le «parole chiave che Obama aveva affidato a Massimo Gaggi del Corriere in una intervista che doveva servire ad accordare gli strumenti fra la Casa Bianca e il Vaticano in tempi di aperte dissonanze su vita, famiglia e libertà religiosa». Il presidente americano, sottolinea il Foglio, «si aspettava una scampagnata nelle periferie esistenziali» con papa Francesco, «il leader più amato del mondo», ma purtroppo per lui «il suo proposito è stato frustrato».


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Leggi tutto: www.tempi.it

Traditional architecture is predicated on the ideal of beauty as an objective reality, while modernism exalts subjective preferences.

Timeless Beauty:

 Conservatism’s Modernist Problem

by Joel Pidel

Conservatives who reject modern architecture have reasons to do so. Traditional architecture is predicated on the ideal of beauty as an objective reality, while modernism exalts subjective preferences.

Matthew Milliner’s recent article, “Nameless Beauty: Conservatism’s Architecture Problem,” leaves the impression that conservatism’s architecture problem is the aesthetic equivalent of clinging to one’s guns and religion. The argument proceeds through a personal narrative in which the modernist works of Chicago compel the author to expand his aesthetic vision. It concludes by suggesting that a commitment to beauty as an enduring conservative value should lead conservatism to temper its use of tradition as an existential crutch with which both to defend against and to attack modernism.

I do not begrudge our author his fresh phenomenological eyes in principle, and I know that the article is not a polemic against traditional architecture. It strikes me more as an indictment of a pejorative, if stereotypical, brand of conservatism that closes itself to ever new experiences of beauty, to which new and unfamiliar (modernist) forms can potentially give rise. Traditionalism and modernism are thus played off each other to this effect. However, I believe the arguments presented are so many straw men; furthermore, following them to their logical conclusion would lead one to an equally precarious position of exchanging one’s dogmatic slumber for a certain aesthetic relativism: it is beautiful because Ijudge it to be so.

A rejection of modernism, or of particular modernist works, is not necessarily due to some prejudice or ignorance, or because one has closed oneself off to its beauty, subjectively apprehended. It may simply be that conservatives have seen modernism for what it is and found it wanting. One could just as easily invoke the case that suddenly to find Frank Gehry’s architecture “beautiful” suggests that one’s previous dogmatism regarding the beauty of traditional architecture was never properly grounded in the first place, and thus both pre- and post-“enlightenment” visions collapse into the same unity of personal preference and subjective experience.

Conservatism may have an architecture problem, but if so, this imaginative defect is not confined by political or spiritual boundaries. Practicing architecture, I am as likely to find a conservative, religious person doing modernist architecture as a liberal, irreligious person doing traditional architecture. The same could be said for other arts, such as music. What is most revealing is how few persons still practice authentic traditional architecture. The architectural landscape is overwhelmingly populated by those with a modernist aesthetic mindset—conservative or not.

At the same time, it is quite correct to point out the empty homage that conservatism often pays to beauty, in terms of both time and resources. One need only look at contemporary instances of sacred architecture to see how they reveal both this reality and their modernist tendencies. It may also be correct to suggest that what conservative aversion to modernism and preference for the traditional there are remain largely unexamined by the general populace.

However real these problems may be, I do not think they predominate. They strike me more as symptoms of the larger problem. Contemporary conservatism betrays what I would term a “transcendental schizophrenia.” In other words, conservatism operates within a more or less traditional realm with regard to its understanding of truth and goodness, while unwittingly operating within a more or less modernist realm with regard to the order of beauty in aesthetics.

Much of conservatism at the lived, existential level, if not at the intellectual level, has swallowed the lie—or, rather, the half-truth—that beauty is subjective. Of course it is subjective! The other half of the truth, though, is that it is only because there is an objective reality to be subjectively perceived. Beauty is not whatever I want it to be; it is a reality to be discovered and—dare I say it—conformed to.

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Read more: www.thepublicdiscourse.com