|
|
by Thomas Storck
Just as the practical arts have recognized social purposes, likewise the fine arts were understood before the last few centuries to have a social or public end or function. Take music, for example. Composers did not simply write a piece of music, they wrote music for use in divine worship, for dancing, for marching; painting and sculpture likewise had a social role and purpose: adorning churches, palaces, and public buildings. The same could be said in different ways of all the fine arts. Even theatrical performances, both in ancient Greece and medieval Europe, were integral parts of religious festivals, not free-standing presentations. Originally, this was true even of poetry, which was written chiefly for public recitation...
|
|
|
|
by Paul Kuntz
The moral order of Jefferson was one of duties, as evidenced in a society that deprives the vast majority, ninety-eight percent say some studies, of the pleasure of gambling, because the opportunity may spell disaster for a small minority, two percent, who tend to become compulsive gamblers. Jefferson had observed the phenomenon as a young student at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, where he is said to have turned from gambling as a form of evil. The analogous problem of chronic drunkenness could lead to prohibition of spirits as it now does of cocaine, etc. Some sociologists, finding that pornographic literature triggers sexual violence, have argued that the duty of society to prevent crime justifies limitation upon freedom of expression. Thomas Jefferson would not belong to the present American Civil Liberties Union...
|
|
|
|
by Joseph Pearce
The tragedy is that the rose-coloured spectacles are tinted with the blood of socialism’s forgotten victims. Seeing the blood-spattered past through such spectacles condemns the future to be as blood-spattered as the past. If we wish to avoid the horrors of the last century, we need to persuade people to see the past realistically, not romantically. We need to persuade them to remove the rosy spectacles so that they can see reality clearly. When they do so, when they see the blood of the millions of victims, we can only hope that the blood will rush to their own cheeks as they blush at the foolishness of their own blindness. Only such a revelation will cure such people of the desire for revolution...
|
|
|
|
by Jacoby Sommer
We are on this earth for such a brief moment; let us not be lulled to sleep by any bedtime story, no matter how pleasant. We are on this earth for but one purpose. Let us preserve our lineage and defend the culture which birthed it; anything less is conspiring with the enemy. And who is the enemy? It is he who tells us that justice will conquer human nature, for justice itself is defined and redefined by immortal human nature. No matter how many times the story is told, Hector always loses to Achilles. This is because the story does not change; and it is also because Achilles is immortal. It is Homer we should thank for chronicling our heroic past; and it is to Homer we are indebted for showing us our future. But now is our moment of decision, now we must decide which path to take: fallen Hector or victorious Achilles...
|
|
|
|
by Joseph Mussomeli
The genius of America is that it was founded upon faith-based secularism. Secularism is a strength and fertile ground for faith and morality. There is always something that must fill the vacuum of disbelief, and it usually is a multitude of lesser gods; race, nation, class, wealth, status, social causes, and perceived grievances are all elevated for worship. Muslims, for the most part, are far from this sterile humanism. Islam, arguably, may help undergird the faithlessness that now is western Europe, and may even trigger a resurgence in Christianity across this continent. Islam once helped save and preserve Western thought and culture a thousand years ago. Might it not do something similar this century, helping to bring us back to a more spiritual, still secularized, but less materialistic, epoch?...
|
|
|
|
by George Stanciu
The image of God within us means that each one of us is unnamable and known to others through our activities in the world, that is, through a socially-constructed self. We are unknowable to ourselves, although through meditation, or what the Patristic Fathers called contemplation, we can witness our thoughts, memories, and storytelling, and thus know that we are not what we witness. Through more advanced contemplation, we may experience Divine Light, the presence of God. The Unnamable sustains all existence; the unnamable can apprehend, or mirror, all things. As long as we live on Earth, we are social beings and must have a self to interact with others, but we can live with the realization that the self is a fiction and not to be taken seriously. Our roles in this life are masks, not who we truly are...
|
|
|
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario