Me, me, me...

A very worthwhile interview... Looking forward to reading the book.


http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/30312181/ns/today-books/t/me-me-me-americas-narcissism-epidemic/#.UPCd-qU1alI

Narcissistic Delusion?

This is certainly an article I want to re-read and post on sometime soon... Worth a look.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/08/are-raising-generation-deluded-narcissists/

Elder Cleopa's Wilderness Liturgy

During the time the elder was visited by the grace of God in the following way. Fr. Cleopa told his disciples that when he was building his hut, birds would come and sit on his head. The first time he served Liturgy on a stump in front of his hut, as he was communing the Holy Mysteries, a flock of birds came and gathered, such as he had never seen before.  As he gazed upon them in astonishment, he noticed that each one had the sign of the Cross marked on its forehead.

Another time, after the preparation for Liturgy and having read all the prayers, he set the Antimension on the tree stump and began the Liturgy with the exclamation, 'Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages!' Again the birds appeared, and as they perched in the branch of the tree they began to sing in beautiful and harmonic voices. Fr. Cleopa asked himself, 'What could this be?' And an unseen voice whispered to him, 'These are your chanters on the cliros.' These signs and others encouraged the Elder immensely during his time of exile. 

From The Truth of Our Faith: Volume 1 by Elder Cleopa, pg. 20-21 (Uncut Mountain Press)

I should mention that I have been to Romania and have visited Sihastria Monastery where the Elder is buried.  Speaking with an elderly woman who had met the Elder (through a translator), she revealed that Elder Cleopa, like St. Seraphim of Sarov, had befriended a bear out in the wilderness. Every day, Elder Cleopa would find two potatoes: he would eat one himself (probably his only nourishment for the day) and give the other to the bear.



We see this in the Lives of many Saints: the holiness they reach is recognized by all of creation, so much so that they return to the state of Adam before the Fall in which all of creation lived in true communion.  This, by the way, is true environmentalism: to achieve the Grace of God to such an extent that even the wild beasts recognize and respond to it.  Holiness cures all ills!

Spoilt Rotten, part 1

I finished, today, Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality by Theodore Dalrymple (real name: Anthony Daniels, though I will use his pen-name throughout these discussions).  Dalrymple is a well-traveled British psychologist who spent much of his career as a physician for the poor.  This is my third of Dalrymple's books, all of which I found to be very thought-provoking, insightful, witty, and well-written. In this book, Dalrymple seeks to show the destructive nature of a culture of sentimentality.  While I do not wish to recount his entire argument herein, I do want, in the next few posts, to look at some of the parts of the book that I found the most interesting.

In one section, Dalrymple (himself an atheist, I believe) lauds the Christian view of humanity over the Romantic view that dominates today:

The Christian view, that man was born imperfect but could and should strive in person towards perfection, was first challenged and then replaced by the Romantic view that mankind was born naturally good but was corrupted into badness by living in a bad society.  Thus the exhibition of vice became evidence of having been treated badly.  What had been deemed moral defect became victimhood whether conscious or not; and since mankind was born happy as well as good, unhappiness and suffering were likewise evidence of bad treatment and victimhood.  To restore men to their original and natural state of goodness and happiness, therefore, required social engineering on a huge scale.  It is not surprising that the Romantic revolution should have ushered in the era of massacre for ideological reasons.

The Christian view is much less sentimental than the secularist.  The secularist sees victims everywhere, hordes of suffering people who need rescue from injustice.  In these circumstances, it has become advantageous to claim victimhood for oneself - psychologically and sometimes financially - because to be a victim is to be a beneficiary of injustice.  This is why so many highly privileged people, who by the standards of all previously existing populations, lead lives of outstanding comfort, freedom and possibilities, claim the status of victim.   

 I find that I agree with Dalrymple far more than I disagree with him, and these two paragraphs are no exception.  I do wish, however, that Dalrymple shared the Orthodox faith with me, as I suspect Orthodoxy would provide an opportunity to take his thought into some different directions.

This paragraph presents, for instance, a perfect example of the intersection of Orthodox spirituality with culture.  The idea of declaring oneself a victim of sin and waiting for the help of others seems wholly incompatible with Orthodoxy.  This is not to suggest, of course, that legitimate claims to being a victim of the attacks of others do not exist; this is not about, say, abuse.  What this does concern is our own culpability in sin.

Elder Iakovos of Evia had an interesting analogy that he used to use regarding judgment of the sin of others.  If I remember this correctly, he explained that, if one were to take a rock and throw it at an unsuspecting dog, the dog would, more often than not, look at the rock and perhaps even bark at it.  This, the Elder explained, is what the demons do with men.  He takes one man, throws him at another, and the injured often takes out his anger and bitterness at the person, not the demon who encouraged him in sin.

Is not this, one might ask, an Orthodox Elder supporting a culture of victimization?  Could not every ill of society be blamed on the demons and our unfortunate subjection to them?

Such questions earn a response in the negative, without reservation.  Orthodoxy spirituality seeks to help us truly learn about ourselves, thus learning where we follow the obey the demons and where we follow and obey God.  Our goal is perfection; this perfection comes from God only when we work with him (or what we call "synergy").  Any Christian who lives life complaining that his sin is the result of his own victimization by demons would rightly be called deluded.

But how can we reconcile this with making excuses for others?  The rule of love causes us to leave judgment to God alone.  We may, indeed, condemn certain behavior, but while we are harsh with ourselves, we are merciful with others.  Why?  Because judgment causes us to condemn our own souls.  Judgement is a disease to a soul seeking purification.  This is why we can take someone who has fallen into a great life of sin and encourage them to visit the Church, go to Confession, pray, fast, etc...  We recognize the harm done them by sin, but we seek their aid in those thing, not their condemnation.

The problem with a society in which victimization is the standard for every person is that the end goal is far different from the end goal of the spiritual life.  In the spiritual life, we seek an end goal of perfection and love.  In society, we seek gifts from others.  In society, a culture of victimhood promotes ingratitude, anger, bitterness, resentment, laziness, antipathy, indifference... In the spiritual life as well as society, all of these things are dangerous.

What we end up with is a culture in which man does not seek to perfect himself but waits for society to be fixed by others until he deems action on his own life both worthwhile and necessary.  Elder Porphyrios used to say that, even in the worst places and in the worst of situations, sanctity was possible.  What Dalrymple and many others are noticing is that, largely because of a culture of victimization, virtues of any sort aren't even sought as being laudable.  Truly, this is a danger to our souls...

Of politics and faith...

I have not yet discovered whether this is 100% legitimate, but it seems like research is pointing to its truth (specifically, the author's identity and the accuracy of the transcript).  Either way, it seems to be spreading, as I found it most recently on Facebook.  If nothing else, I think it helps illustrate the connection between politics, faith, and morality, and thus it helps defend my belief that "keeping politics out of the pulpit" is neither wise nor possible.  My more nuanced view on that can be saved for a future post.  For now, I give you the supposed speech of Kitty Werthmann, citizen of Austria during Hitler's takeover, and her own warning to the West:

“What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or read in history books. I am a witness to history. 

I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We voted him in. 

If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching. 

We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. Not so. 

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. 

My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily. We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. 

Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. 

Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.  We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service. 

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage. Then we lost religious education for kids. 

Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education. 

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. 

And then things got worse. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had. 

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. 

I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing.

Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. 

It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy. Then food rationing began. 

In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. 

Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men. Soon after this, the draft was implemented. 

It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. 

When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.

Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. 

You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had. 

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. 

When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. 

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. 

All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. 

We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. 

Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control. 

We had consumer protection, too. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it. 

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated.

So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. 

I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. 

They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia. 

Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily. 

No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. 

Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom. 

This is my eye-witness account. It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. 

America is truly is the greatest country in the world. Don’t let freedom slip away.

After America, there is no place to go.

While I find this speech in itself quite fascinating, I have found the responses I've read thus far even more illuminating.  (As to the accuracy of the speech and who gave it, I can only say that Snopes.com, which I have yet to figure out why people trust so much - there ought to be a Snopes article judging whether Snopes.com is always a good source, for I have found it lacking many a time in accuracy and good judgment - those running the website are still researching it.)

Most of the negative responses to this speech fall into two categories: angry commentators who vilify Ms. Werthmann with ad hominem attacks, or attempts at serious rebuttals which far more often argue against the supposed unwritten conclusions of her arguments while missing the much larger warning.  For instance, I read one blogger who attacked Ms Werthmann for suggesting that she was a Holocaust survivor when she was never in a concentration camp (she never claimed to be, nor did she imply it), suggested that her words about working women mean to say that working women lead directly to totalitarianism (this clearly is not her argument), or that, because some connections can be drawn between what she describes and the rise of President Obama, Obama must be Hitler (again, her warning is far more serious and less reactionary).  

I suspect, however, that a common theme throughout this blog will be the loss of right thinking and logic in our nation; pseudo-logic triumphs over true logic, and sentimentalism and lack of logic sometimes triumph over even pseudo-logic.  This is not meant to be an attack but a warning, for a nation that does not know how to think (which is, indeed, a skill to be learned) cannot go anywhere positive; disaster awaits it with open mouth, swallowing it first little by little, then all at once.  I do not claim to be brilliant or anything of an intellectual, but I do try, with varying degrees of success, to think through things.  We can never escape our worldview to look at something completely objectively, but we can train ourselves to question how much our worldview affects the way we interpret something.  In the case of nearly all of the criticism of this speech that I have read, it is clear that the worldview dictated everything; the speech was read very critically, the worldview was not questioned at all.

Either way, for me, two things about this speech really struck me.  First, the overall warning seems to be that horrible things (even on a global scale) can easily be preceded by thing we interpret as being "open-minded," hopeful, safe, and positive.  In this case, we forget that the totalitarianism of Hitler was preceding by national support, at first.  Hitler rose to power as a national hero through a vote in Germany (even if his move into Austria was not as simple as a simple vote), not by some sort of violent revolution.  And the tyranny took time.  It took time for people to become complacent.  Complacency, by the way, is a dangerous national problem for us, today.  We sometimes miss the larger lessons of history with Hitler's Germany when we make him all about Antisemitism.  It's easy today to condemn that aspect of his rise to power; it takes more learning, more critical thought and research to see all of the other things about his rule that were despotic and negative.

Second, as the title of this post suggests, I think that this is one of MANY lessons of history which show that politics and faith are not disconnected.  Try as we might to separate them (something never claimed to be a national goal in the Constitution), they can and do affect one another.  When State policies harm faith, then faith cannot as ably transform the State.  How, in Orthodoxy, can we seek to transform and perfect the human soul when the human soul is so encouraged toward degradation by the State?  HOW the State does this will have to wait for now, but it certainly is something to contemplate...

It begins...

The purpose of the weblog is rather simple.  I spend a great deal of my time reading and reflecting on what I read.  Both parts of this work present me various thoughts, questions, and insights which often get written down on a sheet of paper, placed into the book, and subsequently forgotten.  More frequently than not, I wonder if what I think about the book is quite as profound as I find it to be.  Thus, this format offers me the opportunity to share what I read, to pass along my thoughts, to have a place in which to ask my questions.

My first love in reading is Orthodox Christian theology, as well as anything connected to this.  This includes Orthodox history (in which I am not very well versed), the Lives of the Saints, the writings of the Saints, conversion stories... essentially anything at all connected to Orthodoxy.  However, before being going to seminary, my main concern was politics.  While I have long felt that politics ought to be kept as separate from theology as possible, I have come to believe now that politics, culture, and morality are so intertwined that they cannot be completely walled-off from one another.  Thus, I expect that books on politics, American history, culture, etc will find their way into this blog.

With one attempt at having written a blog before, I know that the biggest obstacle to a good blog will be my own will-power to keep it up.  Thus, after a couple months of this (and a check to see if I have any readers whatsoever), I'll have to assess whether this is a worthwhile work.  Until then, if you happen to come across this page, I pray that you find something edifying within.  Good strength and happy reading!