Blog break

Work is picking up and I am a little bit out of ideas for the near term. I am going to be away from blogging for the next week or so until work settles down. I'll be back blogging soon!

A vision of a morally hallowed-out big business enterprise

Former Goldman-Sachs mover and shaker Greg Smith describes it over at the New York Times.  Of course, this is precisely the kind of business environments that one gets when the moral core of a society is gutted out.  And no level of government regulation will be able to fix it.  Once people lose sight of the fundamental principle of human work -- helping people while making an honest profit -- the government can't fix things.  And for the fundamental principle of human work requires a moral framework grounded in the practice of virtue -- yes, I said it, virtue -- in order to function.  Otherwise, it just becomes the jungle, and sight is lost of the ideas of helping others (rather than just ourselves) and honest profit (rather than exploitation).

As Smith writes, "It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are."  Indeed.  And what does trust require?  Virtue.  Truthfulness.  Honesty.  Integrity.  Putting the interests of others ahead of your own.  Why are we surprised that in a culture that routinely mocks such attributes that the people at the top are feeding freely on the weaknesses of others?

Update: some commentary on Mr. Smith and his New York Times op-ed is posted over at The American Conservative.  Well worth a read for some perspective.

What happened to "From Burke to Kirk and Beyond"?

One of my favorite blogs appears to have disappeared from the internet!  Does anybody know what happened?  Tertium Quid, if you are reading this, please let the bloggosphere know what's going on!

Graduate schools cutting back enrollments in light of the economy and future job prospects for Ph.D.'s

That looks to be the case based on this story from the Chronicle of Higher Education.  This is a very welcome development -- there simply is far more supply of highly educated Ph.D.s, particularly in the arts and humanities -- than there is demand in academia and centers of study. Universities really do have a responsibility, in my view, for admitting graduate students who have no reasonable prospect for ever being able to pursue a career in their chosen field of study.  As universities come under increasing pressure to reduce costs and simplify their programs, the job market for professors will get tighter.  In that world, churning out Ph.D.s in art history or post-structural linguistic analysis becomes less and less defensible.  Ph.D.s in the hard sciences, math and computer science?  Those we need more of.  Ph.D.s in the social sciences and belles lettres?  Not so much.

George Weigel on the Catholic bishops and the Obama administration contraception mandate

Here's his analysis, over at National Review Online.  As Weigel puts it, the very balance of government and society is at stake in this conflict, with the bishops defending the idea of limited government and the freedom of conscience within our polity.  "The state is attempting to co-opt as much of society as it can, while the Church is defending the prerogatives of civil society." According to Weigel, the bishops have chosen not to fall back in a tactical retreat, but are instead focused on defending religious and civil liberty not just for the Church, but for all Americans.  Read all of his analysis -- it is critical reading at this time when not just the Catholic Church but the very idea of liberty itself is under siege by the Obama administration.

Russell Kirk on education

"Much of Kirk’s work on education defended wisdom and virtue against rapacious drives to transform education into a vehicle of social engineering with narrow utilitarian ends."  So writes David Bonagura, Jr. in this discussion of Kirk's views of education and education reform: The Sword of Education. Well worth a read.  In an age where education in the humanities is, frankly, dying if not already dead, Kirk's robust defense of liberal education and moral imagination is much needed.

Wednesday night culture moment: the Dan Tyminski Band sings "Carry Me Across the Mountain"

Monday night culture moment: Bo Diddley sings "Road Runner" live

A quote for our time

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

-Frederick Douglss (1818-1895), former slave, abolitionist and political activist.

Given the Obama administration's attack on the Catholic Church, this is a very good principle for people of faith, and Catholics in particular, to keep in mind.

Russell Kirk on moral imagination

A worthwhile read posted over at The Imaginative Conservative.  One of the many areas where Kirk is a breath of fresh air in light of our current cultural preoccupations is his clear focus on the importance of literary endeavors in renewing culture and sustaining a conservative worldview.

Monday night culture moment: Emmylou Harris sings "Pancho and Lefty," 1978

I don't think Townes Van Zandt's classic has ever been sung better:

How Obama is changing America

Pat Buchanan explains how in this insightful post over at The American Conservative.  Well worth a read. Yet another reason why conservatives, libertarians, and people of faith should be working very hard to make sure that whoever the Republicans nominate in 2012 wins the presidential election this year.

Meanwhile, in another article posted over at The American Conservative, Ted Galen Carpenter explains President Obama's fundamental approach to American society as a top-down system with little or no dissent from his agenda, a society that is martial in its approach to dissent and internal disagreement. A perceptive read.  

Is Pope Benedict XVI leaning towards libertarianism?

The Pittsford Perennialist says as much in the title of this post:  Pope Ratzinger, Libertarian.  I think that the proprietor of that blog is overstating his case a bit, though.  Benedict XVI is no libertarian, although I think it is fair to characterize him as somebody with profound concerns regarding the limitation of coercive state power. This, of course, is a result of the experience that Ratzinger went through as a young man, enduring life in totalitarian Germany under the Nazis.

But a concern over the limitations of the state does not a libertarian make.  In addition to a commitment to limited state power, there must be a corresponding commitment to the notion of individualism and social atomization.  And Ratzinger displays neither of those ideas.  Indeed, if one looks at the political party within Germany most closely aligned with the American idea of libertarianism -- the Free Democratic Party -- it is difficult to characterize Ratzinger as libertarian.

A new hero for my personal Valhalla

His name is Dick Proenneke, and he lived as a hermit in the Alaska wilderness.  There's a movie about him, with footage of his life and cabin that he had filmed himself using a movie camera.  He died in 2003, but his cabin is still there, now part of the national park system.

Here's an excerpt from the movie, Alone in the Wilderness:



For health reasons, I could never do what this guy did, and I've got a wife and extended family to be a part of.  But if I was healthy enough, and single without family around, I would love to be able to do what this guy did.

Three books I would save from a house-fire

Shredded Cheddar has a post on the books she would save from her house if it caught on fire. It's an interesting list, and I was inspired to give that topic some thought and come up with my own list.  To be fair, I split the list in two, the first is the secular list and the second is the religious list.  For the secular books, here's what I would save:

• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Arden Edition).
• Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse.
• The Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (a gift to me from my parents when I was 12).

Now, for the religious books.  I left the Bible off this list -- not because I wouldn't want to save it, but because scriptures are a pretty obvious choice for anyone who is a religious believer.

• The Confessions of St. Augustine (Everyman's Library Edition).
• Pioneer Missionary to the Bering Strait Eskimos (a biography of a Jesuit missionary back in the 1920's).
• The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  

There's my essential-save-the-books-from-a-house-fire-list.  

Sunday night culture moment: The Choir of the University of Pisa and the Tuscan Chamber Orchestra perform Kyrie by Antonio Vivaldi

Timothy Cardinal Dolan urges Catholics to become active in the public square

A good idea, given the attacks that the Church is now facing and will likely continue to face in our political order. 

Five questions for Sunday night

• Are we headed for a new Cold War or another hot war in the Middle East?  "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce," said Marx, as quoted by the Pittsford Perennialist in this provocatively titled post:  Marx Was Right. The ramp up for conflict against Iran, a conflict for which our military stands dangerously depleted after Iraq and Afghanistan, appears to be moving inexorably towards consummation. Tolle, lege. 

• Is the Church in America looking at a coming persecution?  Fr. Dwight Longenecker says yes in this post over at his blog:  The Coming Persecution. It is likely to be a very American-style persecution, but it will be persecution all the same.  We are getting a taste of it now with the Administration's push for the HHS mandate on Catholic institutions.  But it won't stop there under Obama -- it will get worse. 

• When did the Star-Spangled Banner become the official national anthem?  Carol's Blog answers that question.  Personally, I can't stand the Star-Spangled Banner.  It is impossible to sing, the tune is an old beer-hall song, and it celebrates a war that lead to the burning of our capital city.  Ugh.  Three strikes against it.  Much better would be for us to adopt, My Country 'Tis of Thee as our official anthem.  Good tune, celebrates our heritage and history as a nation of liberty, and it reinforces our British heritage (it uses the same tune as "God Save the King"). 

• How does classical education work?  Freeman Hunt explains it all in this interesting post over at her blog.  Well worth a read.  

• Ever wonder what dancing in an Indian temple looks like?  Well, if you have, you can slake your curiosity by checking out these incredibly vibrant photos posted over at A Man on the Move, a blog by an Indian Catholic named Joseph.  He always posts the most interesting and thought-provoking photos. 

Where do our rights come from?

Lawrence Lindsey reflects on that question in this op-ed over at the Wall Street Journal: Geithner and the "Privilege" of Being American. As Lindsey points out, the Founding Fathers thought that our fundamental rights of life and liberty precede the State. In other words, the State does not provide us with our rights and grant them to us, rather the State merely recognizes rights that already exist. Our rights are not boons provided to us by our betters, by those who rule over us. The task of our leaders is to protect the rights that are ours by nature.

The weak spot in Lindsey's argument is that he fails to identify precisely where our rights do come from. If not from the State, then what is their basis? For the Founders, the source of our rights is divine Providence, in the God who creates and sustains the world -- "nature's God" to use a phrase from the Declaration of Independence.  At the root of liberty, at the root of limited government, at the root of human freedom, is the truth that prior to and above the State there exists a Power to whom the State itself is subordinate.  Take away that truth, and human rights and limited government collapse in a heap.

Stephen Fry on classical music

Well worth watching and thinking about.  The modern disdain of classical music is, as Fry rightly points out, a form of snobbery.  His presentation is a little crude, but thought provoking.  In music, as in many other things, difference is good.