As Christopher Dawson argued, the nineteenth century proved a short century. When the century began, Thomas Jefferson delivered his gorgeous blueprint for a liberal republican world in the form of the first inaugural address. “But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same [...]
Friedrich Nietzche’s Ecce Homo lays waste to centuries of an ethic of inhibition and restraint. Intellectually brutalized, bloodied, and tortured, the nineteenth-century philosopher presented himself in his final and last words to a world he wanted to overthrow. Behold the man. To be more accurate, behold the demon. In his mockingly titled autobiography and final published work, [...]
Friedrich Nietzsche sought to change the world, and there is significant evidence that the existentialist philosopher succeeded. Many of the contemporary world’s assumptions regarding the primacy of individualism and the disavowal of universals were exposited by Nietzsche.[1] Yet, one of this thinker’s most important revolutions lay in his complete redefinition of philosophy. The dominant ideas [...]
Friedrich Nietzsche has no explanation for the process by which Christianity conquered Rome, by which the strong accepted the morality of the weak. When it comes to a depth of understanding of the development of Christianity, William Shakespeare is the true superman… Shakespeare’s Rome: Republic and Empire by Paul A. Cantor (University of Chicago Press, 2017) [...]
In a certain way, Christ is both priest and offering, a self-sacrifice transcending both concepts. This is something the classical world found disquieting. The extent to which the pagan classical world and Christianity are able to tell a common story has had an uneven history. In late antiquity, the Church Fathers were reluctant disciples of [...]
“There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken,” writes Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment. And such is the impression made upon us by Dosteovsky’s incredible psychological masterpiece… “Personally, I require a ceiling, although a high one. Yes, I like ceilings, and the high better than [...]
The way of humility leads, via the rolling road of wonder, to the heaven-haven of the reward. The way of pride leads, via the thorny path of prejudice, to a hell of one’s own devising... “For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!” In Tolkien’s magnum opus, The Lord of the [...]
Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was a native of Germany. "I was," he reported near the end of his life, "brought up in a conservative, even orthodox Jewish home somewhere in a rural district of Germany."[1] Strauss received his doctorate from Hamburg University in 1921. In 1938, he emigrated to the United States and commenced teaching political [...]
The writings of German theologian, philosopher, and cultural analyst Romano Guardini (1885-1968), one of the most influential Catholic intellectuals in the 20th century, have come to the fore with the papacy of Pope Francis, well-known to be a great admirer of his. Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’, has spurred a re-examination of Guardini’s apocalyptic writing The End [...]
In my previous essay, “Eric Voegelin: A Primer,” I had the privilege to offer a brief sketch of this German intellectual’s life and thought. In this essay, I would like to explore one of Voegelin’s three most important ideas: his critique of Gnosticism. As in the previous essay, I am drawing heavily upon the fine [...]
On my religious position, I have been classified as a Protestant, a Catholic, an anti-semitic, and as a typical Jew; politically, as a Liberal, a Fascist, a National Socialist, and a Conservative; and on my theoretical position, as a Platonist, a Neo-Augustinian, a Thomist, a disciple of Hegel, an existentialist, a historical relativist, and an [...]
Our stark choice is indeed as Nietzsche puts it, says René Girard. It is a choice between Dionysus and the Crucified: between the Biblical concern for the mob’s victim, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, the justifications and defenses of the lies of myth. The lies of myth are offered in the [...]
We should learn to cultivate the unwillingness to tolerate the unwitting, untold lie in the soul, and the wit and wisdom to transmute the unavoidable lying of any utterance into the telling lies that reveal truth. The first lecture of the school year is, by an old tradition, dedicated to the freshmen among us. Whether you [...]
I suppose we all have guilty pleasures. One of mine is reading the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. I can sit down, day or night, with any one of his works and be a rather—at least intellectually, if not spiritually—happy man. Yes, I know he was somewhat crazy, descending into a greater and greater madness until [...]