pleasure and the state

as Bentham posits and Tocqueville develops, one fall-out from a pleasure-based idea of leisure is that it softens the individual will and lessens the desire and ability to reckon with the difficulties and annoyances of existence.  this in turn creates a society ripe for virtual enslavement--not only literally, as we have seen increasingly in our country, but ideologically and practically speaking, as well.  a society without an awareness of others, lacking in a firm telos, has no protection from the power-hungry.  pieper writes exceeding much on this principle, that the only way to fight the enervating consequences of a pleasure-based people is to have a proper understanding of beauty and of leisure: that we exist for feasting, and that feasting is an incarnation of the divine into our daily lives.
Chrisus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.

On Pleasure

In most people, then, the things that are pleasant to them are in conflict with one another, since they are not pleasant by nature, but the things that are pleasant to those who are passionately devoted to what is beautiful are the things that are pleasant by nature, and of this sort are actions in accordance with virtue . . . So the life these people lead has no additional need of pleasure as a sort of appendage, but has its pleasure in itself. -Aristotle


I love that bit about pleasure not being an appendage, that it should belong to the things that one pursues. We often think of virtue as a struggle, which it is, but this does not preclude it being beautiful, as well. And I do think that we appreciate things more when we have to struggle for them--not that a struggle makes things beautiful, but that it helps us to recognize their beauty.
'til next time . . .

on beauty

To what serves moral beauty '-dangerous; does set dancing blood - the O-seal-that-so ' feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to? 'See: it does this: keeps warm
Men's wits to the things that are; 'what good means-where a glance
Master more may than gaze 'gaze out of countenance.
Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh 'windfalls of war's storm,
How then should Gregory, a fater, 'have gleaned else from swarm-
ed Rome? But God a nation 'dealt that day's dear chance.
To man, that needs would worship 'block or barren stone,
Our law says: Love what are 'love's worthiest, were all known;
What do then? how meet beauty? 'Merely meet it; own
Home at heart, heaven's sweet gift; 'then leave, let that alone.
Yea, wish that though, wish all, 'God's better beauty, grace.


-Hopkins

faith & fiction

flannery o'connor writes repeatedly that the first job of a writer--or any artist--must be to tell a story.  tolkien makes it eminently clear in his forward to  Lord of the Rings that he is writing not an allegory or a fable or anything else other than a story.  to Christians, especially Catholics, the imagination of such writers clearly has a sacramental formation.  to others, though, they are primarily stories, and we do any work of fiction a disservice when we begin to moralize, instead of enjoy.  art cannot "teach," anyway, if it does not first entertain.

Being Human

This age of anarchy and autonomy denies all forms of unity. It lauds the rejection of "organized religion" as an enlightened, sensible, even pious action. It praises those who are "spiritual" while rabidly attacking those who are "religious." Yet religion is nothing more than the exterior expression of interior spirituality. It is the acknowlegement of the inadequacy of our common humanity in terms of common truth about a shared reality under a common God. It takes much humility to admit that, while our individuality is precious, we are not so very isolated and exclusive as we sometimes seem to think.

revitalizing

so i see it has been a little while since i posted. i shall remedy that.

i have been on a flannery o'connor prose kick, so the blog shall, too. the new quote is, i think, the heart of everything, not just theology but philosophy and art and beauty and the whole bit. because, if It isn't real, if He is not truly present, than it is all meaningless, and art means nothing. as o'connor consistently insists, art must be incarnational, and He is the epitome of Incarnation, the pattern of all our feeble efforts. i am sure that even michelangelo et al. were not able to reproduce the visions they saw in their minds . . .

Discourse on Language, pt. 1

"Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history."

-Octavio Paz

I am not sure that I agree with everything in this quote, but what I do like about it, very much, is that it asserts the reality and validity of language--the fact that only human beings can discourse about first causes, motives, beauty . . . and, despite the possibility of misunderstanding, whether deliberate or unintentional, we can, indeed, still gain some measure of knowledge about these things.
This topic is one of recurring, almost compelling, importance for me; I shall continue to poke at it.