Aristotle III: Ethics, the Foundation of Politics
Although the Aristotelian system, qua system, probably does offer a better intellectual framework than the alternatives, it is his approach to human questions that is so invaluable.
Category: Fleming
We’ll Hang Donald Trump From a Sour Apple Tree
The irrepressible Donald Trump has once again embarrassed his supporters by blurting out the first silly response that floated through what passes for his mind. When Chris Matthews asked the candidate who would be punished if abortion were recriminalized, Trump did not–as he should have–refuse to discuss any hypothetical question; he did not even use the rabbinical trick of turning the tables on Matthews, asking what the hack “thought” about the matter. No, without giving the subject a moment’s thought, Trump blurted out the gaffe that has gone round the world. If abortion were made a crime, then the perpetrators—including the pregnant...
Christ Is Risen
Anything I might have to say on this most blessed day of the year would be at best superfluous. I do, however, want to draw attention to the beautiful collect in the Old Mass. Many of these prayers are capable of inspiring a good deal of reflection, if we pause a moment to consider them: Deus qui hodierna die per Unigenitum tuum, aeternitatis nobis aditum, devincta morte reserasti, vota nostra, quae praeveniendo aspiras, etiam adjuvando prosequere. Per eundem Dominum etc. This is Englished in various ways, but this version, drawn from the Father Lasance Missal, puts the gist of it...
The Autodidact on Aristotle, Part II
Although it is fair to describe Aristotle as the most important Platonist of all time, he parted company with his teacher on many important points.
The Tower of Skulls On the House
The day before the Easter we celebrate in the West, my thoughts go out to Christians in the East who once endured the horror of Islamic rule. I wrote this piece in September 2001, and it was published n December. “You’ve never been to Nish?!” My friend was incredulous. How can someone who has traveled, it sometimes seems, every inch of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Kosovo, not have found the time to go to Nish? The lady is far from being a local chauvinist, but when I first met her and asked (as I had been taught by a Belgrader) if...
Muslims Must Go
Here is Hillary Clinton’s response to the terrorist attacks on Brussels: “Calling for 12 million immigrants to be rounded up and deported. Demanding we turn away refugees because of their religion, and proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the United States…America should be better than this, and I believe it’s our responsibility as citizens to say so…If you see bigotry, oppose it. If you see violence, condemn it. If you see a bully, stand up to him.” Ms Clinton actually made her remarks at an AIPAC meeting where she spent most of her time attacking the Republican front-runner, but...
The Autodidact on Aristotle
In all that is most important, Aristotle is more often right than wrong, and consistently right on those points where he has been most attacked.
The Religion of Sodom, Conclusion
In Genoa I spent several hours talking with the philosopher Pier Luigi Zampetti. In his book His book La Sfida Del Duemila (1988), Zampetti blames our spiritual malaise as well as environmental catastrophe on modern consumerism. Materialism has become the dominant philosophy both in the West and in the East…. Capitalism, as we know, is the economic system of the entire contemporary world. East and West are worlds bound by capitalistic systems, even if of different types. But, how is man considered in these systems? Can he express himself, his free and responsible choices; in other words is...
The Religion of Sodom, Part I
This is the revised first part of an essay I published in 2000 in a magazine I used to edit. I cannot remember a time when I was not what would be called an environmentalist. I spent much of my childhood walking on an earth unconstricted by concrete streets and unburdened by the weight of buildings. I was never happier than when I was out fishing with my father or picking berries with my sister, or helping friends with their traps. Until we moved near Charleston, I had never seen a city that did not deface the landscape, and to...
Ransom Notes: Who Asked You?
Although nobody asked for my opinion on these bits of news, I have a few things to say. First. Finally, the head of a major Christian denomination with a grain of sense! The bleeding-heart-liberal Archbishop of Canterbury has informed the world that it is not racist to oppose mass migration. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35781613. While calling upon England to do more than it is doing to help so-called Syrian so-called refugees, he said that it was “outrageous” to describe fears about the migrant crisis as racism. Archbishop Welby is as leftwing as most English and North American bishops and ministers of the Anglican communion, but unlike too many...
