Wisdom Wednesday Prep: Ben-Oppers Building Monasteries Of The Mind

Mandeville, LA – Today’s Pile of Prep: most of the stories and research used to put together the Mike Church Show on the Veritas Radio Network’s CRUSADE Channel. 2016 is here and WELCOME to the All-New, Mike Church Show on the CRUSADE Channel, listen LIVE for Free (don’t cost nuthin’).

Sapientia et Veritas -“What we call Man’s power is, in reality, a power possessed by some men which they may, or may not, allow other men to profit by. Again, as regards the powers manifested in the aeroplane or the wireless, Man is as much the patient or subject as the possessor, since he is the target both for bombs and for propaganda. And as regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point of view, what we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.
It is, of course, a commonplace to complain that men have hitherto used badly, and against their fellows, the powers that science has given them. But that is not the point I am trying to make. I am not speaking of particular corruptions and abuses which an increase of moral virtue would cure: I am considering what the thing called ‘Man’s power over Nature’ must always and essentially be.” – C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

The Politics Of The Monasteries – All the literary rage these days is Rod Dreher’s The Benedict option book though we have no signs that Christians are constructing monasteries or even building Superdome like structures they will call churches while throwing some leftover coin into buying an isolated place for a mini-dome “retreat”. Now comes Victor Davis Hanson in what appears to be a gentle rebuke of what he calls these “monasteries of the mind”. It’s an interesting read for a Wisdom Wednesday: “More and more Americans today are becoming Stoic dropouts. They are not illiberal, and certainly not reactionaries, racists, xenophobes, or homophobes. They’re simply exhausted by our frenzied culture. They don’t like lectures from the privileged and the wealthy on the pitfalls of privilege and wealth. In response, they don’t hike out to monasteries, fall into fetal positions, or write Meditations. Instead, they have checked out mentally from American popular entertainment, sports, and the progressive cultural project in general. But aren’t sports at least still sacrosanct? Hardly. The new monastics were already watching less and less of the National Football League before the televised tantrums of Colin Kaepernick. After his multimillionaire stunts seemed to catch on with other players, many viewers quit entirely. The appeasement of his crudity by Kaepernick’s multimillionaire bosses and teammates might explain why NFL audiences (and revenues) are down.” While Hanson doesn’t mention The Benedict Option, these “monasteries of the mind” are caricatured as retreats from reality, the reality that ‘Muricah has created though Hanson can’t bring himself to bring the accusation. I just did.

Making The Military Industrial Complex Great Again – I voted for Donald Trump for 3 reasons, one is he promised pro-lifers progress we’ve never seen before; second he repeatedly stated “the era of nation building is over” and third he still provides the greatest threat to the Deep State a federal figure has ever provided. I accepted that he would probably be co-opted by the ‘Murican exceptionalists into making undeclared warfare great again… boy howdy. President Trump is loading the MIC offices that matter with shills for our lethal, threatening, killing industry. This report from The Intercept shows how swift and completely the Bomb, Bomb, Bomb -think John Bolton- hucksters have infiltrated the MIC. As my friend Laurie Calhoun says “We Kill Because We Can” and now President Trump is helping the MIC to “Make Killing Great Again.” Sad.

You LIKE Me! You Really LIKE Me… Umm, No, I Don’t, It’s Just A “Like” Button – How The “Like Button” ruined the internet is the title of James Somers’ essay at the Atlantic and it is funny, but I actually just had this conversation with Mrs. Church, last Thursday on the eve of Saint Patrick’s Day. The vast VAST majority of Facebook traffic is absolutely worthless because of the “Like” button. Why is that you ask? Because rather than READ a story on a SITE or magazine or newspaper, I can just skim the headline and my “friend’s” commentary and then I know all there is to know on the matter; rinse and repeat 30 times a day and I’m now building Victor Davis Hanson’s “mind monastery” out of what I THINK is going on in the world. In practicing Charity, forget recruiting friends to your cause, regardless of how just; they can just “like” your cause’s event listing or call for funds or volunteers and then retreat back to the Abbey of Like without actually having done anything other than clicking “Like”.

Buchanan: Did The FBI Fly To Moscow And Question Putin’s Cyber Warfare Team? – That point may be blunt but that point is made well by Patrick J Buchanan: “How could DNI Director Clapper and CIA Director Morell say that no connection had been established between Trump’s campaign and the Russians, without there having been an investigation? And how could such an investigation be conclusive in exonerating Trump’s associates—without some use of electronic surveillance? Did the FBI fly to Moscow and question Putin’s cyberwarfare team?” Watching to Comey hearing yesterday was like watching a spy caper that you have already seen before. You know “whodunnit” and where the bodies are but you still watch for the lines you have been repeating to friends the last to years, like “I can’t comment on that”. What irony that Comey was accused by the Nephilim spawn of Margaret Sanger and Satan as in Trump’s employ but it appears now he is running interference for the Deep State.

The Deep State No Comment Commentary Of FBI’s James Comey – I haven’t read Michael Scheuer’s Non-Intervention blog in a while and boy howdy am I glad I went back to it last night. Scheuer, former CIA, blows the lid off of what is really happening in Mordor’s Deep State under Trump. “Take the FBI. Under Director Comey — Tacitus might call him the “flouter-in-chief “– the FBI has proven itself to be the protective police for the American political elite. Now, each time he speaks, Comey’s words conjure those directed at a political opponent by perhaps the greatest non-interventionist of the early republic, Virginia’s John Randolph. “He is a man of splendid abilities,” Randolph said of his foe, “but utterly corrupt. He shines and stinks like rotten mackerel by moonlight.” Read the whole thing and also Scheuer’s post on Trump’s kissing of the ring of the Israel First-ers.

The Mutant Technology of Logan Is The Mutant Technology of Modern Man – I haven’t seen the film Logan yet but I will especially after reading this review and contemplation on the real problem of “X-Men” mutants especially those made by technology: they ultimately deprive man of use of his true nature, that is, being a part OF nature. Today’s Veritas et Sapientia taps into this power of technology as does the film Logan. John Macias’s review of Logan is especially pointed when he compares art to life. “Therefore, the only thing left to use as a reason for changing humanity to this rather than that is the arbitrary desire of the individual in charge of making changes. It will be the lab technician who decides to make human beings according to his or her own image, and those created are wholly under the control of the one creating. Thus, [C.S.] Lewis sees this result as the final conquest of man over nature, when we see the actual abolition of man.” [emphasis mine-M.C.] Modern man already has the “technology” to destroy all of humanity if God would permit such a thing but what is really at work here is SOME modern men are destroying parts of humanity of their choosing. Lewis makes this chilling point. “And as regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer.” [emphasis mine-M.C.]

Instant Replay: The Parasite State And The Donald Trump “Budget” – Although I have no confidence that Mordor on the Potomac can/will be “reformed” or that the national government of Blobistan can be sustained for much longer, that doesn’t mean there can’t be small, satisfying victories on the road to perdition. As David Harsanyi points out the budget submitted by President Trump actually contains some serious cuts to the Deep State that help explain why there is hysterical reaction to it. “While the White House’s budget blueprint, unsurprisingly titled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” contains some sound fiscal conservative cuts, it’s not a free-market budget because Donald Trump is not a fiscal conservative. The blueprint, in fact, is less of a budgeting document than a plan to begin rolling back some of the worst excesses of the bureaucratic state. Maybe that’s just as good right now.” Read the whole thing.

Brexit Is UNConservative!? – The UK “Idea” mag “Prospect” purports to prove that Brexit was the most UNconservative political event in British history since WWII. That Brexit’s “conservative” boosters assume the impossible: that UK pols can actually govern and deliver on the task of making trade deals with the rest of the world, the way that British politicians did before the curse of the centralized super state that the EU is a tyrannical example of. The idea that the centralized super-state is worthy of “conserving” and is in practice a part of the “conservative tradition” brings England’s 500 year long experiment in governing itself under its own supreme authority to a humorous and sad climax: The Brits can not exist and prosper as England any longer but now require corrupt political entities to insure that outcome. That’s an embarrassing admission when compared e.g. “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” See my book The English Reformation for how all this began with the treachery of Henry VIII and the House of Tudor.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death! – Patrick Henry has been portrayed as the “Liberty or Death” patriot for over 200 years and as not much more. This is a terribly shortsighted view of Henry’s life and career which included the most passionate opposition to ratifying the U.S. Constitution we have on record. I have included Henry’s heroic speeches on the dangers posed by the Constitution to the then young United States and at every turn, Henry has been proven correct. Thomas Kidd takes a look at Henry’s insistence that the Constitution was deeply flawed and should not be ratified by Virginia. For a movie version of this, see my film The Spirit of ’76.

True “Conservatism” Will Outlive The DeceptiCONS – In 2009, George Nash accepted an award given in homage to men who emulated Richard Weaver and his Ideas Have Consequences political philosophy. The speech Nash gave gives 5 reasons why “Conservatism” will survive. Some of Nash’s reasons for optimism read like transcripts of the Mike Church Show and sound like lectures from Brother Francis Maluf. Consider: “…in their obsession with the sound and fury of the stormy present, it is easy for conservatives to overlook and undervalue one of their most impressive achievements during the past forty years: the creation of a veritable conservative counterculture, a burgeoning infrastructure of alternative media, foundations, research centers, think tanks, publishing houses, law firms, homeschooling networks, and more. From the Beltway to the blogosphere, these clusters of purposeful energy continue to multiply and flourish.” The CRUSADE Channel and this site are growing examples of Nash’s optimism at work.

NY Times To Saint Benedict Option Readers: You Christians, You Need To Act All Counter-Culture-y And Stuff – I rarely am disappointed when reading the token “Catholic/Christian” op-ed writer of the NY Times, Ross Doutaht, today is the rule not the exception. In reviewing Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option book, Douthat gives the Times’ readers something to think about but not really, here’s Douthat. “The Trump era, in this sense, has not made “The Benedict Option” and the other books like it less timely, but more so. Thanks to Trump’s unlikely rise, religious conservatism has temporarily regained influence that its younger leaders and thinkers assumed was all but lost. Conservative Christians active in politics have no choice but to do the best they can from that unsteady, wavering position. But only a robust counterculture, a healthy sense of their own freakishness and, yes, a few St. Benedicts will save them if they fall.” Agreeing to label oneself “freakish” and practicing a “counter-culture” are a path forward!? You’re far better served, Christian ‘Muricah, by listening to my talk with Patrick Deneen yesterday.

The SAINT Benedict Option Is Not A Cloister, Its A Catholic Education Community – Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” book comes out on Wednesday amid much fanfare and controversy but at least one entity in ‘Muricah is already offering a SAINT Benedict option as in the liberal education and Christian life it requires. Here’s a sample from one of their leaders at The Imaginative Conservative. “Are the “culture wars” over? Some would say so. But if the contemporary world were simply a lost cause, the education at WCC would have a diminished merit. Even if our whole civilization is teetering on the brink of a new Dark Ages (this time with smartphones), there must be those who know a better way, and we are doing our best to educate them. The point is not abandonment of the world but finding the lost and feeding the hungry. And when in our nation’s history have there been so many who are intellectually malnourished and spiritually astray?” Glenn Arbery makes a fabulous case for a “Benedict Option” that is more a way of life and form of education change than a relocation and withdrawal which is very similar to the plan I outlined on today’s show.

The “Benedict Option” Relies On The Holy Name Of A Roman Catholic Saint, So Why Is The “Ben-Op” Decidedly NOT Catholic? – Rod Drehere’s new book The Benedict Option will debut next month to much controversy and fanfare and unfortunately at the expense of the work of the book’s Muse, Saint Benedict. I haven’t rad the book yet but I’ve been reading Dreher for years on the subject and he presents a misguided view of what Saint Benedict accomplished which is nothing short of the establishment of the Monastic Life and the spread of Catholicism throughout The Continent. As Brother André Marie reminds us: “Saint Benedict died on March 21, standing before the altar, just after he had received Holy Communion. In his humility, he never became a priest. His life was written by the Pope, Saint Gregory the Great. The Benedictine Order, as we are told in the martyrologies of its monasteries, has given the Catholic Church 57,000 known saints. This great Order has also given the Catholic Church thirty-five Popes, of whom seventeen have been declared either Saints or Blesseds.” That Dreher, a fallen away former Catholic, is using this magnificent example of Catholic piety and humility to promote a quasi-Christian retreat from life is antithetical to the life that Saint Benedict and Benedictines have lived ever since.

It’s March 2017 And The Immodesty Is About To Go Nuclear Because It WENT Nuclear – Venerable Bishop Sheen called out ‘Muricah back in the 1960’s while speaking to a group of young Catholics on “Youth and Sex”: “8:15 in the morning, the 6th of August, 1945, when we flew a military plane over this city, when we dropped that atomic bomb on it; that bomb on blotted out boundaries. There was no longer a boundary between the military and the civilian, between the helper and the helped, between the wounded and the nurse and the doctor, between the living and the dead. For even the living who escaped the bomb were already half dead. So we broke down boundaries and limits and from that time on the world has said we want no one limiting me. … You want no restraint, no boundaries, no limitsI have to do what I want to do. Now let’s analyze that for a moment, is that happiness?”

The Tragedy of Post Christian, Philosophia Perennis Devoid Thinking – Read this piece from AmConMag writer Noah Millman to get a closeup view of why Philosophia Perennis is so desperately needed to corral the erroneous thinking Men are sure to engage in when NOT grounded in the eternal quest for True Wisdom i.s. Sapientia. The issue Noah, is not whether “only the Saints” can live by the Magisterial code, it is that by God’s Grace the Saints DID live the Tradition WHILE receiving the Graces needed to do so. You cannot approach Grace as zero sum, mathematics, as in if I do ______ I will receive ______ “Grace credits” but if I do ______I will have deducted ______ Grace Credits. Grace is present in the world and we are given the supply needed at Baptism, the suffering of the Christian Faithful is simply to maintain the state you enter at Baptism, using the Gospels and the Traditional Teaching as MEANS to that END. As Padré Gaetano tells us in Humility of Heart: “And has not a saint abundant reasons, from the thought of his own weakness, to live always in a state of great humility, when he knows that from one hour to another he may lose the grace of God and the kingdom of heaven which he has merited by years of laboriously-acquired virtues? “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.”

For an audio version of Jefferson’s [r]epublicanism via Project ’76 Webisode, click here

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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