Crisis: 50 Years of Effete and Infertile Liturgical Culture Is Enough BY ANTHONY ESOLEN
Last Sunday I was away from home; this normally means trouble. It means I do not attend Mass at the chapel of Saint Thomas More College, which is where I teach, [...]

Strategic Priorities Workshop - Dr. Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen: Lecture at "Your Imagination Redeemed" 2018

More on the Lord's Prayer

Crisis Magazine: Pope Francis is Only Partly Right on the Lord’s Prayer by Lionel Yaceczko

Plus, Anthony Esolen at First Things.

A complementary perspective offered by a Roman-rite priest to the article by Fr. Maximos: Do Homosexuals Exist? Or, Where Do We Go From Here? by Fr. Hugh Barbour

Related:
A REQUIEM FOR FRIENDSHIP by Anthony Esolen
Why Boys Will Not Be Boys & Other Consequences of the Sexual Revolution

Not a “Swerve,” but a “Slouch” by Anthony Esolen
Modern atheists may think they’ve found an ally in ancient Epicureanism. They’re quite mistaken.

DSPT Fellow - Barbara Elliott's Presentation on Catholic Imagination and Contemporary Culture

Via The Imaginative Conservative:

DSPT Fellow - Barbara Elliott's Presentation on Catholic Imagination and Contemporary Culture from DSPT on Vimeo.

Imagine That by Tony M. (on Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child)

Homo sapiens est Homo erectus

We are familiar with the use of "straight" to describe one's character with reference to his actions, e.g. moral rectitude. What about the use of "straight" to describe his character in itself, using the image or metaphor of standing erect? There is an expression in Cantonese, "kei dak jik, haang dak jik" - able to stand straight, able to walk straight - to describe someone who is of good character. Something similar can be found in English, when one is said to be morally "upright." Is this expression to be found in other languages as well?

Standing straight is opposed to slouching or being hunched over like a non-human animal or ape; this is what is proper to human beings. (Keep in mind natural or primal posture - not the modern American or Western notion of good or correct posture.) The use of reason in the pursuit of the good is proper to man as well - we do need to be trained and acquire virtue, but moral training is not opposed to what is "natural" to us, as we are inclined to the good and possess the seeds of virtue.

Hence, the use of etymology and definition can be helpful in the moral education of chicldren, as the reason why we used certain words or expressions is explained to them? American public education prefers to be agnostic about matters such as character and ethics, setting moral evaluations aside in discussions of characters' motivation and "personality." (Though they may take into consideration "bad" consequences, or the harmful impact of their actions on others in a story.)

I am reminded that I should get a copy of Dr. Esolen's book.

Solitude and Political Friendship by Anthony Esolen

"True solitude is the contemplation of the true, the good, and the beautiful, and such solitude is essential to maintaining communities of friendship oriented towards non-quantifiable goods."

More recent items from The Catholic Thing

A New Center for Natural Law by Hadley Arkes

The Fading Sense of Citizenship by Hadley Arkes

But to ask what a “good citizen” or a good member of the political community would be is to bring us back to the original question of what the polis or the polity is.

Is it more like a hotel, where people take up residence? In that case, the connection generates no moral demands apart from the requirement of paying the rent and obeying the house rules. Or is the polis more truly, as Aristotle taught us, a moral association: a place where the members share certain understandings of the things that are just or unjust; where they agree to be ruled by procedures they regard, by and large, as just; and where they take it as their chief mission to cultivate that sense of justice among one another through the lessons they teach through the laws?

But for what end? So that they can live on their own? Or so they can live together? A liberal would probably not disagree with what is written here.

The Cruelty of Hedonism by Anthony Esolen

Authority in the Education of a Human Being by Anthony Esolen (MoJ and Mere Comments)

Professor Esolen is correct to criticize radical egalitarianism. But do teachers have an authority, and does authority have the same meaning as auctoritas? They are superior to students in virtue of the knowledge that they have (or should have). But the do not have the authority of a law-giver, the author of the laws. They may have the authority proper to someone who is reckoned wise or knowledgeable or proficient, someone who has the trust of the students or others. But is not authority then being used in a different sense?