Catholic Thought discussion
Chaput, Things Worth Dying For
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Chapters 3 & 4
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Good evening! For chapter 3, my first impression was that Archbishop Chaput was attempting to do too much. Irony, "Casablanca", nihilism, Black Lives Matter, the Enlightenment, failed modernism, etc. I was a bit lost in the beginning.To summarize, I believe that Archbishop Chaput's primary point is that irony is the gap between what is and what we expect. For example, in "Casablanca", Rick Blaine travels to the city for the water, even though it's surrounded by desert. "I was misinformed," he explains.
Just like Blaine in Casablanca, modern man was misinformed about liberalism: it was supposed to give us progress, but all it gave us was cynicism.
What do you think?
I thought the discussion of irony "The Waters of Casablanca" was brilliant for a couple of reasons. Primarily, Archbishop Chaput's description of the West's descent into cynicism does a really good job of capturing our cultural surroundings, setting up what will hopefully be further discussions of how we ground ourselves to resist the creep, but on an even more brilliant level, Archbishop Chaput the Native American cleverly skewers the post-modern critique of "Western Civilization" as inherently exploitive and destructive and the lauding of indigenous cultures as being properly in tune with nature. His excellent analysis of post-enlightenment economic liberalism as the source of our exploitive relationship with nature gives Christians a footing from which to push back against a pseudo-spiritual view of environmentalism so that we can frame our own responses in terms of ourselves as part of the created order. I think this refocusing is very important, especially for people who, for one reason or another, have been ambivalent about Laudato Si.
Joseph wrote: "I thought the discussion of irony "The Waters of Casablanca" was brilliant for a couple of reasons. Primarily, Archbishop Chaput's description of the West's descent into cynicism does a really good..."Joseph, a great point about a third way for stewardship of the environment.
I think our destruction of nature corresponds with the Archbishop's statement about how liberalism gives us what we want, but not what we need. He compares it to drinking salt water, which actually forces our bodies to eliminate more fluid than it intakes. Our manipulation of nature, supposedly for our own benefit, ruins the material world and makes us more lonely in a seemingly reductionist universe.
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"Much of today's educated opinion, consciously or otherwise, derives from a secular creation myth. The myth runs on certain assumptions: these include the claims that science, free political institutions, and respect for human rights all flow from the eighteenth century's overthrow of tradition and religious authority.""Secular creation myth" - it's a term I am committing to memory. We are bombarded with this all the time, and we as Christians have to be equipped to have the vocabulary or ammunition to counter the prevalent narrative.
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Exactly!
As Catholics we are the original and authentic environmentalists. What goes for (political) environmentialism today is nothing but a form of Marxism. A former president of the Czech Republic (sorry, I can't remember his name) pointed this out many years ago, and as a survivor of the former Soviet Bloc he knew what he was talking about.
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Kerstin, do you mean Václav Havel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1...
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I was going to ask you about Kansas. Are you familiar with the Archbishop's home town? I think I remember seeing he named it somewhere.
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I knew it wasn't Havel. I looked it up, it must have been his successor, Václav Klaus. To this day he is deemed a "climate change denier" according to Wikipedia.
"Secular creation myth." Thanks, Kerstin, I too, am committing that to memory. Or, I mean, thank you, Archbishop!I haven't rewatched Casablanca recently enough to venture into that conversation. But I followed Peej and Joseph's analyses and conversation with great interest. Both voiced much of what I feel, yet couldn't verbalize as clearly as they did.
Society is overfed but undernourished - "...we have a surfeit of things today, but a lack of meaning" (page 85). That emptiness causes so many people to trample creation while chasing the next great thing, trying to quiet the inner hunger only God can fill. As Archbishop Chaput says, on page 72 as he moves into the discussion of idolatry: "... most of us still have a thirst for something more than this life and this world can offer."
There are so many false gods today. Maybe there always have been. I was intrigued by the Archbishop's view of the paradox of idolatry. On one hand, he says, it's a way in which we try to control God. But false gods "always end up controlling us" ( page 79). And speaking of myself, even those of us who actively seek God sometimes find it way too easy to get sidetracked. Archbishop Chaput offers a blueprint for me on page 87, when he writes:
"It's in sharing the Passion of Christ that we see Jesus; and in Jesus, the love of the Father is revealed. This act of following or discipleship has two key elements: recognizing the face of Jesus in our neighbor, especially in the poor; and giving ourselves to the mystery of the Eucharist..."
It's something I'm going to try and remember next time I decide the email advertising a sale on fabric (that I don't need) is worth my $ more than the appeal from Catholic Relief Services sitting directly above it in my Inbox.
I am struck with how universal and timeless are the truths at the core of this book. The Archbishop talks about that deep hunger in each of us that we try to fill with so many things, but which can only be satisfied by God. This is the same observation made 1500 years ago by St. Augustine. His recognition of the many things that we try to set up as our gods in place of the only true God would get affirming nods from any of the patristic writers. If you took out those things that are unique to our time and place and boiled this down to what he is saying about human nature and about our need for God, I suspect that it could resonate in just about any era. As humans, we never learn. Yet, God continues to pursue us and to call us back.
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Very nicely said!
Perhaps we do need a special reminder in our time of these timeless truths to be better able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Peej wrote: "Joseph wrote: "I thought the discussion of irony "The Waters of Casablanca" was brilliant for a couple of reasons. Primarily, Archbishop Chaput's description of the West's descent into cynicism doe..."and Peej wrote " I believe that Archbishop Chaput's primary point is that irony is the gap between what is and what we expect. " This section really caught my interest, as I remember as an English teacher explaining the difference between situational irony (the primary point here) and dramatic irony--which is the audience or reader knowing something that the characters aren't aware of. And the difference between irony and sarcasm. I do think situational irony is the main point here, but I see much dramatic irony in our political discourses and our private awareness when we listen to the mainstream news or some pundit. Not to get into politics, just piggybacking onto Archbishop Chaput's reflection of the ironies in our lives.I am finding reading this book slow going--there is so very much here to stop and reflect on. I'm also taking notes because I can't help it! I am so glad to see all the discussion here!
I'm also reading Sherry Weddell's "Forming Intentional Disciples". She mentions in her book about evangelizing to post-modern people that many Millennials and Gen Xers are "pre-moral." The self-esteem culture doesn't create guilt, but it does create shame that people, who are empowered through their self-esteem, haven't accomplished enough. In fact, the self esteem culture doesn't actually teach right from wrong, which is why many postmoderns learn of the concept of personal sin late in the conversion process. They think first of systemic sin, then are led to personal sin by realizing their participation in the same systemic sin.
This concept of "pre-morality" has contributed to what Archbishop Chaput identifies as a breakdown of society--morality normally puts the brake on sin, a shared belief in something or somebody larger than us. Yet this has broken down over the past 60 years.
There's definitely still hope, as people of new generations come to Christ when we preach the kergyma and bring them to Jesus through trust, friendship, and encounter. However, we are going through a period of penance before the resurrection.
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Chapter three also divides into four parts. Hmm, that seems to be a pattern now.
(1) The New Nihilism—Small Town Kansas Upbringing—Catholic Upbringing—Parent’s Teaching—Favorite Movies—The Making of Casablanca—Irony.
(2) Irony as a Tool—Irony from God—Irony in Scripture—Scroton on Irony and the Humility it Brings—Happiness from Sacrifice—Justice for a Well-Ordered Society
(3) Liberal Society fails at Instilling Coherence—New Atheism has Instilled Contempt for Religious—The Sarcasm from the Popular Culture Has Instilled a Nihilism—Healthy Skepticism Has Evolved to Cynaicism—The Enlightment’s Creation Myth is at the Heart of the Problem—Reason Has Been Distorted—Moral Character Has Been Undermined.
(4) Irony of Dying of Thirst on the Ocean—Modern Economy Gives Us Choices But Does Not Satisfy Our Needs—The Good Life Addresses these Needs—How?—Theological Virtues, Friendship & Love, Human Capacities—Science Can’t Supply These—Only God Can Supply These.
So let me summarize each section.
(1) Life in his small, Midwest upbringing was different than the culture at large.
(2) Irony has had both a positive and negative impact on our society: “Irony captures the incongruities of being alive” (p. 53).
(3) Liberal society, though providing many good things, has failed us in “instilling moral coherence and a shared sense of things worth dying for” (p. 57).
(4) Science cannot supply or answer to the things that truly matter in life and provide happiness.
If I were to get to the heart of chapter three, I would articulate it as thus: Sarcasm and scientism, has led to a cultural nihilism that has deprived society of its moral coherence and deprived of what truly matters in life.
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I've been wanting to read that book. Waddell seems like she's got a good handle on the younger generations.
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I haven't rewatched Casablanca recently enough to venture into that conversation. ..."
I found that "Secular Creation Myth" part very interesting too. That's an important insight.
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I do find sections 1, 3, and 4 well written and insightful. I completely agree with his understanding of the secular creation myth and why it needs to be refuted.
Also he brings up an very important point in section four of the chapter where he quotes the Dominican priest Herbert MaCabe. MaCabe refutes that society is built to protect individuals from each other but mostly built on friendship and love. MaCabe seems to be refuting the Thomas Hobbes theory of why society is set up. I've never read MaCabe, so I don't know if he says it elsewhere, and Archbishop Chaput doesn't mention it himself, but Thomas Hobbes is another culprit as to why the modern world is what it is.
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In the appendix an article of Roger Scruton's is mentioned, Forgiveness and Irony: What Makes the West Strong, which may give more insight.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/for...
The Herbert McCabe book is The Good Life: Ethics and the Pursuit of Happiness. It looks like an interesting read :-)
Manny wrote: "I found the second section of the chapter three haphazardly written. It seemed to jump from all sorts of topics, and frankly I don't quite get his point about irony. Is it good or bad? And if irony..."I think irony is primarily a rhetorical device, intending to add a layer of understanding to something ambiguous or controversial. It is not the same as sarcasm, which is most often used to put down someone who says or does something one doesn't agree with. I think the archbishop is trying to posit irony as a fact of our human condition, a warning perhaps against taking a monolithic stand without considering other points of view or perspectives.
I like the quote "The Christian life is not a self help plan, a way to make ourselves perfect, but rather a way of life in which the One who is love enters us and transforms us."
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In the appendix an article of Roger Scruton's is mentioned, Forgiveness and Irony: What Makes the West Strong, which may ..."
That is a fascinating article. I've been meaning to read Roger Scruton, who passed away I think last year or the year before. From the interviews and articles of I've seen from him, I think we're philosophic kindred spirits.
I think this may have been the section in that essay:
"Forgiveness and irony lie at the heart of our civilization. They are what we have to be most proud of, and our principal means to disarm our enemies. They underlie our conception of citizenship as founded in consent. And they are expressed in our conception of law as a means to resolve conflicts by discovering the just solution to them."
I'm still not sure how Archbishop's passage on irony fits into his whole thought process, but I've gotten closer. I probably need to re-read chapter 3 again.
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That was excellent! I like it too.
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(1) Sincere faith compels us to give ourselves to God—Why should we Live and be willing to Die for God?—Need to Understand who God is—Breaking in of the Transcendent.
(2) God in Genesis—Intimacy of God—God in Exodus—Theophany of the Burning Bush—God Names Himself—God uses Moses—God’s Relationship with Moses—Seeking the Face of God—Jesus is the Face of God.
(3) Idolatry—The Paradox of Idolatry—All Humans Worship Something—We’re Made for Love—How Our Understanding of Human Nature Has Evolved—The Humanist Shift—Man as Master of the Universe—The Elimination of God—The Idols Which Has Replaced Him.
(4) The Sinai Theophanies Come to Completion in Jesus—Christ as the Face of God—God Calls Us to Divinization—God is the Good Itself.
So here is a summarizing point of each section.
(1) Who is this God and why should we live for Him and be willing to Die for Him?
(2) Through revelation, God has revealed Himself.
(3) Modern man has rejected that revelation.
(4) Jesus Christ is the way to find joy in this life and the next.
The main point of chapter four as I read it is that, though God has revealed Himself, modern man in rejecting God has replaced Him with idols. Perhaps this is the summing quote: “If the burning bush is the fire of God's presence in the world and in the human heart, modern man is the fireman trying to put it out, always with new and better equipment, always with passionate intensity, and always with the same futile result” (p. 85).
In Archishop Chaput’s native Kansas, the wide expanse of prairie and sky imparts upon the human being the grandeur of Creation. At the same time the experience leaves a person intimately connected to it. This connectedness between the human person and Creation makes us thirst for its meaning and the Creator above all. In contrast, our reductionist, materialist culture shows contempt towards the Divine, only sating appetites and physical well-being, that ultimately never satisfy the restless heart.
Firemen and the Burning Bush
In the famous story of the Burning Bush God reveals himself to Moses in a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire. In our pride and idolatry, seeking control and making ourselves into gods, we act as firemen who try in vain to douse the Divine flames.