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In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments
From the prolific, profound pen of David Bentley Hart comes this collection of essays, reviews, and columns published in popular journals and newspapers over the past few years, comprising observations on culture, religion, and society at large. In the Aftermath fully displays the virtuosic prose that readers have come to expect from Hart.
218 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2008
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193 people want to read
About the author
David Bentley Hart
44 books698 followersDavid Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion and a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator, is a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He lives in South Bend, IN.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 16, 2014
Despite how I differ with David Hart in much of his theology, he has become one of my favorite authors, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of essays, articles and reviews he wrote. Even when he was writing on something of little interest to me, I couldn't help but appreciate his mastery of language and expression. Of course, it is sometimes obnoxious needing to look up the definition for words on my kindle every other page, but yeah, despite his absurdly large vocabulary, he is a great writer. One of my favorite chapters was "Freedom and Decency" which challenged my opinions on the topic of censorship. I really appreciate Harts Theodicy in the articles reflecting on the Tsunami, I want to go ahead and get his book on the topic. Of course "On the trail of the Snark with Daniel Dennett" is a gem, Theist cannot help but grin as they witness Hart with his merciless wit and intellect tear the new atheist asunder, he gives them a taste of their own medicine.
August 7, 2009
Although perhaps it was not always so, today it is all too rare to find oneself reveling in the exotic beauties of language and drinking from the deep wells of theological reflection at the same time, or simultaneously chortling with glee at a perfectly-placed and exquisitely-delivered verbal jab and meditating on the philosophical roots of modern society’s decadence, but this is exactly what will happen to you if you pick up David Bentley Hart’s In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments. Steeped in a savage but twinkling wit with a penchant for the flamboyantly absurd frontiers of language, David Bentley Hart’s essays on the plight of Western society and religion penetrate deep into the dark foundations of our cultural malaise, and shine the light of the gospel upon them with uncompromising clarity. The reader who detests the half-page long, 13-semicolon sentence (my opening sentence, though it may give you some idea of what to expect, is but a pale echo) and the eight-syllable word culled from the recesses of the Oxford English Dictionary will likely lose patience altogether with this book (though he may be so charmed as to rethink his prejudices), but other faults are hard to find.
The essays “Christ and Nothing,” “Religion in America,” “Freedom and Decency,” and “The Pornography Culture” offer an analysis of late Western modernity (particularly in its American manifestations) that is second to none. You will no doubt find yourself tempted, as I was, to return to them again and again to grasp more fully the array of startling insights here offered, and to stare in amazement at the shattered remains of cherished idols and ideologies that lie strewn about.
Scarcely less rewarding, however, are the dozen or so book reviews on topics ranging from the medieval Italian epic Orlando Innamorato to Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism. Nearly each of these reviews serves as an opportunity for Hart to make insightful observations about ethics, theology, sociology, or whatever the case may be, and many also serve as an occasion for Hart to showcase his scathing satirical wit, the more dramatic instances of which will leave the unprepared reader somewhat shell-shocked. Take, for instance, these choice words about the liberal Episcopalian John Shelby Spong: “Now, admittedly, Spong is a notorious simpleton, whose special combination of emotional instability and intellectual fatuity leaves him in a condition rather like a chronic delirium tremends; so it is not surprising that, on being somewhat unceremoniously roused from the parochial midden on which he had been contentedly reclining, his reaction should be puerile and vicious”; or this one about the neo-Darwinist bioethicist Joseph Fletcher: “What, after all, is a man with Fletcher’s meager intellectual gifts, grotesquely hypertrophied ego, and pestilentially sociopathic tendencies if not a kind of genetic scurf that ought to be scoured from the skin of the race”?
Such vicious satire has often troubled me in other writers, but in Hart’s hands, the sword is wielded with such an air of Chestertonian jocularity and flamboyance, such erudition backing up his critiques, and with such self-candor about the absurd fervency of his opinions, that it is hard not to cheer him on (or to take the blows gracefully when they are aimed at one of your own heroes). Moreover, Hart reserves such unalloyed abuse for the noxiously godless, and rarely fails to reveal a wry appreciation and warm respect for the Christian (or virtuous pagan) thinkers and traditions that he so sharply dissects.
Also included in this volume are three essays that are either part of or related to his little volume The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? These essays (and indeed, that volume) are perhaps not Hart at his best, for, while he scores some points against perversely Stoic forms of Calvinism, he paints with a very broad brush (or perhaps, fires with a very big shotgun), and fails to convincingly show a superior or even clear alternative to the accounts of God’s sovereignty that he finds so distasteful. But they are still a worthy read.
All the essays in this book have been previously published, and most are available online in some form or another, but, as most of these essays are full of such stunning paragraphs and deligntful sentences that one can scarce refrain from ripping out the highlighter or scribbling in the margins, the sensible reader will make the investment to buy this peerless volume.
The essays “Christ and Nothing,” “Religion in America,” “Freedom and Decency,” and “The Pornography Culture” offer an analysis of late Western modernity (particularly in its American manifestations) that is second to none. You will no doubt find yourself tempted, as I was, to return to them again and again to grasp more fully the array of startling insights here offered, and to stare in amazement at the shattered remains of cherished idols and ideologies that lie strewn about.
Scarcely less rewarding, however, are the dozen or so book reviews on topics ranging from the medieval Italian epic Orlando Innamorato to Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism. Nearly each of these reviews serves as an opportunity for Hart to make insightful observations about ethics, theology, sociology, or whatever the case may be, and many also serve as an occasion for Hart to showcase his scathing satirical wit, the more dramatic instances of which will leave the unprepared reader somewhat shell-shocked. Take, for instance, these choice words about the liberal Episcopalian John Shelby Spong: “Now, admittedly, Spong is a notorious simpleton, whose special combination of emotional instability and intellectual fatuity leaves him in a condition rather like a chronic delirium tremends; so it is not surprising that, on being somewhat unceremoniously roused from the parochial midden on which he had been contentedly reclining, his reaction should be puerile and vicious”; or this one about the neo-Darwinist bioethicist Joseph Fletcher: “What, after all, is a man with Fletcher’s meager intellectual gifts, grotesquely hypertrophied ego, and pestilentially sociopathic tendencies if not a kind of genetic scurf that ought to be scoured from the skin of the race”?
Such vicious satire has often troubled me in other writers, but in Hart’s hands, the sword is wielded with such an air of Chestertonian jocularity and flamboyance, such erudition backing up his critiques, and with such self-candor about the absurd fervency of his opinions, that it is hard not to cheer him on (or to take the blows gracefully when they are aimed at one of your own heroes). Moreover, Hart reserves such unalloyed abuse for the noxiously godless, and rarely fails to reveal a wry appreciation and warm respect for the Christian (or virtuous pagan) thinkers and traditions that he so sharply dissects.
Also included in this volume are three essays that are either part of or related to his little volume The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? These essays (and indeed, that volume) are perhaps not Hart at his best, for, while he scores some points against perversely Stoic forms of Calvinism, he paints with a very broad brush (or perhaps, fires with a very big shotgun), and fails to convincingly show a superior or even clear alternative to the accounts of God’s sovereignty that he finds so distasteful. But they are still a worthy read.
All the essays in this book have been previously published, and most are available online in some form or another, but, as most of these essays are full of such stunning paragraphs and deligntful sentences that one can scarce refrain from ripping out the highlighter or scribbling in the margins, the sensible reader will make the investment to buy this peerless volume.
March 2, 2017
DBH:n kova, kova artikkelikokoelma vuodelta 2009 sisältää kirkkaita helmiä ja vähemmän kiinnostavia kirjoituksia. Jonkinlaisena punaisena lankana on klassisen kristinuskon ja modernistisen, jälkikristillisen kulttuurin & valtion yhteensovittamaton ristiriita.
Hartin ylenpalttisen runsasta proosaa on nautinnollista lukea -- vaikka ilmaisu on ryyditetty tomuisilla bysanttilaisilla adjektiiveilla, se on samaan aikaan viiltävän terävää.
Erityismaininta artikkeleille Christ or Nothing, Freedom and Decency, Tsunami and Theodicy ja On the Trail of the Snark with Daniel Dennett.
Hartin ylenpalttisen runsasta proosaa on nautinnollista lukea -- vaikka ilmaisu on ryyditetty tomuisilla bysanttilaisilla adjektiiveilla, se on samaan aikaan viiltävän terävää.
Erityismaininta artikkeleille Christ or Nothing, Freedom and Decency, Tsunami and Theodicy ja On the Trail of the Snark with Daniel Dennett.
January 15, 2020
2.5. Really disappointed by this one. Wasn't really for me, as opinion columns (which a lot of these pieces basically are) and "hot takes" (likewise) leave me cold, but the florid style (when he referred to "hostelries" it made me want to chuck it out the window) made it an even more irritating read. I should probably have expected this, as I've read some stuff by DBH before, but it was just too much over the course of 200 pages. Trivial as this is to focus on, the precious style isn't a million miles away from the "takes" themselves, so many of which are just a weary and fogeyish set of howls against the modern world. Some of these have dated quite a lot and become a bit uncomfortable, especially with the reaction against DBH's hated 'liberal order' now expressing itself in the real world as unpleasant nativism yoked to an idea of Christendom that, several steps up the food chain, is idolised here.
The pieces here are unremittingly male, white and American, specifically the kind of American who spent a year or so working in Britain and so has a full brown leather satchel of gap year opinions on The Decaying Continent. Cringey stuff at times. Again, this is the apex predator of the type, but the type is the kind of internet bore making reactionary white guys great again. *However*, the 0.5 comes from one article in particular (The Angel at the Ford of Jabbok), where Hart gets to grips more illuminatingly with a writer, and where the fusty, cravate-wearing style and persona take more of a backseat, which was probably the kind of thing I was hoping for from this book in the first place.
Oh dear. Went on a bit there. Must be catching.
The pieces here are unremittingly male, white and American, specifically the kind of American who spent a year or so working in Britain and so has a full brown leather satchel of gap year opinions on The Decaying Continent. Cringey stuff at times. Again, this is the apex predator of the type, but the type is the kind of internet bore making reactionary white guys great again. *However*, the 0.5 comes from one article in particular (The Angel at the Ford of Jabbok), where Hart gets to grips more illuminatingly with a writer, and where the fusty, cravate-wearing style and persona take more of a backseat, which was probably the kind of thing I was hoping for from this book in the first place.
Oh dear. Went on a bit there. Must be catching.
November 9, 2017
A terrific collection of essays all in one volume. I found these contributions deeply influential spiritually, culturally, politically and societally. Real food for thought.
September 11, 2013
I have worked my way through David Bentley Hart's works this summer. This one has some of my favorite writing from him and some that was dull. I guess such things are to be expected from a book that is a collection of essays. The first essay, "Christ and Nothing" was fantastic. I wish I had read it prior to his tremendous book The Beauty of the Infinite as the essay serves as an introduction and overview to that longer book. There are other brilliant essays in here, causing me to say that this may be the best place to start if you want to begin reading Hart. Of course, the warning would be don't let the essays, often book reviews, that do not interest you drive you away from other of Hart's work.
The final essay in the book shows why we need writers like Hart in the Christian community as he skewers Daniel Dennett's book Breaking the Spell. If you want to read a smart Christian who is not afraid to go on the offensive, Hart is for you.
The final essay in the book shows why we need writers like Hart in the Christian community as he skewers Daniel Dennett's book Breaking the Spell. If you want to read a smart Christian who is not afraid to go on the offensive, Hart is for you.
March 18, 2025
Collection of essays DBH wrote for non-academic publications. Despite being a collection of essays, there are themes tying them together, some of which I haven’t seen emphasized much in DBH’s other writings. First and foremost was DBH’s conservatism. DBH is a strong critic of liberalism and modernity generally, especially its emphasis on choice as (seemingly) the highest good. To him freedom for us is understood as choice alone, free from any external constraints. There is no reason to appeal to higher goods, human nature, or aesthetic standards. If something is freely chosen, it’s permissible, or even praiseworthy, for no other reason than that it was chosen. DBH is sharply critical of this as inconsistent with the older conception of freedom followed by Christians, Jews, and virtuous pagans. To them, freedom means acting according to reason: understanding that human nature is called to something higher and choosing to further what is good and restrain what is bad. Of course, this conception of freedom requires “not only a belief that we possess an actual nature, which must flourish to be free, but a belief in the transcendent Good towards which that nature is oriented,” something that is lacking in our secularized culture.
I’m sympathetic to this, but I’m not sure how far to take its implications. It’s bizarre to defend choice as such; surely choice is only good if it’s oriented towards some vision of what is good for human beings. I do not think (as some libertarians do) that all drugs should be legalized; not because the war on drugs has failed, but because the freedom to choose is good in itself, regardless of how devastating the consequences are for us. The real question is, once we acknowledge that some choices should be restricted, which choices should we restrict? What is an impermissible constraint on human freedom, and what is an appropriate restriction of our worst instincts? DBH says internet pornography is something our society should be more willing to censor, and I generally agree; it likely does nothing more than degrade women and give society a warped view of sex. But beyond examples like that, it's hard to see how a government could restrict choice in a way that wouldn’t impose a particular vision of the good life on people who do not benefit from it. It’s also difficult to see whom we could trust to have this power.
DBH acknowledges these complaints somewhat. He agrees that the American government likely cannot be trusted with this power of censorship, but he still waxes nostalgic for the days of the Hays Code and aesthetic censorship. This is explored most thoroughly in the seventh essay, “Freedom and Decency,” but it's a constant theme throughout the book.
That wasn’t the only theme of the book, of course. DBH is critical of modernity generally, with its patronizing attitude toward religious belief and assurance in its own (very shaky) moral principles. As you might imagine, there is lots of biting, polemical rhetoric. The high point of this was his critique of self-proclaimed eugenicist Joseph Fletcher, whom he calls “an undistinguished and petulant little proto-Nazi with a scrofulous and incorrigibly adolescent mind, who was desperately anxious to deceive himself that he was superior to the common run of men, and who all too obviously received some sort of crypto-erotic thrill from his sadistic fantasies of creating a slave race, and of literally branding others as his genetic inferiors, and of exercising power over the minds and bodies of the low-born.”
And as always, there is plenty of insightful theology and words I had to look up (pennons, gonfalons, plangency, oleaginous, crepuscular etc).
Quotes
“For those who, on the one hand, believe that life is merely an accidental economy of matter that should be weighed by a utilitarian calculus of means and ends, and those who, on the other, believe that life is a supernatural gift oriented towards eternal glory, every moment of existence has a different significance and holds a different promise. To the one, a Down Syndrome child (for instance) is a genetic scandal, one who should probably be destroyed in the womb as a kind of oblation offered up to the social good and, of course, to some immeasurably remote future; to the other, that same child is potentially (and thus far already) a being so resplendent in his majesty, so mighty, so beautiful that we could scarcely hope to look upon him with the sinful eyes of this life and not be consumed.”
“The special genius of American religion (if that is what it is) is an inchoate, irrepressibly fissiparous force, a peregrine spirit of beginnings and endings (always re-founding the church and preparing for Armageddon), without any middle in which to come to rest.”
“The sublime spiritual sterility of the texts of Kant's philosophical maturity, for instance, could scarcely provide a more perspicuous glimpse into the personality of perhaps the single most boring man ever to darken a wigmaker's doorway.”
I’m sympathetic to this, but I’m not sure how far to take its implications. It’s bizarre to defend choice as such; surely choice is only good if it’s oriented towards some vision of what is good for human beings. I do not think (as some libertarians do) that all drugs should be legalized; not because the war on drugs has failed, but because the freedom to choose is good in itself, regardless of how devastating the consequences are for us. The real question is, once we acknowledge that some choices should be restricted, which choices should we restrict? What is an impermissible constraint on human freedom, and what is an appropriate restriction of our worst instincts? DBH says internet pornography is something our society should be more willing to censor, and I generally agree; it likely does nothing more than degrade women and give society a warped view of sex. But beyond examples like that, it's hard to see how a government could restrict choice in a way that wouldn’t impose a particular vision of the good life on people who do not benefit from it. It’s also difficult to see whom we could trust to have this power.
DBH acknowledges these complaints somewhat. He agrees that the American government likely cannot be trusted with this power of censorship, but he still waxes nostalgic for the days of the Hays Code and aesthetic censorship. This is explored most thoroughly in the seventh essay, “Freedom and Decency,” but it's a constant theme throughout the book.
That wasn’t the only theme of the book, of course. DBH is critical of modernity generally, with its patronizing attitude toward religious belief and assurance in its own (very shaky) moral principles. As you might imagine, there is lots of biting, polemical rhetoric. The high point of this was his critique of self-proclaimed eugenicist Joseph Fletcher, whom he calls “an undistinguished and petulant little proto-Nazi with a scrofulous and incorrigibly adolescent mind, who was desperately anxious to deceive himself that he was superior to the common run of men, and who all too obviously received some sort of crypto-erotic thrill from his sadistic fantasies of creating a slave race, and of literally branding others as his genetic inferiors, and of exercising power over the minds and bodies of the low-born.”
And as always, there is plenty of insightful theology and words I had to look up (pennons, gonfalons, plangency, oleaginous, crepuscular etc).
Quotes
“For those who, on the one hand, believe that life is merely an accidental economy of matter that should be weighed by a utilitarian calculus of means and ends, and those who, on the other, believe that life is a supernatural gift oriented towards eternal glory, every moment of existence has a different significance and holds a different promise. To the one, a Down Syndrome child (for instance) is a genetic scandal, one who should probably be destroyed in the womb as a kind of oblation offered up to the social good and, of course, to some immeasurably remote future; to the other, that same child is potentially (and thus far already) a being so resplendent in his majesty, so mighty, so beautiful that we could scarcely hope to look upon him with the sinful eyes of this life and not be consumed.”
“The special genius of American religion (if that is what it is) is an inchoate, irrepressibly fissiparous force, a peregrine spirit of beginnings and endings (always re-founding the church and preparing for Armageddon), without any middle in which to come to rest.”
“The sublime spiritual sterility of the texts of Kant's philosophical maturity, for instance, could scarcely provide a more perspicuous glimpse into the personality of perhaps the single most boring man ever to darken a wigmaker's doorway.”
August 8, 2017
This book is a collection of essays from David Bentley Hart. It took me quite a long time to read because I kept it in my truck as sort of a "back-up" book, for situations where I unexpectedly had 20 minutes to kill and nothing else to read. In that way, I chipped at it slowly, 10-15 pages at a time, which worked just fine given the bite-sized, unrelated essays.
DBH is published regularly in First Things, and I always look forward to his writing. But I previously reviewed one of his books (Atheist Delusions) somewhat negatively. Fortunately, everything I love about his writing in First Things is on full display—indeed, many of the essays included were originally published in First Things—and the complaints I had about Atheist Delusions don't apply.
As to the former: anyone who has ever read DBH will instantly recognize his masterful use of the English language, which he deploys in a dense, snarky stream utterly unique to him. It is deeply satisfying to read him rhetorically demolish a moral cretin (Joseph Fletcher and Daniel Dennett are some of the most entertaining targets here).
As to the latter: because the essays are all relatively short and unrelated, I never got bogged down as I did in Atheist Delusions. Some of them are certainly more interesting than others (see three highlights below), but even the ones that didn't capture my interest had the merit of being brief.
Although I have a long backlog of books that I need to get through, at least one of the more recently-published DBH collections-of-essays (he published two just in the past year) will soon be in my truck as my new "back up" book.
For those interested in a sample, at least three of the essays that I particularly enjoyed can be found freely on the web:
Daniel Dennett Hunts the Snark - https://www.firstthings.com/article/2...
The Anti-Theology of the Body - http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publica...
Religion in America: Ancient and Modern - http://davidbhart.blogspot.com/2007/1...
DBH is published regularly in First Things, and I always look forward to his writing. But I previously reviewed one of his books (Atheist Delusions) somewhat negatively. Fortunately, everything I love about his writing in First Things is on full display—indeed, many of the essays included were originally published in First Things—and the complaints I had about Atheist Delusions don't apply.
As to the former: anyone who has ever read DBH will instantly recognize his masterful use of the English language, which he deploys in a dense, snarky stream utterly unique to him. It is deeply satisfying to read him rhetorically demolish a moral cretin (Joseph Fletcher and Daniel Dennett are some of the most entertaining targets here).
As to the latter: because the essays are all relatively short and unrelated, I never got bogged down as I did in Atheist Delusions. Some of them are certainly more interesting than others (see three highlights below), but even the ones that didn't capture my interest had the merit of being brief.
Although I have a long backlog of books that I need to get through, at least one of the more recently-published DBH collections-of-essays (he published two just in the past year) will soon be in my truck as my new "back up" book.
For those interested in a sample, at least three of the essays that I particularly enjoyed can be found freely on the web:
Daniel Dennett Hunts the Snark - https://www.firstthings.com/article/2...
The Anti-Theology of the Body - http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publica...
Religion in America: Ancient and Modern - http://davidbhart.blogspot.com/2007/1...
September 8, 2018
Essays from 2001-2006
This is a collection of reprinted articles that originally appeared in various journals and newspapers — especially (the conservative, mostly Roman Catholic journal) First Things: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life — from 2001-2006. In these, the author describes himself as “a person of reactionary temper, suffering from a romantic devotion to the vanished Christian order, and to all the marvels that flowed from its glorious synthesis of Judaic and Hellenic genius....” Actually, David Bentley Hart does not fit into the usual typologies of “conservative” or “liberal” — as more recent (or recently known) elements of his thinking show — but, here he generally sounds quite conservative. (Some of the essays allude to the evil of abortion, for example.) There are people who read Hart as much for his writing style as for his opinions. There are some great essays here. I imagine most (if not all) of them can be found online — some of them I had read before — but it is nice to have them in a collected form. If the reader is not reading this on Kindle, keep a dictionary nearby. DBH is one of those writers who loves to insert just the right word — and especially if it’s an unfamiliar, underused word. This is an older book for Kindle and it’s format hasn’t been updated, so the formatting is a problem — only noticed when you bookmark, or copy text, or try to share on social media.
This is a collection of reprinted articles that originally appeared in various journals and newspapers — especially (the conservative, mostly Roman Catholic journal) First Things: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life — from 2001-2006. In these, the author describes himself as “a person of reactionary temper, suffering from a romantic devotion to the vanished Christian order, and to all the marvels that flowed from its glorious synthesis of Judaic and Hellenic genius....” Actually, David Bentley Hart does not fit into the usual typologies of “conservative” or “liberal” — as more recent (or recently known) elements of his thinking show — but, here he generally sounds quite conservative. (Some of the essays allude to the evil of abortion, for example.) There are people who read Hart as much for his writing style as for his opinions. There are some great essays here. I imagine most (if not all) of them can be found online — some of them I had read before — but it is nice to have them in a collected form. If the reader is not reading this on Kindle, keep a dictionary nearby. DBH is one of those writers who loves to insert just the right word — and especially if it’s an unfamiliar, underused word. This is an older book for Kindle and it’s format hasn’t been updated, so the formatting is a problem — only noticed when you bookmark, or copy text, or try to share on social media.
February 22, 2025
I read the vast majority of these essays, focusing on the long-form cultural commentary pieces, rather than dwelling on Hart's shorter "takes". (i.e., his penchant for Waugh's travel writings). Hart is, as the name of the volume suggests, a provocative theologian, leveling devastating critiques at voluntarism in all its forms. His rich background in the theology of the Eastern Church, and his refined literary sensibilities - evidenced by his positively baroque vocabulary, and a Pauline mastery of dependent clauses - makes him a prophetic, wizened voice to hear amid the ever-growing din of a Post-Christian, yet somehow extremely preachy?, late modernity in all its consistently revolting aspects. Everything will be sacrificed on the altar of "individual rights", even as state power only expands to legislate every aspect of our lives: birth and death, marriage and final rites, all will fall beneath the jurisdiction of the state...all in the name of "preserving the rights of the individual"...
May 2, 2024
“Always have a dictionary when you read because no interesting writer has a small vocabulary.” - Nabokov
"If one wants to convince others of the justness of one's views of anything, perhaps one ought to proceed in as moderate and cautious a manner as one can. But, then again, perhaps one occasionally should not; some ideas are simply evil, and the persons who conceive them somewhat depraved, and there may be something rather disgraceful in an unwillingness to say so."
Worthy Quotes:
“I don’t mean they don’t believe in anything, but they believe in nothing.” - Truth and Nothing
There would be little purpose here in rehearsing the story of how late medieval “voluntarism” altered the understanding of freedom — both divine and human — in the direction of the self-moved will, and subtly elevated will in the sense of sheer spontaneity of choice (arbitrium) over will in the sense of a rational nature’s orientation towards the good (voluntas); or of how later moral and political theory evolved from this one strange and vital apostasy, until freedom came to be conceived not as the liberation of one’s nature, but as power over one’s nature. What is worth noting, however, is that the modern understanding of freedom is essentially incompatible with the Jewish, classical, or Christian understanding of man, the world, and society. Freedom, as we now conceive of it, presumes — and must ever more consciously pursue — an irreducible nihilism: for there must literally be nothing transcendent of the will that might command it towards ends it would not choose for itself, no value higher than those the will imposes upon its world, no nature but what the will elects for itself. - Pornography Culture
"If one wants to convince others of the justness of one's views of anything, perhaps one ought to proceed in as moderate and cautious a manner as one can. But, then again, perhaps one occasionally should not; some ideas are simply evil, and the persons who conceive them somewhat depraved, and there may be something rather disgraceful in an unwillingness to say so."
Worthy Quotes:
“I don’t mean they don’t believe in anything, but they believe in nothing.” - Truth and Nothing
There would be little purpose here in rehearsing the story of how late medieval “voluntarism” altered the understanding of freedom — both divine and human — in the direction of the self-moved will, and subtly elevated will in the sense of sheer spontaneity of choice (arbitrium) over will in the sense of a rational nature’s orientation towards the good (voluntas); or of how later moral and political theory evolved from this one strange and vital apostasy, until freedom came to be conceived not as the liberation of one’s nature, but as power over one’s nature. What is worth noting, however, is that the modern understanding of freedom is essentially incompatible with the Jewish, classical, or Christian understanding of man, the world, and society. Freedom, as we now conceive of it, presumes — and must ever more consciously pursue — an irreducible nihilism: for there must literally be nothing transcendent of the will that might command it towards ends it would not choose for itself, no value higher than those the will imposes upon its world, no nature but what the will elects for itself. - Pornography Culture
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews