I wonder if the new “woke” religion is merely a first attempt at creating a post-Christian religion, and whether many more are due to come. People will always choose to adore, but what they will adore will change from age to age. Patrick Deneen’s thinking is on point on what is the correct way to view universities and respond to the new religions. That response is not a Benedictine retreat (though it has it’s important place), but a cosmopolitan -Augustinian- response. A vigorous defense of faith on the public square, which this article is very much an example of. Looking forward to more defenses of Catholic culture like this and of a greater awareness of the insidiousness of modern orthodoxy.
I am comparing what Patrick Deneen has written here with the enormous support my Law School, Duquesne, a Catholic School, has given to my recent book The Universe Is on Our Side, which is all about how to build a healthy secular civilization after the Death of God. By Deneen's reasoning, this is a mistake by the law school. But from where I stand, as someone who left Judaism but knows religious faith when he sees it, Deneen sounds to me like someone who believes the future of God is in his own, political, hands. It sounds like a lack of faith. Duquesne, in contrast, seems like a place that retains faith that sincere spiritual searching must lead one to God. And, no, its openness has not rendered Duquesne like every secular University. Instead, its openness has made Duquesne uniquely a place where a serious question can still be asked.
Against Academic Freedom”, by Patrick Deneen, is spot on.
“I wonder if the new “woke” religion is merely a first attempt at creating a post-Christian religion.”
No doubt, the new “woke” religion serves as an attempt to replace Christianity with humanism sans God, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Author Of Life, Of Love, And Of Marriage, and thus The Author Of Our Inherent, Unalienable Right To Life, To Liberty, And To The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Purpose Of Which Can Only Be, What God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Intended.
It has always been the same old story, “and ye can be like gods”, declaring what is Good and what is evil, sans The Truth Of Love Incarnate.
The "new woke religion" ? Is woke (and liberalism) the new religion? Or Is religion now woke?
What about The Woke Pope?
Where do the alumni stand with the ND university? Do they have any power to keep the school at least middle of the road? Some smaller religion based/ backed universities are in a different arena because they are not in the position of Big Sports Teams, Famous Law Schools, Medical Schools, and Post -Graduate Programs, etc. Where money, money, money is more important than academic freedom.
I will take the ancient teachings of Christianity over today’s religion of humanity any time. The religion of humanity is simply wrong in that it rejects rational inquiry, it is replete with inductive logic and argues against deductive reasoning. It obsesses on power differentials and points to truth in lived experience: nonsense.
The New Religion, as it were, extends far beyond our universities and is exerting itself into shared public institutions and private corporations. Conform or perish. It’s reminiscent of the the English reformation and the police state of Tudor England. Probably some lessons to pull from that time for those of us destined for recusantry.
Long story short: Woke types were once the underdogs at universities; now they're the uberdogs. OK, so we need to fight back with every weapon we either craft or find lying around. Prof. Deneen has done a wonderful job in crafting -- or reassembling -- the traditional Catholic response to Mill's reasoning. But we need also to fight the enemy with their own weapons, demanding free and open debate on campus and the right to challenge my woke professors in class. Any means necessary! If I charge the enemy and my gun jams, I'll grab any weapon nearby, including that machine gun in the hands of a dead enemy soldier.
If you can show that academic freedom, in the way that you characterise it, causes harm to others, then you have no quarrel with Mill, who writes: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." Is there no religious or conservative scholar on whom you can base your argument directly, rather than relying upon a Straussian reading of Mill? ... Separately, I cannot guess what you might think of Isaiah Berlin, but when I see you invoking "a liberal conception of freedom ... directly opposed to the classical and Catholic understanding of liberty" I have to wonder aloud about your capacity to oppose "liberty" and "freedom". (And shall want further and better particulars on the identity between "classical and Catholic" understanding of liberty. I imagine, without having given the idea much deep thought, that conceptions of liberty under Homeric gods and the God the New Testament are likely to encompass some tensions.) As Berlin used to say (I paraphrase), freedom is freedom, it is not justice, or equality, or any of the other things that we might like to equate it with. Sometimes you have to choose. If you think that students and university administrators are conspiring to abuse the freedoms they possess, then you can call for them to be regulated in ways of which you approve. But if you think that to be an increase in liberty, or freedom, then I wish Dr Johnson were still alive to engage you in conversation.
I wonder if the new “woke” religion is merely a first attempt at creating a post-Christian religion, and whether many more are due to come. People will always choose to adore, but what they will adore will change from age to age. Patrick Deneen’s thinking is on point on what is the correct way to view universities and respond to the new religions. That response is not a Benedictine retreat (though it has it’s important place), but a cosmopolitan -Augustinian- response. A vigorous defense of faith on the public square, which this article is very much an example of. Looking forward to more defenses of Catholic culture like this and of a greater awareness of the insidiousness of modern orthodoxy.
I am comparing what Patrick Deneen has written here with the enormous support my Law School, Duquesne, a Catholic School, has given to my recent book The Universe Is on Our Side, which is all about how to build a healthy secular civilization after the Death of God. By Deneen's reasoning, this is a mistake by the law school. But from where I stand, as someone who left Judaism but knows religious faith when he sees it, Deneen sounds to me like someone who believes the future of God is in his own, political, hands. It sounds like a lack of faith. Duquesne, in contrast, seems like a place that retains faith that sincere spiritual searching must lead one to God. And, no, its openness has not rendered Duquesne like every secular University. Instead, its openness has made Duquesne uniquely a place where a serious question can still be asked.
Against Academic Freedom”, by Patrick Deneen, is spot on.
“I wonder if the new “woke” religion is merely a first attempt at creating a post-Christian religion.”
No doubt, the new “woke” religion serves as an attempt to replace Christianity with humanism sans God, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Author Of Life, Of Love, And Of Marriage, and thus The Author Of Our Inherent, Unalienable Right To Life, To Liberty, And To The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Purpose Of Which Can Only Be, What God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Intended.
It has always been the same old story, “and ye can be like gods”, declaring what is Good and what is evil, sans The Truth Of Love Incarnate.
The "new woke religion" ? Is woke (and liberalism) the new religion? Or Is religion now woke?
What about The Woke Pope?
Where do the alumni stand with the ND university? Do they have any power to keep the school at least middle of the road? Some smaller religion based/ backed universities are in a different arena because they are not in the position of Big Sports Teams, Famous Law Schools, Medical Schools, and Post -Graduate Programs, etc. Where money, money, money is more important than academic freedom.
I will take the ancient teachings of Christianity over today’s religion of humanity any time. The religion of humanity is simply wrong in that it rejects rational inquiry, it is replete with inductive logic and argues against deductive reasoning. It obsesses on power differentials and points to truth in lived experience: nonsense.
This all seems very unfortunately true to me.
The New Religion, as it were, extends far beyond our universities and is exerting itself into shared public institutions and private corporations. Conform or perish. It’s reminiscent of the the English reformation and the police state of Tudor England. Probably some lessons to pull from that time for those of us destined for recusantry.
Long story short: Woke types were once the underdogs at universities; now they're the uberdogs. OK, so we need to fight back with every weapon we either craft or find lying around. Prof. Deneen has done a wonderful job in crafting -- or reassembling -- the traditional Catholic response to Mill's reasoning. But we need also to fight the enemy with their own weapons, demanding free and open debate on campus and the right to challenge my woke professors in class. Any means necessary! If I charge the enemy and my gun jams, I'll grab any weapon nearby, including that machine gun in the hands of a dead enemy soldier.
George McKenna
If you can show that academic freedom, in the way that you characterise it, causes harm to others, then you have no quarrel with Mill, who writes: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." Is there no religious or conservative scholar on whom you can base your argument directly, rather than relying upon a Straussian reading of Mill? ... Separately, I cannot guess what you might think of Isaiah Berlin, but when I see you invoking "a liberal conception of freedom ... directly opposed to the classical and Catholic understanding of liberty" I have to wonder aloud about your capacity to oppose "liberty" and "freedom". (And shall want further and better particulars on the identity between "classical and Catholic" understanding of liberty. I imagine, without having given the idea much deep thought, that conceptions of liberty under Homeric gods and the God the New Testament are likely to encompass some tensions.) As Berlin used to say (I paraphrase), freedom is freedom, it is not justice, or equality, or any of the other things that we might like to equate it with. Sometimes you have to choose. If you think that students and university administrators are conspiring to abuse the freedoms they possess, then you can call for them to be regulated in ways of which you approve. But if you think that to be an increase in liberty, or freedom, then I wish Dr Johnson were still alive to engage you in conversation.