Out Of The Ashes

Anthony Esolen, a professor at Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire and recently of Providence College, Rhode Island, has written a stinging critique of modern education and American society in general titled Out Of The Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture published by Regnery Publishers, 2017.

It's a short book - 203 pages – but contains much wise social commentary and observations on everything wrong with American education, if there's any such thing. Esolen is not one to beat around the bush. If you don't agree with him it isn't because he is opaque. For instance, chapter one is titled, Giving Things Their Proper Names: The Restoration Of Truth Telling. It is divided into several sections with their own headings, one of which is Are We a World of Liars?

“In a word, yes.

It is almost impossible in the modern world not to accept lies as a matter of course. We are told that a woman can make as good a soldier as a man. Except for the rare amazon, that is a lie”

In the same vein a few pages later: “Here is a quick and generally reliable rule to follow. If people have always said it, it is probably true; it is the distilled wisdom of the ages. If people have not always said it, but everybody is saying it now, it is probably a lie; it is the concentrated madness of the moment.”

Most of what he says in the book is glaringly obvious, but it is so seldom spoken or written that it becomes heroic when written or spoken audibly. When referring to teachers who have acquiesced to imparting depravity, he writes:

“It will not do merely to restrain them in this or that regard. They are not fit to teach your children the multiplication table. They are not fit to be near them at all. Every moment that your children are in their presence, they will be breathing the putrescent air from the diseased heart and spirit of the instructors, in an institution whose walls stink of it, it has lingered there so long.”

Just a few years ago, in the memory of almost everybody, a statement like,“First let us establish that there are such things as the sexes.” would have met with everybody's assent. Most people reading it would be wondering why such a thing would need to be established at all. Now such a proposition is not just questionable, it might even be “controversial” or hate speech or some kind of micro aggression.

Esolen is such a hater (maybe even a Neanderthal) that he writes:

“We are taught from the time we enter the indoctrination centers that the only differences between men and women are trivial matters of plumbing. It is not true.

When the European missionaries came to the new world to evangelize the natives, they did not find creatures of a different species. They found human beings, male and female. They did not find any tribes in which the women met in council, hunted the large animals, smoked the peace pipe, trained up their daughters in savage displays of physical courage and endurance (the “sun dance” of the Plains Indians, for example) and established elaborate hierarchies of honor. They did not find any tribes in which the men took care of small children, gathered roots and berries, made themselves up with pretty decorations to delight their women … and made “nests,” as it were, as clean and neat as possible, for the sake of the little ones, and because that is the way they liked things best.

They found men and women. That is what you will find wherever you go in the world.”

I can't disagree with any of his assessments about the shipwreck of the schools or his suggested remedies. The one thing I think is absolutely essential that isn't mentioned and is never mentioned by anybody in the reformist camp is the necessity of prohibiting government involvement of any kind in schooling or anything else having to do with forming thoughts, opinions or beliefs. No matter who is in charge, be it Aristotle, Pythagoras, Isaac Newton or Erasmus, they won't always be in charge, and the forces of coercion will always seek control. All compulsion should be eliminated. Certainly there will be parents that don't send their children to school or teach them themselves, but there always have been and always will be unfit parents. Compulsory schooling has always been about teaching children the “right” things, not about education.

This is a book that will be appreciated by anybody interested in the social, cultural, educational and intellectual collapse of society and its possible remedy.

Church Of Spies

“There's a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every move he makes 
another chance he takes
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man”

So said Johnny Rivers in the theme to the '60s show Secret Agent. Mark Riebling draws a far different picture in his book Church Of Spies in which most of the subjects know each other and use their real names.

When I first heard of the book I thought it was some kind of silly Dan Brown novel with lots of nonsensical theories about cloak and dagger plots. It isn't that at all. It is a short, heavily footnoted (end notes, actually) page turner. The book is only 250 pages, but has an additional 125 pages of notes, index and sources.

Many of the people mentioned in the book will be familiar – at least by name – to most people; Pope Pius XII, Allen Dulles, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Hans and Sophie Scholl and of course Adolf Hitler. Less well known are people like Gereon Goldmann, a Franciscan seminarian who was drafted into the Waffen SS and later wrote about his exploits in The Shadow of His Wings, Rupert Mayer, a Jesuit who won two Iron Crosses in WW I, lost a leg for his efforts and was later jailed for opposing National Socialism, and Josef Muller the man who is pretty much the book's protagonist.

Muller, whom the Nazis considered “the best agent of the Vatican Intelligence in Germany” was a figure that sounds like the product of a spy thriller writer's imagination. As Riebling relates, he was arrested by the Gestapo for trying to kill Hitler.

“He refused to confess, however. 'Muller had nerves like ropes and dominated the situation,' a prison aide recalled. When guards unshackled him, he threw them using jujitsu. His resolve awed other prisoners, who had misjudged him as a regular Joe. 'To look at,' wrote a British spy jailed with Muller, 'he was just an ordinary stoutish little man with a florid complexion and drab fair hair cut en brosse, the sort of man, whom you would not look at a second time if you met him anywhere, and yet, one of the bravest and most determined men imaginable.'”

Many times the plotters would pass on intelligence about Hitler's plans, but he would change them and consequently their intelligence would be wrong. Several attempts on Hitler's life failed because of timing, equipment failure or because Hitler seemed to have a diabolical guardian. One time a bomb actually went off next to Hitler, but he survived. Another time the plotters could have shot him at a meeting, but instead planted a bomb on his plane disguised as a bottle of cognac. The bomb failed to go off which illustrates the maxim that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Although this is not an apologia for Pius XII, he comes off looking very good. His detractors waited until he was safely dead before claiming that he didn't speak up against Hitler. Nobody ever denounces the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Methodists, the Dalai Lama, Zoroastrians or the Baptists for their “silence,” only Pius XII.

Pius coordinated with Jewish rescue groups to help them escape Europe, funneling money through various countries, but the groups would not accept Catholics of Jewish descent so he could do little for the latter.

One of their plans that has backfired badly was a common currency. Muller theorized that if Europe was linked economically it would prevent future wars. They probably didn't foresee Europe becoming a unified mega-state in which national borders mean little or nothing and where the whole world seems to be entitled to move there.

Considering the number of plotters and their positions – many were high in the military – it is surprising that they were not discovered sooner. The book also shows that there were many who wanted Hitler gone, but were afraid to act or thought that fighting against their own government was treasonous. Seeing as how many of the plotters were captured and killed it is understandable why they didn't want to get involved. That's the way most people are everywhere.

As Johnny Rivers sang, “Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow,” many of them didn't, but a few did and Mark Reibling has written a riveting account of them.

Summer Reading, Or Fall....

If a young whippersnapper came to me and asked what books would be useful to read - none has, nor is it likely - before entering college or even while in high-school, I would probably come up with a list that would assure the inquirer of being an academic outcast.

The first book I would recommend would be The Law by Frederic Bastiat, because it is both profound and simple. This little seventy-five page book has probably influenced more people's thinking than just about any other book on the subject in the 160 or so years since its first publication. This would be the first in order, with the others in no particular order.

Another book I really like for its simplicity and lucidity is Fugitive Essays by Frank Chodorov.  Anything by Chodorov is excellent, but Fugitive Essays gives a nice overview in one book. After my imaginary understudy has read that, he will probably want to read The Rise and Fall of Society; the income tax: the root of all evil; One Is A Crowd; and Out of Step.

Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy The State is a good follow-up to Chodorov since they were friends and co-conspirators against our common enemy. Nock should be studied for his writing ability if for no other reason. He makes a distinction between "government," which is a negative concept that protects life and property, and "The State," which is an all-controlling paternalistic abomination such as we now have.

A book that I have never seen on "book lists" is The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by A. G. Sertillanges, O.P. I have lent this book to several people and all thought it was brilliant. The author could have easily been writing about Nock or Chodorov when he wrote in his preface:

"When the world does not like you it takes its revenge on you; if it happens to like you, it takes its revenge still by corrupting you. Your only resource is to work far from the world, as indifferent to its judgments as you are ready to serve it. It is perhaps best if it rejects you and thus obliges you to fall back on yourself, to grow interiorly, to watch yourself, to deepen yourself."

Elsewhere: "To get something without paying for it is the universal desire; but it is the desire of cowardly hearts and weak brains."

In a chapter on virtue, Sertillanges puts his finger on why smart people aren't necessarily the solution to our problems: "The qualities of character have a preponderant role in everything. The intellect is only a tool; the handling of it determines the nature of its effects."

Someone commented in a review on AMAZON that The Machiavellians: Defenders Of Freedom is "...the best primer on political science ever written." I don't know if that's true, but I think the book has great merit.

It was a follow-up of sorts to James Burnham's earlier book The Managerial Revolution. It is out of print now, but available on audio and can be found at used book sites, but is usually pricey.

Burnham goes to great lengths to explain how politics works; not how people think it works. As an example: "In any case, whatever may be the desires of most men, it is most certainly against the interests of the powerful that the truth should be known about political behavior. If the political truths stated or approximated by Machiavelli were widely known by men, the success of tyranny and all the other forms of oppressive political rule would become much less likely. . . .Machiavelli says that rulers lie and break faith: this proves, they say, that he libels human nature. Machiavelli says that ambitious men struggle for power: he is apologizing for the opposition, the enemy, and trying to confuse you about us, who wish to lead you for your own good and welfare. Machiavelli says that you must keep strict watch over officials and subordinate them to the law: he is encouraging subversion and the loss of national unity. Machiavelli says that no man with power is to be trusted: you see that his aim is to smash all your faith and ideals.

Small wonder that the powerful – in public - denounce Machiavelli. The powerful have long practice and much skill in sizing up their opponents. They can recognize an enemy who will never compromise, even when that enemy is so abstract as a body of ideas.”  

After my understudy has completed these, it might be time for a little light reading, such as Flannery O'Connor's letters collected by Sally Fitzgerald under the title The Habit of Being. I have never found anybody who didn't find them highly entertaining. If you have read any of her short stories or novels and found them bizarre you can forget about that - this is everyday correspondence filled with profound insights, sound advice and hilarious anecdotes. They are probably funnier and more interesting to a southerner since they recall things that would be familiar to southerners living at that time, but just about anybody would find them interesting.

If my imaginary friend is thinking of joining the military to "get money for college,"  "see the world"  or "defend our freedom," I would suggest that he read Paul Fussell's book Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. The subtitle makes it sound like it's some kind of psychology text book, which it isn't.
It is a highly readable account of the way things really are in the military - not what you might be told by the recruiter.

Two books that might be useful in gaining a grasp of American History around the War of Southern Secession are When in the Course of Human Events by Charles Adams and The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo. These two sort of overlap, but DiLorenzo's book is the better written, I think.

Charles Adams wrote another book called For Good And Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization which has all kinds of interesting stuff from the message on the Rosetta Stone to why newspapers were printed on broadsheets.

Is Davis a Traitor? Well, no, but that's the title of a book by Albert Taylor Bledsoe, with the subtitle, Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861? The book makes it clear that secession definitely was a right. This was later reprinted under the title The War between the States and Bledsoe answers the question from every angle.

A book that points to many other books is Another Sort of Learning - Selected Contrary Essays on the Completion of Our Knowing or How Finally to Acquire an Education While Still in College, or Anywhere Else: Containing Some Belated Advice about How to Employ Your Leisure Time When Ultimate Questions Remain Perplexing in Spite of Your Highest Earned Academic Degree, Together with Sundry Book Lists Nowhere Else in captivity to Be Found. The subtitle pretty much explains what it's about. It's what might be called a book about truth or the "permanent things." It is a useful book by James V. Schall who is, or was a professor at Georgetown. Some of the books he recommends don't coincide with my tastes, but others do.

The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul is a very good introduction to what is frequently referred to as "The Freedom Philosophy." It is written in a very simple style and is probably persuasive to those who are going to be persuaded. The back has a pretty good reading list for further reading. This is not a typical book written by a politician about "How I overcame adversity by keeping my nose to the grindstone and  judiciously employing my time and money to pull myself up by my own bootstraps." It's a book by a guy who has a grasp of immutable principles.

This list should keep my young friend busy for a week or two.

Outflanking Lewis

Once upon a time C. S. Lewis wrote an essay entitled, On The Reading Of Old Books. In it, he advises reading old books to avoid becoming conditioned exclusively by your own time. To quote: "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one for every three new ones."

I like this advice because I tend to prefer old books to new ones, but I would think it sound advice even if I preferred reading new books. What brought this essay to mind was a recent story about the republication of Mark Twain's writings in a sanitized form, removing words deemed to be racially offensive and perhaps some other revisions. This is not the first time stories like this have appeared. Several years ago, there were stories of Lewis' own Chronicles Of Narnia being reissued in a version that had their Christian imagery expunged.

It seems to me not only silly, but the height of presumption to alter the work of someone else without his approval. Any modern revisionist that took it upon himself to "update" the Mona Lisa by putting a tattoo on her or adding an outboard motor to Charon's boat would be recognized for the criminal, iconoclastic kook that he was. When Ted Turner's outfit - I know not which one, TCM perhaps - started colorizing old black and white movies there was more objection than I have seen to altering the written works of the past. Colorization changes the appearance, but not the content of the work; changing the wording changes the message and deprives the reader of a vicarious excursion into the past. As Lewis says, "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period."

Our age is afflicted with what I call "chronological snobbery" - the belief that all our predecessors were mired in ignorance, prejudice, superstition, gullibility and all that is bad or harmful. It's amazing that such benighted people should have produced such enlightened progeny. Fortunately they did, and now we can correct all their errors; but correcting their errors will deprive subsequent generations of discovering our perfection.
Where books are concerned, age is a pretty good test of worth. Plato, Dante and St. Augustine will probably still be read in five-hundred years, whereas Paul Ehrlich probably won't; but if we "update" the first three they will lose their value.

In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Mustapha Mond has a vault in which he keeps forbidden books. If the modernizing biblioclasts continue their work, future readers will need to find that vault.