Pope Benedict XVI on Beauty, Art and Society

On Saturday, Nov. 21, Pope Benedict met with 250 artists in the Sistine Chapel to discuss how Beauty and genuine Art may uplift the soul, and how this is particularly important today.   The official transcript may be found here.

Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Artists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so rich in art and in history. I cordially greet each and every one of you and I thank you for accepting my invitation. At this gathering I wish to express and renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art, a friendship that has been strengthened over time; indeed Christianity from its earliest days has recognized the value of the arts and has made wise use of their varied language to express her unvarying message of salvation. This friendship must be continually promoted and supported so that it may be authentic and fruitful, adapted to different historical periods and attentive to social and cultural variations. Indeed, this is the reason for our meeting here today. I am deeply grateful to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church, and likewise to his officials, for promoting and organizing this meeting, and I thank him for the words he has just addressed to me. I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests and the various distinguished personalities present. I also thank the Sistine Chapel Choir for their contribution to this gathering. Today’s event is focused on you, dear and illustrious artists, from different countries, cultures and religions, some of you perhaps remote from the practice of religion, but interested nevertheless in maintaining communication with the Catholic Church, in not reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, to a reductive and trivializing vision. You represent the varied world of the arts and so, through you, I would like to convey to all artists my invitation to friendship, dialogue and cooperation.

Some significant anniversaries occur around this time. It is ten years since the Letter to Artists by my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II. For the first time, on the eve of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Pope, who was an artist himself, wrote a Letter to artists, combining the solemnity of a pontifical document with the friendly tone of a conversation among all who, as we read in the initial salutation, “are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty”. Twenty-five years ago the same Pope proclaimed Blessed Fra Angelico the patron of artists, presenting him as a model of perfect harmony between faith and art. I also recall how on 7 May 1964, forty-five years ago, in this very place, an historic event took place, at the express wish of Pope Paul VI, to confirm the friendship between the Church and the arts. The words that he spoke on that occasion resound once more today under the vault of the Sistine Chapel and touch our hearts and our minds. “We need you,” he said. “We need your collaboration in order to carry out our ministry, which consists, as you know, in preaching and rendering accessible and comprehensible to the minds and hearts of our people the things of the spirit, the invisible, the ineffable, the things of God himself. And in this activity … you are masters. It is your task, your mission, and your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms – making them accessible.” So great was Paul VI’s esteem for artists that he was moved to use daring expressions. “And if we were deprived of your assistance,” he added, “our ministry would become faltering and uncertain, and a special effort would be needed, one might say, to make it artistic, even prophetic. In order to scale the heights of lyrical expression of intuitive beauty, priesthood would have to coincide with art.” On that occasion Paul VI made a commitment to “re-establish the friendship between the Church and artists”, and he invited artists to make a similar, shared commitment, analyzing seriously and objectively the factors that disturbed this relationship, and assuming individual responsibility, courageously and passionately, for a newer and deeper journey in mutual acquaintance and dialogue in order to arrive at an authentic “renaissance” of art in the context of a new humanism.

That historic encounter, as I mentioned, took place here in this sanctuary of faith and human creativity. So it is not by chance that we come together in this place, esteemed for its architecture and its symbolism, and above all for the frescoes that make it unique, from the masterpieces of Perugino and Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, to the Genesis scenes and the Last Judgement of Michelangelo Buonarroti, who has given us here one of the most extraordinary creations in the entire history of art. The universal language of music has often been heard here, thanks to the genius of great musicians who have placed their art at the service of the liturgy, assisting the spirit in its ascent towards God. At the same time, the Sistine Chapel is remarkably vibrant with history, since it is the solemn and austere setting of events that mark the history of the Church and of mankind. Here as you know, the College of Cardinals elects the Pope; here it was that I myself, with trepidation but also with absolute trust in the Lord, experienced the privileged moment of my election as Successor of the Apostle Peter.

Dear friends, let us allow these frescoes to speak to us today, drawing us towards the ultimate goal of human history. The Last Judgement, which you see behind me, reminds us that human history is movement and ascent, a continuing tension towards fullness, towards human happiness, towards a horizon that always transcends the present moment even as the two coincide. Yet the dramatic scene portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man’s definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice. For believers, though, the Risen Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For his faithful followers, he is the Door through which we are brought to that “face-to-face” vision of God from which limitless, full and definitive happiness flows. Thus Michelangelo presents to our gaze the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of history, and he invites us to walk the path of life with joy, courage and hope. The dramatic beauty of Michelangelo’s painting, its colours and forms, becomes a proclamation of hope, an invitation to raise our gaze to the ultimate horizon. The profound bond between beauty and hope was the essential content of the evocative Message that Paul VI addressed to artists at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on 8 December 1965: “To all of you,” he proclaimed solemnly, “the Church of the Council declares through our lips: if you are friends of true art, you are our friends!” And he added: “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands . . . Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world.”

Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation – if not beauty? Dear friends, as artists you know well that the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.

Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: “Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.” The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.

Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day. In this regard, Pope John Paul II, in his Letter to Artists, quotes the following verse from a Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid: “Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up” (no. 3). And later he adds: “In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption” (no. 10). And in conclusion he states: “Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence” (no. 16).

These ideas impel us to take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a path of profound inner reflection and spirituality. This close proximity, this harmony between the journey of faith and the artist’s path is attested by countless artworks that are based upon the personalities, the stories, the symbols of that immense deposit of “figures” – in the broad sense – namely the Bible, the Sacred Scriptures. The great biblical narratives, themes, images and parables have inspired innumerable masterpieces in every sector of the arts, just as they have spoken to the hearts of believers in every generation through the works of craftsmanship and folk art, that are no less eloquent and evocative.

In this regard, one may speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled The Glory of the Lord – a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: “Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.” He then adds: “Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion.” And he concludes: “We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.” The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: “In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious.” Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: “Art means: revealing God in everything that exists.” Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II restated the Church’s desire to renew dialogue and cooperation with artists: “In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art” (no. 12); but he immediately went on to ask: “Does art need the Church?” – thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian revelation and in the “great codex” that is the Bible.

Dear artists, as I draw to a conclusion, I too would like to make a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal to you, as did my Predecessor. You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present moment and makes it beautiful.

Saint Augustine, who fell in love with beauty and sang its praises, wrote these words as he reflected on man’s ultimate destiny, commenting almost ante litteram on the Judgement scene before your eyes today: “Therefore we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived: a vision surpassing all earthly beauty, whether it be that of gold and silver, woods and fields, sea and sky, sun and moon, or stars and angels. The reason is this: it is the source of all other beauty” (In 1 Ioannis, 4:5). My wish for all of you, dear artists, is that you may carry this vision in your eyes, in your hands, and in your heart, that it may bring you joy and continue to inspire your fine works. From my heart I bless you and, like Paul VI, I greet you with a single word: arrivederci!

Je suis heureux de saluer tous les artistes présents. Chers amis, je vous encourage à découvrir et à exprimer toujours mieux, à travers la beauté de vos œuvres, le mystère de Dieu et le mystère de l’homme. Que Dieu vous bénisse!

Dear friends, thank you for your presence here today. Let the beauty that you express by your God-given talents always direct the hearts of others to glorify the Creator, the source of all that is good. God’s blessings upon you all!

Sehr herzlich grü$e ich euch, liebe Freunde. Mit eurem künstlerischen Talent macht ihr gleichsam das Schöpferwirken Gottes sichtbar. Der Herr, der uns im Schönen nah sein will, erfülle euch mit seinem Geist der Liebe. Gott segne euch alle.

Saludo cordialmente a los artistas que participan en este encuentro. Queridos amigos, os animo a fomentar el sentido y las manifestaciones de la hermosura en la creación. Que Dios os bendiga. Muchas gracias.

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Patristic Psychology

The ancients were far better psychologists than we give them credit for. It is a supreme folly of modern men to think we are vastly intellectually superior to the ancients. True, we are technologically more sophisticated, but there is no evidence that we are fundamentally better and deeper thinkers than they.

Indeed, there is good reason to think just the opposite. Modern culture suffers from the effects of three centuries of radical materialistic empiricism. It has reached the absurd point that we have a purported science, psychology, which barely acknowledges the existence of the psyche. We have fallen into the habit of believing that whatever we cannot touch, see, or measure does not exist.

One consequence of this is that centuries’ worth of sophisticated Western psychology originating in antiquity and developed by Greek and, later, Christian writers, has been entirely neglected in the curriculum of modern academic psychology.

It is now abundantly clear that we need to get beyond the limiting empirical-skeptical paradigm. But as we do so, we shall discover that we do not need to re-invent psychology: we instead need to pick up the thread where it left off (around the time of the Renaissance).

Briefly, what I propose here is that some department(s) of psychology — most logically located at a Catholic or Orthodox university or seminary initiate a special program in Patristic psychology. The aim would be to present, develop, and train students and future teachers in a full system of psychology — specifically that area of psychology that relates to personal spiritual development — based on principles found in the Patristic tradition, earlier Greek philosophy, and later writings of Doctors of the Church (St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, St. Gregory Palamas, St. John of the Cross, etc.).

Indeed, one of the first challenges would be to more clearly identify what this particular field of psychology is — it is not exactly clinical psychology, nor cognitive psychology, nor depth psychology, nor personality psychology, not transpersonal psychology. Rather it shares elements will all of these. For now, I propose to call this a psychology of personal spirituality or even the study of psychological salvation.

The book, Orthodox Psychotherapy, by Archimandrite Hierotheos S. Vlachos, appears to me the best one currently available that might serve as a starting point.

From the Introduction:

The term “Orthodox Psychotherapy” does not refer to specific cases of people suffering from psychological problems of neurosis. Rather it refers to all people. According to Orthodox Tradition, after Adam’s fall man became ill; his “nous” was darkened and lost communion with God. Death entered into the person’s being and caused many anthropological, social, even ecological problems. In the tragedy of his fall man maintained the image of God within him but lost completely the likeness of Him, since his communion with God was disrupted. However the incarnation of Christ and the work of the Church aim at enabling the person to attain to the likeness of God, that is to reestablish communion with God. …By adhering to Orthodox therapeutic treatment as conceived by the Holy Fathers of the Church man can cope successfully with the thoughts (logismoi) and thus solve his problems completely and comprehensively.

Let’s consider a single example of where this might lead. Cigarette smoking is one of the greatest health epidemics in the world today. Yet modern medical psychology is unable to conceptualize or treat the problem adequately. One reason is that medical psychology here is ‘out of its depth’. Smoking can only be understood fully, and remedied, by understanding it in its spiritual context. Smoking is not just a physiological addiction, a habit, or a conditioned reflex. It originates with factors and forces the material level.

Let me make a statement boldly, but then allow me to qualify it: Smoking is a sin, and it is demonic.

Now what is meant by ‘sin’ and by ‘demonic’ here? That is precisely the question. ‘Demonic’ here, for example, doesn’t mean there are invisible goblins jumping around placing cigarettes in people’s paths and tricking them into smoking. The mere word ‘demon’, or, to use the original form, ‘daemon’ is a linguistic token, a symbol, used to denote a concept that is, at some level, experientially self-evident. There is a realm of mental experience and activity, with behavioral correlates, that, lacking any clearer term, we have come to describe with the word, demonic. One quality of this activity is that it is energized in a certain way as though coming from a force outside us. Basically, this much is all we can say with certainty — and in saying this much we have not committed ourselves to a specific metaphysical position.

In short, that smoking is sinful and demonic is known to us intuitively and experientially. This is present in our “folk wisdom” and manifest in colloquial language. If someone says of a person, “he has finally rid himself of his demons” nobody ever asks what that means. We ‘know’ what it means, at least roughly — we simply cannot explain it in words.

It’s even more obvious that smoking is sinful in the psychological sense of being self-destructive activity, and corresponding to a ‘fallen’ cognitive state — certainly one in which one is not being directed by anything like Wisdom or higher mental powers. It requires a turning away from God in the mind and heart to smoke. So while smoking a single cigarette perhaps isn’t much of sin, it is still, technically speaking a sin — and we shouldn’t lose sight of that or be too hesitant to apply the term.

Thus, it is more correct to say that “smoking is sinful and demonic” than it is to say, “all this talk about sin and demons is obsolete and unscientific — smoking has nothing to do with them.”

Another time we may pursue further this particular exampler. For now, let it serve to illustrate the broader point: that modern psychology, in trying to restrict itself to a narrow ‘scientific method’, has in the process rid itself of the power of human intuitive wisdom. Patristic psychology, among other things, can aid us in reacquiring a system of psychology that is at once scientifically, logically, and philosophically rigorous, and also more fully consistent with our experience as human beings. It can be, simply put, a psychology of both the mind and the heart, in contrast to modern version of psychology that is only a science of the mind (and only a portion of the mind, namely the rational mind, at that).

But the other point illustrated is the practical relevance of this proposed enterprise. How many lives are wrecked, and how many hundreds of millions of dollars are lost due to the effects of cigarette smoking? It is a huge problem. We have, in our arsenal of weapons to levy against it, a 2000-plus year old tradition of thought developed by the keenest psychological minds the West has ever produced — and, for reasons already alluded to above, these ideas have been put aside. Isn’t it only logical that we now make a most serious effort to see if these ideas can help us overcome the scourge of tobacco smoking?

And this is but one example. We could also list among the current psychological problems that debilitate modern society alcoholism, depression, materialism, despair, and apathy. All of these are addressed by Patristic psychology, and none are adequately addressed by modern psychological theories.

A Trip to Aalst

This weekend I took a day trip to the city of Aalst, Belgium — just a few miles west of Brussels.

I took the trip because someone suggested there was a dance festival in Aalst that day.  But when I arrived no festival was to be seen; so instead I headed on to the town center to explore.

Almost immediately I was struck by general ‘personality’ of the town. The people there seemed like the most hard-working and unpretentious I’ve seen anywhere; it’s hard not to like people like that!

The sight of an impressive church tower above the rooftops caught my eye and I headed that direction, soon finding the impressive church of St. Martin. American’s who haven’t traveled in Europe can’t imagine how many of these churches there are in Europe. It’s amazing. Aalst has a population of a little over 75,000. But the church is magnificent, filled with absolutely beautiful works of art. I wonder if anyone even knows how many of these “little” churches there are throughout Europe, each one worth visiting and inspiring in its own way.

Yes, visit the great cathedrals, too. But something about these smaller churches reveals more about the soul and heritage of the European people: generations of devout people, working, suffering great hardships by our standards, hoping, and moved by an inner conviction that somewhere things are, can, or will be better and more beautiful than in this ‘vale of tears.’

Near the church is a statue of Dirk Martens, a man renowned for having brought the first printing press to the region. A sad detail of his life is that all four of his children died before he did. Such was the way of life then.

Yet such people as this in olden times, despite their hardships, produced this remarkably beautiful and enduring church. It is their gift, their legacy to us.

A Church as the Image of the Soul

A writing project of mine, much delayed, is an essay “On the Magnificence of the Human Soul.” While other tasks compete with this for completion, let me use this opportinity to at least sketch the basic idea.

We are taught — and I think most people seem to accept implicitly — that we are made “in the image and likeness of God.” Few, however, really understand the full implications of that statement. For while we are not equal to God, to merely carry His image is something too wonderful for words. Now an image is generally considered to be inferior to its original. But here the original is Perfection itself. To be even a very limited image of Infinite Perfection and Infinite Goodness is — one can see by mathematics alone — very great indeed.

Simply put, to accept that we are made in “God’s image and likeness” is to admit a far greater view of human nature than people ordinarily acknowledge. The great mystics seem unanimous on this point: if we understood the true greatness of the human soul we might never cease rejoicing!

My aim with said essay is partly to produce something like a logical proof to demonstrate the magnificence of the human soul. Here let me supply just one piece of the entire argument.

It is supposed that the reader knows what it is to be awed by a beatiful work of art: to be struck, inspired,  or reminded of the transcendant nature of Beauty by art. This is an experience which most cultured people share.

One may well praise artists for having the ability to produce such works. But praise too is due the viewer — for were our soul not innately beautiful, it would not resonate to the work of art.

Art cannot produce in us an aesthetic, emotional, or religious response that is not already latent within our nature. We have the innate capacity to recognize, appreciate, and respond to beautiful art. It is not something acquired or learned. It is intrinsic to us.

Moreover we have the latent ability to respond not just to works of art we *do* see, or *have* seen — but to any possible work that could ever be produced. Tomorrow, next week, or next year you will see some wonderful new work of art — and you will have a deep, immediate, aesthetic reaction to that. This can, and perhaps willl, happen over and over again for you. One-thousand or ten-thousand artists could produce as many great works of art, and each would produce in you a unique aesthetic experience. Each would reveal to you some new facet of who you are — who you *already* are.

This is a very Platonic notion. Plato repeatedly emphasizes the nature of anamnesis — an-amnesis or un-forgetting. His view is that, at some point, perhaps just prior to birth, our soul experiences something like the Goodness of God in all its glory. Or perhaps we accurately perceive the goodness of our own soul, which is the image of God. But either at birth or some time thereafter, we forget this all — it becomes unconscious. From that reservoir of latent knowledge our dreams are fed. But little by little, for the dedicated seeker, remembrance of one’s true nature comes back — one insight at a time.

Anyway, this is enough to explain the general nature of the “argument” I’m working on. If it is correct, my guess is that perhaps some people will see where I’m trying to take it.

Meanwhile, why not keep this idea in mind next time you visit a museum or a church like this. What is the art saying about the people who made and preserved the art? What is it saying about your soul? And what is it saying about God’s providential designs in history that people in one age are able to supply such a gift for those in another?

Helping Europe’s Young People

One nice thing with living in Brussels the chance to meet interesting people.

For example recently I met and spoke with someone who worked for a Non-governmental organization (NGO) that advises the EU government on policies that benefit young people (children and young adults). The conversation was most informative and uplifting, even to a degree one might even call ‘angelic’.

This has me thinking: what are the needs of Europe’s young people? This certainly falls in the domain of cultural psychology — the aim of this weblog.

This problem has concerned me for several years. For example, while living in Spain, the plight of youth there seemed evident: there is, among them, a lack of ambition, hope, and vision. Students ask, “why study hard, why work, when there will be no job or secure future anyway?”

The Population Problem

One main issue affecting the young people of Europe we could alternatively call the “population problem”, the “immigration problem” or the “economy problem” — for they are all related.

Let’s begin with a section of text found in the Call for Papers of the European Sociological Association for the upcoming conference,
Youth and Youth Sociology in Europe.

Europe is an ageing continent, which urgently needs immigrants to maintain or to establish basic structures of welfare society. The need for increased immigration has coincided with growing concerns regarding internal security and the coherence of European societies. The EU as the major political and economical actor in Europe is trying at the same time to attract well-educated immigrants and to reduce the inflow of poorly educated immigrants. Managing diversity is, therefore, one of the most pressing challenges for all European societies. Targeted multiculturalism has been the main management strategy of diversity in Europe. This strategy has lead to different and consequently unequal treatment of minorities and caused an increase in tension between different ethnic, cultural and religious groups.

This brief passage reveals quite a bit. First, it clearly states the problem that Europeans are not replenishing themselves — the European birth rate is low and declining.

That is a problem by itself. And, especially, one must consider that this is much more than an economic statistic. One must consider the human dimension as well. People are not, as cynics might suppose, neglecting to start families because they are selfish. They are suffering economically and lack the stability and security that one usually associates with the decision to marry and start a family.

So it is not a matter of, as one writer put it, “Europeans having lost the will to reproduce.” It has nothing to do with personal motivation and everything to do with the economy. When people used to a high standard of living are reduced to borderline poverty, and can barely manage to buy food, no wonder they aren’t thinking about getting married!

The quote above also notes that, in response to declining birth rates, and in order to maintain its “welfare society”, Europe has resorted to attracting immigrants.

Again, this dry fact masks the deeper humanistic dimensions of the problem. Let’s not mince words. What’s happening is this: the European model is that of a “welfare state”, with high taxes, a lot of social programs (and, consequently, a huge amount of government waste). In practical terms, citizens work for the government, instead of the other way around as in the US. The incentive (i.e., “bribe”) everyone has to play along is that some day they will get a nice pension. But who will pay the pensions of people now 40-50 years old if there are too few children? Answer: immigrants.

There you have it. Never mind questions like “how many immigrants are good for European culture as a whole?” That issue — cultural integrity — has little effective weight on the policy decisions. One reason is that, whereas governments are (sometimes) good at making economic decisions, they are not very good at making decisions about “intangibles” — and the integrity of European culture is such an intangible. Yet it is precisely the intangibles of life that are most important: love, joy, peace, happiness, friendship, hope, soul, and so on.

The last time I checked, most people agreed that money can’t buy happiness. Yet European governments are willing to sacrifice the things which traditionally have brought happiness — family, cultural cohesion, tradition, connection with the past, vision of the future — for the sake of funding pensions via massive immigration.

Incidentally, I don’t see even the slightest hint in the quote above that the European Sociological Association or its members recognize the main humanistic dimension of the problem — that young people are personally bfinding it difficult to have families. That the solution is immigration and everyone had better get used to it seems taken entirely for granted. As usual, the academic community can be counted on for extreme myopia and “political correctness.”

There are, however, alternatives. Note that even if it solves the purely financial issue, drawing in immigrants (besides creating new problems) won’t solve the original problem — that Europeans are finding it difficult to have families! That ought to be seen as the main issue; the financial issue is only secondary. If it came down to it, older people should be willing to make a few sacrifices in return for the satisfaction of seeing their own children have children of their own!

With these considerations in mind, here are three concrete suggestions aimed at helping Europe’s young people.

1. Affordable housing

Real estate prices are sky-high throughout western Europe. No wonder young people aren’t having families when they can’t afford homes. Developers don’t routinely consider young families in choosing projects. There’s more profit made in building a 500.000 euro home than something for 80.000 euro. You can’t blame builders for that — it’s a simple matter of profit-margins and the economics of building a house. But governments can help by providing tax advantages to builders who supply affordable housing. They can also help by developing regional plans that include sufficient affordable housing.

2. Better access to higher education

It is almost heartbreaking to see the difficulties young people go through today to get a higher education. Sadly, it is more difficult to get a university education today than it was a generation ago. That is unjust, shameful, and absurd. Europe (and the US) should set a priority on supplying a free university education for every serious and suitably motivated student.

3. Lower income taxes

Now we come to the crux of the matter — the central problem. As noted, the European immigration problem has resulted from the need to support the high-tax, welfare state economies.

Yet, ironically, this very economic system has produced the low birth rates. It should come as no surprise that the reason people are delaying or not having families is because they are too poor. They are too poor because (1) they pay too much of their salary in taxes, and (2) there are too few jobs.

The latter, however, is also a direct consequence of the welfare state model. With high taxes, businesses keep fewer profits, giving people less incentive to start new businesses. Fewer businesses, less jobs.

Questioning the Welfare State Model

The question Europe must ask itself is why the United States has a stronger, more productive, and more resilient economy, and an equal or greater standard of living, without relying on Welfare State economics?

Some respond that the US system lacks a fair “social security net” for the disadvantaged. But is this true, or merely an assumption? In fact, retirees do well in the US, relying upon their national social security payments after age 65 and their Medicare health insurance.

What about health insurance? We hear “American lack universal health coverage.” Yes, this is a problem, but it is exaggerated. First, only 16% of Americans lack health insurance. (I am one of them, in fact.) But second, because health care is reasonably priced, and because Americans, unlike Europeans, keep most of their income instead of having it taxed away, one can simply see a doctor and pay cash. That’s what physicians prefer. The paperwork associated with health insurance claims is costly and a nuisance for all parties concerned. If we simply paid “cash for service” for most routine medical costs, everyone would benefit. A sensible US national health plan would be two-tiered: national insurance for catastrophic illness and hospitalization; but, say, to get a prescription for an antibiotic you’d pay out of pocket (but only about $50).

So the argument that, “the US lacks universal health insurance” is over-rated. I don’t know if anyone’s done the economics, but my guess is that if the US added basic universal health insurance for all citizens, Americans would still end up paying much less income tax than Europeans.

The bottom line is that the welfare state is a dinosaur. It doesn’t work. It robs people of the incentive to work and to produce. The very fact that western European countries are trying to prop things up with massive immigration demonstrates this.

We should look with hopeful anticipation at the experiments of former eastern-bloc European countries like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, which have adopted low flat income taxes. Hopefully, if the liberals in those countries give the systems time to work, it will stimulate their economies.

If only we could get countries like Spain or Germany to follow suit!

Christian Satyagraha

What is Satyagraha?:  Satyagraha and Christianity

Mohandas Gandhi called his philosophy of social change by peaceful means satyagraha. The word is derived from the Indian words satya (truth) and graha (from the same Indo-European root word from which comes our ‘grasp’, ‘grab’, and ‘grip’).

Satyagraha is more than a philosophical system; it is a metaphysical force. Thus it would be more correct to call Gandhi a discoverer of satyagraha than its inventor. We should be willing to extend and refine our understanding of it, and to adapt Gandhi’s principles to modern issues and circumstances.

Consider satyagraha the subject of a cumulative science — something we collectively experiment with and gradually improve our ability to use.

* * *

Gandhi said many times that he developed his ideas about satyagraha in large part from New Testament teachings. Yet he also, when asked what he thought of Christians, replied: “I don’t know; I have yet to meet a real Christian.” Together, these remarks remind Christians that (1) they may, potentially, learn more about what satyagraha is and how to use it by looking more to their own Christian scripture and traditions than to the writings of Gandhi, and (2) they should try harder to use the spiritual tools of their tradition to promote change in the world.

As evidenced by Gandhi’s life and writings, there is a link between satyagraha and suffering. The link is not spelled out; there is no definite metaphysical theory that explains the connection. We must rather infer it from various specific actions and indirect comments of Gandhi, along with other data.

There are clearly psychological mechanisms by which ones suffering may change the opinion of others. For example, oppressors may be moved by compassion to change oppressive policies and practices; or oppressors may become convinced of the others’ sincerity and good will by their acceptance of suffering.

But these psychological mechanisms, while important, are not the only consideration. What of silent, private suffering? What of sacrifices made that others never directly observe? It seems a near-universal practice in spiritual traditions that one person may assist another by voluntarily accepting suffering on their behalf. In Christianity, Christ himself accepted suffering for the salvation of others — for undeserving others, in fact, as St. Paul points out (Rom. 5:7-10). Christians, whose model is Christ, are expected to similarly accept sacrifice both to help alleviate the suffering of the oppressed, and to promote the moral advancement of others, including ones enemies and persecutors.

* * *

Satyagraha, as “truth force”, involves truth; people lose sight of that too easily. Social activism undertaken in a spirit of militant self-righteousness or indignation is not satyagraha. One must first align oneself with truth. That is no easy task.

It is especially ironic, then, that so many people engaged in activism choose to distance themselves from traditional religions. For example, young people today are quick to follow Gandhi’s beliefs about social change; he is taken as a credible, authoritative source in that matter. But people pay much less attention to his support of traditional religion and spirituality. If his example is authoritative in the one case, why not in the other? Should one admire his political actions, even to the point of calling him a mahatma, which means great-souled, yet ignore his obvious support of traditional religion? That makes little sense.

To apply satyagraha one must align oneself with the truth. This means one must first seek out the truth — which is God, or comes from God, or is in any case closely associated with God — and then overcome the personal obstacles that cause one to prefer self-will, egoism, or selfish ends to God’s will.

Thus, the person who wishes to follow the methods of satyagraha effectively should also be a religious person, in the traditional sense.

Today when a person says such things it is thought strange; yet this is completely consistent with Gandhi’s teachings.

* * *

Various rules and principles of satyagraha as outlined by Gandhi and Christianity:

Love your enemies

* harbor no anger towards your enemies
* suffer the anger of the opponent
* do not insult the opponent
* do not trivialize the beliefs or intelligence of opponents
* forgive as you wish to be forgiven; hate the sin but love the sinner
* opponents are God’s children, made in His image and likeness
* defend your opponent against insult or assault
* look for God’s face in the face of others

Truth

* set an example of truth-seeking
* educate yourself, expand your perspectives, question your assumptions
* be honest with yourself; habitually examine your conscience and scrutinize your motives
* God is Love. God is Truth. When you stop loving you depart from truth.

Mental transformation

* do not stereotype any ethnic or cultural group or any person
* understand the dynamic of projection: what you do not like in yourself, you project onto others
* a strong, irrational attitude towards others implies projection
* first see if faults ascribed to others apply to you
* external conflict mirrors internal conflict

Personal virtue

* do not be angry
* do not curse
* patience is the foundation of all other virtues
* concupiscence is the enemy of patience; practice temperance; moderate and control appetites

Religion

* have a living faith in God
* have faith in the inherent goodness of human nature and peoples’ ability to change
* pray
* read scripture
* prefer God’s guidance to the voice of false reasoning

* * *

It is very ironic and counterproductive that many advocates of peace today express themselves in negative, hostile, and aggressive terms. If, for example, you preach peace but hatefully ridicule George W. Bush, people will pay more attention to your actions than to your words. Moreover, acting in so plainly counterproductive a manner, you will have lost touch with truth and the truth-force.

Notes: On the unity of world religious culture

I recently ran across the following quote from 20th-century Christian author, C. S. Lewis in his book, The Abolition of Man. These remarks preface an assemblage of quotes that relate to what Lewis termed Natural Law, which he more or less equated with ancient Chinese term, the Tao:

The idea of collecting independent testimonies presupposes that ‘civilizations’ have arisen in the world independently of one another; or even that humanity has had several independent emergences on this planet. The biology and anthropology involved in such an assumption are extremely doubtful. It is by no means certain that there has ever (in the sense required) been more than one civilization in all history.

This is a very important point to remember. Sometimes we act as if Christian culture and Muslim culture are two different things. In truth, they are not distinct. This might be true concerning some (but by no means all) of their religious doctrines, but it is most definitely not true of their religious cultures, broadly defined.

Take but one example. Christians prefer certain postures of prayer, and Muslims prefer others. In Hinduism and Buddhism still others are to be found. Are these postures efficacious only for a particular religion? Or are these postures collectively the proper spiritual heritage of all humankind? The latter seems far more plausible.

But if that is so, should we not study each others religious cultures, and freely borrow from one another. Do not mistake that for syncretism, the mistaken notion of producing a bland, watered down world religion which glosses over doctrinal differences. Our concern here is rather with practices, not doctrines. And the model is a more complex one. The suggestion is that the spiritual practices of our most ancient ancestors, say those of the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Indians, are now found scattered throughout the modern religions of the world, each retaining a subset. We are then not seeking to produce a new religious culture, as much as to reclaim an old one.

As I write this, the Muslim children are playing ball outside in the pool of Anspach fountain, drained for the winter, in St. Catherine’s place. Their teacher, leading the play, is a young Belgian woman, scarcely more than a girl herself. I do not speculate on the significance of this, except to vaguely consider that it has <i>some</i> meaning. It has happened; it is part of the Tao, and is worthy of comment on that basis alone, and for this reason: I planned originally to write something else — in fact, to quote a poem by the Sufi poet, Rumi, for the express purpose of participating in a mingling of cultures, and by that simple action, to further it. Here is the poem, chosen before the events outside my window began:

I used to be shy, you made me sing.
I used to abstain now I shout for more wine.
In somber dignity, I would sit on my mat and pray,
now children run through and make faces at me.

The children have not made faces at me, but they have enjoyed themselves playing as I wrote this.

Finally, here are two quotes cited by Lewis:

‘Men were brought into existence for the sake of men that they might do one another good.’ (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. vii)

This is obvious enough, and needs little comment. Another is this:

‘Man is man’s delight.’ (Old Norse. Hávamál 47)

This simple statement speaks volumes. How many of modern misfortunes have come from our constant attempt to improve upon nature, and to seek something beyond what is already given to us. We imagine that one day in the future, when all problems have been solved, then humankind may have happiness. We seek to be rich, to have automobiles, and wide-screen televisions.

In truth, technology has already succeeded. We have beaten most of the diseases that afflict humankind. We are no longer at the mercy of the weather. We can feed everyone, if we simply try. Having conquered these enemies, who do we not enjoy the blessings that God has given us? Foremost among these is the gift of life itself. And second is the gift of others. God, in his kindness, has designed us so that little, if anything, on earth gives us more pleasure than to see the smile of another, to see the sparkle in their eyes. This is what truly makes us happy, and it is all free.

This blog entry is not as so rigidly organized as the others; consider it poetry, if you like, just writer’s notes.

Countering Political Evil

At the Watchblog Third Party Website, Joel S. Hirschhorn wrote an good article titled The Evolution of Evil. He identifies as an essential problem the current two-party system. To quote Joel:

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections….  Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

He also identifies three solutions aimed at achieving reform: (1) curbing discretionary spending as a form of civil disobedience — hit the enemy where it hurts: in the pocketbooks; (2) refusing to vote, and (3) grassroots political organization aimed at reform.

I agree in general with (3), completely disagree with (2), and largely disagree with (1).

My arguments for promoting change by voting for third-party and independent candidates are explained elsewhere, so there’s no need to repeat them here. Concerning consumer protest, I would rather see more intelligent discretionary spending than no spending at all. Spending is good for the economy. More importantly spending means you’re paying somebody else to work, which is an intrinsically good thing. People like to work. People need to work. Working gives people a sense of accomplishment and meaning. We’re designed to work. But it has to be the right kind of work. So spend money, but let it be on services and products that are good — for example, organic food and solar energy.

More basically, I suggest that we need to pay more attention to spiritual solutions. On the one hand, most people seem to accept that the human race is battling some kind of metaphysical evil; but on the other hand, we seem very reluctant to admit this publicly, or to try to use spiritual strategies to counter it. To avoid narrow sectarian religious views in public social discourse is understandable; but to avoid spirituality altogether seems near suicidal! Hence my comment to Joel’s article, which I also ‘reprint’ below

John Uebersax

—

Hi Joel, this is an excellent article. You truly see how the current two-party system is a tyranny masquerading as democracy! I’m going to post a link to it in my third-parties blog.

Please let me suggest three other strategies for restoring power, in addition to the three you mention. First though, let me explain that I approach politics from a perspective that is both spiritually-oriented and logically hard-headed. I always feel I must apologize for this, fearing that people will associate my ideas with those of ignorant religious fundamentalist or ‘new-agers’. Be assured that such is not the case. My religious views are more like those of the Renaissance or in classical Greece and Rome — in times before the radical dissociation of Science and Religion occurred. The ‘System’ has discredited religion, thereby removing our most potent tools for restoring control. It has marginalized religious thought, drawing most attention to the more ignorant representatives of this viewpoint. Regardless of what the dominant positivist-materialist worldview teaches, evils does exist, and it quite plainly operates in ways that go beyond our current scientific models. It stands to reason that if we want to counter evil, then we have to be willing to consider spiritual paradigms. The fact that this seems to many so implausible is itself evidence of our conditioning.

Enough by way of preface then. Now the three additional strategies for restoring power:

4. Personal education. We have let our nation become dumbed down. This must be reversed. People, need to read more, and to read better quality material. Throw out Harry Potter and Tom Clancy. Pick up Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Gibbons. If that seems too hard and gives you a headache, so much the better; it proves the point: that people’s brains have become ‘flabby’ through non-use. The better people educate themselves, the more apparent the lies and oppression of the two-party monopoly will be. This is a cheap solution, and, importantly, one that, like all true solutions, begins with a person asking, “How can I promote change by reforming and improving myself?”

5. Acquiring virtue. Yes, the System is evil and exploits us. But, as Walt Kelly, social critic and creator of the “Pogo” comic strip, wrote so long ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Unfortunately, we are not just oppressed by the System, we are, to an alarming degree, part of the System. Anyone with a bank account or a pension plan is, intentionally or not, invested in the stock market — that immensely powerful, blind, and amoral force which *owns* the corporations that own the political parties.

We need to become more virtuous — more just and charitable. We need to re-examine areas of our own life that contribute to the system. The more each of us acquires virtue, the more we enable others to do so by our example.

6. Spiritual weapons. Most Americans apparently believe in God and an afterlife. They believe they are immortal beings. They also believe in prayer, or say they do. Yet somehow we dissociate these beliefs entirely when it comes to politics. That makes no sense at all. Either people should give up their religion or use it! And if religion is true, then people should pray for change. Indeed, that should be their first and most primary tool.

Related to prayer is the class of tactics that Gandhi called “satyagraha”, which means “truth force.” Examples include things like demonstrations, constructive civil disobedience, and the willing acceptance of forms of suffering to promote change. When was the last time you heard anyone suggesting that people should go on penitential fasts for the sake of effecting social change? But the efficacy of such fasts is an established tenet of Judeao-Christian religious beliefs. We are ignoring all the most effective means human culture has ever known to promote social change.

As this is just a comment, I shouldn’t make it too long. Let it suffice to suggest that people should think more about re-introducing religious and spiritual themes into discussions of socio-political reform. This should not be narrow-minded, fundamentalist, or sectarian. (Gandhi, for example, was famous for holding interdenominational religious services, combining Hindu, Muslim, and Christian prayers and scriptures.) But if we’re fighting evil, then we would be foolish indeed to fail to make use of our most potent weapons for combating it.

Recognizing the Power of Prayer

The thing about prayer is that everybody knows it works, but they act otherwise.

The problem is not that prayer doesn’t work, or only works sometimes; it’s that people forget to pray. Scripture teaches, the saints affirm, and I am personally convinced that prayer works. And it always works.

You are not just some lump of clay who utters a few words, thinking God might hear, and then weakly hopes God might choose to act on them. You are a divine, immortal being, made in God’s image and likeness. Further, if you are properly on the spiritual path, then, by the grace of God, you are a Son of God. Your prayers are not minor things, then. They are, or are meant to be, immensely powerful cosmic forces.

Well-Motivated Prayers

God always hears; and He answers all well-motivated prayers.

What is well-motivated? That means, principally, that the impetus for the prayer comes not from you, but from God. You, to be sure, must apply your will in prayer; prayer involves an active effort of faith and will. In some sense, your will is probably instrumental in making happen what you pray for. But if the prayer is well-motivated, working beneath or within your will is God’s will, moving yours.

If you pray for something entirely selfish — like to win the lottery — chances are that God’s will is not at work in the prayer. But if you pray for another person, and out of genuine concern or compassion, then God is likely at work. Then pray fervently, believing not just that your request will be granted, but that you act on God’s behalf in making it.

People sometimes wonder why we’re put on earth. Theories include that we are here as punishment, as purification, or as education. But perhaps the most important reason we are here is to assist God. We are unique beings — part material and part divine. On that basis we have a special role in making things happen here. Our prayers have a unique efficacy — we can accomplish things that angels cannot.

When you pray for another, the person is always helped. Sometimes the help is not recognizable: God’s wisdom and foresight are infinitely greater than ours. But if you request benefit or help for another the prayer will be answered — and in ways better than you could have planned or imagined.

It’s truly a wonder that people don’t take advantage of this tremendous resource, prayer. It’s like a person who lives in direst poverty, oblivious to a purse full of gold coins that they hold. If one could see how valuable and effective prayer truly is, ones life would be transformed. One would pray all the time, and for everyone.

So be moderate in most things, but not in prayer. Pray for small things and great things. Pray for those around you; for whoever is in need. Make prayer your vocation.

Most of all, pray now for world peace. Pray sincerely, and with full confidence.