A Sane Voice in The Age of The Narcissist

I must thank the great blogger Dr. Sanity for all I learned about narcissism in politics. She was my virtual mentor for years. When she stopped blogging after the last election, I knew the blogging world had lost one of the finest commentators.

If you have not read her articles. you can google Dr. Sanity. Or, here is the link. Just look at the articles on the side for the great ones on narcissism.

One of her best was a warning on the social engineering in education, which many of us saw and why we home schooled.

Years before Common Core, which is totally bad, bad, bad, Dr. Sanity wrote this. My choice of cartoon...

 NOVEMBER 27, 2009

EDUCATION IS A WEAPON

“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” - Joseph Stalin

If you thought I was joking or too extreme in my discussions of the ongoing corruption of k-12 education; and how all the leftist "educational experts" like Bill Ayers intend to destroy the minds of your children in the era of hopenchange, then you need to read this. All of it.

What is happening in Minnesota is the evolution of education into leftist political indoctrination.

The health of our educational system--from K-12 through college-- is absolutely essential to the long-term welfare and competitiveness of the United States. American education used to be the strongest on the globe, and to the extent that remains true, it is because the hard sciences in this country (e.g., math, engineering, computers etc.) have been largely resistant to the political taint that runs rampant in the humanities. The latter subject areas, which include literature, philosophy, and history, have become unabashedly ideological over the last two decades; and the "social justice" advocates of today's collectivists have taken over our K-12 education system and are determinedly undermining American values with their politically correct, multicultural and anti-capitalist curriculum.

Make no mistake about it, what many teachers today are doing is indoctrinating their students minds into an unquestioning obedience to the collective. This they cannot do unless they also can manage to corrupt even the hard sciences with their dogma.
There can be no area where a child is allowed to think freely and without the proper political perspective. That is far too dangerous for the underly ideology they are promulgating.

And here is one of her classic articles on narcissism. Remember, she is a trained clinical psychiatrist and worked with NASA for years.

 MAY 17, 2009

NARCISSISM, PATHOLOGICAL LYING, AND POLITICS

With the classic narcissist, language is used cruelly and ruthlessly to ensnare one's enemies, to sow confusion and panic, to move others to emulate the narcissist ("projective identification"), to leave the listeners in doubt, in hesitation, in paralysis, to gain control, or to punish. Language is enslaved and forced to lie. The language is appropriated and expropriated. It is considered to be a weapon, an asset, a piece of lethal property, a traitorous mistress to be gang raped into submission. --Sam Vaknin, author, Malignant Self Love.

Pathological lying is one of the hallmark characteristics of a narcissist, who does it out of a need to manipulate and maintain control. For the immature narcissist there is an essential emotional truth: lying is an expression of his (or her) mistrust of others; and his (or her) need to maintain a fragile sense of self at all costs.

Being honest (and therefore vulnerable) terrifies the narcissist. Since his primary goal is to control others, through projection he constantly fears that others will try to control him. Thus, lying becomes the modus operandi through which he can maintain his superficial presentation of himself and keep people from learning the truth of who he really is. He never allows himself to be "pinned down", or accountable. More lies are always necessary to cover up a previous lie. And typically, he even begins to believe his own lies and become outraged at any suggestion that he may be lying. Thus he becomes sincere in his lying and others may actually believe the lies because of the sincerity. This is why truly pathological liars (such as sociopaths) are so hard to detect in the population. In general, the lack of an ability to feel guilty about the lies, and the perverse sense that he is "entitled to lie" are standard for the political narcissist.

Having said all this, it is important to remember that lying, no matter how pathological it may be is not in itself a disease. EVERYONE LIES. Most psychological tests have built in scales that detect this tendency to make one's self look better to others.

When you combine an overwhelmning need to make one's self look better (i.e., superior) with a grandiose sense of self-worth; throw in glibness and a superficial charm that easily convinces others of your sincerity; then there is little to stand in the way of easily manipulating others to your will. Of course, it behooves you to also throw into the mix that whatever you do, you do it for the sake of others. Children are a good standby (as in, "do it for the children!").

Let me refresh your memory about some basic psychological defense mechanisms.
Denial, which is an immature defense is defined as an attempt to reject unacceptable feelings, needs, thoughts, wishes--or even a painful external reality that alters the perception of ourselves. This psychological defense mechanism protects us temporarily from:
-Knowledge (things we don’t want to know)
-Insight or awareness that threatens our self-esteem; or our mental or physical health; or our security (things we don't want to think about)
-Unacceptable feelings (things we don’t want to feel)

One type of denial is Repression , a neurotic defense characterized by a seemingly inexplicable naivete, memory lapse, or lack of awareness. Repression is often dismissed as an artifact of diminished attention by cognitive psychologists, but I find that it almost always reflects a rather creative method to resolve some inner conflict for the person who uses it. With repression, affect is out in the open, but the associated idea is out of the mind and unavailable to consider. Someone who has repressed some knowledge may be genuinely astonished that anyone would consider them to have deliberately ignored the issue.

The "forgetting of repression is different from ordinary forgetting in that there is often some sort of parallel symbolic behavior that goes along with it.

Most often repression is associated with histrionic traits. A typical example might be the doting and dutiful wife who remains blissfully unaware of the husband's constant philandering--although the evidence is obvious to everyone else; and she may not understand why she feels anger at her spouse. She may defend him passionately from his accusers, but the anger will find a way to express itself in various ways within their relationship. Or, another example is a devoted public servant and leader of the Party, whose behavior in a recent press conference raised red flags in almost everyone who was watching and listening to her.

Neo-neocon captures the essence of her psychological dilemma, on view for all to witness:

Some people have asked why Pelosi hasn’t just said, “Look, at the time of the briefings I thought waterboarding was okay, but now I see the light and I’m against it.” Such a statement would have arguably gotten her in a lot less trouble than the course she’s taken instead: a series of ever-changing and hedgy excuses that read as lies, culminating in her making accusations against the CIA that have roused its formidable defenses against her.

I don’t think Pelosi is stupid, although I agree with almost nothing she stands for or says. She has shown great political savvy and cunning in her long career. Why does it appear to be deserting her now?

I see Pelosi as having been put between a rock and a hard place by Obama’s release of the “torture memos” and the resultant brouhaha. If she were to make the statement I posited in the first paragraph of this post, she would be admitting something that would contradict the entire Democratic Party “narrative” of the Bush administration’s decisions regarding terrorists.

Going that route would destroy the tale the Democrats have ridden to victory and power: that the Bush administration was evil, lying to us (rather than sometimes mistaken), trampling on liberties for the sake of power and even sadism. How can Democrats contradict themselves by acknowledging now that nearly all of Bush’s decisions in the war on terror were arrived at after due deliberation, analysis of the best information available at the time (the conclusion that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs would be a prominent example), acting in the best interests of our country, and with an effort to preserve as much liberty and protection as seemed possible?

For Democrat leaders to do so would be to undercut their own story about Bush, which was (and remains) vital to their own success.

So, we might reasonably conclude that Nancy's "surprise" in discovering that she was actually briefed by the CIA on its enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, is an example of:

(a) PSYCHOLOGICAL DENIAL (suggesting she is out of touch with reality)
(b) PSYCHOLOGICAL REPRESSION (suggesting that she has neurotic conflicts)
(c) DELIBERATE LYING (suggesting that she is a liar)
(d) NORMAL FORGETFULNESS (suggesting that she is clueless and inattentive)

Of course, it could well be a vast rightwing conspiracy to take down the poor, hapless Speaker. But I rather suspect it is the Democrats' own neurotic conflicts coming home to roost (to coin a phrase.)

Neurotic defenses may be used by all sorts of otherwise intelligent people; and in this case, the willingness to believe anything that is said--especially when it is said by a Democrat (no matter how obviously ridiculous); while sneering and demeaning anything said by a Republican (no matter how true or obvious) suggests an underlying neurotic conflict.

Perpetual Displacement, anyone? Poor Obama "can't turn the page" on Bush? Or, is it that Obama and Co. are unable to turn that page because their entire success and current power grab depends solely on this bizarre neurosis of theirs?

There are narcissists and liars in both parties, of course; but Nancy Pelosi's rather blatant attempts to play fast and loose with the Truth, even as she loudly demands "Truth Commissions" is nothing more than the extreme narcissism and pathological lying that is peculiar to politics. Victor Davis Hanson is amazed that she--and Democrats, in general--seem not to believe in the god Nemesis:

There is an odd sense among Democrats that nemesis simply does not exist.

A once-vein-bulging Al Gore who barnstormed the country slurring President Bush by calling him a liar now seems baffled about the precedent he set of a vice president (albeit now much more politely in the case of Cheney) questioning the policy of the current president.

A Nancy Pelosi, hellbent on releasing once-classified memos for partisan advantage, and eager to begin 'Truth" hearings, suddenly believes such an inquisition will not apply to herself, despite the fact that she, like so many Democrats from Senator Schumer to Senator Rockefeller, in that dark period in 2001, spoke of the need for, or was complicit in, approving enhanced interrogation techniques.

Then the president himself, who jump-started his campaign in Iraq's crisis year by slamming the commander-in-chief on renditions, military tribunals, email and phone intercepts, Predator drone attacks, and Iraq, now suddenly wishes to explain the nuances and complexities of these policies and why he will continue the Bush protocols — apparently oblivious to the hypocrisy involved with his own prior self-interested stridency. These examples could be easily augmented.

To explain their behavior, Hanson invokes the deity in charge of just consequences--Nemesis; but I would account for it by pointing out the self-satisfied smugness and narcissism of Democratic leaders who pathologically are unable to believe that reality and truth have any hold on them. In psychiatry, we call this delusional.

And the leaders of the Democratic Party (including the Great, Supreme Poobah Messiah) demonstrate their delusional and narcissistic credentials on a daily basis.

For those Catholics who still have their kids in CC schools, get them out now. You are allowing others to steal their souls. Period. Remember that the majority of diocesan schools have capitulated to CC, because of the money. Your children's minds and souls are being exchange for government influence through government money.

Catholic Taliban

I am very concerned about some Catholic parents, most likely not anyone who reads this blog, who have decided that their home schooled girls do not need academic training or education.

I consider not teaching your girls classical education as child abuse. Western education was created by the Catholic Church through the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, and many other orders featured on this blog.

The great heritage of liberal arts education was created by the members of these orders, as were the great colleges and universities of Europe. Catholic girls should be educated so that they can attend the great Catholic colleges of our day: Thomas Aquinas, Wyoming Catholic, Christendom and so on.

That Catholic parents choose anti-intellectualism alarms me, as to be a Catholic is to be educated in the glorious disciplines created and fostered by Catholics throughout the history of the Church.

Why would parents not want their girls to learn the classics? Disciplining the mind by studying grammar, music, math, art, literature, history, geography, and, of course, religion, have been part of our Catholic culture for over a millennium.

Do these anti-intellectual Catholics, many of whom are trads and charismatics, (sharing an odd ideal which they have in common), think that God does not intend us to use our intellect?

The intellect must be developed not only for skills, for logic, for rational discourse, but for prayer. The worse sins happen in the intellect, and all Catholics must learn to fight these sins in that part of our being.

Intellectual purity does not mean the absence of intellectual studies, on the contrary. Purity of the intellect does not mean emptiness, but a working with knowledge in grace, in appropriate studies, in the virtue of studiosity. In fact, this virtue cannot be ignored without sinning.

Recall my series on the Maritains, intelligence and prayer; recall my many posts on classical education. Follow the tags.

Virtue training involves the mind, not merely the hands. Virtue training comes with developing one's intellectual gifts, which we all have at various levels as God has given us, of intellectual abilities.

To ignore the disciplines of learning to is actually interfere not only with God's plans for one's life, but essential for coming to know God.

Few saints had infused knowledge. Most learned about God through the hard study and meditation, first of Scripture, and then of reading and studying the Doctors of the Church, and the writings and sermons of the great saints.

To deny children, especially high school age girls of the beauties of knowledge is, simply, child abuse. Some parents think that these girls or young women who only know how to sew, cook, take care of children will be good wives. Absolutely not. The Catholic husband needs a help-mate even in the area of intellectual discussion.

We do not need ignorant girls and ignorant women. We need savvy women, who can teach their children all the subjects in home schools. Of course, the skills of cooking, sewing and so forth can also be accomplished. All these skills can be learned well easily. Getting a higher degree does not mean one does not know how to cook or sew or can tomatoes. Many of us did all these things, and more. We made candles, soap, went back to the basics in household duties, and still managed to learn various academic subjects.

We learned how to properly entertain for visitors, and we learned womanly manners. We also learned that to be a woman meant learning our heritage, culture, faith.

Look at the writings of the great Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena.

We have in the Church, these women,  who are Doctors of the Church, not because they could cook and sew, but because they could pray, write, advise people, even popes. They knew the Scriptures, and much theology, as well a music.

To ignore the glories of our own culture, the Catholic culture, amounts to choosing anti-intellectualism and becoming a Catholic Taliban. Ignoring the intellect of young women does not prepare them for sainthood, but for stunted growth, and possibly, rebellion.

Where are the athleta Christi?

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/europe-a-land-without-love

I taught ancient Greek and Roman History. My students loved the stories of Marathon and even
Thermopylae. The great exploits of the armies of Sparta and Athens inspired generations of students before my classes read about the battles which made Europe Europe.

Same with the history of the battles of Vienna and Lepanto. Same with the Battle of the Bulge.

Tyrants who hated liberty and tyrants who hated God lay in the dust because of brave men, like my dad, still alive at 92, and a World War II veteran.

The above article reveals a perspective not new to me. I remember asking my class of mostly young men in 2003 in Alaska if they would fight another war to save the Church and the West. The answer was a resounding "No"! I knew my students, all Catholic, and I knew what their answer would be, but I was still disappointed.

Boys who do not learn to sacrifice do not become men.

Patriotism is a minor virtue. It springs from the virtue of duty towards one's parents, a command of God to honor one's parents,and by extension, one's home land.

Patriotism includes a love of place, of a people with whom one can identify. The great heresies of individualism, an American blight, and relativism, both parts of the heresy of Modernism, has ruined the hearts of so many Americans and Catholics. The lack of patriotism is a lack of identity with the common good.

Some love countries other than, or in addition to the land of their births. I am like that type of person. loving the country which gave me my son, and moving there years before I was married and had a child because of a deep identity with this certain country.

One cannot always explain a "spiritual home" but for me, the Faith which built Europe, was still more obvious in Great Britain, than in Protestant America, despite years of oppression, when I move there so many, many years ago.

What causes love of a country is this identity, and for me, the identity of Catholicism. Having read history in college, as well as theology and philosophy, I knew the great heritage of thought and practice which made Europe unique, totally believing even as a young person, like Belloc, that Europe was the Faith and the Faith was Europe. I loved the heritage of art, architecture, music, education, even food, which was the heritage of Christian Europe.

I read every book (and still have every book) on this subject that Christopher Dawson ever wrote as early as the late 1970s. Because I knew history, I could sense the signs of the times. Because I knew my religion, I understood what was happening on the European front of the war, as well as on the American front.

The Catholic Church has lost great influence in the European world, just as Protestantism morphed into secularism in America. We know witness the rise of pagan nations, and paganism is rooted in selfishness, self-love and not love of a people or nation.

This passing of patriotism must be mourned by those of us who understand what this death of the heart means. Charity towards neighbor dies in a land of those who do not love their country. Civilization dies once individual desires take the place of sacrifice for the common good.

Men like my dad who spent their youth in trenches fighting against the real tyranny of  Nazism perhaps no longer exist in the numbers needed to preserve freedom. And, when a nation turns its back on God, to be honest, freedom no longer exists to preserve.

God will let nations die for lack of love, love of patria, love of neighbor, love of Him. He will punish nations which turn to lust, greed, gluttony, pride and so on. He will let people go their own way until there is no other way to turn but to Him.

This movement of punishment, death and rebirth forms a persistent theme in the Old Testament, when God called His People to repentance over and over through the words and deeds of the Prophets, who frequently, where killed rather than heeded. 

Christ Himself prophesied the Fall of Jerusalem and He wept, one of the few times mentioned of His weeping.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Luke 13:34

Satan has successfully spent years emasculating the men of my and following generations. Leadership simply cannot be found, either in the Church or in the State. We face the death of nations for one simple reason. Without Christianity, without God being the center of one's life, men stay as children, lost in the never, never land of self , pleasure, sloth.

How many times I have written about the "peter pans". The Lost Boys were lost not only physically but mentally, psychologically, spiritually. But, even they fought in the story, pushed to rescue and defend their own little world.

We have no defense, no cohesive energy to withstand whatever enemies decide to come against us. Women who are Christian have seen this for two, if not three, generations, lamenting the lack of protectors and the overwhelming presence of predators among the males with whom they come into contact at work, college, or even in church.

We await the canonization of the first couple to be canonized together, Louis and Zelie Martin. Louis was a quiet, monklike man who God called to raise a house of saints. His type, the sacrificial man, is so rare that the day of his canonization, along with that of his brave and loving wife, will be a tribute to a truly lost generation.

Catholics forget that God commanded the take-over of the Promised Land. Abraham fought, Moses fought, Joshua fought, Gideon fought. David fought--all saints, all men of God.

No Charles Martel, no Charlemagne, no Men of the West, no Louis Martin walks the streets of Athens today, or Chicago, or Canberra. The heart needs God, needs Christ to be a patriot.

All the pagan cities fell to the energies of the new generations of those focused on Christ and His Kingdom. Christendom died a long time ago, but now, even the vestiges of civilization crumble from the lack of will and, more importantly, the lack of virtue.

War began in Heaven. It was an extremely short war, but the battles continue on Earth. St. Michael, one of the lower echelons of the heavenly host, won the day. However, the mop-up falls to us.

Thirteen years ago, when I was facing death, I told my young son that I wanted a certain phrase on my tombstone. This phrase was one I had pondered for many, many years before this occurrence. 

Now, we do not even have heroes of fiction.

I put the phrase in boldface.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. 

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I decided to become a saint, and to raise a saint. That is what Louis and Zelie Martin decided to do.

That is the call of every Catholic parent. Some saints may become leaders, even leaders of war.

Pray that God puts a heart of warriors into some of the sons born to real Catholics today. The great spiritual war is not over, yet.

I have given God a spiritual warrior. May other parents give their sons to God, both for prayer and penance, and even for war.

St. David, pray for us. St. Martin, pray for us. Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us. St. George, pray for us.

(P.S. Did you read the encyclical in the previous post on the Church Militant in my repost?)

The great heritage of knowledge in our Church

http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en.html

 How cool is it that the Vatican has an observatory? And connected to one in Arizona? Cool, really cool.

The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world. Though we can trace our roots back to the reform of the calendar by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, the modern version of the Observatory was established by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 “so that everyone might see clearly that the Church and her Pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it, and promote it with the fullest possible devotion.”

A worthy cause to which to donate. http://www.vofoundation.org/

http://www.vofoundation.org/support-us

Sad, sad, sad

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html?cmipid=fb

One of the best educational systms in the world has capitulated to Deweyite utilitarianism.

Sad. Finland, with the highest math, science and reading skill results in the Western World, will rue the day. Another sign of BB, imho. Remember, Bismarck did the same thing and what resulted what the Holocaust, because the populace had been changed from thinkers to sheeple.

Read my posts on classical education. Home school.

Knowledge of Divine Things Part Eight Fides et Ratio One

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).

Thus does St. John Paul II begin what some consider his best encyclical. Even this short introduction reminds us of his debt to Aquinas and Augustine.

The first paragraph indicates that truth is contemplated, known, loved, through faith and reason. One loves God with charity, the theological virtue which transcends all other virtues, which resides in the will.

Immediately, the saint takes us into the great longings of the human heart as all desire to know God and know themselves. This desire separates men and women from beasts.

Asking the basic questions, some of which I wrote about earlier in this series and in the reposts, one comes to answers depending on one's "god". St. John Paul II writes this: In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives.

The role of the Church, and that means us, is to lead others to truth, when we have appropriated this truth to some extent. This is the call of the Church, to lead all into the truth as much as we can know God while on earth. 

It is her duty to serve humanity in different ways, but one way in particular imposes a responsibility of a quite special kind: the diakonia of the truth.¹ This mission on the one hand makes the believing community a partner in humanity's shared struggle to arrive at truth; ² and on the other hand it obliges the believing community to proclaim the certitudes arrived at, albeit with a sense that every truth attained is but a step towards that fullness of truth which will appear with the final Revelation of God: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully” (1 Cor 13:12).

St. John Paul II then reminds us all that philosophy, which is the love of wisdom, leads us to truth, the truth of ourselves and God. It is a tool, sadly, which has been set aside by most Western educational systems, I must add.

Again, the saint notes that wisdom is won by those who wonder (remember my posts in 2013 summer, on the normative child, who keeps wonder and desires to learn?). I could make a list of things which squash wonder, but sin is the first. Here is the saint.

Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.

What a damning statement is so few words! Without wonder, one falls into mediocrity in the spiritual life and then, most likely, serious sin. One loses the chance for a personal relationship with God because one sinks into a sort of beast-like existence of feeding the sensual appetites and not feeding the intellect. Discipline, simplicity of life and ascetism are the marks of those who desire to know themselves and who have not lost wonder, the gift we all have as children until it is ruined or lost.

Although times change and knowledge increases, it is possible to discern a core of philosophical insight within the history of thought as a whole. Consider, for example, the principles of non-contradiction, finality and causality, as well as the concept of the person as a free and intelligent subject, with the capacity to know God, truth and goodness. Consider as well certain fundamental moral norms which are shared by all. These are among the indications that, beyond different schools of thought, there exists a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of spiritual heritage of humanity. It is as if we had come upon animplicit philosophy, as a result of which all feel that they possess these principles, albeit in a general and unreflective way. Precisely because it is shared in some measure by all, this knowledge should serve as a kind of reference-point for the different philosophical schools. Once reason successfully intuits and formulates the first universal principles of being and correctly draws from them conclusions which are coherent both logically and ethically, then it may be called right reason or, as the ancients called it, orthós logos, recta ratio.

For those who have been following this blog for years, you know I have written about right reason, from many viewpoints. One can look at the tags of St. Thomas Aquinas for a start.

Philosophy marks the Bride of Christ as seeking to know God and know self. St. John Paul II follows in the footsteps of so many saints and popes, theologians and philosophers, in writing this encyclical.

On her part, the Church cannot but set great value upon reason's drive to attain goals which render people's lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it.

What is missing from synod discussions is this discipline of thought, this way to come to know fundatmental truths. But, the synod merely reflects the Church at large, floundering in a sea of opinions not based on reason, but only on emotional responses, or neo-con attempts to explain the truth.

One cannot merely point out the problems without working on the solutions.

To be continued....

Read this on Kulturkampf

The reason the U.S. faces the risk of declining educational achievement is its failure to sufficiently respond to the profound demographic change reshaping society. The current school year marks the first time in American history when a majority of all K-12 public school students nationwide are minorities. Minority students already comprise nearly two-fifths of high-school graduates and will reach about half by 2023, the Education Department projects.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/population-2043/the-coming-college-decline-20150114

I have nothing against community colleges and some of the best professors in America teach in these small colleges.

I also think most kids in university do not need to be there, as we need more schools teaching basics such as mechanics.

However, to undermine universities, especially those which have liberal arts as a basis for curriculum, which community colleges do not, is to follow Bismarck's deliberate undermining of the academies, for the support of gymasiums. which I have written about at length on this blog. Some are listed below.

Why is this bad? Only liberal arts create a thinking populace. Technical schools do not.

The Holocaust and Hitler were a direct result of Bismarck's education "reforms". Read my previous posts.

And wake up, America!

Etheldredasplace: Educaton and the Death of the Soul

07 Dec 2012

Bismarck and Dewey would be pleased. American literature classics are to be replaced by insulation manuals and plant inventories in US classrooms by 2014. A new school curriculum which will affect 46 out of 50 states will ...

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

Etheldredasplace: Another posting on kulturkampf

20 Apr 2012

The Popes of the 19th century fought against the Bismarck movement to change social and political life, partly by emphasizing Thomism in the face of the other isms which grew up after the Reformation: godless republicanism ...

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

Again, on the Liberal Arts and the Trivium and Quadrivium

07 Apr 2013

For centuries, children and adolescents learned the liberal arts in order to learn how to think. This ideal was destroyed on purpose in the 19th century by Bismarck and by Dewey, among others. If a Catholic has not had the ...

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

Trying to be patient............the missing articles rewritten on ...

01 Feb 2013

Years and years of propaganda and hatred, plus the loss of critical thinking among the German people under Bismarck's changes in education, created a compliant people. Here are a few highlights of article for Stage Four.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

Etheldredasplace: Long gone is stage two of persecution

01 Feb 2013

... from atheistsforum.org. Catholics who are weak-minded have allowed these types of pre-persecution ideas to simmer in the culture. So too, Bismarck and others took advantage of simmering anti-Semitism. To be continued.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

European Journalists Finally Respond to Crisis in America

07 Feb 2012

But, as you know, anti-Catholicism goes back to Bismarck, who hated the Church, so you are witnessing 100 plus years of such. As to finding all those friends, three are in England, two in America, one in Malta and so on...so ...

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

Etheldredasplace: On False Seers And Saints, Again

12 Oct 2014

Steven, all done on purpose, like Bismarck's gymnasium vs. academies. I use to give lectures on the undermining of the rational in education about 15 years ago--too late now with two generations with goo in their heads.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/

Revisionist Church History

Matthew 8:20New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Having one of my degrees in history, I am able to spot false revisionist history. Revisionist history became a popular ideological tool of academia, a tool which is now used at every level of education, down to kindergarten. Revisionist history is one reason I did consulting for schools in the early 2000s, bringing them back to Classical Education, using original sources, instead of propaganda generated in the 1970s. Unfortunately, revisionist historians infiltrated the scholarly discipline of Church History, to the point where many things which are now normally accepted by Catholics in the pew can be traced to ideologies perpetrated by various revisionist Catholic historians who departed from centuries of Church teaching, including history.

Three dangerous developments worm their way into the minds and hearts of Catholic through the lies of revisionist history. More than three exist, but these are the most pernicious.

Some of these lies affect the nature of Christ's mission on earth, but let me start with the least "stupid" and move towards the worst revisionist ideal.

Today, the first one I want to consider is the lie that the Early Church was not persecuted and that the history of the martyrs is exaggerated. Secular historians have always desired to undermine the power of the Early Church, including some Protestant church historians, as it strengthens the argument that the Church was not that strong immediately after the Apostolic Age.

Early historians outside of Biblical texts testify to the large, planned extermination of Christians. As I noted in the series last year, February 24, 303, Christianity, or Catholicism, to be exact, came under the empirical title of "heresy", as paganism, and specifically, empire-emperor worship, was the state religion.

Those who try and undermine the impact of Catholicism need only read St. Augustine, and look at the number of dioceses, cathedrals, and churches which existed at the time of the Fall of Rome. At the Council of Carthage, six Catholic provinces of 466 dioceses just in Africa alone were represented by bishops. When Huneric, an Arian and King of the Vandals, exiled the African bishops, 464 went into hiding or moved out of their dioceses to other safe havens. Some were martyred. Ironically, the date of his removal of the bishops was February 24, 484,181 years after Diocletian's persecution began. And those numbers reflect the Church in northern Africa without consideration of the Church in the Levant or Europe.

The lie that the Church was, one, not large, and two, not persecuted, has popped up in articles online as late as two months ago.  What is behind this lie may be the growing worship of the State, which, of course, would never hurt Christians. This lie lulls people into a false sense of security, especially Catholics, as the State wants all to believe it supports religious freedom. Not so then, not so now. Many Catholics still trust the State when they should be very wary as there is a conflict of interests in most Western countries between Catholicism and State practices and beliefs.

The second revisionist lie involves the spreading of the falsity of the following of chastity for priests and bishops in the Early Church. One only needs to look at the writings of the Fathers on the importance of chastity and the growing discipline of celibacy in the priesthood, as well as the lives of the myriad celibate and chaste saints to bring this untruth into the light. Those who push for the married priesthood and who want to destroy the discipline of celibacy in the Church have developed this revisionist historical lie. Yes, some of the early bishops, and even the Apostles, were married. But, we know that these men entered into celibate relationships, even Peter leaving his family, when God called him to Rome.  The exhortation of St. Paul that a bishop should be a man with one wife is not a revisionist interpretation that there was polygamy, but that if the wife died, the cleric would not remarry. This is true today in the rule of the Ordinariates, those priests who have come in under the Personal Provision of St. John Paul II, and deacons. In fact, with the re-establishment of the deaconate, it was the desire of the Church that such men, and the new Ordinariate and PP priests, would enter into Josephite relationships with their wives. But, sadly, some bishops ignore this desire on the part of the Church, and also ask for exemptions. Celibacy has been, since the time of Christ, the norm which became the accepted discipline over the years.

The last and third revisionist lie of history is to me one of the most pernicious. I have referred to this many times on this blog, but as it reared its ugly head this week, I bring it up again.

This is the lie, perpetrated after Vatican II, that the Holy Family, specifically St. Joseph and Jesus, were "middle class".

When I hear this lie, from the pulpit and see it, as I have this week in a little Lenten book passed out at church, I want to break into laughter.

Those of us who have studied the history of the ancient and medieval world know one thing for sure. There existed the rich, about 5% of any given population, and the very poor, about 95%.

The middle class came into being in the late medieval, early Renaissance boom of banking and trade, and the term was not even in print until the mid-1700s. The word, bourgeoisie, originally meant a person who lived and worked in a town, rather than in the agricultural world.

The entire concept of a middle class as existing in the class structure of the Roman Empire is not only terribly unhistorical, but laughable.

There are several reasons for this creeping lie concerning workmen, such as Jesus and Joseph, who were carpenters, being middle class.

The first is the denial of holy poverty. The Protestant historians were the first to deny the value of poverty, following their guides, the Protestant theologians, who saw and still see, poverty as punishment for gross sin. Those who are middle class are blessed by God because they are holier than the poor, and so on. 

For centuries before the 1970s, holy poverty was held up as not only an ideal, as practiced by the great religious orders, but as a comfort for the vast majority of  Catholics in the world who were living in poverty. Priests pointed to the simplicity and poverty of the Holy Family as an example for all families to follow. One of the reasons the orders made vows of poverty was directly linked to Christ's own poverty, in an effort to live exactly as He did while on earth. Holy poverty links one to the denial of self and detachment from worldly goods, hardly a popular subject for priests in the pulpit these days.

The second reason for perpetuating the lie of the Holy Family as middle class is the constant re-definition of the working class in recent years. To blur the distinctions between labor or blue collar and white collar workers, some historians have purposefully looked to the Holy Family as an example of middle class wealth gotten by work of the hands.

Well, it is true that plumbers and carpenters make more money than I ever did teaching, but this comparison of modern workmen cannot be made with those of the past. I made $21 per hour as a college teacher, while I paid my plumber $70 per hour to fix a pipe. That the term "laborers" now covers those who make 100,000 USD a year or more in the construction business, or those who make expensive hand-made furniture, like someone I know who charges $800 for a hand-made chair, has nothing to do with the lot of the Holy Family.

Those who worked with their hands in the ancient times were either slaves, or just above the slave class, that is freemen, who worked for very poor wages. Even an independent furniture maker, or a builder of walls, would not be paid today's market prices for labor. These modern fees have come about because of the lack of skilled workers, or unions.

The ancient world upper class did not have any responsibility to pay fair wages, an idea which simply did not exist outside of Judaism and Christianity. There is a reason why one of the four sins which cry out to God for vengeance includes not giving a fair wage to workers....because it was a huge problem in the ancient world! That the one, true God through the prophets exhorted the Hebrews on this very point reveals the depth of the sins of greed and pride among the few rich.

Joseph and Jesus would have "gotten by", as we say in the Midwest, but just. The typical laborer in the Roman and Jewish world would have been poor by even today's standards-small houses of one or two rooms, dirt floors, work space connected to the house and so on. Mary's daily trip twice a day to the well reveals her poverty. They had no maid, no helpers, no family that we know of, only the Son of God who humbled Himself to live among the poorest of people in the ancient world, the Jews, long subdued and taxed mercilessly.

The third reason, but not the end of the list, for the perpetuation of the lie which states that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were middle class, is the worst reason of all.

When the Catholic Church members, especially in the United States, became middle class, they no longer wanted to remember their impoverished ancestors, or even their recent past. The new middle class wanted to forget the trials and sufferings of poverty and not be reminded of their duties to the still poor.

To purposefully forget one's past poverty means that a person has fallen into the sin of pride and desires the esteem of others in the society. To identify with a poor Christ means that one cannot forget that we are all poor, indeed, naked before God.

The comforts and consolations of the middle class prevent people from growing in the one virtue which invited God into the heart, and mind and soul--humility.

Today, there is about three feet of snow on the ground. Yesterday, I asked a couple to take me shopping as I am almost out of food. I can pay for it, but I have no way to get to the grocery stores unless I take a cab.

They said "no".

This type of thinking, even among Catholics, has to do with the revisionist history people hear from the pulpit and read in their Lenten meditations. Many priests themselves are too comfortable in middle class lifestyles, like going on extensive vacations, even more than once a year, driving expensive cars, eating out frequently at the best places. They cannot preach what they themselves do not live.

They do not understand the Holy Family. They do not understand what it means to create a holy family in their own parishes. They may not think of the necessity of Jesus giving Mary to John at the Cross. Why? She had no one else and would have been forced into the street--(and another proof of her ever-virginity, as there were no so-called brothers and sisters of Christ to take her in.)

Think on that.

Without Joseph and Jesus, Mary would have had to rely on her community for things. Perhaps, they would not have helped her, thus Jesus remembering her plight from the place of His Death.

I have no Joseph, no Jesus in my home to help me. How many others are overlooked, especially in these places of bad weather, because they do not measure up to the false idea of the middle class Jesus?

I shall nibble on what I have and be comforted by the thought that the Holy Family lived in poverty and had great joy even in suffering, and perhaps, having days without adequate food.

That is the model still for Catholics today. Revisionists allow themselves to judge and to not be involved with the plight of others because "their Jesus" did not suffer poverty.

He did. He still does.

From Philippians 2:

 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Fun and Games

A local Catholic school threw out a bunch of dated books yesterday. Of course, I scarfed many up, as old is better than new. Needless to say, walking miles with two huge bags of books was a challenge!

I intend to share the contents of a few with you when I have time.

Three which look enticing are the Pears (yes as in  the soap which I use, btw) Cyclopedia, Test Papers in General Knowledge, and Brush Up Your Manners. Guy Pocock wrote the one on manners, and he was the father of the famous author Tom Pocock. Guy had a long "brush up" series.

This is the exact edition I know have..... 

I also picked up old arithmetic books which would cause blushes on modern teachers and a bunch of grammar books, mostly all in hardbound from the 1930s and from England.

Fun...and one more I might begin with is Walks and Climbs in Malta from 1944. Showell Styles, whose books on various subjects, including children's books, may be found on Amazon, wrote this one on Malta.

Fun, indeed!

More from Fr. Chad Ripperger

One of the great blessings given to the world through the ages has been education. One thinks of the many Benedictine schools beginning in the so-called Dark Ages, the universities, the copying of classical texts, and so on.

One of the reasons why real Catholics have valued education has to do with the formation of the will. Without being over-simplistic, I want to parse out a few ideas from Fr. Ripperger's book from his long section on the will. One of the reasons in our day and age we see people floundering with either the idea of free will, or using the will is that they have not had formation in thinking, in the intellect, which informs the will.

Here is a snippet and then a comment:

The "possible intellect is the only immaterial knowing power in the soul, it is that which moves the will, i. e. the will is moved by the apprehension of reason or the possible intellect. Since the will is moved by the intellect, the good as grasped by the intellect, i.e. the understood good, moves the will. Since the will is moved by a universal power, i.e. the possible intellect grasps universals, the object it presents to the will is the end or good in general."

The greatest problem youth in our Western culture experiences is that of the lack of knowledge to use when making decisions. How many times have I heard parents say that, for example, they will let their children decide on what religion these children want when they are old enough to decide.

This approach and another approach, which is not to give any rational training to the intellect, allow the will to be weakened because the very power which could inform the will is missing.

Many discussions I have had in the past with young people revolve around a denial of free will. The decadence of the education systems in the West, with the downgrading of true liberal education, which taught youth how to think, has led to the lack of discipline of the passions, which can no longer be ruled by the will, which is missing the intellectual necessaries to choose between good and evil.

"If it feels good, it is right", is, of course the relativist's claim.

I honestly believe that the only people who are training the will at this time in the West are parents who home school in the Catholic tradition, or those teachers who are teaching in classical education, schools such as NAPCIS schools.

The training of the intellect forms the soul, and creates sanity, that is, a mind which can apprehend reality, the reality of sin and virtue.

I have picked out this bit for today as so many people blame circumstances, environment, nurture and nature for weak wills, when the main cause is rather simple--the loss of liberal education, which teaches humans how to think.

One may also comment on the idea of  "universals", but that is another post.

to be continued...

As usual, a wonderful talk from Father Ripperger

http://www.sensustraditionis.org/webaudio/Impediments/Impediments.mp3

Do not forget to say a decade of the rosary for him after listening.

Father mentions in this talk an aspect of temperance, and the discipline of only knowing and finding out what one needs to know. I did not know he had included that in his talk when I began listening.

This aspect of temperance is called studiosity or studiousness. As I have noted in the posts on homeschooling, all people, even when young children, have a natural desire to learn. This gets ruined by our sin and other people's sins against us, like bad, nonspiritual teachers. or neglect. But, as adults, we have a responsibility to learn our faith, as I have written on this blog many, many times and which is why I continue the blog.

If our lives are too comfortable and if we seek pleasure more than knowledge, we create a dull intellect. I am reading Fr. Ripperger's book and he refers to dullness.

We are morally responsible for the deadening of our intellect. This can happen with the use of drugs, the abuse of alcohol or enjoying trivia too much. See my posts on entertainment.

It is also possible for our natural desire for the truth to be dulled because of a life of comfort, a real problem in Western culture. Decadence is much more prevalent in rich societies than poor ones. This concept of studiosity is from Thomas Aquinas and noted by one of my favorite authors I have taught, Josef Pieper. There are many good commentaries on Pieper online like this one.

The book of Ripperger is not only the work of a genius, but intense reading. Listening to his talks is good preparation for the book.