Before he became a Christian, a relative was a shill for a patent-medicine man. As a good looking, bright young man his job was to hear the pitch and then say from the back of the audience: “I will take one.” That got the buying going. When he became a Christian, that, like a lot of other things, had to go. Persuasion should come from clear thinking and a clean heart! Beware rhetoric without a love of wisdom. The sage... Read more
There are people, topics, and positions that if you even mention them became the topic or keep an audience from focussing on the deeper issues. I once gave a lecture on beauty to a group of parents in the early twenty-first century. During the extensive questions at the end, one parent asked my view of the Harry Potter series. “I will not comment,” I commented, “because it is such a hot topic that no matter what I say the important topic of beauty in... Read more
That he was a Moor was bad enough. That he chose someone smarter, more virtuous for the job was worse. Or so one of the worst villains in literature believed. Envy consumes Iago, because he cannot be happy when everything is not going his way. He plays on prejudice to advance himself, but adopts any opinion, posture, or guise if that would give him what he wants. Iago, the villain in Shakespeare’s Othello, not the parrot in Disney’s Aladdin, is false in every way, because... Read more
There must be someone out there who loved reading Plato right away, but I didn’t. When I read Republic, the entire book seemed needlessly complicated and full of obscure arguments advanced by an unlikable cast of characters: Socrates and his horrible students. Yet the problem was me, of course. Republic has held up for millennia because it’s good, whether I like it or not. Plato is beyond my judgments of him. Pause for a minute and consider how obvious this... Read more
The experts at any given moment can be horrible judges of what is good, true, and beautiful. An author, painter, or filmmaker may be admired in his or her day due to some odd quirk of personality. Sometimes the artist has such an overwhelming personality that liking him makes us like his poetry better. Given enough admiration by the right experts, people less secure in their taste or judgment in an artist, simply repeat the opinion of the experts. Consider... Read more
“Fear not!” The angel said these words to Mary, because real angels always must begin with comfort when they meet us. Men cannot meet with Angels safely unless God has sent the angels. Even when God sends the angels, the result is not safety, but security. Some adventure is beginning full of peril, but God will keep us, even if we die! Sometimes God sends Angels to execute His judgment: nobody told God that “spiritual” means soft and safe. God... Read more
What good is a debate? Debating is a good way to find out the merits of a case, if both debaters are serious about the discussion.* When watching a debate, here are three things to watch and three things to avoid. Watch for the knowledge that the debater shows about his opponent’s positions. Does he appear to have read the relevant work? A lazy debater will repeat his personal talking points. This might also be a sign of a person... Read more
Some never enjoy the good things of God and His creation. Others wallow in the good things they desire. Both refuse to see what is real and chase the wind. The first refuses to see the holiday and second the limits of the holiday and the joys of work. Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire; this also is vanity and a chasing after wind. Desire wanders, darts to new places, so even if one... Read more
For a Black American that went to a certain church, some very bright students, they heard that the establishment thought they were crazy and should be locked out of power. Or so a confident, establishment editor was willing to tell students in a Presidential election year. The lecture was brilliant, until it was not, as a group of honors high school students heard a senior editor of the Rochester, New York Gannett paper tell them that any Pentecostal or charismatic... Read more
The group discussion in your class has gotten smaller, pandemic or whatever other reason. If the ideal group from my experience is around twelve, how does one lead a smaller group? How does one make the less-more? Remind oneself of why one is engaging in a dialectic discussion. The dialectic student is the person who has sometime, someplace, somewhere caught a glimpse of beauty. This beauty left him discontent with the world, the flesh, or devils. He wants more, even... Read more
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