Out of the Ashes
William Briggs has a book review. I have not (yet) read the book, but, from the description, here is another member, whether he knows it or not, of the Last Crusade.
The Last Crusade are all who hold true faith with in the majesty of truth; the impartiality of reason; the objectivity of reality; the authority of virtue; the verity of beauty; the dignity of man; the equality of the law; the love of patriots; and we hold faith with Christ.
The words below are Mr. Briggs’. I quote him at length to draw your attention to how closely his battle cry mirrors that of the Crusaders.
http://wmbriggs.com/post/21302/
I want everybody to read Anthony Esolen’s Out of the Ashes. Buy it if you can; at least borrow it. Libraries still exist in many places, and some of them still have books.
After you read it, follow its prescriptions. In a word, they are this: fight. This is a reactionary, and not conservative, formulary, and the medicine is delightful. Remember, nobody gets out of this alive.
Here’s Esolen’s battle plan.
Restore truth-telling. Never use the language of your enemy. Two men cannot marry each other. Don’t say they are married. A man who pretends to be a woman is a man. Say he, and say he is a man. Once you lose contact with language, you lose your grip on reality.
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Restore a sense of beauty. Art is purposely ugly and “transgressive” of the truth. It is foisted upon us. Resist it. If you see a piece of ugly or hateful art, say, “This is ugly.” Resist drabness, says Esolen. This includes your clothing. This includes your churches.
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Restore the school. Get rid of education—flush it away!—and restore teaching. All readers know what this means. Restore local control. Restore parental control. Parents are parents, not teachers, not social workers, not bureaucrats, not government.
This will mean homeschooling for most, with all the sacrifice that that entails. But you have to save your children from the deadening horrors of government-backed factories. Schools are dead, says Esolen.
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Rebuilding the college. Esolen does not come to the view that colleges should be nuked from orbit, though that might be because he is unfamiliar with the effectiveness of these weapons.
Do not donate any money to any school that has not remained faithful.
Repeat that last stricture.
Restoring manhood. “As late as the 1970s, pornography was called dirty.” All pornography is a lie, and the worst kind of lie. To yourself. Never use it. “Christians must repudiate the whole sexual revolution. All of it. No keepsakes, no exceptions. Remember Lot’s wife.”
Restoring womanhood. Women are not men. Reaching Equality and spending time creating, God help us, Powerpoint “decks” is not the epitome of femininity. Imagine how much power and control women ceded by moving into the “workplace.” “A woman may weep in a department meeting and get her way; I myself have witnessed it. If a man does that, he loses the respect of his fellows forever, nor does he get what he wants.” So much for “Equality.”
Is it a coincidence that the most awful century followed on the heals on women’s “liberation”?
And never forget this: “The world hates the family. The state is the family’s enemy.”
Making good things again Don’t buy crap, don’t read crap, don’t watch crap, don’t listen to crap. Don’t listen to fools and fibbers. So much for TV!
“Maybe we draw near to the mark here if we simply confess that we do not have beautiful things because we do not want them enough.” Truth. The musicale is vanished. Restore it. Learn to play an instrument. Play cards. Play 10,000. Be families.
Bring play back to life Get the hell out of organized sports. Kick kids outside and say, as it was said to me and probably you, dear reader, “Don’t come back until dinner.”
We used to head into the woods and play war, shooting each other with BB and pellet guns. Or hunt. Or sled. Or play football. Or just play. Get the damned “devices” out of kids’ hands.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
