Modern Western man is in need of an examination of conscience.

For centuries, he has been willfully disintegrating his own understanding of reality in an act that might be described as one of intellectual self-sabotage. He has abandoned the transcendent.

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Thomas gaat door de poort van de gevangenis – 1610 – Netherlands – Public Domain.

https://www.europeana.eu/item/90402/RP_P_1878_A_573

In the face of even unbearable stupidity and evil, the contemplative path retains an essential relationship to truth before any accidental or derivative considerations.

Civilization ultimately rests not upon the transient, but rather upon the permanent things.

For this very reason, the role of the contemplative, unlike that of the ideologue, is essential to civilization.

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Dante und Vergil begegnen dem Grafen Ugolino in einem vereisten Sumpf, als dieser sich an Erzbischof Ruggiero von Pisa rächt: ‘So schlug der Obere ein da seinen Zahn, wo das Gehirn sich anfügt an den Nacken’ (Inf. 32/33,p.145) by Luigi Sabatelli (Künstler_in) – Albertina, Austria – Public Domain.

https://www.europeana.eu/item/15508/1438

What on earth has happened to ‘good disagreement’? Where has it gone?

On the proper end of disagreement and the present crisis in thinking in the West.

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Two doctors aloof from one another in disagreement. Wood engraving after J. Leech. by John Leech – Wellcome Collection, United Kingdom – CC BY.

https://www.europeana.eu/item/9200579/sxcugqyx

On the need of common sense, as a counter to ideology and the groundless thinking of our time. Reflections inspired by Samuel Johnson, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton.

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Two men crossing a stream by night. The first is barefoot, wearing cloak and walking stick and crosses safely, while the second one, who is elegantly dressed and gazes dreamily in the sky, is about to step in the water with shoes and stockings; representing Common sense and Genius. Etching by C. Heath after T. Stothard. by Thomas Stothard – 1820 – Wellcome Collection, United Kingdom – CC BY.

https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/9200579/yfynxzay

For modern man, the all-too-often shunned option of living in truth, in the sense of engaging reality, rather than fleeing from it into his own ideas, offers a choice that amounts to a desperately needed conversion in a profound philosophical sense. By conversion here one speaks of the act of restoring the connection between thinking and reality.

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Bekering van Paulus – Rijksmuseum, Netherlands – Public Domain.https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/90402/RP_P_OB_67_543

A meditation on the modern rejection of transcendence. Consideration of Nietzschean nihilism, and the rash judgment of the present generation. Belloc, not Nietzsche, was correct about the trajectory of modern thinking and civilization. On the need for a return to a philosophy grounded in being and objective truth.

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Embleem: moeras – Rijksmuseum, Netherlands – Public Domain.

https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/90402/RP_P_OB_44_852

The rejection of objective truth leads to tyranny. The modern reduction of ontology has left Western thought dangerously adrift.

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Gruppenbild “Robespierre unter den Jacobinern” – Österreichische Nationalbibliothek – Austrian National Library, Austria – Public Domain.https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/92062/BibliographicResource_1000126104138

Consideration of reason in relation to common sense, sanity, and the intellect, with the aim of addressing intellectual maladies of the present generation.

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Aristotle refusing the hemlock (?). Oil painting by a painter in the circle of Johann Carl Loth. by Johann Carl Loth – Wellcome Collection, United Kingdom – CC BY.

https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/9200579/brtv5v3q

The tenuous relationship to truth in modern thought, considered in relation to the lack of moral courage in the present age.

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Prudence helps one to maintain sobriety and sanity in the face of “scientism” and other ideological nonsense. Tradition, with its focus on the permanent things and on the eternal dimension of being, allows us to maintain thinking itself in the true sense of philosophy.

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