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Kerry Noonan's avatar

Thank you for an excellent reflection.

Today I used the same “Men w/o Chests” phrase to describe to my wife the erosion of masculinity among the men we know. While virtuous in some ways, the predominant fault seems to be one of passivity.

In this I am not suggesting activism as a corrective virtue. Rather, the phenomenon is a combination of superficiality, sloth, and a desire for escape through comfort. Life consists of running errands for the wife, working, a liturgical commitment to spectator sports, and having beer with similar guys.

These are not all managers but also owners, artists, teachers, employees,etc. All are committed Catholics but few have studied the humanities in depth. Those who do read are more concerned with politics and current events than truth. As an aside, most cravenly conformed to the Covid regime.

Christopher Dawson would say that modern technology is the greatest tool for engendering and enforcing conformity. By this he meant tech as the greatest tool for the exertion of perpetual pressure on the individual. The state is concerned with law and order, so he said the only solution to the undermining of the person is to enter the sources of vitality: repentance, asceticism, prayer, contemplation, communion, and ecstasy (RAP CCE).

The first three are available to any who commit to the Truth. After that, I think all the worldly conditioning will itself be eroded. Unfortunately, I have not seen this happen often.

Pax et bonum

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Susan Warren's avatar

Thank you for this. I believe that yr indictment is also true of the legal system in the United States. It is all about following the correct process without any focus on whether it will deliver justice. Tolerance is a necessary value in any society but needs to be buttressed by the development of personal virtue. Alas, we currently have no national consensus on what virtue means. So the republic withers.

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