An interesting acknowledgement of the organisational and educative strengths of religion in its relation to personal fulfilment and society. Alain de Botton suggests that the western world may have ventured too far in its assertion of personal freedom, implying that this is not coextensive with wisdom. There are yet things to be learned from such practices as ritual discipline,nor should the didactic or instructive dimensions of art and science be ignored. I am reminded, somehow, of the Rabelaisian maxim “Guide de Dieu et compagnie d’homme” and also that I should return to my reading of George Steiner, whose analysis of the problems entailed by post-modernism I find particularly compelling, since it chimes with my own reflections, albeit more eloquently.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
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Some very interesting reflections on the Jewish Torah, of particular importance in this age of heteronomous transference of personal responsibility to agencies beyond the person, that is, to others.
“Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.” Tacitus
“When the state is at its most corrupt, its laws are at its most numerous.” Tacitus
How true those words are, even to-day! LJ
“A man’s real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.”
A quote from a Joseph Conrad’s “Under Western Eyes”, by which I am reminded of St.Benedict’s reflections on the acquisition of self-knowledge as something unachievable through self-scrutiny, but only through the eyes of others. LJ
Sur la fragilité de la civilisation (Jacques Bainville: Histoire de France)
