CultureCast

In this podcast, I continue to explore the meaning of Wallace Stevens' poem, "The Snow Man," and its connection to Eastern traditions depiction of meditative consciousness. "The nothing" at the end of the poem is an ultimate intellect that is undifferentiated into distinct things, and involves a full merger of the self into a larger eternal self. The meditative consciousness enters sacred space and time, in which it is no longer a discrete self occupying a unique point in space and time. I develop a view that distinguishes the idea of pure consciousness of simplicity from a Christian tradition that retains the individual self and personal God with a distinct identity. Meditative consciousness of nothing even goes beyond God, because that is a concept with a bounded identity. Read the book, "Mind of Winter," by William Bevis!

Some atheists will try to make their worldview appealing to a Christian by claiming that they just believe in one less god than the Christian. The atheist is right that the Christian is an atheist with respect to many other religions that don't respect Jesus Christ as the true God. However, there is a wide gulf between the denial of any supernatural being at all and Christianity. However, the atheist offers a challenge to the Christian by forcing the Christian to justify the position of denying so many so-called pagan cults, and clinging to belief in Jesus Christ. Is belief in Jesus Christ a mere arbitrary shot in the dark about a metaphysical matter about which our cognitive limits do not permit us to make an definite claims? Is our Christianity a mere social fad with no deeper roots than the pagan cults the Christian rejects? The atheist's challenge forces the Christian to prove that her faith is more reasonable than all the many faiths she rejects. Cross Examined is an interesting blog, found here: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2020/10/i-just-believe-in-one-less-god-than-you-do-an-atheist-fallacy-2/. 

In this podcast, I discuss Wallace Stevens's haunting and beautiful poem, "The Snow Man," in which someone enters a wintry landscape, savors the extreme bareness and simplicity of it, and enters a state in which his consciousness becomes nothing and reality itself loses its determinacy and becomes nothing. I discuss this experience in the Snow Man as a meditative experience recognizable in the Eastern traditions of spirituality. I raise questions about the desirability of this experience, as it suggests a cruel abstraction from reality and a desire to escape from the pressures of selfhood. I draw from the fascinating interpretation of William Bevis, in "Mind of Winter: Wallace Stevens, Meditation, and Literature."

In this episode, I discuss how former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, son of current governor, Andrew, laid the groundwork for the Democrat Catholic politician to both embrace the abortion wing of the Democrat party and also to present themselves as practicing Catholics. Cuomo defended the view that he was personally opposed to abortion, but that he, out of a sense of respect for the plurality of American society, decided to refrain from making his views into law. This seems in a way humane and consistent with an American emphasis on individual liberty. However, it can also be taken as a ruse to curry favor with both the abortion lobby and moderate Catholics. I point out contradictions in this view. If abortion is wrong because it commits the very serious violation of taking the life of an individual, how can one permit others the chance to commit this violation? Also, rather than being a narrow sectarian position based on the sacred texts of a particular creed, one can argue against abortion solely on the basis of reason, natural law, and science. See the link to a relevant article here: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/10/10/mario-cuomos-gift-to-joe-biden/?fbclid=IwAR1R8wdISLWgY3g2uCweEL8eNlIdwm9mGkCUiqUuU2ui7ceJ6F6hjcWSdVE.

In this podcast, I discuss differing attitudes towards prayer to Mary in Catholic and Protestant theology. Protestants view the Catholic Church as falsely usurping spiritual authority, and adulterating Christian faith with human traditions. Protestants demand that prayer only go to God, and see prayer to Mary as blasphemous. However, the idea that Mary, in Heaven, is able to be aware of many prayers at once, in the thoughts of believers, is consistent with the idea that Heaven involves a completely different experience of space-time than what we have on earth. It is also not the case that we only believe what is explicitly claimed in Scripture. We have to use our reason, and rely on the apostolic authority Jesus established (He did not establish a Bible, but appointed apostles to tell the world the good news) to glean truths from Scripture that we can apply to issues they do not explicitly address. The Bible is a necessary source of truth, insofar as we cannot contradict it, but not sufficient, and so we can believe ideas that it is does not positively affirm. The fact that saints are depicted as praying before the Lamb in the beatific vision of Revelations 5:8 creates a major problem from Protestant interpretations. Here is the link to a great article: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2020/09/can-mary-hear-simultaneous-prayers-of-millions.html?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Catholic+For+All+Seasons&utm_content=45

In this podcast, I outline some concerns about Pope Francis's new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. This document reiterates many themes that the Pope has emphasized throughout his pontificate. We know he is concerned with climate change, seeks a more united world at the expense of national boundaries, and is against current "populist" leaders who build walls that prevent "interchange." Pope Franicis's document has some good moments, for instance, when he discusses an anthropological reductionism that reduces man to a mere thing and see him as readily discardable in the name of economic interests. But, the document is too horizontal, insofar as it exclusively a political commentary without mention of the spiritual dimension. It also has a repeated emphasis on the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which are the ideals of the anti-Catholic French Revolution, and it continually suggests that Catholicism is just one way of viewing the world, that is of equal benefit of other ideologies, religions, and worldviews. 

Elliot is a great American poet of genius. In this podcast, I discuss his literary theory, specifically his attitude to the relationship between the individual poet and tradition. Elliot puts forth an attitude neither of blind conformity nor personal self-aggrandizement and detachment from tradition. Instead, Elliot calls for a depersonalization, in which the poet loses his own ego in becoming a medium for the current of the historical consciousness. Tradition is not automatically inherited as some rote procedure, but has to be laboriously acquired. Here is a link to the pdf of the brief essay Elliot wrote when still a young man: https://people.unica.it/fiorenzoiuliano/files/2017/05/tradition-and-the-individual-talent.pdf.

In this podcast, I go through the profound, searching imagery in Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem, "The Man Against the Sky." This poems follows a man embarking alone on to a hill where he stands against a terrible conflagration. It is a symbol of an individual on a spiritual quest, facing the fundamental reality of change in the universe and the possibility that immortality is only an empty wish. This poem is an existentialist poem insofar as it explores the separation of the individual from the community and the related withering of significance of the ideologies that bind that community together. The poem can be found here: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-man-against-the-sky/.

In this podcast, I start a conversation based on the wonderful blog of Manuel Alfonseca, a Spanish thinker, known as Divulgacion de Ciencia. The piece is on whether man (including both sexes) has a special status in relation to the non-human environment. Certain contemporary biologists are advocating a value-free conception of life, indicating a complete egalitarianism that puts all species on the same level, which is a great rupture fro the tradition of the Judeo-Christian religious view (man is created in the image of God) as well as the Aristotelian view that nature is ordered towards the ends of man. Certain environmental movements have arisen in recent decades that blame humanity for upsetting the balance of nature with "unsustainable" practices, and recommend a restraint of population growth and industrialization in the name of the ongoing sustenance of the non-human domain. This new paradigm sees anthropocentrism as a philosophy that has given license to human beings to wantonly exploit their environment, and recommends re-centering value on the non-human domain in a biocentric manner. I do not agree that anthropocentrism entails that we have no regard for our environment--in fact, I argue that it can lead to a heightened regard!

Here is a link to Alfonseca's blog, which is in Spanish: https://divulciencia.blogspot.com/2015/06/es-el-hombre-un-animal-mas.html

In this podcast, I discuss the spirituality of the great American poet, Emily Dickinson. Dickinson was not a doctrinaire Christian, and had a deep suspicion of organized religion in general. Nevertheless, she refused to succumb to materialism, in spite of her fears that death might be the end of consciousness. She was aware of the limitations of space and time, and how the spatiotemporal framework need not capture reality in its entirety. I provide certain poems that give examples of this individualistic spirituality that embraces both feelings of transcendence while at the same time recognizing a profound sense of spiritual isolation. I bases my comments on a scholarly article "Love, Terror, and Transcendence in Emily Dickinson's Poetry," by Glenn Hughes, in Vol. 66, Issue 4 in the journal Renascence.

In this episode, I discuss Walt Whitman's for a post-Christian religion. Whitman was influenced by deism, which sought a rational religion that did not include elements of revelation. Whitman rejected the divinity of Christ as unscientific, and sought a religion based solely on rational views having to do with God as creator and a morality of respect for other people. The Deistic God establishes perfect laws for nature, and does not perform miracles, because this would suggest an imperfection. Whitman tranposed evolutionary theory into his view of reality, which he saw as continually progressing. The individual transcends continually old forms, and the individual is the final arbiter of religious truth. I wonder if this attitude, expressed in poems like "Song of Myself," does not resemble the sin of pride that caused God to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.